 Hey, it's now time for Tech Talk number seven. Number seven. Boy, we've been doing this for 14 weeks now. Wow, just awesome. It's 1919, 2019, 1919, who's our fashion? 2019, I've ruined four or five checks already. It's 2019. We've been doing the show for a while. We got some great stuff tonight, some great stuff on. Man, we've talked about the new Apple stuff, the good and the bad, the roadcaster pro, getting your Sennheiser mic serviced and cleaned. We had questions from a ton of folks in the audience about soundproofing an airport, dealing with setting your right sample rates, for example. What's compression? What's normalization? What else here? Somebody asked about how do you build a sound booth? Well, we show you how, we got a video for that. Dealing with the heat in Texas, dealing with production on the iPad. And is it a good idea to get your mic cleaned? We'll find out. If I'm aware and what I would suggest for that. All right, all that and more on VoiceOver Body Shop Tech Talk. 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, a 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 in VO tech and having a dandy time doing it. Welcome to VoiceOver Body Shop Tech Talk. VoiceOver Body Shop Tech Talk is brought to you by VoiceOverEssentials.com, home of Harlan Hogan signature products, source elements, remote studio connections for everyone, voiceactorwebsites.com, where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt. VOtogo.com, everything you need to be a successful voiceover artist. 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. And it's now time for Tech Talk. All right. But we got lots of cool stuff. Oh, I know, this is where you get to glow. There's sort of like this halo around you when we do this. I need the halo from our last guest, Eric had a nice halo. Yeah, we'll work on that. We'll try that for next time. But anyway, in your tech update, cool stuff, let's race through this and see what we can talk about that will enlighten the technical people. I won't waste a lot of time because we did get a ton of questions. Yeah, you guys can submit yours right now because we will get to them tonight. I won't spend too much time on tech news, but New Max came out, Apple's doing this weird thing now where they release new hardware, don't tell anybody, then have this big dog in pony with celebrities and say, we do television now and we do movies now, which, sorry, Apple, selling out big time, disappointing. But whatever, they do have, they have new iMacs. They look just like the last ones. I was hoping to at least see the new iMacs would have default SSDs, like all the new Macs. You still have to order them. They still come specced with Fusion drives. They suck. Okay, they don't suck for the general user out there, but they suck for us. They're not as well-performing and they're lame. But if you buy a new Mac, whether it's five years old or brand new, get it with an SSD. Trust me, worth it, absolutely worth it. As I said, Apple, what are you doing? They're pivoting. They're becoming a service company, not a hardware company. So they're going, all these companies that sell monthly services and make billions of dollars, maybe we should give that a shot. Even though they're already making billions of dollars. They're making crazy money, but they're looking at their revenue flattening out, the plateauing, because everybody has five iPhones. They've already bought, you have a new iPhone, you have the 10R. What is new in this phone that is revolutionary that has changed your life over your, what was the seven? What did you have? I had an eight. An eight. Okay, so what is the it thing in your 10R? Well, first off, if I wanna open it, all I have to do is look at it. The dimple is gone. The, you know, it's like, so, you know, if I, it knows who I am. My LG does that too. Okay. Just saying, just saying. All right, but it does that. It's a, I think it's a little bit more secure that way. You know, unless somebody cuts my head off and like hangs it in front of it. You got more problems to worry about. I know, but they got nothing to grab on to either, which makes it a little easier. But the camera is great. It's got a 12 megapixel camera. The camera's always a little better. Yeah, when, you know, for shooting video, you can't beat it. It's really, it's really great. You have to get used to some of the, you know, the, the swiping. I guess swiping is the thing, you know, that's really important. But the best price, the best thing was, was the price because I switched from one company that was charging a tremendous amount of money for iPhones and we got five phones. I mean, you know, me, wife, two kids and my mom are using their iPhones. They bought our old phones and it's costing us half as much. So, you know. That's pretty good. As long as you're in a sprint area. Yes. Oh yeah, we're in a sprint. Yeah, so that's why, that's the other reason I like it. I also have a new iPhone. Let's hold my new iPhone up in front of your iPhone. It's pink. Let's hold it up for size comparison, shall we? Mine's bigger. This is a iPhone SE in rose gold. Oh, why do I have this? Because I wanted the most affordable iPhone I could find that still is current. So this is the least expensive iPhone you can buy that still runs iOS 12.2 and it does all the latest stuff. I got this on eBay refurb. It looks like it was never ever used and I got it for a hundred bucks. Hundred bucks and it is beautiful. It's an iPhone, it's a legit iPhone. It's called the SE and it's the same brains and guts as the seven. So while it looks really old and tiny, it still has the, you know, it's still more useful on the inside. It's still more powerful than the lunar