 Hey, it's time for tech talk number 27 seven seven 27 Seven no six seven. Yeah, okay. I gotta come I believe you we do that every week and it's still funny But we got lots of cool stuff to talk about you've got your update. We've got Stuff to look at we've got questions. We got questions a junk a great question from from a one of our one of our viewers And and if you've got a question throw it in the chat room write this very second Jeff Holman is in our chat room and that's the Facebook chat room. That's right and Get those questions to us so we can answer them because George and I love tech questions. That's what gets us going I do all right all that and more coming up on voiceover body shop tech talk right now From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Whitton the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional video studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voice over home studio master professional voice talent with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world making the complex simple Debunking the myths of what it takes to create great sounding audio Answering your questions showing you the latest and greatest in VO tech and having a dandy time doing it Welcome to voice over body shop tech talk Voice over body shop tech talk is brought to you by voice over essentials calm home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites calm where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes calm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and Now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Alrighty we're here for tech talk our favorite thing to do because you guys watch this stuff and digest it and Hopefully you guys listen to us and then we hear people tell us on the street I watched your show and now I'm using that mic and my studio sounds amazing in my act I'm I'm booking stuff left and right because I bought that mic Yeah, not really what I love how works people recognizing me on the street and not here in LA like on a corner in like Carmel Like I'm like Vacation yeah, it's like it's kind of fun. So there's obviously a lot of you out there watching it right But there's a reason you guys watch and that's because and we're not doing this to blow our own horn here, but Thank you. Was a George and I have more experience with home voiceover studios than anybody else on God's green earth and In some of the brown patches too, especially here in Southern, California but I Think it's probably a combined over 50 years experience doing all the accurate Every take a few years But it's a unique environment and you guys, you know want to learn how to do it properly and The best way to do that is to make sure somebody who actually knows what it's supposed to sound like whistle. Thank you Actually gets to hear what's going on in there and make sure that when you step up to the mic all you have to do is hit record and Not worry about the tip not to think about a million things and settings and knobs and plug-ins because you don't really need any of that Stuff if you set the room up right in the first place by somebody who knows how it's supposed to be set up Look at the time and money you can see. Yeah, and that's what George and I do professional Which is why we come to you every week with with or every other week with tech talk Giving you little tips and hints about how to do things showing you a lot of stuff that you probably don't need But it's fun to look at and fun to talk about But also the stuff that is actually quite simple and makes your life easier And if you want to work with George who has all sorts of services How do you do that? Well, you can go over to George the dot tech It's got a menu of services and a scheduling system where you can book real-time Consults or I can just make you a little basic processing to polish up the audition a little bit Or design a studio from the ground up or make an adult adult an audio book Mastering workflow for you. Whatever it is. I there's a lot of stuff on there If you're overwhelmed just email me on the contact page and we'll steer you in the right direction because a lot of options on there I know Dan also does a lot of this tech stuff on his website his home over at home voiceover studio dot com Yeah, and I tell you what I do and how I do it how I love going into people's houses Not just to go into their houses, but to actually see their studios and get around in their closets I do it's amazing some of the things I see in But making sure that you're in the environment to record properly and getting you set up properly so that you sound great and that your audio is not going to be an issue and One of the ways you can do that if you've already set one up They already got the studio set up and you want to hear if your audio is the way it should be You can go to my Specimen collection cup which is at the bottom of my home page click on that $25. I will analyze your audio And if I think you need some major help I will let you know if if it's just little tiny things here or there go do this do that Let me know and then we can take it from there And this isn't all just like it's this number and this thing. It's not all about these, you know Numbers it's knowing What it's supposed to sound like because we've heard so many home studios We know what things should sound like in context unless that's a lot of what that value is and getting I had that sound check The the it's a really valuable thing for you for you guys to know that what you're putting out there Really is on par with where it should be. Yeah, because by the way, you don't hire you So if you're doing it to satisfy your own ears Chances are you might be off base sometimes might be let two guys who know what it's supposed to sound like Listen to it and we'll let you know if it sounds right. All right. That's enough of that. Okay. Anyway, so what's in your tech update this week? Honestly, I don't have a ton of new stuff to talk about because you know Nam the big music trade show was a couple weeks ago. All the new stuff is announced. I did my video blah blah blah But because it's always coming up and this piece of gear is so incredibly well marketed and it just is in the constant Conversation among my voiceover colleagues. I'll bring this up the universal audio Apollo interface People are being recommended it all the time. I know I've certainly done my share of doing so over the last five years or so but I Recommend it with some serious