 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop. Tech talk. Tech talk Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. Thank you very much. He's been waiting all week to do that. If you got to go and by the way, this is tech talk number 105 105 tech talks. Yeah, baby. That is 105 hours of more voiceover home studio tech than you'll ever get anywhere else because we've been doing it longer than anybody else, which means we know more than everybody else. So listen to us. Anyway, put your questions in the chat room. Get ready because we got some great stuff for you tonight. You've got lots of cool stuff. I'm going to talk about kids and tech. So if you got kids, keep them in the room. It's time for voiceover body shop tech talk right now. Voiceover body shop tech talk is brought to you by voiceover essentials.com, the home of Harlan Hogan signature products, source elements, the folks who bring you source connect the heroes.com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training voice actor.com your voiceover website ready in minutes voiceover extra your daily resource for voiceover success and by world voices, the industry association of freelance voice talent. And now here's your hosts, Dan and George. And if you're wondering, I'm Dan Leonard. Oh, sorry. I'm just jamming out of here. I'm George the tech. This is voiceover body shop or vo b s tech talk, tech talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. All right. Oh, that was perfect. Now we're getting into good Foley stuff here. This is just fabulous. Oh man, we can have all these giant color flashing buttons. We got to press them once in a while. That's right. You know, I've got and I got FDR. Can't go wrong with that. Never mind. It's Bjork. Bjork? Icelandic music sucks. If you've ever listened to it, she's the weirdest artist I've ever seen sell out in minutes. I wanted to see her years ago. And she's the best that they have in Iceland. You know, so she's amazing. Fascinating. Actually, I like her stuff, but yeah. And of course, everyone remembers the swan outfit that you wore. You never forget the swan or any of her outfits. I can't remember what award show that was for, but it doesn't really matter. MTV maybe. I don't know. It might have been the Academy Awards. Anyway, we've got lots of tech to talk about tonight and we'd love to have your questions. And that's why you're here. So put them in the chat room so Jeff Holman can feel useful and make sure that we get those questions. So video. Let's start off because nobody else has. But no, I added the video because I wanted to queue it up, but instead it immediately played it without my having a chance. Right. Because we have to, yeah, we have to do what we refer to as plug a palooza because remember, everybody has to have a home voiceover studio. If they're a voice actor, if they're an accountant, perhaps it's not so important. Just having sharp pencils and stuff. But if you're a voice actor, you have to have a home voiceover studio. It is a completely unique environment. And as we always say, every voice is different. Every room is different. And you need someone who understands how to make you sound like you and not like a bunch of other people unless you're doing characters. In a lot of cases now, even the gear is different. Absolutely. We're very picky about what microphones we want you to use. I think maybe we're more picky about what microphones we don't want you to, but that's true. It's definitely unique gear that we want you to look at too. Right. I mean, we've been finding all sorts of cool stuff and George and I are not easily impressed. I mean, you're constantly sampling things. You're constantly buying things too. But try to do as little as possible. You have a bad case of... I bought a new Bluetooth speaker. I did buy a new Bluetooth speaker. What was wrong with the old Bluetooth speaker? It was stolen, but that's another story. Okay. That has nothing to do with I have to have as many Bluetooth speakers as possibly, you know, he with the most Bluetooth speakers wins. Anyway, he with the most Bluetooth devices on their iPhone that they can connect to wins. Maybe that's it. How many Bluetooth devices do you have in your Bluetooth devices list? Probably half of those don't exist, but... Yeah. I think I just have some headphones and various other things. But then again, I'm very old school. I don't want to do what all the kids are doing and have all that stuff. And you're under 50, so you still count as a kid. I'm a Bluetooth addict. It's true. It is true. Anyway, so anyway, if you need help with your home voiceover studio and want to get the help you need in creating it to fit your lifestyle, to fit your what type of work you're doing, you can work with one of us because we've done it all. I'm a professional voice actor. George has been working with voice actors for over 15 years and getting their studios down. We know what you need. If you want to work with George, where do you go? You go over to george.tech. That is our home for performer-friendly techs. That's our new brand over here at George the Tech. We support all sorts of different producer, creator, actors, and musicians with their studios and design, build, tech support, train, or just listen. The sound check is really, really important. And that's absolutely, if you don't know what to do, if you've already gone to our first timer thing, filled out the little form and said, here's my issues. The next thing you should do is get a sound check. And Dan, he hasn't called sound checks. What do you call it over at your website? Oh, I'm at the homevoiceoverstudio.com. Sometimes I'm starting to second-guess myself on this, but I have the specimen collection cup. Oh, you just happen to have one, too, where you can click on that and you can deposit your sample of audio. And I will analyze it for you. I will give you my thorough rundown of what's right about it, what you could improve. If it's way off base and you need some more help, we can arrange that. But most of the time, it's like, your volume's a little low. Maybe there's a little too much background noise. Here's how you can fix that. And that's important. We will tell you what is right. We'll tell you that if it's right as is, we will tell you that. Absolutely. We're not going to try to sell you things you don't need. Right. Also, mention that I'm on George's staff, if you call 911 on his thing. I got one this week. Did you really? Yes. Oh, no. Why does it sound so distant? And when that happens, there are two reasons. One, the mic is backwards. I don't know. And the other one is you haven't set your interface right. Which one was it? It had the interface, because he had done it before. He says, why is it sound