module. It is way more powerful than the lunar module. Yeah, this thing is significant. So I got it because I wanted to have, first of all, a backup phone. Because this one is the Google Fi with Sprint AT&T and US Cellular. This one is running Track Phone, Pay As You Go, which is Verizon. So the theory is I have every damn network covered at this point, hopefully with this phone I've got it all covered. We'll be able to find you no matter where you are. And when there's new things from the iPhone my clients are going, did you try this thing? I can finally go, oh, let me try that thing. About time, right? Anyway, so Road Procaster, we mentioned that the, I keep calling it the Road Procaster. It is not the Road Procaster. It is the Roadcaster Pro, that name will always suck because it's too much like their other product. It's great. I did a whole episode of the Pro Audio Suite. I did a whole YouTube on George the Check about it. You can go watch it, it's entirely too long. It's a programmable podcasting machine, essentially. Yeah, I mean, it's super sophisticated under the hood, but it's super simple on the outside, which is the way it should be. It's easy to use, it has big, cool looking faders. Is it perfect? No, but it's also like a 1.0 product. I mean, it's literally the first mixer Roadcast has ever made. So I don't expect perfection right out of the gate. You'll watch my video. There's one little glitchy thing that happens with recording to the internal memory card when you're playing back sound effects. Now, is that matter for voice actors? Probably not. Don't not buy it because of that one thing because it will not affect what most of you guys ever would do. But it's great. I check out the review over there at George the Check on YouTube. This last week, I was in the area at Audio, I was near this tech repair place, service place called Audio Rehab. How do I know about it? I had mountain bike with one of the technicians there. Networking. And he and I geek about this stuff all the time. And so I had a piece of gear that burned out. The power supply went poof while in the booth at a client's house. Oh, not good. Never a good thing when you literally hear a pop and see smoke coming out. The smell's not so great either. No. So I brought it in there and anyway, long story short, I got a nice little tour of the place. So got to look around and one good thing I took away from it. I mean, they do a lot of tech repair on like, they actually are the service center for Avalon stuff. So if you have an Avalon, they're the ones that are gonna repair it. But one cool little sidebar was that Scott, my buddy, he trained at Sennheiser. He actually worked at Sennheiser and he did all the servicing on Sennheiser MKH416 mics. Wow. So he knows that mic literally inside and out. So if you have a 416 that needs to be cleaned or serviced, Audio Rehab in Burbank. Is he like a really skinny guy that he can like crawl in there and... No, he's not skinny. Okay. No, it's not my size. But yeah, no, he knows his stuff and you don't have to ship it off to Connecticut if you're in LA, there's a local shop that knows the mic and can work on it. So that was cool. I also did a little video of that place and it is also on George, that one's on the George the Tech YouTube channel as well. You can go check it out. All right. You can see the inside workings of that place. But it's your typical technician shop. If you've never been in one, check it out. There's gear everywhere. It's like a museum slash warehouse stuff. Hopefully neatly stacked. Not too bad. Okay. I've certainly seen worse. All right. Well, that's good to know. Well, if you're wondering, if this is like the first time you've ever watched this show, one, where have you been? And two, maybe you get the idea that George and I actually know what we're talking about when it comes to home voiceover studios. And some podcasting stuff. And podcasting is everybody's doing podcast. Doesn't mean everybody should be doing podcasting, but yeah, give it a shot. If you got something to say, we can help you out. That's right. But if you need help with your home voiceover studio, if you're like totally intimidated about what it is you're supposed to be doing, talk to the guys that actually know how to do all this stuff. We won't overwhelm you. It's not as hard as it looks, but we at least make it look a lot easier than it actually is. And... Is that a selling point? It is. Okay, good. Well, because it may seem, it's only easy once somebody explains it to you in a way that you can understand. It's easy, when you know how. That's right. And fortunately, you got two guys who've been doing it for, I guess, a combined almost 40 years. Yeah, I would say at least. Which is more than anybody else in this business. And you can contact either one of us and we will help you out. We have various services. Like George, if they go over to your site, which is? GeorgeTheTech.com. You've got a menu. You can check out all the services at our flat rate, stacks, sound checks, things like that. You can also hire me by the half hour or you can bring me to your town. I'm gonna releasing a new product on my website soon that explains how to bring me to your city and get a group buy. Ah, good idea. And get all your buddies together, save a lot of money on travel and time, and get me to come to your city. So stay tuned for that. I should have it up in the next week or two. And Dan, you also provide services similar to mine over at? Homevoiceoverstudio.com. Yep. Yeah, I'm there. I answer your questions. I do consults. If you really need to learn from zero to being fairly competent at this, you can talk to me. I actually have a master's