 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk number one oh Two to two. Okay. I'll do the one you and the zero and you do the two Yeah, one oh two and so tonight we've got we're talking about some acoustical stuff and we've got an interview Yeah, I'm a studio in Seattle Yeah, and we're gonna talk about software and again if you've got a question about your home voiceover studio Anything at all acoustics equipment any of those things throw it in the chat room right now We'll get to it in the next segment. So stay tuned. It's time for voiceover body shop tech talk right now Voiceover body shop tech talk is brought to you by voiceover essentials calm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect Voheroes comm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor comm your voice over website ready in minutes voiceover extra your daily resource for voiceover success and by world voices the industry association of freelance voice talent and Now here's your hosts Dan and George Well, hello there, I'm Dan Leonard I'm George with him. Are you sure and this is voiceover my shop or VO? B as Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk. Where's that button? Nope, that's not it either. I'm gonna put tech talk back on the mixer. Okay tech talk Tech talk, okay, that works Anyway, we're here to talk about your home voiceover studio technology Because boy you and I get questions all week the phone keeps ringing the email inbox continues to flow with questions about all sorts of stuff and we have to have the answers for everything Which we have to try our best because we've seen it all It's always cool when there's something new it's like Hmm, I wonder what that's going on here, but Amazingly when you've done this for a long time the way George and I have been doing Generally the things that go wrong have a pattern. They have a history they they we know where things probably go wrong and Generally, it's like wait a second. I know what's happening We were talking on another podcast the other day For example, if somebody was having a trouble They were saying that their their their interface was working fine and then it wasn't Hmm and We hate that I'm think yeah, and it's like well wonder what what would have changed Because generally solid-state stuff just doesn't break Yeah, it's I was trying to explain to my mother-in-law You know, they did your your brand-new Samsung TV does not break unless you hit it with the sledgehammer So but it's not can't get CNN, but anyway It's it turned out to be it was probably a wall wart You know the transformer went went bad and you got to replay those are the types of things that we deal with And it's like oh, yeah, that's what it is and it's I by the way There's nothing more fun than doing all this Anyway, it is fun. Yeah, so if you want to work with one of us You know what you've got a technical issue or you have no idea what you're doing Like, you know, where's the record button? How do I use my mic you talking to? Yeah, we don't you don't want to talk into the wrong side of the mic you want to talk into the right side of Those are those are the unusually that's like either you're talking in the wrong side of the mic or someone has set their Their mic on their laptop as the input. Why do I sound so far away because you are Anyway, if you'd like to work with one of them and help you solve your problems and teach you how to do all this right All you got to do is let me see I got to find where all this stuff is now all them lower-thirds or Where are the lower-thirds in the banner area? Oh, they're in banners. That's right so if if you want to Work with George you go on over to Hey, there it is George the dot tech that is our home on the web for tech support We've got a whole team of folks over there now available to help you You can get on demand or emergency support through our tech support hotline at 424 226 8 5 2 8 and Or you can just start real basic. In fact, what we did recently had a new thing called Our first timer service and what it is is a place where you can come in and let us know Exactly what you need So if we might have rich green take over the support for you if it's a really simple Newbie issue and if it's something more advanced rich will then help you get Inconnected with somebody else on our team including me for a higher level more technical issues So we have an onboarding process if you just don't know where to start But that's something that we do here a bit over it Dan's place The home voiceover studio comm he's doing some of his own brand of tech support. Yeah, it's and and it's usually weird stuff Like why is this happening? That's been the real brand of the day lately is why is this has happening then? There's been a lot more of it lately whether it's retrograde mercury or it's the Russians or who knows Or was that Chinese balloon that was throwing everything too many Chinese balloons? That's right and So go on over to home voiceover studio comm all of a sudden my specimen collection cup has become very full With lots of people saying Did they ever spill? No, I've never spills over. Thank God But I gotta catch I have a lot to catch up on because people are piling those things in there I'll give you a very thorough analysis of your audio and tell you what it's supposed to sound like and what you probably need To do to fix it unless it sounds really good in which case I'll say hey, it sounds pretty good Anyway, so that's our plug a palusa for this week It's time for George and his tech update and you've got a couple of interviews. I do I do I well the first one is a little interview from GIK acoustics from Nam show, which was a couple of weeks ago I did a bunch of dinner different product vendor interviews But you know, we love to talk acoustics on the show and gik glenn kerik glenn Last name is totally out the back of my head glenn k who was there He is I'd say an innovator and a and a great creates really good attractive well-performing products Here's a little profile from Nam show of the products at glenn gik acoustics I got someone here from gik right now. It's gonna give us a little information about the product line. How you doing Nick? Hey, how you doing? I'm great. Thank you Tell us about some of the panels that and products that would be really great for a voiceover booth They tend to be really smaller spaces, you know, so just come around here I'll show you So for a vocal booth and the voiceover rooms If you go for like fully treating the space we usually use the two for four panel Because that covers the entire range