distant? Because you're talking on the laptop's mic, not on your own mic. And usually that's because you're on a PC. And the PC will say, well, I like that interface better than this one. Or I just, I don't think that interface is going to work. So I'm going to make sure that it's the laptop microphone doing it. The worst thing is when you plug a something into the microphone jack of the PC, and some other software thinks that is actually what you want to use. And it switches away from the mic, you know, the USB interface that you were using to the microphone jack, because it's so smart that when you plug in a microphone, well, obviously you want to use that 10 cent microphone you just plugged into the microphone jack for a voiceover. So yeah, that is, it doesn't matter what you run, that is still a problem for the ages. Which mic are you actually recording into? So if it sounds distant, chances are it's one of those two things. And you know, I'm thinking, well, it could be that, it could be that. Oh, wait a second. Mac or PC? Okay. That's the thing. No, Mike, you cannot use someone else's specimen to pass an audio test. No, because I know what you sound like. Anyway, it's time for your update and you have a video for us. So tell us what's going on. You know, Zoom marches on. They update it constantly. And I'd heard about a new version. Well, I went to download the new version, which as of this video is 5.14.10. And I was excited because in the release notes, which are long, like the amount of stuff that they add or fix is mind boggling. One of the things was persistent channel selections. Now, this doesn't mean anything to you if you've never bothered to set your channels in Zoom. And most of you probably don't need to because if you're using a standard two channel audio interface, keeping it simple, it's not a big deal. However, many of you don't listen and you still use these. And I appreciate it because you have to pay me to set them up for you, which is always nice. And he's holding up an Apollo twin folks in case you're listening to the podcast. Correct. Thanks for reminding me they were a podcast. The Apollo twin is much more complicated. It looks like it's just two channels because it has two jacks on the back for mics, but it's really a more like 10, right? That's how these things work. So you can set which channel you're recording in or sending into Zoom, which can be useful unless, of course, Zoom forgets that setting for you every stinking time. Well, they supposedly fixed that. And here's was my experience in trying that out video because nobody else has George the tech. Okay, well, Zoom has updated their software once again. I don't have my Zoom set up to install the latest updates. I like to wait until it's had bug fixes and then allow those updates to install. And even then I do it manually, right? I am very careful about how I use my Zoom. I use it every day. It's part of how I run my business. It's how I provide tech support. It's crucial. So I don't let it auto update. So I finally decided to try out version 5.14 point, blah, blah, blah. Well, what is the latest version truly at this moment? The version I'm running here is 5.14.10. So theoretically means there's been 10 patches to version 5.14 since it came out. Now, what is different in this version? Let's take a look. It's all about sound here, of course, and that's what we care about here at George the tech. Let's take a look at our settings and go to audio. And let's see what's new here. Ah, live performance audio. It's a beta. So I guess I did install something with beta in it, but it's recommended for multiple instruments or voices in different locations. Now, all the details they will give you is what you see when you mouse over the little question mark reduces audio lag during live performances when musicians are on separate zoom clients. Of course they're going to be on separate zoom clients, right? Requires high speed internet or call quality will be significantly reduced. Well, that's what we'd expect anyway, right? If the internet goes bad, we want the quality to degrade so we can stay connected. Okay, that's fine. So that's live performance audio. Does it give you any more information than that? Not that I can see. If I click on advanced, nothing more to read here. Just the usual echo cancellation algorithm, which is either auto or aggressive. That's all you get. Now, let's take a look at what happened to our original sound for musicians and are these related? Well, we don't know because all you get is a radio button that chooses between these two. It's a toggle. So when you're in live performance audio, is it also in high fidelity music mode? Don't know. Is it using echo cancellation? Don't know. Is it stereo? Don't know. So there you go. This is the way zoom rules have audio features. One of the things that zoom said was going to be a part of this new version is the ability to persistently store your channel assignments. So anyway, it's been using zoom and taking advantage of the channel assignment feature knows how frustrating it's been that you could not have your channel assignments persistent, meaning every time you would join a zoom session or even change audio input settings, you would have to change your channel assignments. It says here that persistent audio channel selection is one of the new features. However, I go into zoom. I look where the channel selection feature existed and it was right here right above audio profile and it's gone. It's no longer there. So here I am hoping to have the channel selection feature available and persistent. And not only that, it's just plain gone. I don't see it anywhere. Certainly it's not going to be in the general menu that would be plain silly. It's not in the video menu. That would also be silly. Really, it'd be silly for it to be anywhere other than audio. So did they hide it somewhere else? Let's look at microphone and choose our input channel chat. That's my input channel from my roadcaster pro two. There's no other channel selection capable there. Let's try our mute microphone menu input menu area and see if it's somewhere buried in there. Just the testing things are there. Audio settings just takes us back here. So anyway, this was supposed to be a tutorial how to use zoom properly. And yet with this version 5.1 point 4.10, I can't choose channels that let alone have those channel selections be persistent. Anybody has any comments, please leave them below. If I'm crazy, tell me if I'm missing it. And if you want to yell at zoom in chorus with me, we know how to get ahold of them through the folks at office hours global because zoom comes and guests representatives of zoom come and guests on there all the time. And we have probably a