 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop, and it's tech talk number 86. Yeah, baby. Don't 86 it man Yeah, 86 times we have done tech talk, you know plus if you throw in the almost 200 episodes before that before we started doing this Anyway, if you've talked about microphones a few times, right? That's yeah, the few a few times What's the best microphone for voice over? Yes, so if you've got a question about your home voiceover studio throw it in the chat room Right this time right at this time right now and George and I will discuss it in the next segment So are you ready George? I certainly am. Okay. Good. It's time for voiceover body shop tech talk right now Voice over body shop is brought to you by voice over essentials calm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect Jmc demos when quality matters The oh heroes calm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training Voice actor websites calm where your voice actor website shouldn't be a pain in the butt Voice over extra your daily resource for voice over success and by World Voices the Industry Association of Freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts Dan and George Well, hello there, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whitton and this is voice over body shop or VO Bs Tech talk tech talk an early tech talk Yeah So you guys get to see us, you know some people join us for tech talk Some people join us when we do our guest interview But the people who've come for the guest interview get to hear test tech talk now and they're gonna go this is fabulous Why don't they do this like every other week? Well, we used to do tech talk We used to do the tech stuff before the guests But we decided rather than make a guest wait around for us to finish We would just have them first and that's the way it's been quite a few years now, but today because our guest is Deposed is that the word No, no, that would mean he's he's in composing legal six and yeah, and he's not decomposed either Whatever the reason the post means he has been removed from office. Okay. Thank you whether by force or by I like big random words and Use them proper isn't there a word isn't there a terminology for the misuse of words Malaprop boom And you didn't misuse it so that's you weren't ironic about it. I think that's a Malaprop a Malaprop. Yeah, that's think that's the word. I remember. Yeah. Okay. Yeah Highly technical talk here But by any way if you're wondering why why we're talking about tech it's what George and I do One of the things that you know, we we try to fill our days with all sorts of fun stuff whether it's flying down a mountainside on a on a bike or Playing with old radios, but most of the time we're dealing with you in your home voiceover studios And we've been doing it for a long time. There's a lot of people out there Apparently a lot of coaches out there that'll tell people. Oh, yeah. Yeah, use one of these but not How to use one of these mm-hmm? And and George and I usually end up mopping up afterwards Because we know how to do this kind of stuff and it's usually like oh god, what did this person tell you? well, if you want to get the right information and Not be intimidated and get that boulder of technology craziness off your shoulders You can work with one of us because we're gonna give you the right answers We're gonna show you how to do it, right and that's the most important thing when it comes to a home voiceover studio If you don't have a home voiceover studio, you're not really participating in the freelance voiceover market And if you're gonna have a home voiceover studio, it's gotta be Good and if it sounds good, it is good Right on cue gotta love that. Anyway, if you want to work with Mr. Whitman George the tech, where do they go? You can head right over to George the dot-tech and if that makes your brain hurt You can also just put in George the tech comm that will work, too And all my services are available for booking over there starting with the most popular and most affordable soundcheck service Which is similar to one that Dan offers And it's just a matter of you sending in your audio and I also like to get some photos and a Description of what's really going on and that way I can give you a really clear answer about what I hear in your audio Very objective. Just how does it sound? How's the noise floor? How's the acoustics in the space? How is your mic technique? All that stuff will cover in a soundcheck and you can go from there all the way to Studio design whatever you need is available and over at Dan's place as I was mentioning at Home voiceover studio.com. What can you do over there, Dan? Well, now you can find the specimen collection cup much easier because when you go to the page It's right there right where it should be in an exact place where it should have been all along But now it's up top. Yeah, and for $25 I will do a very thorough analysis of your audio And you know, it's not just what I hear. It's also what I see There might be some things that you might think are inaudible But I see them, you know, if you look at a spectrograph and you see a repeating line at 125 Hertz It's like air conditioner ceiling fan refrigerator Fish tank. Yeah. Yeah, there's not that many of those anymore are there. No Yeah, the people keep those somewhere else But yeah, if there are sounds that you don't realize are there And I can see him. I can hear him. Although you get down underneath 80 Hertz You don't hear him, but the engineer on the other end is gonna see the needle moving up that direction and Speaker cones going like this So anyway, you you've been gone for a little bit and You were in in Jolly old England. I was I it's my first ever trip to London I went there with my girlfriend where we met her mother who flew in and her sister who also flew in and It was really an eye-opening experience. I I went there with some expectations I mean who doesn't have expectations about what London might be like if you've never been right But I I kind of went there with just open eyes and ears and mouth and nose and just smelled and taste and and just enjoyed The city in a lot of ways But I did gather a little bit of content that I thought is well at least somehow audio related So I thought I could share a couple of things with you guys So first of all, let's find the one I want to show you so this is this is a clip showing and Letting