 It's time for voiceover body shop tech talk number 25. I can do one hand. That's plenty. You do it like Roman numerals on one hand. No, I haven't figured that out. Okay. All right. Well, anyway, we're going to continue with our audio master's round table. We have got Jordan Reynolds and Cliff Zellman and uncle Roy Yockelson joining us. And we've got all sorts of questions you guys have been sending in, which you ought to make for a very interesting hour here on Tech Talk. So stay tuned. And if you got any questions and you're watching this live, send them in on voiceover body shop tech talk right now. From the outer reaches, they came bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voiceover audio. And together from the center of the VO universe, they bring it to you now. George Widom, the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build, set up and maintain the professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today. And you, Dan Leonard, the voiceover home studio master a professional voice talent with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio. And each week, they allow you into their world, making the complex simple debunking the myths of what it takes to create great sounding audio, answering your questions, showing you the latest and greatest in VO tech, and having a dandy time doing it. Welcome to voiceover body shop tech talk voiceover body shop tech talk is brought to you by voiceover essentials.com home of Harlin Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt. VO heroes.com become a hero to your clients with award winning voiceover training. J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success. And now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California. Here are the guys. All right, time for tech talk across the universe with Cliff Zellman in Dallas. Hi, Cliff. Oh, let's turn on their mics. Yeah, that might help. I always miss that audio. Sorry, you guys. Hi, Cliff. Hi. Uncle Roy joining us from Bloomington, New Jersey. Bloomington. Bloomfield. Bloomfield. All right. Yeah. And Jordan Reynolds who's joining us from right here in our secret clubhouse in Sherman Oaks. Yeah, I didn't know the password. I had to do some didn't even ring the bell. You just walked in. Yeah, I know. Usually it's nice and locked. Yeah, I made it. Yes. Anyway, we're going to talk tech and we got a lot of questions from people. And again, if you have a question for us, throw it in our chat room on our web page if you happen to be watching it there. Or if you're on Facebook, throw it in there. Because if we don't know the answer, there is no answer. Anyway, what do we got there, Roy? So my favorite question of all time in voiceover, which is from Matt Simmons. All right. What's the best all-round mic? Can we like reach through the internet and grab him by the throat? It's a lot of him. It's round. Is that a pop screen for a BK1? What is it? A BK1. 421. 421. Oh, okay. Okay. Whoa, look at that. I didn't know that existed. That's pretty neat. I love the BK5 though. Yeah. Do you have a 421? I have two ivory old school ones. Yeah. Yeah, I've got the MDs. Yeah, I need that. You can go ahead and shoot it on over. All right. You guys just talk amongst yourselves. So I have to give at least some answer, right? So I think for under $100, the MXL 990 is pretty damn good. I love it. A lot of really good stuff out of that cheap mic. Really good. Jordan, you do the 100 to $300 price range. Pick a mic. AT2020 or AT875R by Audio Technica. Both mics by Audio Technica. Those are great mics. Can I throw one in there? In that price range? Sure. Yeah, Rode NT1. Yeah, NT1. Not the 1A. Not the 1A. Not the 1A. Right. Oh, it's too thin. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And from $300 to $500 range. $300 to $500. CAD, $1000? I was going to say the E100S I like. Yeah, the CAD E100S. No. I've got that. Don't use it that much. Got the blue bird here, which sounds really good. 300-ish range? Yeah. Yeah. That's within that range. And of course, the V01A, which is right on that $300 price range. They're all good mics. My belief is the best mic to have is the one you have. Because it's kind of like a camera. Yeah. Or as my mom used to say, better to the devil, you know, than the devil, you don't. All right. So Cliff, a mic from $500 to $800. Well, if you get the Joe Cipriano set of specials. That's true. I'm seeing him on ePaper 500. You know what, guys? Listen. Sweetwater gives you 48 months, no interest, automatic payments. Good for you. If you want a 416, you can be $19 a month. It's one less sushi dinner. Maybe you want to. Don't let price, you know, but of course you want to use, you know, what works best for you. In that price range, gosh, I don't know. $102. I'd go for the Joe. Yeah, a little bright. I'd go for the Joe Cipriano special. I try to find a $800 force. And did we get Uncle Roy's recommendation in there? Yeah, Norman 102. Clifton 102. Yeah. Okay. There you go. There's four Uncle Roy's 414. Yeah. If you can book some time, an Uncle Roy's studio uses 414. Is that an EB, Uncle Roy? Yes. Oh, baby. Yeah, man. There you go, man. It's the best answer ever on that question. Everybody come to New Jersey while you're coming anyway. That's the last point. JDK says most voiceover YouTube videos are like diagnosing your own medical problem on WebMD. Just a statement, but a good one. That's one. That's a great question. Paul Stefano, our old pal. In 2020, are there any USB mics good enough as a main studio mic? I have an opinion because I just tested one. Yeah, you test a lot. I tested the Sennheiser MK4 digital and while I don't like that it has no headphone jack, I hate that. I hate that it doesn't have a proper gain control for when plugged into a Mac, but it does on an iOS device. Weird crap like that. It sounds amazing. It does sound really good. It's a really high-fi sounding mic, really nice, but features-wise it's a pain. It's just not fun to use, so it takes a blow. It's also 400 bucks. It ain't cheap. So that's my opinion on USB. But yeah, there are good sounding ones. Just would you choose to use them, especially when a good one's $400 and you can get a signal chain now for $250. That sounds damn good. It just seems like you're crippling yourself for no good reason, so that's my- But with that, there's also a barrier to entry with learning. If you're just starting for really new and that's a lot more stuff, more knobs, more things to worry about versus just like your USB mic, just if you're just getting started, right? Really, really fresh off the turnip truck. Yeah. Yeah. Like a 2020 USB. The plus is nice. It has the headphone jack. The Apogee mic plus. That's my favorite. The old Apogee mic, the original was a great mic. The original was good. They're all good. I mean, and you can use it as a main studio mic and carry it around with you, because if you go on the road, even though I say when you go on the road, go