 Hey, it's time for voice over body shop. It's raining in Southern, California But it's it's everything else everywhere else. We're all closed down and but George decided to do it keep social distance Yes, I'm six feet away from you right now Stay away, you know here's I've got sanitizing spray here Anyway, oh boy gotta keep a sense of humor through it these times We've been we've been laughing about it all afternoon Anyway, our guest tonight is Simon Vance Simon. Hey, I'm over here Right there behind the screen hiding. All right We've got audio book stuff to talk about and if you've got questions for Simon throw them in the Facebook chat room And there's still sort of the chat room in the home page too, but it's time for voice over body shop We got lots of great stuff to talk about with audio books and stuff. So stay tuned Here 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 Wittem the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voice over home studio master a professional voice down with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world Bringing you talks with the biggest names in the voice of a world today Letting you ask your questions and giving you the latest information to make the most of your voice over business Welcome to voice over body shop Voice over body shop is brought to you by voice over essentials.com home of Harlin Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes.com become a hero to your clients with a word-winning voice over training J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and Voice over 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 Hey there, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Wittem and this is voice over body shop or VO We need applause whenever Anyway, so Yeah, things are a little bit different George you are in your your shack where your wherever it is. You're living now You can call it a shack. I'm not offended. Okay. Good. I keep on a very good a very expensive shack in Topanga Well, it's like a it's a it's a multi-unit building. It's made from a lot of different things, isn't it? It is it's multiple parts, but I'm in my studio space here and Warm and cozy and dry. Yeah, listen to the rain pouring over over top of us right now And it's just so bizarre when we're we're all we're Sort of quasi self-quarantining right now and getting ready for what will probably become a full quarantine And at the mean time it's pouring rain. So you don't really want to go out So we're getting a little taste of the Seattle life for a little while. Yeah, we're Vancouver or Portland Vancouver Yeah, it's like yeah, but it won't last it'll be summer before we know And but everybody else you remember wash your hands. Don't touch your face Use hand sanitizer And don't go to the freaking bars and restaurants even if they're open just don't don't do it It's like what you know hang out with your family, you know and you know talk with them That's we're sorry. Yeah, that's but it's it's it's how it's gonna have to work But we know we know yeah, but we know you guys have nothing else to do So it's a perfect night to watch the show live because we have a fantastic guest and he is now joining us from his brand-new Studio here in Southern, California. Let's welcome Simon Vance Simon Yeah Hello, there he is Hang on. Hang on. I can't talk to you yet. Hold on. Okay Okay. Okay. Now. I think I'm ready to rub that on your vocal cords And you gotta do the thumbs too Okay, yeah, there we go. Okay. I'm good. Good. All right. Hey guys So it's it's been a while since we've seen you you are actually in this interesting note here The last time I think we saw you was at our third anniversary broadcast that we did live from in Irvine and So it's been six years so believe it or not. It's actually our ninth anniversary of the show this tonight That's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. I So much has happened in my life in those six years now I know how many episodes do you do one a week so you've got hundreds more than oh, yeah We're we're we're I think we're getting up to about 400 right now. Yeah, last yeah last nine years anyway Hey, have you ever narrated a pandemic novel? You know, I don't think I have you know when when I think of pandemics for some reason I always think of Michael Creighton and I think Scott Brick has that corner cornered so You know things weren't very good in Charles Dickens's time But and they probably had a pandemic or two going around nothing that the book was sent it around the one thing I do, you know, you mentioned that and I went flying I flew to New York about a month ago. Maybe two months ago and my movie of choice was was the What was it? Contagion that's the other one. Yeah, the newer one contagious. I thought this is a great movie not thinking that right now But let's do a nightmare But that's like me. I was flying to Europe and the movie we watched right before we flew out there back in 1990 was diehard 2 and many of you don't remember that movie, but it starts with an airplane crashing Yeah, so not a good one right before you fly off to Europe. Yeah, really So yeah, so in that time, I mean audiobooks have always been around I mean, there was the legendary books on tape back and I remember in the 80s and 90s How long have you been doing it? Well, clearly back from the legendary times Yeah, I I came over here in 92 From London and even before that when I worked with the BBC as a radio for news reader presenter in my spare time I I gave an hour a week a couple of hours a week an afternoon a week to the Royal National Institute for the Blind's Talking Book Service I don't think it's called that quite now But it was for the blind and partially sighted they've said at the time and I saw that as my my apprenticeship When I came over to the States, it was to be a full-time actor But I know acting doesn't make much money and somebody said well, hey audio books You can make money in audio books and I don't always thought of it as a charity thing but this friend Had some contact and put me in touch with Blackstone audio books David case the late moment of David case Actually, I'd 15 years ago. It's hard to imagine. I've been in the business Wait a long But he introduced me to Blackstone Craig black at Blackstone audiobooks and I started with them I did the books on tape in the mid 90s and then around about 2001 was when I recognized that was actually an industry out there and I went to New York for an event when the hotels were cheap was actually 2002 