you here as well What the subway train? Well, this isn't a subway. This is called the DLR. So this would we call we would call an elevated train this is the sound and a view from the train of Looking at my actual hotel my Hilton hotel. So this is check this out right there's the hotel Loud all right there That's how close the hotel is to tracks Right so when we when we checked in and I saw the elevated train right outside our hotel I was like, oh no Because I had this bad flashback of going and checking into the jack London in or whatever it was in Oakland Long time ago like 30 years ago with my dad my mom and the train tracks right outside the hotel And we were thinking we saw the train tracks and we're thinking oh Cool the trolley is good to go right on by not realizing that no it's not a trolley It's freight trains and they were really frigging loud. Well in this hotel You couldn't even hear the train at all here and here's why look at the look at the windows in the hotel I was saying earlier how this hotel is super quiet Look at the windows here. Look at this They have a double pane Heavy heavy glass double plain exterior window and then an interior glass window With you and even that interior piece it rattled a little bit so they could done a little better on the on the weather stripping but um If that was even like a laminated piece of glass It was really impressive the effort that was put into the hotel to keep this the noise levels down Yeah, there's nothing like the sound of a train rambling by when you're trying to sleep so yeah I mean they they didn't mess around it was I I You literally would forget that there was a train outside that close that that's that's how incredibly quiet it was I was really impressed so if you're staying if you're going to London Here this shot actually shows how close the train actually was right above it There it is totally in on you would never so this is a neighborhood of London called Canary Wharf and It's an eastern part of London and it's an old Warf area that was all for loading fish and stuff and now it's all giant high-rise buildings It's like being in the middle of Wall Street, it's all banks right but um you're really close to all these different train lines And you can get around really easy and that was cool other audio related stuff that I enjoyed and Witnessed in London. This is the things you were concentrating on. What is the audio situation? In London, of course. I'm obsessed with it, right? This was in the Tate which is an amazing modern art museum in London Founded by Her Majesty the Queen in 2000 and this was in one corner of one of the exhibits he walked into this hall and this is what you heard Is that like all the radios playing at once or? That's all every single radio, I mean theoretically anyway every single radio tuned to some kind of Random point. I don't know if it was random or what it was But it was just idling static of whatever these radios was we're pulling in and occasionally you would hear an actual song of song A strong clear song would just come through out at random Which was really really kind of a trip actually I'd have found it like hypnotic and also super nostalgic I mean, how could you not find that? Nostalgic as you're walking around you're looking at all these radios that you remember either either Radios you already have like Dan you've got a collection. I'm sure some of the radios you have are in this pile I can I recognize a few of them. Yeah, and then British radios are you know, there's there are British manufacturers And they're there's the stuff was just a little bit different. Yeah. Yeah, and then I I have another clip I won't show but it's me walking around the entire tower Showing everything there, but that that was just really cool and fascinating. I thought that was Very very interesting and then on another audio tip from the same museum this was an art piece that was Made by this artist as Waldo Machia or Machia and It was essentially a thousand different bird songs that he had recorded and then as you walk through the exhibit You're hearing them playing through speakers suspended from the ceiling and It there he's basically playing back the sound of the birds as though it was a musical arrangement and On different walls in the exhibit like this one. He is showing the key essentially the plan of how everything is what instrument is what bird right and then This is the actual Master plan of how all the bird sounds are mapped over what a theoretically would be an organ So imagine a huge church or theater organ, but all of the instruments are birds And they're all playing through these these speakers suspended From the ceiling. Hmm. I don't even know if you can hear them right now No, I wouldn't the sound is not on but oh shoot There it is It's not reading right now you pretty much had to walk under the speaker to hear it clearly But there are bird sounds coming out of these speakers as it's just really fascinating use of Technology music bird sounds all these things combined. It was just it was incredibly fascinating Yeah, the last audio and video experience that I'll share if I can find the tab here This was Yeah, I think I I think I clicked away from it and then lost it I got to go down and see the carnival parade that's in Notting Hill the village of Notting Hill and the experience of the sound systems that were on the trucks was Pretty pretty over the top. I mean you I could not believe The sheer scale of these sound systems that they were carrying around on the backs of semi trucks Pulled through neighborhoods Like imagine the loudest car stereo you've ever heard that like you're like, okay, that's enough This is a little obnoxious Imagine that but that times a hundred and that's what these sound systems were like here's here's a clip of one As it goes by Here's the back of it the business end I would call it Come on That's that's one heck of a subwoofer It was Insane and there was that those trucks Over and over just going down the street with a huge crowd of people dancing behind them So it was a very sonically Varied an interesting trip to London. It was really really fascinating But um, I didn't do any work. I didn't bring any microphones I really was pretty much offline the whole time and it was a joy It was a joy to be able to do that. I felt really Lucky to be honest to run a business and be able to just decide that you're not