 I Hate that but that's what I hate about software that does things like that like they should tell you there's a beta something Long before you hit record. Yes, none of the exact precise moment you hit record But what is it? They're testing your system with something. Yeah, well, we use something called StreamYard, right? It's a web-based live streaming platform and it's great But the time to tell you that there's a beta of anything is not the lick literally the second you hit the record button Like when you hit record, you're you're ready ready to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's not when you want to be told about something new You you would about be told about something new like the minute you log in, right? Okay, I'm logged in. Hey, by the way, there's a new thing Not like it. It's like getting in a car turning on the engine and starts by the way Did you know you could be running on premium fuel instead? And it's like I don't care. I gotta I haven't driven. I haven't driven a car in so long You're a true city guy, huh? The last time I rented a car I sat in there for 20 minutes the guy finally goes, what's the problem? I said, how do you make it go? I didn't have a kid yet. Yeah, but you know, I put it in park and then hit the brake I'm like, that's not intuitively correct. Why would I hit the brake to go forward? It's the dumbest idea I've ever heard but I and he looks me like he's sure you want the cars Well, yeah, but I'd not my fault you guys got rid of all the old-fashioned shit I'm used to and how'd he get it in second gear? Where's the crank? Where's the spark coil? Where's the choke? I want to get this thing to run without a choke Yeah, I usually you know with the Prius you'd hit the start button go, what the hell's the engine? The start button, so how do you stop the car hit start? Oh, okay Oh And I should let you I do have dogs you might hear barking when Joanna comes back. That's okay. I'm not allergic I've got Mishka over here, and she snores, so Not as bad as my wife who sounds like you know an elephant seal it's like oh man He looks another show she's gonna appreciate that yeah, she never watches No, she walks in in the middle of the show. Yeah, that's that's true, too That's how we know she doesn't watch Do you want a sandwich No, she'd never asked me that those should be like how long you've been married 28 years this Saturday Congratulations, thank you 28 years yeah, don't ask me how we managed to pull that one off, but I've been with Joanna almost that long But we haven't been married that long Well, we've been together like 30 years, so I mean yeah, you know we haven't gotten bored of each other quite yet But all right, let's see here It's so exciting This is a nice little set of stream yard is kids and anyone to use this is kind of nice. Yeah. Oh, yeah Yeah, there's a free version and then we're paying so we can have our own graphics and logos and stuff But on the free version would it be a good substitute for zoom if I was doing like my workshops of Pia my classes When I won or something. I don't know I mean unless you have a reason not to use like if you don't like you know, I pay for it It's I've no problem never had a problem with it. Yeah. No zoom is great for teaching This is this is allows us to To fire it across a pile of different platforms so we can it can be you know live on on Facebook It can be live on YouTube and you know live on the chat. The chat's really cool because you'll notice. Oh You may not see the Live chat. I see probably if I hit the word comments. Yes in the comments You're there are people here. I say hello Julie here. Hey friends YouTube chat and you're seeing the Facebook and it just commingles them into one. Oh, oh, I see Which is really nice. Are we live right now other people who said hey We're live. Yeah, just just no no swearing now. You can swear all you want. Holy really don't give a shit But oh, there's bill Lord Bill Lord just came out of a orange. We're done looking doing good Well, that's good It's got great branding. I mean, I still remember to this day. Nothing rhymes with orange What's that? Bill Lord's branding and nothing rhymes with orange. It's the right. Oh, yeah, I'm with orange studio. Yeah He was at mavo. We had a great time talking. It's been a while Am I allowed to say here so here's Patricia said hello to me Can I can I allowed to say hello? Do I say anything you want but I don't but I don't chat back I don't even know it. Oh, well, just know you bottom or it says post a comment. Oh, I see. Oh, yeah He can yeah, yeah, I see it. I see it. Just don't let it distract you You know, maybe stick on the the I'm not gonna pay attention. Yeah, you guys the private chat so you can at least yeah, okay I'm gonna tell you. All right. Hello, but I'm hello, but I'm not gonna talk to you. Okay All right, I'm gonna get out of the private check so we'll start staring at that. Yeah Okay Oh I like that it I like that people are on like before you actually start sort of before the euro I assume there's a musical intro and we all sing and dance for a bit Yeah, like Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell and spirited No, how was that? I didn't it was fantastic. Oh, yeah, we're gonna have to watch that It was fantastic because over two hours long and I I was like this Yeah, the whole time it was just magic. I love musicals. It was just it was fantastic. I'm gonna watch it again. I Saw outtakes or behind the scenes of Will learning the dance moves and stuff. Oh, where I'd love to see that What was that on YouTube or something? I guess so Stumbled into my feet somehow you're awake now Misha. Do you want to go back? See that's you can just let him out my dog do you like can't let him out. We'll never see him again That he sold his meat products here Speak of them, let's see if they're trying to come in Yeah Does that you letting your is that you walking your dog there Dan? Oh, it's just letting her out. Yeah, good exercise Good, that's why yeah, that's about the only exercise. Yeah at these days Okay, what time is it 459 we are on in about 30 seconds or so you don't get to shovel snow anymore No, I get to shovel the sunshine. That's right. No more heart attacks from snow shoveling That's usually what kills people in Buffalo Too many beef on wick and shoveling snow. I know someone I found her uncle outside Deadness no you say found an uncle Found her uncle dead in the street Shoveling snow that heart attack not recently. This was years ago, but it was in Pennsylvania. So No, we're heavier back then Well, it's my day in the east All right, all right, so it's now going to get our attention and it's gonna give us the old countdown here Hey there, it's time for voice over body shop and George and I are thrilled to welcome a great friend of ours Johnny Heller Johnny, how you doing? Very well. Thanks for having me guys. It's gonna be a pleasure We're gonna talk about audiobooks and we're gonna talk about his career and we're gonna talk about What's all that time behind his head? Yeah, that's what we're gonna talk about. Yeah, we're gonna because he's also a great Audiobook coach So if you've got a question for Johnny throw it in the chat room and we will get to that in just a little bit We got plenty to talk to him about and we are looking forward to this. Are you ready, mr. With him I'm ready. All right voice over body shop right now It's time for voice over body shop Brought to you by voice over essentials calm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements the makers of source connect voice over heroes become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training Voice actor websites calm where your voice actor website doesn't have to be a pain in the butt voice over extra your daily resource for voice over success and 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 All right. Well, we're back and We're past Thanksgiving Yes He survived another one. We got rid of the rep that we had the rest of the turkey last night It left it all weekend and it was basically the primer for the dogs to eat their dinner So, well, it's like you don't like the food here. There's some turkey And that's that's how it went and how was your thanks? I heard you had a very international Thanksgiving. It was it was fun It was fun We we had a I mean we had a very low key when it was just a few visiting friends and I Spent the morning riding my bike bicycle up a mountain which has become kind of a tradition So I wrote up Mount Wilson with a few friends and rode back down again And it was hard, but it was beautiful and the weather was great It looked like you I was watching the YouTube video or the the Facebook video And I'm like gee usually you just like roll down But this time you went up and then rolled back down. Yes, we earned We earned our turns as we like to say Yes, we did but it was it was a nice pleasant and the weather was fantastic here in southern, California It was yes shoveling all that sunshine Hello friends Anyway, tonight we're gonna talk about audio books because there seems to be an awful lot of you out there They're like I want to do audio books It seems to be the gateway voiceover sort of voiceover agent adjacent career that people it's the gateway drunk for a voiceover Yeah, anyway, so we're gonna introduce our guest because This guy is one of the top coaches in the biz. He knows the audiobook business inside out backwards and upside down Johnny Heller is an audiophile golden voice narrator and one of the most sought after audiobook and commercial VO coaches in the nation and He's a really swell guy Johnny is on the ALA odyssey. He's an ALA odyssey award winner a Grammy nominee He's narrated over a thousand titles in almost every genre. I got to ask him about that Publishers weekly named him a listen up award winner in 2008 through 2016 audiophile magazine named him a best voice of 2008 through 2011 and 2014 to 2018 what happened in the in-between years 2020 and one of the top 50 voices of the 20th century This is getting old here a multiple recipient of book list and publishers weekly starred reviews Johnny is garnered over 30 earphone awards is a 14-time Audi Award nominee and a Ford tie for time Audi Award winner Let's welcome to voiceover body shop our good friend Johnny Heller Johnny. How you doing? I should I should do You didn't say that I said not to do pretty good Thanks Yeah, the one word answer Veteran yeah, they used to say about wrestlers Anyway, you know, it's been a long time since we had you I think the last time you were on we were still doing e-wabs Yeah and George was in Santa Monica, but can you tell us, you know, because you haven't been on in a while We have a a larger audience a massive audience all over the world Can you tell us a little bit about your background aside from all the stuff that I just rattled off? Yeah voice over I Started as a I started my career as an equity actor on stage and I was doing equity and I did stand-up comedy so I do I was on a show on the Blackstone Theater in Chicago and I'd Come down to 10 and I'd drive out toward toward the airport area and do and I'd work for that was on the evening Evening menu for the comedy clubs at night So I do my sets at about 11 and again at midnight or so so I do stand up and then and then I was studying acting Of course and my guru was one of those voice of God guys. His some agents came to Watch the thing and they like they thought I had a quirky voice because I have a Quirky voice so they decided to send me out as a voice over guy And I didn't even know that that existed and the first job I got the first job I addition where I got was a national for Campbell soup and this is before internet and everything before the Model T and they They had a traveling band from New York who went from to New York to LA to Chicago to find this voice And the audition was literally this I've done it many times to demonstrate my skill I was this Mm-hmm That was it and so I got the gig But you must have done it just What the hell couldn't do that these guys just wanted these guys want to go into just a drink junket from New York to LA to Chicago because they could have found Anybody at a diner anywhere who could say after having their soup Well, you know acting stuff because you know You get that words in front of them and they're gonna freeze up and go Yeah Or just complete. How do you screw it up? I don't think I gave what they wanted Since then I've played I played dogs who are happy about getting a treat or yee-hee just All the you need to realize How crazy the the commercial voice over in business? Well, but I did a I did a lot of that a lot of on camera and then I When I was still 10 and bar because you know, I I did real work, you know 10 and bar and all kinds of restaurants stuff like 25 years my my overnight success took a long time um So I Richard Farone the late great Richard Farone my dear friend introduced me brought me into recorded books because they needed a youthful sounding guy the quirky voice who was high energy And there I was so I got hired right away started working at recorded books and think 1991 And uh and that and why I thought it was I thought was just another Thing to do while I waited to become a famous second banana in a movie or something and uh and instead it became my my uh my everything And and since then it's been you know, I've done I do other stuff I still do stage and still do voice, but it's it's where I really live. I guess it's what I really love it Yeah, what really led you to doing that? But you know, I mean, obviously there was an opportunity there for you to do it You just found you liked it or was it something really I found It fit my schedule for everything. I could work schedules around it. Um It was a little different the way I got in because I knew a guy They needed and they basically hired me right off the street. That just doesn't the opportunity like that doesn't exist anymore But what I liked about it was The organic nature of it the idea the storytelling aspect The idea that it was very much like A nice mix between film Which is big jazz hands and loud but organic with the script and in cinema and film acting Which is small and it's it was a it was a mix of every everything I had learned and studied in my career Coming together to just share the author's truth in a way that made it uh that made it work. So I was quite It just it just worked for me. It's what I really found. I I really enjoyed it. Sadly, it doesn't pay as much as other Vo opportunities, but it it certainly takes care of me. I mean It's it's been very rewarding on every level financially and otherwise Yeah, I mean it's a lot of people will will use audiobooks when they're like between gigs and they gotta fill the space there And it's like oh I can do an audiobook and and then they try doing an audiobook and