 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk Tech talk. Yes. We got what we're here to talk about your home voiceover studio, which is what George and I do Basically every day we know what it's all about and what are we going to talk about tonight? Um, a little rant about universal audio What to do when you spill liquid in your laptop would not to do Maybe a way you can ear upgrade your ailing headphones or even new headphones in a way that might be surprisingly comfortable Why I like the magic track pad track pad 2 And don't use our x processing in a stack and Maybe some other stuff if we have time we have a lot to talk about yeah We're gonna talk about some processing stuff that's driving me nuts as well plus all your questions We've had this few mailed in and if you've got a question throw them in the chat room And we'll get to them. It's time for tech talk voiceover body shop right now From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Whidham the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a Professional voice talent with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio And each week they allow you into their world making the complex simple Debunking the myths of what it takes to create great sounding audio Answering your questions showing you the latest and greatest and VO tech and having a dandy time doing it Welcome to voice over body shop tech talk Voice over body shop tech talk is brought to you by voice over essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt The heroes dot com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success And now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Well, hello there, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or VO Well, we're here to help you with your home voiceover studio and George and I get You know, we get calls in the middle of the night essentially Dan did yeah, Dan took one for the team right there and Midnight your time. Yes. Somebody's in Valencia, Spain a wonderful town by the way, which I've actually been to solving your problems Also trying to get you to do it right in the first place and there's a way it's supposed to sound There's what I like to say what it's a sound like I said that the other day I was doing I don't know what I was talking on some panel, but I spelled it up whistle, baby That's right. You know, how is it supposed to sound? Everybody hears things? differently, but It's those subtle little things and we'll talk about this a little bit later that the you know that really don't matter It's like the sound you have is the sound you have as long as it doesn't sound bad Right, and how do you prevent things from sounding bad? We also want to prevent you from buying gear. You don't need or just really really complicated expensive gear Got nothing to do with boys that you don't need. That's what that's another biggie We want you to sound good sound like you sound real and not overspend to be overwhelmed with technical crap Right, you don't need Yeah, yep, we're always talking about this stuff But maybe we should just say look this is great stuff, but you don't need it unless you're like a musician or Recording an album or because all of this stuff Almost absolutely every little piece that we use in voiceover was never designed for voiceover They're not sitting there in boardrooms at some of these big tech companies going we need to make a voiceover microphone Yeah, you know they it's all about music a little bit about you know electronic news gathering and That sort of stuff but voiceover is really like an afterthought and so we're just adapting it to our uses So George and I have been been you know, we've been in this business for so long We've learned everything that there is to know About How it's supposed to work sometimes we forget half of what we know I might be the part of the problem, too What gets me is how much people don't know how much they don't know Especially when they're starting Anyway, if you want to work with one of us and get yourself started, right? Or you have a technical issue that you can't solve Anyone talk to George. Where do you go head over to George the dots tech And if that domain name makes your head spin George the tech dot com Also works. I got a menu on there of services all kinds of ways I can help you with my sound check to a customized processing Rack, which we'll talk about later when and when not to do that Studio design getting source connect working all kinds of good stuff And Dan does a similar type of thing over at his place on the net and that is Home voiceover studio dot com There it is. Yeah, go on over to home voiceover studio dot com And let's talk, you know, you can communicate for me with me from there Or you can submit a specimen in my specimen collection cup Let me see what your audio is sounding like. I want to hear it raw You know, people are like, well, I used to, you know, my my my dbx 286a on this And that makes it sound great, like, no, no, that stuff And we're going to talk about that a little bit We need it raw because there's going to be clients that are very picky And they want it raw. Exactly. You can't hide. Right. I want to hear what your raw sound is, what you're working with If there are minor little corrections we need to make, you know If you've already tried to make those corrections, well, you've done it for your ear The problem is, is you don't hire you So you may not know exactly what it is that it's supposed to sound like So join me join me over at home voiceover studio dot com All righty. Well, George, it's time for your weekly or By monthly, I guess we could dull your tech update. What do we got? Well, first, I got to have a little bit of sad kind of bad sad news Um, I have been supporting and I'm not going to stop doing it But I've been setting up and supporting folks using the universal audio Apollo line of audio interfaces for There's some reason the number 10 keeps popping up our anniversary How long I've been in setting these up, etc Been using them a long time and unfortunately I don't know and and the thing is we're not getting any feedback from them to understand what's going on exactly over universal audio But the support To put it mildly has been lacking I see a lot of complaints about this and I made my own facebook group to to be able to communicate with all the people out there That use universal audio Apollo and it's called Um, I have to even look it up. It's called universal audio Apollo for v. O There's another one out there, but this one is the one I created for really for voiceover mostly it has over a thousand people in it And so we've been gathering information about some folks who have