 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk and it's number 85. Yes, it is 85 tech more information than you could possibly Shoving your brain in a lifetime, but somehow we've been able to do it over 85 shows and occasionally we answer the same question after Yeah, but more than one year later If you've got a question for us throw it in the chat room right now whether you're watching on Facebook live or whether you're watching on YouTube or You know from some satellite dish from somewhere, you know, you know, whether it's coming off the the web telescope Yeah, throw it in the chat. I don't know if the web telescope has a chat room, but it probably does YouTube channel anyway, it's both over body shop tech talk right now Voice over body shop is brought to you by voice over essentials calm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect JNC demos when quality matters The oh heroes calm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training Voice actor websites calm where your voice actor website shouldn't be a pain in the butt Voice over extra your daily resource for voice over success and by World Voices the industry association of Freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts Dan and George Well, hello there. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whitton and this is voice over body shop or vo Bs tech talk talk tech talk tech talk We are talking tech here on voice over body shop and there's a reason that George and I talk tech because Guess what? That's what we do now I'm a full-time voice actor and you know a full-time president of World Voices and full-time husband and You know dog owner and things like things like that But we all I also do voice over technical consulting as does George because It seems now as there's more people in the business some people are starting to get it Yeah, but it's still a mystery to people trying to get into this business and you started hearing the things We've been saying the last 11 years starting to echo around the web and in different forums and chat rooms So where do they get this stuff just getting around they got it from you and me. I mean, it's Yeah, we've been figuring it out. You know, there are people that are experts in you know Maybe they help somebody build a studio or they built their own Found out how they did what they did wrong and then like oh, I got to fix it So they'll go to about 20 different YouTube videos try and figure it out, right? Yeah, or you could just work with one of us Because we know how to do it. We've seen Everything I've I've put in studios in you know tile-laden apartments in Cairo Tiny little places in Paris Every every room is different every voice is different every situation is different and you really take somebody who knows What it's supposed to sound like We'll help to help you get it sounding the way it's supposed to sound like and if you would like to work with us You can work with either one of us you can start by with George if you want to work with him You would just go over to George the dot-tech That's my place on the web and I I've got a big library of content on there. That's totally free by the way There's a huge free resources area You can start dabbling around read the blog and see what's going on over there That will keep you busy for probably three or four months then when you're tired of that You can actually book actual time with me on on the website there We can work one-on-one or you can just send an audio sample for a sound check Dan does sound checks, but he's got a funny name for him over at Home voice over studio comm. Yeah, but the the specimen collection cop is now at the top of the page So when you go over to home voice over studio comm, it's right there $25. I will analyze your audio to see If it's up to snuff does it sound what it's supposed to sound like and if it doesn't I Will tell you exactly what what's going on with it. You know, I will single most valuable service either of us provide Absolutely, especially for the money. Yeah, I mean, yeah If you're going to find out if if your come your sound is competitive and I will go through the acoustics of the room Are you using your microphone properly? Are you setting your levels? George are you still amazed at how people just don't get the level setting thing yet? Yeah Yeah, yeah, I still get files all the time where it's maybe taking up a less than a quarter of the of the possible Dynamic range, you know and Yep, it's something that needs to be dealt with a lot, but that's that's why we're that's why we still have businesses Dan That's why we still have jobs. Yeah, you'll never be able to replace us with a computer. That's for darn sure Anyway, I hope no you've got lots of stuff going on in your tech update this week And I see something familiar on the top there do tell I did As usual I was scraping the internet to find something that's what that scraping sound was earlier Yeah, I'm scraping the internet trying to find something that's new That's actually somewhat relevant and seems like a lot of the time things that are new that are relevant and that aren't crazy expensive tend to be audio interfaces and This would not be an exception. So the classic now what I consider classics probably been around seven eight years The Yamaha AG-03 mark 2 is available. So made improvements to it. What did they do? I mean, I took a while to figure it out and I there's probably some that you don't really know about because they don't really list I think because the AG-03 isn't really like Really marketed as a pro audio device They don't really go into the minutiae of like the THD the total harmonic distortion and all The different little minutiae of the specs so there might be some improvements there But the things that I saw that were the most acute that were obvious anyway Is that they've added a mute button now? I know it doesn't sound like that big a deal But there wasn't one before so it's really nice that you can cut the mic with the press of a button Right, it's important cut your mic at time, you know, and when you need to cut it, you know why You know why you want to cut the mic You want to make sure it really is off and it has a proper Mute button. It also they added a alongside bluetooth, which obviously is also new. Yeah, um, they added a rrs phone connection So that one cable connection that would go between your ago3 mixer with your Smartphone that has a headset jack if you happen to have one of those. Yeah, they're like ancient history now Yeah, thanks to apple Or you