going to work for a while and do that Was uh, was a real real treat and um, so I've only been doing that since 2003 Good for you. I mean that is It's hard to do it But I man I loved I really enjoyed it and uh, if you're going to London and you know, you're staying there I can recommend the the Hilton Canary Wharf For being a really really quiet hotel and you could also shut off the air conditioning There was a fan control on the wall and you could just shut it off and make it Really quiet in there. So that that was your trip to London. That was my trip to London. So So because I was off offline and taking a vacation I didn't really gather a lot of new tech tips and tech news And I haven't really seen that much. Um, but I did going on. What did you see Dan? I did talk to me Our friends at Sentrance Oh, yes, yes, they have this new thing called the jasmine. It's not in production yet. But it looked like An improvement over the the mic port pro Oh, really? Yeah, it's it's a it's a pre a mic preamp And it has a big vu meter on it and a limiter and all these things and apparently They're working on it and uh, they they did all the testing and now they're ready to start production runs on it and Then it'll be a nice another great little portable unit that that sentrance puts out. So we'll see I'm checking it out now. Yeah, it's called the Jasmine it's a boutique Mic preamp with limiter and headphone amp So, yeah, so this is this is interesting because what they're doing here is going well Some people just want a preamp they don't actually They don't actually want the ad converter So this is what's so fascinating about high-end audio gear, right? Sometimes the more expensive stuff does less Right is not interested. So this is a little things better, right? So this is a 700 dollar unit that does nothing but provide a preamp With a high-pass filter and a limiter which is really obviously handy Um, but that's what it does. That's it. It's not an interface It's not a headphone amp. Although it does have a headphone. Oh, no, I take this back. It does have a headphone amp Yeah, um, so it's it's a very niche thing. So I'm wondering who would really benefit from this I I guess if you Hmm Probably musicians, but it would work for so very feet, you know, and then oh, it would definitely work for voice over Yeah, like it would just be an interesting thing If if you're if you're wanting like a completely super clean I would imagine it's got no distortion super super clean. Oh, yeah Low noise their their standards are really really high. Yeah. Yeah, it's gotta be but it's interesting He built it in the same chassis as like the mixer face, right? So he's making a line of of new products based around that That chassis so that that's cool. Yeah, and I like that. It has the big VU meter on it always in the green always in the yellow The slasher red every now and again. Yeah. No, that that's cool No, I I like that he's iterating and creating new products and uh We'll have to see if anybody in the voice over world finds it to be, you know, helpful To use something like that and a supplement to their other other preamps and processors. That's right So maybe he'll send this one There you go. There we go. Well, we've gotten stuff from mike and mike goodman and centrants in the past You know, we've we've we've tested the mixer face and we found it fantastic Um the mike port pro 2 and 3 now are both Yeah, it's got that limiter on it and you know the people in animation and gaming are really liking that one So that's really cool. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I wanted to throw something out here for the next few minutes And if people have questions on this they can of course, you know, they can they can join in on this I got a lot of questions about Resolution settings, you know, we've always you know up until now I'm usually with an mp3 we always say Do it at 44 1k at 24 a bit And I'm getting stuff all over the place. Some people do it, you know, it at you know, 44 one It's been the standard for a while, but now a lot of video goes to 48 You're talking about wave files or mp3 files either And you know people are they're they're they're being We're being asked for 48 for 48k You know, especially by video producers because that's the standard for video for just straight audio I mean you can get get away with You know 16 bit and and and you know and uh and and the 40 you know 44 one Yeah, but for the most part The the funny thing is Is there's no difference in sound now if someone says they can tell the difference They're lying Because between 44 one and 48 k 48 or sample rate. Yeah. Yeah, you're not going to notice a difference because it's you know There's a certain frequency range that it covers and it doesn't matter because that's it's it's recording sounds that you can't even hear Right. He's basically you can tell the sample this the frequency range of what the sample rate captures by just taking whatever that number is 48k and divide it in half So now 24 is the maximum frequency you can record right 24 kill arts Now I don't know last time you had your hearing checked But I fairly recently I did it on I actually did my hearing test on an app Oh, there's an app called Mimi. M i m i Right that lets you do your own hearing test similar to the way you would do it an audiologist for hearing aids and stuff Right. Um, but anyway, you're most of us won't hear anything above 1415 kilohertz Anymore, you know, if you're under 20 under 30 you might be able to hear above that But none of us can really hear that stuff, you know, so Going even higher to 48k or 41 48 doesn't does not make any different. Yeah I had a hearing test fairly recently, you know, I was like I had tintedness and it's it was getting bad for a while And then, you know, the audiologist like your hearing's perfect. It's pretty good for your age. I'm like, don't tell my wife Oh Well, yeah, I mean when I did that home test, I hadn't done it I hadn't done a proper hearing test in quite a while I used to get my hearing tested at the nam music trade show the house ear institute Would bring in a a big truck, you know, and you'd go inside and they had the audiology booths and the whole thing And they print out your report And it'd been a long time since I did it. So finding this Mimi app. Um, it was kind of cool. It was It was a pretty legit. I mean it played the very quiet tones that got descendingly