 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk number 42 42 my favorite my favorite my lucky number. Is that because you're 42? No, I've been 42 three years now. Oh, it's not that it's just a family number I don't know why but it goes way back my cousin had a cat named 42. We're kids who'd go figure Yeah, I just used to name cats after the street. I found them on You know like Cleveland tree hat and Elmwood cat, you know, it's that sort of thing there Anyway, it's time for tech talk if you've got a tech question a home voiceover studio tech question Here's your chance to ask the guys that know about it and throw it in the chat room Jeff Holman is sitting there at the chat room in Facebook and we will get to that question sometime during the Course of the show, but we got interesting stories about your move and we're gonna talk about gas G spot in your period a period s period. Oh, yeah, that kind of that kind of gas and And then we'll answer your questions and we'll have a good time Telling you how to do it right here on voiceover body shop tech talk. So don't go away. It's time 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 of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain the professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a professional voice talent with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio And each week they allow you into their world making the complex simple Debunking the myths of what it takes to create great sounding audio Answering your questions showing you the latest and greatest in VO tech and having a dandy time doing it Welcome to voiceover body shop Tech talk Voiceover body shop tech talk is brought to you by voiceover 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 VO heroes.com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and Voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success And now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Well, hello there. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Wittem and this is voiceover body shop or VO BS Tech talk Do Yeah, we're here to Talk about home voiceover studios, you know, someone said who's gonna want to watch a TV show about home voiceover studios Almost 10 years ago that you and I started working on this Yeah, and here we are more than nine and a half so we can now say officially almost 10 almost 10 I mean we thought about it at least 10 years ago, but yeah for sure You know, it'll be 10 years in March, you know, it's gonna be a radio show originally Yeah, this is gonna be audio. Yeah, it was gonna be like a podcast when podcast was kind of yeah We were trying to do a live podcast. It wasn't only a thing. Yeah So sorry about the video. Sorry about the video. It's been a pain the last nine and a half years I'm glad we did it anyway It makes for a more interesting show, but anyway, it definitely does Yeah, but we're here to help you with your home voiceover studio and there's a reason why Because George and I have probably built more home voiceover studios than anybody else on the planet because most people have built one Their own maybe two if they've moved which is something we'll be talking about tonight But you know, it's like we get emails all the time from people saying can you help me with this? Can you help me with that or I have no idea what I'm doing which of course we've gotten a lot of lately because You know, aside from the voice actors who were voice actors, but they all went into somebody else's studio Right because a lot of the film studios have shut down. We've gotten a lot of Actors like the adr people and the animation and and the cartoons especially the cartoon voices Right a lot of people didn't have studios right and and people who are just primarily screen actors They they're like, well, I can try voiceover. Oh, I've got to do this home studio thing Who do I talk to? Well, you can call the ghostbusters or you can call us Uh and because we know how to do it We know how to make it work with just about any space If you've got the right space and if you don't have the right space Then we tell you how to create the right space because it's all about the right space It is indeed and acoustics are everything acoustics are everything Which is one of the things that always ticks us off when we see these specs saying you've got to have this microphone We got to have this got never worried about acoustics Because you could have a ten thousand dollar Neumann microphone But if you do it in your bathroom, it's going to sound Really like your bathroom Yes, it's going to sound like what goes in the bathroom. That's right It's going to it's going to highlight all the imperfections that are in the room you have so You know, you you keep it simple you keep it simple But we teach you how to do it from soup to nuts from acoustics mic technique And how to set levels and how to use your software That's what we do and if you want to work with george, who's great at teaching this stuff He's got lots of cool videos and he loves talking to you you go to Oh, yes, by now my website should be working again. That's george the dot tech And you can see all my services that I have available. I've quite a menu of different ways We can work together specific things I can do for you And it could just be as simple as a sound check or as dan calls it a specimen collection That's right. You go to my website over at Homevoiceoverstudio.com. There it is right there and scroll to the bottom of the page find the specimen collection cup Follow the instructions to the t and I want your raw audio It's like, hey, can I show you all the processing I do? No I want to see if you need to be doing all that processing and Let me give it a listen usually now george. It usually takes like five seconds And we know exactly what's going on with somebody's audio. It's it's absolutely amazing because We've listened to thousands of files And it's amazing how you know the the thing is is that your voice is different Your the room you're in is different But there's a way it's supposed to sound and it's going to be your sound But it's going to sound right after we work with you So, uh, you know thanks to dan's whistle We what it's supposed to sound like exactly So, uh, that's why we're here And uh, so check us out, you know, like I said, there's a few guys that say, yeah, we do home studios Go to the guys that know how to do it, right? okay Enough of plug-a-palooza as it says on the show notes That's enough. It's enough for now As as we all may have heard or watched on facebook, uh, you had yourself an interesting week a couple weeks ago You had a move which probably brought up all sorts of interesting thoughts about what if you're a voice actor And you got a move so tell us about it Yeah, in fact, there's the airplane right now The airplane Yeah, there's a small plane flying bastard. I have I have a lot of processing on this mic and yes I can get away with that because i'm doing a show Very different from doing voice over. You're not the only one near the Santa Monica airport I have a lot of clients over there. