 Oh boy, that's the fun part about doing this, but then again, we've been doing this. It'll be 11 years next month You know, I've been watching this since the beginning. Yeah, you were I remember you would watch when we first started. Yeah Back when we were didn't we start in March 2011? 2011 yeah, so it's totally 12 years Wow Wait am I math my math now? Well, that's why I was saying I knew it before 11 years It'll be 11 years it'll be 11 years. Yes, it's better on the math today Yeah, yes, yeah, don't ever question me on math You know how my math is drives Marcy crazy when we're doing a tip. Yeah, just round it up. I'm like Anyway All right, so here's here's what I figured we could talk about tonight. Okay, I Mean we can talk about you which is fine because I love hearing about you Let's say, you know, we'll talk about you know how you got into voiceover, you know We can just sort of breeze over that But the fact that you're doing a lot of different stuff You know, I think second question clearly success and voiceover requires a good business sense How have you moved your career along using good business practices and I spelled practices remembered invoice I Did a yeah, yeah How much should you rely on automation versus manual? You know, yeah, that's that's probably a good question. That's officially your question. Okay Yeah, it is a good question because I sometimes obsess over how much to automate stuff and how to make it So yeah run and then when it doesn't work, then you have to fix it You know, there are certain things that I do automate and there are certain things that I don't Invoicing is one of those things that I do manually myself. I mean, I do it through a software program Yeah, but I like I'm using My god, we have oh ho books. I'm using zoho So I find that it allows me to keep track of how I'm doing every month How the year is progressing who owes me money? The one thing I do have automated through there is every 30 45 and 60 days It sends out a reminder to the client that I haven't been paid yet So, yeah, that's that's pretty necessary. Yeah, well quick books will also remind you that. Oh, yeah A lot of them will and I was okay. There's 90 days on this one and Yeah, I mean you can you can program it however long you want it to go But yeah, fresh books did the same thing and it was fresh books that I switched from so I just got used to that Automation and wanted to make sure it still had it. Oh, I could catch about fresh books But it got a little I thought it was pricey and then it wasn't a full accounting package. It wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I Went to wave apps Yeah, I've heard of it and I've heard good things Zoho is actually like accounting compatible. So it's pretty heavy-duty. Yeah, it's pretty and it's pretty From what I've seen pretty reasonable it's like a more affordable like What's that really really really really really really really really big company that advertised on the Super Bowl Salesforce, oh, okay. Oh the one with Matthew McConaughey You know it could Zoho has so much stuff in it I'm using a version where I pay a certain amount per year to be under Matt Calricks His account Yeah, so I think we're all the ones that are on his account are paying a little less per year Yeah, but it's less than I was for a year of fresh books It does and it's Zoho one right? So it does everything like it's way more inclusive. Yeah. Yeah, just the second time I've heard heard his name today So he's an affiliate. Yeah. Yeah, no cuz because Rosie and Brian were talking about him this morning Oh, yeah, cuz they're Yeah, yeah, their email apparently got all screwed up. Yeah, I don't use it. I don't use Zoho for my email. I Just use Google It's all gmail. That's what I do. Me too. All right. So now we want to get into this audio branding thing And I sure I need you to define that a little bit better Exactly define that I figured you could since you have an entire podcast about yes Let me just Cuz I know that okay, there it is. I have an actual definition from the audio branding Academy Are the international sound awards basically? Oh? International and and how does one get nominated for one of those? Well, you have to be doing something very innovation innovative in sound and it's done through a company in I think they're well I don't know if we sound actually does it. It's the audio branding Academy and they're based in Germany Oh, yeah, yeah, and they they call the they call the award the Isabel ISSA international sound like awards right and then Bell cuz that's yeah, so I But yeah, really interesting things like there was a Hospital in Helsinki that had each floor dedicated to a soundscape of the world So you'd start underneath the ocean in the bottom floor and then you'd go to the beach And then you'd go to a field and then you'd go to a forest and then a you know the sky and then the stars Depending on the level of building and it's a children's hospital. So They're doing this to make the kids feel more safe and happier and Yeah, concentrate on other things There was that voice conference that we were at at Disneyland. Were you at that one? We were at the Disneyland resort and George and I are walking through the gardens there Remember how the sound would change as you would move from place to place But it was seamless. It was totally seamless. Yeah, it was super seamless. It wasn't very deliberate about that. They have Basically hedges and and trees up in places so that they can direct the sound depending on when you go from one section to another and they have these these Like speakers in very precise places. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I love that stuff. Mm-hmm say what you will about Disney. They're Imagineers audio engineers all those things just oh, yeah, they know what they're doing next level man. Yes really Really awesome. Yeah, so audio brand, you know Just to let you guys know and I try to explain this to other voice talent, too, it's not for us It's for our clients, right? Exactly. Yeah. Well, that's that's the whole thing. Yeah, everybody's concentrating on what's gonna make me a Better voice actor. It's like you know being good to your clients. Yeah, I mean definitely focus on your craft Yeah, sure. That's fantastic. But your branding doesn't really matter to the client as much as you think it does Well, I'll be very interested to hear the definition of that and how you apply that. Yeah. Yeah, but I'm not applying it for me I'm applying it in the sense that I'm aware that I am a part of that audio brand for a client Yeah, so being aware of that just makes it a lot easier for me to give them what they want Yeah What's spectrio I just googled audio branding, it's literally one of the first hits on Google Spectrio. Yeah, I have no idea, but I'd like to know Three examples of how audio branding and how you how of audio branding and how you can brand your business. Oh There are lots of companies doing this. Okay. They do digital signage. They do it. Yeah on old messaging Okay, oh Spectrio there. I see it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that's a provider now as a voice actor Would you reach out to them as a provider? Would you do more? Do you would you market to a provider like this? Not necessarily no because I think they're working. I mean Depends it depends What ends up happening is I end up interviewing these people on my podcast See that's why people have podcasts. Well, I wanted to get to know my clients I didn't want to interview other voice talent I wanted to know who was hiring us and what their pain points are and what they like to talk about So that was kind of why the whole podcast started Inspired, right? Yeah, and that's that's one of the reasons we want you talking to the board this week Because I mean that's that's really our mission is to be you know to relate, you know, what we do You to tell people look we're professionals. Yeah, we've invested in ourselves We're we're not cotton. We're not, you know, even though paving contractors invest in trucks and stuff But we don't try to be the low, you know, the lowest bidder or something like that. Oh, I don't think you see a whole lot of that anymore Well, I think if you inch the reason or the way that I end up doing this as I interview Audio branding professionals so that they can let our clients know that their audio is important, right? So it kind of like that the idea is to resolve boats, right? So these people are working for our clients our end clients, right? Right, and and their job is to make these end clients sound good so that they can make a good impression and actually Emotionally reach the people they're trying to reach of course. Yeah makes it makes total production though Do you guys know how to turn off the live? Transcription in Facebook feature No idea. Let me go. Yeah, somebody in the chat. It's like it's Faces and it's translating everything you're trying to say while you're saying it I think you can turn it off you as the oh, yeah, it's on their end. Yeah, Sue's right I think you can turn it off. Oh, yeah You click on the CC. Yeah at the bottom a little CC closed caption and then click off And there it goes poof it's gone Yeah, yeah That was a feature not a bug. Yeah, but depending on who's watching. It's right over our faces. Oh, okay All right, okay. Thank you for fixing that the CC button. Yes Oh that that's in YouTube, isn't it? Or what's that on Facebook? That was Facebook actually YouTube has it, too Yeah, you don't see if I click CC. Oh, we don't have that turned on. Oh Well, that's a good point. She might want it on she just doesn't want it on our faces. I don't know Like on mine I see it I see our video window in Facebook and then in the black Letter boxing below it. It shows the text so it doesn't overlap our faces Okay, so it would depend on the size of her screen the size of your window Resize your window and make it so there's a black bar at the top on the bottom The text floats to the bottom and it's no longer over our faces. So there you go issue solved number one Yeah, and then I figured we'll talk about your podcast and you know because our main purpose here is just total utter shameless promotion Well, I hope it's interesting Listen you've been doing it looks like you've been doing every podcast there is I mean I want to get on that circuit you work on this. Yeah, the circuit I do a few of them and I'm enjoying it a lot actually and it's getting me more comfortable with my own elevator speech if that makes any sense oh, yeah Because you know power the power of sound is so important and we all know that right, but our clients don't necessarily know that And there are plenty of clients are can you fix this? Well, you know and often we're we're sort of like we're almost the middle man Like there's like two people be you know before they even talk to us So anyone in that chain needs to know that the audio is important and I just I'm trying to do that with the podcast All good all right and the clubhouse too actually yeah, well you're doing that and you're George and I figured clubhouse had just died on the vine But I'm still on it every week. Yeah, I'm using one specific tool Yeah, it is a specific tool. Yeah, it is But I find that it's a really interesting tool and they oh are you guys ready to go or well? She was just giving us the one minute sign. Oh, okay. Okay. I I was on mark scott's Podcast and we talked a lot about clubhouse. So he was on our show what a month ago. Yeah I'm using clubhouse as a way to stay to have informal what I call office hours time with my clients That's a great use for it. Yeah, it's working really well twice a week 30 minutes You know get in get out 30 minutes is enough to answer a bunch of questions, but not make it into a really long You know, it doesn't allow time to really get into deep Conversation just it's just there to help people with some quickie things sure right depends on what you're using it for I have panelists. We have discussions on anything five five o'clock. Let's all right light this candle for reels Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop and we got a great show tonight if you got to understand voiceover is a business and We have a great guest tonight our good friend Jody Cragel is joining us from the great white north Which apparently is quite white and very much in the north And we're gonna talk a little bit about audio branding and good business practices and what it takes to really succeed, right Jody? Say hi Okay, you all set George, right? I'm ready to go. Okay voiceover body shop is coming up 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 Wittem the engineer to the VO stars a Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional video studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a professional voice down with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world bringing you talks with the biggest names in the voice of a world today Letting you ask your questions and giving you the latest information to make the most of your voice over business Welcome to voice over body shop Voice over body shop is brought to you by voice over essentials.com 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 VOheroes.com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training JMC 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 everyone, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voice over body shop or VO B Yes, it is. Yes coming from the championship city of Los Angeles where most people are like the Rams. Yay Hey, I I'm I think the the halftime show has was for a target audience Certainly one Los Angeles nose. Yes to Millennials Yeah, and that's or Gen X is to and that definitely was me. I enjoyed the halftime show. I have to yeah System cranking I couldn't understand the word they were saying. Oh, well, you know, it's that's the yeah, it was a target audience fascinating to note that you know, it was Yeah, Marissa was like, have you ever noticed that the that most of the Super Bowl entertainer halftime entertainer are all over 40 It's interesting to this time. Oh, is that gin general or is that just I think in general? I mean think