pretty good chance of getting somebody's attention. So let me know. Anyway, this is just a slight rant slash tutorial or something. I don't even know what this video is. Anyway, George the tech, come find me at George the dot tech and my whole tech team where we provide performance friendly techs. Take care. One gets the impression that perhaps zoom is trying to pay attention to what everybody's asking for. But they don't really know what it is they're asking for. Yeah, they heard they heard they're supposed to wear running shoes, but they didn't know they go on the feet or something. I don't know what it is. They just they just keep missing certain aspects to their technologies. I mean, I'm really glad it is evolving. And we do rely on it so heavily for so much. But it's frustrating when an update removes things. You're just like, Where did it go? Yeah, so I mean, it is I do like that zoom has there's a setting where you can say do not install every update. Install a I think they call it delayed schedule. I really like that because if that new update pushes out, and there's an unknown bug that just hits everybody, you're kind of immune. Because well, you stayed home that week, you didn't go to school, you didn't get sick, right? So you didn't run the new version. So that's not a bad idea to stick off the stick on the older versions. So I'm using you guys already saw me talk about this mic quite a bit. This is the earthworks ethos mic. And you know, somebody's saying I think it was Mike McGonagall actually said, Hey, you don't need the pop screen. It sounds fine without it. Right. So I'll take it off. And it's fine. But I'm still not because I'm using it down below like this. I'm still a little bit prone to close. So yeah, there's one. When they're bad, they're bad. Right. So I was looking at the windscreen the other day I stuck my finger in there and I was like, wait a minute, there's something more to this windscreen. And I pulled out this little guy more foam. So this is a this is a multi layered pop felt pop solution really, right? On the outside is a windscreen. Now this is probably the least useful thing. In fact, if I was to put this on without this little guy, pop, pop, pop, pop. That is bad. Not as bad, right? But pop, pop, still get some plosives, right? This little strange foam thing is really the key to the things pop filtering. This thing is really what's doing it like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. This little little doodad right here is it. Well, I've seen a pop screen for large diaphragm mics that is basically a little holder that just holds a big disc made out of this stuff, whatever this stuff is. And so what they've done is they've integrated it into their pop screen, which I thought was extremely clever. Right. And so what you're looking at here is you're looking at the foamy thing thinking that's really the doing the heavy lifting, but it's actually what's inside the count. So that thought that was a cool little discovery. I would share that with you guys. If you're using that particular microphone, if you're using that special, but I bet with a little bit of research, you could probably find this stuff, cut a little block of it out and shove it into your own, whatever a microphone's windscreen is and get the same effect out of it. I know you're not supposed to pop the mic. That's right. Pop the mic placement means you're not going to pop the mic. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Yeah, that's right. And having the mic, this is the whole point is also having the mic from below and pointing up is the best way to accidentally pop your mic. So we don't recommend this placement for, for voiceover, but we do it on camera a lot for various reasons. Now microphone related, but absolutely completely new technology that just popped up on my radar through a colleague at office hours.global is this piece of, I would call it science fiction. Okay, show us. Let me show you this, the everything microphone. It is a new microphone from a company called Konos. And it's called the everything microphone because it is a microphone array and inside this black non-microphone looking thing, which by the way, did you notice the, did you notice the plug on the bottom? It's an ethernet. Oh, I was going to say that's, that's a net cable. Okay. It's a net cable, right? So it goes, it, the mic connects to its brain or the controller box via an ethernet cable, cat six or whatever. And then you put the microphone wherever you need it. Well, what this thing is doing among other things is this is a, it's not even a sound field microphone unless that's what they call it. It's actually, I'll read it to you. A compact 80 element high fidelity, high sensitivity array with adjustable directivity and optional real time noise filtering to capture the clearest sound at a distance, even in the most challenging sonic conditions. That's what this thing supposedly does. That's pretty specific. So inside that little black metal two box thing, there are 80 capsules. 80, count them 80. And so this thing, this brain allows you to change the pickup pattern of the microphone by twisting this little knob. So the three main beam, the three main pickup patterns are narrow, which is more like a hypercardioid. You have mid beam, which would be like a standard cardioid maybe, and wide beam. Wide beam is the most unique really, because it's really picking up only what's in front and nothing what's behind it. But then you also notice there's a yellow and a blue and a yellow. The blue is the front of the microphone, what you're picking up. The yellow is the rear of the microphone. So you can actually choose to record the rear as well and balance how much of the ambient background sound there is in the microphone. Now would you do this in a voiceover booth? I don't think so. But it's an interesting idea for sound designers. And it has three microphone jacks, which is pretty bizarre, because you can choose to record the front side of the pattern, the rear side of the pattern, and then the pattern that you've chosen essentially, which is the combination. I think that's what the pattern that is that you're selecting. I actually have no idea. I don't really know what that means. But there's a nice image of Pac-Man on there. It's an interesting one. Now I thought it interesting that in the product description they talk about noise reduction. And the only reason I would think that they would build that in is to a feature that's accessible directly within their, I don't know if it's in the hardware or something, is because it needs it. And what I've known from microphones is the smaller the capsules, the higher the self-noise. If you take 80 capsules and combine them all together, there's