on the road for whatever it is you go on the road for, not to be doing voiceover. Unless you have handcuffs on, you say, you've got to be available 24 hours a day. The Apogee mic or the improved models of that, the old original was great. Not very forgiving on plosives. If you have good audio out of that mic, good technique, then you're... It's a great mic. It's on par with some more expensive microphones. They did a great job at Apogee, but Apogee is great because their digital end is really good. They make great preamps and that's why they're really good. How about you guys? Rodenty? Cliff? Rodenty USB from road? I have no experience with USB microphones. I mean, I don't mean that in a bad way. I don't mean that in a kind of descending way. I don't own any and I've never used one. Yeah, you have the Yeti. When you use a 416 as a talkback mic, I get it. I put it in my back pocket, you know, you cop on the plane, it's great. And I don't know anything about USB microphones. Cliffy, I mean, I'll go right. Yeah, I go with the original Apogee. I think that was a great. That's probably the only mic that does sound good inside a chaotic eyeball. Actually, it fits. I was going to say that. It fits. It sounds pretty good. I loved your thing with stuffing the socks in there, though. That was awesome. I'm not supposed to talk about it. Oh, I guess some legal action around that? No, no. And Harlan wrote me a really nice letter and he sent me a recording sign for being a mensch. So why not? I love it. Next question. Greg, get Fred's voice. Get Fred's voice. Sorry. Does Adobe audition? Oh, this is a goofy question. Does Adobe audition go all the way to 11 when you turn it to the right? This is a question. Unfortunately, it goes to 12 if you know how to misuse it. Yeah, that's true. A couple from Peter Ponce. Hey, Peter. Isn't part of the obsession with tools like the eyeball driven by marketing? It's the only tool you'll ever need to sound fantastic. Not every product, though. Sure. You know, headphones, microphones. I mean, yeah, all advertising has to have a little hyperbole with it. But like Cliff said, it's a tool. It's a tool. Yeah. When you go to the trade shows and you see the demo, then you try it. That's up to you. The chaotic eyeball undeniably changes the sound of the mic. I think just because of the compression design, I think that it absolutely does. And I think that a microphone like a 2020 sounds great in an eyeball. It takes away all the awful nastiness that a 2020 offers. And then you throw a microphone, a high quality microphone into an eyeball. And then it happens. So it makes a cheap mic sound good. It makes a good mic sound like crap. But it's a tool. You know, it's a tool. And I have one. We have an audience question in the audience. Yes. Let's check that one. Jeff Holman. Hey, Jeff. Hey, Jeff. So mouth noise is the bane of my existence. One of the problems I have is this breathing thing where it's like, and I believe Cliff was saying something about a sword swallowing technique or something. Yeah. Tell us more. The sword swallowing technique. I call it that because it's in mixed company. But if you would take a flashlight and you hold it over the head of a sword swallow, there pretty much be a straight line right down to his puppet. So inhaling as much air as you can, feel your lungs, get them comfortable. Keep your mouth and your throat open before you start the sentence. So instead of starting a sentence like how many times of you, how many times of you, it's going to be much cleaner. There's no push. There's no plosive because you're not starting from a closed esophagus, a closed mouth. That'll help your clicks, you know, in the beginning of your sentences. A lot of people start, how many times? I do that. I hate when I do that and I do it. We hate to hear that because a lot of times we're listening on big monitors and those, it's like, it's negative reinforcement. And you say, I don't like this read. Why? I don't know. Well, because you're hearing and it's annoying. Obviously, the best thing to do is try to tame it on a physical level. Otherwise, you know, notch those guys, blow up your waveform, find it. Very easy to find. Adobe Audition, again, is very easy to find. I'm not sure. But the sword swallow technique, another neat thing about that is hang on. He has a sword, ladies and gentlemen. Theater of the mind. From the beginning of fall to the end of spring is a long time. And since there's really nothing anyone can do about it, you might as well make the best of it by driving the fully redesigned key of soul. And when summer finally arrives, you'll be ready. On one breath. Well, that's one thing that's yeah. Now, pull it in. Hold it for two seconds. Zero is a number, right? Zero, one, two, start reading. Don't push the air out. Let the air out come naturally. You triple the amount of lines you can read. You won't run out of breath. You don't have to stop. And you won't have that initial syllable. That's really loud. Right. Hello. Hello. You know, look, we're in our booths by ourselves. Nobody can see us when we're recording and auditioning and stuff. You can edit that out. Yeah. And it's as goofy as you want. Hold it in. Hold it for two seconds. And when you start to speak, don't push it out. If you inhale, hi there, how are you? I'm already done. I got four lines. I'm out of air. But if you let that air just go out just by keeping your throat, your lungs open as it comes out. It's going to be beautiful. And you double the amount of lines you can read. So there you go. And can I add some to that? Absolutely. That's why you're here. Well, what I heard, I'm not a vocal anatomy expert. I'm studying it. Like I'm in the earth. Like you think at this point in my career, I should know these things, but so I don't know exactly like what palette is doing what. But what I heard when you were just demonstrating it, I heard like, it was like a combination of glottal stops. But then like, you know, yeah. And so just be, that's all right here. That's your vocal chords doing this, which is just air being comprised. So I don't, that with Clis's technique could help with the beginning, if it's happening at the beginning. But if there's stuff, if there's like a deeper sounding click happening at the ends of your phrases, is it usually a three? Yeah, it's the beginning. It's the end. It's in the middle. That's a nasal. Yeah. So then there's nasal clicks, which the D clicker, you can, like I was saying, you can lower it to the low frequency setting. There's only two sliders. There's strength and then low and high frequency. If you slide it down to the low, I'll try that. If that still doesn't work on my, I have really bad allergies a lot of the, a lot of days. And what happens is, is if you get a lot of congestion up in here, it will, at the ends of your phrases, you'll, you'll say something and then like, you know, if you like do a fake, I'm plugging, I'm doing