degree in education. I know how to teach this stuff. And I will get you past the intimidation and your technophobia and show you how to set up properly at home. It's not as complicated as you think, but you got to talk to somebody who knows how to do it. And you can reach me over there, homevoiceoverstudio.com. Or if you want me to listen to your audio, maybe you've set up already and you want me to hear what it sounds like and any improvements you might want to make or if you've got a major problem, you can go to my website and there is a specimen collection cup that you can click on. And it is a Dropbox. Send me some raw audio. There's some specific instructions. Yep. I want to read the instructions carefully and submit your audio that way. And I will tell you if it needs some help or hey, you're okay. I had somebody send me some stuff today. Levels were a little low, but other than that, guys doing business. He's working great. And it sounds good. It is good. It is good. All right. We got a ton of questions and we're going to get to your questions right after this. This is Anthony Mendez. You're watching VoiceOver Body Shop. From VoiceOver Essentials, here's the quote of the month. Terry, the sign is terrific. Thanks so much for the quick response. Greatly appreciated. It now adorns my home studio with pride. Thanks to you and one of my heroes, Harlan Hogan, for being there. And again, thanks so much for supporting VOBS and they should have Harlan on more often, don't you think? Well, thanks. Brian Hammond, voiceover of Chemist Washington. So let's talk about our multicolored LED sign and the credit card size included remote. It tells the world you're actually gainfully employed and lets people nearby know to speak softly while you do your big shtick. Well, you can only get them over at voiceoveressentials.com. Voiceoveressentials.com. Go over there. The best way to get there is to just go to the bottom of our homepage, click on the picture of Harlan talking into his Porta Booth Pro and go there. Look for the sign, the voiceover recording sign that will help you record with no background noise from your family and other folks. Thanks again, 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? This is Virgin Radio. Well, okay, we're not that innocent. There's jeans for wearing and there's jeans for working. Dickies, because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values, a leader for California, and a voice for America. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smartphone. But it's so much more. It's a, the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice? Check out this song. It's the end of the road for Rick. It's just you and me, Rick. When hope is lost. The I-8 from BMW. Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's J. Michael Collins. Bet you think I'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves. But I will give you my email. It's jmichael at jmcvoiceover.com. Now, if Dan will stop waxing his mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show. Are you a voice actor? Well, you should probably check out this tool from Source Elements called Source Connect. That's right. If you don't have it yet, you ought to go get it. And you don't have to buy it right away. You can just go get a demo. You can go over to source-elements.com, get a 15-day free trial of this software, and get familiar with what this thing does. What does it do? Connects your studio to other studios around the world for live direction, live recording. And this is the way a lot of the top tier work in the voiceover business is being recorded. So one way you can show that you're a pro voice actor, whether you've got a couple years in, 10 or more, is to have Source Connect on your website, have working knowledge of how it works, and better yet, actually have it. So you should definitely have it in your toolbox. You can go get that demo, get it up and running. You don't have to have an iLok USB key. Just have the account set up on iLok and get it rockin'. Go over to source-elements.com and sign up right now and tell them we sent you. And we'll be right back with some tech talk here on VoiceOver Body Shop. Hi, this is Bill Farmer, and you are watching VoiceOver Body Shop. It's great. Okay, we're back with questions from our vast audience that have been accumulating over the last couple of weeks. And so there's a lot of them. So we're gonna try and do a lightning round on these somewhat. All right, starting off with Jeff Holman. He says, hey guys, I live in a house very close to the Van Nuys Airport, which is like right over there. And yeah, I know what that's like. Throughout the house I have installed double-pane windows with differing glass thicknesses, quarter inch and three eighths inch, to attenuate different frequencies resulting in an STC sound transmission class of a rating of 36. In addition, I have eight inches of blown insulation in the attic. My VoiceOver booth is in a small walk-in closet in the center of the house. I put Oralex foam panels on the walls and in the corners and the 10-foot ceilings has that old bumpy 60s acoustic ceiling look to it. At nighttime after 11 p.m. I can achieve a noise floor as good as minus 72. Can't beat that, minus 72 is killer. However, during the day whenever a plane lands at the airport, I hear it. What can I do to further isolate my sound booth? With the use of ceiling clouds as you discussed in yesterday's tech talk, the one we've been playing all last week, be of any help. I know they're designed to focus sound within the room, but might they also create a sound barrier that would reflect outside noises back out? Keep up the great work, guys. Clouds