going to be some noise. It's going to have a hiss for sure. So I think the noise reduction that they talk about is being more of a tool to deal with environmental noise is really more a tool to deal with the mic's own self-noise. But we'll see because as far as I know, this is not fully available yet. It says where to buy. Because I was going to ask price point on this. Price point, if you had to ask, is the price point maybe? It doesn't say it is. Well, it does say that it is available from a few dealers, including true audio. And this is really a tool that's very clearly looking to the live location production sound market. You need a mic that gets rid of background noise. Yeah, they say these guys don't, they're slated as a dealer, but you can't buy it yet. You can't find Kono's on their site. But it looks really fascinating. Where is it relevant to voiceover? Don't know yet. But if it means I can put a mic up in a very substandard situation with noise and other issues, maybe you've always wanted to have a room with glass on two sides of your booth. I don't know. And you're trying to steer the pickup right at the voice and ignore everything else. This could be kind of the next level of being able to do something like that. I don't know. It's new, crazy gear. Costs probably three to five grand as far as I can. As far as might be my best possible guess. But if it does what it says on the tin and it's less than a thousand bucks, well, maybe we'll talk about it some more on this show. Kind of reminiscent of that AKG mic that was square and long that we would use in radio. But yeah, exactly the number. Or wait, was that the Sennheiser 441? Maybe it was the Sennheiser 441. It kind of looked like it was almost square in the cross section. Yeah, man. Yeah, that was a really, actually a really good mic. It was. It's a really good mic. I don't know if they still make it. But if you find one in a yard sale for 10 bucks, definitely pick it up. Yeah. All right, that's my tech update. Dan, you're going to talk about kids and VOTech. Yeah, I've been dealing with a lot of parents lately. No, who apparently are not voice actors, but their kids are voice actors. There's one right around the corner. I'm walking down the street. The phone rings. George is like, this guy's around the corner from you. So I walk down there with Mishka and like knock on the door. He goes, service with a smile. He was shocked. He was shocked. Yeah. I mean, he watches the show a lot. And yeah, that was great. Yeah. But it wasn't him. It's his son who was doing stuff for animation. Aaron Matano, that was the name. Yeah. Yeah. And the, you know, a lot of animation and gaming companies are, they're hiring kids because they want authentic voices. Well, if you don't know anything about recording and your kids think they do, they, neither of you probably do. And I keep finding that out no matter who I talk to. And I'm going into a lot of people's closets and they're like, okay, get your kid in here. Let's see how tall he is. Here's how you record. And the parents is trying to learn how to record when in reality, the kids should know how to record because by the time they're older and are still professional voice actors, it'll be second nature to them. And, you know, and I, you know, I, I try to teach you to people, but if they're, if they're a parent that has no idea what they're doing, you're really, you're really behind the eight ball on this. You know, kids don't seem to understand recording properly. They think you're just supposed to talk into the microphone and that's, that's how you do that. Or they don't understand acoustics or all the things that you and I talk about all the time, George, just totally lost on parents. The kids, they're even more lost than the parents. So if you got a kid that is starting in voiceover and his book and work, how many times do I hear, you know, my son wanted to do it. We did a demo. We did an audition and he booked the first job. Give him a big head. That's the part I'm really concerned about with my own daughter, right? I'm like, you're going to go through coaching until Martha says you are ready. No, we're not. We're not going to take any shortcuts because that is a concern. Right. But at least you know how to record. I figure she's picked up something here or there. But for the most part, if you've got a kid and you're trying to get a voiceover studio, contact us. You know, I like working with people with kids because I got them too. They're not really kids anymore, but, you know, they, I've taught them how to record. Do you think, do you recommend, would you recommend anything differently to a parent who's getting stuff to record a kid versus an actor just recording themselves? Yeah. Maybe a lower mic stand. That sort of thing. You know, and it, because really, I mean, you know, mic height is really important. I have to teach them this is proper mic technique. Don't defy that. As long as you keep things the way you're supposed to, it shouldn't be a problem. And a lot, and of course, I think engineers realize, okay, it's a kid. They're looking for the performance, not the recording, but you want to have it as clean as possible. So it's something else that if you don't know, perhaps you need to contact one of us or if you have a friend who has a kid in voiceover, tell them to talk to us. Anyway, we got a bunch of questions tonight, which we love more than life itself. Well, maybe not that much. So stay tuned for that. We'll get to those questions right after these important messages. So don't go away here on voiceover body shop. We'll be right back. This is Arianna Ratner, and you're enjoying VoiceOver Body Shop with Dan Leonard and George Wittem, vobs.tv. Have you noticed the specific demands of clients regarding our home VO studios? Are they at a professional level to record for broadcast? And what does that mean? To me, it means it doesn't sound bad. I've seen several now demanding cardioid condenser microphones. Some are great and cheap ones not so great. So how do you choose? It's like standing in the checkout line at the supermarket, deciding which candy or mince you want to buy. So which is right for you? Make it easy on yourself and get the Harlan Hogan Signature Series VO1A, the first and only mic designed for voiceover performers by a voiceover performer. The VO1A faithfully captures deep tones without sounding bassy and has a silky smooth top end that's never harsh. A perfect sound palette for both male and female voiceover performers. Get the complete kit with mic cable and shock mount now. Go to voiceoveressentials.com where you'll see all their great products made just for us voiceover people. Source elements. Now's your chance. Did you send me anything