my plugging my dough sound. And if I let go of that, that feel like there's, I don't know what part it is that we could do in the chat, but what I let go. And now I'm back in my normal voice. When I let go of that sound, it creates a click. So let me try to make this clear. When I'm on a clicky, a very sinus clicky day, I'll finish my, I'll be like, you know, only 199. And then like, I don't breathe. I don't exhale. I don't inhale. I keep my mouth open. And I don't like, I make sure my mouth anatomy stops and I go to the side of the mic. And then I, and then I just relax my palette, whatever it is. And then I hear the click release, but I wait instead of just like 199 and then just being relaxed. I'm like 199 and then I literally hear the click and then it's in between the lines. So the engineer already be cutting that out if it's a session or if you're editing or in audiobooks, it's silence. You're deleting breaths, right? So it'll be with a breath. Right. Yeah. If you're doing like a 30 second read or something like that, it doesn't take that much time to go through there in audition and just don't do an auto heal. It's like, oh, there's that, that boom. Exactly. Out of there. But he's talking about audiobooks. So I'm like, oh, but audiobooks are a whole different. That's it. So just play with that. Like closing your like to Saudi like that and then you'll feel this part. I don't know. I think it's a soft palette, like touching and releasing. That can literally control a sinus click from actually triggering. It's weird. Awesome. I don't know. Wish I could describe it better, but that's the best I could describe it. Well, we've had some episodes with some a couple of different ENTs and and voice therapy people, even even a laryngeal massage person on our show. Wow. So definitely check back on VOBS for people that there's been we've covered a lot of stuff. I don't even remember a third of what they said, but. And Dan's E&T. Dan from Back in Buffalo. I got, I got to get a hold of Joel. He may be retired by now, but. That was my favorite VO body shop East West. Yeah. Ewebs. Yeah. Ewebs. Ewebs. That was great. Yeah. My ENT, Joel Bernstein, Back in Buffalo, was it has an ego to the size of Texas, but he's a great guy. But also a world renowned ENT. Or I'm sorry, a Ryan Otho Lering college. Ryan Otho Lering college. And who was he up against? John Taylor. Oh, that was fantastic. And we miss John too. That was oil and water. It was so fantastic. Oh, yeah. We started talking about boogers. And it was a wild night. That's so good. Next question, I think from our good Peter Ponce. That's what I got. Go for it. Which is better, the audience ID4 or the Yamaha AG03? Or are they just different? Man, that's a jump in real quick. I have the AG06. I really dig it. It's semi pro. Okay. I really dig it. I use it every day. There's nothing wrong with it. It's semi pro. You have to back that up, man. What does that mean? What does that mean? Um, I would, if, if I had one sitting next to the other for recording, I would use the audio. Yeah. But why? I think it sounds better. There you go. Yeah. It's simpler. But as far as what you can do and with the, with the AG03 and the AG06, if you're a guitar player, it's got amp emulators in there. It's got an onscreen compressor and EQ. If you want to get into that stuff, it's got fold backs. And it's 150 bucks. But nonetheless, you know, I mean, if you're shooting in big time stuff out there, you probably don't want to use it as your main interface. I would go for the audio. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm actually, I'm actually testing an ID 14 right now. And I like it. It, you know, it sounds great. It's got a lot of cool features. I'm still trying to figure out how to use it, you know, because it has the console thing. It has the console thing. And I'm like, okay, but I have to write some articles on it. And so far, I mean, it's what I'm using, you know, and I've got, I've got two I twos and I've got the AG03 and I've, you know, they keep piling up and it's like, well, I could use this one. I could use that one. I like the audience stuff. You know, they're, they're a little, they're a little different. Yeah. Audience stuff, I'm going to just be more simple to manage and hook up. The Yamaha's are very busy. They are features wise. Like it, there's just a lot of stuff a voice talent won't use. But if you want to be able to expand like plug in, maybe something else externally or have a second mic because you do music like Cliff was saying. Or produce stuff. Yeah. Or honestly, I use mine for karaoke. Mary and I were singing Beatles. Yeah. Good karaoke too. Anyway, I soaked up the SM58, put it in. It's got reverb and compressor on it. And then I, I route that into the, into this home theater system. I don't have a theater. I have a family. You don't need, you know, you need external power. It, it goes off your USP. Yeah. And it's USB powered. So. And it's, it's great for the money. Yeah. And it's, it's beautiful. I feel like the audience woods does sound a little bit more cleaner. I totally agree. A little bit lower noise. Yeah, lower noise. So yeah, I agree. Postafon, I love the Yamaha. Agreed. Says Studio Bricks. Is it's the gold standard or it seems to be the gold standard anyway? Are there any newcomers we should know about in the booth scene? You guys have any opinions? I mean, I've, Studio Bricks has done a hell of a job making a, a desirable Mercedes Benz level booths. They, they really understand what it means to be building a soundproof booth for voice actors. I mean, you know, the Guillermo was a musician, which is why he designed this thing. Because vocal booths are designed to primarily keep noise from coming out so you're not bothering people on the outside. Right. And that was the design. But they also understood and really marketed and, and, and really asked how, how someone uses it as a voice actor. And they really solved a lot of those problems. You know, I'm going to be really, you know, Frank about this, but there are other companies out there. I've, some of them I've had closer relationships than others. But, you know, on a whole, the one who's listened the most about what I think should be improved or what is, you know, what could be made better or just listened to me at all, frankly, is, is, is the Studio Bricks guys. You know, I've, I've met Guillermo at shows. We, I've talked to him many times about improve this, improve that. Has he done everything? No, but it's his company and it's not mine. For how small of a company they are, the amount of stuff that they've changed and improved and how much they, how much time they give to listen is astounding compared to, you know, I won't name any companies, but there's a lot bigger booth companies that we all know. And at the end of the day, yeah, I, I have a Studio Bricks at home. That's what, you know, not, not only do they look the best. Do you have the one or the one plus? Uh, we have, we have a pro. It's a triple one. Pro, which is, is that the size of the one plus? What's, what's the difference? Oh, dimensions, it's custom. It's like five and a half by five and a half. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Um. You went with a square booth? Yeah, don't. Are you using just the acoustics that, did you get the pack? Oh, you, you tuned it. Well, yeah, it's a work in progress. I just got a different desk, which only has like one less shelf than the desk I replaced it with. And it's changed differently. Like, so right now I'm literally like, yeah, I know. So, um, but yeah, it's, I need to get some, some more bass traps in it, but, but yeah. But on the booth thing, I would like to say, that as much as I love Studio Bricks, at the end of the day, like Dan was saying, a booth, when you, when you're ready to get a booth, like booth level VO. Booth level, right? Because you need one. Yeah. Yeah. If, because you actually need one, and it's not only to block yourself from getting out, right? When you're doing a lot of on demand voiceover, I call it. Yeah. Like you have to do it at three on Tuesday. Right. That's when the freaking gardeners doesn't matter. Right. That's when you need that booth. Yeah. Because it stops sound from getting in. Yeah. But, um, there's still all of the other companies, as long as you go with a double wall or thicker, they're all, they're all fairly comparable as far as how much noise they're blocking from getting in. Yeah. Would you agree? Yeah. Studio Bricks has the most, I don't know, I can't quote, don't quote me on this because I can't keep up all the prices, but I think they have the most reasonably priced double wall because their base model is double wall. Yeah. They don't have some double wall. And their door is quite amazing. 10 people to put it on. Yeah. It's very heavy. It's very heavy. Yeah. Heavy door. But you're gonna wait a long time. And this is the problem with demand also and their proximity to the U.S. They're in Spain. Yeah. That's the double edge sort of. If you need something really fast, a whisper room is can ship you stuff really fast. But vocaboot.com, they've always had a really good ventilation system on their premium level ones. Their top level of ventilation is six inch diameter pipe and it is darn quiet. So I give them huge props for that. And their booths sound pretty good. I hate that they glue all the foam into the walls because I don't want foam all over the walls. I hate that about vocaboot. They're all, they all have their little pros and cons. Two breaks overall, I think. And they all have to, they all have to be tuned. They all have to be acoustically treated. I helped somebody that get their basement sounding so good. And she said, well, I'm a professional voiceover. I got to buy studio breaks. $14,000 later, the noise floor is better could be very difficult. Take the bass traps out. No, take this panel out. No, take this back. To get it to sound like what her basement was. Yeah. Because you're shrinking the size of the room, German. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All of us have challenges. You know, every booth comes with inherent challenges. One of them is just to try to make it sound like it's an actual real life environment rather than a little closet. Having some life to it. Having some propagation of the sound. But I'll tell you, studio breaks are gorgeous. It's like walking into a sushi bar, isn't it? I mean, it's so beautiful. And fun to put together. If you have this, if you're a house, it's the hard that makes it great. If you live in Texas, where all the ceilings are 10 feet high, then get the extra tall one. Like if you can have you have the space for it, get the one extra foot extension. It's a big improvement. Really, it really is. A bet. Yeah. There's a company in LA. I've met these guys now. Finally, they've been wanting to meet me and the LA booth. LA Vocal Booth. Yeah, I've met with them. These guys, they're young dudes. They're hip hop musicians. But they're paying attention to what we're all talking about. Yeah. And I checked out their booth recently at That's V.O. And their premium one was really darn good. Good isolation, well made. The acoustics, they were using foam pretty much, but they had enough of it. Four inch thick and everything. Yeah. It was pretty dead. And they could do custom panels. And they could do custom stuff. They could actually do like acoustic panels instead of foam. Yeah, they're willing to customize the heck out of it. And they're very reasonable and they're in LA. So they're out just outside. So if you're in LA there, don't overlook them. They will ship elsewhere, but another good company they're kind of new. Good guys. Tell you what. Moving on. Let's take a break. Yes. Let's hear from our sponsors who make this show possible. All right. And we'll be back with your questions with Jordan Reynolds, Cliff Zellman, and Uncle Roy Yockelson right after these important This is Bill Ratner. And you're enjoying voiceover body shop with Dan Leonard and George Wittem, V-O-B-S dot TV. Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead. Now there's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer. That place is voiceoverextra.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. Voiceoverextra has hundreds of articles, free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed. Learn from the most respected talents, coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books, auditioning, casting, home studio setup and equipment, marketing, performance techniques, and much more. It's time to hit your one stop daily resource for voiceover success. Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voiceover audition. It's all here at voiceoverextra.com. That's voiceoverXTRA.com. As a voice talent, you have to have a website but what a hassle getting someone to do it for you. And when they finally do, they break or don't look right on mobile devices. They're not built for marketing and SEO. They're expensive. You have limited or no control and it takes forever to get one built and go live. So what's the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voiceactorwebsites.com. Like our name implies, voiceactorwebsites.com just does websites for voice actors. We believe in creating fast, mobile-friendly, responsive, highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use. You have full control. No need to hire someone every time you want to make a change. And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time. You can get your voiceover website going for as little as $700. So if you watch your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options, go to voiceactorwebsites.com where your VO website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what. Audio book narration. ACX, Audible, rights holders and success as a narrator. That's what you want, right? How