And learn what's involved in doing that sort of thing The uh, I have a good voice. Let's do it. It's just not it doesn't always work Yeah, if you're just joining us our guest is johnny heller and uh and his dogs and uh My wife kiss came home. Yeah, and if you have a question for him throw it in the chat room And we will get to your questions in just a little bit, but we got a lot to ask him too So perhaps we'll ask your question before you have a chance But jeff holman is back there in the chat room writing everything down and passing that on to us So, uh, you see you're doing audiobooks And and I take it that's the you're the majority of the work that you're doing these days Right in between running my workshops coaching and audiobooks, but audiobooks takes up Is the major part of my uh day and my income and it's my it's still my joy. I mean it's To do something It's not hard to get up and go to work a a because I live in a manhattan apartment with two rooms and This booth is in one of them. So I get out of bed and there's the booth, but um I love what I do. I really really really every day is a um chance of telling another story to do another One of the things I never ever wanted to do was have a job. I had to do to put food on the table um And I absolutely love what i'm doing And I I mean do I wish there was a I mean I I It's not bad money at all. I don't want to say that but I it's not commercial money And there's rarely residuals unless you're doing an acx or in royalty share project So that's why that agents don't want this, but there's you know, there's still good loot. You know, you do a book Let's say you make 200 dollars a finished hour. Well a 10 hour book. That's $2,000. So I recommend that you don't do your own editing and mastering and I promise you can't do your own proofing But if you just do them, that's there's not that's not a bad way to make a living 200 bucks an hour. There's nothing to you know Yeah, if you how much do you like to do yourself? I like you said don't prove yourself, which I've been telling people for years don't self prove Well, yeah, as George you're you're the tech. I'm I'm absolutely I'm not only I'm very little you post a tech. I don't I don't understand it. I don't want to I've I had some people I had zane bird well as a great guy and some other people come over at this house and uh Plug all the crap in and I don't know where things go and I don't want I just want to hit the button that says record And then here's what I do. Here's my job once I in terms of tech I hit the record button and I say what I want to say and if I make a mistake I do punch record fix it and when I'm done with that track I hit consolidate and save um And then I go the next track and then when I'm done with that I put it in the who is ever ftp And I don't do another thing to send me retakes. I I think The industry average in working is like two to one two hours in the booth for one finished hour Now my rate is better than that. So, yeah, because it should be at this time anyway But I you can't proof yourself because you wouldn't say something wrong if you didn't if you didn't know better See and people just didn't tell you that it's integral or integral one's right one's wrong If you don't know then get someone to proof the damn thing and in terms of mastering and editing I I don't even know what that means And if it's two to one just to record it it's going to be five or six to one To do all that then there's a law of diminishing returns economics comes in and you might as well be working at mcdonald's Yeah, right, right. Yeah. So yeah, I say let the tech geniuses and god bless you all for being that Do their job pay him for it. You make more money paying someone else to do that stuff And you go ahead and keep acting. Yeah, it's time well spent as george and I will I test to It's like you get it right up front. You say a lot of bad a lot of work on the back end Once again, we're talking to johnny heller if you've got a question for him throw it in the chat room right now So what is your typical work day like? I mean, I mean you said you get up you go into your booth I assume you have coffee and oh Exactly what you don't want to do everything I do. I'll say no. Yeah I'm I I walk the dogs. I um When I get I have to make sure that I feel ready to work. I mean, I've been Uh, and I there's always something to do that's one of things when you have your own business and everybody has to realize This is this is your business is who you are There's always something to do if you don't have a book you have something to do but there's always A book to prep Work to do so I've got a I've got a little board outside this on the other side of slow the fuck down That's a the other side of the wall is a board that's got all my all my books and Joanna's books And we make sure we're not gonna we have time together in the time separately in the studio to work together one studio two actors um, so my I go in and I um, I knock out I don't I schedule in my phone my calendar. I schedule record. It'll say 11 to 3 well in there. I know I'm gonna have lunch So let's say I'm in there, but I'm gonna I'm gonna get that's my work time And if something comes up that interferes with that I have to take the hour or the 15 minutes or 20 minutes I lost and reschedule at another time I'm a big believer in writing the writing your schedule down. So you stick to it um, and I'm also a big believer in leaving your booth um 5 10 15 minutes on every hour Uh, I some people stand some people sit I sit but you got to get up and move around And also you got to get out of there. It's an unnatural thing Uh to do what we do and to stay focused I mean if you're in the booth and you're getting hungry and you're thinking about lunch Then you're not in touch with with what's happening in the story So if you're thinking about a tuna melt, then you you should then you got to figure out where that started and Go get a damn tuna melt and then come back. So you've got to be aware of what's happening Body wise so my schedule my day is every day. I'm in the studio two to five hours depending on what kind of um Deadlines I have sometimes I do more than one book Not at the same time But I'll do like a children's book in the morning and then take a lunch break and then go to the adult History in the afternoon or something Um, it just depends what I what I've scheduled myself for a big part of the actors the audiobook actors day is uh Comes before the day starts in saying yes to projects and scheduling them in a way that makes sure you're going to be on time Being late without excuse sickness is an excuse being late without a fair excuse is is problematic And it's going to make sure you don't get hired again My my my uh version of success in the industry is being hired twice by the same company or the same author You know, that's it's not it's not the yelp. I mean the audible reviews. It's the um It's getting hired again That means they like Absolutely exactly Uh, so what are you working on these days? What's uh, what kind of projects you're working on? No, it's no you do all sorts of genres because you do fiction nonfiction Yeah, I I'm one of the I'm kind of blessed to um To be able to do I I I do everything which is wonderful. I don't have to I'm not specialized So I've been working on uh, I've got a bunch of new books coming up. I've got um The thomas prescott series. It's a prequel to uh nick pierog's wonderful character thomas prescott. It's called the numbers I just got the prep for that I'm working on book nine or 10 of the johnny dixon mishies, which is a y a teenage Kind of a goose bumps. Remember goose bumps books. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've done a color It's like goose bumps, but goose bumps for catholics so It's well, it's really catholic That is a wonderful characters in there and so the characters have returned. It's like book nine I think there's 10 of them. So that's through blackstone and then I've got um some oh wait, you know the book, you know, um what's that book john Somebody went to mars john something john carton john carter goes to remember that movie Oh, yeah, yeah, those kind of books those are fantasy adventures like jules verne and edgar rice burrows did them Oasis audio has me doing a couple of those coming up. I've got um a private. I think coming up um Gosh and what what is there's something else But I forgot what it was. I've got a bunch of things on the uh A bunch of things lined up. Yeah, it'll it'll show up Yeah, it'll show up when you when you get through your you know when someone says, here's my book and I'll say, oh, yeah, that one Once again, we're talking with johnny heller about audiobooks now You've you've you've been coaching a lot, you know, and a lot of people know you as as a an audiobook coach primarily Uh, how did you get into doing that? uh, that started Let's see. I think and the early Or mid 2000s or something. I can't quite remember. I was asked Some people want to say, can you talk to us? I think a group asked can I talk to them about audiobooks? and I've been going on the road for recorded books to libraries and doing readings and talking about audiobooks and sort of an ambassador and then some people said it came up, um My first big where I started coaching individually and then people said, hey, would you do something? we're coming to town for um the APA convention and uh They asked if I would do something. They had a free day. Well, I think it was a monday because the APA was going to be on a Tuesday It's a 2015 and I did my first splendiferous workshop at the beacon hotel here in new york is really it was so much fun. We had I One of my workshop things is to make sure I have coaches. It's not the johnny heller show It's scott brick and it's sean pratt and it's Joanna perrin and it's carol mondah and hillary huber I bring in big coaches big big good people to share different things because I know what I think I don't know. I I need to learn too. So I want to hear what the other people have to say So since that I've done a splendiferous workshop One or two or three a year every year and scott brick and I He's involved in all of those things with me. He and I do our business workshop this year will be a little We're not sure about the timing of any of that. Um We have the um, should I plug these things now? Is it now? Are the entire idea of our show is utterly shameless promotion She to talk about what you're doing. Oh, here's here's what's coming up. Okay in in march We're doing where I think all of us would be at vio atlanta and then that we ends on a sunday on the 25th on the 26th I think is a pack On that night our parties and things The next day tuesday is a big sag after a national meeting. So I don't want to compete with that and that evening is the audis which is the awards ceremony for the um Audio publishers association awards I do something called the naughty's which I've had for years And it's just a party to come to because there's nothing to go for people who were in town for the convention But didn't have a place to party. So I happen to know bartenders and bars. You don't know why so, um I put together this the naughty's with the actually with the um Jeff kaffer and melissa axl bratton. We started this thing and it's been going great So you get there on seven. It's going to be connolly's on 45th as it always has Get there on that tuesday night. You if you're going to the Audis come after as the after party if you're not going Come and enjoy yourself. I mean it's buy what you want drink what you want eat what you want And then after it's all you can dress like I'm dressed right now And then uh And then afterward people the tuxedo and gown people come So it's kind of it's kind of fun and then that wednesday the next the day after I'm working on a venue to have a splendid first workshop I'm going to start it a little later at 10 o'clock for the because you can be hung over and probably will be So I'll start at 10 and then to run four and I might bring some publishers in for that I haven't worked out the agenda because I'm still trying to uh Lock down the space. I'm not sure how many people will be in in the city for that, but we're going to do that And then uh shan pratt and I with joanna uh parent frequently and uh sometimes anna clement from great britain Go on the road and we're not we haven't decided the cities are going to this year We usually do two or three cities Talk to take a fiction and nonfiction audiobook workshop on the road And then in october Either october 16th or the week after i'm not sure we'd be back at the warren center in framing him Massachusetts just outside boston For I think it's that maybe the ninth New england narrated workshop, which is you're there. We get there monday where there are tuesday wednesday we leave thursday Last year we had a penguin ran a mouse publisher was with us macmillan was with us spectrum audio was with us and uh dreamscape so we have um It's it's it's really wonderful time and it's kind of like an up with people camp with less singing Although we didn't say what what goes on at these workshops. I mean you're just not sitting there reading books monday's dinner and cocktailing we do a listeners lounge every night Um, which is where I started that in the apax some years ago where I had some of the finest narratives in the land Do their work and they still carry on but there's change now. Um We have listeners on people get to read their stuff then we do karaoke in the meantime There's a fire outside There's a marijuana distributor right across the street. So there's there's you know, there's there's there's there's there's partying happening and then The next morning we begin with a panel we have breakfast and a panel discussion Then we break out into uh four or five different workshops. You pick what you want Then there's lunch and then we have directed readings with our coaches and the publishers wander from directed reading to directed reading listening to the various narrators do their stuff and And sometimes they they give input sometimes they don't but a a lot of people get get work or certainly get noticed And there's always a chance to interact and we spend this because it's three or four days With you become friends with these people Which is so important because people gosh actors put Casting people and publishers and agents on these pedestals And it's it's an unfortunate Way the business has grown. No one belongs on a pedestal Um and these people aren't they don't want to be in the pedestal, you know, they're they're regular They want to talk they want they want to meet that you have to understand casting people Want to know you they want to cast you they want to find you they want to give you work unless you suck In which case they don't but that only makes sense. So I just think that