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm very close to the Santa Monica airport and uh Yes, I ended up here after a really unfortunate turn of events with my other residents in Topanga and it was just decided that uh I shouldn't live there anymore. Sometimes when that decision is made for you, you just have to listen not fight it and move on and luckily With my girlfriend, we were able to find a great place On extremely short notice and move in but and it's got a lot of pros But if I was a voice actor, this would definitely not be where I would want to live So I can see why a lot of voice actors choose to not live on the west side Anywhere near the Santa Monica airport, especially like right at the end of the runway. I have a couple of clients. This is a great place Yeah, this is the problem with venice and parts of Santa Monica. You're um, there's an airport very nearby and the planes are slow moving prop planes So, uh, you know, they can be a little bit annoying. So the i'm dealing with those issues here now again I'm not doing voice over here. I If I was a voice actor, I like when I when I came into this house And it was a blank slate with all hardwood floors and its single glass pane casement windows from the 50s, which were lovingly cared for and restored and sadly not replaced I mean I was looking at it like wow these they did a great job retaining these old crappy freaking windows, but they work perfectly, but they're I hate these windows It's but all the places have on the west side, you know, they old sliding casement Kind with a little rope and little weight, you know those things you move the winner here This place was Carefully restored like the floors original, but really nice. It's really well done, but it's still single pane glass Zero air seal of any kind when there's a weed wacker right outside. I keep checking. Is my window open I'm like messing with no it's it's closed. Sorry for your luck and there's two large windows right next to each other So it's really bad So what I'm gonna I'm what am I gonna do? I'm one of the things I'm considering probably one of the first things I'm gonna do is and you know, there's also And I'm grateful It has central air Of central a HVAC system and it's you know for the unit. I have control over it But man when it kicks in it is like like it's got a Monster blower and it runs at full blast. So One of the first things I'll probably do is they ask us to give a little checklist when we move in Issues with the apartment I was like, wow, this is classy. I've never had that before I've never had an apartment complex. Give a give a damn about what I think about the place. So they really care here So I'm gonna let them know could you slow down the blower on the HVAC system. So It doesn't necessarily mean they can or doesn't mean that all systems can do it But I do know That some HVAC systems and I'm saying that I mean the ventilation air conditioning system Um, the blower unit can sometimes have the ability to slow down the fan. It's like two wires It's like slow fan, you know, you've got to go in there and actually do that Yeah, there's jumpers or you just literally move a wire to a different post or something like that Um, and it slows down the fan now. They may say no, we can't do it Oh, okay But they may they may try to accommodate. So that's the first thing I'm gonna do. Can you slow down the blower on the fan? It may still be too loud, but it's just something that you can try and say when I came in Yeah Also when I moved into this room, I have my own dedicated office space here to one of the two bedrooms The vent somebody had closed the veins on the vent partly so they were partly shut So when the thing was running it was like That sound right? Yeah So I think most people would think Closed the vent to stop the air flow, but that's not what you want to do The last thing you want to do is impinge or impede it because in the air it's still going to come out kids It ain't gonna stop It's just going to squeeze out smaller holes and make more noise So I got up there with a screwdriver and jammed the thing and opened up all the veins I was about to actually remove the entire register just leave a hole there because that's the least restricted, right? But I didn't do it yet, but anyway that made a big difference So there's little things that you can do you got to be creative now the next thing I got to deal with though Is that outdoor noise? And so what I plan to do there is to get some heavy Lexan plexiglass kind of material and make I don't want to get rid of my windows I mean I actually can see the sunset kind of from this angle. It's I don't want to lose that view So I'm going to get some plexiglass and try to make little window make window inserts now This is going to be tough because these windows are not very deep You know somehow how some windows have a deep window sill and they give you at least two three inches of space that you can Enough to put a cup of coffee on Yeah, well there's a window sill. It's about the window sill is about that big but the space between the end of the Window itself and then the trim is like a half inch maybe an inch tops So I have to figure out how to wedge something into that tight little Gap So that's going to be something else that I'm going to try to do and there are kits you can find there's retrofit window kits Um, I want to try to do it with the least amount of destruction to the property I don't want to drill Zero because you're renting Yes I don't want to necessarily drill a lot of holes into the old window trim You know, so I'm going to figure out how to do that and make it I mean, you know, there's command strips these days man. There's a way to do it with command strips I don't know that stuff's pretty cool. Dan. Have you You know, you know the command strip bell crow, but they just have Command strip sticky tape. Oh, yeah, there's all over the place that you can release it. You know, yeah Hang pictures with it. It's great. Yeah, so I'm going to see what I can do there So that's that's what I'm up against and it makes me have a new appreciation a renewed appreciation again For what