to read today? Nope. I'm going to make it up for you again. So let's do it. Source-elements.com, Woodard Company. They have, those are the grindstone the last few years to create a new version of Source Connect. That completely rethinks the way the software operates, the workflow and everything. And it's coming this year probably. But in the meantime you want to get in early and get in now. If you sign up for a subscription, you can get established as a Source Connect available or Source Connect accessible voiceover actor which opens you up to another echelon of voiceover work. It really does. It also puts you in a big searchable database of voiceover studios that have Source Connect and talent who have voiceover capable Source Connect studios. In fact, you can actually in the system detonate whether you're just talent or talent and an engineer or talent and a studio and make yourself available in the database as well. So there's just a lot of ways that Source Connect can be helpful. And we recommend you get set up, get started, sign up, get yourself your subscription. Why a subscription? Because you'll get ongoing support, you'll get help to get it started and all of that's going to be covered under that subscription cost. So we feel these days, that's the way to go. If you want to get started, source-elements.com. And now let's get to those questions right after this. I don't think there's a feeling quite like that moment when something you've auditioned for becomes something you get booked on. Especially when it comes to audiobooks. You audition for an audiobook on ACX or in some other form or fashion and then somebody says, hey, we like what you did. We want you to be our narrator. If that isn't a feeling that you've had lately because either you haven't figured out how to do audiobooks or because the efforts that you've put toward audiobooks just don't seem to be working, I've got a solution for you. Let's start with some free videos and then if you want registering for the ACX Master Class. I'm David H. Lawrence, the 17th. Along with Daniel Day, I teach that class and you can get to those free videos and to registration if you'd like at acxmasterclass.com slash join. That's acxmasterclass.com slash join. I'd love to help you get there. Hi, this is Bill Farmer and you are watching Voice Over Body Shop. It's great. And we're back and we have a pile of questions to get through. So sure do. Yeah and of course the thing about all these questions is it's we have an answer for it. And especially with this first question from Eve Florin, what's the best way to deal with sibilants? I bought a waves plug-in but honestly don't quite understand if it's making it better or even more fundamentally what the split on this plug-in really means. If you're a fan of waves plug-ins, is the sibilants plug-in the one that you suggest running across the whole track or just selectively? How does one decide if it's actually necessary? I noticed that I can suppress T-sounds too. Well, we have opinions about that. I'm not a big fan of de-essing and all these other things. They have a place. I'm, to me, everything is physical. If you want to suppress sibilants, don't press your tongue so hard against your teeth or the roof of your mouth. Learn to relax. You know, people say, well I have a very sibilant voice. If you're talking to them in their kitchen, you don't hear any sibilants. The only reason you'd hear sibilants is improper mic technique or you're not relaxing your tongue enough. But if you can't do that, there's always waves. Explain to them how to put it in there. Well, I want to even complicate the answer even more and that is who is determining that it sounds sibilant. Exactly. Is the client thinking it sounds sibilant or do you think it sounds sibilant? Or did you never have any issues with sibilants until some random person? It's always somebody. It's always somebody. I'd love to know who somebody is. Somebody told me, I sound sibilant, right? That, it gets into your head and then you think you must be sibilant. All it takes is one person with the wrong kind of headphones listening to it back on terrible speakers to have the impression that you're sibilant to make you think you're sibilant. The only people that will determine whether you truly are sibilant are audio engineers that work with voiceover people all day. People like us. We will help you figure out what it's supposed to sound like whistle and we'll let you know if you really truly are sibilant. And then if you are truly sibilant and the things that Dan just mentioned to you aren't available to you or just for some reason not working out for you, we will be much better able to find you a solution that works for you. Waves plugins are fantastic. Of course, they have a huge variety of them and they have several different DSR plugins. We actually had a Waves series of webinars at George the Tech in which Michael Pearson Adams who's from Waves came and taught the software and he actually did compare and contrast the different sibilants tools. And the one called sibilants is the newest of their suites. So theoretically, it's the best sounding. Does it mean it's the easiest to use? Not necessarily. So I would definitely recommend getting some time with one of us, anybody on our team that knows Waves plugins. I know I've used a lot of them but a lot of it comes down to what you're hearing. And I think you asked one most important question. How does one decide if it's actually necessary? You have to know what you sound like with confidence. You've got to ask us. Yeah, you really have to know how you should sound in comparison to others in context. You need to know that and that's very hard to know on your own unless you've been doing this for a really long time. So yeah, so I hope that helps but don't always go immediately to the fanciest plugin you can find. Right. If it doesn't sound sibilant on your end, chances are it's not. People left listening on laptop speakers and stuff. Any speaker that can't get the entire frequency of the human voice, it's going to over modulate the high end sometimes and it's going to sound sibilant but it's not going to sound sibilant wherever it is that you're sending it to and if it is generally an engineer will probably clean it up anyway. I've never heard a lot of people being really sibilant on auditions. So, okay, question from Mike Derner. For P2P auditions, hate to play. How much compression and EQ should be should we be using two? Oh, no, there's two questions. Okay, so that's question one. You want to start with that one? Yeah, sure. How much should you use? If you record it right up front, not a whole lot. You got to remember that most processing is for minor corrections, perhaps in your