caveats and so I just really wanted for people that watch the show and hear us talk about it At some point we are gonna actually record some audio with it and demonstrate it along with a whole bunch of interfaces We'll talk about that a minute But let me just tell you a few caveats of situations that you probably should avoid If you have the money and you're ready to upgrade Maybe not this maybe this isn't the right thing for you per se and these are the few things to watch out for one is Don't flame me for this, but I'm gonna say it if you're on Windows You don't want to get the Apollo yet I know they have a USB version which was designed specifically for Windows and then there's a Thunderbolt 3 version Which supposedly works on Windows just of right now avoid it because the drivers are just They're just not up to speed yet. You know this Like some other softwares were what we all know and and systems it was really designed around the Mac platform First and foremost They obviously focus the vast majority of their R&D and time on that right and the Windows was late to the party the support And so it's not well fleshed out certain things don't work at all Are or are weird like the fact that you can't get audio into Chrome And that kills it for people using IPD TL Source Connect now things like that. There's just there's just still major issues So I would avoid universal audio Apollo if you're a diehard Windows user to if you're not doing So so one of the things that the Apollo does is it has this ability to have processing Real time or front-end processing so that when you're recording it's going through a chain of different things It's kind of it's actually new tech Recreating a retro way of doing things. So that's kind of what's going on We've been saying for years. It's better to record dry and process and post Yeah, yeah, because once it's on there It's on there for printed that way for good So unless you're doing a lot of like very time-sensitive live-directed stuff on source connect and IPD TL ISDN for those 10 of you that are still using that for some bizarre reasons studios that still use that There are some situations where that front-end processing can be definitely to your advantage That's because you're sending out audio streaming it to a studio and you want to give them something It's a little bit more polished up than just the raw audio For different reasons one because maybe you need it for your studio to sound as clean or as quiet as it should Maybe you need it because the studio on the other end doesn't know what the hell they're doing And if you don't send it to them cleaned up and or like sweetened it's gonna sound like garbage on the air Almost every affiliate station in the entire u.s. Is like has that problem? so Does or that's another that's a reason but for how many people is that and voice over it's it's such a small You know even smaller than that to really people that do it are people who are Established they are required to have it, but you don't have it to get work You work to work your way up. So having it net that expense the return on investment It's not going to be there right up front my last reason why not to maybe get the Apollo Is it you are kind of technically challenged, but you kind of like to just figure it out You are gonna go down the deepest horrible dark rat hole Trying to learn how to do some basic features with this thing and and if you you may end up buying it and never make it past The absolute basic thing that it does You mean I never figure out how to get the headphones to work. So it's It's complicated to set up. I've set them up. I have it. I definitely have it dialed I know how to design and set this thing up. So if you've heard all of this and you're going I still really well one then then let me know I can set you up But really I would avoid it. So if you're probably people on Windows, right? Well, what should I get then? And that's something I want to answer in a quantitative way, okay Wait, which is it qualitative or quantitative? Well, it's quantitative would be in You know enumerated fashion and qualitative would be like this is better than that. Maybe it's qualitative. Okay We want to answer that qualitatively And one way we want to do that is by comparing a whole bunch of audio interfaces, right? This is a big project. We got a day and I got to make some time It's not something we're gonna do live on the show because it dreadfully boring. Yeah, but we want to shoot out the Apollo against Stuff as expensive as the Apollo like the audience ID 22 the Apigee duet things like this and as lowly as the Steinberg you are 12 and unit and we have a we have a pile actually This is just what is what was on my shelf at home This is a new you are 12. It's ready to go in somebody's studio someday The Tascam UH 7 is that the UH 7000? Yeah, the UH 7000 Highly obscure but kind of interesting and then some old classics like the at the avid M box reminnie which is Ten years old, maybe. Yeah, so we're not only gonna be comparing like price. It's growing. You had to shave it now. It's spider legs Yeah, dead spider This is for you. Oh my daughter. Hey spiders Anyway, we're gonna compare things in different price ranges and things of different generations So like again things that are 10 years old versus something. That's maybe three years old Versus we'll have the mixer the mixer face is in the little bag here a mixer face That's cutting-edge tech for sure and of course the Apollo mentioned maybe an old Apigee one Which is a great unit a great unit So we're just gonna try an experiment years ago. Dan and I did like the super duper Mike shoot out And it's been hugely popular on YouTube. It has hugely So many people don't mention that guy. I love his voice man. That guy's voice is awesome. What's not to love? So the plan is we're going to at some point do a sort of a systematic and boring test where we Set up Dan in the studio on the same mic and just enter and we're gonna plug each one in Same script same mic placement one by one and we're just gonna try to listen to these things and are we hearing? Any measurable or noticeable audibly diff we're not measuring anything guys This is gonna be completely done by ear We're just gonna listen to them and see what makes a difference right because that's really all we're thinking about and the funny thing Is is that different things sound different to different people? Yeah when we did that Mike shoot out Everybody's like we're saying