uh And that's what's great about apac too. Frankly gives a lot of actors dressing me with people a chance to meet People can help them in their career, which can be their fellow actor as well Absolutely more often than not I get a lot of work from fellow actors and I've given a lot of work to my fellow actors Yeah, that's that's always great about that's I think it's one of the great things about the voice community is we We really do network and we really do look out for each other. Yeah, it's a fellowship It's a community and granted there are people in who are like But by and large by and large it's it's I've never I've ever ever been a part of such a uh Such a swell group of humans plain and simple. Yeah We're talking with uh johnny heller again if you've got a question Get it in the chat room right now and we will get to him and just Those questions and just a little bit now. You were talking a little bit about relationships with publishers and authors There are so many people trying to break into the the audiobook business, you know You know, george and I are constantly talking to people. You know set up our studio. I'm doing audiobooks And we're like okay, and it's doing audiobooks You know sonically can be a little bit different than doing voiceover because of as you were saying there's a lot of post stuff that you have to know how to do uh But if someone's trying to break in What are some basic steps that somebody should do in order to say? I want to do audiobooks and and try and dive into the pool Well for one thing you need to research the industry a little bit Um the notion that you know, we said you had a good voice. You should do audiobooks It's just it's unfair to everybody who does this Research the know a little listen to a damned audiobook. Um Sean Pratt has a little video on youtube and basically he tells you to go in a closet and read for a couple hours There's something to be said for that. Um, you have to be able to Sustain your connection with the material and with the story For for a prolonged period now it doesn't mean you're not allowed to make mistakes Everybody makes mistakes, but a voice or commercial voiceover is 15 seconds 30 seconds 45 seconds 60 seconds That's how long you're doing the spot and you have to be connected for that much time. We'll extend that to you know A 10 hour book or 15 hour book or however long it is You have to be it completely in the author's head You have his words or her words have to go through you as a conduit to their truth. It just has to happen um I believe that what you need to do is one recognize it as Acting as a matter of fact Recognize every single voiceover genre you've ever heard of as acting because it is And if you're not willing to accept that then maybe you need to reconsider the whole idea Also start thinking about the fact that no matter whether it's e-learning telephony, whatever it is. It's not necessarily easy money There's talent. There's skill. There's training Get some training if you've never had it get some um Here's the deal there's just a boatload of books out there Tons and tons into this plenty of work for you Um, uh, I would say what what's the the apa came out with some numbers not long ago about the percentage of books that actually Get produced in audio and the audio when I started was a multi-million dollar business Now it's a multi-billion dollar business But there's a lot of books that never ever get picked up So if you get to meet an author, let's say george wrote a book, you know my my life riding bikes and in in in la canyons There it can happen With maybe not the interesting to anyone but george, but I bet there are people who like it And he wants me to do it. So he and I here's a guy Who says how do I get it to I've had authors kind of me a lot How do I get my book in audio? Because every artist every filmmaker every every everybody who makes art wants there are to be seen And not every bit of art is great. Not every story is great But the listener can never ever suspect that you the narrator don't like the story So it's just like getting a role in a film and you read the script and you're like, how did this get or you see a Movement we go how did this get made? Yeah, yeah, you think because to somebody It's the best movie they've ever made. Yes. Yeah, right It's the best book they've ever written and it Of all the trauma team releases one of them is her favorite Trauma yes Trauma films. Yeah It's just it's just important a lot of people don't take this seriously. You can't say I'm having a hard time acting I think I'll take an audio book on excuse me. That's just not how it works pardon me, um, it's it's it's It's a craft acting is a craft and I recommend everybody who does it I think everybody I think everybody no matter who you are you should average take an improv or a scene study class Everybody everybody the same way. I think if you want to go to a restaurant, you should work for a week in a restaurant One's too young to start with taking classes of that Nature in terms of acting. I don't know when it's too young in terms of audio book hard to say, um I It's not my nature to teach kids because I have signs up like that um I I I work a little blue sometimes so I don't I'm not comfortable I'm not comfortable. So I you know, I would say if you're gifted And not just because your mom told you if you're gifted high school because You know, there are a lot of roles like when I started I did a lot of little kid roles. Well A little kid might be better at that. Certainly now that I'm an old man. They better have a little kid. Um But you think about Certainly in college. I mean, I don't I don't there's no like 18. You can vote you can drink you can do audio I don't know what to know. I don't know what it should be But I think you know, you need to be it's but it's a serious craft It takes dedication and a real lot of work. So you have to love literature for one thing You really do you got to love it because gosh, there's a lot of books that aren't You think how what what why why? Who gave this asshole a typewriter? So you got a But that that's not that can't come out in your reads Absolutely, I'll have to get done on authors later, but not not now Once again, we're talking with johnny heller and we're gonna take a little break right now And we'll be back if you've got a question again through it in the chat room We got lots of them to get to so we'll see in just a minute Johnny heller here on voiceover body shop. We'll be right back This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voiceover body shop It's the holiday season and if you're a voice talent Not everyone in your family or close friends really understands what you want for your home voiceover studio You want a what? Well voiceover essentials.com has the perfect solution the voiceover essentials gift card It's the perfect answer when you get that you want a what question You pick the amount you want to give and they take care of the rest The recipient will receive their digital gift card and a gift code to use for anything they offer at voiceover essentials dot com Like the harlin hogan vo1 a microphone the portabouth pro or plus harlin hogan signature series voiceover optimized headphones A lot of what go to voiceover essentials dot com and click on shop and gift cards and choose the amount Give them or give yourself the gift of getting exactly what you want gift cards now at voiceover essentials dot Well, it definitely is Time to save money right everybody knows that well here is a company that I never thought would ever Have a black Friday sale and that is our long time sponsors Source elements the creators of source connect. That's right. They are offering some of their software packages or softwares Um at some pretty steep discounts So a lot of you are probably already aware of the fact that they have subscriptions This is not going to be for subscriptions. This is for people that are like, you know, I've been paying for this subscription for four or five years I just want to have the license now. I don't want to keep paying a subscription and a lot of folks feel that way This is probably for you. Um, they are offering Source connect certificates and courses with some discounts So if you want to actually go through some formalized training From the team at source elements and you really want to understand how that software Works in your studio and have a better understanding of you know, just feel more prepared when a source connect session happens They're offering those with some discounts 40 off in some cases They have source connect upgrades, uh at a fair deal. Um, there's a lot of offers here and it's really It literally is and as it says here first ever black friday sale in 17 years That they've done it But anyway, if you want to get tuned in just go to source dash elements calm and these deals Literally do end today on black friday So you you got to jump on it Anyway, thanks for listening. Let's get back to the show right after this Hey there, i'm david h laurance the 17th and with my company vio heroes and my team of coaches and my community of voice over talent We guide voice over actors along their journey And you may be watching v obs here, uh, and not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching You may not even have started yet And we actually specialize in helping you do just that so if you're watching all the stuff going on here on v obs And going i have no idea what they're talking about. I don't know, but I really want to do this I'd really like to help you Please go to vio heroes.com slash start That's vio heroes.com slash start and you can take our getting started in voiceover class Which tells you everything you need to get started as a voice talent And I'd love to hold your hand along the way and help you with that journey Again vio heroes.com slash start That's vio heroes.com slash start This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv And we're back with johnny heller. We got a pile of questions. You you have a lot of sure. Yeah, clearly Yeah, I've a lot of what? You have a lot of fans Come on with you Uh, first question from laura patamkin george, you got the questions Yes, johnny says she says johnny. What are the best ways to acquire work from the big five publishers? Well, um, how do you get an agent question? Yeah, yeah, well For well, you should you should marry one of the people who work there. Um I said, there's a number of ways first off. They are always looking for new talent I know for a fact that penguin random house Has ahab talent dot com where you put up your profile like you do an acx and they have auditions That are supposed to be sorted to meet your profile I'm not sure it's it's not as tight as it ought to be because I know I get a lot of opportunities to audition as a Young Kenyan girl, um and weird stuff like that, but they have there's that Um, I know that they on clubhouse. You'll find um The penguin random house and I think harper collin sometimes does um Live things you can get involved if you're in social media and you kind of need to be even though I know it's problematic Um, a lot of the publishers Casting people are there Also go to their website. They'll tell you on the website how to reach them Do what they say When you reach out to big publishers or any publisher anybody who can cast you You want to answer You want to be the answer to their problems. You don't want to create new problems So talk to them And reach out to them the way you'd like to be reached out to if you were them They're all nice people But the biggest thing make a list and also take a look at what's in their catalog So you see the kind of work they're doing and say, hey, you know, I saw you guys did this book I love that book if you have anything like it on my on my website on my demo I've got something that I think you might enjoy and link them right to that place. That's okay Just, you know, so make something make make a difference make yourself known Don't be a pain in the ass and you know when you are you know it um, and and you want to On your website that this is super important. You you got to have your demos up there The link if you're gonna go to uh, uh, dan Leonard publishing And you said mr. Leonard, I want you to hear my I want you to go to my site and see it Tell me what you're thinking my demos and he goes to the site and he's got to go through all your your high school Uh, um the baton twirling championship ring and stuff. He doesn't want to see that you get him right to where the demos are It should be one damn link to bam and there you are if you want to go back and read about Your accolades and and and your boys got married badges swell But get him right to all the demos that's important So and the publishers are also available a reason to join, um the apa Especially it's better. It's a really good organization If you're starting out, I'm gonna be honest about that. They do have speed dating, which is uh, um You don't necessarily get picked. I think it's a raffle But you get a chance to be heard by a whole bunch of these people in going to some of these meetings now that now that we've uh Pretended we've defeated covet. We're all meeting up again. So, um, we can go to we can go to apac and all these Everybody's there Everybody's there and if you want to meet them go meet them and and don't Don't be so big and giving out your card. Be big on getting theirs That's good advice absolutely great advice, you know, and if you need a good demo player We have a free demo player at world voices.org Which all members get and it works just click on the link and there's all your demos. That's so important Yeah, absolutely, uh, kate visnitsky Those of us from buffalo would say it. Um, she says i've narrated a few books And i'm on the rosters of blackstone be audio diane and get auditions from them occasionally I'm also consistently Auditioning via acx. What are other places I should be submitting auditions? Well, I i'm not sure where all the auditions per se are listed I know the dreamscape has a portal, but it's by invitation macmillan has a portal by invitation So you need to reach out to some of the casting people to see One of the ways to find places. I know I'll tell you exactly what you should do Spectrum audiobooks a smaller house that I work for a lot That's annalease renny. Your name's kelly rinn and that hurt and that's kelly. She's up. They're always looking for good people My friend sara pocket has pink flamingo That they put there they put their auditions on facebook on their groups. They're there. There's If you're looking for people that are higher, they're there and all these people by the way almost every publisher big or small Does the sag after a contract minimum? And and so you're gonna make enough you're gonna make a reasonable amount of money Understand