 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk tech talk Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk. All right, and it's number 991 no, it's 90 is it 90. Yeah, it's 90 Tech talk number 90 If you can listen shoot them both and get them out of the way 91 back-to-back Yeah, no if you can imagine there's 90 hours of us just talking like this Yeah, you guys just eat it up every time. Can somebody do a supercut on YouTube. What's the maximum length of time? You can make a video. I don't know. I know it's it's kind of limited on Facebook, but uh Yeah, who knows can't well house how short that they have to be on tick talk They can't be a certain length 15 seconds or more. All right. It's time for tech talk Let's get out of this and get talking about tech right now Brought to you by voiceover essentials calm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements the makers of source connect Voiceover heroes become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor websites calm where your voice actor website doesn't have to be a pain in the butt Voiceover extra your daily resource for voiceover success and world voices the industry association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts Dan and George Well, greetings everyone in the voiceover world. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or vio Bs Tech talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talking tech interesting weekend I was at mavo last weekend and Met all sorts of people. We had a great time. I like the small The big ones Yeah, you can go to those but you're gonna feel like a grain of sand on a large beach and this one you're more like you know, you're You're a pattern in a rug Was there any tech talking going on with I with me I had I was the only person talking tech Mm-hmm. Uncle Roy was there, but he didn't really he was just he was in support, right? Yeah, he was support, but I you know, I got to talk my thing with with about 20 people and You know, I've been doing these sessions for for many many years and you and I've done them together Which are always a riot. I'm the first one we did at the voice conference in In Anaheim where my mother was actually there. Yeah, that was that was a lot of fun Sitting right in front row. Yeah, and we've we've had fun doing them ever since but I was at this one and People were asking good questions and that's what we like to hear. So here on tech talk you get to ask the questions and We are here to solve them because that's what our show is all about And why are you asking us these questions? Because when it comes to home voiceover studios That's what that's what George and I do. I mean, it's It's a niche that nobody understands and I'm what I mean, nobody I mean the typical acoustical engineers the Right major recording studio designers and owners Right, and there's a lot of voice actors out there who say well, I use this and I use that Fine in dandy I'll even dare to say the booth is the booth makers don't know about well how to make the booth sound good Yeah, you know There was a booth maker at at Mavo last weekend our friend bear cave Boots. Oh, yeah, very good. You know Canada He's making those improvements in the booths and stuff But you know sometimes you someone will be you know rehearsing in a booth and you hear them on the outside And it's like well, they can hear them on the outside Can you hear men the inside? That sort of thing but mm-hmm Every voice is different. Every room is different. Every situation is different and you need ears that know how all this stuff works and how to make it sound right or Make it sound what it's supposed to sound like mm-hmm whistle and So if you need help with that if you're not really knowledgeable on it And the fact of the matter is is you don't need to be an audio engineer to be a voice actor if you understand the basics and your Your studio is set up right and it gets the approval of those of us in the intense Minority of the 500 billion people that live on this planet that actually understand what it's supposed to sound like you can work with George and I Who will make sure that if you're re if you're auditioning if you don't get the job It's not because of us because you're gonna sound great no matter what you do So if you want to work with George, where do they go? They go to That's right George the tech my home on the web for booking services online Getting a Soundcheck really it's probably one of the most valuable things that Dan and I do And it's all over there. You can have a studio design done. You can get processing But soundcheck is probably where almost everybody will benefit on some level Absolutely, and you can work with me too, and yeah, you just come over to Homevoiceoverstudio.com is it the specimen collection cup? Yeah, and again It's now at the top of the page. So it's really easy to find for 25 bucks I will give you a very thorough analysis of your audio takes me five seconds Well ten because you give me five seconds of silence you start reading and then I immediately know what's going on in your studio We've been doing this for so long. We know everything that goes on nobody else is really concentrated in home studio audio George and I have and I can hear this stuff I can tell the shape of the room the size of the room what you're using for acoustical panels Are you using acoustical panels? Are you in your living room? Are you in a booth? Are you in a quiet room all these different things are you in a closet with sliding doors, right? You know an 18 inch closet or a 22 inch closet, you know, it's like yeah, all right You know make sure you got lots of clothes in there But there's lots of ways to make your studio sound Professional because you want to be a professional and sound professional and we want you to sound professional because if you don't sound good Everybody doesn't sound good. You don't sound good. We don't look good and and that's most important Because we know what it's supposed to sound like so get in touch with us Also, if you want to you know, write to us here at the voiceover body shop if you've got a question You can you can write in any time and when you write in your question It gets to the head of the queue of the questions that we answer in the second segment of our show So that's right, right, but you can write it in now go into the chat room You got a voiceover body shop home voiceover studio tech question type it out put it in the chat room and Jeff Holman I know is still sitting in there going I want some questions and we will get those questions in just a little bit But right now it's time for George's tech up date. What have you come up with this week? I've got a couple of things One is just thoughts about microphone choice and I'm seeing more and more Dynamic microphones coming out and a lot of that reason is because Just like up until the last couple