about a free class on how to make that happen? Even better, how about three free classes on how to become as successful and happy audio book narrator? It's about to happen and all you need to do is let us know you're interested. Go to acxmasterclass.com to jump on the alert list for the upcoming 2020 training that they're offering. Absolutely free. That's acxmasterclass.com. The first class is Friday, January 17th and they'll continue for the next week. To be able to watch these classes, just let us know you're interested. Visit acxmasterclass.com. That's acxmasterclass.com. You're watching VOBS.tv. I don't know why. It's crazy what they do here. I think I want to go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich. And we are back with Jordan Reynolds, Uncle Roy Okelson and Cliff Zellman, our audio master's round table and we got a bunch more questions from our amazing audience out there in Internetland. You really should be here live though. It's a lot. The commercial break conversations are amazing. We got one from the lovely Tracy Reynolds who apparently her kids must have gone to bed. If you use a deep breather or deep breather, if you have a person that knows how to read, like me, if you use a deep breather, like in her case, well... Tracy's a man, right? No. Yes. Tracy Reynolds? Tracy Reynolds is a woman. This is a guy. I told Tracy my NS10s. Tracy, I'm so sorry. I can't remember. She's a mother of five. Okay. But whichever Tracy you are, using waves as the plug-in, do you use it before or after any other processing? Oh yeah, that's a good question. I think of deep breathers as an editing thing. So if I'm de-clicking or deep-breathing, it's happening during the editing process. Right. Yeah. And then the rest of the sweetening, whatever you want to call it, mastering is at the end. That's the way I think. So before? Before. I guess that's... Before all the other compressing. Are you guys on the same page on that? I agree. Yeah. But pardon me, I won't... I'm ready to try not to use deep-breathing. Yeah, me too. You know, I highlight, pull it down, highlight, pull it down. I need all the breath I can get. Yeah. When you're producing vehicle spots, you can take the time if you're doing it. Yes. Yes. You're learning, maybe not. Yeah. Well, absolutely. I've got the luxury of doing 30s and 60s. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, you can cut a half second off really easily that way. Yeah. Oh yeah, my post is a little different. Sure. Sure, sure. How about you, Jordan? Oh, from the little I've experimented with deep-breathers, I've just been so quickly disappointed with... Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's not that they're terrible, but it's like, I'll be listening for two minutes, I'm like, whoa, every breath is gone. And then like minute three, it's like that was a real word. Oh, there's another word. Oh, and no, banana is not a breath. That's a word. Yeah. Exactly right. Like this is the problem with this tool, in my opinion. It's risky. No matter who makes it, it's not a... You can't trust it. No, it's not predictable. It's like magic when it works, and then that one in 20 times where it screws up, you better know. So now you got to go back and listen to everything. Yeah. If you're not listening back after, don't just apply all and send. One pass of de-breath-ing ain't going to fix it. No, right. And if it doesn't... Not only that. ...hear too much. Not only that, because I like to deal with them on a breath-by-breath basis. If you just silence it, we're waiting too long to hear the next thing, because if the breath is there, okay, we heard something. But if you put silence in there, or if the breath is brought down that much, I'm waiting too long to hear the next thing. So I always, you know, if, for instance, if the breath was 0.6 seconds, I'll put 0.4 seconds and I'll put room tone in. And, you know... Yeah. I'm not a fan of the room tone method. Only on audiobooks. No, not otherwise it's insert silent. Yeah. Yeah. Or if on a corporate narration or something like that, I will usually highlight it and take it down 15 dB, which makes it sound more natural. Although I tend to take very deep breaths so I can, you know, do an entire paragraph. Cook Zellman method. Turn blue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or a follower. The breath looks like a little football. Yeah. Yeah. And if you can put a... If you can... I like it. Get your a dot here, a dot here, and then just bring down the center. All you really want to do is bring down the energy of the breath. You don't really want to bring down the center because it's very natural. It's just the energy. And when you got the little football going across, either side of the football, bring down the center. Instead of it going like this, it now goes like that. And then you can just bring it down a little bit, keep it natural. Make a pancake. Boy, Uncle Roy, you know the cardinal sin is inserting silence with, you know, leader, plastic leader. No, you just did not do it. That's a full leader tape. Yeah, leader tape was new, new, new. It's, you know, kind of same thing, you know, with digital. Bring it down. I moved. Ron M says, can you start getting stickers from each of these gurus? That way we can cover our boos with them and look like a race car. Nice. Good idea. I have stickers. Tim Kelly says, terrible problems with Fs. Like in future, find us from. It's from. It's the F syndrome. Sounds odd. I usually chop out the middle of the F in the editor. I'm using a Rode NTG3, which sounds nice. Sounds lovely. What's your favorite DS or Jordan? Oh, God. Oh, there's so many. My current favorite is the wave sibilants. It's like a year or two old. It's just got, it's one of the most natural sounding ones. Before that, I was using the Eioses. Eioses. Yeah, E-Y. That was the hot one a couple years ago. Yeah, where it's very visual and it shows the energy of it in certain places. That, I like that one. But honestly, in my production, not in auditions and stuff, but in demo production, I'm using usually two or three DSers, either of the same brand, but usually I'm using two to three different brands very gently. Because I never have one that just, especially you have for female voices, I never have one that does, just does it all perfect. And I am also manually automating the s, just like you do with the breath. I go in and turn down those Ss. And then I do even crazier stuff, which I won't go on. Ss are very, I'm sensitive. I find that sibilants is, it's a really weird phenomenon because it's different with everybody. And it doesn't, and with some mics, people are sibilant and with the same mic, other people are not. It's really weird. And how do you deal with it? I guess, if you have a plug-in that's gonna clean that up, that helps. If you deal with it as energy. I mean, that's really what it is. Maybe, have you ever used the FabFilters, Jordan? I only use