have the the little dongle that will plug into your your phone that gives you a headset jack Or that could also plug into the headset jack. That's on all the new Modern pcs and laptops. They all have a headset jack You can just plug one cable in and have a secondary connection Just for zoom and phone patch type Situation so it's nice that they've integrated that it was already good and now it's even better and It's going to continue to be on my shortlist. It's going to read actually this is going to make it Probably get it back on to my shortlist because it was getting a little long in the tooth so it's nice to see a reboot and I would love to get one and do some real-world tests and see if it's cleaner Has lower noise and if everything works just as well as the last Yeah, um Now kind of tying into that is this notion of firmware Or not to firmware and what does all this mean? One thing I love about the ag03 is that It is this like I always use the word goldilocks the term goldilocks. It's just right It's this just right balance between a physical interface with knobs buttons switches Things that you can physically manipulate right a switch for a loopback. That's unheard of nobody has a physical Switch that will just turn on the loopback when you need it I love that the ag03 does this. It's really really unique But at the so it's mostly driven in software or i'm sorry actual hardware, right? but The thing that's cool about it is it doesn't need an external control panel software to just work It just plugs in and plays plug-and-play right Works like your standard if you think of it a scarlet 2i2 or something But then it has the secret on the secret level you can unlock and then it has onboard processing So um that I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what's new in the processing side of the og of the ag03 mar 2 But it has the ability to have like a little bit of an ecu if you need it A high-pass filter that you can fine tune That really makes it stand alone In a device like this and again, it's not there if you don't need it You don't have to turn it on you don't have to even know how to work it It just disappears if you don't need it. I love that about that. Yeah, I like to I had one And I broke the headphone jack on it. So I moved on to something else It wasn't built like a tank. No, it wasn't but it was great With the dsp a program in it, you know the fact that you could you run it it was like They were they were Proprietary plugins for for this particular unit right and it had compression on it as you were saying, you know in an ecu I am sure since it's bond been about six or seven years since they first came out with it. They have improved the dsp Software on there. So yeah, so yeah now we gotta go out and buy one and I know another one of I also like that. It's just it also has a physical on off button To turn those things on and off. I that just I love devices that have a quick grab a knob pressure button Adjustment it you don't have to have an iPad Running all like okay, I'll show you I all right and I'm gonna talk about it. I love my personas revelator I I think it's the bet. I really do love it and right now these things are 150 bucks But to really get the most out of it You have to have this thing running On an iPad or running on your screen. So now you've got this other whole user interface Going on to that's a companion to the interface to the device itself And that's a pro if you are a pro producer or a streamer It's a con if you're just an actor who wants to just to be able to do voice acting and keeping it simple because While there is a knob on the front. It's not doing just one job. It's doing five It's a gain knob a mix knob a headphone level and a Speaker level knob and gain for two different mics. So really it does five different distinctly different jobs That's a lot to keep track of in real time. And this is where I'm going I went on a little tangent, but the firmware and not firmware Some audio interfaces don't require a software control panel layer To get them to do what they need to do, right? And I love that about that. I love that about the ssl2 I love that every knob and is just right there a feature has one button that it does its job I love that with the hg03 that it has just one knob and switch to do everything unless you unlock its secret level You know of capability And that's what makes the revelator Capable but also a little intimidating more capable because of the firmware The ability to do and configure many different things that you can't see from the front panel But that learning curve and that Fear is it going to work the way it did last time I plugged it in and how many menus do I have to get into? That's a whole different animal and I tend to be very careful About who I recommend interfaces for or to Based on those two criteria. Do you like one knob or one switch or one button for every feature? Or do you really want to be able to have more powerful capabilities? And that's that's kind of the difference between those two types Of great power comes great responsibility. Oh, I say this all the time dan Especially all you guys with apollos and stuff and I'm like, yes with great power If you if you're using reaper. Oh my goodness with great power that that is a very complex elaborate recording software You really need a lot of training to get the most out of it in another piece of news. I mentioned the apollo briefly As you guys know, I've been Setting up and tuning apollo systems for so so long, but I created a facebook group just for voiceover I wanted a voiceover group for the apollo well There's so many groups on facebook that manage that deal with the apollo stuff from universal audio And it was starting to dwayne in its activity. It was kind of whittle Withering away, I should say and I also it really bugged me that all that intellectual property all those searches all those Discussions all that stuff is locked away in the facebook silo. You can't get to it outside of facebook So finally, we're going to have a place in the uad forum dot com Just for us in voiceover Live streaming and podcasting all of us that use apollo's For non music purposes There's going to be a home for us and i'm going to be the admin And i'll be able to get more folks in there as mods and it's i'm really really glad about it because Folks that are using that hardware need a good place to go to get help And they're not going to be able to necessarily get me in the clutch They might need some real fast help and there's going to be a community