voice actors in any urban or suburban area have to deal with it's it is challenging so If you have time to look for places if you I did it did this very quickly But don't pick a place that has windows on three sides of the unit There's there are literally no interior Spaces, you know, there's not like an like there there is the closet here But it still has doors facing my windows, right? So There's really nowhere to go. You can't get away from it. It's great for a breeze But um, yeah, if you see an advertisement saying near the beach breezy, that means noise noise noise Yeah, imagine if that's that was actually the view out your window behind you there. It's So Be a little noisy. Yeah, well my office you can hear right now like It's I got I've got a few panels and some blankets tossed on the floor But it is pretty barren in here right now So it's I put the green screen up because there's nothing to look at eventually. I'll have shelving a whole bunch of Chachkees and boxes and things to break up Books you gotta have books with lots of philosophers and stuff books. Yeah, there'll be some books Yeah, there you go. So but you're gonna learn an awful lot about how to silence those windows Which of course will benefit all the people we work with I'm sure Yeah, I yeah, it's it's time to tackle this on my own and and see what I can come up with that's uh, You know picky management company friendly Let's just put it that way. I saw their 30 minute long a video their orientation video is like Addendum number 17 in your lease says that if you put a coffee cup on a window, so that I was like, oh my god. There's so many rules. Gotta respect the wood. Yeah, um, so That's it for the move. But we'll see. I'll we'll I'll keep you guys posted see what I come up with. Um Twisted wave 24 mentioned this on the show a couple weeks ago. It's out. It's in the wild and My only bug I ran into is already been fixed because that's thomas and that's how quickly he fixes stuff But I wanted to try out the new Analyze in a batch feature So I don't know how many people need this other than audiobook people But to be able to try to speed up the process of mastering We have a way now to put an analyze step in a batch So you can put all the processing you need your limiter and whatever you're doing to to get your rms Specs for acx But you can also put analyze in there And so it will do a whole batch and create a spreadsheet and show you which files in that chapter in that batch Fell outside of your specs at a glance It's really awesome, but it was broken And so I taught a client how to use it on me a little video in an oven. I got to that step It didn't work, but it's been fixed in 24.1 So if that's a feature you want to use make sure you get the newest update for twist wave And here's just a little quick kind of a I didn't know this Did you know that I probably didn't know it either. There's so many That's what's fun about apple like You know, they don't give you a manual this thick They give you a computer that you can kind of learn how to use without a lot of trouble And the manual is just sort of hidden in the ethers and you start learning things over It's really fun. So I just learned that If you have an iphone or an ipad plugged into your mac with usb. It's not a wi-fi thing. It's got to be plugged in You can show the screen of your ipad or iphone on your Mac and record it or just look at it or just screen share it Um, and it's just I thought you had to buy an app. There's an app called reflector that does this for 15 bucks Nope If you load quick time and make a in start a movie recording So normally you'd be recording a webcam Now as long as your ipad or iphone's plugged in and it's awake Now you have another video camera source. So it'll be your webcam and you'll have ipad Oh, and the camera on an iphone is spectacular. Well, this is a different thing This is actually not using the camera This is just to be able to take the screen of your of your device and show it on your computer Oh, I don't know how many people really need to do this and then But if you're a trainer or teaching anybody anything It's it's gold. In fact, I'm doing a webinar tomorrow And it's about how to record on an ipad for martha con actually. Yeah, and um It's I'm going to be able to use this feature. So I thought that was a really cool Thing and I would never have known it had I not googled it and apple had a little a little Thing about about this cool trick. So you can use it to record the screen on your iphone or ipad or just Share it to your computer that you can then subsequently Share that with zoom, which is what I'm going to do. Ah, anyway, makes that was a cool little little trick So anyway, that's it for my tech update. So let's talk about Gas. Yes. Yeah. Now. That's a term that you introduced to me Because I never I think I picked it up on the vr on the vo bb the voice over bulletin board Yeah Yeah, and you know, I mean there's our friends who do the the voiceover meter or the vo meter Talk about questionable purchase of the week questionable gear purchase. Yeah gas gas stands for Gear acquisition syndrome It's not a good disease to have if you're a voice actor Well, especially if you're a little bit tight on cash Well, yeah, I mean, you know, if you're well if you're doing well and you got the space and And that's your hobby Well, how that right because let it yeah dictate how you do your voice over work Right because it's not the gear That gets you work. It's how you use it and I don't know we we we go into these facebook forums And I think I've been going in there less and less Although I see your name pop up every now and again and it's nice if you see our names, please tag us Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's it's like a magic trick. If you want me to appear tag me, right? I will probably appear like what are you talking about? And it's at the point now with facebook or I don't even want to look at the news feed I just click on the little bell Who's talking about me? Who's talking about me? That's pretty much it Yeah, anyway, uh, but yeah tag is so we you know, so we can we can join the conversation because that's about like You said it's the only time we're gonna do it, but we see constantly You know, well, of course, there's what's the best mic for mic, you know for voiceover Like you're already way behind the eight ball kiddo. Whoever you are Which interface should I get with interface and then people start suggesting things? Oh, you should get this Oh, you should get that. You should get the Apollo. Yeah. Yeah the Apollo twin now Nothing wrong with the Apollo. It is a