and Met a lot of people and as a result of that got hooked up with Tantor and a couple of others And I never really looked back the you know, but the burgeoning MP3 business If you can remember those days when there were no there was no an MP3 You only lived off discs or prior to that just taped hence the books on tape but then it all became none, you know digital and Never really looked back from that moment on and I yeah, it's hard to think now 2020. I've been in here for 28 years My goodness. Wow. Yeah, so you you are the master of audio books I mean if you if you were doing it before people even knew they existed. Yes, yes, that's exactly right Before I knew they existed to be honest I mean somebody so much I knew nothing about the industry and it was so strange to go into New York and Meet people who did this as a job and saw it as a career because at the time the story I have from the early days was that I knew that some actors some audio book narrators use different names for different companies I think it was something to do in the 80s with them having what they're unstable of presenters of readers And I chose to use a different name because I thought if I'm not very good at audiobooks I don't want you to hinder my burgeoning film career So I went other name Robert Whitfield with Blackstone and Richard Matthews with books Richard Matthews with books on tape And there are still those books out there And then it wasn't until things started happening and I started winning awards that I realized my burgeoning film career I was gonna have to take a backseat And that's why I ended up going with Simon Vance, which seems to be working It would see you can see a few of the awards I've got You should be polishing them right now Yeah, this is this is one of the nice things about having a new studio is I've somewhere to put them because often They were just in boxes for ages. I finally got them all out. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll talk about those Our guest tonight is Simon Vance a guy who just does the best audiobooks out there And if you've got a question for him throw him in the Facebook Discussion there or in the chat room in our on our home page depending on where you're watching and Because right now we're live those of you watching this recorded you had your chance anyway, so You know you mentioned that you know, you were a you were also an actor and I think this is something That a lot of people who are getting into audiobooks or into voiceover tend to overlook That if you want to do audiobooks, especially if you want to do novels where you're doing all these different characters Acting is really what it's about and it's not about doing funny voices and just reading If you're an actor, you've got a real you've got a real advantage over everybody Yeah, I call it having an actor sensibility I remember way back people saying what do you need to be an actor to be an audiobook narrator? I say that you don't need to be an actor, but you've got to have an actor sensibility Which is sort of a bit of an obfuscation I suppose but if you think about it this way that as an actor You develop certain skills in the way you think about the way characters interact You have a certain empathy for different people. It's not just you in the audiobook world You're playing everybody on the stage and you have to be able to sort of jump between those characters and as an actor Those are skills that sort of can be a change, you know, you take classes on but there are people who can walk in to a movie as an actor And if you're not I'm getting kind of tied up in knots here But it's really if you're if you're not actually a professional actor But you have an actor sensibility You've probably got a chance of making it an audiobook But if you're not an actor and you don't understand acting Then I think you're kind of stuck and I think that even goes for non-fiction books that you'd think well You know, I know the technical aspects of this and I'll just read it, but you've got to be able to not only You know understand it yourself You got to see how it sounds for somebody you're speaking to that you've got to be able to put yourself in the other person's Position so it's it's about talking working on different levels three or four different levels I think actors, especially stage actors are trained to do that. You're not you've got to think while you're in this Victorian drama you've got to Understand that you've got to point yourself in a particular direction. You're not just Doing the one thing you're doing three or four different things. You've got to time things right You've got to say the right cues. You've got to do this do that So it's all about Working on so many different levels and I think actors are the people who are trained best to do that And as I say not being an actor but having an actor's sex ability there are certain people who have that skill naturally so It's got it short. You do have to be an actor Yeah, it's amazing, you know, sometimes people just jump in and they're like they're you know, like you said, they're a natural Yeah, they want to meet and they can they can just start reading it and it's like, you know But it's not about having a great voice. It's the ability to use your voice That's right. You can tell I don't teach because otherwise I'd have this down as a I bumble along and eventually you'll get the gist of what I'm saying and I remember Talking and one thing and and every so often somebody would have to come in one one of these teaching sessions somebody come in and say I think what Simon means Is this so Dan if you can do that for me while I bumble along you can say well, I think what you're saying is What you're saying is yes Yeah, yeah, so what have you been working on lately? Um, I'm in the middle of more fantasy. I've become very popular with fantasy writers apparently and the publishers Um, so I'm in the middle of books. That's good and bad So many fantasies are coming through as I think they've been taken as self published by them, you know, the writer Has not come through a hardback copy. You know, I haven't had hasn't had his books proofed and And checked and so on and the publishers the audio publishers pick them up because they've got a good following So the the text on the page is not the easiest thing to pick up from so I'm I'm stuck in a book right now And I won't mention any names, but it's a little difficult to read and to to tell the story correctly It's one of the challenges that are