more and more quiet As they played and then it would tell you to let go of the button when you couldn't hear them anymore and uh It said I was about 10 to 15 decibels below Optimal But they said that but it but it said that was normal Yeah for my age. So I was glad to see that. Yeah, I had one where it was like Progressively people talking louder in the background and you had to pick out the right sense and I got That's pretty good. Yeah, that's that's something we're hearing aids help a lot. So so yeah, I mean, I know another reason why Recording at sample rate 48k Can be helpful is if nowadays we're asked to be doing multiple things at once, right? Right, not just record. But now we want to record and be on zoom or record and have something else going on And as I like to say as I've been saying recently describing sample rate and what's called word clock Um Is you want everybody to be dancing to the same music the same beat? um, if you've got You know, your da is recording a wave file at 44.1 And you're running zoom and zoom wants to be running at 48 kilohertz You're gonna have problems clicks and pops now the mac os Seems to somehow on the fly sample rate convert Because rarely have I had clicks and pops and glitches and I've never really Given it that much thought um, so It is definitely bex practice to make sure everything's the same sample rate But if you're on mac you might be okay and might because it's sample reconverting, I think But I know in the windows environment boy things just do not They do not get along well at all if they're not the same We told you you got a really yeah Stick with me if you're doing you do an audio, but you know you got what you got So yeah, I mean if you're on windows everything's got to be on the same sample rate window I would say 48k across the board is the way to go And it doesn't matter what they ask for just record at that sample rate and you can convert it later right just just sample rate convert before you send the file and uh Not a big deal in fact 24 bit. I recommend To record that as well. And then if you need to send it in 16 bit again, you can You can save it as 16 bit. Yeah Well, you know people have been asking a lot of question So we're gonna take a break and we're gonna get into answering all these questions because that's what we really love to do Not that your trip to london wasn't fascinating And not that 44 if one versus 48k isn't isn't you know, maybe it's a little geeky for some even more fascinating This stuff you guys are gonna dig So we're gonna take a break. We'll be right back here on voiceover body shop tech talk right after these messages This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on The voiceover body shop You know, I used to live in buffalo new york But now i'm in sunny southern california But no matter where you are when you need equipment strictly for voiceover There's only one place to go and that's voiceover essentials dot com And right now is the time to get with harlin hogan signature series v o one a voiceover microphone They also have the fabulous centrance mic port pro 2 with limiter in stock In fact, it's the only version they sell now a limiter is a must have Especially when recording oneself with no engineer to ride game for you By the way, it's the most amazing limiter they've encountered It's impossible to detect and it's incredibly quiet and they've upgraded the portabouth pro quick script led light Now it has two goose necks all the better to read your script Go on over to voiceover essentials right now to get these great voiceover essential products Man that's a great spot dan killing it. Uh Well, I'm gonna do my live spot because I don't like producing anything and I'm gonna talk about our great friends over at source elements Well, boy, I'll tell you by now you have heard a lot about source elements company And if you haven't well, you're new to the show and then welcome But source elements create software that allows studios to interact and connect And record audio real time in very high quality And that's their the primary software made by source elements that the voice acting Industries have all used for a long time a lot of the industries. Anyway, the tends to be the bigger Production quality higher budget commercial things like that They use source connect and that's because it's a dedicated application That does one job and that is capture the audio Stream it to the other side and bring the audio into their System and it does it extremely reliably Much more reliably so than anything that could run on a google chrome browser Because the problem with browser based audio daps is the browser changes and updates all the time If you you probably have no idea what version of browser you're running because it updates constantly Probably almost every week. And so that's a moving target and that creates really Hard to describe and very difficult to trouble troubleshoot Glitches and that's not happening with source connect. It's a dedicated app designed to do that one job and it's supported Extremely well by the support team at source elements So if you want to give it a try and you want to understand why it is the tool of choice In pro audio recording remotely You can do that go over to source dash elements dot com And get yourself a 15 day free trial and start experimenting and poking around and testing it And if you need help don't worry They've got great support as well as myself at george the tech and our team here We can give you extra white glove support if you need it. Anyway, let's get back to the show right after this 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 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 red 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. It's j michael at jmc voiceover dot com Now if they don't stop waxing this mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widdum v obs dot tv All righty, and we're back and it's time for Tech talk and your questions lightning round Because we got a pile of them here nice. All right. We will then storm them up over the holiday. I I know Just on labor day and I'm glad everybody's here on labor day You could be out barbecuing of course you don't have to do anything here in southern california. You just go out in your backyard Hold a couple of hot dogs and they're gonna cook It's It's only 106 of my backyard right. Oh man. Anyway, uh, we gotta