oh you sound great. Oh, yeah Cuz we invite comments so we get tons of comments about what people think of the is the best sounding Mike And somebody I respect said you sound great on the Bluebird Or they this is the baby boss at the baby bottle baby. Yeah, blue baby bundle. Yeah, and I I went out and bought one Yeah, and as you see it's not in my studio. It's out here. It's out here on everybody Yeah, and in a in a large podcast webcast type of situation You'll notice. We don't use lavalier mics on here or you know already 20s like they're doing a lot of podcasts because Everybody likes to sound like they're on the radio Yeah We're not trying to sound like we're on the radio. No, we're trying to sound like Dan and George which is we are So we have we're gonna have fun with that that's coming up if if you have a specific interface that is on your mind if You want to send it to us? Go for but this is gonna be literally stuff from our own personal collection of stuff, which is pretty On my shelf at home. Yeah, I've got a few two and it's got a few two Yeah, go road AI one Apollo twin. I mentioned that it will get the new audience eight EVO for or evo for in the mix probably Yeah, yeah scarlet all sorts of stuff I think the point about because you were talking about the Apollo. I digressed. Yes Well, yeah, you jumped ahead there But that's fine because I can roll this back to where we need to be the thing about the Apollo is Don't get us wrong. It is an amazing unit. It is it is becoming an industry standard in the music business Not in voiceover again, and we say this all the time all of this stuff was never designed or even conceived of For being used in voiceover. We're just borrowing this technology because it gives us the ability to take our analog voice that comes through a microphone and in an into a digital interface gets turned into ones and zeros and printed On your your digital audio workstation in something that we can understand that we can visually see And then technology behind the parts inside the box that makes all that stuff happen Believe it or not, there's very few companies that actually make that little chip Texas Instruments is one there's a Can't remember that there's a couple maybe two or three Yeah, and they're there so there's a lot of commonalities inside the box between them all so they're almost no no difference, right? So it's just ones and zeros. So if you get an expensive interface like an Apollo twin the beat reason people tend to refer to that one or recommend it is Because they're recording engineers and they like of the plugins and they do all these things After things are recorded because they are producing Complete tracks using your voice music sound effects All these things stuff that you don't have to deal with and that's what those plugins are for they're not for Cleaning up your audio you do that Physically in your studio you get the cleanest possible sound you can From your acoustics. So there's no sound coming in. There's no sound bouncing around and You're using proper mic technique and you're setting proper levels the rest of it You keep hearing people recommend these stuff on all these websites and all these forums It is irrelevant to voice over its geekiness if you like new and shiny and you like stuff That's looks cool. It has nothing to do with how you read copy. Yeah Well, we've heard that one before haven't we we're in the middle of writing a long article about this that you will read Will listen to I think I'm as much interested in hearing the difference between something maybe it's 10 years old and something That's brand new to really that's kind of that's kind of kind of interesting. It could be very interesting Yeah, it's how long we've been doing this. I've never done this shoot out This is something that's been years literally years in the making yeah collecting piles of stuff leave me that task I want to try that. You got it. All right Anyway, so that's happening. We'll have an we'll have the the vanguard v4 microphone in here soon Or it actually it is in your dance working on a review of that, right? Yes, which we mentioned from the Nam show We saw that So there's stuff coming up. I just just hang tight So let's probably get to the questions. We were break. I think we'll take a break and we'll do that So stay tuned. We'll be right back with your questions and more stuff right here on voiceover body shop tech talk This is Arianna Ratner and you're listening to voiceover body shop VOBS. TV Well, hello there. I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice denouncer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat Were you this is virgin radio? Well, okay? We're not that innocent There's jeans for wearing and there's jeans for working Dickies because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values a leader for California And a voice for America. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smart phone, but it's so much more It's a the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice? Check out this song It's the end of the road for Rick When hope is lost the I8 from BMW Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's J. Michael Collins Bet you think I'm gonna try and sell you a demo now. I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email It's J. Michael at JMC voiceover.com now if Daniel stop waxing this mustache for a minute. We'll get back to the show Hey everybody, it's time to talk about source elements You know who they are the creators of source connect that tool that you don't have what you don't have it You should have it. It's that tool. It allows you to connect your studio to other studios Around the world so they can record you from your booth It's a tool you should have because even if you're not being asked for it now You might be asked for it tomorrow or in a month or in a year You want to have it ready to go and know how to use it It's really the heir apparent to ISD and technology and it is definitely what the pros are using You can go ahead and sign up for a 15 day free trial of source connect over at source elements calm Get it up and running get your iLock account in order. There's a little video on there I'll teach you how to do it by yours truly and it'll help you get up and running so you can understand how it all works Then that day that you get the gig you can activate the license. It's a no-brainer. Give it a try Thanks for your support source elements and we'll see you right