of years Everything was being made for music Now this new hot market segment is podcasting Now all the new microphones that are being launched to market tend to be focused on Podcasting and therefore they're using dynamic mics and using dynamic mics because they are trying to get an audio or oral aesthetic That is more I would say closer to broadcast or radio and so that is why dynamics are really really taking off Now all that to say that you don't necessarily get a bad sound With a dynamic mic and there are some surprisingly good sounding Cheap dynamic mics out there if you get lucky at Behringer makes a handheld like a you know SM58 style mic. That's like 30 bucks. It sounds surprisingly good The thing about dynamic mics are they have pros and cons they tend to have lower output They need more gain and if you add more gain they tend to get you tend to get noisier sound because more gain means more hiss So you gotta be really careful about them at dynamic mics The best dynamic mics are as sensitive or nearly as sensitive as a condenser mic and also Nearly as expensive or even more expensive than an affordable good quality condenser mic The benefits can quickly be offset by the cost I was just actually posted something today on the VO tech talk Facebook group And it was a sample of a singer singing into a Sennheiser 441 Not remembered them well for my radio days. It's a really unique looking mic It kind of looks like a phaser gun or some kind of a weapon from a you know an old sci-fi sci-fi movie And it sounds amazing, but it's also a very expensive dynamic microphone, right? So yeah, so be careful about choosing dynamics. I mean, there are some lucky Fines to be had Sometimes they can work well But I would still say if you buy one don't over invest in it use it as a secret weapon or a special case microphone for Specific types of reeds that you're doing Dan that have you found it an occasion because I know you've got a mic locker All kinds of stuff have you found an occasion or even a reason to pull out a dynamic mic once or twice? like if I'm asked to be a Radio announcer or something along those lines or something where it's like a news announcer or Sometimes when I'm doing something that is like old Like they're they want me to do like a read from the 50s or something along those lines I might I might drag that out of course in those situations. I drag out a ribbon mic Yeah, yeah, you really go for it with the right like yeah, right? I go for that authentic sound and and and it works especially if there's a good engineer on the other end Who knows exactly what it is? I'm trying to get and and that helps a lot Yeah, do you think they're ever gonna make like an active dynamic mic like they do with active ribbon mics? Yeah, it's starting to happen And right now my brain's leaking up leaking the brand that's trying to do it right now But there are a couple I I'm pretty sure that Aston Aston microphones is doing a dynamic an active dynamic mic and I've seen that in some studios singing situations as well again Haven't seen it or heard of it being used much in voiceover, but There are some coming out and that's basically combining a line level a microphone booster like a cloud lifter type device Into the interior of the dynamic mic and now you get a hotter more sensitive dynamic mic It's just this interesting thing as you as you do more things to a dynamic mic It becomes more condenser like aka a lot more sensitive and so it starts picking up more background noise in the room So it's it's a catch-22 Right when you're when you're doing all this stuff And that's one of the reasons some people like using a dynamic is because they're there's their environment is not optimum Yes, the dynamics tend to be able to focus in tighter on them voice and kind of reject more of the The room sound right but of course if you just fix the room sound and Solves all those yeah. Yeah, I mean it's it's all it's all related because then if you get closer to the mic It sounds like you're kind of doing a podcast or a broadcast and not a Natural conversational sound so now your next thing I will have to say I Avoided asking you about it and just went ahead and did it so you did it I was gonna say I was wondering if you did it. I did it came up. I did you put it on which computer both Oh and both of them. Wow. He went all the way all the way in I trust them I know what's going tell them what I'm talking about Well you Dan is saying he just installed Mac OS Ventura, which has only been out in a couple of weeks and The word on the street is that it is good Tim Freedlander Dan saying he's got a good experience team Freedlander who has a pretty complex home You know production studio facility with with the Apollo hardware Pro Tools Kind of the messiest system that anybody is probably gonna have He's had a very good luck with Ventura. So I'll say this I'm still not installing it quite yet, but I'm tempted to because my current Mac Mini with Big Sur Has some issues clearly things are crashy It's had some weird behavior and it might be time to just do a bigger race and install and maybe go up to meant Monterey or the Ventura I might I surmise that Ventura is sort of like in a debugged Monterey It's probably what it is because yeah running is pretty smooth. It's got a fresh coat of paint on it It's got a couple of new nifty bells and whistles, which I don't care about But if it's more stable than Monterey and it runs even better Then it's gonna sounds like it's gonna be a winner So, you know, just stay tuned ask folks that have similar setups to yours that have the same use the same software and Hardware before you take the plunge And of course as always have a backup plan have a backup of your hard drive before Upgrading I I would say if you're going from Monterey to Ventura It's probably gonna be a very smooth transition if you're going from a much older OS or an older computer I don't think I would go to Ventura. It's written a run on the modern Silicon to yeah and one M2 max. I don't think you're gonna have quite a good experience on an Intel machine Yeah, my my only complaint is that it took away my screens in my my my My desktop change the picture had a great picture of Iceland it got rid of it. It's just gone gone, huh? Well, I'll find it. I'll put it gotta be there somewhere But yeah, they tend to do that. They're like, yeah, we have a new you have an OS get a new wallpaper It's like come on. No, I want my old one. Oh, yeah, exactly Here's just a little PSA because this came up for one of my clients when you order an acoustical panel for your door Taking account the doorknob. I Know I think that that's like totally logical. We're all laughing here But I mean we had the room was all mapped out. We knew the size of the doors everything I helped her design the room the whole thing and she's like, oh, no We didn't take into account