about some of the people a minute. Anyway, we're gonna talk about voice over tonight We got other things to talk about we are looking forward to getting back here in the studio altogether pretty soon because I Miss being able to look up the nostrils of a lot of prominent voice actors I Think things a little bit more interesting. Yeah, but we're gonna talk about the voice over business tonight If you've got a question for our guest or for George and I for tech talk a little bit later on throw it in the chat room Supposedly Jeff Holman is back there. He is typing everything out. I have verified the fact that he is here I'm glad to hear that and So why don't we introduce our guest as Mishka apparently wants to get into the studio here Providing voiceovers for TV and radio commercials corporate and industrial narrations documentaries and intro narrations political ads and anything else Jody Jody Crangle has voiced national international commercial campaigns for companies like Bissell Kraft Capri Sun and Visitor Orlando Narrated documentaries corporate and web explainer videos for Fortune 500 companies and has and has been the narration voice for shows on both Slice Network in Canada and HGTV here in the US So if you're ever buying stuff for no HGTV is like the discovery channel HG is home and garden. I think home and garden, right? Yeah, that's where you had all the home improvement shows She's also she also has a new podcast that she's really been making a lot of on audio branding the hidden gem of marketing and How do you get all that work? Let's talk to her about it. Let's welcome Jody Crangle. Hey dear. How you doing? Hello, I'm doing good. It's good to see you guys. It's good to see you It's been a long time. Yes You know, I'm great and so glad we can have you on because we've really been trying to concentrate in getting people to understand The voiceover is an entrepreneurial business. This is not show business and you know where everybody's like Oh, I'm gonna be in voiceover. I'm gonna get an agent and they're like, that's that's not how you do it You know people making the big big big bucks their movie stars and You know, you can move up there, but you got to start somewhere but anyway Your journey into voiceover started doing narration for the blind and now it seems you do everything Why don't you tell us a little bit about how you you know how you drifted into voiceover back in the 90s How you got where you are today? Well, I first heard about voiceover in 95 96 when I was Volunteering my time to read. I guess they were magazine articles at the time on to reel-to-reel tape It was actually real-to-reel tape. Yeah And I enjoyed the tech almost as much as I did the voicing so it was a nice challenge and I did that for around a year It percolated a little while because I was actually self-employed doing SEO and internet marketing SEO search engine optimization just for those who are unfamiliar like it like in the late 90s or yeah Yeah way out of the curve. Yeah. Yeah, I was doing that from 95 until 2007 when I started doing full-time voiceover. So yeah, it's been a while and and yeah It was a nice progression because I think it helped me understand the business end of things before I even got into the voiceover world Because I was already self-employed for me. It was just a focus switch. Oh, okay. Yeah Okay, see now that makes sense and I think a lot of people again don't get that that This is a business. You've got to be able to do all these different things in order to get people to Hire you. Yeah, and it's not it's no one's responsibility except yours This is very true. Yes, and you you better be responsible about that at the very least remember to invoice You don't get paid unless you invoice Do it quickly. Yes, you don't do it two months later. Yeah something like that So clearly success in voiceover requires a good business sense But how have you moved your career along using good business practices? What are some examples of that aside from invoicing immediately? Yeah I think being efficient in my work One of the ways that I have differentiated myself in what I do is I tend to work on projects that are five minutes of finished audio or less so what that means is that I can very quickly get to a Potential client or a client's project really quickly. I can get it done in a half an hour often for them So, you know, there's a combination of that it takes coaching in order to be able to get there that quickly But also you need to not be putting out fires every second of the day Right, so if you're ahead of the curve and you have your day If you make sure that the projects that you do are Small enough. This is just how I've done it. I'm not saying this is the best for everybody But for me if I make sure that those projects are small enough that it means that I don't have this huge 100-hour e-learning project looming over my shoulder when someone comes to me for a commercial project and I mean for me it it just it made total sense because I really enjoy having many different projects in a day Because that to me is more exciting Lots of people have different things that they enjoy lots of people enjoy e-learning lots of people love audiobooks All the power to them they can have all mine. I Give all of that away But I really love the corporate narration anthem videos and the commercial stuff That's really my bread and butter and I love doing it. What does that really involve? I mean, I'm I've done a few of them But you know, what have you experienced in doing the the corporate narrations and the anthem stuff and Yeah, I think it depends on what the company is obviously Different companies have different feelings. For instance, you're gonna sound different with health care than you would with finance but a lot of them have that same kind of Approachability but gravitas just a little bit of oomph behind the voice And so that is something that I I excel at that's really where my happy place is So I do a lot of health care. I do a lot of finance. I do some tech And I can do a lot of the the happy Retail as well. I do a lot of that and the luxury stuff, which I really love doing as well So there's a whole lot of really interesting work in those different genres that I like playing in How do you go about getting that kind of work though? I think most people don't understand Oh, I'm gonna be a voice actor. How do I go out and find that stuff because it's generally not agents finding that for you No, not usually and in the beginning agents aren't really going to help you get where you need to go in order to have regular clients Because they're not gonna look at you until they know you can make money right, I mean, they're interested in It's a partnership right they're interested in making money from you because otherwise why be an agent so If you are going out and getting your own work and that can mean a whole bunch of different ways these days I mean back in the day and Dan you will probably remember this when Back in the day. Yeah voices comm used to be the place to go right voices comm voice one two three I'm Bedal go a little slightly more recently than that, but we built our businesses on those exactly Yeah, so when voices comm used to allow us to contact the client directly That was a lot easier voice one two three does allow that to happen I will say that a lot of my early career started on those platforms and I Made those clients my own clients and brought them off the platforms that was exactly yeah Just by giving them good service I mean that's you know making sure that it was easy for them to just call me and have it done like no must no fuss It's done. You don't have to worry about it. You don't have to call anyone else. I'm the one you need Yeah, that's what I would say too. It's like, you know, I'm going to make your job easy You know, you're gonna take this audio and it's you're not gonna have to do anything to it It'll just be just plug it into whatever it is. You're making. Yeah Presentation or something make it easy for them. Yeah. What's again, our guest is Jodi Krangel. We're talking about Business practices for voiceover, but we're also going to talk a little bit about audio branding and what that means So if you've got any questions for Jodi again, throw them in the chat room Jeff Holman is sitting back there somewhere and he's going to relay those questions to us a little bit later on in this show So make sure you're you're if you got a question I mean, I think once we start talking about the audio branding thing that may trigger a few questions and a couple of people's minds So when we say audio branding because you've got it's what your podcast is about and you've been you've been you know Podcasts and talking on a lot of podcasts. Can you explain a little about what you mean by audio branding? Sure I'll give you the definition that the international sound awards uses and they call it a Brand sound that represents the identity and values of a brand in a distinctive manner The audio logo branded functional sounds brand music or the brand voice are characteristic elements of audio branding so it's a big umbrella of sound that is associated specifically with a company's DNA and This can mean a whole bunch of different things. It can mean a combo of music a voice of sounds of the It could be like the sound that your GE kettle makes when it's ready like it It could be the sound of luxury car door slamming like there's all sorts of different things that this could mean and It's all part and parcel of who that company is And it lets people know in seconds exactly who they are That's how powerful audio branding really is because it gets that message across emotionally deeply and quickly Hmm. So how do you get that across to your potential clients and your existing clients? What do you make a podcast about it? Good night everybody That's what I do see the point we always talk about you just because you can doesn't mean you should make a podcast Something to say or in Judy's case something to learn. Yeah, well, I'm learning at the same time I mean the people that I have on the show all are really Knowledgeable about the various different parts of this and there are so many different parts And when I talk about audio branding, it's only it's not only about brand sounds It's also about how it heals us. I talk about the power of sound in in the podcast So not only am I talking about the advertising in the marketing But I'm also talking about how sound affects us in our daily lives and a lot of that is healing a lot of that is What music does to our moods There's how you can influence what you taste by what you hear It's a really bunch of interesting things and how important is sound in our lives that I mean without it I I'm gonna I say this a few times on some other podcasts But if you're talking about movies for instance in in film if you turn off that sound and you don't listen to the sound You're gonna know what's going on in that movie, but you're not really going to care about it That's the thing the sound gives you emotional context the music the sound effects Everything that you are hearing is giving you the emotional context of that movie So you're not going to be moved to tears just by watching something on a screen You're gonna be moved to tears when you hear the music that goes along with that scene and the sound design that goes along with That scene and the spoken words that go along with it. It's so much an emotional landscape that we just unconsciously use in our lives and Experience in our lives and when it's gone then we realize Yeah, I just heard that on the news I just heard that I was watching some random sort of viral YouTube video Explainer today, and it was they mentioned how one of the reasons why airline food tastes relatively bad to the passengers It's because of the noise levels on the airplane Effects the way you taste the food. Yeah, it's so true. That was like whoa. I mean I thought I knew about stuff Our senses all work together and our brains are weird They say if you want it to taste better put on noise canceling headphones And you'll have a better tasting meal or listen to certain sounds or certain music You know if you're if you're in a French restaurant, and you're listening to top 40 music for some strange reason It makes you think like you're in a hole in the wall kind of like Place that doesn't care right if you're in a French restaurant And they're playing French music the type of music that you would hear if you're sitting in a cafe in Paris That makes you just taste the food better. It just makes everything better Exactly I'll remember that when I'm sitting in a cafe in Paris this spring Enjoy thank you. I'm looking really looking forward to it. Yeah, we're doing a cruise from Leon to Paris. Wow That'll be fun. Yeah, be a lot of fun. Anyway, I Once again, we're talking about Jody Cragill. We're talking about audio branding and good voiceover practices. So I Think people need to understand that it's not necessarily our job to do that now You you talked about a lot of different things that you know that what an audio brand sounds like to a particular client Generally, it's not the voice actor that does that. It's usually a good sound designer I mean you watch a movie You know we're talking about sound effects and all the things that that go into it not really our job for the most part But how as voice actors do we affect that and how do we get that across to our clients as to what it is that they want? Well, we are hired usually because we have a certain voice type and we fit that type and that is what they hear as being the voice of their brand and And we have to understand that we are a part of their audio brand that Once we get into a certain rhythm with them once we become that voice for them that it's going to be something that we are Very aware of And that and that they need to be aware of because it's important if you know God forbid they want to change their audio brand then that voice changes as well or the tone changes But we are a part of that We're not the audio brand and it's not necessarily for us to make an audio brand It's it's for us to be a part of theirs So it's