are really for... It's just acoustic. All it does is it absorbs the bouncing around already in your room and keeps it from bouncing around so much. That's what a cloud is. Bouncing around. You're asking, would that keep sound out? Basically, no. What keeps sound out is a few things. Mass, a barrier of mass. So let me start with what you... You're on the right track with at least one thing and that's the glass. Having two pieces of glass, different thicknesses, heavy with an airspace between is a good start. But unfortunately that is just one tiny element to a very big problem. And those noises are penetrating the entire home, not just that one window, right? You've spent all that money on. So you've kind of like, I think of soundproofing as like plugging a dam. Right. You know, you have a big leak. So when you're plugging a hole in the wall, the first thing you think of is a window, right? Sound almost would come through that window. And then you plug the big hole with another piece of glass and you think, oh, that must have done it. No. It's coming into the attic. It's coming into the walls. It's coming in all over the place. An STC of 36, that's even if that was the right value, is not much at all. Like we're looking at a soundproof voiceover studio is gonna have an STC 60 at least 50 to 60, which is you're way far away from that. So it's a system. You gotta have mass, which is heavy, heavy drywall. You have to have an air gap. You have to have insulation. Everything has to be airtight, caulking in all seams. It's quite expensive and costly to do it right. And like the room we're in right now, we don't hear the Van Nuys Airport because the walls in this room are over almost a foot thick. Yeah, well, built a fortress here. Yeah, the inside walls are decoupled and have separate everything from the outside walls. They're not connected to each other. The only time we hear a noise is when there's a really loud helicopter going, landing on the roof. That's it. I hate to tell you, there's a lot more to it than what you've done. Your instincts are right, but you just kind of take a step. Right, and again, I think there's that confusion between sound transmission, rejection, and diffusion and absorption. They are totally different concepts for totally different things. So don't make that mistake. Acoustic foam does nothing to soundproof your room. It's totally about the reflection inside the room. Clouds do not either. That's right, but they work great in here, though. Yeah, acoustically, they're good. Steve Levin says, hi guys, when recording box tracks, what are the industry standard voiceover tracks? What is the industry standard for sample and bit rate if you're providing to an agency or a studio? I understand mono for voice only is standard, but is 128 44.1 kilohertz 16 bit audio. Good enough quality for agency or studio. And do you record at higher rates first and mix down to 128 44.1 16 bit as the final product. And my system is capable of mixing to almost any combo of these settings. PS, I bought the Harlan Hogan VO1A signature mic with metal windscreen and I love it. And I run it through my DBX267 2 channel strip with great results. Boom. All right. Well, but there's a lot of meat in there. Yeah, a lot of questions. So mp3 mono is gonna be a 128. That's the industry standard. Yeah. 24 bit, I think is probably a little bit safer to work with. 16 bits fine. Yeah. And let's not get our bit rates and our bit depth is confused, right? So bit rate is the mp3 128. Right. 16 bit is the bit depth. And that has to do with the recording quality that you initially recorded in Wave or whatever. Yeah. 16 bits, the bare minimum. I tell everybody nowadays, just recording everything in 24 bit. When you export it out as an mp3, you can choose all those other parameters. Right. If nobody says anything, 128, mp3, mono, you're good to go. I mean, that's gonna satisfy just about everybody's needs. Right. If you don't know what it should be, make it that. Right. If they ask for something else. Right. Well, it depends on what is the client specific last for. If he's telling you 48K and 32 bit, Wave, that's what you give them. Yeah. All software is capable of creating any one of those formats from your original recording. Yeah. So that's not a big deal. It only gets in the weeds with telephony, IVR, where the settings get really weird. Yeah. Now, here he talks about the Harlan Hogan VO1, which is a great microphone. You know, it's a good mic. There's one right there that I'm not supposed to tap on. But he runs it through a DBX 676 tube channel strip with great results. Hey, man. You know what? We don't know anything else about your channel strip or your signal chain or what else is in your studio. But it's not something we're going to go recommend. I mean, it's got tubes in it. Tubes fail. Tubes degrade over time. Tubes randomly do weird things. They get microphonic. We're not going to recommend stuff. And there's a lot of stuff that sounds great. Right. And generally most pre-amp, digital pre-amps. Yeah. Gears where it has like an analog front end. I think the 676 has analog in, digital out. Oh, OK. I think it does. Memory serves, I don't know. An interface has got enough pre-amp in it to drive any microphone. Yeah, everything is now. The reason that a lot of people go to some of these higher end pre-amps is because someone who doesn't know what they're talking about either tells them to do that or they're trying to achieve this warm sound. Right. The fact of the matter is, most people are trying to hear you as you exist. And if you want to sound warmer, that's for a very, very specific thing. Not to produce or decide. Yeah, unless they're telling