that when you take a gig it's particularly an acx It's just a warning sign take what you want, but you can negotiate your salary Even if it's a royalty share you can say look it's a royalty share I know that uh, george is getting 20 i'm getting 20 and jeff baseless is getting 60 because you know the work he did to help us Um, but you can say george. It's your book. It's your book about you riding your bicycle in the canyons Would you pay uh my friend dan lennard the engineer To master the thing it's gonna cost 500 bucks But i can't i can't do that you say sure so george sends dan with 500 dollars you just act You get paid you get your royalty share whatever you agreed to while dan's busy mastering you go on to another project It's another reason that you've got get people who know you you don't have to wear 17 hats not every actor is a singer and a dancer It's so you don't have to be a great actor and a great audiobook master Y'all don't even know what those guys do i know that i don't know how to do it But i know you can't the book can't go out can't go out to the public until somebody does it So whatever that step is higher the people know how to do it for god's sake I would often tangent leads another question when you submit the 15 minute samples Are you having somebody prep that before you send it in or do you even say oh for acx? Yeah, are you because i'm telling people that they should be mastered the same way as any other Well, i to be honest i'm be fair. I don't do a lot of acx stuff anymore. Yeah, um What i did do and what i would do right now if i did an acx i would Do the audition and i would hit that consolidate and get rid of the stuff and and i would now just and i'd send What you do is i would take that I'd do that punch recorder make it as nice i can but i wouldn't put it through any processing I would just send an mp3 of that To the auditor i don't know if i'd spend the time or money to have my audition mastered Because a lot of times Certainly publishers and i don't know about acx rights holders want to hear what the raw audio sounds like too What will your booth sounds like with the sound so if you master if you put it through all your Stuff Again, i don't know what i'm talking about if you put it through all your stuff I think it may change what it is and i so i don't know if i'd go through that process And i don't i don't like spending money on auditioning Personally i don't mind spending time But i don't want to spend money Yep, but so but if you have someone who's willing to master it For nothing why not but i think they prefer it not Which is unlike the finished product right they want to hear this product They want to hear if you can relate the story and and yeah, they want to know if you can do the job They want to hear the the voice they want to hear what you do how you tell the story exactly right down Yeah, george Jeff holman are very own He says if you are narrating a non-fiction audiobook Do you have to read the whole book beforehand like when you would with a fiction book? That's a great question and it's i think when you become Skilled at doing all these kind of things Um, it kind of depends on the nature of the book if it's an i'm okay You're not psychological thing or how to be a better marketer in 10 weeks or something In general those books are set up that the introduction tells you what's going to happen And you have an idea the the the official answer is yeah, you got to read it Unofficially if you have a schedule you can kind of if it's a non-fiction generally in those kinds of books You know, I understand you're hurting. Let me help you through the hurt that kind of stuff it's a repetition Of this thing until it finally sinks into the listener's mind And so you can probably escape reading all you need to need to go through it or something I'm also going to recommend if you don't feel like reading the book then hire a prepper There are such things and they're they're totally wonderful. I know a bunch of them and I use them In fiction you have to read the whole thing. I believe um I've hired a prepper to help me with the book that I've got a a bit of a hurry on but i'm still reading it I want her input so I get so just i'm in the same place But I need to read it So I know what happens because in a story you need to know what goes on In if if the if the non-fiction book is military history or or autobiography Yeah, you got to read it because that reads very much like non-fiction Yep, absolutely Catherine jade jarvey asks How do you find the balance in acting for audiobooks? She says I feel like sometimes I lean into Acting without doing voices or anything then may be desired. Do you have any input for this and is she overthinking it I'm not certain. I understand the question to be fair and I don't want to mislead her She's saying that she's concerned that she's overacting gets over acting. Yeah Yeah, let me see. Thanks chats ask question. How do you find the balance in acting for audiobooks? I feel sometimes I lean more into acting In quotes without doing voices or anything that may be desired well, I I think if you feel your Here's here's one of the big things. You know that john love it when he goes acting and he does that kind of thing Yes, every time every single time and I I'm guilty of it. I bet you guys are too Every single time an actor comes in to talk to me. They talk just like this. Hey george. Hey dan Hey, johnny, you're gonna talk with a little chat. Okay. Let's go ahead and audition now You come in the room and all of a sudden there's this new fucking guy Where did that come from and it's that and I think that we have to work against that and I think that kind of bullshit acting Takes you out of the moment I think you need to settle on the idea that Almost all of the audiobook acting we do and almost all acting in general. Yeah, here's what you need to think about The different in audiobook acting. This is probably the answer in audiobook acting There's a tendency to think of it as theatrical Because it's a script And it's a story and that's and that's what theater is and sometimes there's a director and that's what theater is And you for once in your life get to play all the parts your king lear and your and your lady mcbeth your everybody The thing is Unlike theater there There's no jazz hands. There's no singing out louise. There's no row double j You have this wonderful microphone who is your audience? And that's who you're playing to So becomes the idea is small the idea is less is more So it's it is acting but it's film acting I believe audiobooks are cinema cinematographers kind of acting. It's a cinema experience I think the author of its fiction or nonfiction uses words like A painter uses color to create a scene The author creates a scene with his words and the job of the actor is to see the scene And I think I think reading is like a film That's why when you're reading if it's if it's i'm okay, you're okay or your hogwarts whatever it is You're lost in that world. It's a george's dinnertime. George's dinnertime. Oh, okay. Sorry. I was lost in hogwarts because you're in that other world I think you need the actor needs to create that other world And I don't think it's with Big movements and big acting things. It's much smaller. There's reactions Probably audiobooks need to understand. There's a um There's a time to react someone says something. I never want to see you again What and that that beat that little pause between that and that which is human nature They'll they want to get rid of it because it's dead space on the on the tape on the on the on the wave file That's acting. It's okay. Yeah, so I think that You're overacting if you're if you're saw if you seem big If you seem like you're if you seem like you're in the Broadway show of gypsy, you're doing too much It's voice under not voice over. I think about george. Perfect. That's I love that But I'm still acting aren't I stealing that from shatner or something. I swear. I heard him say that maybe sabotage Maybe you are No, this one's from patricia andrea She said I tried livervox to do a tiny chapter of a book, but it had quite a few characters And mostly men how do you decide not to make weird voices? If there are no requirements to do voices, how do you remind yourself if you do a voice or how do you refrain from doing A voice that whole last part in a parentheses, but there's no clothes in parentheses. So I don't know what to do now I'm lost carry on george I Think the answer is is in the question. Um, you're not doing a voice. You're playing a character I believe And this is what I teach all time characters have to be You have to cast the character from your frame of reference We've all been to grade school and high school and then maybe further schooling and we've all worked in a Place or that place we've met people. We have families. We've seen film and television all those people we've seen Can be characters in our book. So let's say that So-and-so says, you know, it'd be great if that is dan Leonard I can see now i'm not gonna do dan Leonard impersonation, but if I picture dan Leonard as my guy I'm gonna give it a different read than if I pictured, um Benedict Cumberbatch You know what I mean? So I think you need to cast your characters from your frame of reference I don't think and I think you need to understand the word. Sorry. Are you saying there's a difference Yes, yes Only in the Sherlock Holmes portrayal other than that. It's exactly the same guy. Yeah Yes, certainly in the enigma code. He was definitely uh, Dan I saw dan Leonard a lot of times I got confused because of that Yeah, I'm the Watson type. Yes But I think I think you need to be um, understand that a character is is is based on who he is not just a weird voice You build it from the inside out not the outside in And I just I just think also you can understand that different character. You can change your voice You can be quieter or louder or slower faster pace it faster You know just a thousand different things to change your voice when someone calls you on the phone Of course now we have it says george a text column, but george sounds different than dan who sounds different than johnny sounds different than Than than sue than than anybody, you know So you can just what makes somebody different Just you can some people take a long time to speak just Play the character the voice will be there and we already suspended our belief. You don't have to worry about I know you're a female playing a male. I know you're not a male. I'm already willing I'm willing to believe you're everybody It's okay. Carry on tell the story. Yeah, and that's the great thing about audiobooks especially when you hear a great narrator like you or scott brick or Some of the others where you just get totally drawn in and the whole thing is in your mind and you can Follow along and that's really great Terry briscoe asks have you ever tried or ever had a book that took longer than expected because It hit close to home or and it was emotionally draining. Hmm. Oh lord. Yeah, sure. Um Yes I there there are many Especially if you're if you're in the moment, I did marley and me um then it took We you know what happened so It took it took probably 12 to 14. It took at least two three hours For me to do the close of the chapter where marley passes away. Just I Because No, I can understand you so and though it's important to play the emotion But you still need to be heard Um and and also almost a lot of when I started in the business. There was a lot did a lot of coming of age books And in most of those books the authors Had it in their mind that A child a young adult could not become a teen cannot become an adult Unless their mom their dad their best friend their brother or their dog died I think so there's always so it's always it's always It's always heartbreaking and in any in any book in any story when a character you You like That you really enjoy passes away However, it is, you know the the death of someone that you care about Is an emotional moment for you. So yeah, and and many many many many books It's been difficult for me. But that's Also the joy of acting to get through those things and move on because it's uh You know acting is his real life magnified Absolutely, you get one more in Yeah, we got time for one or one or two more sure this one's from maple j Julie from youtube how long does it take to do the audiobook? Take to do the audio For a book. I have a problem of reading a book cover to cover I think that's the two to one ratio you were talking about Yeah, yeah, usually for every so if the audiobook is a 10-hour book assume That the actor spent 20 hours doing it Uh, so it's two to one is the industry average again There are people who worked a little slower work a little faster As long as you get your book in by the deadline, I'm always early. I I insist on being early But always get in by the I I give a little a little note. First off I miss maple the I freak maple joe maple j You need to start reading the book cover to cover because otherwise you don't know how it ends which is What's the point? Um, the other thing is If you have a book and that publisher says let's get it in I need it on friday I'm going to tell you They're not in the office on friday They're not So say to them in the negotiation and you're allowed to say look that friday is perfect, but you know what Would it be okay if say you're not in friday because friday is all day If it's if it when you get into the office on monday, it's it's in your files Now you've bought yourself friday saturday and sunday to finish the book in case you need it and you're still in deadline So you want to shoot for a friday deadline and then extend it to the monday morning It gives you three days and doesn't do a thing to their schedule I promise you forgot their friday. It's not going through their through their Uh, um mastering stuff And proofing stuff That weekend it isn't in most cases anyway, so you can certainly add and that's just a little it just gives you an extra three days on your schedule All right Pro tip. Yeah, well and thank you for we've had a lot of those tonight. Yeah, we've this is this has been just golden this hour We really appreciate you being with us johnny Again if people want to get ahold of you for coaching and maybe attend one of your workshops, where do they go? That's it. There you go, right? Johnny heller.com for the podcast listeners out there. Yes Yeah, yeah, amazing that you can remember everything in order from all your workshops, but you don't know what book you're doing next I know what book i'm doing now But there I know i'm leaving one out. There's like there's four or five on my board and I can't remember which one i'm leaving out I'm very i'm super on american history, but shitty on my history Love doing the the uh the narrative for