had a technical issue Which we uh call tim tippets started this thread by the way So if you see the thread from tim it's talking about the whooshing sound Needless to say, uh, this thread's been going on for Over a year and three months and it's still going That means there are still people getting this product and particular one that we seem to be having the most trouble with is the Apollo twin mark two That's the charcoal gray version not the older silver one or the new new silver ones Not the twin x not the solo But apparently the mark two has had this issue and it's been happening to everybody and anybody I'm not saying I shouldn't say that it doesn't happen to everybody I think it'd be better if it did if it happened to everybody It'd be easier to get a recall on this and get everybody's replaced But it's been a it's been a pain to a lot of folks and it's really soured me to recommending Products from universal audio to the point where I've made it a declaration that I said I wasn't going to anymore And I'm going to have to stick to that. Um I'm going to recommend another other equipment It doesn't mean that the Apollo is any less amazing for those who need those features and know how to use Yeah, know how to use them and there's a very small percentage of you watching you really actually need The features of an Apollo Um, but it's it's frustrating So that's just I wanted to get that out of the way. They really need to take a play out of apple apple's customer service Model which is always been stellar. I've had apple products replaced Years out of warranty just because they realized that there was a manufacturing problem with their equipment They they owned up to it and then they replaced it with a new device Not a replacement device, but a new generation of equipment like an entirely new generation of equipment To stop the bleeding and to correct a wrong Yeah, so universal audio, please. Yeah, but there's such a there's such a great company I remember you and I being at NAM a couple years ago and listening to the digital versus analog processors that they had It was like before I go, I feel putting them the guy whose name created universal audio He's not with us anymore. And if he was I hate to be so cliche but the man would probably be rolling in his grave if he knew That the company he started wasn't helping people with these kinds of issues I mean, they definitely have the marketing budget Dan and I saw there against I see their insane booth every year at NAM Uh, and they are pervasive and they're sitting on the desk at in Billy Eilish's bedroom or she's recording Grammy-winning records. Everybody knows they're amazing, but they're it's it's frustrating. All right. That's enough of that Spilling liquid in your laptop Anybody ever do this Dan I haven't done it, but I gave anybody in the family by chance my mac book air and he was in Chicago. He says, oh, yeah He spilled Pepsi on it. Hmm Regular Pepsi or died Pepsi. I didn't matter. Oh, well died Pepsi doesn't have real sugar. So it's not as big of a problem Okay, so tell us what to do. Oh by the way, you remember those seen those guys the mentos fountains that stick Mentos and in coke. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they always use dye coke. Why? Because there's no actual sugar. So when it rains down on you, you're not sticky So anyway, don't drink regular coke near your computer point being is um, you want to avoid it, but it it's gonna happen Um, my daughter unfortunately did to her mac book air It was the second mac book air. She had killed. Well, okay. It's not fair to say the first one died more or less on its own That a natural death Apparently because I've had it apart and the little white dots inside that turn red when something's wet They're all they're all white and I showed her that I said you can't get away with anything There's little white dots all inside this computer If any of them read I know you got water in this thing But the second one was killed by water and what she did that really exacerbated the problem It was that I guess she Thought it had dried out or just didn't know what to do and she plugged the power in After it already happened And that seemed to fry some portion of the computer. Well, I thought for sure We're it's a doneer But I also had her prior dead mac book air and I took them apart and here's a little movie Okay, both of these max are not are dead right now, but this one Has no water damage and this one does Look at these Chips right here. Oh rusty. Look at that right there. I've never ever spilled water in a computer Think he's dried it out and then plug it in Never never a good idea Oh If you see this, you know, you've done damage to your computer But this is what a good one looks like. This is the ioboard and I was lucky to have it And here's my workstation where I was doing all the work coffee table And here's an example of the water sensor a white means good a red means wet And there's what this soldered in ram looks like on the bottom of the motherboard Okay, I swapped out the power module And the battery from another dead mac book air and Is this kind of boot up is it gonna be a miracle? I didn't know And it made that ding that wasn't the computer was my phone, but it was just such a weird Coincidence that I wait And I wait Oh my god, I heard the fan. Oh, oh my god Oh Mg, I can't believe I did it So miracles Do do not try this at home unless you're jordan That was crazy. So yeah, so I mean there's not much in these computers anymore Like there's a sort of main board that was the large thing you saw you could see the bottom of the board And then there's another little one to the side and that's called the ioboard And that's what had all that corrosion and stuff on it And I looked at the other computer and was like that all looks perfect on this one. Let's see what happens And there we go So lucky so lucky so the one Yeah, so the one that got wet had all like even saw rust on a couple of the chips, right That's what's in the computer now and it's working fine Thankfully, but anyway Oh, oh sue asked how long ago did she do it? It was just like three or four days ago It was still wet enough in there that maybe she did it twice and didn't tell me the first time She may have done it two times didn't tell me the first time maybe but when I took it apart There was moisture in there. There was moisture in there. There's videos online people say put your computer in rice Um, it's better to use silica gel or a desiccant So when you get packages in the mail and they have desiccant gels as little packets that you never ever feed to a dog Um They're really dangerous, but they're saving from all