of people there to answer questions So I know it's ironic, right? How many times did dan and I say don't get tech support by committee? Right we it's it's I get that this is throws in the face of it, but the bottom line is there's still a very good use case for communities and forums and places for people to commiserate share ideas And just you know kvetch They use that word, right kvetch Fetch kvetch. There's a v in it kvetca. That means to that means to bitch, right? Yes to complain At least that's what my mom would say a safe place to complain about the stuff you You're using without other people going. Well, you shouldn't use that in the first place, you know It's like nobody wants to hear that Anyway, so stay tuned. Uh, hopefully by the time this actually is aired in a week that will have finally Uh gone live so fingers crossed So dan we're going to talk about some acoustic stuff, huh? Yeah, you know, I we get this all the time because we are constantly talking to people about their home studios Uh, especially a lot of people who are beginning And here's a common phrase That someone will send me they'll say, okay. I have a closet And i'm going to try and seal it up and make sure that I put a lot of soundproof foam in it Yeah There is a difference between that's like a waterproof screen door Between sound treatment and soundproofing there are two things you are trying to accomplish anybody that's ever worked with me knows The first thing I lead off with is the most important thing in your home voiceover studio Is the acoustical properties of the studio and that consists of two things even though I say, you know, there are three things You got to get right part one has part a and part b Part a is preventing Exterior noise from coming into the area in which you record That is not easy in a home voiceover studio if you are using a closet or are just in a room that uh It is literally impossible To get your noise floor down, you know, like minus 70 without some assistance, you know, you've got air conditioners furnaces neighbors Garbage disposals toilets All sorts of things that can go on in your place of residence, whether it's a house or an apartment You got a highway next door. You have helicopters, you know going overhead, you know, I had you know four Uh osprey's going over at 10 000 feet yesterday And the studio, you know, this is a soundproof. It's you could still hear it It's just like the cavitation of those big rotors You know, so you want to be able to prevent Exterior noise from reaching the inside. It doesn't take a whole lot if you're in a closet and you seal yourself up in the closet Uh, it will if you can reduce the exterior noise by seven to ten db That's generally enough to make the space usable Uh, no you can get a soundproof booth Uh, as I like to say, you know, if if you if you have trouble with, you know, neighbors or the the yard You know, the the gardener's coming in and using a leaf blower You could spend six or seven thousand dollars on a new booth Or you could wait until they stop blowing leaves around You know, it's it's a pretty easy equation But foam is not going to do anything about preventing that Uh, the way you soundproof something is with mass And density You know, using something like You know, a mass-loaded vinyl or Concrete blocks or using what we call decoupled construction to so that the the booth will actually Move with the sound and absorb it and not Let it go through or all of the above or all of the above. You really need it. Yeah so, you know If if if you are an established voice talent and you and you really need to have that silence Yeah, you might need a booth, but you don't buy the booth until you're actually there Uh, you don't buy a booth to say i'm going to be a voice actor. I'm going to buy a ten thousand dollar booth Not a good idea It's not a great investment until you understand specifically what you're doing and how to become a great voice actor, which takes It's not going to happen overnight So yeah, you you can you can buy a booth and that will prevent exterior noise But you don't have to get necessarily get a really expensive booth just something that You know if you build one yourself If you can get a lot of that exterior noise out that will help a whole lot But part two of part one is or part b. I think is the best way to put it is Acoustical treatment. What is it you're trying to accomplish inside the space in which you're recording? Most importantly, you don't want it to be reflective And that means sounding like you're in a tube. You're talking into a box. You're in a cave Uh, and there's a number of things that can happen there. You you know, you'll get bass reflex bass reflex is that sound of over over modulated lower frequencies If you happen to have a very deep voice Uh, one of my feet I had one last week somebody had a ringing noise In their booth and I'm like, you know, I have like a bell shaped Uh lamp in there or something like that's made of it. No, I don't think so. I'm like If you over project you you can hear the ringing something metal in there is Vibrating and adjust the right frequency of your voice and it's coming back as a ringing sound Uh, you've got it. It's got to be You know, some people say it's got to be dead Not necessarily dead dead It has to sound like you're in a room You know, but you are not that far from the mic, you know And you know, my technique is an important piece of it But if you're at the right distance from the mic and you're not over projecting It should sound like Just your voice. There shouldn't be any what we call slapback. There shouldn't be any echo There shouldn't be any bass reflex There are ways to fix that using Acoustical foam bass traps things along those lines But there's only one way to determine If you need that And that's to talk to mr. Witterman myself and send us a sample so we can hear it And we can say okay, there is Something going on it takes five seconds for us to listen to this This is the kind of thing that you can't plug it into a computer formula You and trust us hiring A very fancy expensive Acoustition company ain't gonna help you either because they generally don't know how to tune acoustically These really weird little spaces that we all work in they I've talked to a lot of them. They don't know A lot of this is a little bit of a black art. It's not like it's difficult to do It's just that the knowledge isn't that common among even the industry. So We're gonna get you the right advice You mean we're practitioners of black art You would think so