you, can you make that a little bit warmer? I've never been told. Make your audio a little bit warmer. Probably not your voice. Well, no. That's probably never going to happen. Yeah, so I'm not a big fan of that. Chris Smith says, I'm considering replacing Pro Tools with a less expensive editor. Good job. But I've noticed Audacity and Twisted Wave both appear to be destructive editors. If this is true, can you recommend a replacement editor that costs less than Pro Tools? Well, if it's about anything, but... I mean, let's talk about why... What is matters? What is not destructive? Who cares if it's destructive? I mean, if you record a wave file and save it, there's your original. Now go and edit it to your heart's content, and when you're done, save it as a new name. Right. The original audio is there. Okay, I know it's not the same as Pro Tools. I know that in Pro Tools, every single edit is saved in what's called an EDL, edit decision list, which is saved as a Pro Tools file, and all the versions of the wave files are stored, and all the stuff. Who cares if you're just recording a dry voice track and editing it like... For 30 seconds, yeah. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's destructive. Really, it doesn't. But to answer your question more directly, Reaper is by far the best replacement for Pro Tools. It's way less expensive. The guy that writes it's a genius. Is it really geeky under the hood and extremely overwhelming? Yes, but so is Pro Tools. So if you really want a replacement, my first choice would be Reaper. Yeah. And I use Adobe Audition, and that has a... And it has a destructive and non-destructive. So it's even... Right. That's even the best of both worlds. And Twisted Wave 2. Which you can record and it won't destroy what's there. With the punch and roll? No, just when you hit record again, it will not erase that which is in front of it. It will just... Oh, it'll just push it over. Right. That's true. I mean, let's keep it simple. Mark Shilashinau says, Hi guys, can you discuss normalization and compression for the 30,000th time? And recommend when it's appropriate to use either or both. I enjoy your show. Now, I would preface that by saying, if you don't know what it is, don't use it. And why would we use it? First off, compression. Compression is to essentially to simplify it really down, is to make the loud stuff soft and the soft stuff louder. So everything is essentially the same. Less variations of the loud stuff. So it's not as dynamic. Exactly. You want... If you read, write person, you know, in the first place, chances are, you know, if it's not really dynamic, you've probably done it right. It's when, because we don't talk like this, we, what we do is we talk in a very consistent, normal pattern. A lot of people, when you're less experienced, you tend to hit the beginning of the sentence. And the ending. This is the time that I was gonna go see the thing and then it dies off at the end. So compression helps level that out. Normalization is just an adjustment of the volume. It's just a volume control. So it's just what we call a absolute volume control. So when you set what the peak level is, it just sets it and that's it. So if you recorded it at minus 10 and that's the peak was minus 10 and you normalize to minus three, the volume goes up by seven. That's it. It just changes the game by seven. Right. Now I like to use normalization and compression together because what I do is I'll use normalization to set the peak level before compression. That way I only have to set my threshold one time. The threshold is based on the input level. So if I know the input level is peaking at minus three, I can set my compression ratio or actually my threshold accordingly. And I don't have to like reset the threshold every time I record another file or another take. So that's how I use normalization. Yeah. Beyond that. Yeah, Uncle Roy likes to talk about, you use normalization when you finish recording a file and the initial file, making sure that it's at the right level. But only if it's way too low, or if it's way too low, you don't need. It's a tweak. Yeah. It's a half DB gain. It does make up a huge amount of gain, 20 dB later. Right. It's horribly misused to do that. But also after you've done a fair amount of processing even though you shouldn't be doing a fair amount of processing, it's the last thing you should do to make sure that everything is maximum peak. Still leaving that between minus three and zero headroom for an engineer to work with it properly. Yeah. Next question. Ken Stavis has a twisted wave in his iPad. He'd like to mix and master voiceovers in the iPad and he's new to this. Obviously. Yeah. I understand that there are effect stacks that I can get but where and how do I get them and is there training available on how to use them? In an iPad. Yeah. There is no quote unquote stack in twisted wave for the iPad unfortunately. I can make a setting for you in the iPad and then basically what I do is literally screen share and say, okay, here's the settings I used. Go into yours and duplicate them the best you can. But you can't save them as a. There's no preset. It just remembers the last thing you did. And that's it. Not ideal. In terms of mixing. If you want to mix, if you're talking about mixing layers of audio together, not going to do that in twisted wave. No, you don't have to use GarageBand. That's pretty much the only way you're going to do that. There's a few other apps. I think there's a Cubase for iPad now or something. But no, it's not the right tool for that. And when you say I'm new to this, do you mean are you new to voiceover or are you new to producing? What are