after this break Hey, you know what this thing is this is a Harlan Hogan Port-a-Booth Plus and this is the carry bag that it comes in You know spring break is coming up And if you're gonna be on the road You're gonna want to have one of these to make sure that you can record Nice and quiet and with no echo on the road and right now our viewers can save ten dollars on the Port-a-Booth Plus Travel bag and five dollars on their three-way adjustable desktop stand both exclusive voiceover essential exclusive products Spring break is coming up. So make sure you have one of these. This is a must-have for your traveling studio Thanks voiceover essentials and Harlan Hogan for being our sponsor for almost Nine years Go get one of these babies Hi, this is Bill Farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great And we're back here on voiceover body shop tech Talk and we've got questions from our audience out there They they pile in here because they want they want to hear it from the oracles and I'm glad that they do that's right Cuz man, it gets we need stuff to talk about guys That's true. Yeah, and you guys ask the questions That's how we can riff on this and make sure that you get the right answer First question we got tonight is from Thomas Machen Oh, he's referring to the box full of things the box full of this little inside joke But he's saying is there a sanitizer mic in it? Ha ha Reason he asked me that as I've had his sanitizer mk4 digital mic for year Yeah, you might want to send it back to him. Sorry Tom I'm sorry man. It's been sitting by my door There are several boxes of things like this in his house, so I'm sorry. I suck. I apologize So he's going to go back to you this week. I'm gonna say it here on the air that way. I have to do it Um, John Ketron says what's the what's the must-have gadget for voiceovers a microphone? Uh, gadget the people you stop watches anymore I occasionally do But I've you know, I've got it on my watch. Yeah watch or my iPhone or um I don't know and on the air light Maybe like if you're trying to get your house to you know a light on a switch Like a remote can just like a wireless switch like you use for your christmas tree lights or something Put a light out in the hall. It's a weird color and when it's on it means shut up Right or get a harlan hogan voiceover recording or the voiceover recording Which we have you know in the studio here and you can program that to different colors saying, you know like i'm recording I'm you can walk in. Yeah, of course the most important thing I have in this studio is a big sign on the front that says knock Which in this studio you who can knock and because he's going to be in the other room in the booth, right? Um, yeah That's I don't know some way to if you if you have family or anybody else in your house That can be handy a way to notify them one of my clients actually we just put uh this like Ununique lamp with a blue light bulb on it And we just put one in like each of the like one in the kids room right and one in like the master Because they're below in this apartment And so he hits the remote in his booth and they both turn on And they know dad's recording just like in a regular radio station On the air Yeah, so that that I would say And so it doesn't sound that glamorous, but yeah, you wanted to know I mean, I can't think of I can't think of other than all the usual stuff we talk about constantly. That's those are bigger Oh a dog clicker like we've got a couple of those If you want to do the record click mark your mistakes with a click click A loud click a three dollar dog clicker We used to have the voice over body shop Clickers And they were sending all over the world Time to maybe we'll do a lot of import Documents to send them the maybe we should do a run of those again for the Collectors items still have a couple of those left. Yeah, uh, you know what are other things? Well, you know because we we say the primary things you need to deal with are your acoustics Yeah Mic technique and setting proper levels So how do you do all those things and what's a gadget to do that a microphone a good interface? Not a cheap interface, but not a really expensive one. It's nice and shiny It has a little too is we're just saying all the things that are on there What not to buy how about what gadget not to buy or we can we can come come up with a pile of those Reflection filter or reflexion Any of those things that go around the mic or on the mic mostly are crappy Yeah, I mean if you want an eyeball just go to a conference. They're giving them away all the time. So You know, it's uh, I like uncle Roy's suggestion for that stuff socks in it We're a bagel That worked pretty well too. Oh rob writer says hey gentlemen. Here's here's one for george Okay special. I'll just go over here. You can go into rest mode That's kidding I heard you say a while back that you didn't particularly care for the u87 ai Why not it depends um I Because every time I hear it it doesn't sound good as is I find it always needs some eq to sound To me Not a nice nice and those are just your ears. Yeah, and that's That's a three thousand dollar mic that you had need doesn't sound particularly flattering or nice On many voices that's I this is anecdotal just whatever but the thing is is it's not designed to be used in a closet No, and it was designed to be it was designed honestly To be like an orchestral room mic like a mic that's in a concert in a huge space up on stands or They've been used for anything you can imagine. I've seen them on drums. I've seen them on everything, but um The the using it for voiceover. I don't know when that started. It was a new york thing mostly um But you have it's only because it cost three grand that I really I think I'm like so anti the mic it Because it's just so many darn good options for less than that nowadays, but um, it's a kind of a holy grail mic I guess it also, um It's because it's so incredibly well It's so incredibly sensitive And the cardioid pattern on it is still very very wide it picks up so much stuff You don't want it to pick up your booth has to be exquisitely well exquisitely well tuned And um and the high-pass filter on it is is basically not is not usable It's a weird frequency that the high-pass filter. It's like I think it's like 150 hertz or something And then it rolls starts rolling off. It's just it just doesn't make sense for for what most voice actors actually need So that's there you go. That's enough I think