your prescriptions Yes, but they come in a lot of things so save those away put them in a box or in a bag in your drawer You'll win on that day You spoke in water in your computer because you can put all that in a big bag With the desiccant leave it set for two days be patient Do not touch it And then turn it back on is a very good chance it will come back alive so A little tip to save your butt and a lot of money Ella was literally getting ready that she said I gave her money for her birthday and she had she was ready to spend her hard earned hard earned money On a new computer and I and I saved her a lot of money um, here's another one ear pads so Oh, I don't have those ear pads those headphones are in the other room darn it um There are upgraded ear pads for a lot of headphones now one of the few headphones in my opinion that don't need upgraded Ear pads are the these biodynamics because they have these huge soft Velour ear pads years which I really really like But there's a lot of headphones that don't have the velour ear pads for various reasons But I found them online as a retrofit something you can swap out And um, they fit a lot of headphones Because there's a lot of commonly common sized Ear pads so audio technica a lot of the audio technic audio technicas Sonys and based on the size and shape of Harlan's headphones I am 99% sure these would fit his as well And it dramatically upgrades the comfort in my opinion of a lot of these headphones because they're thicker and softer Have a deeper cup and uh, they're really great now It's hard to find these online because not that they're hard to find But you have to swim through a tremendous amount of stuff to find the ones that I happen to get so We'll post the link somewhere, but it's a m z n Dot to this is one of those shortened links slash to capital M capital G And then all lowercase r h d k That's the shortest link I could come up with but these are the air pads that I found That I really really really like and I'm going to try to put them on Harlan's can Uh, the view the voice over headphones and see how they fit. Let me double check that. She got it on the screen That looks perfect. Yes Check those out. They're really awesome in other gear I got a new apple magic track pad now I've been I'm a fan of the track pads and I have been for years. I've been using this one But I'm annoyed how I have to put new batteries in it all the time drives me nuts And I was like, why can't they just make a usb track pad? Well, they sort of do It's the new the track pad two Now this one's internally rechargeable And so the irony is you're paying a lot of money for the fact that it's rechargeable It's $150 For this track pad. It's frustrating But you can plug it in and it comes with the usb and as long as it's plugged into the computer It's not only charging, but it's also now working as a usb track pad. What a concept So if you're always been annoyed by wireless track pads things that need batteries replacement connectivity issues, etc, etc If the new one is it is double duty. It's bluetooth And it works plugged in and will stay plugged in and work all the time. So Wow, that is the improvement. I mean the old magic mouse was you know, you plug that into a regular Lightning cable and boom, but you know, they put it on the bottom of the mouse So you you don't have that option to plug it in and charge it and use it at the same time. Yeah Yeah, it's kind of weird. So so i'm glad they they did this one right. All right. They nailed it. Um Dan's got a mac mini m1. We've talked about it a bit and he's he's got it working Which he can give us an update about in a second I've got one sin at the ups store that I needed desperately go pick up tomorrow first thing Plug it in do exactly what dan did migrate all of everything over and Cross my fingers and see how it goes, but i'm excited about that So i'll have more reports on that as well to cooperate with dan's experience has been um And one last thing two things i'll make these really quick One i'm getting people sending me audios to check out sound checks or whatever Where the levels are pretty much right at as close to clipping as you can get or probably normalized to zero or minus one And i'm finding out that people are doing this because they're like well It's the only way I can get close to the right rms levels My file and they just don't realize that that is a finished spec for audition for files that you're going to send in To an audiobook publisher Okay, so in the context of audiobooks Those specs are for the finished file the mastered file Don't try to record levels that always fall in the right rms just by delivering them that way It's not easy. It's very hard. You're gonna probably clip Don't do that Let's talk about processing and then I can talk about the rx thing. Okay context of this Yeah You know, I get a lot of questions Uh people saying I use this process and we're talking about this at the top of the show Does anyone really understand the what why when and how And what's the easiest choice? You know, i'm of the opinion that if you do it all right up front and we talk about this every week If your acoustics are good, there's no exterior noise There's no major reflection inside the space you're recording if you use your microphone Right if you're at the right distance from it and are not talking directly into the diaphragm and getting peter piper Pick the peck of pickle peppers You know, you'll notice how you never have a plosive and there's no pop screen on here um And you know mic technique is very very important You know, if you're you have to yell or whatever you need to learn how to use the proximity of the mic And setting proper input levels If you get all those three things even though part one is part a and part b If you get out those things right There really shouldn't be any need for processing unless you are specifically told by a producer As george was just saying you're sending in a finished product But we get these questions all the time. Well, should I use rx this and I should I use that? And how do I change it with the eq and how do I take? They're all little tiny minor corrections. These are not Processes to use to make you sound better because if you don't sound good upfront Especially if you don't like your voice, you're in the wrong business I look at it to the bad makeup job. Yeah, remember remember an airplane You don't want to be the lady in the bathroom in the airplane or shaving in there with makeup Yeah, with with with your processing is what I mean to say You don't want to be You don't want to be that person It's got to be very subtle extremely transparent not even noticeable, but