american history. Anyway, johnny. Thanks so much for being with us Always a pleasure looking forward to seeing you next time when we cross pads. All right guys. Thanks so much Nice to see you fellas. Alrighty. All right. You have to get out of here. Well, we'll figure it out George and I'll be right back after this to wrap things up You're still watching vlbs In these modern times Every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online In a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voiceover career flourish Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com where your via website Shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions Bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books auditioning home studio setup and equipment Marketing performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voiceover success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports. It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voiceover x t r a dot com Yeah, hi, this is carlo solos rocky the voice of brocco and you're watching voiceover body shop And we're back Next week on this very show. We will have Tech talk number 91 believe it or don't There seems to always be more tech. I know well, we've got lots to talk about tonight, too So, uh, you know now if you want to watch tech talk live You can hang out for a little bit and you can ask your questions And then you can be part of the show and then we'll play it next week But we're also going to do it live right after we finish with this hour. So now's the time all makes perfect That's it Once you get into it. I mean most of you know the show we know how we do. Yeah. Anyway, you get some webinars coming up Yeah, I've got well in on the paid paid stuff. I do have a webinar. That's the adobe audition advanced Course or I get to go deeper into multitrack and get into some more tricks That's on november 30th. You can sign up at george the dot tech slash webinars You can get 10 off of that by typing in vobs fan 10 in the coupon code area and lastly in the free side of things on tuesday Tomorrow, um, I'm doing an ask me anything on clubhouse, which I do the last Uh, tuesday of the month every month Um, again, that's on clubhouse. Just look for george the tech on clubhouse Alrighty and we've got uh lots of donors people you can look if you want to help support the show We really appreciate it Um, it it makes us it makes the technical end of this so much easier when we have the stuff that we need to do it And we appreciate everybody who uh, donates to us like robert leadham steven chandler kasey clack jonathan grant tom pinto greg thomas a doctor voice ant land productions martha con 949 designs christopher epperson sarah borges phillips apyr brine page patty gibbons rob rider shana pentington baird don griffith tray mosley diana birdsall and sandra manwheeler Hey, you can join our mailing list too So you know who's coming up on the show and uh, you can do that on our website vobs.tv and click on Subscribe and uh, we'll get you on the list there. We need to thank our sponsors, of course harlin hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements vo heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and voice a world dash voices dot org the industry association of freelance voice talent Our thanks to jeff holman for getting all those questions to us in the chat room Uh, and uh, sumer lino for great direction. And of course johnny helv. What a great hour of uh tips that he gave us Awesome, of course. Lee penny just for being lee penny. All right. Well, we're gonna re-rack it and we're getting ready for tech talk So don't go away. Uh, and uh, remember this is not an easy business But when it comes to your audio if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan Leonard and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vo B s Have a good week everybody later All righty Lots of tech stuff to talk about tonight. So this is going to be lots of fun because This is this is you know, this is our monthly or our bimonthly poker game To shoot the poop about what's going on out there in the voiceover technical world I know the more I was like, oh my god, there's that too. Oh, and I can talk about this Oh, jeez. There's a lot of stuff. I'm gonna have to fly. I don't have to go fast Okay, and then I've got I've I've got a demonstration. I want to do tonight that you're not gonna want to miss And uh, so let's get that rolling. Are we ready? Uh, miss director Yes, yes, okay Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk Tech talk tech. Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to make echo sounds with my face. Tech talk tech tech and it's tech talk number 91 Believe it or don't 91 episodes jam packed with more tech information than you would ever possibly need to know so, uh Hold on one second. Hopefully some of it's useful too. Yeah, really Yeah, most most of I think people find pretty useful. Uh, anyway, but we're gonna have some tech talk and we've got Demonstrations and of course your questions, which you can ask like if you were joining us with the johnny heller last week You can ask them live in our chat room Whether you're on facebook or on youtube And george and I will answer those questions about the amazing variety of things That can go wrong or that you want to know about when it comes to home voiceover studio audio. Are we ready? Let's do this. It's time for voiceover body shop tech talk right now All right Tech talk Brought to you by voiceover essentials.com the home of harlan hogan signature products Source elements the makers of source connect Voiceover heroes become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor websites.com where your voice actor website doesn't have to be a pain in the butt Voiceover extra your daily resource for voiceover success And world voices the industry association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts dan and george Ah, yes. Hi, i'm dan lennard and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vo b s tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk Tech talk well, uh, you gotta know something about the voiceover business and that is that Most people don't understand the technology at all We had johnny heller on last week and he's i don't know any of this stuff And this guy is like a superstar in the in the voiceover world and especially in the audiobook world I don't know any of this stuff. It's like I think the majority george don't know Exactly what's going on because they're like i want to be an actor. I want to be a voice actor I want to do all this great stuff But i gotta have all this tech and it's not really rocket science But it's just overwhelming the the sources of information people are getting Are very confusing sometimes conflicting sometimes just dead act dead dead on wrong And uh, it's very challenging. That's and that's the problem. We will not make it challenging for you We will Demystify and simplify and get you to the answers you need fast. So you don't get stupefied Yeah, it's it. There's a lot of stuff you gotta know Fortunately, there are those of us that actually know exactly what it's supposed to sound like And how to produce that sound in your home voiceover studio And that's what george and I do almost full-time. I'm still a voice actor and i'm still president of wo-bo and all these other things that I do uh, but I really enjoy doing all the tech stuff and george does it full-time and it's what he lives. It's what he bleeds Uh, when when he goes rolling down a hill on his bike and falls off it bleeds voice over a technology If they want to work with you george, where do they go? They're gonna go over to george the dot tech and that's my world for voiceover technology support Free information lots and lots of free resources And ways to hire us for tech support on demand or Offline like just maybe a plain old sound check where I listen to your audio and give you notes about technical issues Which is really the cornerstone of what we do dan You do the same thing basically right over at homevoiceoverstudio.com And uh, yeah, if you go there you find my specimen collection cup And I will listen to your audio for $25 and I will give you a very thorough analysis Of how to do that. Plus if you do a consultation with me a full hour and a half You'll get more than just voiceover tech I will teach you the basics of how to get it done how to get it done right And then I'll throw something else in there that people will like oh, I hadn't thought about that Uh, because I've met a lot of interesting people doing a lot of interesting stuff Who want to get into voiceover and it's like well, what were you doing before and You know that sort of thing and we got into some very interesting conversations That will help you push your career forward So go on over to homevoiceoverstudio.com and check out the services that that I offer over there Well, I have to start off our our tech segment with a poem Oh Believe it or not now there was an issue that that came up Over the weekend while we were all Digesting, you know leftover turkey And it was Someone named julie had a problem with twisted wave and she contacted everybody Uh, but she was panicking. Yeah, she was really panicking But she wrote this very interesting poem which I promised her I would read on the show It says thanks for the giving Twas two days past post turkey when I in my booth went to save as like I usually do Uh, this pop-up continued denying my save regardless of dozens attempts that I made I panicked inhaled and said hey, okay, man Chill the fuck out and write anyone you can On hi on hylin jen henry on jmc2 on facebook on youtube. What else can I do? Email dan lennard, which he did search troubleshoot galore move on to jim edgar who might not been before Brad found uncle roy who gracefully called removed my software and then reinstalled Try now uncle roy said to vo gods. I prayed then yelling with joy. It worked. It is saved But then later on other meals emails came through trying to help seeing what they could do Dan Leonard jim edgar these guys wrote me back just two days post turkey To their day to chillax Twisted wave themselves wrote me about a bug that was stinging us waivers, but now taken care of Why all these people will so willing in kind jumping to help me not lose my mind It's just like I've heard about vo peeps. They're nice and they care in bounds and in leaps Can't thank you enough each giver of time of knowledge of context. Hey this thing rhymes You peeps out there doing vo for a living. Thank you for caring and thanks for giving Wow That was awesome. I gotta read that on the show. Yeah, it's fantastic That covers one of my stories too that I know well That was part of the story about the problem with twisted wave But thanks to julie savateer for that. I really appreciate that. So what do you got in your update this week? Well, I thought I would start with a quick little show in a here and tell actually and let you hear good So, you know the new technology this year to me has really been anything relating to using any ai systems and so ai is just such a buzzword now, right, but it's basically Machine learning which means that you're using computers to Learn patterns learn things in the way a sort of more like a person would like oh, I've heard that before that's familiar to me as opposed to Just looking at you know, uh, well the sounds louder than this threshold. So I will do this Ai right so there are a lot of tools now that use ai. They may not promote heavily using the buzzwords ai But they're being used behind the scenes on different levels And so I thought I would just compare some sound samples using these tools to remove noise, right the number one thing we all Shutter about in a home studio is noise. So First I captured some audio in a typical fashion here in venice where I live Of the effing airplanes that fly over and I'm not going to play the entire minute and a half long Sample because that's literally how long it took for this stupid Small aircraft to clear but here is here's what it sounded like in the raw form And and by the way just for fun I started off the sample with the sound of me slamming my office door, okay So this is I'll play like 10 to 20 seconds here. Here we go Here's what the raw audio sounded like and just because I can I'll let you see what it actually looks like on the screen at the same time Okay, so here's the beginning sample Let's just play the beginning and here we go. I'll turn off my mic. So you don't hear any other room noise Let's just make some random noises All right. This is most actors worst nightmare Small aircraft noise flying overhead Obviously completely ruining a take Unless you have extract dialogue by a condigital Or clarity waves vx You decide which one does a better job Get the idea that plane goes on for a minute and a half right while I sit here fuming about it Okay, so I've got three tools. I was I just did two and then I threw the last one in just to see Um, I used a con which is spelled a c o n Extract colon dialogue. That's the name of the plug-ins catchy, right? Um, I used a condigital extract digital extract dialogue. I used waves clarity vx which you I know you've heard me talk about on the show And um, I used isotope rx9's music rebalance Which it didn't even occur to me to think to use it like this But somebody else pointed out That you could use it to extract dialogue from a mix or in this case from noise So I try it all three including with the door slam to see what it would do with that. Well, here's the first Let's say 20 seconds same mouse same amount of time using these three different tools So first is using a con extract dialogue random noises So you remember right before I said that I slammed my office door So a con just completely removed the door slam 100% okay. Here's my dialogue All right, this is most actors worst nightmare small aircraft noise flying overhead obviously completely ruining a take unless you have extract dialogue by a condigital or clarity waves vx pretty good But i'm still picking up some hints of that plane is in there It's kind of like at the end of the word when it when the gate I call it a gate That's not really what it is but it's when it releases the processing is where you sort of really pick up on it, right? So I thought okay, that's cool. I'd never used the tool before Well, let's compare to what I thought was really the ultimate tool for this kind of stuff This is now waves clarity vx Let's make some random noises So the door sound the door shutting was just like a click. Yeah All right, this is most actors worst nightmare small aircraft noise flying overhead obviously completely ruining a take Unless you have extract dialogue by a condigital or clarity waves vx You decide which one does a better job Now that one was interesting