the doorknob. I felt so terrible. So well now won't you it's a pretty small door You know, I think the door is only Two and a half feet wide so like a two by four panel wouldn't quite fit on there So she would need two to two by two panels one above and one below the doorknob But hopefully dear Aaron can go without the panel on the door We're gonna we're gonna get it all tuned and listen to see if she needs that additional Panel in the door and we'll figure out what to do from there But hey, it happens take a jigsaw and just cut Oh into the panel itself. Yeah. Yeah, oh man those fabric wrap panels Those are that the downside of the fabric wrap panels. They are definitely not easy to modify That's the one pro of foam very easy to modify Another thing is I bought myself a little birthday gift and I got I finally got a Stream deck and I got the teeniest tiniest little stream deck ever soon the stream deck zoo Anything you want which is I mean anything your computer can do you can you can trigger specific things You can Have macros like I have when it says my favorite button is start work. I Walk up to my studio. I press start work launches spot. I launch is not spot-of-line That'd be start radio show I Hit start work it launches zoom It logs into my zoom account It waits about five or six seconds And then it loads the zoom session because there's a little delay between launching zoom and loading the thing You can create all in Mac a macro to do all that stuff The thing is in macros and scripts and all this stuff have been around forever and ever But it's just the fact that it's got a little button Labeled literally the word start work because you can customize the buttons It's pretty cool. I can also have a dedicated. I have a dedicated zoom mute button right here Oh, it's a museum and the thing is it's running a special Driver in the background so it knows which app the buttons are for you know help with keyboard shortcuts You have to have the whatever the app the shortcuts for it has to be the foreground app You know, I mean like if if another app is actually showing as the foreground app It's right next to the Apple logo and it says and it's the wrong app the keyboard shortcut doesn't work These are all global or or local you can choose But it's it's really cool and you can map sound effects to the buttons on here and and do the same kind of fun Stuff you do with the roadcaster Right here on the unit cool. Yeah, you mean stuff like You know, of course, I don't think I have it set up so you can hear it But it's there Of course the motor I want to demo it. It doesn't work, right? But anyway, it's it's a gadget. It's a gadget. No doubt no doubt about it But if you like a little customization and you don't like remembering keyboard shortcuts It's pretty cool. Again. This is a mini one They have some really big ones with a lot of buttons and every button has a custom image that you can map to the button Pretty fun little thing Lastly, just a very quick plug UAD forum comm if you are a Apollo user go there and check out my sub Forum called voice over podcasting and live streaming. It's not a super busy room there yet But it's a laser focused one on our on our business and it's been helpful to the folks who have tuned in there So if that's you that's I run that room. I check it out every day and and answer questions So let's talk pricey microphones Yeah, let's talk about expensive microphones. I mean, we were sort of talking about it before when you were talking about the dynamic mics When I was at mavo had a long discussion with the guys from the high-end microphone Sennheiser and Neumann mm-hmm, and of course I was wearing my telephone concert Which he was quite impressed with the baton the button down one the but yeah the wine style Yeah, I think it's pretty orange one. Yeah, that's it. I love that shirt And I wore it for my my thing But we were talking and you know and of course if you go to conferences and there's mic manufacturers there and George and I have been to NAB and And Nam, you know, we're all the manufacturers. They're like, hey listen to this microphone now I had I had to be honest with the guy and I'm like Do you think that people are going to be able to tell the difference in Voice-over and I think this was probably his first voice-over conference, which I think was very beneficial Because I was able to say he came in and he watched my my thing on home voice-over studios Mm-hmm, because I want the manufacturers to understand What is unique to what we do and you were talking earlier about the dynamic mics and the dynamic mics, right? They're great for singers because they can handle high SPL and you don't have to give them as much gain When you're a singer or you got it on a on a on a guitar cabinet on a cab as they say I've been seeing them used now There's a lot of there's a big trend of live studio sessions that are on YouTube which are really cool The band's really playing live and right, but it's a studio situation And they are almost always putting a dynamic mic in front of the singer Because it rejects a little bit of the drum sound and the other sounds out of the room, right exactly But when people audition mics, and I think we've covered this a lot over the last 11 years We've covered everything a lot in 11 years Yeah, that's true But for all the new viewers out there that are like how do I choose a microphone? And what's the best microphone for voice-over? When you're auditioning, you know higher-end microphones generally especially if you're like in a convention hall We're in a you know in a any vendors vendors area of a of a conference They have them set up generally the exact opposite of the way we tell you to use a microphone Which is upside down I level like this because it's gonna capture you the way you exist and the way other people hear you Right, but no they always seem to have them upright. Yeah, and people are like, how do I sound in this microphone? You know and then I'm like, okay when you're doing this with voice-over people You know are they going to get a true idea of really what it's gonna sound like, you know And there's you know, it's got a u87 and a 103 and a 416 You know all mics that we would you would say look if you got a great studio You got you know you have a half million dollar studio that is totally Acoustically sterile and neutral no sound coming in and there's no reverberation or it's just perfectly tuned Yeah, you can put a $10,000 telephone can microphone in there. That's what they're for If you're in your closet, you got air conditioning the dishwasher the refrigerator plumbing your kids I mean all these are dogs snoring dog. We've got highways. We got all these things It's gonna pick it up So you don't want the most sensitive mic out there and that really is I mean There's a number of differences between the really high-end mics and the stuff that