we got we have an actual write-in one somebody actually emailed us a question which you can do by writing to us at the guys at v obs dot tv And if you write your question in Before we do the show You get to be first in the queue So steve griffin asks He says i'm trying to lower my noise floor in my home studio. Aren't we all i'm currently running a noise floor between minus 57 db and minus 55 db I'd like to lower it to at least minus 60 db. Do you have any suggestions? uh, well It it would help to to hear what what the noises are My philosophy is everything is physical Find the source of the noise And turn it off The thing is is we were talking about this a little earlier You don't necessarily hear all the noises in your house. Your brain has tuned them all out Uh, your refrigerator Uh, your air conditioning, you know, it's not like you're consciously You know listening for this stuff and when you go in if you go into a booth or you're in in a certain room You really don't hear it, but our friend here does Uh, here's everything and it puts it on your hard drive. So it's important to Really stop and think and go is something making noise Close your eyes for a second and listen And your brain will go. Oh, yeah. Yeah, this one. Yeah, okay We're gonna turn on this frequency and then you hear your refrigerator and you hear the air conditioning Those things really have to be off unless you're in a really sound tight room Yeah, the air conditioning is a big one. Um, just noise and traffic noise from even a road that could be a mile away If there's enough of it, it'll show up as rumble that little wave a little wave wavy line In your wave in your waveform and a lot of that can be reduced by just using a high pass filter And all of a sudden you can lower the noise floor the effective noise floor of your recordings several db sometimes 20 db Yeah, depending on how much noise it is at that low frequency So you might be able to go from minus 57 db to minus 70. Yeah, just applying a high pass filter So without having the audio to analyze it's that's the best we can do for you But you can always get us get a sound check or use dan's specimen collection cup and we'll really analyze it closely Yeah, and a high pass filter is actually a lot simpler than it really helps Okay You get the one from marlene goodman. Yeah, this was also from email Um, how does one learn the setup and operation of the home technology? I'm gonna assume marlene in this case means home studio technology. Yes, that that would be us Uh boy, you know, where do you come to the right place? You're coming to the right place watching every episode of of tech talk, you know You're gonna learn a heck of a lot watching all of our tech talk episodes marlene So I can recommend that because that's free Yeah, that's a really good place to start Uh, we've covered a tremendous amount of ground. Um, there's webinars dan has taught a lot of webinars I am still teaching webinars as well Um, you can look for webinar content, uh about what you want to learn Um, there is obviously a lot of youtube videos, which some are good some are not Um, so, you know, take those with a grain of salt. Um, they're not always appropriate for your needs or always accurate So check your source. Make sure if you're watching youtube videos, make sure you know Who it is you're learning from right and also important that if you were listening from the top of The show you can work with mr. Whittom here or you can work with me and go to our websites and we will We will teach you from soup to nuts Yeah, I mean, we'll teach you what you need to know like the key thing is we'll teach you what it is that you need to know Because that's the thing if you start studying the books, there's a few right there on the shelf If you start reading all the books you can get you can start drowning in knowledge and information and Learn a lot of stuff you don't need so working with an or i one-on-one will give you a concentrated piece of you know helpful information at the pace that you need to learn you might learn at a different pace Then you can handle on a youtube video. You might want to just write things down longhand That's fine. You know, we'll we'll work with you directly But the key is to to learn what you need and not learn everything because it's a big distraction from Being a voice actor to to learn all of audio engineering Absolutely. Yeah, and you know We've been able to break it down into some very simple things and uh, we will uh, you know, if you talk to us You know, you set up a consultation with us. We will We will set you straight and relieve all of your tension about it. Yeah, uh, jeff holman's got an interesting question Yes, uh, have any tips for using the road video mic go to with an iphone for recording videos I'll be using it to record on camera self-taped auditions. You mean this guy? Yeah, dan dan dan has it and we used it to do The core of mojave microphone and it worked great. It worked great. It's it's it's You know, it's like a little 416 and you just mount it in teeny weenie shotgun with with the iphone I think you get that you have to have that cord right dan You have to have a very special cord that does not come with the mic, right? Which I ordered to in just in case I break this one Uh, yeah, but it plugs right into your phone. The phone immediately recognizes it as Your uh, your mic and then you just use it, you know, if it's mounted with if the the phone is mounted On a tripod or on a selfie stick or something This particular device allows you to Also put that on there with it And then you have your phone Hi, I can see my phone right here and then you take your phone Just from spring on there and that's a really strong spring out there Anyway, so you you get this on a selfie stick and then all of a sudden you've got Real professional audio with this and it works great Yeah, yeah for doing self tapes you want to get it probably within three or four feet. Don't put it too far away from you Um, you know, obviously mic technique the closer the mic is the more better It's going to pick you up the more directly it will pick you up Um, you still want to make sure that you don't have a super reverberant room You know, so if it's an empty room in your house or spartan room It's going to sound pretty reverberant. So you might want to throw Some blankets on the floor. You might want to make sure you have a rug You