because it got progressively better over time, right? I noticed that sort of as it learned my voice pattern and kind of started getting better and better So, you know theoretically by the end it would be even better Let's see if jumped and jumping to the end here a full minute and a half later. I can still hear the plane All right, slow it down. It's it's now leveled. So now it's cool Okay, so and and that's by the way, I should have told you I maxed out the settings on these things, right? so normally You know artifacts would be a really a big problem, right? You'd hear all kinds of weird Squooshing and waterfall effects and stuff. I had these all the way turned up to see what they can do. All right now We'll try rebalance remember this is designed to separate out Say vocals from drums and bass and other instruments, right? So let's see what it does with this in this experiment Let's just make some random noises That was the weird weird sound that the door made so let's hear my voice All right. This is most actors worst nightmare small aircraft noise flying overhead obviously completely ruining a take Unless you have extract dialogue by a condigital So the the takeaway there is that that gave you all of the weird artifacts and the airplane sounds So that didn't work at all. So I don't know whoever's recommended that to me as a as a tool. It's definitely not What it's all all that it's cracked up to be so as I guess the point of this experiment is to show you that one Nothing beats soundproofing the correct way because all of these tools did varying degrees of you know a decent job Um, they they have somewhat unpredictable results Because it's ai and not just algorithms. Sometimes they behave differently Based on the situation. So it's a little bit less predictable what they're going to do But I was surprised. I thought a con extract dialogue was pretty darn strong For a tool that's not really been talked about very much So I just wanted to shine a little light on them and you know, let people know That's another one to try and as always do not buy any of these without trying a demo first And of course all of them they have deals that end basically today So as soon as the show's over You want to go play around with these and then and then commit to buying one of them because they all have deals, right? So that's a that just to review that's a con extract dialogue Uh waves clarity vx which has basically been 40 bucks almost all year And isotopes rx which now is version 10. Um, and that's music rebalance. It's just part of the rx suite Um another thing so I I've been having some major instability instability issues with my Mac mini which was running on big sir for a very very long time And as I told a million people over and over don't upgrade unless you have a reason That was a reason it was it was trying to drive me crazy certain apps would crash when I quit them Others would crash at random In fact, one of them still is a month many cam crashed during the first half of the show tonight Um, but a lot of things got better after this upgrade and what I did is I took my mac mini from big sir to Monterey No, I did not go to ventura. I've heard a lot of good things But I'm still not going that step to the current os The reason is is now because I'm on my mentor mentor Now I'm on Monterey It's just combined only now that I'm on Monterey I am on the last theoretically the last update of Monterey. There's going to be I'm on 12.6.1 So that means it shouldn't have any surprises. It's it's in a stable state. It's had all of its updates And it seems to have been other than many cam Which I'm still waiting for their support team to get back to me and tell me why it crashes three weeks later It's it's the only thing that's giving me trouble everything else all the other little Corky glitchy weird things it would crash over the week over the weekend for no reason Just all this weird stuff all gone So If you're on big surro or any older os and you do have like random problems I just like and they're like telling you oh try this try that Maybe that is a good time to uh upgrade to the next os So just in my case it did work out. Well, I had backups of everything I knew all my stuff was going to still work on Monterey. I did my research But it does work run better afterward. Yeah, I tend to trust the updates no matter what because I'm all the way on Ventura Yeah, what I what I have found is some programs have not caught up Uh with like what? Oh You know some video programs things. Yeah, you know some screen for programs. Yeah And it will you can see what's going on. It's like taking it a little bit longer You'll get a little bit of a beach ball and then it'll start working So I think that rosetta is you know still part of this and it's still it takes it a little while to learn it And then it starts running it much more efficiently So you just have to be a little patient with it. But yeah when I load that clarity plugin That's about the only time I see a beach ball on my computer when I look when I load that clarity plugin I see a little pinwheel for about three or four seconds All right, but that cuts into your next thing here. So on ventura Yeah, well, um, well venture again, you know I'm I have heard from dan and I've heard from many others that have had very good luck with ventura All of those people were already running monterey And all of them are running an m1 or silicon based max So they're all in very modern systems and I think for those people Ventura is working fine and probably for me it might work fine and it might work fine for you It's still that thing of me not wanting to have software that will update tomorrow or in a month or create a new variable, right? So I think venture is probably just monterey with a bunch of new bug fixes and you know things like this So it's probably just even theoretically even more stable But it's still I don't want to have surprises and on a workstation that I rely on day in day out Um twisted wave 28 that was the one that the poem was essentially talking about when twisted wave 28 came out There was an issue with the app store version and here's a little thing about app store versions of apps It's not saying it's bad across the board certain things. It's nice You get five installs of the app over five different computers It's a good value in the case of twisted wave. It's not a good value and here's why Once you buy the twisted wave license from twistedwave.com It lasts forever. I'm using it's eternal. I have a 2007 license of twisted wave And it still works on every computer. So that's one reason not to another reason too is you're taking money out of the Pocket of the developer. So You know apple's going to get 30% of anything you buy from the app store and that doesn't go to the developer So there's another reason so three is something called sandboxing Sandboxing is something apple does to protect you From software becoming rogue or becoming a virus and yes, there is some truth to that But it does create new headaches for the developer and that's what essentially was causing the saving issue Because twisted wave could not access the file system when you went to save that new recording It was stuck in limbo and you couldn't do anything and it was because of a bug With the app store version only so there's a reason to probably stick with the regular version And and even twisted wave isn't impervious to bugs Don't upgrade it if it's running perfectly keep it running on the version You currently have and stay tuned to us if there's something new we'll let you know if it's totally worth Upgrading to um two more quickie things twisted wave as well has a beta for windows And they keep adding features and now I understand it now can support vst plugins So the next thing will be can we make stacks? For windows version of twisted wave that's something I haven't gotten to experiment with but I will I'm sure in the next couple of months And lastly just a tool that I've been using more and more often It's called remote mouse and keyboard and it's an app. I run on my ipad And the beauty of it is it's a remote desktop tool For your own computer. So if you want to for example control My mac mini I touched my mac mini it detects it now right now This screen is acting like a trackpad. That's it. It's moving the mouse around the screen exactly like a trackpad If I touch the display button Now it's actually which I know you can't see on camera now. It's actually a it's a remote desktop of There it is my actual computer and I can move seamlessly between my two displays And I can do it on my screen and I can do it. So it it's an amazing tool I mean if you want to go into your booth, but not have to have a keyboard monitor mouse in there and all the wiring involved This app is awesome. It it's been very stable It seems to work beautifully and once you get used to the user interface because basically the screen Of your ipad is now a trackpad, right? So it's a little weird You're like you're moving your finger around the screen, but the pointer Is somewhere else, you know, here's the pointer over here once you get used to it It works really really well. So that's and again, that's called remote mouse and keyboard Um, and it's a great it's a great little app and I found it when I wanted to be able to have my daughter in the booth And and not have to be in there messing with stuff I wanted to be able to just remote control what she's doing and it's it's working beautifully for that Outstanding. Yeah, I mean, I just love my magic mouse. It just makes life Super duper easy when you're editing, which is what I want to talk about tonight But I also want to remind you that if you've got a question for us about your home voiceover studio Whether it's equipment or a problem or something you've wanted to know Throw it in the chat room right now because jeff holman is like chomping at the bit to Take down your questions and sending to us and we'll get to those in just a little bit So whether you're on facebook or whether you're on youtube just type type it in the chat room there And we will get to your question a little bit Well, I needed to do a little demonstration because when i'm working with people a lot of people They're not familiar with editing And if you can't edit voiceover it can be Kind of tricky And there are there's so many different apps, you know, we you know, we have twisted wave We have adobe audition some some use pro tools for whatever reason Uh, and there's there's other programs out there Reaper and In studio what there's there's all sorts and you know for all sorts of platforms When it comes to editing You have to think like an editor when you're recording and one of the ways you do that is having yourself a process for when you make a mistake And some people like well, I just use uh, you know, um punch and roll and go back Punch and roll is okay. If you're you know, if you're doing audiobooks and stuff like that You still got to go back and clean it up But when you're editing when you're recording One of the things you you should probably not do if you make a mistake is to stop And hitting you know hit stop and record and then have to start all over again and recording again Twisted wave is great because it allows you to you can do all sorts of drop edits and stuff like that But I wanted to show you something tonight that is Something perhaps you didn't even think about but if you edit properly you can literally edit in the middle of a word and make it sound like You know there was never an edit there and that's the real key to great editing is Making it totally transparent. George and I talk about this all the time with your processing and all these other things If they don't know They don't know So I'm gonna I'm gonna open up twisted wave here And the edits should disappear to the listener. You should have no clue No, and I'm going to show you how to do that You know very precisely So I'm going to read a little copy here and I'm going to make some mistakes And then I'm going to show you the real trick to editing this so it sounds like nothing ever happened Okay, so all I have to do with this is I have to like hit record. Don't I? Okay, I'm going to hit record and now we're recording in twisted wave and I have some copy here and it goes Companies can no longer afford to be reactive across all industries organizations rely on the uptime And there I go up or you can use a clicker something like that, but I usually go Uh, and then you go back a little bit in the sentence it goes, um Um, uh, organizations rely on the uptime of their equipment to be as productive and reliable Equipment to be as productive and reliable as possible. Okay, that's a very short demonstration of that But okay back into twisted wave here. Okay Hit stop so There's a lot of stuff you can see here, but if you give yourself visual cues to edit It you can go back and very quickly realize where you made a mistake and if there's no mark after it you realize that Yep, there's no mistake after that until you see the next line like right here But you can literally edit between in the middle of a word as long as you edit on a consonant a t a p a k a b Reason for that is Those consonants start with a very sharp beginning. So as we go back and listen to this And hopefully you can hear it We're not getting the playback unfortunately not getting the playback on that. Let's see here. Why are we not getting the playback? We should See here full screen layout, I guess Audio settings audio Should be working Anyway, all right, so let me just take the You should be able to hear this now We hear bleeding from your cans, but okay, that's good enough Okay, so I made this noise here There there's a t And we know that I made the mistake back here There's the t and the mistake was made here. I believe There's the t right there So you can literally go back a number of times until you say it right but in the middle of a word It now sounds like There's a p find the p over here a p right there and now the whole sentence is And that's that's the name of that tune Yeah, it editing is like it's one of those things where if you do it well I don't know. There's some cases where it's like editing Takes more time than voicing it correctly But there's a certain point where you're doing long long form stuff And re voicing a whole section just to fix one mistake may not make mistake make sense. So Having good editing chops is going to make you way more efficient. You're going to work much faster Yeah, and you know and having been an editor since The nixon administration You know and we and I learned how to edit We know on reel to reel tape with a razor blade and grease pen and all that kind of stuff So this is like drawing with crayons because you can literally see Where the audio is and if you edit on a consonant It it just makes it totally