we generally recommend that is you know 150 to maybe $400 tops. I mean, I mean we will recommend a 416 if we think it's important to you to have that and you have the environment in which to use it a 416 will help you in a Somewhat nominal market It was great having this guy in my session though because he was like well This is what happens with this with these are mics are for and that's what these mics are for You know had it have a great relationship with this guy now. He understands You know how his microphones fit into our marketplace Well, he knew enough to have a Sennheiser 416 because that isn't it's not outside of voiceover. It's not a known thing. No that you would use a shotgun mic Inside a booth this close like that's just not what they were designed for right? So, right? Yeah, it's a hack kind of that. We're doing it that way, right? And then of course a 416 is incredibly versatile because you can use it You know at a distance and it has great pickup And you can use it up close and direct in if you're doing like promo work and things like that You know live announce I see the live announcers people doing it like this, right? Like right off the tip of the mic right and and it works That's and it's a great mic for that and it's a road warrior It's a it's a big heavy duty mic because it was designed for some guy carrying it on top of a pole and following Tom Cruz around mm-hmm or Julia Roberts or somebody along those lines who mm-hmm Well, I have great voices, but But from a distance of more like five feet as opposed to maybe the six to ten inches that we might use with It with a 416. Yeah, but the fact of the matter is this if you're auditioning mics You have to do it in the environment in which you are going to use it Otherwise you're fooling yourself and I might also mention There's no mic out there whether it's a ten thousand dollar telefunken or Something under a hundred and fifty dollars. I won't mention any specific brand names It's not gonna change the way you read copy It's all about performance is there some subtlety what is the difference in these mics and we talked about this a bit I mean, what's really the difference? How would this mic be used as opposed to another mic, you know, and we came down to talking about national public radio Well, that's the sound that they want. Oh by the way in my new car. The stereo is even better and listening to NPR It's like it's like being in the studio with them. No cool must have HD radio Oh, it's got a super duper HD radio, but You can tell What kind of a mic they're using of course? I know what kind of a mic they use but you can tell that it's just clean and crisp and of course It's national public radio whose standards are higher than almost anybody. Yeah. Yeah, and So what we were saying about the environment that you test the mic in we I was with Rick Wasserman and tri booth at VO Atlanta last year, right and I think Neumann really lucked out because they were a sponsor And we put one of their mics up in the tri booth, right and it Obviously gave people a much different and much better impression of what that mic would sound like because we had it in that booth Right and no it wasn't soundproof But the acoustical environment and the positioning of the mic and everything were appropriate I did a little bit of software magic using clarity vx to remove the room noise, which was pretty good and And people had an incredibly good impression, but you're not going to get that in a typical Trade show environment, right and here's the other thing when you're auditioning a mic If you're listening on headphones and you're trying to satisfy song great on this You're not getting a really good impression of really what that mic sounds like you really need to have it in the environment in which you're recording and then Listen to the playback and get a much better idea because then you can listen and compare them One after another as opposed to all right. All right, turn the game up on this one Let me let me test this one and see how this sounds different from the other when you You don't need an expensive microphone if you were I'll Qualify this if you're just starting out. It's not going to make a difference You can start off with a really good USB mic or a mic. That's over $150 To 200. I mean, there's some really good ones out there I you know, we've been recommending the the road NT the NT one the Audio-technica 2035 still one of my class favorites, you know, still I I still If you got a little bit more right and and they're all they capture you as you exist and that's all that matters Yeah, that's That's my take on expensive microphones So take it for what it's worth which to me is probably a lot if you've been listening to the show If you say if we saved you five hundred dollars, it's worth five hundred dollars exactly Alrighty well Oh wrong wrong theme. That's okay. I like it. Let's play it out. All right. See you Yeah, oh that one. Okay, we're gonna take a break and we're gonna answer your questions Get them in the chat room right now here on voiceover body shop tech talk. We'll be right back This is Ariana Ratner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with Dan Leonard and George Whittom v obs.tv Headphones for voiceover. Why not get the headphones made for voiceover? That's why I use Harlan Hogan signature series voice optimized headphones 2.0 from voiceover essentials comm Harlins cans are incredibly strong and lightweight at only 8.4 Ounces the combination straight coiled audio cable stretches from 5 to 10 feet It comes with two gold plated mini plugs and a studio standard quarter inch screw-on adapter and includes the new mini jack on the left Headphone for easy cord replacement the studio monitoring headphones are optimized for voice work now even better The Harlan Hogan signature series voiceover headphones 2.0 and for a limited time when you buy the headphones You'll also get a free autograph copy of Harlan's best-selling book V.O. Tales and techniques of a voiceover actor second edition It's full of stories from the trenches and insights about making the most of your voiceover career Go on over to voiceover essentials right now and order yours Hey everybody It's time to talk source connect and that's made by source elements our sponsors for the show and It's an incredible tool set. I mean it is really what is the Really the predominant tool for remote recording of voice talent from their home studios by commercial studios and Oftentimes for bigger budget commercial jobs around the world And it's because of the workflow. It's one of the key reasons There are definitely other Softwares and tools and tillies out there that allow connectivity between the talent and the studio in high quality audio But the workflow is so seamless for the production. That's why they love it The audio goes right into Pro Tools and can also be