down to 80 Hertz, which is perfect for It comes in a local range really you can put your whole room with them and maybe fine if you look at for something more portable We have our paper our portal isolation booth So that is a modular Modular panel you can actually fold it together bring it with you throw it in the truck If you're on the road you can combine multiple Pips freighter an isolation booth And then you can tear it down and store it in the closet if you've done so a lot of voiceover artists also use that Just let's see what that sounds like in here. Whoa, it sucks away the room ambience big time Yeah, it's really sucks the ambience. Yeah, I mean that really kills all the reverb Going around so that's the approach and if you look in into upgrading them a little bit more We always recommend base traps like corner modules. That's our software That's probably a little bit oversized. We also do the tri trap the half half size of those So they just go in the corner you can stack them and then you can treat the low-end between 70 and 150 Hertz if you have some resonance in the room You always have resonance in the room. Yeah, exactly. I mean Women have less problems Because they're the local ventures higher. Yes. Exactly. But a male voice just goes down to a bring down 80 or even lower sometimes So I don't have a deep voice and I can still get a room at 80 Hertz to ring with my trigger it And then it's it's ringing and then you get them in the recording So you kind of want to have base traps. However, the two for four as mentioned They go for low so you can get away with them as well You know something this big looks it looks really giant for a small booth But if you think about when you put in the corner and you actually use it to hold a computer monitor and user You use it functionally It doesn't take up as much space that you can have your copy stand and your audio interface sitting on this and it's useful It's not it's not taking up as much space as you think. Yeah, exactly. And also if you're like something more We have a turbo trap You can use it as a stand as well supports up to 100 pounds And again, it's great base trap and utilize our new DDM technology Which basically extends the absorption down to 70 Hertz effectively. So You can put it in corners. You can use it as freestand inside your open boot Yeah, basically kill the roommates Excellent. Well, it's always great to see you guys have going on Really, you guys have the ultimate in high quality panels and I really appreciate your quality control and the creativity of your products The best stuff we get all our products measured at Riverbank labs or the South for University in England So we actually know how they perform inside the room, which is important because we also do free advice for our customers And we kind of need to know how they the pounds perform inside room. That's really important proper advice And arrive at the result Thanks a lot that look for the science guys. Don't buy things based on hearsay. Look at the sign Len This is the creator CEO and designer Creates beautiful acoustical panels that are really based in acoustical science There's a diffusion. This is a panel use it uses something called binary diffusion and this is a calculated but random pattern and You could use this as a way to make a small room have a little bit more life to it If you're afraid of it being too dead sounding He said that somebody who's been using these in a vocal booth and it'd be interesting to try it out But yeah, I mean they do beautiful art panels, too Their their art printing is second to none. In fact, these are the panels that I had put in for JMC J. Michael Collins because the printing process is so Fine and it doesn't clog the screen. So the sound still goes passes through it doesn't reflect off. So Thanks a lot, Nick There were all of things at the NAMM show and it was overwhelming but the noise floor Yikes was really overwhelming hearing it now and out of context or when I'm playing it back It's kind of shocking how loud it was in that place. That's why you monitor while you're recording. I was But you know, you're in this loud room. So you're your room tone of the entire environment is so loud You don't even realize Oh that that big round bass trap thing. He showed up like a pedestal Yeah, that does seem overkill But now I thought about it like you put that in a corner of a booth and it's gonna suck up a lot of that ringingness and you're gonna have a place to put your monitor or your computer actually Yeah, it's really not that bad of an idea when you think about it, you know Interesting another thing I was guys gonna gonna show you is I do have an interview. It's kind of long. I don't want to get into Too much length of it But what I thought I might do is show you a teaser and what it is it's an interview where I got to talk to the owners of a studio in Seattle called bad animals and It has an interesting history. So I'll play a little bit maybe about five minutes of that interview Just to give you a teaser if you want to see the rest It's I just uploaded it. It's up at George the dot tech YouTube channel and you can watch the 25-minute version of this interview, but here's a little chat with the owners of bad animals And it's a studio where we designed a really really nice big 11-foot ceilinged voiceover booths. So here's a little bit from that It's George the tech and I'm getting to interview a special client today Because not every day I get to work with commercial studios, especially studios with such a history as this one And I've got a big team here today from bad animals in Seattle To tell us about the process and really more about their studio Would each of you go around the room and tell me a little bit about who you are on the team and we'll start there starting on the sofa Hi, I'm Wendy. I am the production manager here at bad animals I manage clients projects Workflow and I'm the only one that's not an engineer. So I do everything That they do not Very valuable everybody knows that we'll edit auditions and stuff. Oh, that's good. They make you do that too. Hey, I Don't know what clockwise is because I don't know if the cameras reverse But I'll go back to Mike because I know Mike's name off the top of my head Mike Owner bad animals sound designer primarily bad animals and what else do I say? You're an owner who gets your hands dirty. You're actually in production and doing stuff. Yeah, I mean we're Operated Also there too, and I've been here 31 years You have many stories and another time and another place We're going to