fantastic Interface well, but not for voiceover quite a lot of people with problems with Apollo Actually But um, yeah, no, it's a fantastic piece of gear in the right hands and in the right circumstance Yeah, it's designed for people who know how to use one having it Doesn't make you a better voice actor I think that's the issue a lot of people have. Oh, I've got to have the best gear Well having doesn't make your studio easier to to operate. No, it makes it harder You know, I mean most of the stuff was designed for people You know, it there's the consumer level stuff I mean you I mean you look at some of the things like, you know, some of the focus right stuff that we recommend to people because it's great stuff And simple to use and simple to use. Oh, here's the game here. You plug it in and you know, that sort of thing The more sophisticated the piece of gear The harder it is to operate And does it enhance your audio or does it make the shortcomings as we were talking about earlier? More obvious And I think that's probably one of the issues that you and I probably deal with more than anything else Is people saying, well, I got one of these things and I'm like, well, there's your problem right there You know how to use this thing So maybe another thing that has three numbers in the name Exactly or more 286 I'm thinking of Yeah, I'm not sure what that's the worst one is the people who recommend that you you get one of these external Uh channel strips channel strips like a dbx 286 or the what are some of the other ones? So, you know, I blanked out on some of the names of them because it's kind of the one right? Yeah, I mean and and how everybody despises the apollos because they're like you got to get to 737 avalon or the Right, etc. It's not necessary. We've proved it Yeah, we did prove it we we wanted we went into my booth over here and we We tested like seven or eight different interfaces 12 12 different interfaces give or take five or six And and I've been I I've talked to people who you know was I saw your video on the interface shootout and What was the point they all sounded the same? We're like That's the whole point Guys, it's true. They all sound about 95 percent the same right and the only person that's going to hear that Is the differences is some producer who's you know extremely picky about Those little tiny subtleties but when they're hearing your voice with your mic and your good room As long as it's clean you're not adding noise or distortion The job is done the gear is doing what it needs to do and that's it and if it's complicated to use day to day If it is high maintenance if you got to reboot the thing If you got to buy a $50 cable to plug it in if you got to be worried about the os updating on and on All the things that come along with these high maintenance Much more expensive complicated interfaces It's just not worth it for the majority of you. It's not Yeah, don't you know if if you're looking for the best gear If we tell you it's good it is good because it's gonna sound good. You don't want crappy I think what happened a lot of people buy stuff because they're desperate and they'll buy a yeti Or or a usb mic and you can make a usb mic sound okay But it's got to be a good us. There's always a compromise like even the really good ones. There's a sennheiser mk4 digital Right, that's a $400 usb mic Sounds amazing, but it has no gain control on the mic. You gotta do it off himself easily adjust the gain. It's just There's just compromises when you buy the wrong gear and uh, yes, things can be made to work But they just aren't the easiest way to get it done and the most reliable And that's what we recommend things that we know in the long run are going to make your life easy Year after year And john bailey was just on using a prime example He's even using the same mic And the same basic interface the scarlet for many years And has had no felt no and compulsion to To buy new stuff all the time. Exactly. So so uh, yeah, so don't do that gas gear acquisition syndrome It's something you need to be vaccinated against And that's why we're here Only you can prevent gas And we try to Anyway, we got lots of questions from all of the folks out there who watch this show and have mailed in questions And if you've got a question, you can throw it also into our Facebook chat room where jeff holman is sitting by we're standing by or however he's positioned Uh, and he'll give us those questions and we will ask those questions of ourselves and we will answer them ourselves And entertain you and make sure that you get the right understanding Of the question and the answer And i'm not even sure what you just said but i get it sounds like the presidential debate the other day anyway Coming up Right after these messages. This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on The voice of our buddy shop. Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you stick around? You don't want to miss this At target we want you to come as you are be comfortable Okay, maybe not bathrobe comfortable Pants for the customer on aisle four, please Watch anywhere anytime on an unlimited number of devices sign in with your netflix account to watch instantly at netflix.com The ice cream maker is a big risk that can have huge reward Until you forget to turn it on Well, that's it guys time is up Hey, it's jmc. Thanks for watching the voiceover body shop If you're demo ready or looking to get there check out jmc demos dot com and see a sample of our work Now let's get back to dan and george and this week's tech wisdom One of the things we like to do on v obs is to actually use the products that sponsor us and here's a prime example The harlin hogan v o 1a signature series studio condenser microphone Why? Not just because harlin's a sponsor But because the v o 1a is possibly the only microphone that's actually designed and built strictly for a voiceover All other mics were designed to record music. It's the perfect mic for us since we're all about vio But don't just take my word for it. Here's what another user has to say After 10 years are used down under my signature series v o 1a harlin hogan microphone still sells whatever my contribution is It's from your first sale in australia in march 2010 Stay safe and keep well regards. Ian right voiceover artist in australia And here's the deal prices on the manufacturer of the v o 1a have gone up It'll now retail for 349 But use this promo code and you can get yours for the old price of 339 Use this promo code now and get it for the old price of 339. Thanks harlin Hey everybody, this is the time on the show where source