know do whatever you can exactly to get rid of that echo but it Yeah, 100 bucks plus like a 30 cable. Is that what it is? I wonder how it would do with For remote for doing voiceover somewhere Well, you did some early tests and the noise floor of the mic was pretty good, right? It wasn't noisy Yeah, um, it had a pretty pleasing sound. It's a pretty mind-blowingly good mic for for 100 bucks. I mean It's it's with that cable. It's a hundred thirty dollar shotgun usb mic. Exactly pretty amazing Not a lot of those around. Yeah. Okay. Uh, jeffrey headquests Uh from youtube says I have a null spot on my preamp section of my apollo twin remedies Buy something else a null spot Oh, that meaning if as he's turning the dial is he's using the preamp in it Something goes and then it jumps off. So he's got a dead spot. Oh, that's the neve preamp The gain knob as you turn it to about 55 db There's an off position If that's the one he's talking about, I mean he didn't say what Plug-in he's using or whatever, but i'm assuming if that's what he means There is literally a position on that knob. It goes, you know 40 45 50 55 off 50 60 65 70 rupert's dead. We can't ask him why he did it that way But there's literally an off position On the gain dial, right and because the plug-ins if you're using a neve plug-in Are modeled over the real after the real exact the actual hardware it replicates that same quirky Um design So maybe that's what it is. I don't know put it in your chat in the chat if If i'm Completely off base here or if if you are using the neve plug-in or something terry because uh, yeah, that's that's an odd one I don't know why that would happen otherwise Yeah, a lot of people are you know, I've been asking about the the apollo twin You know because I I need a limiter. I'm like, you know, you're you're buying an awful lot just to get a limiter You don't yeah, that's a big expense and a big learning curve Just to have that the mic port pro with the limiter is For 300 bucks is a way better value and there you go way simpler to use Yeah, all righty you get the next one from red cabin acoustic All right. Um, this one's from youtube What are the best in quotes vo conferences to go to? For newbies and those that have some work under their belt I don't know if I can rank them right now. They each have their They each have their their strengths and weaknesses I don't know what what would be the top one that comes to mind and that it's a no-brainer if there's how about that one Um, oh, of course No, no, that's absolutely true. We haven't had a wovo in a while and not had a wovo con and we're doing Is it's a conference put on by voice voice over professionals For voice over professionals. Yeah, and it's yeah, and we're not for profit by the way. I'm president of world voices But uh, yeah, we're doing this may 4th through 6th in Orlando and it's a very different type of conference Great for people who who want to really learn From everybody else and not like just attend All sorts of you know going to uh, you know different different talks and stuff like that you get to really participate in and that's One of the reasons that we really like doing it So, uh, yeah, this one would not be targeted to the newbie who's someone that's just getting started a lot of the other conferences Are really good at catering to the new voice actor like, um, vo Atlanta and uh, uh What's another one's the one in the fall that's voice over that's way Have one kind of like I want to get no voice over Topics, you know that uh are covered by Coaches and things well you and I are going to vo north next weekend Yeah, we are vo north, which is sort of the Well, it's the conference of canada, right? Yeah for the time being I don't know they're gonna do it anymore, but yeah, this could be the last one is my understanding But so we're going and we're gonna have a great time because we get to see all our friends that we haven't seen for years and years That's that's a big reason why these conferences are so popular It's you know, a lot of folks go to not necessarily learn a lot They maybe will get a few golden nuggets, right? But they go for the social aspect, you know, and that's that's a good reason That is a good reason to go if you have the if it's in your town You don't have to spend a tremendous amount of money to get there and things like that So we're gonna do a few uh mini cons with world voices over the next couple of years And they'll be those will be regional conferences. So you can drive there, which will be really great That's good So we'll be we'll be talking more about those as well. Oh and also i'm going to be going to mavo in uh, washington in november Oh, I always forget about that one. Yeah, that's the mid-atlantic Voice over conference. Yeah, that's going to be out near delis airport and i'm going to be speaking at that So if you want to learn about home studio stuff or anything that has to do with voice over Is that one targeted towards a wide range of skill? Yeah, that's that's a that's a wide-ranging one too So but sort of but sort of a regional one. I mean people come from everywhere everywhere. Don't they yeah, exactly So that's good. That's a good one to go to Okay, you get let's see here And rist. Yes. Yes. I have a question. Well, that's good Uh, it's about a scratching noise that levels out at 143 to 153 db in my I think she means k If it's 143 db Ah Yeah, yeah, that must be in my pause spaces in adobe audition It looks red in the wave file and gets more profound At the outtakes of my cut and paste points weird science freaking me out. Thanks This sounds like an editing thing Hmm. Uh, this is a matter of when you're editing audio You can't cut right in the middle of us of a Of a sound you've got it's got to be at the crossover point And that's the the center line, you know where you've got the waveform like this I I I suppose I could show that Why don't you you talk for a second while I set that up and I'll show people how what I'm talking about Yeah, I mean, I don't we she might be talking about what dan's describing which is a discontinuity which is where There's two, you know, when you see your waveform and you zoom way in There they when you make an edit point sometimes the two halves of that where the edit point occurs Don't actually meet in the middle like this They actually meet at two different spots When that happens That's called a discontinuity and