Okay, uh cool nibble it I rec george recommended a road ntg 3 and my question is with a 416 costing roughly 300 ish more than the ntg 3 Last I checked it was 600 ish more Actually, yeah, would it be worth it to fork out the extra dough and get the 416? um So the ntg 3 is roughly 300 dollars the 416 Not stolen or on ebay is going to be 900 800 to thousand dollars um I'm seeing him on ebay for under 600 Yeah, if you buy it on ebay buy it from like a Buy it from someone is really reputable or from a retailer with a return policy because they're actually were a batch of Very very good knockoffs that were incredibly convincing Oh bsw has that santa joe coupon because there's a santa joe coupon on uh bsw for a discount on the 416 You know when we want to recommend things that aren't the 416 It's mainly just to save money, right? So it's for people that want a second mic Or they that jump to a 416's cost is just prohibitive Then i'm going to recommend things like the ntg 3 The ntg 4 Oh, you know what you're right the price difference is i'm sorry i got my model numbers mixed up the ntg 3 is roughly 699 i'm thinking of the 4 the ntg 4 The ntg 3 and the ntg in the 416 Are similar looking but sound totally different I don't know if you've ever really tried them together. I but i've heard them the ntg 3 is much more Warm like lower end has more low end richness and then it's flatter at the top That's actually a really nice mic on many women's voices. It's not a sibilant Yeah, it's smoother. It doesn't have a sibilant peak that the 416 has but the 416 Is that cut through the mix? you know Sound and it's they're very very different mics. So the answer is they they sound different So if you can do like an ab test from we can get a borrow them or buy both and return one So you can hear how that sounds with your voices Your your needs in your studio right then you can make a judgment call, but they are dramatically different sounding It's not it's not subtle. They're they're different. Yeah, but that gets me into a question We got this week uh from a guy by the name of mike gordon uh I'll Paraphrase the whole story. This is a whole story. This is a guy who's he's 70 years old Spent time in the navy with learning navy electronics and he's been there done that. Yeah, it was in the broadcasting business uh He was he's been homeless He's uh currently has cancer and they said he did has only a few years to live But I think he's probably doing better than that So he's like 70 years old. He says I wanted to do something different with my life and I wanted to do voice over And without knowing about us He has a road nt1a Uh, you know a complete audio 6di good basic setup. Yeah, I started practicing and he's been doing all these things he's doing some inspirational stuff Uh, and then he somebody suggested he watch our show No and listen to a couple of things we said about mike placement and all these things And he had terrible sibilance trouble. He took the couple of things that we told him You know, he sounds great Then he asks about he sends me four pieces of audio Different microphones different setups is which one's best And I listen to all them the guy sounds great on all them. No, is there it's does it sound slightly more echoey On one and then the other Maybe a little bit. Yeah The point is is that it's not the microphone and it's not the interface They're all different shades of mauve by the way. Exactly. Uh picking colors. Yeah, they're almost all yeah I mean, it's it's an inspiring story. But the fact is is that You can't obsess about the equipment. It's not the equipment that gets you work It's your ability to be a good voice actor And your ability to interpret copy And not well as we like to say it's not a matter of sounding good You don't want I used to say The idea of your home studio is not to sound great. It's to make you sound like you right and the addendum to that is You don't want to sound good. You don't want to sound bad And it's so much easier to sound bad than it is to sound good Because you cut corners or you know, you're your acoustics are wrong or you're over modulating Or you're not using the mic. You're talking right into it and you know, that sort of thing Yeah, which we hear an awful lot of although my favorite still is Why does my mic sound so muffled? Because you're talking into the wrong side Do that again because I didn't have that mic on. Oh, okay. Yeah. Why does my mic sound muffled? Yeah, that was a good example a good example because amazingly and this this happened last week at my my son's uh studio Where they were recording over there. It's like dad. It sounds why does it sound so echoey and muffled? I'm like turning the mic around and it makes a huge difference Yeah, which is why this microphone just makes me sound sweet The other way it makes me sound like I'm on the other side of the room. So Yeah, but although and that's sort of like why does it sound like I'm talking into my computer because you are Anyway, but Mike, uh, we're we're real glad that you wrote to us and we wish you luck and don't worry about the microphone It's not the microphone. Your voice is great. You got a great delivery and that's all that matters and you don't sound bad Um a couple more from thomas Machen if you use two brands and models of mics like paul does Uh, one to capture dialogue and the other for efforts. Will there be a detectable difference? To who? Yeah, I mean How different do they actually sound paul when you have to do ever do that and do you ever edit them together? Let me point this mic that way We actually dan and I we shot them out and we could barely notice a difference between the two I mean, thank you. I rest my case exactly different functionality. I mean one's a different cardioid But you know diaphragm microphone in same room. Yeah the same room. So that's it. Yeah There you go So he he can intercut them pretty pretty closely and uh It works fine, especially if you're using one for a really loud reads and screaming The the sound of your voice is so dramatically different that if the mics sounded different, it wouldn't matter anyway It's right two different almost sources right and with and with a 416 you use it two different ways If you're doing promo work, you do it up close and you back off the volume a little bit It really is great for if you're doing, you know, lots of choking and puking or you know, they like to say Uh, you know trying to sound like the voice of god, right? It's a great