you new to? Because there's certainly a big learning curve in terms of learning voiceover and learning voiceover production. So focus your energy on your voice acting and your voice work, then start looking into the production side. But talk to Dan or I to get off on the right foot with all this stuff. So you don't waste a lot of money and time in the wrong direction. I think a lot of people think that, oh, well, because I can use all this stuff, I should. And the fact of the matter is is if you don't know how to use it, don't. Record right in the first place. You'll save yourself so much trouble by getting your acoustics right, your mic technique right and setting proper levels initially. It eliminates a lot of those other problems. Don't use software and technology to make you sound great. If you're a good voice actor, you already sound great. The idea is to capture you as you exist sounding great. Right. Darren Sapp. Hey, if you guys done a show, you can direct me to about building my own sound booth. Well, we have. We've done so many variations on booths and all that stuff. And when you say build a sound booth, of course that's kind of like, can you teach me how to build a plane? You know, it's like, what kind of plane? Is it propeller? Is it a balsa wood? Is it powered by an engine? Or a rubber band. It's way too general. But yes, we did do a video about making a sound booth, a very simple budget sound booth. If you go on YouTube and search for eWabs, eWabs, that's our old show, and the word studio suit. So eWabs Essentials Studio Suit, you'll see an episode on there where Dan and I demonstrate a booth that Dan made out of PVC pipe and heavy blankets. We used to have this stuff Dan called Studio Suit. It's just, it's a very heavy insulated material. And we show how to make one. And it, yeah. So this is a few years ago. It's still relevant now. You can build a booth out of PVC and some blankets. Yeah, go to moving blankets. You know, specifically, you know, quilted moving blankets. Not heavier blankets. Not the felt ones. Yeah, heavy, heavy stuff is, you want it to be heavy and dense. Is it going to be soundproof? No, but it will get rid of the bounciness and the echo and reflections in your room. It will reduce some exterior noise. And if, you know, if you've got, you know, a limited exterior noise. You know, like a computer fan. That's right. It will, it will, it may take you to a point where you can record without too much background noise, but not soundproofing like that question earlier about, you know, how do you build a booth? Yeah, it's like, you know, somebody's asking for the time we're gonna have to build, tell you how to build a watch. It was a part two on that. Yeah. He did get in a little bit more detail, which I apologize for missing that. He does have a closet right now he's using. It takes a lot to set it up each time. And it's cramped. You know, a little creativity in your closet, setting it up correctly with the right combination of stuff. And you'd be amazed. You can actually make it pretty usable. But he's in Texas. Oh, it gets hot there. It gets real hot. And of course, there's dogs everywhere because it's Texas. And you know what? Fixing that stuff is, that's expensive. So a booth made out of blankets or a booth that you can do it yourself building is not gonna stop the barking of dogs without some serious construction. I mean, a lot of work. So talk to us before you delve into that endeavor. And by God, don't buy doll box plans and expect that to make a soundproof booth. It will not do that at all. It's not easy. It's, I think for voiceover, you know, trying to make the closet work, it's a lot simpler. It's cramped, but there are like George said, there are creative ways to do it. I've been building a lot of studio closets lately and they sound great. And the clients are happy because one, a lot of times they don't have to move their clothes out. No, we leave the clothes in there. Yeah, boy, there was one booth I had. It was like a tiny little, you know, 20 inch closet. And it's like, oh, let me move my wife's coat over here. Big long fur coat. Fabulous, sounded great. You wouldn't believe that this wasn't a professional, you know, that this wasn't a big professional studio. You got to sacrifice the lives of 30 rodents, at least put them up for use in your voiceover studio. Absolutely. T-Man. Steve has been answering in the chat. Well, okay, Steve, thanks a lot, but... Can you explain bass traps? I have some and tuning a small room for voiceover. So if you were to distill into can't live without room essentials for VO, what are they? So bass traps are, they're basically acoustic panels that are designed to absorb the lower frequency stuff. And in a small room, that is a lot of stuff. Right, you're closer to the microphone, the, you get standing waves at 90 degree angles and stuff like that. That means the corners of the room are very close, you know, the walls, everything's very close in a tiny space. So we need a lot of this stuff to try to counteract that buildup of lower frequencies. In a big room, eight by 10 feet, it's not a big deal or nearly as big a deal because the sound has a lot more room to bounce around and expand and dissipate and it doesn't resonate the same way. Think of a two soda bottles, one half full, one totally full. You blow across the top, the high, the full one goes. You blow across the lower one. It goes, you know, the lower pitch is because there's more air volume. So the bigger the room, the lower the pitch is going to resonate unless you need the bass traps. Which comes to that question of big room versus small room. And a lot of people are buying booths or want to build