their compressor and EQ. I haven't dropped the money on the DSR yet. If everybody out there in VOBS land wants to download a demo, definitely check out the FabFilters DSR. It is fabulous, fabulous. Is it complicated? No, in fact, you start with the default and then you bring that, bring up or down the range, up or down the threshold. And then, of course, you can dive in deeper with advanced stuff, but you don't really need to do that. It's very natural and it's very clean. And all it's really doing is finding, like I've been saying for the last couple of minutes, is finding that energy. And you can certainly see it on a graph. And it just brings it right down. It's being that you guys are pretty opinionated about these things, which, what is it, what's one that you really should not use? I have my opinion. Oh, the DSR plug-ins? What's the DSR? You're like, oh my God, don't avoid, avoid. Renaissance is not my favorite. It was for, you know, I used to throw out, it's a little harsh. I like the Waves $29 DSR. No, one that you don't like. No, I know, but I didn't get to say. Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. I'm a jerk. Go ahead. No, I didn't raise my hand. The Waves DSR for 29 bucks? 29 bucks. Sometimes you can even get it a little cheaper. And second choice is the one that Jordan said, the Waves Siblings one. And like Jordan and probably Cliff, treat the raw voice file and then put it in a multi-track and put another layer of processing on top of that. So we have a couple of different ways of treating these S's and stuff. Man, you guys are thorough. We're out. There is a EQ that you can set up. Right. And it's a parametric EQ. And you can set a threshold to the amount of, we'll just pull that down and you can actually see it when you see the spike in the spectrum. You can just zero in, pull that down, anything, you know, find your threshold and just get it to dip a little bit. But that's really all the DSR is doing. It's just a specific frequency compressor. It's a compressor with a side chain. Yeah, that's really all it is. And the side chain is this little way that the audio goes in, goes out through something else. That other thing is an equalizer. Equizer passes a series of frequencies, whatever you set it to, and then on the way back through it gets compressed. I, yeah, the one that's terrible that I haven't ever figured out how to get to not make a complete mess is Audacity's DSR. I've never even tried it. I don't know about that. Use that with your USB. I mean, God bless them. They make a free program and they make free. They add stuff all the time, but it's designed by a bunch of computer geeks and they, not by audio engineers. Clearly. Based on the tools that they have. Like the compressor has one setting for attack and release. Awesome. It's one slider. Oh, right. Okay. It's like if you have a car. It's like a golf car, like with one gas pedal for the, if your car had one pedal, I don't know. That's not a good analogy because Tesla does that, but yeah, not if they haven't gotten it right yet. Audacity, what's really, what I do use Audacity for is for the speed change. If I, yeah, that is bizarrely good. It's really good. And not, I don't use it on voiceover so much, but if I'm doing dance. Time compression. Yeah, it's on time compression. Audacity is really good. Wow. Mostly can't hear it. Stumbled onto that. They found some source code that actually worked. I don't know, sorry, but I don't think we really answered the dude's question because this was about the letter F. We went on a rant about siblings. Slightly different frequency. Yeah. So it's an answer can be tuned to call them an F. Yeah, but I think as a, both a voice talent and a producer, I think what he might be hearing there's a range of F problems I can have. Sounds funny. F problem. But I think you're either have, you have like, I call them sloppy Fs where they sound wet. And so if you look at the waveform, instead of being like a football, like a smooth S, it's got like little spikes in it. That could be happening. That's, you know, has to do with your anatomy and your pronunciation. So you can work on that. But if they're a little wet and like, and just kind of grow sounding, you can take off. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Did you just say pronunciation? Annunciation. Yeah, I made up. I make up words. We knew what he meant. I know, that's one of my made up words. Yeah, you're right. It's my dad joke. Gene, I have to harp on stuff like that. No, no, I need to pronounce it right now. Please do pronounce it. Thanks, George. Sorry, dude. I'm not ready. Finish, finish. No, but if it's like a, I call it like a wet F, there's not a whole lot you can do about it other than like, you can take an EQ and soften the top end. You can run a de-clicker on it. There's too much garbage in a wet F, right? Yeah. There's all this different frequency material. Exactly. What I do is I just, I grab the middle of it. So you highlight it. And because if it's long and you just delete it, so the F is still apparent that it's an F. That's exactly what he said. Because it's a lead into an F because you're a F. Yeah. But sometimes the middle of it's wet, too. It's got a scallop done on it. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's what he said he was doing. Yeah, I do the same thing, but I don't take out the middle. I'll take out the beginning. And then, with the upper corner tool on Pro Tools, ramp up a volume, so because all that stuff is coming before the actual 50. So if you clip off all that stuff just give it a haircut right up and then just go to the upper left-hand corner with the supertool if you're in Pro Tools and just drag over and get a little ramp up in volume and that becomes forward and it's beautiful. Taking out the middle of S's also helps a lot. Yeah, taking out the center of an S and having it shut. Or center of a breath, but I think we said that already. Got one more question from Paul Stefano. How much time we got? We got enough time to end. This is one I could talk about for a long time. We could and I have some thoughts on that too, so go for it. Paul asks what is everybody's opinion on DSP processing on audio as in the universal audio plug-ins. So more like the recording through a processor that's an emulation of real equipment. That kind of I think that's what he's getting at. Is it necessary for... Anybody and you guys using that in your production workflow? You're talking about UAD plug-ins? Yeah like UAD plug-ins, Apollo stuff that we pray. We drop on our knees and we pray to UAD plug-ins. I've got the dbx-160. I swear to God I haven't heard that thing in 20 years and I plugged it in. Not that I'd ever use it, but I plugged it in and it was a dbx-160. I mean it's... I love UAD. I love everything universal audio. And I'm not even a sponsor. Remember we were in the... Love them all. The UAD booth at NAMM last year and they had the shootout