Extremely tastefully done And be really careful about just always throwing in some declicking or denoising plug-in right it's You got to be really careful with that because that's whether you really hear it or not It does have a small degrading effect on the sound quality and You know a really picky production Casting person or an engineer who's taking your audio raw And here's the artifacts and whatever from that are going to not be too happy So don't make that like I always add these things put them in when they are needed Know when they're needed and use them only at that time. Do not just Slather everything in this stuff Don't put salt on everything you eat folks Taste it first not good for your heart. Listen to it. Yeah, it's Yeah, you you really do need to know what it's supposed to sound like and it's supposed to sound completely natural Like you're in the same room with somebody We don't talk to other people through compression and eq and certainly not through rx You know through isotope. I mean got away great if we could but we don't They're really looking for the natural sound of your voice and every time you start trying to fix these things There's always a physical answer to it exterior noise better isolation if you've got You know reverb in your room better acoustical treatment if you've got mouth noise Learn technique to get rid of it. Don't rely on the technological solutions And I know there's probably people out there going No processing Because cripes I get that every day and I know you do to george. It's like I mean you you do stacks for people and But those are for Minor little corrections and for specific things for specific things, right? Yeah, they're not like meant to be an overall just put this on everything Um, it's not a one size fits all one click wonder fix everything you do It's really specific to a specific specific to a genre As in a particular situation Um, now if I make you one that's extremely gentle Maybe it just rolls off the low end because he had a little bit of rumble Maybe it filters a little bit of the sibilants out just because I dipped a little bit around six to eight k or whatever in the eq And that's you know, not much else then that's something that's corrective that you can use probably all the time safely But you need to know when it's safe to use it and when it's appropriate to use it. So just yeah, just ask Yeah, engineers that know how to use this stuff have learned it over 10 20 years It really takes years to really master the The art and the subtlety that you're trying to accomplish there And you don't like hit it with a sledgehammer, which a lot of people do Anyway, so you were going to talk about don't put rx in a stack Yeah, I mean I was sort of touched on the fact that the problem with putting rx in a stack It implies I guess what I'm saying is that implies that it's something that you apply A compulsory thing That you do it every time. Let's say you have a stack. That's for doing a commercial audition If you just apply this mouthy clicker and god forbid a deep breather In a stack where you're just automatically trying to deep breath or fix your auditions So you don't have to do it in a 30 second commercial Is not going to come out every time the right way. It could make it sound worse It's just not a good idea. Those kinds of tools should be used sparingly and when necessary You should not be a part of your everyday process. So that's really what I was implying About using things like rx In a stack Alrighty, well if you've got a question for us, although we just covered up quite a pile there um Throw it in the chat room right now because george and I will get to your questions about your home voiceover studio and technology Related to that right after these incredibly important messages. Let's see those questions now This is ariana rattner and you're listening to voiceover body shop vlbs.tv I was talking to harlan hogan this morning. He described chicago as having Parmafrost with more snow on the way But something warmed his heart a letter from a satisfied voiceover essentials customer and here's what he said Hi harlan getting started in the voiceover business and want a big value for your dollar Look no further than harlan's portabouth pro and the vo1a mic These got me started and have proven valuable in producing over 50 titles on audible Great results for a great price right out of the box douglas berck the agile narrator So if you do audiobooks clearly these two products from voiceover essentials.com can help you get it done Go on over to voiceover essentials.com to see all the great voiceover recording equipment and accessories You'll ever need that's voiceover essentials.com the home of harlan hogan signature series products like the vo1a mic And the portabouth pro and plus. Thanks harlan Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you? Stick around you don't want to miss this Power 1039 at target. We want you to come as you are be comfortable Okay, maybe not bathrobe comfortable Pants for the customer on aisle four, please In the camera Watch anywhere anytime on an unlimited number of devices Sign in with your netflix account to watch instantly at netflix.com The ice cream maker is a big risk that can have huge rewards Until you forget to turn it on Well, that's it guys time is up. Hey, it's jmc. Thanks for watching the voiceover body shop If you're demo ready or looking to get there check out jmc demos.com and see a sample of our work Now let's get back to dan and george and this week's tech wisdom All right. I'll make this quick source connect. You've heard of it by now, right? Then why aren't you using it? Do you don't know how to use it? It's intimidating. Okay. Do you don't need to worry about that so much? Just go to source dash elements calm Get yourself set up over there. Their support is now 24 seven and they've got a pretty big team now folks that can train and get you up and running with this With no additional charge now if you get a demo and you can do that you can get a 15 day free demo You won't get that extra level support You're a little bit more on your own and if you're kind of like not feeling like you don't want to make any commitments You can watch there's an hour long tutorial on how to use it. I did it. It's at george the dot tech slash sc You can watch that but really Just sign up get the subscription get the ball rolling and get that training from them and that additional guidance they provide Absolutely worth it and just amp up your career. It's time to do it get up there and go do it Thanks for this elements. We'll be right back Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voice over body shop. It's