totally seamless because everybody's like I just got to redo the whole sentence Well, maybe you didn't like the way you did that sentence Which is the whole thing my whole philosophy with editing and why you don't Stop I mean if you make a mistake you go back to the the beginning of the the sentence again But you don't hit the stop button then try and come back So that's that's a really important thing you've got to understand that Editing is it you've got to be able to repeat and understand The natural flow of human speech There are some people like they just sort of butt things together and make sure that You know that everything's in there and fits in the time frame But you've got to have the human pauses in there and it's really really important to understand that process And of course I can you know in in any session that I'm teaching on this I can teach you a little bit more about some of these things But that's one of my favorites is always edit on a hard consonant And try not to begin every sentence talking a little bit louder You know the the william shatner effect I find people tend to do that an awful lot they get in front of a microphone It's like oh i'm beginning a sentence. Okay, I am beginning a set and they just just trails off so So that's my editing tip for now And and now we're going to go to your questions in just a little bit here And if you have those questions put them in the chat room right now because we want to answer your questions on home voiceover studios Whether it's about equipment whether it's about technique Whether it's about processing whether it's about whether to process or not Any question you have please throw it in the chat room right now and we will get to it in just a little bit So anyway, we're going to take a break and we'll be right back here on voiceover body shop tech talk Right after these messages This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv It's the holiday season and if you're a voice talent Not everyone in your family or close friends really understands what you want for your home voiceover studio You want a what? Well voiceover essentials dot com has the perfect solution the voiceover essentials gift card It's the perfect answer when you get that you want a what question You pick the amount you want to give and they take care of the rest The recipient will receive their digital gift card and a gift code to use for anything They offer at voiceover essentials dot com like the harlin hogan vo1 a microphone the portabouth pro or plus harlin hogan signature series voiceover optimized headphones A lot of what go to voiceover essentials dot com and click on shop and gift cards and choose the amount Give them or give yourself the gift of getting exactly what you want gift cards now at voiceover essentials dot com Thanks harlin Hey there i'm david h laurence the 17th and With my company vio heroes and my team of coaches and my community of voiceover talent We guide voiceover actors along their journey And you may be watching v obs here, uh, and not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching You may not even have started yet And we actually specialize in helping you do just that So if you're watching all the stuff going on here on v obs and going i have no idea what they're talking about I don't know but i really want to do this I'd really like to help you Please go to vio heroes dot com slash start That's vio heroes dot com slash start and you can take our getting started in voiceover class Which tells you everything you need to get started as a voice talent And i'd love to hold your hand along the way and help you with that journey Again vio heroes dot com slash start That's vio heroes dot com slash start Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great I could have swore they're supposed to be a source element spot in there somewhere Take it away. Tell us about source elements and source i will i will i will um So source elements, you know, you've heard me talk about them ad nauseam on the show. They're a great sponsor a long time sponsor I bet you didn't know that they have an academy. You didn't know that probably um, but they do And they do they're doing a lot more training now in house than they used to And you can really learn a lot now most of what they're teaching obviously is directly related to their You know the services and softwares that they sell Um, but for example, there's a four lesson class called advanced remote recording Um, so if you find yourself in a role where you're going to be recording Somebody else do the voice acting a tool a course like that could be extremely useful You'll feel way more understanding of the ins and outs of making that work Or maybe you just want to be way more Comfortable with source connect the software the one that most voice actors are probably going to have In their studio to connect to other studios Well, you can get up to speed with a five lesson Course on source connect 3.9 Um 75 bucks for a five lesson course. It's pretty cool. There's 21 cruet quizzes You get a course certificate, which obviously you could share on your website And um, it's a great it's a great way to just become way more Comfortable with the tools that you use not just somebody who Knows what it is and knows if you click here something happens Feel like you're a little bit more empowered to understand the tools that you use so Thanks so much source elements. Thanks for supporting us And thanks now for supplying the tools and the training people really need to get better at this stuff We'll be right back and here we are. We can go right back into the show because we're already I'm like a programmed robot. Sometimes I just go into old habits So we're in the question zone. What do we have coming in for questions? We got a couple of questions here Um, grace newton starts off with I've been avoiding updating my mac book air m1 What should I be prepared for when I do? Well, uh, because I just did it myself. Uh, yeah, I kind of just talked about it But I mean, what did you do to prepare anything special or just time machine? Uh, I don't do any of that stuff I trust max they never never screw up on me except for the one time when I was trying to Erase a hard drive when I wanted to sell the uh, the old the old mac book we had and um And it blew out one of something and then there cost a lot to fix it Which is the first time I've ever had that problem with the mac, but uh, you know things happen I'd say if you're going to upgrade to uh, to the new one, which is ventura Be prepared for it. Like I said for a couple of delays maybe with some programs You know the thing with twisted wave over the weekend Of course, I was like what there's a problem with twisted wave and it turns out well, it was just like you said It was because of the the app store version of that um, you know, I I You know, I upgraded to ventura tried everything And it always works, you know, I've never really had a problem I think I probably had more problems when I'm upgrading The os on my phone more than anything else Uh, the things stop working. The developers are like what they changed the os on the phone It doesn't work and you'll try and tap it and it goes And then it just stops. Yeah. Yeah something along those lines, but you know for the most part the uh You know, I I find that you you shouldn't have to worry about too many things, you know be patient Eventually the the apps that you're going to have You know that work on a mac Are going to adapt and they will they will work But this program that we keep talking about rosetta that allows You know the computer to interpret old old programs To run on a new system. Uh, it works pretty well But sometimes it takes just a second or two for it to to kick in but I think that's what's probably going on I mean if you're already on an m1 machine upgrading to a new os should be a pretty much Problem-free like it should be If you're upgrading from older os's jumping forward to two generations or three or four That I probably wouldn't recommend. I I don't think I would be going to the newest things on an older machine But because These new os's were written natively to run on these newer computers like the m1 mac You should have a lot fewer issues. So um, just be backed up, you know, like we all just said and said again Have backup Make sure you're backed up make sure you know that everything you're running is going to run on that new System if you're really geeky you can make an image or whatever we call it of the drive and have a second copy of your whole system I've known people that go to great lengths to do things like this. I used to I don't anymore There's so few things that go wrong Once you're within a certain generation of os So, yeah, if you're really worried book a session with dan or I will will hold your hand and we'll make sure you don't make big gross mistakes Yeah, really, uh, yeah, I I you know I back up Everything Data-wise I mean, you know, I've got a five terabyte drive here Then I've loaded everything that's about every computer I've had since like 1997 on there and it's only like, you know It's hardly it's hardly breaking a sweat. I mean, it just has lots of room So it's much easier to just take everything Dump it on to a solid state drive or or you know a large, you know an eight terabyte drive or a five or something like that And everything is there just keep things organized and know where certain things are Okay, here's all my sound files from here and here's all my my video files And here's all my documents and here's all And you and you keep putting it in your hard drive, you know, there's there's time machine, which is also very useful Uh, but I find just saving the data Of of old productions and stuff like that is really all you need I mean if something comes up and you have a client It's like remember that spot you ran last year can we need to update it? But just with a tag or something do you have the old spot and like There it is And uh, and that makes it nice to be able to say yes Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. What I really like though is when a client emails me and said We're renewing that spot for nothing Norway for another year You know, can we do that for another year and you know, and here's how much it I'm like, yeah Here Fine no problem I'll be happy to do that and and send you an invoice, but I don't have to re-voice it at all And that was a strange spot for a Norwegian company, but Work is work Anyway, uh question for you from ap white watts Okay. Hi ap Asking how am I enjoying the studio bricks booth and is it fairly soundproof fairly soundproof? It's fairly soundproof. Yeah I mean it's it's much much better than my office With airplanes like if if I had something mission critical to record Um, I would be in there in a heartbeat Um, I actually I was recently interviewed and is now released on jmc j michael collins's podcast I was interviewed on j michael collins podcast and I recorded in the studio bricks booth Um, I know sounds ridiculous that I don't record in there often Folks, I don't record much. I'm I'm I'm a You're not a voice actor for crying out loud. I'm not a voice that but I decided I'll record On the interview in there and I had no Zero interruptions throughout that hour. I'm a 40 minute long Thing like we have constant aircraft here vehicles passing by gardeners I had absolutely no cause or to think to pause or stop talking ever never had an interruption So yes, it has uh worked out very nicely. It is pretty soundproof. I would say it's better than the Average it's certainly better than any double. I'm sorry. It's better than any single wall Constructed booths like a standard whisper room Um, it is better than most other booths. I've ever heard And I'm very blessed to have it and my daughter is the one is really going to be doing the most recording in there Once we start auditioning. She's coaching right now with our dear friend Martha Kahn who isn't excellent Excellent children's voiceover coach. She's highly hired. Yeah, she's so great and My daughter is the one who's really going to be doing the the lion's share of recording in there although My friend our friend Eddie Eddie Whenever we do a workout together with my daughter and his kids. He's like George Now once you read on something man, he's like Man, you need to be doing this. So don't just like all right. I'm I'm I'm biding my time. I'm not ready I don't not ready to distract from everything else going on in my life I'm not ready to dabble in voiceover. But um, yeah, the booth is mostly going to be used by Um, my daughter when we really start getting serious about auditioning Yeah, that's great to hear. Uh, somebody was asking about where do you get? a clicker Yeah, you can get I mean you can probably get him at a pet store. Of course we this this one was This was the old voiceover button. Oh, this was an east west audio body shop clicker Oh, wow that we had that's I've worn it out because I've I've used it so much on You know long presentations that you break them up into slides and stuff That's another thing I could show you is how to break up things into slides On untwisted wave or an adobe audition, but these are great more dan keeping one more next time next time. Yeah, that's right You know, it's great because it gives you a great audio physical audio cue that you can see right um You know, we had these and we we gave them away or I think we sold them for like 75 cents or something I can't remember what we what we sold them for but every time somebody from canada wanted one I had to fill out an import form To mail to mail this thing Because these are clearly a threat to canadian national security For their gmp or something or something like that what's coming from america canadian should be making these things more canadian content Can con as they call it Look guys up in toronto. We're going what Anyway, these are really nice to have but You don't have to use a clicker like I said you can always go or or Something along those lines That's going to give you the visual cue you need to edit with properly so We'll go with that so that you get these anywhere. Yeah, I mean, I know there's marker You can make m be the marker button and make a marker in the file But I don't know if you don't want to have a keyboard in your booth You want to just be at the mic not having any extra gadgets and just this is so easy to have Yeah, it's very very practical. Yeah Uh, let's see here Jeff asks last week if you were here last week Johnny how heller said a two to one ratio of booth work to finished hour is standard Then that would be me. Are you at that level and how much extra time do you put in for book prep? Well I haven't done any audiobooks in about 10 years To me it was high effort low reward and the reward was getting lower and lower and lower And you