much more We come across much more often these days in the old days It was all fancy books like Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope and major authors Now there's a lot more stuff because everything's getting done All the books are getting done. So I'm doing that as it happens. My next book as I look on my calendar Is pick pick papers. It's one of the few Charles Dickens books. I haven't read. I'm really looking forward to that and I've got a couple more I've got a couple more fantasy books beyond that and a A mystery. I'm not a mystery. So Very busy right now, which is wonderful and in a very fortunate position given the current climate Yeah, how do how do you how do you approach these different genres? I mean because fantasy is I mean is it the same type of style of just reading characters, but usually they're more Extremely more animated characters. I would think yeah, I mean the one difference is how much you lean into creating the characters um I don't see it as it's a different genre necessarily Um, I know there's there's some people say this kind of genre you read it this way if it's this kind of genre you read it that way they're all People even in fantasies the elves, you know, they're written as people the trolls are written as people. They just sound different Even if you're doing a you know, Charles Dickens compared to a modern murder mystery They're all people. It's just the Charles Dickens characters are probably a little broader a little brighter a little There's more humor in them. They're not quite as As natural as as a murder mystery the fantasy books Yeah, you just got to tell the story in the same way you tell the Charles Dickens or a murder mystery You're just telling the story. It's just the trolls will will wear your throat out quicker My elves tend to mostly have Welsh accents just because I think I think Welsh sounds very good for somebody with a little mystery I just thought elves were Welsh. I mean, well, most of them as far as I know the ones I can region Norwegian yes. No, I've got a I got one guy who's yeah, Germanic. I think I put in The fantasy, you know, you can as long as you talk to the author or get the notes from the author about how they view their world It's a little like Game of Thrones You can do it the characters if they're all in the northern land You can give them a northern English absence and if they're southern and exotic you can go a little bit more You know a little bit Middle Eastern or something like that Not that that's a Middle Eastern accent that I'm doing But it's um, it's uh, it's a choice. Um, and I think you can go broader in fantasy than you do with others but the actual telling of the story is Pretty much exactly the same You need to understand where you're going and to understand who the good guys are the bad guys are you need to do your research So there isn't really a difference In fantasy as compared to horror and stuff and you certainly don't You know, one of the fatal horror mistakes will be to to put on a voice As the narrator as the third person the race ago. This is a horror story So I'm going to read it like this because people get tired very quickly. So you just have to use a natural voice And tell the story as it's written Interesting. Oh good Again, if you've got a question for Simon throw it in the facebook chat room or on the chat room on our home page depending on where you are And uh, because I know there's a lot of you out there that are audiobook narrators And you're now we're talking to one of the best here and he probably has the answer for you Uh, so I I see you in your brand new studio there I've been watching been watching the progression as you've been building this thing Uh, you know, it's it sort of started out looking like a garden shed And now it's uh, it's really something Well, he kind of it seems glorified garden shed I I I used a company online called studio shed to help design it. Um, they they come in prefabricated form from Some other state and then you have a local contractor who puts it together. So it's not built from scratch here Um, and it's more I call it more of a creative space than a studio It's not built as a studio in the sense of being soundproof here What I have and I will show you is the same vocal booth dot com that I had six years ago or even 15 years now, but it's sitting here beside me. I shall move this around and show you this is my it's uh, the usual six foot by four foot Seven feet high and I open And uh Yeah, so I have this situated in the middle in the middle of the room Um, and it's actually wonderfully soundproof because it's a double walled vocal booth So it's already pretty well soundproofed and with the actual studio shed, which is not just a shed It's fully finished inside This room it means it's so quiet down here and I'm at the bottom of my garden You can see Very blurry through my studio window. You can see through to the house There it is move my hand the right way The house is way up there about 75 feet away So we're well down the garden a long way away Which makes my wife very happy because she can now make There's match noise in the house as she likes which she couldn't do before Um, so I've got that situated in the middle Um, I have as you saw behind me my guitars and my awards. This is my pink floyd wall I've got post also I have the gear here because I'm also Trying to do acting trying to do full on tv and film acting break back into the industry here A lot of self-tape happens these days even more right now So I've got the uh, I've got a back a screen and I hang that across and a camera I can set up and I've got lights I've got a key light up in the corner. I see you see up there So, um, I've got that If I turn back to where I was you can see where my that's where I do my editing on my iMac And I've got another window there which looks out on the part of the garden Um, and then if I come along past the studio slowly so we don't jutter too much um, this half of the room is my I think you've called it before we were talking the producers corner. I called it sort of the green room Um, I'm not just because of the door, but I have uh, I have a couch set up over here so I can relax between books And uh, I got a tv set TV here, which is linked up to computer as well so I can do All kinds of online study and things that I like to do And and uh, I'm really able to take you outside just for a second I've got this wonderful door knocker that I bought in baltimore Nearly two years ago. Oh a po a po