elements is mentioned in context of your studio They I've mentioned context because they have many contexts at source elements. They've got products for post production Music yes, it is film They're all over the place And it's if you want to be in the play in the game for the big paying gigs and voiceover They're overwhelmingly using their technology called source connect And source connect is a software that runs on your computer that allows your computer to link up to the studio's computer And send audio seamlessly back and forth real time It's like being on the end of a virtual mic cable that travels from Your studio around the world and the sound quality is quite amazing I mean it is it is very very crisp and clear With no warbling or garbling About the only thing that ever happens is maybe an occasional dropout if the internet gets extremely congested And they even have workarounds and fixes for that. It's pretty amazing Get yourself set up get a 15 day free trial Over at source dash elements dot com and if you get stuck watch my video over at george the tech Dot com slash s c and you can get yourself up to speed On using source connect and none of that will cost you a dime Just get yourself up and running and be ready to go All right. Well, we appreciate their support and we back to ads are a ton of questions right after this You're watching v obs dot tv. I don't know why it's crazy what they do here I think I'm going to go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich You know anything Did you have this trouble last week or last time? Okay, we got an ndi app on the iphone believe it or not the camera we're using for dan tonight is an iphone And it looks better than our our real camera But it's a little unstable sometimes Ndi that's something the voice actors never have to talk about ndi Plank all right, and we're back. Yeah, we're back All right technology Anyway, uh, we got a we we have a couple of interesting questions one here seems to have some stuff. I've never heard of Well, that makes it more fun. It does google fingers. I got my keyboard right here. I'm ready to google Okay, so let let me read the question as I read you can google away From christy crossley I'm wondering if either of you are familiar with voice meter banana as a digital mixer I looked it up. It's a virtual software mixer Why just now to make things more fun. I use a universal apollo Uh audio apollo twin usb interface with my pc setup But it's not voice over internet protocol. Voip friendly I've recently started working with voice meter banana, but i'm not fully sure if i'm using it right Okay, I've read the manuals and watched some really helpful videos on youtube by merrill cox I need to figure out how to set up my mixer for skype and ip dtl calls I do think I had a decent setup. Well, we've got to hear it to make sure But I don't want to find myself trapped during a remote Realizing there's some glitch with the wrong bit depth sample rate Or if i've got channels connected incorrectly I can take screenshots and send them to if you think it might help my setup includes universal audio console And kakos reaper as well So you like things to be challenging. That's what i'm picking up here christy Were you the one that always shows the hard way to do everything in school? I'm wondering I have a couple cousins like that. Yeah, no offense, but honestly That is a really convoluted setup and it's and I First of all, I do not at all recommend apollo the apollo stuff on windows systems It's not perfect on mac. It doesn't work Properly with zoom On windows it's far worse. Um, it doesn't work with chrome There's so many issues and that's why she's using voice meter. By the way, voice meter is spelled voice m e e t e r Like it's meeting two things together. That's voice meter. Yeah, um, I'm familiar with voice meter I know what it does. I'm not familiar with voice meter banana But that sounds like it takes it to another level of being able to mix Several things and bring them together. I can tell you this though Using these virtual software mixer devices and virtual sound driver devices Is super prone to having problems when you're not expecting it or It's because it's all happening in a virtual console and it's happening in preferences and You know, all these different places you have to check the right box and change There's just so many darn things that you can screw up and yes, it will glitch on you Right at the moment of a session or right when you really need and that's you know, that's what's good That's when it's gonna happen. So, you know, yeah, and then and then you combine the complexity of reaper Which is also a really complicated DAW. I mean, it's a pro tools replacement And it's good and it's really an affordable. It's really affordable. But my god, is it complicated really? Yeah I guess the question would be what's she mixing? You know, I mean she might be doing like a She's just trying to get play back. I'm guessing trying to get play back from from from reaper To show up back in skype or something like that And I'm guessing that's what she's probably when you use it for it's just here's here's a quickie I don't use software drivers and things to do this. I just get another audio interface I'm not saying you got to get rid of the Apollo if you've got it working and it's reliable and you understand how to use it And it's getting you gigs great But don't use that don't use these software tools to try to create these mix minuses and Loop backs and all this stuff. Just get another audio interface The my favorite is the barringer Uca 202. They're like 30 40 bucks Really inexpensive little usb interface and just send the audio into that Just send it out of the one of the outputs and into that and now make that the input in your skype or zoom Aren't we using one of those in our chain here? I think so How many of those I've set up for people they're just problem solvers and Yeah, it may seem like you're doing a low tech solution because you're using and you know another audio device and it's Another analog cable. So what this isn't a purist thing. This is about reliability and easy ease of use and I find that to be Way way better way to go. So yeah, and she christie had a second part to the question Just to make it more interesting Uh, she says I'm wondering if either of you are familiar with us. That's that's the first part of the question Do you need? Yeah, do voiceover people need to consider lkfs forward slash lufs in their produced audio? are the Broadcast standards. Oh, we all know how I love that term Uh, what the same when submitting voiceover as they are for a