immediately replaced with the original Raw audio right off your computer all seamlessly. It is really amazing So you want to make sure you have a studio ready for it So if you're not sure about that definitely get in touch with Dan or I we will evaluate your audio and let you know Where you stand, but if your quality is up to up to par and you're getting representation and they're saying time for source connect Go get it. Don't hesitate and there's great support. They will help you through the process Just go over to source dash elements comm and sign up for a subscription and get yourself Rolling you'll you will not regret it. Thanks source elements. We'll be back to answer your questions right after this Hey there, I'm David H. Lawrence the 17th and with my company VO heroes and my team of coaches and my community of voice-over talent We guide voice-over Actors along their journey and you may be watching VOBS here And not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching you may not even have Started yet and we actually specialize in helping you do just that So if you're watching all the stuff going on here on VOBS and going I have no idea what they're talking about I don't know, but I really want to do this I'd really like to help you. Please go to VO heroes comm slash start That's a VO heroes comm slash start and you can take our getting started in voice-over class Which tells you everything you need to get started as a voice talent And I'd love to hold your hand along the way and help you with that journey Again VO heroes comm slash start. That's VO heroes comm slash start Hi, this is Bill farmer and you are watching voice-over body shop. It's great All right, we're back And playing with the you know the button that I voice so I you know the wife's in here And she wants to listen I can hit that and she can hear the monitors Oh, that's true. Yeah yours does the special mute monitor dance, right? But we waste time here because we have a pile a pile of questions George, and I love this It's time for a lightning round Let's get it in here. I love it. Yes. Let's start off with Anne Grist go for it. Hey there Anne She asked how do you favor vocal booths from vocal booths? Dot-com and she said Dan, I love your eyes There is Marcy still in the room. Watch out You know, I want to be careful because I have not Installed or heard a recent model vocal booth something in the last four or five years. I will just from past experience I found their booths a little more difficult to assemble than a lot of the other ones and Acoustically, I didn't I wasn't happy with it. They were using, you know foam. I call it foam wallpaper It was Two inches of egg crate foam glued to the walls, you know and Acoustically just never was great. We all would always have to modify it to make it usable So that was my take I do remember though one of them I set up or heard at least set up had amazingly good ventilation like Really quiet like it had six inch ducts, which nobody does in a portable booth and it had the best ventilation I'd ever heard at that point. So we're didn't hear or didn't hear Yeah, no, I was like, it's it all and I asked the client shoes. She said, yeah, it's on. I said, wow So, yeah, they're they're certainly not all bad. It's just that those are the pros and the cons of that of that particular Brand of booths. So yeah, I would I want to not judge because I can't I haven't heard any very current Or installed anything currently to know what they're like these days. Yeah to me It's a matter of the technology when you look at all the the booth manufacturers They're all pretty much the same except maybe studio bricks, which does things very very differently. Yes in the way They're the booths are are they all soundproof? If they can reduce your exterior noise by 10 to 12 DB They may actually do what you need them to do which is filter out some of that noise that Is really hard to eliminate in a home studio. So, you know, I probably do not matter Fred North asks. Hi Fred. How you doing? Have you got any good ideas for isolating my mic boom from my desk? Well, that's not hard Mine's on my desk. Mine's not mine is attached to the wall. I probably just woke up my my poor girl Shaking my desk and it was banging against the wall Um, yeah, no, it's it definitely is better to have it on the wall There's no doubt if you want to isolate it from your desk noise or on the floor I mean, I generally insist the people use a microphone stand that is floor-mounted And isolated completely from the desk now I don't it may not be as critical as it used to be because you've lot most computers now are getting pretty Fanless especially max and there's and they don't have mechanical hard drives Yeah, they're much much quieter than used to be much quieter in which case you can probably get away with a desk You know a desk mounted, you know arm. That's you know, like like this one that I have been I have been yeah mine's mine's on my desk and between the shock mount here and and I mean if I'm if I was literally doing a line of a script I would not be touching my desk like I wouldn't be typing or anything So I can't imagine being that big of an issue these days, but Yeah, it depends on the situation Fred like what you're trying to accomplish by having your mic What wouldn't what noise is your mic picking up? I should guess I should say and the only way to know that is to listen and We can then determine. Okay. Maybe you should mount it to the wall And they and they make the brackets to do that which makes it a lot easier And that's why I have my melted as a wall I haven't and not to my desk. I have another distinct reason why I don't mount it to the wall And that's because I want to be able to do this You mean this This I What I want the mic the monitors my lights everything to go up and down at the same time So that's another reason why I have mine on on the arm. So, okay Now knowing your desk. Yeah. Yeah. All right You get Jeff's question. All right. Hey Jeff I seem to have more mouth noise than the average person I don't know if you would know that for sure Jeff. How would you know that? Despite trying to deal with it at the source with a dynamic mic like an RE20 pick up less mouth noise I don't know because you know like a dynamic mic like an RE20 has to be pretty close Yep, and the closer the mic the better it will pick up the mouth noise Also, the better than the more the mic is pointing into your mouth this versus You know as you get back to the side of the microphone it picks up less and less of the mouth noise, so It's just mouth noises. Oh, sorry. Don't touch the mic Mouth noise is a mechanical thing, right? It doesn't matter whether you're yelling or whispering The sound of mouth noise is the same volume. So it's all relative good point to how loud you're performing So if you're doing louder rolls or animation and games mouth noise