knocker A proper door knocker and then uh, as long as the signal holds up It's raining as you can see. This is the outside Uh How it looks wow It's not um aesthetically the most wonderful thing, but it uh, it does the purpose Serves the purpose very well. Yeah, well once you get some plants around the outside there It'll probably be fine. That's right Actually the nice blank screen on one side and I think we could put a shield Put a screen up there and play movies in the middle of the summer. Oh always fine friends over there So that should be good. Anyway, that's the space Yeah, so so essentially it's a man cave It is exactly a man cave. Let me just plug in again. So I'm sure we don't go out of the path. Whoops Yeah, um It really is and I was squeezed up in that, you know, the development over the years has been amazing I started in the garage In conch had 28 years ago moved into various closets I then have a would have a dedicated bedroom um And then where did I go? I mean just Different places and I I moved this studio several several times I had two studios at one point because I was living In the house up in conquered and we were renting down in LA And I wanted the same size studio in both places and just moved the equipment backwards and forwards But then we moved down here. We bought this house three years ago And I was in the third bedroom But it meant that my wife simply couldn't do anything in the kitchen because any noise at all would travel through the walls and basically It was very restricting And now that I'm out the timing is perfect because she's a teacher at UC Irvine And she has as of now been restricted to teaching from a distance Yeah, online teaching only when they come back after spring break So she's now taken over the third bedroom herself as her own teaching space And she'll be able to do what her thing up there. Well, I can do my thing down here Yeah, well they're they're eventually because I have the same situation here someone will develop space envy They're like, how come I can't come out there, you know, so well, that's right We can we come down and have a cup of tea in here sometimes It is so quiet because it's not even the sound of a refrigerator buzzing or Or or any kind of the air conditioning doesn't make a noise and it's just so delightful I had the contractor in just after I moved the studio in here and he was finishing something off He came in I said, do you want to go step inside the studio and see what it's like? Yeah And he came out he was like he's a little bit freak because at all I can hear as much as the ringing in my ears Yeah, well, you know what tell them to remember what that's like and so now when somebody asks What is a quiet, you know, what is quieter conditioning or whatever now they now they know How quiet really quiet truly is it is it is pretty remarkable Yeah, I'm loving it. Yeah, that's that's a duckless system, right Yeah, yeah, I mean it was just on the corner. It's It's the the actual air conditioning if I take it back I walk past it too quickly is up on the wall here. That is The mini back there. Yeah, those are great Yeah, just that box and out the back is a is a small um A unit probably measures a yard by a foot by a couple of feet and there's a little tube comes through the wall And that's it. Yeah, that's why they're so known quiet, you know that even the unit outside is pretty quiet And then the one inside is remarkably quiet and then just it's a couple little wires and pipes between them. That's it Yeah, you Europeans have had them for years, you know, yeah Yeah, and Japanese they really have almost they almost invented them practically mitzvah and samsung and on and on Yeah, george. You got some questions about his studio Yeah, just a more a little bit more about um your technical workflow like, um, what do you like to record through with software and then You know, are you sending out finished versus mastered files? It depends on the book. I would imagine Yeah, the equipment, um, you know, hasn't changed over the years and it's I I never The advantage of starting now is you can take advice from wonderful people like george witham and only buy what you need um I collected all kinds of crap over the years I've got lots of left over stuff. But what I do have I I've got a u87 anointment u87 microphone I've worked my way through tln 103s and 486s is whatever and um But I settled on this one time. I was testing microphones and I thought I'll try the u87. I hope I don't like it Too darn expensive, but it's the one that I like the most so I catch it. I'm very happy. I did um the software I have a mac mini for my computer because I originally up in conquered had the studio in a separate room From where I like to edit. So I had two computers. So I have I still have two computers. I have a mac mini My microphone goes into the uh, I've got a universal audio apollo twin Um, I've got a grace. I've got the n103. I think the 101 would have been Perfectly adequate, but I got the 103 And I got the mac mini I record to the mac mini the software I use is steinberg's wavelength And I have no absolute preference except for the fact that this was the first Software I ever used I went into the store in 1996. I think it was I think I was one of the first home narrators to ever go digital and I I figured this would be good to do And there was no internet to do any research at the time So I went into a music store and they gave me q-base steinberg's q-base. Oh, jeez about 50 discs A way more than I ever needed And and somewhere in the middle of it was wavelab 1.0 So I started using that went out to wavelab 10.1 something and I've stuck with it because of course you get discounted upgrades and so on Um, and I I've just got used to it and I love it. So um, that's what I use To record. Um, I then transfer the files over to my iMac 27-inch iMac here and uh, again edit on steinberg's wavelab And and the way I record is I don't do function roll. I never have Part of that and I don't want to get into an argument with anybody about what's better because I went through that years ago Every time I pop up on facebook and say, oh, but I like straight record Everybody would try to tell me old function roll is the only way to go I actually think straight record is the best way Except it is harder for beginners. It's much harder. You need the experience of I don't know you need studio training. I think to do it properly do um straight record properly and I grew up working for the bbc and editing tapes real to real