microphone for that But nobody's asking for that unless you're doing promo Otherwise they just want you to sound like you in which case you 416 that you know with 30 degree angle pay aim towards your chest and you're fine Yeah, that's a good job Um another quickie from thomas last time george and I spoke we agreed to avoid 0.0 versions What does that mean? That means like Version 13.0 just came out. Let's rush and go and install that that is still true It will be true for the end of time the version that the first x version dot anything 13.0 You know catalina dot. Oh 15 dot. Oh, whatever it was Bad idea Is it is it time to go to catalina on my mac mini? um It keeps asking me to do it. I know it does george hasn't given the green light on it yet so People people that use audacity so people that are probably maybe audacity People that are buying new max That already have catalina and it's on I think it's 0.3 version now It's been fine. I I don't know anybody directly with a brand new mac that is running catalina that is having any particular problems Okay upgrading to catalina. There's a lot more little hurdles sometimes. So You know make sure you back up and have a clone or a time machine copy And uh and some free time Before you just plunge in I just do it and i'm like i'm going to bed next morning. It's there Yeah, I almost never have people on windows are used to that because they wake up every morning and Every Wednesday actually every wednesday morning. I know i'm jabbing the windows You wake up every wednesday morning, and there's a new version of windows on your computer Um futures ryan says arg arg Recently I got the usb apollo twin for windows. Oh, well, sorry to hear that I'm waiting on the tlm 103 to arrive. That's her next night Um, uh recommended interface to go to instead. I was just going to get the two i2 Before my boyfriend insisted on that something more expensive. Her boyfriend must be a musician. Yeah, probably an engineer musician. Um So, yeah, I know I teased it at the beginning of the show and didn't really answer it I kind of deflected it by saying we're going to test some stuff Honestly, I've had a client who recently went with an apollo on windows There's a headache went to r me baby face because they heard it was really good It was too complicated made her made her head explode. Then I said get a scarlet. I'm not I'm sorry that case a steinberg I think might have been the ur 22. I can't remember or the 12 one of those Happy as a clam It was a month journey of frustration for her in the end getting the least expensive simplest straightforward thing Sounded good and became a problem solver. So I'm going to recommend the scarlet Maybe the gen three now or the steinberg. You are 12. I'm still going to recommend this She says, uh, you know the sales dude at banjo and porium. Thank you. You're a fan obviously not clearly Insisted the scarlet 2i2 would diminish the capabilities of the tl. I'm 103. There was a time when Yeah, these old old interfaces. Maybe that was really a thing That's a thing to sell new gear and mic preamps. That's not a thing anymore Yeah, and the guys at banjo and porium guess what their job is their musicians and their job is to sell stuff to musicians Don't ever go in there Dan's number one rule of retail never walk into banjo and porium Uh without knowing what you want never ask. Well, what would be good for me? They don't know and they have They have no idea what's going on. It's like wandering onto a used car lot. I was saying what's the best car today Oh, well, I have an alfonso di credenza here Oh my god, um fred north is using an audience something or other didn't say with my 103 and my 416 It's a great pairing. Yeah, good for you. I'm glad fred that's working out well for you Um, I'm gonna go fast because we thankfully got a ton of questions. Um next one up is tim kelly Hi guys I'm getting intermittent clicks on playback from a two i2 second gen. It's like a tiny voltage click It's bits now and again Cables are fine. I tried different usb cables also have to buffer in the highest in audition. Thanks I'll bet I find it's always it's a 5200 rpm hard drive I'm finding that over and over again that the hard drive is not fast enough that any one of these units Should be fine and and if you're getting that type of stuff, it's the computer. Not the interface typically Yeah, I mean I had a client today who had a clicking issue as well, but it was in the recordings unfortunately Yeah, and he had a decent macbook pro with a ssd and everything and in his case. I just said Maybe it is the interface. It's an inexpensive thing to test. Yeah by replacing But if it's on playback It's definitely not in the recording. It's on playback. Yeah. No, that's that's a different one. Yeah, that's interesting I uh Yeah, it could be the hard drive, but it could be the interface it's um Again, it's a cheap thing to Test. Yeah, I these are not expensive pieces of gear You can get one from amazon and rent one from amazon. Yeah, you know borrow one from her friends You're just changing the interface and if it does it up with it, then it's not the interface Yeah, process illumination. Yeah, let's go on to hunter peterson here. Hey Hey guys, how would you go about cleaning up a signal from an interference from the interference from power cords? Just separating the xlr cable or is there a better shielding option Generally not a problem with condenser mics pretty rare that it happens But you know if you got ribbon mics or something and you're setting up with You know things are black and white, you know broadcast of some sort Yeah, we don't know what kind of interference he's referring to what he's saying rfi. Yeah. Well, he's saying electrical interference. Yeah, really that could be It there could be a so radio frequency would be like Literally something bleeding in from the outside like some radio station. He's saying from power cords specifically So generally that's not an x always Like if you have a mic cable and a power cord never keep them parallel ever right have them cross like this And uh, you won't it's that will eliminate the uh Picking up that's called induction. So like when there's power running on this wire There's no one running alongside it This one can pick up the power actually in the other. It's a magnetic thing right and so that's that's where you can get some Humming or buzzing right but generally with an xlr cable. It's a balance cable. There's usually no interference on it There