it's more for them to understand that their audio is important and the voice is a part of that Yeah, and that's so that's always been an important thing Yeah, they may change you you might be the voice of a brand for many many years and and then they write to you and say We're going in another direction. It happens. It happens all the time. Yeah, totally I understand and yeah, I get why they would do that But yeah, it's it's something that we just need to be aware of as a profession that we are adding to their audio brand and we are helping to let people know who they are in a very quick amount of time and That's why we were chosen. So whoever you know, whatever job you're doing for whatever client you're doing that job for It's because they decided that your voice fit their brand and That was a conscious decision Usually it's a conscious Client then at least from someone in the chain So someone in the casting in the office is like yeah, that's what we're looking for. Yeah, that's what they do professionally That's their job to do that and not necessarily our job is to be ourselves Yeah, you know and then do we fit into that particular brand? Again, if you got a question for Jody throw it in the chat room right now Now you you're doing this podcast Tell us a little bit about how you started that and what's kind of stuff is on there and why people should listen Well, you know, I started another podcast before it in the summer of 2019 I was doing something called Jody's silver linings with which Bev standing came up with that name And it was just some common wisdom stuff because I'm older and There are some things that I wanted to say and I did that and then I was a part of a business mastermind and they were telling all of us that really we should have a podcast that this was Something you needed to do and so I jumped in whole hog without even really You know stopping to think about what I wanted the end result to be and The end result was that I started getting people asking me to be a life coach Not what I was hoping That was really not my plan So I stopped that podcast in October of 2019 and in November of 2019 I started up audio branding and it was really from a conversation that I had in this business mastermind, there's a fellow that I was talking with his name is Vincent Piglesi and he has a Mastermind a group. They're called that it's total life freedom is what it is So it's really for entrepreneurs and people who are trying to quit their nine to five job and live you know a life of time and You know time freedom basically And location freedom as well, which is something that most voiceover people already have but improving where you are at in that in that business process was kind of what I was after and He suggested that I talk about something. I was passionate about and I'm passionate About sound. I've been a singer. I I had a songwriting website for years and years I love everything about voiceover It's so much fun and and I just enjoy using my voice in a way that affects people So for me, it was kind of a no-brainer to sort of explore where audio goes And and on a more broad spectrum than just the advertising marketing It's called audio branding, but really I talk about the general power of sound so I talk about all sorts of different things and And I have clubhouse discussions on them as well. So it's it's really become very fulfilling and It's been a little well It's been over two years and I just hit the 50,000 download mark. So like just a couple of days ago You know take you all to catch us, but yeah, we're up to 350,000. Yeah, you've been going for 11 years I have a little ways to go Well, so you're gonna wear audio goes. Yeah, this is something that you wouldn't notice possibly Judy because you're monitoring us But not not yourself When your phone receives a message and vibrates that vibration is transmitted through your desktop through the microphone arm into the microphone Oh, nice and we hear it. Okay. Yeah, that's some way I'm listening on these huge bar dynamic You know, it's still vibrates, but it should not be on the table anymore That's for those things at least you're busy before the show. I wanted to add I was before the show We're talking about animation automation yeah, and How much of how much of what you do in your operations? I get a little obsessed about the operations of a business having done this for so long myself running my own business and How did when you add people versus software versus tools? How what are some things that you? Rely on being automated and things that you would not dare completely allowed to automation and you want to be more involved with manually Well, I do not automate my invoicing so I keep track of that and I send out my invoice when I Submit the audio to the client. So I know how would you actually? Yeah, automate Invoicing I guess I could have someone else do it for me. Oh, I see. I mean technically I guess I could but you want to feel You feel like you want to That's comes from you from the desk of Jody Yeah, exactly I want to be involved in that and I want to make sure that it goes out the minute that I deliver the audio So I don't forget basically That's the idea. So it just goes out immediately. They know it's coming immediately and and That's the end of that but sort of things. Do you automate that? I use Gmail for my My email and I will occasionally snooze things that I don't need in that exact moment because I'm very Picky about what is left in my inbox I'm one of those people who starts to like my shoulders start to weigh down when I get too many things in my inbox Yeah, which is kind of why I do the five minutes or finished finished audio or less Projects because then I know I can get them out of my inbox quickly I mean it all feeds into my own neuroses Yeah Which we all have we which we all have exactly But I I know that for myself. I'm very much an introvert and I need that time to replenish my energy So if there's too much weighing down on me, I feel like I can't replenish And it's something that I fight against on a regular basis So I make sure that I have space in between my Jobs that I have space in between my podcast interviews either being on a podcast or interviewing someone else I make sure that I have that little built-in time of peace and quiet because otherwise I can't do anything else Yeah So that's just me. I mean lots of people operate in a completely different way, but yeah automating that snooze button Thinking about it for that two seconds that I need to know when am I going to need to see this? Yeah, and then just getting rid of it and knowing that it'll pop up when I need it again Do you ever use this send later button? You know, I haven't I'm not I don't know why really. I love that one. Yeah Oh, I use it a lot. Holy you would think of that. Yeah If you're sitting up, I mean it's if you're sitting up at like 11 o'clock at some weird hour Answering a whole bunch of emails. Yeah, sometimes I don't want my clients to think I'm available That is a good point. That is a really good point yet boundaries are important. Yeah another way. I'll use it I'm saying it right here folks. So you'll know If if you send an email and I reply if you send another one You will not hear a reply from me unless it's really like super time critical You probably won't hear from me for a few more hours and it's not because it didn't reply It's because I replied later I did a send it later because I don't want to create an email conversation Which gen so when you're trying to mill through your your inbox If you have this one that keeps new new men unread unread You're like, no stop. You gotta stop it a little frustrated. That's what you can snooze later. That's fine, too You just snooze it and answer it later and that would be fine, too Well, that's what I do because I don't even want to deal with it until exactly right that day. No, it's the same idea It's just a different tool to do this for the same to the same end. Yeah, but I generally answer my email in like seconds Yeah, I'm the same way. Yeah, I can't stop myself It's it'd be midnight. Oh, okay. Wife's like, where are you writing to? I'm the same way. It's awful. Yeah. Have you ever gotten the same thing? He's like, what are you doing? I heard I've never heard of a technique if it do you ever go on real vacations jody? Like not take my gear with me. Yeah, or no, you know, I have I have Um, it's hard Um, I have done it. There's there used to be before in the before times There used to be a uh Music convention that I would go to in Atlanta and I would take off two weeks so we would be driving and We'd be driving from Toronto all the way to Athens, Alabama and then Athens, Alabama to Atlanta And and then back home. So A lot of that is in the car and I'm not going to be doing work in the car I probably could But I really don't want to yeah, you know, I mean eight hours in the car I don't I don't know if I want to do that So when I'm doing that two-week trip, usually I will be available on certain days during that vacation But I will not be available at other days Like my driving days, I just take off and say I am not available And then when I'm in a hotel and I'm staying there for five days I'm okay with doing auditions or whatever Emergency might come up, but you know my clients understand that it's for emergency use only And you'd like to think that well. Yeah, most of them do most of them do so Yeah, it's it just it it varies. Yeah, I try I try The boundaries thing is such a it's a very delicate thing because you really do want your clients to feel like they're there that you value them Yeah, I mean and you always want to make them feel like their their needs are going to be met Um, and but you also know you're one person serving, you know hundreds of people And so what I say in my auto reply Yeah Auto reply is a good thing in in gmail as well And what I say in the auto reply is that um, I'm available for emergencies But if I get my vacation I come back refreshed and do better work for everyone Good point So, yeah Once again, we're talking with jody krangel about audio branding and good business practices For all of you friland's voice actors out there Watching voiceover body shop because that's what we talk about Anyway, we're gonna take a quick little break right now Again, if you've got a question for jody about all the stuff that we're talking about Throw it in the chat room whether you're in facebook Or on youtube or wherever it is that you're watching this show live and you get the chance to interact with our guys Throw it in there right now and we'll get to those questions in just a little bit In the meantime, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back after these important messages This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv 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 genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values A leader for california and a voice for america. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smartphone But it's so much more. It's 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 rig This is your miracle when hope is lost the i8 from bmw Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's j michael collins. Bet you think i'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. It's j michael at jmc voiceover dot com Now if dan will stop waxing this mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show Now at voiceover essentials. 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Well, there's a wave now Yeah, there you go It's a rising tide. Yeah Yes, and of course we believe that a rising tide floats all boats We want to we want people to be good at what they do because when they you know if they're they act unprofessional Or they really don't sound professional or don't use those practices. It makes all of us look bad You know it's how many times well, I don't want to work with the you know freelance people I got to go to the studio. It's like listen, you're there are so many good people Out in the world that can do this stuff that aren't necessarily, you know You know in in LA or in new york or houston or or dalis or chicago or something like that Yeah, or canada Yeah, we know a lot of very fine talents up up in canada. I was trying to like thumb my booth I'm mirrored in my video I know and we're like I want to look at dan so I have to go the I have to use every ounce of the the reverse I'm like, I know I want to look this way But I gotta look this way I'm always doing the opposite It's crazy. Yeah So what what you were pointing to your booth there? What do you use? Yeah, miss techie in you want to know about gear now? Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, my gear is really really simple. I have um, uh Steinberg Steinberg you are 22c. I think that's what it is and uh Sennheiser 416 And that's pretty much it. I mean, I don't have anything in between it or you know, it all hooks into the computer And a way I go in the booth. Yeah, what's your software doll? I'm using adobe audition the newest version in the cloud. So it took a while actually. I just replaced my computer um at the end of 2020 And how long we're using it before that? Oh, I was still on windows 7 So I am too. I have a windows 7 in parallels on my mac. I've refused to upgrade I really liked windows 7. I loved I loved it But it was it was about a five-year-old computer And and at that point it just got slow and unwieldy and I was using adobe audition 3.0 Oh, yeah And was that hard for you to make that because I know people that cling on to 3.0 even now Was it a hard transition? You know what it was a lot Less difficult than I thought it was going to be actually and the first thing that I did was I paid for that two-hour session with uh uncle roy. Oh, yeah Because that oh my god all of the the shortcuts and all of the little stuff that he told me. Oh my god life saving So if you are at all not sure about your adobe audition, uh by all means talk to to roy yolkelson And he will set you straight Yeah, yeah, roy's one of those guys that you know, he's an audio designer. It's what he does Yeah, and he's really good at it. Yeah, see as voice actors. We generally don't have to do a whole lot adobe audition, of course has lots of features and lots of things that you know that you can you can automate and Things like that, but if you got a few hotkeys And you can roll through it really really quick. Yeah, it just takes two seconds really. Yeah Yeah, well, I'm glad to hear that you're keeping it simple George and I are always You know preaching about that And the fact of the matter is is people keep hiring you and you're not using all this others outboard gear and things like that because It's not meant for boys over. Well. Yeah, I mean when I give my project Audio over to someone generally they're going to be working with it on their end They don't need me to be working with it. Right as long as I give them clean audio. They're fine And they prefer it that way. They don't want me to ruin in post You know before they even get their hands on it. So I do very minimal stuff even for my auditions these days actually So, yeah Here's an interesting one. Do you use paper or a screen to read? I use a screen generally Yeah, yeah inside the booth. I have a a screen That's around 22 inches. I guess something like that. Okay, open up your booth. Let's see what goes on in there Yeah, well, I'd have to turn on the the light that you can see in there. Yeah, you can sort of see So so do you read off of a mirrored screen is an exact mirror of what's on your desk? What's out here? Yeah, exactly and I have a usb Hub in there that's sort of from this computer And and the the monitor is right up against this wall in the corner there And I'm using a knee chair. You can sort of see the chair on the kneeling chair, right? Yeah There's a came came and go. I mean they seem to have come and gone it essentially I've been using for years those that love them will always love them, right? I just find it easier I find it easier. It uh, it keeps me Stable over a long period of time and most of what I do I do sitting so Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I mean that wouldn't work for someone in animation maybe or video games Yeah, but that's not something I do. So I don't worry about it Once again, we're talking with jody krangel. If you got a question We got a few questions coming in here Throw it in the chat room because we want to hear from you. We like knowing you're out there George was the first question we got here from jim mcnicholas Jim asked and he's on youtube. He says, uh, so yeah back in the day those sites were great. Were you Where would you find them today? I'm he's referring to the sites that you were mentioning your voice tone two three What do you find them today? I like less than I also like the five minute jobs too I do a few a day, but I'd love to be doing more Yeah, it's you know, it depends on what your personality wants you to do So a lot of people like reaching out they like looking on linkedin and finding people who are creative directors or at ad agencies or video production companies or The like and reaching out to them directly people do that with e-learning all the time as well The linkedin edge, I believe is tracy lindley's course. Well worth paying for just to let you know And uh, yeah linkedin is a great place to find a lot of these people and you can What I say about linkedin is it's not a way to reach out immediately. It's a way to stock people a little bit Just like in a polite way So what you what you do is you follow someone without connecting with them necessarily You watch what they post you comment on what they post because when you comment you lift up their algorithm and you help them and you sort of get on their radar by Being involved in what they're doing and then eventually they get used to you They respond to your comments. You have a discussion And then it's a warm lead instead of a cold Hi, I'm trying to sell you something Thing which can get very annoying and I'm sure a lot of these people get it all the time So I end up finding a lot of my guests for the podcast that way Actually because there are a lot of audio branding professionals on linkedin Who are all talking in the same vein about the same stuff And so when I comment on one of their Posts I end up reaching a whole bunch of other people who are also discussing this and want to discuss more so Yeah, it's just a great way to to reach out to people. So yeah, I would highly recommend linkedin And you can do the research on linkedin and then reach out to them through their own website If you wanted to but again, I would say follow them on linkedin find out more about them before you do that Just because it's it becomes a little more of a warm lead than a cold one I know people do reach out on the phone, but these days you never know who's actually going to be in their office So You know, I I don't know how well that'll work But some people swear by it. So it really depends mark scott has some great tips on reaching out and direct marketing So I highly recommend anything from him Yeah, go back and watch the episode. He was on. Yeah, I'm sure he had a lot to say about that Tom Deere is another person who knows a lot about this kind of stuff. So Yeah, you could also reach out to him. But yeah, there are many different ways to do it But I would say the if you can prevent yourself from just reaching out and saying hi, I'm a voice actor hire me I I think you should do that because there are other ways to do it and And other ways that I think will Put you in better stead with the people you're reaching out to Excellent Uh question from andrea ens It says what was your first voiceover job? How did you get it? And what did you learn from it? Oh my goodness, uh, my very first job was actually a documentary believe it or not It was a documentary on world war two and it was a Kind of a photo collage of this fellow who was producing it. His father was stationed in Saipan During the second world war and he was taking coda chrome film Photographs that were in color at the time and The island of Saipan was honoring his father for and you know, they were going over to Saipan to actually um, give over the uh photographs or copies of them for their Like a museum over there and There was a photograph that his father caught that was of a plane on the end of a dock And someone out in front of it and they think that it might have been And I mean it might have been disproven by now, but they thought it might have been Amelia Earhart's um navigator So they were sort of like it was really it was an interesting really interesting documentary And I mean it's I don't know where it is now. I mean this was like 15 years ago, right? So, uh, yeah, it was a lot of fun. I learned a ton and I actually also learned that you like five minute jobs. Yes Yeah, well, you know, I didn't mind that one because it wasn't overly long It wasn't hugely long, but you learn these as you go along. Yeah Uh in that one, I actually had a song that I had done for Um like a collaboration of a friend with a friend of mine in the uk And we'd done a version of I'll be seeing you and so that actually ended up playing at the end credits of that documentary So they ended up using that uh that song for the end credits So it was yeah, it was a lot of fun. I mean it just it totally got me hooked Yeah, if you don't know jody's also a very fine singer Professionally you you sing I've heard you sing. It's absolutely great. Uh, george Grace newton asks and I know you covered this a bit, but you could expound maybe a little bit Um, do you have a favorite or go-to way to market your business and what has worked best and What wasn't so fruitful and maybe pick one more special Special thought because we talked about that quite a bit, you know, I sent out packages at one point for uh national chocolate cake day And I had um well this was before I changed my branding, right? So, uh, I had I had pens and I had notebooks and I had a Recipe and all of this stuff and I sent it out And heard absolutely nothing back So a lot of money spent and absolutely no results as far as I know Yeah, I was just it was pretty awful. Um, and I think I know why I don't think that there was enough personalization in it because I didn't actually get to sign it because it was being sent from the us and Most of my clients are in the us. That's that so I was sending it to a lot of my clients and I just really I don't think it really hit them as being very personal And I think that might have been the problem. I think if we keep it personal and real that When you reach out to people that they'll be much more likely to respond like it was a little too gimmicky I don't know gimmicky necessarily but the card included had like, uh A simulated signature. Do you know what I mean? Like it didn't actually have my Because it was manufactured elsewhere and I couldn't sign it so um, yeah, so Lesson learned right personal is better Yeah, so do your homework before you send stuff out by yourself and make sure you know who you're writing to I mean, I did do my homework. It was through someone else. Like it wasn't It wasn't just me but at the same time Yeah, it I think it just needed that one personal touch and I think it would like if it had looked like it actually came from me I think it would have made more of an impact Yeah, yeah, I've I've been using an email service to send important emails from brad newman's upper-level crm And when you send those emails, they do come from you. Yeah And they look like they come from you and they do get opened. Yes. It's pretty amazing Yeah, and brad's amazing too. Yeah, the service is fantastic. So, yeah We have a question here apparently from Somebody who's anonymous is what was the audio innovators award you mentioned before the show you were we were talking about Oh, that was me. That was you. Oh, you wrote this question. Yeah. Yeah, you mentioned something about audio Yeah, what was the audio innovators? Yeah, um, the uh international sound awards Oh, yeah, are put out by the audio branding academy in germany. Oh, wow. Yeah She's totally off my radar. That's why I was like really curious about yeah The fellow who is on my podcast his name is cornelius ringer. It's r i n g e He has a audio branding company called we sound and they're in uh berlin and humberg and he and his um Music director, I believe I think that's what larris does larris olandorf they were on my podcast together and He talked all about it and yeah, it was really enlightening Cool Thanks. Yeah, so what what's the name of the podcast again so people can actually go hear that one? Sure. It's called audio branding And there it is right there. Yeah, yeah audio branding podcast dot com Uh, you get the question from j. Horace black there george Yeah, he's asking. Well, he says you have lovely presence and energy. I would agree with that. Well, thank you Yeah There was a few comments about your voice and your demeanor In the chat. Did you find yourself testing out many other microphones before hanging, you know going with the 416 Yeah, well, I was um Using oh my goodness. Can I remember what this is? I started with an nt1a when I first started in the business And I found that it was just too cold for my voice. I didn't like how I sounded on it I used it for a number of years, but uh, I it was okay. It just wasn't really You know, I think it's okay on a lot of people. You know, it's okay on a lot of people And sometimes it's great and most of the time it's just okay. Yeah. Yeah Um, and I have a tlm103 in there as well that I use for singing if I need that So that Works well too. And of course the u87 is brilliant But I don't live in a pristine environment even though I have the booth So u87 is way overkill and on I live in a townhouse complex So I can get rid of most everything when I go into that booth. It's fine, but it's not sound proofed It's it's sound treated So I can't get rid of everything and the 416 Really helps with that first of all because it's very directional But also I find that with the deeper voices it really adds a little bit of presence And I I like that I like that little bit of oomph that it gives my voice on on a production So, yeah, do you find yourself having trouble? Feeling comfortable singing in a very small Dead booth Actually, no Oh, okay. I don't I mean, I've done the on On stage performances as well. Yeah, but um, and that's a completely different environment and a completely different reason for singing Really when you're doing studio stuff I I really enjoy it actually because it's very Detail oriented You know, you can and you can go back, you know, you don't have to record it all in one sequential thing You can go back and redo little parts if you want as long as you know how to edit Do you monitor yourself? You know, totally totally flat dry sound in your headphones while you're singing Do you not monitor what you do headphones while I'm singing usually if Okay, when I'm when I'm doing my work when I'm doing my work I do not use headphones When I am singing and I need to hear a backing track. I do use headphones Yeah, so so there's a difference. So um, yeah, I guess it depends on how far up you turn the volume Um, I want to turn it up enough that I can hear the nuances of my voice But I don't want to turn it too far down that I have to be screaming Right, right. Yeah, no, there's a delicate nuance there. It's like a really delicate balance It's either right or don't do it Like take them off because if it's not quite right, it's gonna drive you nuts Well, I need them if I'm listening to a backing track, right? Yeah, well, absolutely So yeah, so I have to I just have to make sure I'm very conscious of how loud my Earphones are well, you're one reason that you are you are 22 is really is good And why I wreck why I'm very picky about what interfaces I recommend Is that I want them to have a monitor mix and that knob has that that unit has that knob That lets you monitor mix your monitoring so you can control exactly how loud You sound to the music or whatever you're listening to Yeah, I feel like that's an important feature that really helps I can mix an adobe audition too Like I can make a mix when I'm hearing the My volume of audio and and the music