room. You know, you might have a node somewhere or something that you just need a tiny little bit of adjustment. Some people use these plugins and all these processes and compression and EQ. EQ, the only time I would ever use EQ is probably to set it as a high pass filter to get rid of low end rumbles and stuff like that. Perhaps if somebody is not recording it right and there's too much high end, yeah, you can back that off a little bit. Maybe if you're on a Rode NT1A, that's notoriously a bit bright. Right, exactly. It's too much high end. You might have to calm it down a little bit. Right. If you don't know how to use it, don't. And let somebody who knows how to do it set it up for you, if indeed it actually needs to be done. As we said in the last question, it might be how you're listening to playback. And when you send a file out, it's going to sound different to the person you send it to than what you are actually listening on. So it's a, everybody talks about it, but you've got to understand what it does, how it does it, and when you're supposed to use it. You know, some people, oh, you got to put compression on your auditions because you got to be louder than everybody else. Well, not if you're doing a very intimate, quiet commercial. So. Yeah, if it's like, if it's like a soft read. Yeah. But it sounds it's at this volume and it's like extremely, it's like, whoa, whoa, it has to fit. It has to be appropriate. Exactly. Yeah, EQ and compression, it's just like seasoning and a food. You just need to know how much you need. Just a pinch. And it's usually less than you think. And I look at all the EQ settings I've done for people in past doing, you know, someone's like, I've been using the same stack that you made for me eight years ago. Should I get a new one? I get that one a lot. Probably, let me take a look. And sometimes I look at the EQ curve I set up for them eight years ago when it's got like 8 dB of boost at 16K. And then it's got all these, you know, I'm like, yeah, let's refresh that because A, I'm better than I was eight years ago. B, trends have changed. C, you're probably in a different room or space than you were eight years ago. So yeah, there's just a lot of reasons to revisit it. The other one was about Zoom. And I'm going to tell you right now, if Zoom is working for you in the version you're running, just keep it there. If you're on 5.13.11, you're good to go. Don't worry about it. Unless we are of some kind of exploit that will hack your computer through Zoom, probably no reason to update Zoom. Unless there's a mandatory update because of some feature that you're being told to use. So yeah, I was on 5.13. Whatever it was until today. And I decided to finally update it to try this new feature that didn't exist. So you saw my video and that was my experience. Good to know. All right. Jeff Holman, since he happens to be here, he can actually ask his own question. Nice. Fire away. Well, you've got to unmute your mic first, though. Well, maybe I can unmute his mic. No, you can try. All right. Come on now. Unmute mic. Mute mic. There you go. Holy crap. All right. You're there. Oh my gosh. So I'm getting my cotton batting from ATS tomorrow, George. And I'm guessing that I can just nail it to the wall or is there maybe a better way to put it up? You probably could nail it to the wall with just a couple of nails. It'll just sort of hang there. But it might kind of droop a little bit. So you might want to put it on a backer of some kind. And that could literally be cardboard or it could be some foam board or it could be some kind of cheap, you know, veneer, plywood, or material you find at Home Depot. And then I would just use spray adhesive. So like 3M Super 77 is a popular spray adhesive. That way, you're basically making acoustical panels that can be taken down or removed versus attaching them directly to the wall. But however you do it, the last thing I would definitely not use spray adhesive and spray it right to the wall. Because if you have to take it down later, you're going to hate that. So yeah, I would attach it to something first. So it has something rigid to... I would attach it to something that's rigid. I think that would be the easiest way to handle it. And then you can just... If you're... Let's say they're like two by four pieces of cardboard, I don't know. Then you just... All you need to hang that is like a picture nail, picture hanging nail. So that's what I would do. Thanks a lot. Okay, have fun with the new setup. You're giving us a play by play over time as to how it's evolving. So show us and share us next time when you have it all done. All righty. Cool. All right. That's Jeff Holman who monitors our chat room. We really appreciate that. Yeah. Paul Mella asks, I'm a bit overwhelmed by the poor reviews on Apple's M2 slowing things down. Some saying worse than the M1. Is this true? Are we better getting a three-year-old chip instead of the M2? Looking to upgrade to a non-laptop and disappointed by June's WWDC release. I want to see facts. Yeah. Don't listen to what everybody says. Well, I haven't seen... I have not. I mean, I'm a tech nerd and I watch a tremendous amount of tech reviews of new gear and everything. And that's not something that's been on my radar. So either I just missed that one story or that one story is the anomaly. So just like somebody saying you're sibilant, if the other 90 people said you're not, throw out the one strange one. So I don't know how many reviews there are saying the similar thing, but I'm not aware of it. I actually have... Actually, you just reminded me of a story I didn't say. I didn't do the top of the show. Well, do tell. Do tell. This is a perfect opportunity. So I have a MacBook Air M1, the original when it came right out, right when it came out. And I've been using it for two and a half years. And it's been overwhelmingly great. So, and I've been keeping it on Monterey. So I did not upgrade to Ventura because you guys know if anybody watches this regularly, we don't like, I don't like anyway, having to worry about updates rolling out over time when I have a system that's already running. I don't want to get the new version of Ventura tomorrow and find out something new is wrong. So that's why I don't run the newest version. But, okay, long story short because this could get really out of hand quickly. I was using the MacBook on my laptop. On my lap, that's how I always use it. I never use it plugged into anything. Only thing I plug it into on a regular basis is a headphone. Headset plugged into the headphone jack. That's about it, right? And I'm just working away and it just black screen dead off. I'm like, holy crap. Yikes. I have not seen this happen on this brand new Mac before. Okay. And