is probably absolutely not an issue If you're doing commercials and things with a darker quieter delivery We're using more gain and everything mouth noise is going to be really prominent Absolutely, you know and I'm of the opinion of if you got mouth noise deal with the mouth noise Not with the microphone because there are lots of solutions to it and you know including my favorite which is alcohol Mm-hmm, which works great Jeff Mm-hmm. I'll be happy to lend you some and then you can you do that mix you do a mix with water mix with a little spray bottle and 10 spritzes spit it out and mouth noises you're gone That's cool. Yeah, that's a good way to do it. Yeah, it's and I don't think it I don't think there's a mic I can I don't think there's a mic I can recommend recommend for voiceover that will eliminate the mouth noise if it eliminates the mouth noise Then I know what I wouldn't recommend it for voiceover Good point because it wouldn't be very clear a clean open-sounding mic. It'd be very dull Yeah, really Grace Newton's got a great question, which is enough to Fill an hour. I mean I've done it. You and I done both entire webinars on this subject. Yeah She says any advice on gear for travel Like well one either don't travel and don't do what when you're traveling Is it necessary for my travel rig to be as? Sophisticated as my booth gear like a scarlet solo gen 3 road NT 1 No, it doesn't need to be that sophisticated if you're literally doing jobs from the road It's gonna be good. Yeah, but if you're trying to just get those auditions in any way you can You know kind of like getting in your steps got to get in those auditions Then you don't need something as sophisticated or bulky or right? You know that that's why the the Apigee Mike is a great road Mike Apigee Mike or the one that you have the road video might go to oh You mean I mean have you had have you had much of a chance to experiment with that on the road yet? No, well, I mean I've we've recorded video with it, and it's yeah. Yeah, it's it's really good It's a hundred dollar Mike. Yeah, you can spend extra 30 bucks for its special Lightning cable if you really want to record into a phone, but it comes with the USB cable, right? Well, no, it's it's it's strictly a it's a lightning cable It's designed to work with with an iPhone, but it has different cables that you can plug into it I think yeah, yeah, it's it's it what's got a usb-c and one end right and the lightning cable But it's not it like a charging cable It's there's something different about it, and they yes proprietary and that's MFI made for iPhone or whatever it is Right, but but yeah, they have a you can plug it into a regular computer or or camera input or whatever and I Never heard of that being I never heard a bad thing come out of that It sounds pretty good. There were some people at Mavo last week They were talking to number of people were talking about the MV 88 which plugs right into your iPhone That's one of those little mini stubby ones, right? It's a stereo X Y Right, you know, I mean if you take your iPhone and just go into your car and Just talk to it like this and they know and if it's just an audition you can usually get away with it I think the obsession with you know amazing audio quality on the road Unless you are under contract and you got to get stuff out or you got to do remote sessions on the road Yeah, you got to have good stuff, but that's one half of one percent of everybody doing voiceover Yeah, that's the that's the NBA. I forgot that's the one it looks like it It's not a shotgun mic, but I guess people think of it that way because it's round and Yeah, but it's but you can you can adjust the direction on it So it's yeah, it's a nice little mic to have and like I said You can be in your car or in a pillow fort or something along those lines and the audio quality for an audition would be pretty good and If you're really good and you really understand your environment You can get away with a one-off Something, you know promo with an iPhone like yeah with an iPhone. So I You know too many people are obsessing about this stuff because they they travel a lot I'd say if you're traveling You you cannot Continue a program a project you were working on in the studio like audiobooks You can't have a road rig and and a home rig. It's just you can't do it Or if you're doing any long format narration, you can't do it I mean unless you're doing the entire thing while you're on the road and I can't see doing an entire medical narration from You know the passenger seat of your car It's warm in there after a while. Oh my gosh, and and why are you traveling? Why are you on the road? Why is it so important that you got to do this as opposed to what it is you're on the road for? Right, but that's just me and I'm sure you're on business decision to make Exactly you get the next one from J. H. B. Hey J. Horace Great to see you guys. Where does the Sennheiser MK4 or where does it fit? I guess into the ranking of mics. How does it fair in your opinion? Since it is made by a company that makes higher-end mics How does it compare with like a Sennheiser 416? So he's talking about this Sennheiser MK4 4 I look at that MK4 is sort of like a junior or affordable TLM 103 I Don't think they're dramatically different from each other sound wise They have similar specs They're you know, they have a lot of similarities. I don't think Neumann would like that comparison very much, but Let's it's a Sennheiser. Yeah, they're made by the same parent company And I think they have a lot of a lot of similarities But yeah, so it's it's a very good mic Nothing wrong with it at all very straightforward. It's sort of like a road NT1 no bells and whistles no frills Just a good sounding condenser Mike so yeah, that's where you did we tested it once we did a pretty sure that several years ago Yeah, that famous Mike shootout. We did in your in your studio many years ago We that was one of them in the comparison. It didn't really shine or stand out It had a very flat response as I recall did it. Yeah, you know, it wasn't it wasn't boosted on the low end It wasn't boosted on the high end wasn't hyped up and shiny and no which which is fine because if you've got a nice flat sounding mic It gives an engineer or if you know how to manipulate, you know and enhance the audio from a very flat mic You know, you can do whatever you want with it But an engineer on the other end is gonna like it even more because he can do anything he wants with that's right And you don't necessarily want to do that, especially if you don't know what it is you're doing with it, right? So I think that that's pretty important. I think there's a lot of people who are really relying on lots of sophisticated technology and It's not really necessary Yeah, but but the MK4, you know, I mean it how much does that retail? What is it like 450 