So if I'm multi-tracking in adobe audition, I can just mix it however I want it. So yeah, yeah Either or Excellent. Well, jody it's been way too long since we've seen each other And you know is there's one thing I miss about that in the going to conventions. No hugs Yeah, yeah, we've missed that a lot together. Yeah, and I'm looking forward to the next time we can get together But we really want to thank you for coming on and talking with us tonight about stuff that perhaps people didn't really think about So, thank you so much for inviting me. Yeah. Once again, what's the podcast again? Audio branding that's at audio branding podcast.com I have clubhouse rooms that talk about the power of sound 2 p.m. Eastern Wednesdays So it's a club called the power of sound. If you look for it, you'll find it There's a whole bunch of stuff scheduled in there and actually um on 2 p.m 2 p.m. On thursdays, I have a room with sharyl hauling in anganguza and we talk about voices in podcasting So basically the mix of those two things and one or the other it's called vip And uh, that's also under the club the power of sound Very good. I'm gonna sign up right now. Yeah Like like you don't have anything else to hear you there Jody thanks again so much for being with us. Thank you so much for having me. It's been fun. Alrighty All right. Well, we're gonna we're gonna take a quick break here and then we're gonna re-rack it for For tech talk make sure you're wrong for that and if you got questions make sure you get them in there But we'll be right back to wrap this hour up right after this You're still watching vlbs In these modern times Every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online In a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Hey everybody it's time to talk about source elements the creators of source connect lots of other really innovative tools for collaborating between different locations different studios bringing talent into the studio virtually and having communication with the client Also remotely and virtually which is a another big part of it, you know, it's not just about you as the performer It's also how do we bring the clients in to hear that performance? And not just you the whole mix The orchestra whatever is in that mix for that spot you're working on For the client to sign off on it and spend the top dollar they're spending For you your talent the engineers the production the music the the composing The the writing the direction there's a lot that goes into it They want to have an instant approval and hear exactly what it is That the final production will sound like so that's another part of it. They're listening in On a web browser and hearing you through source live It's it's just an incredible array of tools and it's just the reason they continue to be A very well regarded tool in production for voice over and really in anything audio But you know the one you're going to look for as talent Is going to be source connect standard If you hear somebody saying you need the pro version of source connect Yeah, there is a source connect pro But you're looking for as a talent source connect standard and that's going to give you Uh, the tool you need to connect with the big budget jobs and you're you're going to see it asked for by name And that's what they're asking for sign up for a free trial go to source dash elements dot com And get up and running with it. So you're ready to go when that opportunity strikes Thanks source elements. Let's get back and wrap it up This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice of her body shop By jody. Yeah That was it was great having her on i haven't talked to jody in a long time And she is a master at what she does. She's a very very successful business lady and and voice talent So next week on this very show if you tune in if you watch like watching our show It'll be tech talk number 73. So uh, make sure that uh, you tune in for that and uh, that'll be uh next sunday morning I'll get that out to you But if you want to watch live if you want to interact with george and I Stick around we'll be we're gonna re-record that right after this. So uh, We would love to have your questions uh for that Who are our donors of the week? And if you by the way, I don't know if we've mentioned it for a while But if you want to watch live we are live at five p.m. Pacific time every other day every other monday So Tune in to the website go to v obs dot tv Look and see when we're taping our next show And uh and jump in and join us because uh, it's it's it's we really have fun having your questions here live with us Donors, we've got them philips appear Thomas pinto Shelly avaleno george wittem. You're dead the senior one brian page patty gibbons rob raider greg thomas A doctor voice ant land productions shana pannington baird martha con don griffith and tray mostly All righty We need to thank our sponsors, of course harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements bio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and and jmc demos Uh, thanks to jeff holman in the chat room tonight getting all those questions to us Uh, also our amazing Sumer lino our technical director who gets it done every week and of course thanks to jody krankl for joining us again and most definitely Lee pinney for just being lee pinney Uh, that's gonna do it for voiceover body shop this week. Uh, stay tuned live for tech talk. It's coming up We want your questions. We got lots to talk about so stay tuned for that. I'm dan lennard I'm george wittem and this is voiceover body shop or vio bb So yeah, have a good week All righty All right boys and girls time for tech talk We're gonna rack that up make sure everything is all set for that Uh, if you got questions for us about your home voiceover studio That's what george and i do Uh, so we're gonna get rolling on that and uh We look forward to your questions and we look forward. I look forward to whatever george has coming up with So Stay doing for that. Sue. How's our how's our blend? I'm during the show I kind of monkey a little bit of echo in there Is it echoey? Do you hear yourself echoing back to you? From me No Yeah, I am hearing you. Oh, you mean the room is echoing. I know while i'm hearing i'm hearing me In your headphones or somebody's headphones. Let me just turn my headphones down a little bit. Does that help hot? That helps. Yeah, no, I mean it's still In there somewhere. How about that? That's let's see here. Yeah, now it's gone. All right. I just turned it down the return from you I turned it down quite a lot. Okay. Okay, cool. All right. Let's roll it. You ready there, sue? All right, here we go Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk number 73 73 I always take a ham radio because I remember my dad saying 73s when he was signing off From a conversation that was his that oh that was no, that's that's the ham. I amateur radio speak for see you later Oh 73s. No like 10 4 or see you at the top side. Yeah. Yeah Alrighty, uh, we got lots of cool stuff to talk about tonight You've got church. You're always looking at all this stuff And then reporting it back to us you report the stuff of the week in tech We're gonna get to that again If you've got questions throw them in the chat room right now If you got a problem with your home studio or a question about equipment Or just general stuff about what makes your audio good We'll be happy to answer that there might be some ranting. Oh and yes, this is going to be an official rant episode So stay tuned for that. It's voiceover body shop tech talk coming up 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 vio universe, they bring it to you now George Wittem the engineer to the vio stars of virginia tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional vio studios of the biggest names in vio 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 vio 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 vio tech and having a dandy time doing it Welcome to voiceover body shop tech talk Voice over body shop tech talk is brought to you by voiceover essentials dot com home of harlin hogan signature products Source elements remote studio connections for everyone Voice actor websites dot com where your vio website isn't a pain in the butt Vio heroes dot com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Jay Michael Collins demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for vio success And now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in sherman oaks california Here are the guys Well, hello there by the way, i'm dan lennard and i'm george wittem and this is voiceover body shop or vio b s tech talk tech tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk Thank you, jeff. All righty. Well Of course, you keep seeing that picture of the hollywood sign supposedly they've You know after the super bowl, they made it something about you know, congratulations rams or something I don't know how they did that But uh, do you have to put on special glasses to see it? Maybe that's what it is Of course, I remember when they legalized pot in california and someone changed hollywood to hollyweed That was amazing That was quite impressive. They got to do that. I don't know. Oh, yeah Anyway, we're here to talk about your home voiceover studio because that's what allows us to be professional voice actors At home and we want to be able to sound as good as we can But how do you do that? You know, it's amazing how often people say I want to get started in voiceover and I don't know how to do it People are so intimidated by the technology and If you take the time and speak to someone Who actually knows how simple it is like say george or I which is why by the way we do this program in the first place It's it's a great opportunity to learn it right and that's what george and I do But you know, I don't we probably don't think about it that much, but we're teachers. We are instructors Uh, we tell you what the best equipment to get is for you and we'll be talking about that a little bit more later on Um, but we will show you how easy it is and it's always a relief At the end of our sessions with people who are just starting out and they all go Oh That's what that is Look we've been doing this a long time We know how to do it and we know how to get you up and running very very quickly That's what george and I do. We are professional home studio consultants george works with all the big talent in town I get to work with a few of the big talent every now and again, but We know how it's done and if you want to work with us and you want to learn how to do it right You can contact us for example if you want to talk To mr. Whitom you go to georgethe.tech It's over here See Every time I go a little wrong way. Um, georgethe.tech is my home on the web for Booking time with me my support team Tim Friedlander as well is available if i'm not he can take over and take on Bookings dan is available on our hotline for tech support if you have an emergency We actually have a hotline phone number We're trying to find many different ways to support you whether it's Just need a sound check Have a tech emergency or need to design a studio, you know, that's we're just trying to serve you that way And the best way we possibly can um, and that's where we are george the.tech and Dan has his brand of support over on his little place in the web and that's uh down there Home home voiceover studio.com. Yes, which is going to have a whole new look very shortly Uh, you're beating me to it, but I i'm going to have one by the end of this year Mark my words Yes, we've moved the specimen collection cup cup to the top So when you get to my website and you want to submit some audio to me you just click on that It's a drop box Follow the instructions carefully a lot of people like yeah, I should listen to my audio and you know, they've done all sorts of Processing and all this stuff and I'm like no I want it raw. I want to hear the raw sound of your studio and You know without any processing. What is it? What are the acoustics like? You know, how are you using your microphone? Do I hear sibilants or do I hear? pops uh, you know plosives And uh, are your levels right? It's amazing. Nobody understands levels even though we try to tell them that every week Levels are are actually pretty simple when you break it down But if you go over to home voiceover studio.com I add 25 dollars I will analyze your audio if I think you got some major problems. We can talk about it But generally it's like any raise your up and put a little bit Or are you under a shelf? I get that one a lot So but we will get you where you need to be So if you're not getting voice work, it won't be because of your audio I guess that's the simplest way to put it Anyway, here on voiceover body shop. We like to talk tech and we always started off with George's weekly or by by monthly Tech update what's going on out there and the internet stuff with all sorts of gear Well, I'll save the rants for later, but starting off. We'll get into it Yeah, so some new tech and some interesting stuff I've come across in the last couple weeks um Conversation comes up often with us that use the max because yes, they are cute They are tiny and cuddly and very sexy and quiet and all amazing Pixie dust sprinkle little machines except they're very low on ports really low on ports, especially the macbook air But even the mac mini has The new one is coming this year and we understand it's going to have more ports, but in the meantime If you have a mac mini of any of the of the current generation the m1 mac minis Which dan and I both have great computer very powerful very low on ports And this product from owc otherworld computing aka also known as mac sales.com Is called the mini stack stx jim edgar mentioned it in one of the facebook groups and Here's here's the pros and the cons the quickie pros four It has four ports on the back one would be plugged into your mac and the other three Are available to plug in and other stuff and those are usb four And thunderbolt four ports they do both in it. So they're extremely extremely fast So anything you plug into those ports are going