and so on um, so um, I work straight record. Yes That's interesting because I I had the impression that punch and roll required a little bit more acumen because you're actually live operating the System while narrating but you're saying no and they're not the other it's kind of the other way around Yeah, I find that's well people that publishes publishers publishers Yeah, they uh, they actually prefer if you do the whole punch and roll session and they get everything you've done um The if it's set up because they and they can set things up for beginners is punch and roll Basically, so there's only a couple of buttons to press, you know, you look at the waveform If you flubbed you look at the waveform see where the gap is You drop your mark and you press go and it plays your few seconds beforehand and slips into record And you're supposed to be able to continue straight on and you do that through the book And you basically don't have to touch the file except to do the consolidation Whereas my way And and you're in you end up with them, you know, the last take you did is What you end up consolidating and sending off and if the publisher has the whole package You know every single retake you did if they need to they can go back in It's very funky, but it's it's for the publishers trained engineers to work on And the person at home has only ever had to press the button and start it and stop it and start it and stop it for a straight record I run through Drop a marker if I make a mistake and if I do two or three takes all the takes are there At the end of the session or the next day or even a week later I'll go back to tidy it up and I'll go from marker to marker And I will then I can do what wavelength what what what What a punch and roll would do which is basically just do a straight match from the last take to the next take But I can do it with more detail. It doesn't just cross fade. I can do it the breath I can do an edit in the middle of a word I can take the beginning of the third take and put it to the second part of the Fourth first take and do finesse things like that Which to me gives me way more control over the finished product and I think a cleaner Cleaner piece of work, which I then sent to the publisher who's very happy with what I've done because it's pretty clean And they don't have the crossfades and the cut right cut breaths, which you can get with punch and roll Yeah, I've only yeah. Yeah, I've always thought that you know the punch and roll takes away Those extra takes that you do Because you might have done two or three takes of a line And then suddenly it's like you know you go back and And you and it's gone because you went you rolled back and and and recorded over it So it's always good to save all that stuff that's there and go back and find the best part to do it Yeah My understanding though is that pro tools the whole session will it'll keep previous sessions It'll keep previous takes right, but it'll file them away But you and then you have to send the whole package to the publisher for them to have access to and you gotta go find it somewhere All right We're gonna take a quick break right now if you've got a question for simon throw it in the facebook Discussion and we'll get it to him in the next segment here. So stay tuned. We'll be right back after these This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice of our body shop Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you This is virgin radio. Well, okay. We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes 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 smartphone 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 ring 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, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. 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This is bill radner and you're enjoying voice over body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv And we're back here on voice over body shop with our guest simon vance and You know there's audio books is probably a little bit more complicated than people think Uh, yeah, so we've got yeah We we have a lot of people with a lot of questions. So for simon. So why don't we start with those? Sure. Um, yeah, there's a couple different feeds of questions some from our website chat room and some from facebook, but also email And uh, should we start with that email one from brad? Yep, you're a little Oh, sure. Let me give you a little less heat. Thank you One two three four. How does that look? I think that's probably better. Okay Go for it. Okay. So this first one is from brad brad avenue. It's a multi-part question One a one one one a two two a three It sure is so pick the nice one Um, he's coming in from toronto. Um, he's washed his hands. So he's got a mitt full of questions. Um Other types of audiobook narration projects that you favor doing Um, and are there's particular types? Projects you to and are there others that you would actually try to avoid that's the second part of that question Okay, shall I answer that you should um I um There are definitely books I favor recording. Um, and my I think the best way to describe those particular books are that they're well written. Um There's I described Reading books that are well written as there's really no not much work involved I can it's like skating across water. It's it's I'm dancing. I'm singing. It's a glorious feeling If a book is badly written It's like wading through mud Uh, it's hard to bring the story to life um And this is not just grammatical structure and so on it although a lot of it is the use of words and the use of language A lot of it is that is how the story is structured The uh the characters do they make sense? Are they doing sensible things? They won't be worse than reading books that The author is sort of following a formula Um, so yes, there are books I favor. There's not a particular genre. There are certain writers I love. I mean, I have to say one of my favorite writers is a guy called Guy Gabriel Kay Canadian writer from Toronto as it happens. Uh, he lives in Toronto and he's um, he's written I just did one uh earlier last year called A Brightness Longer Girl, which was just glorious He wrote Tigana, which is a beautiful book and and there's so many books He's done and I've done a lot of a lot. Maybe 10 of these books now and he's he's glorious. I loved reading Charles Dickens um Anything that's that's well written And there's how long does it take to get into the how far