great And we are back here on tech talk Uh voice over body shop. We've got a bunch of questions from uh our audience But you had one more thing to talk about with rx7 and stacks Yeah, actually one of the one I wanted to say was I was saying don't use them in the stacks But so when do you use them and I feel like the rx tools in general are really suited for your editing process So I think of it as more like You're editing and you realize ah, there's some mouth clicks that are right here And I just can't seem to deal with it properly What do I do? Oh, this would be a great time to use the mouth declicker from rx and then Fix that with a mouth to click or um, I'm doing this e-learning thing and they don't want breaths and I breathe What do I do? Now use a deep breath or remove the breaths and then go on and do your editing I really feel like those tools are really more mostly suited To be used during the editing process, maybe the only Exception would be the voice denoise If it's set up correctly and it really is part of your process to finish your files Then maybe that would be appropriate in a stack Maybe that one But the other ones I really feel are very much specific to Particular situation. So that's how I think of those because I'm doing editing All right, all righty We we got a letter this week from from julio perez. He says, uh, I know you've been providing us listeners with a v obs and With your ongoing experience with the new m1 based max This is I just saw an article in case you're wondering which article Uh, which you may wish to keep an eye on Your new acquisitions to mitigate any premature storage failures. Make sure you have some sort of backup in place but the article was saying was In a very low percentage of cases where ssds were failing You know solid state drives that you know, these are not movable spinning discs. They're they only have so many cycles or cycles of Whatever it is But you know, you and I both read that article and it was it was like it was pretty incomplete data, isn't it? Yeah, I I have to read it again. I can't remember how they were if they were comparing it to The previous generation max and the failure rates of the ssds and the and the prior generation of max Um, do you remember if that was in there dan? I have to yeah It really didn't it was talking about the fact that ssds, you know fail But they do they do fail everything fails everything fails. I you really do not think of them as more reliable than anything else um You know when a hard drive fails Sometimes it's it's curtains you lose it all But sometimes with hard drives you can lose a portion of the data and get the rest back But generally with flash memory And ssds are a type of flash memory storage That usually it it it crashes. It's going in a flash It's all gone in a lava flow. Yeah, so um back up back up back up I yeah, I'm hearing you know things about I've heard that article now There's another article going around about hey, there's actually malware for the apple silicon computers. Well wow News flash. I mean there's viruses on every platform. There really is there's just it's just if you do the same Things you've always done. I don't at this point. I haven't seen anything that says A new m1 is way more vulnerable Or way less reliable. It's still very very early and dan and I did jump on it early We jumped on these m1s early because it was so compelling that value was so good We may find out that there's something in a year from now that we didn't anticipate I'm buying apple care for that reason. I haven't bought it yet But if you buy it within the first year you get three years warranty And maybe it's not a bad idea because of this stuff being such new New technology Theoretically new technology. I mean really the guts of an m1 silicon mac Is is a chip that's been in development now in one form or another since the ipad came out So it isn't all that new these guys have been doing this a really really long time They just scaled it up to be Desktop worthy. So, uh, well, I got I got I got a good feeling about this Yeah, you know, I I set it up the only problems I'm having is it forgot some passwords in the migration, right? And I'm like, where did I write that down? I know that's that's the That's gonna happen because once you have a new piece of hardware when you clone over a system for security reasons It makes you re-authenticate Everything. Yeah, I mean and I've got a transfer the license from source connect from the old mac mini to the new one tonight That's the ilock It's the ilock management. Not too bad. She kind of called you question. I'm w. All right Uh, let's see. Hi guys. I was on the sweetwater site and decided to compare my rote nt1 with the venerable noiman u87 and it turns out the difference is A rounding error about three thousand dollars. Yeah, I know there are real differences in hardware But I don't know what they are. Can you explain the details? Um, well one's made in germany and one's made in germany by hand which takes probably hours to do and Is a design that's many many years old and it's sort of the archetype of The studio microphone that every microphone Coming after it has essentially been emulating So that's the u87. Um, there are technical differences like the u87 is a switchable pattern mic. So Does cardioid figure eight and omni? Uh nt1 is much much simplified by having just one pattern with no switches of any kind And it's a well known fact that microphones that don't have any switches or any switchable circuits tend to be quieter have lower self-noise Um, so that's another reason for doing so. It's much harder to make all those switches and everything Not cause any noise or cause any problems Right, so my brother always says, you know the more things you put on something the more they can go wrong with it Yes, so uh, yeah, yeah, so that's those are the big things. Um sound quality wise The nt1's a damn good value proposition. That's a great way To get a step in the right direction and then when you land that big fat gig You reward yourself and get you the Neumann u87. You've always thought you wanted Yeah, or go out for ice cream Uh, you know, it's three or not anymore Eight thousand no fourth. I'm trying to do the math. What's ice cream cost? In venice it's like six bucks for a one scoop nowadays Jesus To live but yeah, I mean we've we've talked about this before that for every You know $500 you go up in price of something the increase in quality is Is negligible there is not a microphone that's going to change the way you perform copy You know, we had Marilyn wissner on last week and she was talking about just be different You know, you don't want your audio to sound