are there are cables with more shielding. Why they called star quad or something like that Yeah, they have a better shielding on them. If you have a real major issue, you could try that Um and move away from the am radio station transmitter that you're talking next to Yeah, which will do it. Yeah. No, it's having a really good mic cable can sometimes get rid of interference. Yeah, it can Um Bill russell help. I thought I set up bill russell always saying help like he is in our intro Exactly. Um, hey, I thought I set up the latency in my system to stop Artifacting I'm still getting artifact clicks another clicking problem And I forgot how to change the latency to prevent artifacts help. Is there a quick help? Nope And there's not because bill. You didn't tell us any relevant information at all. What interface shame on you Moving on No soup for you Give us details, you know, it's amazing the people what people say and hard on bill. Yeah, because we just we love Uh More details, it's like, you know System, you know computer what mic you're using what interface all these things. It's not like All things being equal. They're not I'm sure we'll see them pop up in the chat room. Yeah Rob rider. Thanks for the response about the uadc. Wow. We're getting like responses to the questions All right. Good. I certainly agree about the high pass filter. I actually use my 87 and a 13 by 17 foot room Wow, that's nice by 17 four room room. Yeah, but I do a baffle off the back side of the mic And I do have to admit that my Seven hyzer mk4 sounds just as good and it only costs 300 dollars It's almost as hardening It should be stop reading these forums and stuff Microphone as long as it's a good microphone. It doesn't matter Yeah, I know I understand it's disheartening I get that a lot where people buy a really expensive stuff and then I tell them it's not that stuff and then They get frustrated. Well, the worst was people is people that get pro tools invest in fraud Oh, I'm pro tools and then I convince them to not use it and they're like, but I learned it and I bought it and But it's giving me all these problems and I'm like, you know You just want to listen. I know it's frustrating, but it's true. It's the hard truth Yeah, I mean it it's still a matter of people as you like to say we keep Teaching each other all these sayings yours is don't crowd source your home voiceovers, dude Yeah You know, I mean, it's like what's the best microphone? What should I do? And there are a couple of forums out there and and you and I just look at it and go You're not listening guys Stop it's not the equipment and people recommending equipment are recommending equipment that works well for them for their voice in their studio And it's irrelevant to you in your closet because every room is different every voice is different And it doesn't matter and the one that you borrowed from me that you keep using is You don't hire you You don't hire you Last one and then we can wrap this up from Ryan a marathon of questions. It's great. We love it energizing What are good Daws digital audio workstations for ipad? Just getting into voiceover and I'll be setting up my interface into an ipad for practice While my wife has the laptop so the wife's got a laptop. You got the ipad. How's that being for being born under bad sign? You can always buy another computer. Um, yeah, I mean honestly a 300 dollar dare I say pc or Even a five-year-old macbook Is really a better tool for what we're doing than an ipad The software on ipad there are some They're either overly complicated Or they're under featured and this is I've tried a lot of things They either have they're trying to cram the features of it get a super complicated pro tools like Program into an ipad and you're doing it all with your finger Which doesn't always work very well or there's twisted wave for ipad Which is pretty darn good until you try to use it every day all day And then you'll start to become very uh, you'll you'll lose patience for the fact that there's No actual operating system or file system Where you can easily move files around you can't easily do certain things that are just you take for granted on a computer But here's twisted wave on the ipad. It's uh It looks like that And it's super duper simple looks eerily like the desktop version It and it works similarly the interface is of course touch. So it's got some real differences um It's lacking this stacking feature, which is nice if you want to have a couple little polishing presets for Uh, certain audition type work. So that's a little annoying, but at the end of the day for 10 bucks A twisted wave on ipad is pretty much the winner And it will be until something else comes along that dethrones it. I think right well You've got to have the interface that will work, you know on a new ipad with a you know, a thunderbolt Yeah, a lightning cable. This reminds me of a huge pet peeve. I'm glad I brought it up on ios And this isn't just ipad. It's anything ios iphone's ipad. There is no interface selection Function in anything on the on the ipad So when you hit record, it's a complete freaking crapshoot. What's what's going to record? Is it going to record the mic on the phone? Or the ipad or is it going to record the mic that you plugged in? Yeah, I had a deal with that the other day because I was setting somebody up on an ipad Yeah, she was recording in a closet and she wanted it simple She wanted to be able to read the copy and just have and just have it there Right and i'm like, okay when she plugged in an epigy mic It wouldn't work. I had to go in and download Different a firmware, it was firmware update for the for the for the for the mic But once we did it and it worked it just you know, you plug in and it becomes a default thing Original apogee mic broke and then they had to do a firmware update to work on a newer ios blah blah blah It's yeah, it's it's uh frustrating when it doesn't actually detect And every single time you record you have to double check maybe Yep, it's that mic You just you just don't know I'm spent Boy, but here's the thing guys I mean just asking these questions the ones that have to do with why doesn't this work and why should I use this That we thrive on that. That's why we're here Yeah, and and hopefully You know convincing you to keep it simple and not knock yourselves out with gotta get the best mic Because the best mic is going to make your room sound Like a really big room And the more sensitive the mic the