to give you the same exact speed as though you were plugged into the computer So that's great But it's other little magic trick is that inside the unit and it's about the shape It's designed to be the shape of a mac mini just sitting underneath of one Inside it stores two different drives that you can add in or you can buy with it pre pre installed It'll hold a 2.5 inch drive, which is like your typical laptop size drive and that could be a hard drive or solid state Or and it can hold a and I can never remember the name of this thing It can hold an nvme pcie storage device And those are the ones that look really more like a memory card like a a ram chip And that's actually the kind of storage that's inside of your Your your modern mac or pc computers and they are extremely Extremely fast in terms of how they read and write so You basically inside this little box you can have an extremely high high performance Drive for video and audio production Whether whatever level that you do and then you can have a secondary drive Which is just really where your media will live after you're finished where you export everything You know all your documents things like that. This is a definitely a power user kind of project or product It's probably more Hardcore than maybe most video audio audiobook people or narrators might need But it is a pretty impressive thing, but there's a catch And it does have a fan Um, and I guess in order to have the yeah to have the ventilation to keep those drives inside there cool Um, it it it does actually have a fan I haven't heard it yet. I haven't used it. I did read the reviews one person in the reviews mentioned the fan Was a little distracting which i'm a little concerned about so if you have if you're like me and you have your mac mini Right in front of you like I do This may not be a great solution. Um, owc does have a ton of other thunderbolt docks That are fanless. I have their their original thunderbolt 3 dock here and it's completely fanless So just so you know, there's other products out there that will soup up Your mac mini hopefully reducing your number of outboard docks and hubs to a minimum I haven't seemed to be able to get away without having an external thunderbolt dock and And as well as at least a four port hub usb hub to give me enough ports to do everything Um, at least in my in my setup where I've got a little bit more going on maybe than average my Another little thing is my my I'm always looking for cool gadgets That will make your daily life easier, especially if you do a lot of live directed sessions Or zoom rooms or anything where it's live and you want to have a really good way to control your mic And whirlwind makes the mic mute ppd and it looked it's a box. It looks like this Right. I have it plugged in right now. So I can't Hold it upright. It's the cords are short This is the mic mute ppd by whirlwind But it's not because it's been modified The this one would belong to a client and they had it long enough that the original Toggle switch, you know, click click just a normal toggle. It failed that actually eventually failed So I thought, you know, it'd be fun to modify one of these and make it do one more thing than it normally does So my my awesome dad, I sent it to him He replaced the switch with a foot switch. He happened to have laying around. So yeah, you can just push it It works But when you turn it back on it makes a little bit of a loud click, right? You can hear the Sound it makes, right? Just use it under your foot. Yeah, it's a foot switch. You can throw on the floor But here's the bonus It has contact closures aka fancy for Just a switch So it'll switch anything that you plug through it. Now my dad said the switch is rated to two amps So you don't want to switch really powerful things But if you wanted to just make a simple 12 volt led sign Some kind of light bulb or something that you want to trigger outside the studio You could just easily hook that up with just a normal power supply Splice the wire into this thing and boom you can have a light turn on and off at the press of a foot switch Every time your mic comes on and off Cool I can't believe I had to have my dad make this. I'm so I'm kind of shocked. It doesn't exist in the real world But it's such a simple thing and it and hey, it works. But dad, I promise I will actually hook something up to it Uh, I haven't gotten a chance to to plug an actual sign into it um Another couple little things Graham Spicer Recently told me very recently like yesterday Mentioned in an email about hindenburg narrator studio danif have you heard of hindenburg the audio software people use it for podcasting It was originally designed for podcasting. So yeah for reporters. I think it was like for reporters and field reporting then podcasting Well, they they branched in the narrator production like literally like Literally audiobook production and they have an addition now designed completely around audiobook production And it automates like a lot of stuff We were talking last time about to jody about what do you dare automate? This thing takes it to another level. Um, I again, I've only just heard about it. I'm curious about it's You know when you're leaving so much of the processing and the post and everything completely up to Software to make decisions. I get nervous as an engineer I'm a little bit of a control freak But if it does what it says on the tin as they say in england If it really does it's it's uh, it could be a massive Time saver for audiobook narrators and you guys know that do your own audiobook production. You know, you're not getting paid By the hour to engineer. So Again, a jury's still out. I haven't demoed it but based on what I've read It's quite an impressive tool set for for what it is and hindenburg has a lot of flavors Right, they're not just one app. They have a lot of different versions So check out the uh, it's called narrator studio From hindenburg. Give that a look now dan You got the mic. I was I was I was kind of gushing about a couple weeks ago the The road video might go too. I know we weren't able to do a really good demo of it So at some point maybe you can get them Some audio Oh, it's on now. It is on now All right, what do you it may not work on the way? Well, what are my impressions? Well, it sounds fine It's got actually got a little light on it sort of like the the halo meter on a on us on a focus, right? So you can tell if you're over modulating it's designed to be attached to a camera or an iphone and The problem with it is now as you can hear it sounds fine. It sounds like it's got compression. Does it have a compressor? I it might But in that little app that it has there's a little app But I I don't necessarily think that there's anything compressing about interesting. It sounds compressed That's yeah, but you know if I back off This is really what it's going to sound like when in you know, you're talking on a camera It sounds really good from yeah from like six eight inches away. Yeah, which is really what it's designed for So it's sort of like a 416 only it's not a thousand bucks It's big. Yeah, it's not it's not very big at all and you know I can and it comes with you know with a with a clown nose too. So Um, but you know, could it be used as a as a as a voiceover mic? I don't know it sounds exactly the same as this one sort of Uh, but you know, it's there it works But it doesn't come with the right adapter to work with an iphone because it's not the the usb-c that comes out of it is Goes into an iphone lightning connector, but it's not a lightning Charging cable. It's a lightning accessory cable. It's wired just a little bit differently. So to use it with your your iphone Uh, it it it's here's another 20 30 bucks that you got to spend. Yeah, one of those guys So that's you know, that's and it could be powered by usb-c Or by a trs You know cable, you know, right? Yeah, like one of these guys. Yeah, it's a it's a two for one It's you get the video mic feature of the trs cable that plugs into your camera And you get the usb feature to plug into a laptop pc or our phone To for it's a two for one. Um, but yeah, it's interesting I know it's got software that controls it that you actually set the gain with It may even have an auto gain mode that i'm not aware of it sounds like maybe that's It's an auto gain mode. I'm not sure it has to sound like it sounds like it's compressing a little bit But it sounds clear. I mean the audio quality coming off is pretty good I'm curious to hear it in some spots. Maybe you do a maybe do one of your spots coming up on on that I'll try that. Yeah. Yeah. I was able to switch back Yay I'm glad that happened. That would have been some major editing Yeah, so the road video might go to dan's got one if you want to know more about it And just keep in mind if you're buying it for the purpose of being like a usb mic that you throw in your Car your bag or whatever you're gonna have to buy some more cables to actually use it that way as a usb mic And that leads me to granting rant ranting about more things. Let's have some quick rants here. It's quicky. Well, yeah We'll keep it moving. Um, first of all A client of mine unfortunately wasn't Well, it wasn't a client before she made this decision. Uh, she bought an apogee symphony desktop and um apogee, I don't know what it is you guys dear your gear is Second to none in terms of quality of hardware build ad conversion preamps are great Software's good. It's getting better all the time But firmware and drivers and stability is just another thing and I The the hoops she had to jump through just to get it functioning So we could work together and just get it set up was pretty painful for her Um, the support she received was Clearly, you know, it was clearly targeted to engineers um, and Again, she was recommended this gear by none other than salespeople at banjo and porium Oh, not by me and not by anybody in voiceover and by the time she realized she had been recommended the wrong thing It was no longer in the return policy time period. So she was essentially stuck with it so I You know, I I shouldn't bash something that has a has a function that actors That products producers and musicians would find useful But for what that thing costs They should have rolled out the red carpet in terms of support It was a it she waited a long time to hear from them and and it was just a very painful process. So Um, I'm I'm still the only apogee thing. I'm really behind right now And even then I'm kind of me is the apogee mic. Otherwise Uh, I just won't recommend apogee hardware. It's just too Too finicky and too complex for what it is Um, another thing that's kind of let me down Uh, well, not really me but one of my clients as I hate to say it the personas revelator io 24 Uh, I'm using it here and it's still working well for me. I recommended it to somebody He bought it as a replacement for his app his, um universal audio apollo solo So he started with something really good, but really complicated and he went to this and the sound quality was a decided Drop in quality like You guys know we have compared many usb interfaces Even including the apollo and found all of them to be Shades of Maw of different from each other like barely noticeable You know some of them more so but very small subtle list if this was like, whoa Something is something's not right. This thing sounded bad and personas They uh didn't really they we sent them the audio samples. We said here's one with the solo here's one with yours And they kind of denied that anything was really wrong. They're like, no, I think I think it's what do you think it's fine? So I mean fortunately my client was able to return it to the retailer and get it and I believe he actually is Even after that getting another one Because honestly, that's the problem is it there's nothing else that does exactly what it does in the way it does it But buyer beware buying a very affordable gear That does a lot of stuff You know something might give and that could be quality control. So just saying Beware I I'm I'm frustrated, but this is just how this is the way it goes and that also goes for microphones and road Of road road of all companies. I love I love their products again another innovative company It makes really cool stuff Really great prices Right in australia. I've been using the road ntg-5 for over a year And mine has started Showing some signs of problems and what that is is it can sometimes start to clip and distort Well before you're actually reaching the clipping point in your preamp It's hard to describe what it sounds like, but you're just like talking into it. It's going It's like why is it crunchy? um So that started happening with my road ntg-5 now I wouldn't have thought much of it But a year ago when these things came out or maybe a little bit before I had recommended it to quite a few people because I was really amazed by it and More than one probably three that I'd heard of personally Had the same exact problem So what does that mean? I don't know if it's a design thing or I don't know if it was a batch thing It may have been a batch of these that were made that had that issue But it's frustrating. It's disappointing. They are going to make it right and I know in fact that road is going to There's just no questions asked. They're going to replace it. And so I have to give them huge props for their support Um and wanting to make it right Now full disclosure that could be the relationship I have with road. I've demoed their gear I've had them send me gear My podcast of pro audio suite is supported by road So they might be giving me extra special treatment. I don't know Um, but nonetheless, they are sending me another one which I'll be swapping out in the meantime. I'm using the ntg-4 Which is a good backup mic. It just needs about 10 to 12 db more gain To to get a good signal out of it. It's interesting that's not nearly as sensitive And I use a little more processing on it to get the sound that I was kind of accustomed to from the ntg-5, but it's It's working and it's always good. It's always important to have backup gear So keep that in mind. Anyway end of ramp. Dan, did you have