bad, but if you have something like an nt1 You know, that's that's one factor out of the out of the checklist that's going to cause problems It's a very quiet mic. It reproduces your voice as you exist. What is it that the u87 does? It doesn't make you Superman It works for women. It's just it's just a mic that is incredibly sensitive the more sensitive it is The better the environment you have to have in which to record or it's going to hear All the flaws that you have in your space. It's a versace runway gown for the red carpet And if you don't have a body for it ain't gonna look too good That's an interesting way to put it I guess It's the dress for your voice That's right. If you don't have the voice it ain't gonna sound so good on the u87 You can't put lipstick on a pig Yeah, don't don't You know if you like if you're a geek and you like having great microphones and stuff like that sure go for It's not going to change your voice over career start with a good mic like the nt1 And all the other ones that are over 200 250 dollars You know you get under that then you're going to have to have some problems But there are some great mics that are in that price range too Yeah, and that's the sound you have is the sound you have and as long as it's reproducing you properly Upgrading to a better mic is not going to change anything You guys tired yet of hearing dan on a on a 300 dollar vo1a because that's what you hear i'm on Every single episode It's a darn good mic. Um jeff asks Uh, how close can I get to my 416 senazer 416? That's a loaded question in itself. We don't want to know about your personal relationships Is there a position that's too close as long as i'm not making plosives? And is the proximity effect different than on a Large diaphragm condenser mic. Well, yes, those are all good questions. I think dan we should do a little test Since i'm on a shotgun mic. I'm not on a 416 This is a rhoda ntg5, but it's going to behave rather similarly Um, and then you're on a large diaphragm. So i'm gonna turn off all my processing. Okay. Okay. So now this is as raw as it gets And i'm going to get up close and i'm going to try not to pop the mic because i'm going to point it at the corner of my mouth And i'm going to get really in tight right now. And so i'm kind of eating the mic And then i'm going to back away back away back away Back away back away Did you guys perceive a big difference in low end dan just just just slight proximity effect Just a little bit and now you do it Okay, and you know, i'm not going to change the volume of my voice at all. I'm not going to change my volume at all I'm just going to get closer and you can hear the difference a lot more proximity effect Exactly. It's it's a proximity effect. Is that build up of the Of the low end It is what causes that is apparently a bone of contention between Byron Wagner and I Oh, really interesting Yeah But Byron is probably right because he is a super genius He is a yes super super mad genius Um, but yes, there is a minor amount of proximity effect. It's not that much Um, you can get pretty dang close as you just noticed without popping it Right, but the closer you are to a mic the much easier it is to slip up and pop it So yeah, yet that sweet spot is really tiny when you're right here Yeah, you can use a pop screen with a 416 if you're the thing is is you don't get that close to a 416 Unless you're like doing promo and imaging And you know and and you can put a windsock on it That's the only pop screen I have right now, right and it it does it make a big difference? It couldn't height not a big difference. There was an argument about this and uh, I think the gardener collective or the voiceover Community one of the facebook groups to argue about and there was there a little I mean It was a debate about whether this changes the sound of a 416 one of these things and uh It was entertaining I chimed in with a wise ass answer because I could because I knew everybody in the debate So I felt like I could get away with it But the bottom line was is that one person said it makes a noticeable difference for him So he never uses it and another person says I've done the tests and it makes no difference So we're to disagree But the the thing is is if you're doing using the 416 for regular commercial voiceover stuff and it's not a driven Image promo type of thing You know, you're gonna be it's the same rules that the that apply to a regular studio condenser mic You're gonna be five to seven maybe even 12 inches away And you know and it should pick you up very naturally if you're doing promo Yeah, you can get right up to it But you know, there's that great hook studios double Uh, I think they've gone up to triple now. It's got like triple foil Screens in front of it and right and if I have to do a spot like that or I have to do some promo or something like You know, I'll throw that on there because then you do attack it straight on But mostly is george and I say 45 degrees pointing at your chest You know a good distance away. It's gonna pick you up just fine remember it was designed to pick up the human voice from Not an inch but from a fair distance very far. Yeah It was designed as a video mic All right, you got the next one. Uh, yeah rowdy 59 will uh from youtube Our acx guidelines sufficient to follow for most auditions That's a good question actually Yeah, I and of course it depends on if you're doing audiobooks or doing commercial stuff I would not say for commercials. I don't know. Yeah, I think the acx specs requires over compression Yeah, but he's talking just about auditions, you know I think if you're sending auditions to do an audiobook and heck if you go on acx There's so many books in there, you know, just throw your voice in there. Eventually somebody's gonna hire you Well, I guess that's the question is most auditions Most auditions most audio auditions. They just want to hear how you read right most auditions in general What is the context? Yeah, I I think he says for most auditions and I think that no the acx Specs if you're talking about their finished products Brex specs had nothing to do with commercial voiceover So, yeah, I don't think I would do it on a comer when I do settings for commercial voiceover a stack or whatever It's way more subtle It it does it doesn't auditions ACX audio to me sounds very processed It has a very distinctive sound Yeah, and and then stuff for commercial to me should be very transparent and natural Exactly. So that's those are general things, but I wouldn't just lean on that for everything. All right Pam would my favorite subject here Go for discuss smiley face Well, she's not asking what's the right mic for