know and I and I did stuff for some some big publishers and I must say And I always like to say that acx buys me lunch every month You know, but just for me You know, it's oh I can go to wendy's now and you know, and you know that sort of thing I I did like 40 titles and uh, you know a lot of it was for Uh, you know, just you know an upfront payment and stuff like that, but the stuff that I had on royalty Uh still is and there were a couple of very good books won by Eric Foner. Who's a well known, uh, Historical novelist actually he's a historian and it's actually a true historical narrative and I and I did that That's still that's still selling well. There's also one I did on philosophy, which I did not understand one bit Uh, but apparently I must have read it right because that one keeps selling that was a very popular book and So, you know, that probably sells 10 15 copies a month, which is fine and dandy Uh, but of course if you have a lot of those in royalty They are they're going to you know, it's like an annuity as we as we used to say in the insurance business Yeah, it will it will continue to accumulate as long as people are buying that book But as far as a two-to-one ratio, you know, I got it down to where I was much faster than that I mean, you know, I maybe when I started it might have been three to one But I'm you know, I'm an editor by you know by trade and that's Something I just do incredibly fast because of the techniques that I use And things like that and the codes that I use, okay If I go that means go back to the beginning of a paragraph if I go Okay, she's made a mistake in this word go back and just fix that word You know read the beginning of the phrase of that sentence again because I don't want to spend a lot of time going back And and redoing an entire sentence Uh, and I find that you know because of those these tricks that I use I can go through it very very quickly Twisted wave is great for for long frame format narration really easy to do drop-in edits You know, if you have corrections or something along those lines and the The producer says well, you made a mistake here or this needs to be changed or something along those lines I can just rerecord it and just dump it in there and no one will ever know as long as you're using the same microphone And you know listening to what was what was my voice sounding like at that particular time of the day So, uh, I two to one. Yeah Two to one is if you're really good at it three I'd prepare to be three to one if you're just starting out maybe even four to one Because you have to learn how to edit, but that's why we're here We're teaching you these tricks that allow you to learn these things and get it done, right? I think another important distinction was he doesn't do acx books folks So those those time ratios he's talking about are just to be the actor right The folks that are doing acx books and painfully Producing them a hundred percent themselves are spending way more than two to one They're spending five seven eight hours per finished hour. I hear this often people tell me this all the time and That ain't no way to make a living folks. That's just it's it's brutal um The mastering because johnny was never taught how to do it quickly and easily to him is an absolute mystery to me it's absolutely uh elementary my idea because I've taught how to do it on so many platforms. There's tools that automate it almost completely It is not nearly as hard as it sounds anymore with the right setup in the training. So But yeah proofing there's no way to shortcut that it takes a while to proof an audiobook now You might be able to proof it a little faster than real time I've heard of people listening one and a half to one even possibly two to one Real time so they're listening at double speed, but yeah, it's it's hard There's not a lot of shortcuts there. You really have to listen to it to catch those Um mistakes, you know So and and the better the narrator you are the better you are at cold reading Or reading it for the second time if you free read the book or a third depending on how How really how much research you do exactly then you you might be able to move faster So it all comes down to experience Yeah, and and of course when it comes to to editing Yeah, I mean if you're editing your own stuff It doesn't make economic sense, especially if you're doing stuff on acx to do it yourself Or you know, I mean you have to do it yourself if you have somebody else to it It's cutting into your profit, which is like, you know, pretty thin margin So it's good to get good at it and then if you get really good at it Then you can start editing for other people and make up for the time the money you're not making From not doing enough audiobook work But there's always a need for editors out there But the top people don't do their own their own editing they they send it off to somebody else That's right programs that will do proofing there There's all sorts of stuff that goes with audiobooks and It's its own industry folks. That's why it has its own conferences its own Facebook groups its own Everything and you know when I came into this business from the voiceover end of things and audiobook people because of acx Or starting to appear in my inbox. I had to start really looking into what is this process? What oh my gosh, you have to do all this. Oh man, this is time consuming and finding ways to shortcut and and really It make the process more efficient for the narrator for the narrator was was the name of the game Alrighty One more question here from grace newton What's the best way to clean a laptop screen? No, that's not it. Yeah, I I use purell I have this stuff that I've just had on my in my drawer for years. It's called eye clear apple polish Oh, this is specific for leap for apples, okay Um, it says works on macbooks That's such a what a marketing play um macbook pros. Oh it works on macbooks and macbook pros Even though it's the same screen Cinema this is how old this is studio and cinema displays. This is this is this has been around for a while um Yeah, something like this and then spray it onto a a glass a glens cleaning cloth This one's pretty dirty. Um, and then that's and that's what I that's what I use For actually have another cleaning tool Um, let's see Do you have that like that brush with the yeah, where squeegee brush? Where is that? Come on Here it is So I used to just carry around I still carry around this brush I don't even know what this is for. Maybe it's a dusting brush or maybe it's like a just sort of a chunky kids paint brush I don't know. This is great for cleaning the milks and crannies and the keyboard But then I found these things and maybe I need to get some more for holiday gifts this year It's it's it's a it's a screen wipe It's wiping off smudges It's a dusting brush for cleaning out little dusty things and it's a little rubber silicone Spudgery thing for cleaning out into in little cracks and scenes and crevices and your keyboard and stuff This thing's kind of cool. Of course. I don't know what it's called or who made it because oh here we go It's it's made by full circle Full circle not the partial circle the full circle, right? There you go. There's a tool you can use to uh to clean out the milks and crannies Yeah, all right. We've got one more question here from ap white watts. He says are you able to use the speech recognition feature on twisted wave similar to positron Yeah, I haven't spent much time in positron Um, so I know what it's I know what it's conceptually for I know it's for Helping automate proofing and find, you know, let you know that you miss spoke a word Um, yeah, the twisted wave speech recognition is a similar idea So when you when you're working on a project you load your script into twisted waves script importing tool And now while you're recording It's recognizing each word that you speak Highlighting it and if you miss a word miss miss the word completely Or say the wrong word it will highlight it in yellow in your script Letting you know where you ate a flub so you can go much more easily back And navigate and it follows wherever you are in the waveform So if you if you highlight a word in the script It goes right to that word in the waveform and vice versa So the script and the waveform are always attached to each other in time it definitely Dan if that was around when you were doing this full time, I'm sure you would have used it Like it probably would have saved you a lot of time It it may have but then again, I just I didn't like doing audio books. Yeah, that's the bottom line I mean, it's just a lot of time. I mean heck and I did the entire bible. So, uh, yeah Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, you can you can download the demo for for 30 days for free Um and play around with it and if you find you like it, it's only 50 bucks and just like everything twisted wave It's a one time buy so it's a pretty good value. Yeah, all right some very practical stuff there That you might not normally hear but you only get it Here on voiceover body shop tech talk the condensed version. Yeah Anyway, all right, we'll be right back after these messages and wrap things up. So don't go away Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great 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 via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions Bringing you the most current information on topics like audio blouse auditioning home studio setup and equipment Marketing performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one stop daily resource for voiceover success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports. It's all here at voiceover extra dot com That's voiceover x t r a dot com This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voiceover buddy shop Hey there. Well, let's see next week is What's next week going to be next week is like the last week before Christmas I don't know if we'll see you all before christmas But happy hanukkah to everybody and merry christmas and We're still deciding whether we want to do a show the day after christmas Because christmas is on a sunday. When is uh, hanukkah this year? It starts next week sometime. Oh, okay Not next week. It starts It starts The 19th monday the 19th. Oh, it's a lot close. It actually overlaps Christmas. Yes, you know everybody says. Oh, it's late this year. And then if you know the jewish calendar It's like no, it's when it's always is that's it's never late. It's a 25th. The kiss left. That's when it always is Anyway, uh Next week on the show who knows who we're gonna have but somebody will be there Although I did run into morris lemarsh at the vet the other day and he said he wanted to be on the show That'll be fun. Oh my god. He has a very large dog Anyway, uh, who are our donors of the week? We have robert ledum Stephen chandler kasey clack jonathan grant tom pinto Shelly avaleno greg tomas a doctor voice ant land productions martha con 949 designs christopher epperson sarah borges philips appear brian page patty gibbons rob rider shana pennington baird don griffith Tray moseley tray been with us for years diana birdsaw and Sandra man willer Yeah, well, I have to get ready for my shift at trader joe's. So It's an old it's an old joke, but it's also an old shirt. So, uh Okay, remember if you need help with your home voiceover studio, you can go over to home voiceover studio dot com And I can help you out and we'll talk about the voiceover business and how to make sure your audio is sounding right Or you can talk to mr. Tech george the tech At george the dot tech, right? That's right. That's right And uh, there's a webinar that you have missed by now But don't worry because every webinar that we do on uh live live or dead Every single one of them is archived in our in our online store on vimeo that you can rent and watch for A year. So don't worry if you missed it. We just don't we just did went on adobe audition um Actually, yeah, that's right. It was on adobe audition. Um Gift ideas, uh, by the way, um, because it's still the holidays My dear dad he loves making stuff And let me show you a couple of kinds of things that my dad makes now This this one is not okay This one unfortunately to let the wiring. No, that's not the right one Yeah I've got all these things they're dioramas My dad makes dioramas and he makes them for whatever you can think of this is a diorama of me At the bicycle shop where I volunteer every wednesday night exactly what it looks like at the microwave There you go. Isn't that cute? Yeah, so that's the kind of thing my dad so he makes dioramas, but he also makes whirligigs And here's one right here. This one's got some extra Wiring and stuff because we're trying to make it electrified. So because I don't have wind In my apartment, um, but anyway, this is a whirligig spin the propeller And the thing moves around this is probably one of the least interesting ones because it's just based on My old recording studio that was based And an rv that looks exactly like this down to the audio snake in the back Right there. There's the snake With the big cable. It's amazing. Anyway, very very personal and custom I mean, that's what I mean. He makes bespoke, uh, you know designs if needed or you can check him out Just email my dad's not on etsy. Okay He's too busy for that. He's just email whirligigs fair weather whirligigs at comcast.net He can send my dad an email. He can either make you something's custom or show you send pictures of Some of his inventory because he's got quite a few All righty. All right, we need to thank our sponsors like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials Voiceover extra source elements Source elements. Yeah, you said that one view heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and world voices dot org the industry association of Freelance voice talent Thanks to jeff holman for getting the questions in from the chat room sumer lino for Just amazing direction tonight and the page just for being Hey, merry christmas. Happy hanukah. Hey, we'll see you all very shortly Enjoy this show and you can watch any show because they're all on youtube and they're all on facebook and you can go back and Start from the beginning and in 11 years you will catch up That's right. Well watch one episode every day. It'll it'll take you like a half a year. No, it'll take you a year No, it'll take you more than a year. We'll get to work. Yeah start now I'm done by 2024. Anyway, that's gonna do it for us tonight. You know, this is not an easy business voiceover But if your sound is is gotta be there But we as we always say if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan Leonard and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vo b s tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk Have a great holiday season everybody