one. They don't really understand that while soundproof booth might be really good soundproof, it's kind of a relative term. Somewhat quieter booths. Yeah, that you're creating certain problems with that but a larger room might actually make things sound a little bit cleaner. So it's a trade-off, you know. It is, it is a trade-off for sure. Yeah, Larry Oliver says, is it a good idea to have a microphone professionally cleaned? If so, how often? Like in TLM 103s and 416s, I do keep them covered when not in use and they seem to sound great. Just curious if it's a good maintenance type of thing. Also, if one lives in a flyover state, do you send them to an authorized service place or take a chance on a local? Well, let me start with the very last thing. Do not take a chance on a local shop to fix a sensitive condenser. They'll fix it with a wire brush probably. Yeah, do not. If you're gonna get an anointment or a sanitizer repaired, if you don't know where to go, then start with the website, Sennheiser's website for authorized repair. They know it, they do it right. Yeah, otherwise, like you said, tonight we mentioned a shop here in Burbank. You're not in Burbank, I understand that. But so if you're gonna mail it somewhere or ship it somewhere, I mean, get a quote from audio rehab. You know, because they know what they're doing. Certain things and certain services require a higher level of precision is not the word. You have to have a shop that's extremely clean, like a clean room environment. Like they're building a space probe. Yeah, well, there's absolutely no particles of dust or anything in the air. So for certain services, that's what you're gonna be looking at. But to go back to the beginning, should you have them cleaned and how often? How often, I don't know. I mean, five or 10 years maybe. The thing is, you don't know if they sound bad until they start, until they get really bad. That's until they don't sound good. Like if you have a brand new one and then you have a 10 year old mic, you will probably notice the difference between them. You probably will if you hear them back to back. So show how often, oh man, gosh, I don't know. If you have a house that's not air conditioned, the windows are open all year round. Yeah, probably every year. But if it's a pretty clean house with a filtration system, an HVAC system, not a problem. You know, probably not that awful. If you're hanging your mic upside down, usually things don't accumulate on it, except around here and you just go. Yeah, dust doesn't get to sit on a diaphragm when it's hanging vertically probably. Which is one of the reasons you hang it vertically. Yeah. And our final, last question from Michael Kennedy. Thoughts on the Sennheiser MKE600 versus the 416? A worthy mic? What's a worthy mic? I mean, Sennheiser doesn't make anything that's junk, right? Is it gonna sound exactly like the 416? No. Is it gonna sound like a microphone though, picking up your voice? Yeah, is it gonna sound reasonably good? Yes, the difference you're probably gonna notice, I guess with that mic is maybe it's gonna be a little noisier. It's gonna have a little bit more hiss to it. Cause that's what I find with shotgun mics especially, the cheaper ones are much noisier. Right. So that's gonna be a real big difference. Is it worthy? I don't know, it's not a mic that in our circles or at least in my experience has been brought up all that often. I haven't seen it. As an alternative to the 416. I can't tell you, we've tested out one a couple months ago on my show, the Pro Audio Suite called the Rode NTG4. Yeah. And if you're looking for a budget shotgun, that sounds pretty close to a 416. Like, close enough that a producer would have no problem making it work, that one's a pretty good option, around $300. I don't know if any mics that fall under that $300 mark that are gonna sound like a 416, no way. That's the most cost effective one I've seen, but can't see much about the 600, but send a sample, I'll do a sound check or send Dan a specimen. And we'll let you know what we think of the sound if you happen to have that mic, we'll let you know. All right. Well, that's a lot of questions. That was a good lightning round though. We got those out for tech talk number seven here. So, if you got a question, send it to us here at theguysatvobs.tv, and we'll answer it like we just did. Yeah, that was great. Thanks everybody for sending us so many questions. So, if you got more, send them in. That makes this show run. And you know what you guys, I gotta say, we get questions, we've been doing this for eight years. We're gonna see questions from time to time we've answered many, many times. So, if we get a little, like we've seen that before, we apologize, but it's okay. Always ask a question, even if it seems like something that's basic, that's what we're here for. We are here to enlighten you. And to lighten your burden. How's that? Okay, good. Anyway, all right, we'll be right back to wrap things up right after this. This is Bill Ratner, and you're enjoying Voice Over Body Shop with Dan Leonard and George Wittem, V-O-B-S dot TV. What question do we get most often? Well, far and away it's, how do I even get started in Voice Over? And we have a great answer to that question. Take V-O-to-Go-Go's free Getting Started in V-O class. You heard right, it's free. And it's available online 24-7 at GettingStartedinV-O dot com. That's GettingStartedinV-O dot com. If you've been watching V-O-B-S and thinking that you need to get in gear and start your own Voice Over career, this is the class you should start with. You'll learn about the vocal skills you need, the storytelling skills you need, the equipment you need, and the business skills you need. All in one single comprehensive online class taught by V-O-to-Go-Go's David H. Lawrence the 17th. This class won the Backstage Readers Choice Award four years in a row. And again, there's no charge. It's absolutely free. Wanna take it? Sure you do. Go to GettingStartedinV-O dot com. That's GettingStartedinV-O dot com. Your dynamic Voice Over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead. Now there's one place where you can explore everything the Voice Over industry has to offer. That place is VoiceOverExtra dot com. 