voiceover, but it's a good question. Um, Mike's right side up Or upside down. I have a new akg p for 20 nice, um Dan you have a very good spiel you say all the time for this how to position the mic Yeah, if you've got it The the idea is is that your ears are at the same plane as your eyes And you want a studio condenser mic to hear you the way other people hear you So the way I have it set here is it's Dan's mic's out of the frame. Oh, there it is you have it in the frame now It's it's right there It's you know, it should be at about the bridge of your nose The bottom of the mic the top which is actually the top of the mic upside down the reasons for doing this number of reasons number one It totally prevents plosives and you're not really talking off axis. You're talking straight at the mic But more the way people's ears hear you number two Copy is down here And you can just by looking at it down there The mic gets out of your field of vision And you can see it you're not reminded that you're on a microphone Which tends to make people talk a little bit louder and number three by having it like this you can go Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers and there will be no plosives And even though my agent Eric shepherd says yeah, there's some idiot on uh on facebook says you shouldn't use that Uh, yeah, but you should use that in which case I wrote to him and I said hey You know, it's not good when your agent starts talking about you know, I wasn't talking about you If I was talking about you, I would have said some walrus face doofus That's our shepherd. Oh god. All right. So that's why I say upside down for I mean if you're going any Any recording studio for voiceover? That's the way they have it Yeah, there's all for every reason Dan just said I mean uh down here. It's easier to pop It's often in the way. It's probably on a stand that you're gonna kick or bump into Just a lot of practical reasons why we don't put it down here Plus it's pointed up your nose. So it picks up your nose breathing. Why don't you want that? Go on Jay harsh black. Hey Jay, um Will you go through the order or steps that you recommend when setting a home studio? Setting a home studio Okay, I'll keep reading That helps selecting the space acoustics then selecting the interface I'm encountering a lot of talent as of late that are obsessing over mics Without setting up their acoustics or space. So basically Jay, you're accounting a lot of folks who don't watch the show That's right. You could just tell them to go watch the show, you know, you could do that, right? That would help save us a lot of grief. Um Recently a few people have reached out to me to get the tlm 103 via Sweetwater recommendations have not and not have a space set for that kind of mic. We were just saying that Yeah, if you're gonna have a good expensive mic, you gotta have if you're gonna buy it for our first good garage Yeah, yeah room first the acoustics have to be squared away. The room tone has to be low Um, if you can't get a good setting recording out of a mediocre or to affordable microphone Don't expect it to sound amazing And great all of a sudden on an expensive microphone So you gotta get the acoustics set up first. You gotta make sure it's a quiet space And you if you're not sure if it's quiet enough then send us a sample. I mean, that's why we could do sound checks And dan has a specimen cup We have to hear the audio in context in the room with your voice And really be able to give you proper feedback on what it is that you're Doing otherwise, there's no way we could recommend what microphone you should invest in Or anything like that. So don't go. I mean, okay Buy an omen tlm 103 if you eat If if if you spend 35 dollars a lunch every day and you don't bat an eye Good for you. Go buy an omen tlm 103. You're in a different class than many many of us But for everybody else that's on more of a budget You don't buy that mic until It uh until you've earned it Right until you're making the money exactly Uh Doggy seven mum. I think I know who that is I I'm not even gonna guess. Can you go over how to use alcohol for mouth noise? Okay, well, let me let me run over and grab my bottle of alcohol like wired up for us right off camera Awesome. I just happened to have some on my dad's alcohol alcohol Yes, not to be confused with alcohol It's not alcohol and I have a bottle of it I've had it for years and I never had the guts to really use it but You use it in a different way. That's smooth This is smooth stuff Alcohol nasal wash you get it over the counter at the farm don't snort altoids Curiously refreshing Um, anyway, it's it's basically a mucus solvent and cleaner and what you do is you mix this with water 20 parts water One part of this And you put it in a spray bottle and you spray it 10 times in your mouth You swish it around you go outside or to a sink you spit it out you go back in the booth It just gets rid of mouth clicks So it liquefies this sticky saliva keeps it keeps things lubricated Exactly, you know, some people say on my medication and I it's I just have really bad You know, I tend to find that mouth and I've hardly had to use this at all lately, you know I've just learned if you use the right mic technique if you're the proper distance Unless you're really, you know, like George is doing not, you know, not keeping yourself hydrated Um, it shouldn't be a problem But if it's a real problem for you because you're you're on meds that cause dry mouth You just naturally have dry mouth. This stuff is really really great for that Uh a little more expensive than granny smith apples and those don't work for everybody anyway Yeah, but that's if you're doing a 20 to 1 that'll last you a long time You know how long I've had this but I think this bottle is used by 713 Thomas major how you doing thomas uh breaths are a normal part of communication and sometimes can be used to convey subtext of a message However, some audition stats will say no breaths How do you make it sound natural? Highlight it take it down 15 db That's one way if they literally mean no breaths Don't you don't yeah Well, I mean dan's not totally wrong. I mean you take a dan you've taught this before I think where you take a massive gasping breath And then you pound through the whole sentence or the phrase or the paragraph That's right, and then you edit all those out. Yeah, there's also using room tone to replace all of the breaths with room tone using special paste In twisted wave, which is really easy and I think they call it mixed paste in audition Those are some ways to to de breath and have it be transparent to the listener that you Didn't delete anything you just simply magic