into the book do you pre-read before you go? Eh Not gonna happen. Well, here's the problem. You know, you get given Work and it's hard to say no to it and you know, I get Let's let's say it's a bad fantasy or something and I It's 20 hours long and I start reading it in prep and in most of the prep in in that for me is Working out how to pronounce names Working out the world that we're in, you know, I described, you know, but the the accents to use is this a Say could I see this as being around the Mediterranean or is this a sort of like England top to bottom? Or is it like the whole of Europe and can I use Russian voices and things like that? But it's mostly names, pronunciations and so on and so forth Uh, I'm getting into the story. I will scan the story and take a look. It's not often It's not until I'm right in the story that I realize how Badly put together ideas, which is unfortunate and and I remember and I don't want to You know put down authors because it's a heck of a job writing a book. I know that But I can remember way back when I got one of these first problematic books talking to the publisher about it and They said well, there's an audience for it out there people love this stuff They love this particular writer on this new writer is getting a lot of feedback good feedback on good reason and and I recognized that My judgment doesn't really matter. I need to make it work As best I can because the audience deserves it people are buying These books and they love these kind of stories and my own judgment may be a bit more Snobbery than anything else that you know, I got used to Charles Dickens. Now dare I read this this nonsense But there are people who who love this kind of story. So I need to sort of Buried that and just see this as part of the job But I have to say there is a sense of that it it's like waiting through not sometimes to bring this stuff So when you have these these uh fictional books How do you keep track of all those characters because you're obviously assigning characters to voices to these characters? How do you keep track? um but immediately There's a sense of you picture them in your head who they might be but you also in terms of How you see them how they how their character is developing And you can attach a voice to that actor You know, you it can either be a real actor or or just uh, you know an actor in real life Like that's my Alan Guinness voice or that's my Christopher Lee voice or something like that. Um You can do that or you you can make up a character, but you you link it to that image in your head So that whenever they crop up, you know who they are We also write down to make notes and you save audio files of their voices sometimes Um, I often don't do the full on recording for future reference until I get to the end of the book Um, people have different ways of doing it. I'm not saying my way is the best way Probably one of the most efficient in efficient ways of doing it But at the end of the book when I finish I will often make one file and say, you know This is this character and he speaks like this This is this character and she speaks like this and this is this character and she speaks like that So that I've got a couple of minutes of a file that I can go back and then When the next part of the fantasy series returns because that's usually when When I'm doing a book, I don't usually forget from beginning to end what the characters sound like And if I have a momentary hesitation, I've got the files right in front of me And I can go back find the character in the book by the fire But at the end of it, I don't want to have to do that Every time I start a new volume. So I'll I'll run through this little recording I've made as a guide And as I say, you've got a list often the Writer will give you a list of the main characters. They'll they'll equal fortunate That'll give you an outline of the story. So there's a lot of different ways of doing it people have different ways of You know using using the resources available Yeah, that's that basically answers a few questions that also came in from paul matthew So thanks because he was asking about all of that um And then we got rob rider Raider. I'm sorry. Thank you And my last thing is not whitman. Thank you. Um I know how that feels um simon. Do you do your own editing? You mentioned that you do some but how do you handle the consistency Of characters you did answer that just now, but how do you Do you always have to enter your own editing? Is it just depend on the production the house you're working for? well No, it's pretty much standard. Um every time I I do I like to send a clean file from my studio to the publisher. It's not necessarily Or correct. It's not necessarily all the right words in the right order. That's for the proofer to discover I don't do the proofing, but I will always do my best to send a clean file So I will do all the work I need to do To to make it clean if I was doing and I did do punch and roll a couple of times Basically, if you punch and roll once you come out of the studio, you've got a clean file It's not as clean as I would like it But it's basically what you send up to the publisher if you're really good with punch and roll And I know there are narrators who good narrators who live by that and they can do very nice work with punch and roll But I still prefer if we've talked about having the hands-on approach with the straight record And I send that off and it will always go through a proofer Um and depending on the publisher on the importance of the title It may go through two or three levels of qc'ing and proofing just to make sure it's correct And I will then receive the corrections back in in You know written form the list of mistakes the pages and hopefully an audio match as well So I can listen to what I did then And imitate it and I send those back and that's for them to put into the Into this book and if I if it's an acx book, which is um Talking about this, but it's if you're doing the direct work with the publisher, which I do sometimes with the uh author Which I do sometimes which there is no publisher there Then I will take on the production responsibilities and I will hire a separate engineer and proofer to do the work that the Publisher would normally do but it'll work in the same way Yeah, I was going to say you don't take on that load of doing those jobs You know, that's it's kind of like running a little business and then deciding all of a sudden No, maybe I will sweep the floors today. Yeah, and