normally I'm pretty zen about tech. Like, things reboot, things crash, whatever, right? I'm like, I don't know. So I start googling around a little bit about spontaneous crashes. It gave me a one line crash log when it restarted. You know, your computer restarts and says, you want to send a crash report to Apple? Usually you should do that anyway. I clicked on it and it shows the crash report and it's a single line of information saying basically saying your computer just crashed for some reason. It's kind of like what it said. And I was like, this is not, this is not good. This is not helpful and it's not good. And I did a little more research and found out there's a little bit of users out there on the M1 MacBook Air who have had some spontaneous reboots that don't have a solution from Apple per se. AKA they don't have like a thing saying, here's how to remedy this problem kind of thing. So I did what I thought was the same thing to do and I bought another one, but I didn't buy another M1. I bought an M2. So I have a MacBook Air, not the 15 inch, the big one, the new flashy one, the 13 inch MacBook Air M2 coming. It's supposed to be here the end of next week, I think. And I'm gonna retire my M1 MacBook Air. So I have no idea what to say other than that. Just your story reminded me of my story. And the point is, is like sometimes the troubleshooting process is so laborious that you cut bait and you just move on to a different piece of gear, which sounds crazy. But with tech like this, computers that are so new, it's such a new architecture and you can't swap out componentry. It's all in there. You can't do anything. Sometimes you might find that the journey of troubleshooting, the install this, upgrade that. And all the residual things that happen as a result take so much more time and just starting from a clean slate with a new machine can make sense. Anyway, I'm hoping that's my experience and this one doesn't have the same problem. Apparently the issues were M1 specific. Nobody with M2s seemed to be reporting the same problem. Knock on wood. Hopefully the new M2 is trouble-free. I don't know if anybody else has had that happen to them. What was supposed to be the improvement with the M2? I mean, I like my M1. It does some weird stuff every now and again. I've had programs that just suddenly go, hey, where'd it go? Not often, but what was the M2 chip brought along? Well, yeah, it's certainly our performance. I mean, there's a performance improvement. That's the whole point of releasing a new chip is usually performance-related. There's an architecture in the M2 chip that has maybe one feature that's around machine learning that's kind of, I think, unique from the M1 maybe. But generally your day-to-day, the things that you do with your computer, for the most part, you will not probably notice any difference. If you went from an Intel to an M2, it would be a ginormous improvement. If you went from an M1 to an M2, it would be a minute, very small improvement in performance. So yeah, I don't think you're going to notice anything big at all. So yeah, nothing to be really concerned about. This stuff that was released in June was overwhelmingly targeted to pros. And when I mean pros, I don't mean pro voiceover actors. I mean pros that do heavy, heavy graphics. Yeah, heavy-duty multiple channels or tracks of 8K video footage and photogrammetry, which is, look it up, photogrammetry. It's very, very computer-intensive stuff. It's not what we do. It's not what we do at all. So honestly, if you have any reticence to buy a new machine, just go Apple, go to Apple, scroll to the bottom, go to the clearance section, and buy a refurb MacBook Air M1, or go to maxsales.com. That's other world computing. You know, they sell like hubs and memory upgrades, but they also have a really good inventory of refurbished used Macs. So you can save a couple hundred bucks there. You're not going to save a ton of money on an M1 because they're still so new. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, try it out. I have not heard that exact thing yet at Palma. So if you have a link to put in the comments, that's the reference to what you're describing. I would love to look at it. Please put it in there. Somebody asked me this week, because they're talking about getting a new microphone or a new computer. New computer, yeah. I'm getting old. My brain is just not focusing in on what I'm talking about. Computer. Excuse me. And they're like, I want to get a Mac Studio. And I'm like, why? Well, because, you know, I want to have enough power to do voiceover. And it's like, that's not what you get a Mac Studio for. Mac Studio, it's a $3,000 computer. And it's, you know, it's Mac operating system and has a lot of power. It can take a large thing, but it's got nothing to do with voiceover. Let's keep in mind the branding of the pro studio. This is, these are just names. Doesn't mean anything. Just because you're a pro at voiceover, doesn't mean you need a brand, something that literally says the word pro in it. And vice versa, you know, so. Right. And then one with a Mac. I mean, if you've got a 2011. Yeah, maybe it's time to move up because, you know, when you can't upgrade it anymore, then it's time to move on. But that takes a while. Ten years. When you hit 10 years, you're, you're going to get into frustration where your browser can't be upgraded. Right. And when your browser can't be upgraded, your day-to-day life on the internet becomes more irritating. Right. So, yeah. But, but if you have a computer that lasts for 10 years, how many PCs would you have bought over that period of time? So my dad is watching the show, be like, I've had the same Windows PC for 13 years and it's still great. No. Speaking for you, dad. Okay. But yeah, no, in general, in general, for sure, Windows, I think Mac users tend to use their computers longer unless you have a really custom built high-end PC that was purpose-built, then maybe you might, that might run as long or longer. Right. So if the more, the better you spec the computer begin with, the higher the spec, the more memory, the more storage, generally, the longer that thing's going to stay relevant into the future. So if you're going to spend, if you're going to decide, let's say, between a Mac mini but with upgraded memory and storage versus a very base model upper-level computer, I would get the upgraded cheaper computer if all things are equal. But I think even the cheapest studio has more memory than the highest-grade Mac mini, if memory serves, because I think the studio comes with 32 gigs of memory or something like that. That's a lot, yeah. It's still stupendously overkill. I produce tons of content every day with my M1 Mac mini, and it's absolutely