you would think so by the lack of books the lack of chapters the lack of topics In all of the acoustic books that I keep wasting my money on because They never ever uh talk about the subject of a small iso booth and acoustically tuning it so Yeah, that's what we do when when when you hear something that's not going on that doesn't sound right like that There's a node or something like that How do you approach it? What how do you find where to fix it? Uh, yeah, I well there's one way you can actually look up something that I was just saying a second ago that there's no There's no computer calculators. There actually is something called a room mode calculator That will give you a little bit of information It's going to tell you the frequencies at which that room will naturally Resonate just like a bell has a specific frequency that it rings A booth will have well unfortunately not just one, but at least three frequencies based on the dimensions length width and height That's going to ring. So we do have some ways to kind of predict. Oh, you're going to have some real problems at 125 hertz You know, so that means there's two inch panels. They sure look good They sure look like they're going to do it, but they're just not going to do it We know we need to get thicker panels now. We got to go to four inch panels, right? So Um, that's the kind of thing that I will look for and also listen for It also depends on the kind of mic you're using depends on how close it is It depends where the mic is inside the space I know dan you talked about that like you've moved them like this way that way up down until You find this sweet spot in there where it doesn't seem to hear that ringing in resonance anymore Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, one of the cool things you can do if you're in a booth Or even in in a closet full of clothes or something like that Is listen at different levels, you know, whether you're sitting or standing or halfway or leaning or something It's fascinating how the level of where your voice is at in that particular space How it will resonate back and that's how you find the sweet spot at least height-wise And then where is the best place to you know to put the microphone inside that space? Yeah, yeah, so, you know, but it back to the the thing about about acoustics You know one of the things that I look for because I don't want people spending a lot of money when they're starting out You know, you try something that's simple if you have a really really quiet room Uh, usually I will suggest something like a pvc booth Uh, you know like four corners or or the the the tri booth that uh, that rick waserman and yourself Designed yeah, it's uh, you know it it will work in a quiet room If they're if you're already well isolated from exterior noise like if there is no exterior walls Which is great about a closet that's an interior closet because the rest of the house or the apartment will Will prevent some of that noise coming through. Yeah, but if you have a quiet room you can use A a pvc pipe booth with moving blankets on it or some higher quality sound absorbing blankets like Like audio mute or a producer's choice or something along those lines Those work great if you have a quiet room and that will create a very very quiet space Uh and a very non reflective space free of bouncing and reflection Right and that's what you want and that's the kind of thing that you want to prevent is that reflection You know the noise, you know, I mean if you got a fan going somewhere I mean, you know, I can I I can mute my mic and it's gonna get rid of this or I could turn the air conditioning off It's amazing or you can get a really really small fan like this one I can hear that I'm turning the air conditioning back on because it's 92 degrees out there It warms up this little fan on on the one setting It's not that it's completely dead silent But it is quite enough that you could probably do a lot of things With a little breeze and adjust that all it makes all the difference. Yeah All right. Well, we're gonna get to some questions Hey, you got plenty of time to get your questions about your home voiceover studio Or something that you've always wanted to know But we're afraid to ask because we weren't there with you But now we are so if you hear you heard about What's some some new kind of thing or new mic or something along those lines you want us to talk about it Throw it in the chat room. I know Jeff Holman is still in there Taking down those questions watching all your comments and facebook and on youtube And we will get to them right after these important messages So don't go away. We'll be right back here on voiceover body shop tech talk This ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs.tv Inflated prices not at voiceover essentials dot com Despite the nationwide inflation rate of over eight percent voiceover essentials refuses to raise prices In fact, they refuse to even say the i-word They're inventory is large on all their products and they purchase them before the current economic conditions It's simply wrong to increase profit as many retailers are doing right now So harlin and company promised not to raise their prices during difficult times for everyone They'll stay the course steady and sure flat and firm solid and steadfast. Okay enough. You get the point Unfortunately, they're under the same inflationary pressures as everyone else And they'll need to restock in the not-so-distant future No doubt they'll be sticker shock for them and you so right now is the time to order that portabouth pro or vo 1a voiceover microphone and their vo 2.0 headphones fight inflation at voiceover essentials dot com Hey everybody, let's talk about source elements the creators of source connect And the winners of the best service provider for voiceover award at the one voice conference Um, congratulations. You guys obviously you deserve it Clearly you're making a product that is well well loved by the users out there that have to rely on it To produce voiceover recordings remotely, which is almost everything right almost everything Is being done remotely and source connect facilitates that in a way that Producers really enjoy and the reason is is because when that session is in their underway It's as close to the actor as being in the room or in the booth At the facility as they're going to get because that sound quality is extremely high It's consistent And the latency Believe it or not can be controlled to be very low If you've got great internet connections and many