something $400 mic? Yeah, yeah Great, I know people who've used it they book work with it, but then again, it's not the mic that books work It's what goes on between your ears down to your lungs and out your mouth Mm-hmm. It's just it's as simple as that as long as the mic is bad or is not bad And it's interfering or it is distracting the listener from your performance Any mic is probably fine As long as it's a studio condenser Mike over a hundred fifty dollars My disclaimer there at the bottom. Yeah, I think blue came out with a ninety one nine ninety nine dollars studio condenser recently I I don't know if I've heard it yet, but could be pretty good. I don't know Moving on Jim McNicholas, you got this one Have you heard the CAD try on seven thousand ribbon Mike? I Know Dan likes some ribbons, but that's a new ribbon. I just use one a session and handled my low-end great he says so Ribbon mics are known to handle low-end and mid-range and the whole spectrum beautifully like very very accurately Yeah, the new ones do the old ones. They are very nuanced and they hum They pick up. Yeah, they're sensitive to RFI or or MFI or whatever stuff You know when there's nowhere, you know, it's Mike be your screen. It could be your computer I don't know, but you know, I mean, I've got a great collection of ribbon mics here Mm-hmm. I haven't used them much lately. You know, it's like I need to play. I'm going to grab a ribbon Let me see what I can do with this and very different animal, but you know the the Yeah, the CAD try on seven thousand. It's it has a ball top to it and it's Yeah, it's not what I would call one of those really sophisticated ribbon mics like What's his name that makes the ribbon Mike's most chefs or What's the other brand that met well or a bang and all of sin or one of those those other other mics Royer God Like, you know the Royer mics which are excellent And they ain't cheap, but they're very good. There's the CAD try definitely, this is definitely fallen to the budget ribbon Mike category I Don't know if there's too many great budget ribbon mics. I Can't say for sure But hey if it worked on your voice and you liked the recording and you got paid to record on that mic Go for it can't be that bad Like I said, if I have I will also drag out my ribbon Mike if I have to do like you know the summer 7th 1941 I will drag it out for that, but yeah, and all really has to do that. Yeah, exactly. So To what are you using George? Well, this this is an Austrian audio OC 818 It falls into the expense of my category because it's over a thousand dollars It's a multi-pattern mic. It's got a lot of customization. It's got four different high-pass filter settings And it obviously sounds good. I'm using processing because I'm doing a live radio show what called the OBS, but if I Turn it all off. That is the raw sound right off the mic now absolutely no processing at all Sounds great doesn't really need my doesn't really need it For me is it's it's an it's like a lift in the shoe the processing You know, it just makes me feel a little more confident but at the end of the day don't really need it with the right mic and a good acoustically tuned room and This one this one definitely It's fantastic. I Love it, and I'll be very straight when I tell you this I didn't buy this mic I would never have bought a $1,200 mic for what I do. It was a and how did you obtain that? It they are a sponsor of the pro audio suite podcast. Okay, so that's how I have that mic So grain of salt disclaimer made But it's not me. That's what it sounds like Sounds pretty good and and it's that and it makes you sound great Well, it makes you sound like you because you already sound like you. I hope I sound good No, you don't sound like me. You sound like you Yeah, and you have a mic at your end that you need to put up soon You're still using that your home built mic, but you have a mojave mic. I think I used that last on our last show Oh the MA 50. Yeah, no, maybe not. No, all right. It's sitting in a box here. All right next week I will promise put it up on your stand. We want to hear it right with with you guys I Played with it. I did some auditions with it. I actually did actually did a Something my voice that was heard in Times Square with that No way a big event in Times Square and I got to announce for that and I and I used I used that mic for that So I did go to put it to good use and they loved it. So it's obviously a good mic, but we'll Promise to bring it on the show next week Whoever I guess it's going to be Alright last question here. That's there. I'm although. I'm sure we could talk about a billion other things Jeanette Robbins asks The Mac Air M2 Does Apple run Cyber Monday sales? I was advised to only buy a Mac directly from Apple because of future service and possible upgrade needs So I was wondering if Apple offers Cyber Monday sales. I've never heard of them do that. Have you I don't think they do but here's the disc here Well, here's the clarification It doesn't matter where you buy the Apple product from if it is within warranty period the warranty is the warranty is Stuck to the hardware, right? So they don't care who owns it. It's a hundred percent transferable So you could buy it from any vendor. That's by I heard I heard there's a pretty decent discount at microcenter I think you have to show up in person So if you don't have a microcenter in your neighborhood forget it But yeah, there's very few real true discounts available, but you know check apple calm check apple calm refurb refurbished Department, it's at the very bottom of the website look for clearance and refurbished and you can probably save 10 to 15 percent maybe more and it's going to be fully certified with a full one-year warranty you know and Not a bad idea. It's good. It's it's actually my preferred way to save money on an apple product is just buying it refurbished Yeah, it's never let me down for example now. We were talking. I was at Mavo last weekend and I had I have my I brought my projector with me They're like, you know, they're like, you know if you can bring your own projector That would be great because they and the projectors they had were the hotel's project So means they were gonna be they were okay if you've ever seen the projector I have it's got like 10,000 lumens or something like that. It would you know blind you it in a hundred paces So I brought my own. There's only one problem with my projector. It only takes a VGA input. Oh Yeah, yeah, that's mine to mine to fortunately the old vOBS 2014 MacBook Pro Has a DVI input or output on it that I have a DVI to VGA and you had the adapter and I had the adapter Yeah, and I use that and of course Everything worked. So I actually took two computers with me to Washington my my air and the old MacBook Pro that workhorse just Just keeps on going. I thought the battery was dead on it. Nope It's still