with which one was it? Yeah they had four pieces of four different pieces of gear, blind A-B test, you know digital versus hardware. Yeah and they had like an LA2A and a real one. Oh my god. And then you would just choose which one you liked and at the end they would say you got two out of four right. That's awesome. Get your shot glass and... It was freaking cool. That was a fun booth. As it pertains to a work like a voice sound who isn't super techie or nerdy, I believe because I think a lot of talent have the universal audio, the Apollo Twins now or the the Arrow, right? It's so good for just a straight up voiceover studio but you can run like a virtual preamp now or a compressor and all that. So I think I feel much more strongly on this than not that you should hire someone like us to tune it for you. The preamps are a little less either have us tune it or don't use anything. Just use it as an interface. Yeah one of the... But if you want to use it to be permanent going in it's great to like smooth out certain things but you really got to have a pro do it if you don't know what you're doing otherwise it's going to some of them can distort really easily the compressor that's built because a lot of them are channel strips which is not just a preamp but it's the compressor, it's an EQ and a lot of those things are on by default and you can't tell because there's so many not they're really busy. So you can just be very careful like experiment like learn but don't start applying it on stuff you send out. Hire someone like us to really tweak it for you. Plus one for George Wittem Stax. Yeah well I mean Stax whatever it is but I mean the in the case I saw I've been like changing my mind about the UAD processing for voiceover and it's because I've had a client come to me that had somebody else set it up for them and even though I was telling clients similar advice as this other fellow was it hearing it from the other side from a third party made me realize that what I'm telling people can be difficult. So I was putting in you know a preamp and maybe a compressor and an EQ and then they would say well how do I change the levels and I'd be like well if you turn the gain you're actually just increasing the input to the compressor which is effectively changing the threshold and then it's like pressing more. Right head explodes right. If you've gotten the Apollo you want to be able to just turn the damn mic up and down with that knob. Right exactly. And if you've got all that stuff inserted it doesn't necessarily do that. If you're using an EQ fine but if you're using compression and limiters and stuff and I love the LA-2 legacy thing it's amazing. That it too. It's then I if they're using the LA-2 I have to say okay so when you want to adjust the level you're going to go to the out the gain knob on the LA-2A which is actually the output knob which is totally confusing and blah it just makes people's melt down. So record turn off all that crap just turn on the preamp use the native pre and just record until you get to this point where you're doing a lot of high-paste just in time got to turn it around you're looking at any way to shave time off production then I think it makes sense to to start doing the front end stuff like that. Yeah this is this is a luxury it's a toy of what we're talking about I can't think of any instance where these UAD plugins that you run live and it's permanent to tape right in the recording you can't fix it. These are all luxury things not meaning like it's unattainable I just mean like none of them are fixing an inherent problem that you may already have in your audio like these are like oh I kind of want it to sound a bit more warm in the mid-range or you know you there are like there's like a de-esser and stuff like that that'll help with some sip but that's like about it you know and a high-pass filter but that you don't need a plugin for that there's a built-in high-pass filter on most mics on higher end mics or built-in on on every preamp. 99.9% of what most of you're doing is going to be you can fix it in post a little bit. And that exactly but the question but wasn't the question do we like the emulation compared to the hardware? That wasn't exactly the question but just basically what do you think of those plugins I think is essentially what Paul is saying and I think we've pretty much said we think they're pretty damn good. Yeah they're they're not yeah yeah they're really good yeah you know the funnest thing I ever do I'll sorry it's time to wrap this up yeah but go ahead the funnest thing I get to do as a tech now is someone goes and buys the whole kit which is the Apollo twin and a towns and labs L22 we got and they set it up like and then I can from my studio over source connect point the mic wherever I want change the proximity effect change the models create a whole chain my one client bought the ocean wave plugins he bought whole freaking Maris got them all oh my god dude she's like she spends more time tweaking all her mics and playing with them then getting Mara needs nothing I know she doesn't need it but she she it's bad yeah but it's so good anyway so in conclusion and I think people need to remember that all of this stuff was designed for musicians for recording music and producers people who know their stuff people who have been doing it for years and years and years and understand how they are bending the sound and how they are changing it when you're in your closet doing voiceover work these should really be the last of your concerns but if you're geeky and you want to have fun and you want to learn how to do it you got to go out you got to go out and play but I wouldn't risk you know a nice good job on it because now all this is going to be really cool most of the microphones were not designed for voiceover they were designed for music recording right unless you're going back to ribbons and stuff like that which you're fine but damn anyway so final word Jordan quickly on what I don't know how does one get a hold of you oh google jordan reynolds yeah probably i found jordan reynolds.com yeah i'm mostly active on instagram if you if you want to get my attention he likes cats i like cats i love my cat i'm a cat daddy i'm a convert it's Mary's cat uncle Roy uncle Roy's hope to see everybody at vio atlanta and other conferences that i'm not allowed to talk about because we're under contract with vio atlanta um until vio atlanta's over right and see everybody at my house october 3rd and 4th hey barbecue try making this you know bbs and how do they get a hold of you uh antland productions dot com all right cliff i hope to see everybody too at vio atlanta um we're going to be doing some things a little bit different it's going to be a lot of fun um you can get in touch with me uh 24 7 email address c zelman 10 at gmail.com and visit a-mazing demos.com to hear some fun stuff so thank you guys for for having us on all