of us do now with fiber And a good hardwired network connection You can really get very low latency on source connect and they love that it it makes Communication easier and it makes consistent production happen on the fly when the session's over Source when the session's over actors love it because when that session's over you're done You're not editing. You're not trimming the files. You're not processing. You're not sending It's done when it's done So that's what's so great about source connect if you feel like it's time for you You're hearing more buzzes about it your agent. Maybe you have an agent says it's time Go over and get it free trial at source dash elements calm and get started on it right away So you can feel comfortable when that real session comes. Anyway, thanks for listening More spots and then we'll be back for your questions right after this 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 smart phone, but it's so much more It's 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 red 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 they will stop waxing this mustache for a minute We'll get back to the show Before time began there was v obs dot tv watch or else And we're back here at v obs tech talk And we love your questions still lots of room in the the queue for a couple more questions as well From you guys about home voiceover studios because that's what we like to talk about I mean when george and I get together You know aside from some of the personal crap we talk about tech and you know Yeah Did you I gotta tell you about this client I had I won't mention any names But you know they had this or they had that and you know, which is why we have very similar philosophies A lot of fix these things and getting things sounding right. Yep. We know that we we know it works We've we've we've definitely kind of started to figure out what works. What doesn't and it Rarely does it differentiate diff differ much between dan and I? Yeah. No because I'm older I've I have more experience at life You have more experience than tech So we combine the two and it's like come on be logical anyway Jeff holman asks george's the the v obs discounts still enforce What's the coupon code over it? Over george d.t. Yeah. Well, yeah, there's the there's the v obs fan 10 code that gives you 10 off And from past episodes if you watch the end of the show, you'll see my prior Discount codes, which are still also inactive are active Those codes will still be active until the end of the year Um, so uh, but the current one is v obs fan 10 Um, and then a second part. Uh, what is the best mic to use for on camera videos like a self tape I'm using my iphone 12 pro max as my camera Dan's holding it in his hand This is a great little mic. This is the go-to Yeah, I think that's the road video mic go video mic go to we used this last week when we were doing the The interview at mojave at mojave microphones and it worked great Did we we it was it was really run and gone. We just plugged it in With that special cable. There is a cable that you want to buy that will directly interface the usb Yeah to your iphone slightly different than the the regular iphone lightning cable But man, we just plugged it right in. I'm like, we didn't even test it and suddenly it was working. Yeah That's right. It was definitely easy. We for self tapes definitely keep it simple I've heard of some pretty elaborate setups people are saddling themselves with Do don't go there keep it keep it authentic keep it real make sure they can see you and hear you But it doesn't have to sound like a studio You know don't don't overdo it. Yeah, but you know, I mean there's you know, if you use a shotgun mic I mean a 416 or any other you know shotgun mic along those lines works great, but you still have to have an interface with it Yeah, you know if you're if you're you know filming with your your iphone Uh, which as far as I'm concerned, it's probably one of the best cameras. It's the best cameras Most anybody has in their house at this point is is the iphone camera Right, it's for sure. I mean it's it's a big improvement over one of these guys I mean this thing was charged five years ago and it still works, which is actually pretty amazing You know, it's crazy. Like I see like cameras. I see photos now all these bike races. I'm in People come and they're nice enough to share the photos they take and they're taking them with big expensive cameras with long lenses and All this stuff Almost never do their photographs look as good as a lot of the iphone photos that I've taken Because there's a lot more to taking a picture than just squeezing the trigger Um, and well iPhones are doing is a lot of computational photography. That's why the color balance is great The exposure is great most of the time the focus is dead on There's a huge amount of processing that's happening the second you Take that photo and that all those other cameras require you to do all that in post And a lot of people don't bother. So yeah, it's much much easier to get great sounding video and audio from an iphone then Almost any pro camera. That's for sure. Yeah Uh question from terry brisker. This is a very interesting Question it's a tech question Good because it's tech talk I will be doing my first demo outside of my own studio Which is probably pretty good Should I take my home studio mic to record on or use the studio's mic? Which is going to be most likely a 416 When I myself record on an mke 600 My concern is being able to reproduce what i'm putting on the demo Oh good question. It's it's a good question. And I think it's one of those you're way overthinking at questions One chances are ask the studio if they have an mke 600 Because you know recording studios, you know, it's not like they have one mic They have what they call a mic locker and they have lots of different microphones for lots of different things Especially if it's a regular recording studio that that you know records bands or orchestras or They've got a whole line of different types of microphones and we'll set it up the way you use it just ask them I think that that's pretty simple. So there's no need to like yank your mic out of your own studio to do that Now is it going to be a big difference? I find now george you can argue with me about this or you can like, you know dan, you're absolutely right The sound you have is the sound you have And are you going to sound better on one mic versus another when you're making a demo? It's recording your voice and it's capturing you as you