that makes a click But I'm not sure if that's what quite what she's describing. I'm a little bit perplexed. She said because she's mentioning a specific I think she means frequency She says no, it's in the non speaking area. So she's talking about doing the room tone There is something that's in there that happens to be in the 146 Kil our Hertz Oh, well, that sounds there's some tone or some noise in her inner space that's in that frequency range It's probably in a fan if you can all see this we're talking about this red line in the middle here Yeah, that's the crossover point if you edit from that point over You will not get a click especially if you go back over to the Next crossover for the next crossover point right there And if you do that You'll notice that it's a nice smooth transition Even though we we're dealing down to the sample level here And I think adobe audition is all auto fixing that now, isn't it? It does isn't an auto That's the whole thing about adobe auditions that yeah, whenever one of you do those types of things It creates that crossover point anyway So that's oh, she's saying the wave Goes from negative 43 I guess db she didn't put the And when you're putting in notes make sure you tell us the units So if you're talking about 43 db versus 43 kilo Hertz or frequency, but um from negative 43 to negative 53 So that's the range in which that uh sound is hovering. Okay. She means db Yeah, so there's some tone that's hovering in that decibel range And it's probably some of that background noise we were just talking about Yeah, it must be some kind of room tone or some equipment That's in an adjacent room or a unit or something that's creeping into your space And that's why you that's and that's why you send us a sample. So yeah, we hear this it takes Two seconds for us to go. Oh, and yeah, I know what that is. It's your it's a refrigerator. It's your air conditioning Yeah, we're rarely totally stumped. I mean it can happen if there's something Like wrong with the equipment that's where the noise is It's originating from inside the mic or something like that That's a whole different thing. Um, but that's pretty rare that that happens. Yeah Uh question from grace newton. This is a good question This is i'm about to hang my cloud Using teacup hooks and blankets Should there be a space between the ceiling and the blankets? How much? Well, it's a matter of you It's it's a sort of a a trial and everything wouldn't you say it's like well, okay You start it like you know six inches And then you know, it takes a couple of people and you lower it and you find out where the sweet spot is for that For hanging that so it's blanket. So that means that things gonna hang down. I'm assuming it's gonna hang down kind of like a Like a curve Right because it's suspended from the edges or is it's I don't know how she's exactly hanging it with teacup hooks But if it's just hung from the perimeter, it's gonna kind of pillow Right, right. It's gonna build it's gonna billow out in the middle. So it's automatically gonna have a gap from the ceiling It's gonna have a gap several inches um That's let's let's take a look Yeah, we've got yeah, you've got some clouds here clouds that are in your in your space Yeah, these are made out of rigid acoustic treatment Yeah with a wooden frame right and you can see how I how I hang them there They're all about six inches to a foot off the ceiling While it's it's it's an arched ceiling. So yeah, it's it's that's right. It's not a flat ceiling So it's a little more complicated here but um Yeah, it my understanding is that there's a law of diminishing returns if if you leave too much of a gap That isn't beneficial So I've heard somewhere between Four and six inches off the ceiling is beneficial. That's what I've read somewhere I can't remember where or who and I think it depends on how thick the paneling is and etc. So if it's just a blanket I don't know how much of a difference it's gonna really make whether you have a gap there or not because it's not very thick So all righty All right. Why am I why am I jiggling like that? You're max head rooming? I'm well, I know no no no no Oh Maybe we can clean it up in a break, but yeah, we'll we'll get to that in a second Or I just switch back to the other camera we're using and then uh Yeah, that might help camera. That's a weird That is totally like max head room, huh? There we are you're doing the other news While you're doing that i'll go into the lisa or linda joce minors question And she says what home studio problems come up the most Oh, you're hearing them all You are hearing them all the ones you're hearing are a lot of the common ones like noise. What is this noise? How do I get rid of this noise? What why is this noise happening? Those are a lot of them. Um, it's really a noise related Um, why do I sound like I'm in a box? Why do I sound like I'm in a tube tube? Yeah, uh, why do I sound like I'm really far away from the microphone? um Let's see how do you record voiceover? How do you edit it? You know These are a lot of the common questions. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's that I it's like yeah, why does it sound? I mean, how many times have we done this? Yeah, why does it sound like uh, why does it sound like I'm so far away? Because it's a side address mic and it only works on one side Yeah, exactly You might be talking back of the microphone that that's a very common mistake because these large diaphragm condenser mics Are a little less obvious, which is the right side to talk. It's most of them have a clear Logo badge or something Whereas a mic like this is pretty painfully obvious where to talk into it because it Plugs in here and it points this way, but Anyway, yeah, those those are some of the most common Questions for sure is really about sound in the room What the mic is hearing the acoustics Issues that are causing a weird sound um, and I I really like to um Relate sound with light or photography, right? Because people think visually more, right? I mean, it's easier to Explain what it looks like to be out of focus No, we all know what out of focus what what is mine? It sort of looks like that That so what dan's doing is adjusting the focus ring on his camera He and I both have webcams that allow you to manually focus, right? Unfortunately microphones don't have a focus ring Right, they don't have a knob that lets you fine tune