used a magic eraser on the breath By replacing of the room tone. That's the key. You got to use room tone I think the reason we're seeing that on a lot of specs is that some people just haven't learned how to breathe Which is why they're hearing a lot of gasping and mouth breathing at halts hearts of terrible Singers are graded voice over because they understand breath control and they can make it last a long time I say look be in good condition You should be able to read an entire sentence without taking a breath But george and I hear it all the time. It's like why are you taking so many breaths? How often do you listen to professional broadcasters on television and elsewhere? They're gonna take it elsewhere and listen to them and go God, I wish they would stop breathing so much. They're they're breathing is really driving me crazy Does that happen that often? Probably not because the breathing is there dan and I are breathing tonight Isn't that a coincidence? What a concept, huh? We're breathing and doing the whole show breathing and we're at no point unless we call attention to it Are you thinking man those breaths are out of control? So I think dan's hit them hit the nail on the head to hear a lot of improperly Delivered voice over tracks. Absolutely. Well, that's not I think we're out of time here All right. We're out of time. We are out of time for this particular edition of holy cow. It's seven o'clock that flew Time as one frog one said to another time sure is fun when you're having flies Dan turned yellow Maybe that means it's time to end the show I'm getting jaundice. The liver is going down We'll be right back to say goodbye After these messages You're watching v obs dot tv. I don't know why it's crazy what they do here I think I'm gonna go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich Hi, here I am in my normal workspace with a question What's the biggest challenge you have with voiceover? What's been the puzzle you need to solve the question you need answered? Well, david h laurence the 17th and the coaching team at vo heroes dot com want to know They're creating new courses and training and they want to know what you need most and it's easy to let them know Just drop an email to david at vo heroes dot com. That's david at vo H e r o e s dot com And let him know what you'd like to know. Is it tech oriented? Is it auditioning? Is it about booking more work finding an agent podcasting audio books performance questions? 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Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com for your via website Shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Yeah, hi, this is carlo sellers rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voice over body shop Yes, jeff spit out the alcohol you're a kid brushing your teeth. They don't know how to brush spit out your tooth face Yeah Well, that was fun that I think humans should be allowed to have or at least you and I but You know, it's fun when everything works right too. That's true like technically works well Yeah, I mean we've been working on it but now we've simplified it now it works. It'll be fine And uh, yeah, if you happen to miss the show Not you you yeah, it'll be on a week on facebook and on our website and stuff like that Of course, if you're hearing me say this it's like Doesn't matter because it's not watching It's kind of a moot point. Anyway, who are next week on this show we've got mark growl is going to be with us That's awesome. We it's long overdue. Yes very much so and uh, that'll be our 10th anniversary That's really suiting. Did you tell him it was our 10th? Did that help him? I did mention that that helped get him on the show. Okay, we didn't have to I didn't have to beg him Okay, good. He was like, but anyway, I'd be honored to be on there's something Appropriate about him being on the 10th anniversary. That's true. I mean he is like He is like in the in in our world one of the longest running studio owners who's just So well loved and respected so yep and and never and and needs the interview because you just go go And exactly it's it'll be fun. Very good. Uh, who are our donors of the week? Oh boy, I'm gonna try rating these names all correctly this time. How about don griffith steven chandler Martha con shawna painton baird and land productions philips of here thomas pinto shaley avilino George a widham brian page patty gibbons rob rider and greg thomas Those are our donors and you've probably recognized those names Because they're all pretty much. I think all subscribers Which means they donate maybe a buck a month doesn't have to be much And it's done right on the website. You can click the button for donations. It's a done through paypal Hey once do a subscription. Whatever feels good to you And uh, we appreciate it so much Absolutely, and if you want to help with your home voiceover studio, you can go over to george at uh george the tech dot com or george dot George it is a terrible domain. I regret it. I regret it. It's george the dot tech and If you want to dance as much easier home voiceover studio dot com Think ahead, what are you gonna do? Yeah, uh, our thanks to jeff holman doing a great job in the chat room tonight Getting us all those great questions sumer lino spot on tonight. She's always spot on It's spotty but spot on Yeah, exactly, but she does a great job of And of course leapinny for being leapinny. Well, that's gonna do it for us this week another tech talk in the can In our sponsors, we get to thank them. We do we better do that. They're gonna be mad Oh, that's true. Uh harlon hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra Uh source elements the makers of source connect voice of vo heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com And j mc demos naughty dot com apparently Well, it is but just google them. That's right. It's because facebook doesn't like me putting all the urls in there I got you. Okay, and that's that's why you know for a while You know, they were saying that like, you know, that just you know, you're beating our you're defeating our community standards I'm like, sorry. I don't think so. Sorry facebook. Oh Now we gotta edit that out Anyway, that's gonna do it for us this week. Uh, again, if you got questions for us, uh for your home studio or for our guest Right to us at The guys at vobs dot tv We love getting your questions and uh, love answering them and we're here to help you out So that's gonna do it for us. I'm dan lennard and i'm george winham and this is voiceover body shop or vo Tech talk tech talk tech talk just remember tech if it sounds good, it is good Take care. We'll see you next week guys