exist And if you have a good demo producer, they're going to they're going to do all sorts of things to it to make it sound like It's a demo like it's real. They'll add compression and eq So it will be consistent across the board now if you Book a gig off that demo and you're using your mke 600 It's not going to really matter. It's what they're really looking for is are you interpreting The copy the way the author and the advertiser or whoever wants it done If it doesn't sound like garbage Then you'll be then you'll be fine. Yeah, I mean if you I wouldn't worry about what mic the demo is recording on Because the demo is going to be produced The audio you're sending out for auditions shouldn't be produced Like if you're trying to sound just like you did on that demo It's not going to make sense in the context of an audition. It's going to sound over produced It's going to sound too loud too shiny too bright to whatever and um, so It's not a bad idea. I think your heart is in the right place It's definitely more about can you act? And on can you be directed to get that performance? That you've done on the demo not so much about can you reproduce the recording quality? I think of what's on that demo? So It's a good question plus the mk 600 is a shotgun and it sounds a lot like a 416 So yeah, I think dan dan nailed it. I would say I would agree completely The second second question is about the update to isotope rx 10 Um, have you tried it yet? Well, no, nobody's tried it yet because unless you're don barns who helps develop their software Um, no, you're not we're not going to have it yet. I just I just looked online and they're saying it's so it's so early That uh, we're not even sure what they're actually going to be doing To make our rx 10 new or or better or whatever. So sorry, it's a little early Um, maybe in a month from now or so. I'm not sure the release date, but they release always in the fall. I think um Maybe we'll have had a chance. I I know that one from eight rx eight to rx nine There was basically no marked improvement for a voiceover actor I wonder what they changed then there was little that had anything to do with what voice actors need The mouth the click was the same right the voice denoids was the same The the the chains and all that stuff worked the same seven to eight there was a big improvement that because chains could be imported and effects chains could be made and imported easily and they did make some real improvements under the under the hood, but I don't know what they're going to do in 10 if they Have a perfect d reverb or something that will change the acoustic Character of your recording space convincingly or get rid of your booth sound um Okay, you'll you'll you'll have my attention. They certainly got waves clarity vx, which is this crazy noise reduction plug-in uh to uh to Compete against so We'll have to wait and see. Yeah. I mean You know if you've got adobe audition, you don't really need rx seven rx seven was really designed I think initially to fix vinyl records Yeah, yeah like restoring audio from restart recordings from you know 20 50 80 years ago Yeah, right So if your studio and the fact of the matter is even if you're recording in you know somewhat of a a a a a marginal space uh You don't want to like, you know use a hand grenade to to fix it. Uh, you know, it's it's Rx seven or rx, you know, the isotope stuff. It's fabulous. It really is amazing stuff But you know, my philosophy is everything is physical if you get it right physically up front You don't necessarily need that kind of stuff But it's good to have and it's fun to have around and and and it's good It will help you learn a little bit more about audio Um a d reverb would be really great But of course if you're recording in a really reflective space, I would suggest a different space You know in podcasting and stuff like that, you know, it's like those tools are really designed For fixing interview audio and things where it's really critical to be able to hear the other person But for a single voiceover stuff I tend to think it's a bit of overkill not to say that it's a bad program It's amazing technology And if you know how to use it and you know how to use it subtly and seamlessly I think that's a good way to go You get the question from Jonathan Grant Uh, he says, hey Jeff George and Dan's preferred filler for a cloud panel Uh oc 703 or mineral wool Um, so yeah, what's the best acoustical liner to put into an acoustical cloud panel in the ceiling? Um oc 703 is a classic. It's been used in tons and tons of studios To me mineral wool is sort of the next evolution in terms of product because it's less toxic Um, it doesn't have the formaldehyde glue That bonds it together So I I tend to lean on mineral mineral wool or rock wool is the brand name one of the brand names of it There's others, but yeah, that's yeah, that's what I use when I when I build a cloud You know, you just got to be careful with it because like fiberglass It it has tiny little microscopic things that will itch So yeah, and it wear gloves the air. Yeah, yeah, or or you know, we're an environmental suit or you know A painter's suit or something like that when you're working with it to create the clouds clouds are actually quite easy to build And uh, they can make a huge difference say if you're if you've got a closet that you're recording in that's too big Or has really really high By putting in a cloud you are reducing the acoustical size of the room not the actual physical size of the room But it will diffuse and absorb the sound that is above it So you don't you're not you're not like, you know reverbing like it's like a guitar Yeah, it also gives you a base trapping effect too usually because you've created this gap above it where lower frequencies will tend to be collecting more often and The panel can do a pretty effective job of Controlling some of the bass too. Absolutely. Just make sure. Yeah. Well Dan was saying there's fibers in this stuff That can get into the air Absolutely make sure there's no nothing left open so like if you've got A panel hanging from the ceiling with this stuff on top Make sure you put a back a layer of fabric over the back To trap it inside, you know, I've been using yeah, I've been using weed block Oh, yeah, which works really really well black, right? It's black. It's it's you know, it's flexible Uh, you know, and it covers it up With the staple gun. Yeah, boom and it works really really well Cool, and I've been building those for people lately and it makes a huge