the focus The only way to adjust it is by properly placing it moving it further and closer Tilting it higher and lower You know moving it around your face You know, that's how we we focus the microphone, right? So I like using I like relating Sound with with photography or video because I feel like that kind of That that fits and then like light the light you see that lights my hand up That is the acoustics for sound, right? So the light for a photo is the acoustics for the recording So better acoustics better recording better lighting better video Makes total sense to me All right, what else we got here Um, Terry briscoe any advice on how I can improve me here I think he's My yeah, unless you're just talking like a pirate. Can you improve me here? Um How do you improve your ear your training? Yeah practice practice practice practice. It's You have to understand george and I have been doing this for so long That we know what it's supposed to sound like whistle Um, there are things that go wrong We know when things are right because we don't hear anything else But you know how we always talk about signal to noise ratio and stuff like that, you know, right signal being your voice Noise being anything that's not everything else So yeah, just try and find Where that works best for you and uh and and listen it's like All right, that's not my voice and you have to listen to your your recorded files and you'll figure it out and listen to uh Listen to commercials Right listen to well produced well recorded audio Right now don't expect your dry audio to sound exactly like those because they obviously have some processing But generally commercial voiceover audio is not super duper processed right Promos trailers radio production that stuff is highly highly process So it's not a really good one to compare against but listening to good well produced high budget television commercials The voiceovers are very very well recorded and you'll notice you'll start noticing something common between them Um about how they sound and why they sound that way. So that's probably part of that That part of that ear training and it's just repetition and it's time It it takes years before you just naturally understand what good sound audio sounds like All right Well speaking of time we're out of it for this hour anyway We're going to take a quick break and then we're going to re-rack it to talk with mark cashman. So uh Don't go anywhere. We've got lots of great stuff to talk about here on voiceover body shop And if you got a question from mark, he can throw it in there now that'll help too Anyway, we're going to take a break. I'm going to figure out what's going on with my camera And we'll be right back here on voiceover body shop. So don't go away You're still watching v obs Hello v obs viewer listener aficionado fanatic i'm david h laurence 17th. I'm The same as you I love this show and i'm glad you're watching. Um last week We opened and closed registration with one week. That's the only week. It's open for the vio heroes pro training curriculum if you want to build a spectacular successful and practical and satisfying voiceover Uh career i'm here to help you with that And one of the big questions we got was that's a pretty hefty price tag. Do you have a payment plan? And i'm happy to tell you that I created one for those of you who looked at the price of the Incredible value that you were getting but the price was a little outside your budget. How do we do this? So we have an option of a three or a four month plan All you have to do is go to vio heroes dot com slash go That's vio heroes dot com slash go and you'll get all the details if you want to jump in But you didn't have all the money all at once we can give you a payment plan Check it out at vio heroes dot com Slash go and i'll see you inside the program In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept To live online in a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish Don't try it yourself go with the pros voice actor websites dot com for your vio website Shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Yeah, hi, this is carlos ellis rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voice over body shop You are And guess what we're gonna start warming up for for mar cashman here in just a minute Let me just adjust my focus just a little bit here focus rings. You can adjust the focus on that We have these cameras we've got we've been trying a lot of different cameras over the years But I like these ones that you can manually once you get it focused right it stays there And you don't have to mess with it and all right Where were we okay? That's right. Well, we have to first off we have to Talk about people who donate to the show which we really appreciate by the way Uh our donors of the week are robert ledham Oh, i'm looking at the i'm looking at the wrong donors. Sorry about that That's okay. Uh moving down to steven chandler kasey clack jonathan grant tom pinto Shelly avilino greg tomas a doctor voice ant land productions martha con 949 designs. Hey lea penny and jonathan grant Uh christopher epperson sarah borges philip sepear brian page patty gibbons rob rider Shayna pennington baird don griffith Trey moseley tray's been with us for years a tray diana birdsall and sandra man willer all righty Uh, hey remember home voiceover studio dot com if you want to work with me It's easy enough just go over there and you'll see all the things we do Or if you want to work with george go over to just head over to george the dot tech All right Let's see we need to thank our amazing sponsors with whom this show would not actually happen Uh, like harlan. I know harlan hogan's voiceover essentials a voiceover extra source elements vio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com jmc demos and world voices dot org the industry association of freelance voice talent All right, thanks to jeff holman for great job in the chat room because Questions make this whole thing work really well Sumer lino sweating her tuchas off because her air conditioning isn't working. No All right director and lee pennie for just being lee pennie. All right We're gonna re-racket and we're gonna talk with mark cashman. So don't go away. We'll be right back But anyway, have a great week. We'll see you next time on voiceover body shop. I'm dan lennard I'm george wittem and this is voiceover body shop or vio b s