a mini rant about rx7? Let's keep the rant thing going. Yeah, we got just a couple minutes before the break here All right. I got I got something from a client this morning Uh, she's like, what's wrong with my audio? It would you know, it it sounds hissy and then it fades out After words And I'm like, well, it sounds like adaptive noise reduction Are you using any of that and why is it hissy? Because she's using a good microphone and a good interface and it's like And she had and she had a booth that's a good a good booth And I'm like it just shouldn't sound that way and then I thought about I'm like you're using Something you shouldn't be using Uh chances are she was recording too low normalizing and getting a lot of hiss and then to get rid of the hiss she was using rx8 Uh to try and remove it the fact of the matter is there's a lot of professionals out there saying oh man You got to have this rx8. It's great. It's it does all this great stuff And it's on sale and it's on sale for valentine's day last week Uh, the fact of the matter is it's not designed for voiceover There is so much stuff that is marketed to voice actors that's got nothing to do with it rx7 and 8 and the these isotope nothing against isotope great company But this stuff is designed to clean up the audio on old records And all recordings. Yes, exactly and it's a video editor's fixing tool to deal with cruddy audio that they've been sent Right, which is a lot, um, but for voiceover for a clean dry audio in your booth With a good microphone. There is absolutely no reason to be cleaning that up and twisting the waves and Stretching it and doing all the things that it does Stop recommending rx8 to people Because don't need it. Yeah, but the worst thing is is people exactly It's they're recommending it because they use it for all of their work Having it doesn't mean it's going to make you sound better Because if you don't know how to use it, it's going to make you sound like my client did this morning Yeah, exactly. It's exactly. Yeah, that's adaptive noise reduction tools You need to you know those tools can still cause more damage than they are helping you right you have to be really Careful the only thing I find the isotope rx is editor the rx editor has tools in it that make audiobook Production or mastering Automated that that is something that I find helpful whether you use the mouth the clickers and all that stuff or not There is some helpful tools in there if you have adobe audition You don't need it. You know me. It's already I can do everything in adobe audition has good You know, but uh, it's I'd say rx is a good complement to the twisted wave or audacity if you really have nightmare mouth noise or you're doing a lot of Um Mastering right anyway, but other than that now, you know, you got to learn how to use it There's guys teaching classes on it and remember somebody who's teaching a class on it has the experience in their studio Yeah, their audio and you've got to be able to know your own voice and your own sound before you start using something like that Anyway, enough ranting for now. We got lots of questions to get to Let's take a break and we'll get to your questions right after these very important announcements. So don't go away Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great Now at voiceover essentials It's the legend reimagined the mic port pro 3.0 brings incredible new features All in the handheld self-powered package The mic port pro has always been known for like a new mic preamp with 65 db of crystal clear gain usb cjacks And a stunning headphone amplifier with a super convenient gain switch You've no doubt heard of or recorded with the mic port pro the mic port pro breakthrough audio interface connected any studio quality microphone To a micro digital interface this newest iteration of the legendary usb mic port pro turns your phone tablet laptop or desktop Into a professional recording studio smaller the most microphones It's feature rich easy to use and travel friendly and right now Voice over essentials is paying the shipping in the continental us And they're including one of their ever popular vo caps for a limited time get it now at voiceover essentials dot com Hey That's me and that means it's time for me to talk about source elements the creators of source connect The original tool to supplant or supplant or replace so istm Back in the day when I started working with source elements to Actually not working with them as much as just working with their stuff It was designed as a way to create a backup for istm It was the tool that tons of the busiest voice actors the ones that we say where the golden handcuffs We're using because allowed them to now do istm type sessions from anywhere In fact, many of them were employing things like bridges to connect from source connect to istm And that was the norm right that was happening everywhere. Well, I'll tell you istm clung on for life until Really the pandemic and that was the death now for istm and that's main reason really Was because the studios that actually support using it their doors were closed the engineers They're at home in their bedrooms just like you guys Recording you and so source connect obviously took over. I know there's a lot of tools out there that do similar things There's a lot of innovation in this space But it's established itself as a standard It works as a plug-in directly into pro tools There's a lot of things it's got this thing called q-manager that allows auto replacing of audio There's a lot of things that really adds to its value to productions And that's why you probably want to know about it So head over to source dash elements calm and get a 15 day free trial over there and make sure you're Aware of it. Make sure you know how it works and make sure you know That your studio is up to par as well to be able to make use of a tool like this your studio's got to sound good All right, let's get on to the questions right after this break Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you? This is virgin radio. Well, okay. We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values A leader for california and a voice for america. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smart phone 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 it It's your miracle when hope is lost the i8 from bmw Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish Hey, it's j. Michael Collins. Bet you think i'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email It's j michael at jmc voiceover.com now if dan will stop waxing this mustache for a minute. We'll get back to the show This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widdum v obs dot tv And we're back Time for a lightning round. We got a lot of questions tonight. Got a lot of sweet love the questions You know, I haven't even looked at them yet. So i'm gonna i'm going in cold right now Me too. All right. So let's start off our our of course our chat room monitor. Jeff holman has a question Does the zoom feature called touch up my appearance? Make for lower quality i'm audio wise does it smooth things out to the point of taking out video detail So the feed of your face looks less clear. I haven't used it I I mean I think I I never use it if you Well, I've tried it. I've just turned it on and turn it off. You'll see The the the change of the appearance immediately if you turn it on and turn it off like it's it's real time So all you have to do is turn it on and what you see is what you get and see what happens See what happens That was weird your camera went out of focus. No, I was doing that deliberately Oh Yeah, no, I uh Jeff you don't need it. You're an actor man. Yeah, you got actor face Tim Branson Says hey guys. Have you had a chance to check out audience upgrade to their id 14? Which is called the mark id 14 mark 2 thoughts Yeah, a couple years ago. Did you ever get one in studio to review dan? I didn't yeah No, they they sent me one and I wrote a review, you know, primarily they wanted How does it work for podcasting? So I had to talk about that The audience stuff is pretty good. Um, it you know, they're they're british audio engineers So they're you know, they're sound quality not a problem not not a problem It had we found out it had a little bit of You had a really crank it though for voice over unless you're doing the game Is yeah, it has a weird Yeah, once you get like over 75 80 percent, that's where all the heavy gain is But you know, they're great. They're great little units. We know a lot of people that use them But you know, they do the same thing they turn the analog audio into the ones and zeros our computers understand They all do it pretty much the same way. It has a little bit more to do with the you know, the The preamps that are in them, but they're all pretty good So the 14 mark 2 and the 4 mark 2 has more Fancy mixing monitoring loopback features in them. So if you need those loopback tools Those will be more useful to you. Um, I gotta admit For me and my clients and just overall, uh, the company while their products are great designs the sound quality is awesome Kind of in the same range vane a little bit of with apogee there with stability Is an issue a long time stability is a bit of a problem on some products that I've dealt with I'm hoping the mark twos are a whole new design Ground up that is more stable and more reliable long term Still juries out if you're watching the show and you've got an id 14 mark 2 Or the id 4 mark 2 and you use it and love it and you've had no problems Or if you've had problems, let us know In the in the chat, you know, because we we'd love to I'd love to know I just when I recommend gear it's I want to make sure it's going to solve as many people's problems as possible Alrighty, uh professor larry hudson. That's what I call them Don't ask me why says george. I need to utilize two mics at one time and have loopback So you can hear You know what you play back stuff I'm still using the old macchi 1202 and it's time to upgrade you think Are you still hot for the personas revelator 24? I will call you too. I'm about to buy a new mini Should I wait? Sounds like two questions. It is two questions, but he says he'll call you about the first one But oh, okay. Yeah. Well, are you ranting about the revelator a few minutes ago, but I did have yeah Well, you heard my rant. Okay, but Um, I just I actually did a video in vimeo pro Um, uh, which I actually don't even think I've linked on my website yet. Shame on me I did a video Walking you through how to set up a revelator ir 24 To do really everything a voiceover could ever need Um with martha con actually she was like she was the guinea pig So I would check that out because that video really goes into a lot of depth It's a video that's a pay-per-view like a rental you can go and rent it for a year And watch it as much as you want Uh, but it really goes into the nuts and bolts of how to set up all of its mix minuses and And how the driver works and how the fat channel works, etc. I you know again beware of buying Consumery prosumer gear it's not Quality isn't always going to be where it should be if they had like a pro version of it that was higher quality everything I would recommend it. That's just not how personas kind of rolls They're very much price point company make it cheap if we can But it's it's pretty neat in terms of the new mac mini. I don't know. Did I wait? I didn't I'm happy I'm completely happy with my mac mini. I'm one 2020. I guess it's a 2020 model. It's fantastic. Um So no, I don't know if you should wait Uh, because then you might just decide you didn't need the new thing And you've just deprived yourself of the thing you already needed. So Go get one. Yeah, go just go get one Get 16 gigs of ram though. Yeah, I always yeah always get you know, the maximum order them Yeah, the extra ram. Yeah, of course, of course, you can't add chips in the new max. Nope They've hardwired everything everything's hardwired. You with a with a dock like I mentioned earlier if you if you if you are Okay frugal Like me and you get the 512 storage or the I think I actually have the 256 uh gig storage No big deal with one of those docks you can add in a one two three four terabyte Superfast drive later and get all that storage back for a lot cheaper than apple sells it for city of options Uh, j. Horace black Have you had a chance to review the universal audio volt one and the u of ua volt two yet? No, I know people who have them I think uh, who was it the mention he likes it? Um Peter bishop mentioned it Peter bishop did okay. Yeah, uh, and somebody else uses it on the road. I think it was Dave Dave noise mentioned that he likes it. Yeah. Yeah, he likes taking it on the road. It's I guess it's a real simple version of uh, you know the The arrow and the uh, and the and the apollo twin Yeah, I don't know how much you know can't do leggings with it Yeah, it doesn't have all the crazy bells and whistles and the console But that's probably a big pro to be honest Like if it has the quality of the converters and the preamps of the solo the 500 dollar apollo solo But the simple operation of a scarlet That could be compelling So, yeah, I haven't tried it yet. I I'm still kind of hooked on the ssl two as my favorite mid-priced Really nice well-designed interface. I'm really loving that one, but Yeah, one of these days. I'm sure I'll get one across my desk Yeah, I wanted I wanted to try the ssl two myself the volt the volt Or is it the bolt? No, it's a volt. Yeah, it's a volt. Yeah. Yeah, the bolt is a car Um, but there's also a car that's in a volt car. That's right. My friend had one I was driving it over the weekend. The bolt is awesome. Yeah. Oh, the electric cars are cool. Yeah, they Um, let's see here. Um Grace mitten question for me Were we to submit audio to your specimen collection cup for analysis? Do you need to know what equipment we're using our booths set up and dimensions, etc? For the most part. Yeah, I mean I it'll say what what microphone are you using what? Interface are you using what computer what software and how are you physically set up? You know, are you in a closet? Are you