kicking and it still works and It's a big hot heavy beast, but it still runs great. Yeah, it did make my suitcase a little top heavy But that that that's okay, you know, and that's the way I like it But you can have a 2014 Mac. You don't have to have a brand new 2022 Mac if you want to go Mac I would actually in George's right if you can get a refurbished one get a used one They're a lot cheaper and and that's you know, you have a graphic you're going to show us a refurbished Mac Here is a this is one. I would get if you're on a real budget. Here's a 20. Here's a M1 for 850 850 bucks for an M1 Mac mini. Do you need an M2 Mac mini? No, you don't Do you want to have the newest and greatest of everything? Fine. Of course, but you don't you don't need it I've used both my friend had an M2 that was just visiting The M1 might my computer did everything his did, you know, maybe slightly slower But that would be a hard you'd be hard-pressed to know and again, this is the apple.com slash shop slash refurbished Page on their site. It's not something they feature But it's at the bottom of the website and you can browse their stuff here and you can see there's some decent prices And some deals you're not going to save big big money, but apples don't need big discounts That's that's why they're almost never on sale, right? And you plug it in and it works And that's the most important thing, you know, I get there were a lot of people with PCs in my thing this weekend Mm-hmm, and of course 99% of problems. It does this it does that I'm having a problem Mac or PC almost always PC go back. You'll never go back. It's yeah for audio. It is it absolute. No brainer Absolutely. All righty. Well Thanks for all your questions guys. That was that was great And because it makes George and I talk about what we like to talk about which is your questions We'll we'll have more questions next week and another great guest next week But we're gonna take a quick break right now and we'll be right back And then we will say goodbye for now, but stay tuned. We'll be right back on voiceover body shot Hi, this is Bill Farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great 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 calm 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 calm 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 calm has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish They'll try it yourself. Go with the pros voice actor websites calm where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer That place is voice over extra calm whether you're just exploring a voice over career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next Professional level stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voice over extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online Sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audio blows auditioning home studios set up in equipment Marketing performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voice over success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports. It's all here at voiceover extra calm That's voice over x t r a dot com Before time began there was VOBS dot TV Watch or else And what I said, yeah, thank you. Yeah. No, that was Jen Jim Mr. Keeney did that one for John Keeney. Yeah, no fantastic great great production. Yeah next week on this very show I forgot Johnny Heller will be joining us Yeah, I had a great time with him this weekend to he's a super guy But yeah, I'm joining us on the 28th and we'll be with us all week on that particular show And then we'll have tech talk number 91 And then I think a couple of other people said they're gonna be on the show I couldn't I forget that Johnny was gonna be cool. Cool. Anyway, who are our donors this week? We have Robert lead him Steven Chandler Casey Clack Jonathan Grant Thomas Pinto Shelly Avelino Greg Thomas a doctor voice Antland Productions Martha con 9 4 9 Designs Lee penny. Yeah, Christopher Epperson Sarah Borgess Phillips appear Brian Page Patty Gibbons Rob Ryder Shawna Pennington Baird Don Griffith Trey Moseley Diana Birdsall and Sandra Mann weller What thanks guys for your donations and because it helps us maintain the technical magnificence that the show is And in more ways than one So it keeps you around too. Oh, well, that's that's part part of the reason really important. It is that's that's what I meant Anyway, you can donate to the show Bob by going over our website Vobs dot TV and right in there you will have a Button it says donate and we'll be happy to take your donation and show your appreciation for all the Free information we keep giving you week after week after week after week Hey, if you need your home studio Serviced or you don't know what you're doing with your home studio and you want experts to help you out You can go over to my website, which is home voice over studio com and All my services are there and you can also talk to George And if he's not there generally I get called anyway weekends Yeah, that's right We have an on-demand hotline for tech support if you're in a real bind you can call that number and For a fee obviously you can be patched through to a series of technicians We have Dan is on that list so you might end up with Dan and You can do this Absolutely, of course I shouldn't they made that sound lousy you might end up with Dan No Dan might pick up your phone and walk you through your tech issue But if you just want regular scheduled support or sound checks go to George the tech Go to George the tech slash webinars if you want to check out my next webinar That's coming up on Adobe audition the advanced course November 30th get a VOBS fan 10 coupon code Put that in and get in 10% off 10% off and check out my ask me anything on clubhouse November 29th at 3 p.m.. That's open for anybody Just me asking answering questions kind of like well I do here on this show. Yeah, which we love doing We need to thank our amazing sponsors who've been with us for a long time because they know We're talking to the right people like Harlan Hogan's voice over essentials voice over Extra source elements VO heroes calm voice actor websites and world-voices.org the Industry association of home voiceover studio Actors voice actors. We are freelance voice actors. It's our industry association Time for a brain fart. Anyway, thanks to Jeff Holman for doing a fabulous job in the chat room tonight Sue Merlino for getting it done and giving us funny looks that you can't see and Leap in a just for being Leap in a Happy Thanksgiving No, that's not till next week. Yeah, but it is next week. Oh, but we'll have a show next week. I Can't even keep track All right I love you too early to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Thanks I'm Dan Leonard. I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or VO BS tech talk Tech talk. Have a good one