it sounds like a good idea To save money to do it yourself But the one thing I would say to any audiobook narrator is never Never prove yourself Ever because the mistakes you made the first time round You will probably make the second time and you will miss the words that you should have got You know, you need a different ear and I I know that from experience because in the mid 90s late 90s Business wasn't very good and I offered to proof a couple of my own books and Some of the same mistakes, you know came through and got picked up way later on by listeners Oh by listeners. Yeah, they live on. Yeah, they're permanent. They'll let you know. Yeah Well, the classic one is I did a book the biography of Ian Fleming for Blackstone audiobooks. It's by a British author I got given the book to do at one point. Ian Fleming uses the F word Liberally and he was quoted in the book now somehow and this was 1997 or 1998 I had a year or so with digital editing and you know cut and paste You've got to be careful when you've got something that you've just cut and pasted But you don't then cut and paste it somewhere else A year after the book came out There was a there was a they got letters or a couple of letters because apparently this F word was suddenly dropped into some random place in the book Mistake, I know and that was me proofing my own stuff There you go. Everybody listening out there. Yeah, really Yeah, DJ Dwayne has an interesting question. Where do you get most of your book deals? ACX or you have an agent though, don't you? Well, I'm very fortunate. No, I actually agents Don't unless you're an actor who does maybe one audiobook a year and get paid vast sums of money for it agents are not really interested in audiobooks because it's I don't know if you've said talk about this, but it's audiobooks is one of the lowest paid but in terms of time business is in the voice over arena I Get my books directly from the publisher And I'm in that fortunate position because I've been in the industry so long And I made my mark early on and publishers know me and I'm in their catalogs, you know, so when they they think of a book they'll go I let's be the one to sign At least I hope they do the uh, there are There are a couple of places now where you can put auditions in You can register yourself and ACX is obvious is an obvious one But pender penguin random house has a have this is not for beginners. I should say You know, you if you've got experience and you've proven you can do so many books Then you can upload a profile to this a have Website and and penguin random house and they're opening it to other producers Can go in there and listen to auditions and then hire you directly. So I think in the audiobook industry I don't think anybody who's a professional full-time narrator will ever use a what will have a an agent work for them But they will try to make contact with producers publishers directly That's where they come from The other way of course is if you're beginning you can't go straight to a publisher ACX is a good way to start Um, I have to say it has its own challenges Which should probably be better discussed elsewhere because it's a whole it's a whole session of its own But that's that's another way where you can make direct contact with author and do deals with authors Well speaking of recording, you know, acx style or when you do your little edit cleanups Are you one of those miracle voice actors that just doesn't make mouth noise because jeff holman wants to know How are you dealing with mouth noise and if you do to use ours rx or something like that? No, I don't I don't do any processing Um, publishers don't like you to do processing on your files. I do. I have a very Very subtle noise gate Which is Which is I I don't like to even admit that I do because again, it can be really misused and affect The recording in a terrible way and I only put it in In our in post at my own it makes my cleanup editing cleaner and it it is such a subtle thing And I have such a low nose not nose floor Publishers and nose flaws. It's amazing. Anyway That I don't so I and I don't go in and do any cleanup of clicks and crackles Am I someone who doesn't have my no, I'm not I'm very aware Another reason I like straight record is that If I hear myself do a mouth noise, I can just do a quite quick retake And I've done that today. I did along. I've done three hours of recording in here today And I know I'm aware of sometimes when I hear my mouth go Then I I'll redo that particular sentence. Um, I'm sure other mouth noises slip through I think I am pretty good though about mouth noise. Um, Well, let's you sound human that way and that's also very important as well Yeah, again, that's one of the issues with with doing processing after the fact But you don't want to make yourself sound in human, you know, you make breasts You don't edit out breasts people argue. Well, I edit out all my breasts. Don't do that Stop it. Yeah. Oh when I hear that on audiobook, I'm like, why who told you that? Who told you to deep breath your audiobook? Um, yeah, mouth noise voice actors are so hyper sensitive to them because they're listening back, you know through really It's a skill, you know As a as a as an actor a voice actor at audiobooks It is a skill you need to learn if you have a lot of Breasts, you're going to have to work on removing them and removing them Yourself naturally not using an artificial method to To lose them. You you maybe need to take some coaching You know, I took breath lessons when I was a kid because my parents sent me to a drama school on Saturday morning So I have an understanding of breath control and as an audiobook narrator breath control Is every bit as important in some ways as as having that actor's sensibility I talked about because you have to talk for so long and you can't be heard to be running out of breath at the end Of the sentence and start in with the next one. It's a it's a skill that you learn over time All right, we got time for one more question here from uh, Steve Campbell and this is actually kind of an interesting one How often do you record at home versus in studio or do you actually go into any of the studios at all anymore? I do occasionally very rarely. I'm I started as a home narrator. I narrated constantly at home until about 2002 and then I remember Penguin Random House called me to do something in new york Um, and I worked with Paul Allen Rubin and his wife and I also did a book from Macmillan I can remember Laura Wilson sitting there