right well this is what John is a little bit on the geeky end towards the end but you know look damn it but you but if you're time yeah you know how you love that stuff anyway we'll be back to wrap things up into a nice tight little ball right after this this is ariana rattner and you're listening to voiceover body shop vlbs.tv voiceover essentials.com is still ringing in the new year and for a short time only get their improved voice optimized headphones these right here at a special 2020 savings the voiceover headphones 2.0 the latest addition of their best selling voice optimized headphones have arrived with 100 accurate transparent sound and the creature comforts voice actors deserve none of the booming bass or shrill high end found in other headphones coupled with engineering that makes them an absolute joy to wear enhancements to the 2.0 headphones include a thicker more comfortable headband plus a new combo coiled straight cord with mini plugs and a quarter inch screw-on adapter and a thicker felt line travel pouch the fold flat ear cup design gives the 2.0 cans a smaller footprint when traveling and most importantly we've boosted the mid-range clarity with reduced bass these are usually $149 now 2020 off $129.88 sort of this introductory offer only lasts for a short time so order now it features the studio monitoring headphones closed back over ear design more comfortable thicker padded leather headband leather covered memory foam ear pads and includes two gold plated mini plugs and a studio standard quarter inch screw-on adapter new headphones mini jack for cord replacements it comes out just like that go over to voiceover essentials.com right now and buy them while they're on sale well hello there i bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat were you this is virgin radio well okay we're not that innocent there's jeans for wearing and there's jeans for working dickies because i ain't here to look pretty she's a champion of progressive values a leader for california and a voice for america it's smart it's a phone it's a smart phone but it's so much more it's the files are ready don't forget to pick up the eggs what time is hockey practice check out this song it's the end of the road for rig this is your knee rig when hope is lost the i8 from vmw who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish hey it's j michael collins bet you think i'm gonna try and sell you a demo now huh i think they speak for themselves but i will give you my email it's j michael at jmcvoiceover.com now if dan will stop waxing his mustache for a minute we'll get back to the show hey everybody it's time to talk about source elements you know who they are the creators of source connect that tool that you don't have what you don't have it you should have it it's that tool that allows you to connect your studio to other studios around the world so they can record you from your booth it's a tool you should have because even if you're not being asked for it now you might be asked for it tomorrow or in a month or in a year you want to have it ready to go and know how to use it it's really the air apparent to isdn technology and it is definitely what the pros are using you can go ahead and sign up for a 15 day free trial of source connect over at source elements.com get it up and running get your iLock account in order there's a little video on there i'll teach you how to do it by yours truly and it'll help you get up and running so you can understand how it all works then that day that you get the gig you can activate the license it's a no-brainer give it a try thanks for your support source elements and we'll see you right after this break hi this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop it's great well that was fun we're a little off-center there but anyway well no that that was a total geek out oh man i know how you love geeking out was it good for you that's over here man uh anyway uh next week another great guest and uh if you there's a guest somebody you'd like to see on the show let us know write to us at the guys at v obs dot tv and uh say hey i want to hear this person i got a lot of people lined up we're just trying to get the dates in yeah it's busy time here yeah he's working for yeah which is good work is good yeah uh who are our donors this week our donors include ant land productions who's that guy uh graham spicer joseph harrison christy burns michael kerns caron o bryant thank you care thank you care she's a sweet love you uh harlow rodriguez don griffith and martha kahn another sweetie friend yes icon productions she's the best i right all right uh hey show us your boots it's fun to be out in the universe floating around you know i've always wanted to wondered would it be like out in space but send us your booths show us what you're doing uh even if it's a closet but just make sure it's in landscape not portrait uh also um we got to plug ourselves real quick okay i'm george the tech you can find me at george the dot tech because you know short domains um but if that makes your head melt it's george the tech dot com and i've got menus on there of lots of services probably too many options so then you'll go to the contact page where you'll send me a message and ask me which of the 73 different things i have on there they should probably do which happens a lot and that's totally fine um but there's you can send me files for sound checking or have stacks done tune in your apollo plugins whatever it's all it's all on there dan's website is voiceoverstudio.com head on over there love working with beginners if you have no idea what you're doing i can help you i have a degree in education so i can actually teach this stuff uh and get you where you need to be uh and you can drop off your audio using my specimen collection cup 25 bucks i will analyze your current audio and we'll see if it's up to snuff or whatever it's supposed to be whistle whistle what it's supposed to sound like all right uh let's see here we need to thank our sponsors you go first again okay harlan hogan's voiceover essentials uh voiceover extra source elements voiceover heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and j michael collins demos quality matters also uh the dan and marcy lennard foundation for the betterment of live and recorded webcasting and uh sumer lino for amazing work dealing with these five maniacs tonight trying to get uh stuff together so you can all understand it uh well if by chance you are a voice actor you've come to the right place uh this is not an easy business but we're here to help you make it sound good because if it sounds good it's probably pretty good all right thanks to all our guests tonight i'm dan lennard i'm george wittem and this is voiceover i just did that i'm george wittem let's take that again i'm dan lennard i'm george wittem and this is voiceover body shop or vio b s have a great week everybody we'll see you next time