great, but extremely reliable. So Mike Donner says he has a 2010 Windows 7, Windows 7 PC, you know, and it still does run. And a good computer with good parts will run for very, very many years long past the software compatibility with modern web and security standards. All right. End of subject. All right. And pretty much the end of the show. If you've got a question for us, you can write to us at the guys at vobs.tv. And, you know, sometimes we'll answer your questions as long as it's not too detailed. You know, we can always help you professionally if it's something terribly wrong. You can contact us to fix that or troubleshoot the issue. We actually have a service on George The Tech called Answers. So if you really are like, I have this question and I really want to get a good answer, yeah, there's a service for that. We charge 50 bucks for that, and you can choose who you want to get your answer from. And you can answer your questions, ask your questions there. And because getting the right information is very, very efficient. Yep. That's worth 50 bucks. Well, thank you for all your questions and for tuning in tonight. You've, you know, as I used to say on card talk, you've wasted another perfectly good hour. Yes. Listening to us ramble on about home voiceover studio tech. And but the fact of the matter, we've been doing this for 12 years. So clearly we must be saying something right. Anyway, we'll be right back to wrap things up and tell you what's coming up 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. 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. 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They have templated websites specifically for voiceover. You know, you can change the background. You can add pictures, your demos, your name, your contact information. It's all there and you can do it in less than half an hour. George and I approved it because we did it for both our kids and their sites are up and running. So go over to voiceactor.com and get your voiceover studio and voiceover head website done now. We are the World Voices Organization. Also known as WOLVO. We're the not-for-profit industry association of freelance voice talent. Voiceover is a complex entrepreneurial business. WOLVO is there to promote the professional nature of voice work to the public, to those already established in their voiceover practice, and to those who want to pursue voiceover as a career. Membership benefits include a supportive and creative community, a profile and demos on voiceover.biz, our searchable directory of vetted professional voice talent, our exclusive demo player for your personal website, our mentoring program, business resources and our video library, our annual WOLVO CON conference, a fun and educational weekend with other members with the chance to learn and network, webinars and great speakers, and weekly social chats with other members around the world. If your world is voiceover, make WOLVO part of it. World Voices Organization. We speak for those who speak for a living. Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis-Rocky, the voice of Rocko, and you're watching Voiceover Body Shop. Alrighty, thanks for tuning in tonight and submitting your questions and listening in and getting the information that you can't get anywhere else. Next week on this very show, we won't be here. I have to go to Buffalo for a wedding. I'm not excited about going back to Buffalo, but I gotta go because the weather's gonna be nice. It's gonna, it is the best time of year to go back to Buffalo. And, you know, so I have cousins. I wanna see some friends, but I will not be back. So it's the week of the 4th of July. You guys aren't gonna be watching anyway, but guess what? There are so many more Voiceover Body Shop episodes out there that perhaps you've missed somewhere along the line. You can watch them anytime you want. So why don't we do that? But when we'll return on July 10th with another great guest, a number of people have talked to me and we're gonna set it up and you're gonna have another great guest. Like we had Hugh Klitzke last week and Debra Irwin the week before that and all of the great people who are in the voiceover business who impart their expertise to you. Anyway, we have donors, people who have donated some significant cash to make sure that we can run this show technically perfectly. And those people would be Grace Newton. Oh, Grace. We love hearing that name all the time. Christopher Epperson. Robert Liedem. Steven Chandler. Casey Clack. Jonathan Grant. Tom Pinto. Greg Thomas. A Doctor Voice. Alem Productions. Martha Kahn. 949 Designs. Sarah Borges. Phillip Sapir. And Brian Page. Hattie Gibbons. Rob Ryder. Shawna Pennington-Baird. Don Griffith. Trey Mosley. Diana Birdsall. Maria Makas. And Sandra Mann-Willard. Thank you so much for your support. We really appreciate it. If you want to donate to the show because we're giving you what you need, there's a donate now button on our on our website for EOBS.tv if you're watching there right now. If you're on Facebook, go over there now and press it anyway. Let's see. Homevoiceoverstudio.com. You need help with your home voiceover studio. That's where you'll find me most of the time. It seems like I've never left my studio. And I'm answering a lot of questions. Homevoiceoverstudio.com and, you know, and submit a demo or viewer audio in my specimen collection. George, you're over at george thee.tech and you got a discount? Still got the V-O-B-S Fan 10 coupon code. Just use that on anything you book or purchase services, webinars, everything at george thee.tech, which is the home for performer friendly techs. All right. We need to thank our amazing sponsors too like Harlan Hogan's voiceover essentials. Voiceover Extra. Source Elements. VioHeroes.com. VoiceActor.com. And World-Voices.org. The Industry Association of Freelance Voice Talent. Join today. We got lots of great stuff going on. Thanks to Jeff Holman for yeoman work in the chat room and Sue Merlino for getting it done. Stop that. For getting it done technically making sure that the right pictures are on at the right time. And that's really important. So anyway, we're here to help you with your home voiceover studio and your home voiceover career. It's not an easy business. It's so hard to get everything right. It takes time and patience and training and getting the right information from the right people, which would be Mr. Woodham and myself. So anyway, we've just discovered when it comes to your audio, if it sounds good, it is good. I'm Dan Leonard. And I'm George Woodham. And this is VoiceOver. Body Shop. Or V-O-B-S. E-S. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Anyway, we'll see you next week guys, or in two weeks. Bye.