finished product Is there some element of variation required in the process like gain staging when I meet the peak at minus 3 db Required for submitting auditions like lkfs reading is always higher than the minus 24 standard I've read about usually around minus 20. Are you getting confused? I am Don't get to talk a lot to a lot of other voice actors, but a few I've talked to aren't as familiar with engineering Gee, well, what do you know since more for voice people don't know Does this mean that has no bearing on the auditions i'm submitting or is there some way I should be incorporating that Into my project settings to better reach the lkfs numbers needed by the end users in other words. No That's a short easy answer And until the day comes where you get audition scripts saying auditions must have an lufs rating of 20 or something You don't need to know anything about lufs or lkfs. What does that mean? I've never heard that term before Yeah, it's just a new a newer technical way of measuring average volume So we used to always just use the word rms, right, you know for average volume And lkfs and lufs are different ways of calculating sort of what average volume is they just do it in a different way lkfs uses loudness k weighted which is relative to the full scale In the standard loudness measurement unit used for audio normalization broadcast television systems and other video and music streaming services lkfs is standardized in the itu dash rbs 1770 spec That's from 1970 Oh, no, it's called the bs 1770. Oh, okay. Yeah Broadcast standard, I guess This is something if you were going to an aes convention, you'd hear this. Oh, yeah, there'd be whole clinics on this They'll be like symposiums on lkfs at a broadcast convention. Yeah, that's the don't really need to worry about your society Yeah, but yeah not yet. Um, and and essentially those two terms lufs and lkfs are essentially interchangeable In both useless Yeah, lufs maybe easier to remember because it's loudness units lu loudness units Full scale. That's what it means. But anyway It's just an average volume reading that's using different math And if somebody asks for it chances are your software has a Way to measure things based on that and I know reaper happens too. So don't worry about it too much yet yet Okay All right, my camera seems to have frozen but you can hear me. Well, we hear you and that's what's most important Okay, so keep talking. All right. So and this one says, uh, thank you so much for dealing with my query about different sample recording rates on Tectal number 35, but having fallen into the technical weeds and now struggling to get back to the surface I think this is regarding the next question not the last question. Right because there's no name to I don't know who this is. Sorry. That's okay. Whoever you are, you know who you are and hopefully this helps It says I have to render a file at a different sample rate to the recording sample rate Reaper resamples the render at a default rate of 192 pt think Which it classifies as good, but also offers several higher rates up to extreme high quality 768 pt think by the way, I don't know idea what s i and c means I've never seen it before I understand that a higher rate means lower noise and distortion, but it can also take much longer So is good at 192 pt Good enough for the average voice track There's this is the problem with reaper It's got it's so complicated. It was designed for a total audio genius geek for Other audio genius geeks and so it has terminologies and Specs and things that you don't care about what you care about is yeah, what you care about is kilobits per second And so if you're recording us and making mp3 at 192 Kilobits per second, you're good That's what you that's you're fine Never need to go above that unless somebody says otherwise Anything higher you can't really hear the difference in quality and like you said it may take longer to encode The file will be larger So don't worry 128 kilobits per second mono mp3 is perfectly fine for auditions And audiobooks ask for 192. So I don't know what the p 192 pt s i and c stands for That one you kind of lost me. I'm not I don't know if you Correlated two different sets of terminology or jargon and get them mixed into one question I'm not really sure that one's kind of I'm stuck that stump me. I don't know what sink is Yeah, okay, you stumped the chumps here. I mean I mean, but the fact of the matter is this is stuff that's not relevant to voiceover recording in a home studio And that's the problem with these really complicated programs. That's right This next question. No, this this is an easy answer from jim mc nicolas I'm not sure if we answered this one last week, but I it doesn't sound familiar. We'll answer it fast Yes, uh nerd question Okay Home studio build computer fan is producing a minus 56 db hum at 245 and 345 hertz Don't want to you don't want to high pass at 400 hertz. No, you don't But need to get it to minus 60 for acx I do noise reduction and it works. I have my computer as far away from my desk as cables will allow help Get longer cables and put the computer somewhere else Or put your microphone far away from the computer. Do not rely on technology to fix Something as easy as that It's it's like, okay. Well, I've got this noise. So I'll use technology. No always Physically do what you can to get rid of the noise. Do not use technology noise reduction Yeah, and it's probably the hard drive spinning in that computer. I almost guarantee it. It's probably not the fans So, um, yeah, just just get rid of the motors and things that spin In worst case get a quieter computer. There's definitely very inexpensive affordable fanless or very silent computers So, you know, there's there's solutions, but you know, I was going to say a high pass would be really bad a notch If I got the file and I had to fix it as the engineer Then I would use something called a notch eq and I would notch exactly at those two frequencies And dip them down so they're less noticeable But that is a band aid fix and like dan said You want to avoid those because when that studio says we're going to do the source connect tomorrow We'd like to hear how your studio sounds. Please do not do any processing And if that noise is there they may go meh that doesn't sound so hot. We can't use that audio So try to fix it at the source. Okay Next one. Okay I'm here. I know I'm here, but you know with the cameras It's it's there it's being okay. We'll just use my frozen picture until I'm not the audience. There we go. Okay. Now I'm back. All right Uh, Frank Romero says oh perfect. Yes That's what they