in a booth? Are you in your living room? You know, are you living out of your car? Which, you know, very popular here in LA? Yeah, I will ask I will ask you give me as much detailed information as possible Yeah, the reason that we we do the specimen collection cup the reason we need to hear it is people say I got this I got a you know a hissing sound or I got this or I got that Everybody hears differently and everybody describes things very very differently We see this on facebook all the time people say I got I got a buzz And of course we immediately say can we hear it? Because it's the sound that we hear that tells us what the problem is And uh, so yeah Tell me everything you can about your setup so I can make an honest analysis Sometimes someone will say well, yeah, I'm using a you know an xl mic mate Like well, there's your problem right there That's oh boy. Yeah, I I have one still sitting in a drawer here just in case you know bringing around You plug it in just to prove that okay. The problem is with your interface Yeah, yeah, it's just a tester to make sure the mic actually works It was an early attempt to make an interface that it was not It had not too hissy very hissy and incredibly hissy Yeah, I didn't have a reposition level switch. Yeah Yeah Okay, you get the shelly Aaron Cohen Karen Cohen Hi guys, are you aware of any de-esser that can be applied while you are recording? So real time I guess as recording instead of in post well In my in my experience you can really use any de-esser plug-in real time Uh While you're recording if you have the right dawg you have to have multi-track Multi-track dawg so it could be done. You could rig it up in audition. You could rig it up in reaper Studio one pro tools logic, but you do need those multi-track dawgs to actually do that Um, so yes. Yes and no it just depends on your your setup But that's a dynamic processor and they have extremely extremely fast low latency. How you know, they how they react to the audio So they can be used real time as opposed to like Dan was talking about earlier those noise reduction tools That that kind of have a delay Where they have to analyze the audio as it goes through then figure out what to do and then Apply a filter. Those cannot be used Real time Yeah, you know and and generally and of course people some people say i'm really sibilant I've only seen that a couple of times where somebody is really sibilant to me. It's always a physical thing Um And essentially what I guess sibilance is although i'm sure byron wagner will tell me no you're wrong Uh, is that it sibilance is an over modulation of a higher frequency Uh, which is why it it sounds the way it does Uh, it's an automata pia Yeah, that's it sibilance Yes, like bang bang. Is that the right use of that word on automata pia? Yes, it's it's the sound it's the talking the sound describing the sound that something has like crunch Yeah, or you know, bop um It's like batman, um Yeah, you know, um What were we talking about? I lost my train of thought there using processing real Yeah, yeah, I'm not a big fan of upfront processing. Yeah, I mean either get everything to me everything Is physical you want to improve your vocal technique? Uh, you don't want to over modulate. You don't want to over emphasize any Sibilant types of sounds You know, there's no sibilance there. It's just the sound of an s But if you push the s Too hard You can get some sibilance, but you know, some people just the way their mouths are again They might be a little bit more sibilant. Can you fix that? In in in a front end processor. I don't recommend it, but some people do and if it works for you Who am I to say? Danny Henkla How you doing Danny? Hey, Danny or Danny. I said Danny Henkla, you know, Danny Danny Sorry, Danny um He mentioned, um, oh, we oh, there was a conversation about docs because I mentioned one earlier for thunderbolt He mentioned one that's not fanned and he's using himself and it's made by kensington And it is the model people. Yes the model sd 5700 t It's a thunderbolt 4 docking station It can support up to two 4k displays It can charge up to 90 watts of power out of its usb to your your mac or windows Um, it looks like a beast and it's got ethernet. It's got three usb No, four usb a ports Uh, it's got a memory card reader Uh, four thunderbolt or three thunderbolt ports. It's wow. It's that's a heck of a package It's pretty awesome. It ain't cheap either, but I'm telling you these good brand new thunderbolt technology Docs are not cheap. They're going to be 300 dollars usually or more Um, and this one's around around that so thanks for the recommendation denny Yeah, carl. Let's say he uses an inline cough blocks to interrupt his mic output. Love it Obviously a radio guy. That sounds like a radio thing for sure. I think I've yeah a cough button Isn't that it's all that's a radio broadcast term for sure. Yeah cough buttons Of course, we got those on you know on the on the road podcaster here or a procaster. I just Is it right off and like There we go Yeah, I mean I can do it on my thing But I still have to use a I have to have I have an iPad over here And I could tap a button But there's a lot less of a chance that I would hit it at the right time instead of having a Push button switch that can really it that's the there's something satisfying about All right, you get the last question from Dave G Ah from Dave. Um, oh, sorry about your gear acquisition syndrome, Lenny Lenny, I'm just gonna call you Lee penny. Sorry, Lee My Dave G says my id 14 one mark one first generation Crapped out. Um, it took six months to get fixed. It was a horrible service Center in Los Angeles. The audience was no help. They passed the buck But my mark two is awesome. So Hopefully that's the case that the mark twos. I have a better Power supply. I think it's power supplies that was plaguing the the first generation stuff Hopefully they've they solved that problem and then and they're awesome. So That's good to know Dave. Sorry about your bad experience the first time round Yeah, well, hopefully we're not giving you gear acquisition syndrome or gas Uh, we try to keep it simple now. We talk about some of this stuff But you'll notice that we don't talk about a really high-end equipment No, we don't and the fact of the matter is is you don't need high-end equipment What one of my favorite expressions is if you're gonna buy a Ferrari you have to have a nice garage for it Uh, you know people are like I want to have a u87. I want to have this great expensive mic It's not going to change the way you perform copy And we we keep emphasizing this everybody's like bragging about you know this equipment or that equipment You know, we had jody krangel on last week Bless her heart. She does it exactly the way we say she got a 416 into an interface into her computer And a good environment if your environment is right That's the most important thing uh, it's from how you use your microphone and if you set your levels right Otherwise all this gear is you know distracting. It's for geeks You can be a geek and a voice actor, but you don't want to be a geek to be a voice actor I'm telling you it's just downright distracting. Uh, gosh, I've been pushing harder and harder uh I've been pushing harder and harder about not wearing headphones and I dance like But man because I'm just telling people like if you are in any way making a judgment call on a sound problem Whether it's a mouth click Or a passing car You are not in the act. You are not in that role at that moment You have switched roles from acting to engineering And then that's it just stop like stop the session not the session but just stop the take because you are no longer in it Um, I I really feel strongly you really have to limit your time wearing headphones recording voice over It is just too darn distracting and you can't do both engineering and acting You can think you're doing it But you can't do both This is what matters not all the bells and whistles and the flashing lights and yeah the more gadgetry It's going on that you have to be concerned about working Let alone whether it's been pre fab pre configured and tweaked within an inch of its life by me It doesn't matter if you have any concern whether it's actually working or not Or what to do if something doesn't work It's not work. It's not serving you So keep it simple. Alrighty Thank you for your questions. We love them and of course you can send the questions to us anytime All you have to do is go into your email program and write to us at The guys at v obs dot tv if you got a question if you send it there Guaranteed it'll be first in line When we do our next tech dot so it'll be waiting for us. That's right. Okay Well take a quick break. We'll wrap things up for this week right after these messages Before time began there was v obs dot tv watch or else Hey, it's david h. Lawrence the 17th and we talk a lot in this business about moving forward with our career getting more information We often don't talk about simply getting started It can be one of the most immovable objects In in our life getting out of our own way and just simply taking the first step And if you're watching this podcast voiceover body shop For some tips on how to get started in voiceover or to change something about your voiceover career or to increase your knowledge in a certain area Check out vio heroes comms getting started in voiceover If you go to vio heroes comm slash start you'll get all the information It's really cheap And I give you a lot to get started in the business But you might also learn something if you've been in the voiceover business for a while vio heroes comm slash start That's vio heroes comm slash start In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online In a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voiceover career flourish Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com where your vio website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv And we're back. We've got a little bit of time to say good boy so we could talk slower Anyway, um Let's see. Where are we here? Ah Next week on this very show Uh, we have another great guest. I got a lot of great people lined up We've been nice planning. Did you see my list and I I saw your list And by the way, who was first on that list? She was awesome. She was thrilled to be with us. Yeah, which was great Um, but we got a few others that I've been in touch with and people want to be on our show They want to be seen they want to be heard and they got great stuff to offer So make sure that you uh, you tune in next week when we present somebody else really good Uh, let's see here. We need to thank our donors of the week like rob raider Patty gibbons greg thomas shon of pains and baird. I always let you say her name. Yes icon productions That's martha con don griffith steven chandler. Thanks so much sondra man willer robert ledham ant land productions uncle roy shelly avaleno thomas pinto brian page george a widham my dad nathan carlson Graham spicer and uh lee pennie. Thanks because he wants his name to be mentioned. He wants it mentioned at least four times a show You've got office hours, don't you? Oh, yeah office hours. That's uh for anybody. That's a client of george the tech um You can access my private clubhouse room And uh, i'm on there twice a week generally. It's 10 30 a.m. Monday's and 4 p.m Friday's just 30 minutes just answering technical stuff and uh It's just the next service we provide at george the dot tech and dan you're over there at home voiceover studio dot com Yes, home voiceover studio dot com got the uh, you know the specimen collection cup got all sorts of stuff I can't wait for the new website, but we're gonna it's we're gonna really upgrade what we're doing You know after 15 years, maybe it's time to do that But then again a whole lot hasn't changed just a little bit of technique. I'm also going to start doing more videos again It's been a while So I think it's time to update some of the tips of the week that I did seven eight years ago Yeah, I mean some of that stuff ever is evergreen and some of it is ready for updates. So Yeah, there's a lot It was tonight glitch-free Yeah, a little bit of echo on my voice what I talk louder That say it's right there Yeah, I guess must be getting a lot of bleed from these headphones. I know it must be what it is Yeah, you know, we're all going deaf. What can I say and of course headphones? Oh my gosh. I'm so embarrassed Okay, now tell me now if the echo goes away Uh test one two Yep, that's what it was Okay, I am so embarrassed actually my headphones don't bleed The problem is they don't bleed at all and I couldn't hear that my monitor speakers were still on at a low volume Oops Oops Did the whole show that way That mattered Okay, well, okay Pay no attention to what just went on George actually knows what he's doing. Oh my gosh We we need to thank our amazing sponsors you start this time Okay, where are we harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra Source elements Vio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and jmc Demo yes Our thanks to jeff holman great job in the chat room tonight getting all our questions out to us Our amazing technical director. I can't wait to we can all get back together in the studio Maybe one more time remotely, but you know, not the mask mandates coming down in LA. I think we should probably I think we can start. Yeah when we do our next show on february 28th. If you want to listen and watch live Sumer lino. Thanks so much for all the work you do and Lee penny for being lee penny. I think that's five times get mentioned tonight Anyway, well, that's gonna do it for us this week. Uh, thanks for all your questions. Thanks for your business Thank you for trusting us with your home studio audio, but it really comes down to one thing You can get all this equipment you can do all this stuff But if it sounds good It is good I'm dan lennard. I'm george wittem and this is voiceover body shop or vio b s Tech talk tech talk tech tech talk tech talk tech talk. Well now the echo is gone. Okay Have a great week everybody. Can we start over again? So stick around