difference in In closets and stuff like that Uh, Catherine Jade Jarvey asks Assuming I'm comfortable and able to perform as usual. Is there such a thing as too small for a booth? I'm I'm immediately thinking of a very small booth of someone we both know very well Where you just sort of squeeze in there, but she makes it work. So What was that? Lori Allen? They would have been the one. Yes. Um, I can say that because she no longer isn't that tiny Booth. Oh good. Now she's in a larger closet. It's still a closet, but it's still She actually has elbow room finally But uh, I have yeah that booth I never thought it could sound good as as small as it was and narrow It was it was and but sometimes just the right amount of paneling in the right places You can get away with some very small spaces. You're just going to be uncomfortable on long Recording sessions Just there's no two ways about it. You're just not going to be comfortable. You're going to run it. You're going to get warm Or hot you're going to use up Well, you're going to use up oxygen and worse They're going to actually expel too much carbon dioxide in there and it gets going to get really stuffy and and all this So yeah, it's that's where they when things get too small. It's really that's what doors are for And you just this is this is the best ventilation system opening a door quickly will Let the carbon dioxide out and the oxygen and yeah, exactly that that'll help but a small booth. Yeah, it can work Uh, we tend to like to think that you should probably have something, you know At least three and a half by three and a half or four by four By whatever height reduced with the cloud um You know there's you've you've got to be able to It's got to breathe a little bit. Yeah, you know the smaller the boot the more You know the more complex it can be because yeah, you can't over project because it will bounce right back even even a lot of treatment there and you can't move around like you can't physically Just articulate you can't work the microphone that much because you don't have that much space to work If the if you're being directed and they say can you step back six inches from the mic and you're like I'm already against the wall, you know Yeah, they do get too small Yeah, and and also in in my technique is different in a in a small booth. I mean we we've got these these rules Uh, one is you know, first off if you're in a really tiny booth Just a fist fist away If it's a good size booth, you know four by four something like that thumbs up If you're in a slightly larger room or in a bigger room You know george, you developed the thing. It's like you've got to be farther away So it's like fist thumbs up mahalo Yeah, those seem to be the three different distance ranges that work like i'm in a bigger room It's just an office and I can get this far away and it still sounds pretty present You get a little bit of reflection, but it's still workable. So yeah, but that's Most people can't get that too that far away from the mic without causing problem yep Mike max goldberg asked can you put a mac mini ssd in the booth to eliminate fan noise the new mac minis? You know, I don't I don't notice it on the ssd Yeah, I mean well, it's a mac mini with an ssd. They all have ssds. Oh, yeah, they all have ssds Yeah, every mac mini has solid state Drives and the m ones Maybe that's what you're thinking of the new silicon chip m ones the m1 or the m2 are they're not fanless But they are really quiet Really really quiet fans like crazy quiet Um, so it's it's I consider it almost fanless because it just I've never ever heard the fan from my m1 Have you dan? Have you ever heard the fan noise from it? I've never listened. I mean, I mean Sometimes I might hear there's a rumble somewhere and I'll like is it under the desk? No, and it's coming from somewhere else other than my computer. Yeah, it's the mac book air Deadly silent. This is not not a fan at all. No fan at all Yep So, uh, yeah, you can you know a mac mini ssd You know with an ssd drive in it is you're not going to get the whirring sound of a of a mechanical drive But I'll tell you the older one though the intel From 2018 and older you will hear the fan They're not silent those fans do spin up quite a bit and they can be quite noisy Um an older mac mini can sound like just sort of like a hairdryer running constant Maybe not quite that loud, but just Just like that all because I have a 2011 in my in my near the tv that uses like a server and To watch old videos home videos and when that thing's on for a day or so, I just noticed Oh, yeah, that mac mini is still on it's just going All the time constantly, you know, so definitely not silent. Yeah Yeah, I'm telling you I've got all these macs sitting around, you know I mean I've sold a couple of them But now they're sitting around, you know, maybe the battery's dead out or something But if you can fix them the great thing about max is you can just keep using them for all sorts of things, you know Yeah, uh, you know have have have it playing video on halloween in front of your house Yeah, exactly. Don't ask me why I thought of that, but Um, you get the question from jonathan rant. Yes, all right Um, jonathan says I record in a desk chair a bar stool And a standing height depending on what I'm reading. I have solid wall treatment at all heights But wondering about how to ensure tuning of the cloud For those different heights Um The worst case is always the closer you are to the ceiling, right? So If you sounds good when you're standing it's going to sound great when you're seated So I would not worry about tuning the cloud for seated position. I only find that it's a real concern Uh, as you get closer and closer to the ceiling that's been my experience dan. How about you? I just had this bizarre thought about how you could do this and this is because I'm a sailor Is it involved pulleys and ropes? It involves pulleys and cleats and stuff like that If you can suspend it and have a cleat on the side and know the settings for those different things You just raise it and lower it it would be an interesting experiment not something I've done where made an adjustable hanging height cloud and play it around with it. So Interesting idea. It could be done if you're really motivated. I know jonathan grant is because I've seen his studio This view is really really well designed. He's put a lot of thought into it. I gotta do is go over to ace hardware Get some rope and some pulleys and you can you get that's amazing what you can do. I've built lots of shades