more the imperfections of the room you're in Come up become apparent and that's when everybody's like why have a u87 now? I got to use all this you know all these filters and stuff like that it picks up every mouth click Even once i'm not making they're coming from people next door You know and so you got to use all the software to fix that and it's like do it right up front. Yeah All right Well, I think that's enough I think george's brain is actually beginning to bleed from all this and literally I have a client Who's chomping at the bit who paid for the rush fee to talk to me in five minutes So we gotta wrap this up. So let's wrap this up. We'll be right back to wrap this up right after this And you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widdum v obs dot tv What question do we get most often far and away? It's how do I even get started in voiceover? And we have a great answer to that question. Take the vo heroes dot com free getting started in vo course You heard right. It's free and it's available online 24 7 at getting started in vo dot com That's getting started in vo dot com If you've been watching vo bs and thinking that you need to get in gear and start your own voiceover career This is the course you should start with You'll learn about the vocal skills you need the storytelling skills you need the equipment you need the business skills you need And the mindset you need to have all in one single comprehensive online course taught by vo heroes David h. Lawrence the 17th This course won the backstage readers choice award four years in a row and again, there's no charge. 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They're expensive You have limited or no control and it takes forever to get one built and go live So what's the best way to get you online in no time go to voice actor websites dot com Like our name implies voice actor websites dot com just does websites for voice actors We believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use You have full control no need to hire someone every time you want to make a change And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time You can get your voice over website going for as little as 700 dollars So if you want your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voicehactor websites dot com where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead Now there's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer that place is voiceover extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voice over extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions Bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books Auditioning casting home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voiceover success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voiceover audition It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voice over x t r a dot com Dot tv. I don't know why it's crazy what they do here. I think i want to go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich Wow, that was a lot of stuff. Yeah, I think we talked louder and louder as the night went on I know because we were getting angry It's it's it's like we're like trying to kill our own business by telling people don't do this I haven't seen that ever But we're still here. So I was trying to make more money that you need to run Pro tools and you know, you need to you need to follow twin and you need this seven different plugins Yeah, no, I'm glad I've worked you in properly since I got here. Uh, okay, uh You know It costs a little bit of money to do this. Yeah, I mean, I mean we have all this equipment and we have a director and professional staff Well somewhat, uh, and uh, but we need to we're we need to maintain those sorts of things and we really appreciate The donations that we get from people Uh, and it's easy to donate. There's if you're going to our home page V obs.tv and there's a donate now button You can set up, uh, you know like like npr. They do it every every season They they got a much bigger budget than we do Yeah, uh, so, uh, you can go there and We have people that have actually donated this week and who are they? Uh, christie burns michael cernes mike gordon Harlow rodriguez 949 designs. Hey, that's lee pinney lee pinney martha con and Shawna pennington baird. Alrighty. Hey, we want you. Yeah, we want you to show us your booths Now this week. I thought this would make a great background for what we were talking about because this is what we were talking about Looks like twisted wave. Yes. It is twisted way. Uh, so send us a picture of your booth, uh in Landscape not portrait. All right Yeah, the world is not in We haven't quite decided to to show up on tiktok yet. What is tiktok? Got i'm getting old all you need to know right there. Okay Yeah, but I know by next week my mom's gonna be using it and she's 89 years old so It's true. Um Anyway, send us your pictures of your booth. Send them to the guys at v obs Dot tv Which sue will now put up right now and there's there's our our email address Also, if you want to be in our audience here to attend All this stuff live and maybe ask questions or make rude comments you can By uh writing to that same address and say hey, uh, what are you doing the show? I'm gonna be in the greater los angeles area as opposed to the lesser los angeles area Uh, and uh, you can come join us here and be in the show live, which would be just great Uh, we need to thank our sponsors by the way like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements vo heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and j mc collins demos Alrighty, uh, hey, we also need to uh, thank the dan and marcy lennard foundation for the betterment of live and recorded web and podcasting and of course Sumer lino our amazing technical director who's Dead on tonight She got it done. Yep. Jeff holman who's stepping into the seat for uh cheshire mod Great job tonight. You stepped right in and those questions were there and that's what we need and lee pennie for being lee pennie All right. Well, that's gonna do it for us this week We're gonna have another great guest next week So stay tuned for the announcement of who that's gonna be because it could be anybody But we'll find out then Anyway, just remember if it sounds good. It is good. Alrighty. Well, i'm dan lennard I'm george widdom and this is voiceover body shop or vo Be as have a great week. Everybody will see you Not in september, but in late february