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 books, auditioning, casting, home studio setup and 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 and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the Voice Over audition. It's all here at VoiceOverExtra dot com. That's VoiceOverExtra dot com. Ooh, I think I heard the voice over body shop. I did, I did hear the voice over body shop. Little body shop. Are you confused about how to set up and maintain a professional quality voice over studio? No wonder. The information out there is mostly mythology. This is the best microphone to use. You'll have to have a preamp. You need a sound proof booth. This software is the best. Your audio must be broadcast quality. Consult with someone who knows the truth. Someone who's been there in the trenches doing voice over for over 30 years. Someone with unparalleled experience with VoiceOver Studios who's worked with hundreds of voice actors and designed hundreds of personal studios. He knows how to teach and cares about your success. In one of the harshest environments known to VoiceOver, Dan Leonard, the home studio master. Separate myth from fact and get a handle on your personal voice over studio. Contact the home studio master at homevoiceoverstudio.com. All right, well, what a fun show. Yeah, this is why we do this show. It's really important that we get the right people on here to talk to you and give you the information you need. Who are our donors of the week? Donors of the week. We got us plethora of them. A lot of these names I've read before, which is why you should subscribe because your name will be read here all the time. Got it. Like Don Griffith, Martha Kahn, Shana, or Shana, as I was instructed is the way to say her name. Pennington Baird, Joseph Valentinetti, Stephanie Sutherland, Patty Gibbons, Amanda Fellows, and Tom Pinto. The Tom Pinto. All right. Very cool. All right, hey, show us your booths. Yeah. Now this is not, this is the hoax studio. Yeah, this is obviously a very professional studio. A commercial studio. Yeah. Something that you don't necessarily, hey. Hey. Hey. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, this is not the kind of thing most voice actors need to aspire to, but hey, you know, if you've got a 250 grand kicking around, you can build something like this. Yeah. And you'll be happy to do it for you. Take your pictures, make sure they're landscape. Not portrait. You know, make them sharp. They shouldn't be Instagram quality. They should be broadcast quality. Oh, did I say that word? You said broadcast quality. They should be nice and sharp and we'll throw them up on the wall behind us. Just shoot it with your iPhone. It'll be fine. Just put it on tripod. Yes. Once again, if you want to work with George, you go to GeorgeTheTech.com and Dan is over at homevoiceoverstudio.com. Happy to help you out there. Let's see, you want to be in our studio? We're live every other Monday night, so we won't be on next week. And if you ain't sure, just email us. Email us at theguysatvobs.tv. We'd like to have you here in the studio with us because it's fun to have a live audience. It is. It gives us a little bit more energy, just even though, you know, the coffee works pretty well too. Yeah, tonight we had a substitute audience for coffee. Yes. What the hell? It worked. All righty, well, and if you want to be here, just write to us again at theguysatvobs.tv slash audience or subject matter audience. Put audience and subject, don't we? That's right. Don't miss it. All right, well, we need to thank our sponsors who make this show absolutely possible like Harlan Hogan's VoiceOver Essentials. VoiceOver Extra. Let's see here, Source Elements. Yeah, VO Togogo. VoiceActorWebsites.com. And J. Michael Collins demos. All righty. Well, we also need to thank the Dan and Marcy Leonard Foundation for the betterment of live webcasting. Couldn't do it without that fine, fine foundation. Also, our producer, Catherine Curtin, for getting us great guests. Mike Merlino in the chat room tonight. Thanks, Mike. Boy, you got all those questions in. That was fabulous. Yeah, thanks. Our technical director, Mike's mom, Sue Merlino. Who does a great job? Making it happen like a real TV show. Wait, it is a real TV show. It's just not on NBC. It's the future of TV. That's right. And we're living it now. And of course, Lee Penny, simply for being Lee Penny. Well, that's gonna do it for us this week. We really appreciate you tuning in or clicking in or whatever it is you guys do out there. This business is, as George was saying, it's not easy. There's a lot of hard things you need to learn technically we're here to help. That's why we're here every week. And we want to show you the best of what goes on in the business and getting the best information out there. So tune in every week here on VoiceOver Body Shop. And like we always say, if it sounds good. It is good. All right, we got that right. Have yourselves a great week. Everybody will see you next time here on VoiceOver Body Shop. I'm Dan Leonard. I'm George Widow. And this is VoiceOver. Body Shop. Or VO. BDS.