You know roman shades and stuff like if you know understand that technology That would be nothing that would be an easy thing to do but he said i'm he's like omg. I am designing that now to follow Oh god, no sit stand desk because I think he has an electric lift desk We'll just make it attach the chair and raise that up that way Anyway, wow great questions folks. That's that's that's the kind of stuff we like to get and as you can see george And I just love talking about it because it's like how would we do that? We love the crazy ideas we will come up with too and we just make this scratch our head Yeah, you know, should it be done? Does it help? Would you bother? Can I tell us how it goes jonathan? Yeah, we want to see pictures when you actually do that Alrighty well Another hour gone Sort of Again, if you have a question for us, uh at any time you can write to us at the guys at v obs.tv And uh And if you write to us if you write your question down long before we record this show It gets priority. It'll be number one in the queue So, you know, but you can and of course you can always, you know Be here live and ask your questions live and that's the best part about it Anyway, we're gonna take a quick break and then we're gonna tell you about what's coming up in just a minute. So don't go away This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voiceover body shop Hey there, it's david h laurence the 17th. I teach a curriculum called vio heroes pro Uh close to 40 classes on voiceover performance the business the technology the mindset And with all those courses, I'm sure there are still things that I Don't teach and I'd love to know If you wouldn't mind helping me out What you'd like to learn is there's something that has always puzzled you about our business or something You just don't know about or something that you you wish you had a better take on Go to vio heroes.com slash Survey, there's a one question survey waiting for you and that is What would you like to know? I'd love to teach it. So vio heroes.com slash survey. That's vio heroes.com Slash survey. Let me know what I can teach you and I thank you 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.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.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.com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish They'll try it yourself go with the pros voice actor websites.com where your vio website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? You're still watching v obs Yes, you are apparently we are we're all watching We can't avoid it because we're actually doing it so we gotta watch it and pay attention to what's going on here Um, yeah, I mean it's amazing the things that can go on while the show is going on And there's over the 11 years. We've been doing the show sometimes. It's some of the strangest stuff You know like I mean to give you an idea how long ago it was You know, the wife is yelling upstairs when we were back in Buffalo check up nice to go to bed. Can you stop your show? Ha ha, of course. He just had his 25th birthday. So give you an idea how long ago that was. Yeah, wow. Yeah, uh, so anyway Uh, next week on the show You're not gonna be here. You're gonna be flying off to some other place. I'm gonna be in london by the way So anybody watching this if you're in the london region and you'd like to say hi Hit me up. Let's try to coordinate something. I'm uh, you're gonna be here Yeah, I'm gonna try to find it. I'm sure there's pubs around. I hear there's london has pubs Find a pub and maybe we can hang out a bit and have a wee chat over a wee chippy Um fish and chips, of course or pint. I would love that So yeah, hit me up. Let me know uh, send an email to george at george the dot tech If you are in the london area and maybe we can get together or better yet. Maybe I could even come to your studio Let me know Absolutely. Yeah, and I think we will be having a guest Co-host and that and I it's I have a plan. I think it's going to be somebody get lots of fun It should be great and george is going to be so angry that he wasn't here. I know gosh darn it Anyway, we need to thank Yes, we need to thank our amazing donors of the week like robert ledham Stephen chandler kasey clack jonathan grant tom pinto Shelly abuelino greg tallis A dr. Voice ant land productions. Yeah, I sent I had a picture of me in front of the arc de triumph wearing my ant land productions Uh, tight. I sure I sent that off to uncle roy. So you must have loved that. I'm sure he did Martha con 949 designs are good friend Uh, lee penny. Yes, uh, christopher epperson Uh, sarah borges philips appear brian page patty gibbons rob rider shana pennington baird don griffith tray moseley diana birdsall and Sondra man-wilder Alrighty Hey, if you need help with your home studio, you've come to the right place You can come to home voice over studio dot com where you will find me and all the stuff that I have Or you can go over to george the dot tech And if you want to check out the webinar i'm teaching on twisted wave coming up in september um, you can sign up for that at slash webinars and uh, there's a free raffle copter Thing you can do to get a free raffle pass And of course, I still do have working coupon codes. The current one is v obs fan 10 for 10 off Alrighty, uh, we need to thank our sponsors for whom this show would not be possible And they've been with us all these years. We're really appreciative Harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements vio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com jmc demos and world voices dot org Go over there check out what we do over there world voices Thanks to jeff holman getting all those questions in there and being patient over in the chat room We really appreciate that our tech director sumer lino She just gets it done every week Yeah, no, we're not actually Uh, and lee pennie just for being lee pennie. Well, that's gonna do it for us this week Guys voiceover is a very complex business. You know, you got to be able to perform and you've got to understand the business of the business And we don't want you to overthink your audio The fact of the matter is if you get it sounding right if you got all the acoustics right if you listen to what we tell you About getting it sounding right It will sound good. And if it sounds good It is good I'm dan Leonard And i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or v o b s tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk. See you next week. Bye everybody