after the first two or three sessions saying you've got a studio at home, haven't you? You're fine on your own because I'm a very good Director self director And it's uh, it's cheaper for them if and if they can trust me to to do it to bring the product out now There's um, I went in last year because I did um, George R. R. Martin's Fire and Blood the history of the Targaryens and that was a book that was A very important book for Penguin Random House. They wanted to make sure it was done properly Um, I think there were NDA signed and everything else. So they didn't want Scripts running around all over the place. Um, so I went in that's probably the last Oh, I did go into Deanne and do a couple of books for oasis audio That's because they had a relationship with Deanne and I fancied going to another studio But that was that was a couple of months ago and I did a couple of short books there But no, it's I would say 99% now. Um, I haven't Done any major books other than that George Martin book for about a decade in a studio All right. Well, Simon, thanks so much for joining us again here on voiceover body shop and uh, you know if People want to hear your stuff. You're you're available. I guess just about anywhere fine audio books are procured This is true All right, we'll see you soon. We'll get together for coffee when all of this stuff I love to yes, what people don't know is it's like the cnn carpark deal where the guys were just next door You're only actually next door and george is next door that way. So right, you know, we're so close We can meet for coffee. In fact, I'll come over in a few minutes. Okay, there we go. All right. Thanks, Simon We'll talk to you soon Simon vance. Alrighty, we'll be right back and wrap things up a nice tight little ball right after this awesome This is anthony menders. You're watching voiceover body shop Your dynamic voiceover 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 Voiceover 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 audiobooks 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 All right, it's time to talk about voiceover essentials dot com. So while supplies last buy a v o one a microphone and get a vox pop stop filter free Or their voice optimized headphones and get a free headphone hanger The mxl v o one a faithfully captures deep tones without sounding bassy and has a silky smooth top That is never harsh a perfect sound palette for both male and female voiceover performers It's the voiceover microphone the vox pop stop blocks the pops Not your script And like our voiceover microphone our voice optimized headphones were designed for voice work from the get go While musicians and many consumers choose headphones because of their eardrum rattling bass Open back and on ear design. There are poor choice for voice work We need to hear the clear transparent and honest sound of our voices without artifice and affectation Our voice optimized headphones 2.0 provide both that accurate transparent sound and enhanced mid-range audio a less bass and a creature comfort voiceover workers deserve And to keep your headphones safe secure in easy reach and off the floor Just clamp on the all metal v o hh headphone hanger on your microphone or copy stand the non-slip groove nylon tip and installed Stuff rubber backing pads prevent scratching your equipment and your headphones from experiencing. Whoops I've fallen on the studio floor and I can't get up get them all now While supplies lasted voiceover essentials.com first come first served. Thanks harlan 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 air apparent to ISDN 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.com 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 I think I heard the voice of a body shop. I did. I did hear the voice of a body shop I've been looking forward to having Simon on for quite a while because it's been a while since we've talked to him But now with that new studio. That's really really cool. It is impressive. Nice work there. Absolutely We have a bunch of donors of the week and who might they be Gee, let me take a look. I'm gonna kill time while I go back to the show notes. There we go Sarah Borgias, Mike Gordon, Stephanie Sutherland Shawna Pennington-Baird, Harlow Rodriguez, Michael Kearns, Kristie Burns Brian Roche, Uncle Roy Yolkelson of Ant-Land Productions And Michelle Blinker seems like I read those names almost every show It's every other week now. There's it seems like well, whatever if you'd like to donate description Yeah, that's the point The great part they are on subscription and they do donate regularly and you can do that if you like Or just one time if you particularly like the guests or the topic Right on the website v obs dot tv, right? It says donate here or donate now. I think what it says Uh, I do not that's right. Hey show us your booths. By the way, this is Henry Howard's Editing studio if those of you thinking we were sitting in my own studio here The scale might be a little bit weirder. No, this one this one here. Oh, you know, and and you're on Fake on the monitor confused. Yeah, he's got these loudness meters here. This is an editing studio Not really a voiceover studio so much, but uh, hey, he sent it to us. It's a beautiful picture and it's in Landscape not portrait So send those send those into us so you can show us your studio We got to see simon studio tonight. Anyway, we did. Yeah, uh, yeah We'd like to we'd we'd love to say hey come see our show live But that's not going to be possible for at least a month. I think Until we're past this this quarantining and stuff Uh, anyway, but we do need to thank our sponsors like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials Also voiceover extra sorus elements Vio heroes a voice actor websites.com and and Jmc demos. All right, and of course the dan and marcie Leonard foundation for the betterment of live and recorded webcasting Jeff holman for doing a great job in the chat room tonight and our technical director who just made it absolutely perfect tonight Sumer lino. Thanks so much sue for for doing that. And of course lee penny for just being lee penny We almost got to your question lee. Sorry. Yeah Too little too late. Maybe he'll get to it on facebook. Anyway, that's gonna do it for us Tech talk is coming up next so stay tuned for that You gotta know something if it sounds good It is good. All right. I'm dan london And i'm george wittem and this is voiceover Body shop or vio B s. All right We'll see you next time