Actually, just move a little to the left there. Okay Uh This is uh, I want to reduce echoes from reflective surfaces in my booth top of desk and music stand primarily That shouldn't be causing any problems at all is closed cell foam a camp pad Covered with a thick towel or carpet total overkill. What do you recommend? Follow-up is their treatment material that'll do the same for a monitor screen My booth is three feet 11 inches square inside a more asymmetric treatment What is it with you guys? Are we totally frozen here? I'm not sure. I'm just seeing you on the The key shot now. I'm seeing myself But with Dan's hand frozen in front of my face, which is funny Still not as still not as good as you holding up me up on a It's still not as good as using the phone on skype and holding up to the webcam. Okay, that takes the cake We're not there yet. We're not there yet folks. Okay. Um anyway, uh, so Talking about phone camp pad with thick towel overkill It's not going to help with reflections. You don't use closed cell foam to deal with reflections Because closed cell foam will actually reflect sound So that's not going to absorb reflections. You need open cell foam. And that's what acoustical foam is Towels are the best thing probably the best absolute dirt cheap thing besides moving blankets are towels I even saw a video where a guy made acoustical panels out of old towels and they worked great actually Um, so towels are the best thing you can possibly use. Um, everything else if you just layer it up It will get rid of more and more noise. It'll stop more transparent or transmission of noise But it won't do a really good job acoustically. So The thing is is we've got to hear it. I sometimes I find that people are hearing things that aren't really there Uh, and it's important that they Try to Send their audio to someone who knows what they're talking about which would be you and me Uh, and let us hear it because a lot of times people describe a problem And it's like it's a hum. It's a buzz. It's a clicking. It's a this. It's a that And And now now You can now see what a mess my office is it's awesome Um, anyway, but yeah, so I would say if you're just trying to stop the stop the echo off your desk Then just put a nice old nice thick terry cloth towel On your desk. That's going to be enough really um, and then for transparent material for a display I don't know if any transparent material that you can see through without Completely ruining your picture That also is acoustically going to um absorb sound Now my friend Byron Wagner he hung some very heavy clear vinyl over his display To give it a shot and it was still transparent and yes, you could see that it was there, but it wasn't too bad Theory being that it might reflect less sound than the glass that's on the display You could give it a shot But I don't think it's going to do a whole lot and there's no clear foam Or anything that you can see through that will acoustically also work that I know of yet All right, maybe aro gel Look that one up Um, just don't use bed foam great for preventing Bed sores, but not for not for voice over Acoustical treatment everybody I just put all this bed foam up All right, Nicholas says I need a less than 300 microphone for my next upgrade of a mic No problem Okay, there's a bunch there Yeah, it's you went under 300, but it's an upgrade. So you must be starting with an under $200 mic. Yeah Not sure, but um, I would say, uh, you know the in the road nt1 A holland hogan mxl v o 1a a fortune 1840 40 1840 40 at 2035. That's half the price. So they'll get Upgrade when we start There the Road ntg 4 actually impresses the heck out of me. I've used it on many of our shows Those are readily available under 300 dollars Hey, I got an idea. Let's just put that one In here and see if that works Um and going back a question while they get the camera sorted out patricia It also asked about female mics that are good for female voice over And um, I missed that one that that's mics that are Generally when people say is it good for a female voice over my translation of that is Is it a really bright mic that will make me sound more sibilant? That's basically the only thing I can think of that would be Make a certain mic not good on some female voices if you're already sibilant You don't want a sibilant mic like a road nt1 a right I've I found the 4 16 to be little sibilant. It's definitely sibilant Uh, but I also find that sibilance is again a physical problem It is and that in its men and women it generally comes to men and women It's not just women from over projecting your voice And you know trying to be too loud And you're trying to have a private one-on-one conversation with people and right that way The amazing thing is is when you talk to people, you don't hear sibilance Why you only hear it on a mic because you're on a mic and you're pushing it too hard So just talk the way you normally talk and the mic will pick you up that particular way Yeah, I think we got time for like one last question here Pick a sweet one. Let's see Okay Well Catherine campion asking it. Why don't you read that one? So you can answer that one Well, that one's more of a comment So I'll read that and then I'll read the question right above it because I think that's a good question too Actually Catherine says if you're in sag after these foundation offers free consultation and evaluation sessions For your home studios from who? Must be Mike. I don't know somebody over there. Thank you for Tossing people to other places Catherine after I let you borrow a mic and everything well, you know Yeah, I only I I I I did I designed the place for free, but you know, it's okay I'll let it go. Um, anyway, Carl Gillette He had asked um, I have a well treated but very small studio that does sound very slightly boxy Okay, um George has mentioned using the figure eight pattern on a condenser mic and I'm considering trying one Can you generally speaking elaborate on the pros and cons of that? Will it add some air or space? Does it alter the proximity effect close up and at a distance? And the answer is it depends It does depend. Have you experimented? I mean, I've I've been doing this more lately Do you have any figure eight? I mean you got ribbon mics. So you know what they work know what they do Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't use the ribbon mics a whole lot for any production purposes. They're just for fun but you know, I use a 416 and I I have another mic that I can put into a figure eight pattern But I haven't tried it because because you have a well-tuned room. I don't have a well-tuned room I've got two well-tuned rooms. It's like right if you've got a well-tuned room You don't need to do that. So that's why well, let me try if Fixing the settings try fixing the room. I think is probably a better answer Yeah, I mean if you're that close to having a good sounding you might find that moving the mic an inch or inch closer Or moving the mic three inches to the left because like, you know, the room's gonna resonate in specific places in the room Find the sweet spot. So yeah, there's gonna be a sweet spot where it's not resonating So the con of figure eight is that the mic tends to be a little more dull So it loses some of the air And that's what I've been finding anyway And it will pick up more from the back which if the back of the mic is facing something reflective is bad So in some cases figure eight is going to be worse But in some cases it's going to be better and you're not going to know into actually experiment and try it out If you're not so sure then get a mic of the return policy rent a mic borrow a mic Buy a really cheap figure eight mic like a AKG perception 420 I think it is Those are pretty cheap. Those are multi pattern You know, just get a mic you can experiment with but um, it's gonna depend But it will make more proximity effect when you put it in figure eight It will build more proximity effect. So keep that in mind. It will actually change the low end response Alrighty well, you can't see me, but I'm here. We're gonna take a break Uh, so now you can't see me see we've actually switched phones, but you wouldn't even know it You know, we're using sous phone now Uh, anyway, we'll be right back to wrap things up. Thank you for all your questions Send them into the guys at v obs dot tv and we'll be happy to answer them here on voiceover tech talk We'll be right back. You know watching v obs dot tv. I don't know why it's crazy what they do here I think I'm gonna go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich Okay, you get an audition and you see the dreaded words Accents dialects. They can be showstoppers. You think to yourself. I can't do that well enough to compete. I'll pass Well, what if I told you you could do that and do it well enough to compete with all the other voiceover talent in your category All it takes is understanding how to build an accent from scratch and the accents class is the way to do it david of vio heroes knows firsthand because his coach is jim johnson the creator of the accents class And registration just opened for this amazing five week program that will show you how to build a new accent from scratch In plenty of time to submit even the fastest moving auditions Just visit vio heroes dot com forward slash accents and check out the training there That's vio heroes dot com forward slash accents once again vio heroes dot com forward slash accents for the accent class 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 One of the things we like to do on v obs is to actually use the products that sponsor us and here's a prime example The harlin hogan v o 1a signature series studio condenser microphone Why not just because harlin's a sponsor But because the v o 1a is possibly the only microphone that's actually designed and built strictly for a voiceover All other mics were designed to record music. It's the perfect mic for us since we're all about vio But don't just take my word for it. Here's what another user has to say After 10 years are used down under my signature series v o 1a harlin hogan microphone still sells Whatever my contribution is it's from your first sale in australia in march 2010 Stay safe and keep well regards ian right voiceover artist in australia And here's the deal prices on the manufacturer of the v o 1a have gone up. It'll now retail for 349 But use this promo code and you can get yours for the old price of 339 Use this promo code now and get it for the old price of 339 Thanks harlin Before time began there was v obs dot tv watch or else Wow, it's almost like it used to be where every week it's a polar 13 But but to show you that we never panic in these situations. It's always well, what else can we do? Are you somebody else's phone? Yeah, the flop sweat days are over on this show. Yeah, we're just like at least they were Anyway, uh next week. We've got another great guest coming on the show Not exactly sure. There's maybe two people that are like fighting over the chance to be on so we'll see who that'll be And uh, but we do have donors and we really appreciate those people because they keep the show going and They show their support and we really appreciate that and who are some of those people And we got larry hudson dana birtsall Lee penny brian page Stephanie southerland patty gibbons george widdum. That's my dad And don griffith and lastly been definitely not least lee martha con. All right. Yes icon productions. Um, you know We we also have some great sponsors for this show And the fact of the matter is is along with your help This show wouldn't be able to be possible without them and some of them have been with us really truly from the beginning Almost 10 years like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements Vio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com And jmc demos. Thank you everyone. Yes each and every one of you. Thank you. Jeff holman. Yes each and every one of you I'll each and every one and god bless them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Uh, Jeff holman doing another bang up job in the facebook chat room appreciate him getting the questions to us Sumer lino pulling her hair out But keeping her mask on As we try to solve technical issues while we're doing this But hey, that's half the fun of the show So some people just like it was like might we used to say it was like See in the 500 people love to see the crashes But they want to see the guy come up and wave. Hey, i'm okay wave. I'm all right Incasionally have a fight with the other driver. That's occasionally. Yeah, it's definitely a nascar. You see that Anyway, that's gonna do it for us this week. Again, if you got questions for us write to us at the guys at v obs dot tv How we got that one? I don't know but good job getting that url george. We always appreciate that one And uh, that's gonna do it for us this week. You know It's important to make sure that you're not overthinking your home voiceover studio because really in the long run If it sounds good, it is good. Alrighty. I'm dan lennard And i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or v o b s tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk have a great week everybody. We'll see you next time