get into those stories on another show too moving on Tom Tom McGurk. I'm also owner Composer and sound designer and engineer as well, and I've been here 32 years At one year. He's gonna hold it over your head for the forever And lastly Nassman not least in the front Yeah, my name is Paul Miller and I've been here full-time for exactly one year now and I Freelance here for a long time before that, but yeah now my home is now here at bad animals And I'm a sound designer audio engineer and Rerecording mixer cat lover. Yeah, and I like cats I Would love to share with our viewers a little bit of a slice of history of bad animals And so would one be gentlemen Tom or Mike tag team and guess a little bit of a background of the bad animals studio Both Mike and I started a place called Lawson productions, which in the 70s was called K Smith studios owned by Lester Smith who was a guy that owned a lot of radio stations up and down the West Coast and Danny K the famous actor in the 70s There were a lot of really famous bands that came through like Barracuda was done there Steve Miller's Fly like an eagle Stevie Wonder on and on and then that studio was purchased by Steve Lawson productions And then he called it Lawson productions. Telly partnered with Anna Nancy Wilson They changed the name to bad animals and they built a very large recording studio at the old facility We were at on 4th Avenue, which is now going to be a 32-story office towers currently being built So that went on in 1999 after Mike and I worked on building the science guy together all the way through the run And after that in 1999 we partnered with Dave Howe who is a mix engineer who came from Universal in Florida and Charlie Nordstrom and we all bought the studio and kept it going as bad animals But the post-production side so it split off into studio X Which was the big music room and then we had six studios there that were post-production studios And we just kept going until they sold the building in 2017 and then Mike actually found this place Which is victory studios up here in Seattle and it's an awesome place to be and We had to get in here as fast as possible So the room that we're in now was half as big because the voice booth was actually in this room But we just found out the room that we're in was purpose built in the 90s to be an incredibly Nice mix room and it actually has turned out once we pulled the voice booth out this room is a really beautiful sounding room So very long interview. We're just getting started But if you want to see the rest, it's on my YouTube channel George the tech and we get into sort of the studio How it's set up what we went into the design of their new booth Etc. So that kind of thing interest you go, please take it a check and take a look Last quickie thing is I was going to mention this stuff from waves and waves plugins They went through a little bit of a tough go the last couple of months because they As a company thought that everybody was going to be happy with going full subscription For all of their plugins and they got a bit of a blowback for that They pivoted decided not to make everybody sign on to a subscription plan and allow people to buy Each and every one of their plugins at 29 bucks, but I'm not here to sell you plugins I'm here to tell you about a free one. This is a completely free plugin from Waves called studio rack and it took me a while to wrap my head around Why this is good or why it's useful or what the heck you would do with it? What we're one of the things we're gonna talk about tonight and we'll get back to what George was talking about In my basic basics is what I'm now calling this segment I get a lot of calls from and and emails from people saying, you know Telling me what it is that they're they're doing and what equipment they're using and one of the things that keeps coming up Which boggles my mind and I really want to find the answer to this question Because and there's gonna some of you gonna while I use that I know what it's about People are using a Reaper Now everybody's it's the greatest thing ever. I don't know Maybe I'm just really really old school Reaper is one of those things that It's a multi-track program. If you were watching last week and we were talking with Robert Marshall all of this stuff is made for recording music and It you don't need all of this complicated stuff. For example, I mean just all you have to do It's take a look at the the interface with with the Reaper and Let's see It's right here and we just go into there and then share the screen and there we have Reaper Now, what is it with Reaper? first off How do you make it work and what it's is all what does it all do? Guess what and ever some of you out there gonna go Oh, yeah, yeah, you're just trying to get you know trying to complain about something Yeah, I am complaining about something. The fact of the matter is is Reaper has so much more than what you would ever possibly need For doing voiceover yet. I Keep her well somebody said I should use that Well, first off somebody Probably already knows how to use it and may have been using it for years It's just not an easy interface to use I mean George and I were talking about this before I'm like, how do you arm the how do you arm the whole thing? Well, you arm it from there and then you hit record and then it's supposed to start Recording and it doesn't even do that Basically, I look at Reaper as like a box of Legos. I was using this analogy earlier with Dan It's like a box of Legos on the front of the box is a picture of a little house, right? But what you want is a car So as long as your idea with Reaper is to do one specific thing, which is multi-track record live or a recording It's set to do that right out of the box But if you wanted to do voiceover production, you have to completely rebuild the Lego kit To turn it into something that's useful for voiceover production or least efficient You know, I can figure out any software out there and I can roll through this I think that that StreamYard is probably interfering a little bit of what we're trying to make this work Well, Chrome Chrome gave me a gave gave me a hard time I had a quick Chrome just to get back my audio working on the show. Okay, right But you know, but this is why I'm bringing this up because all you guys are like well I've got to use this because that's what people say I should use Fact of the matter is is you really don't need to to do any of that Because there are much simpler programs if you're if you're thinking that You know that Reaper notice stop recording first. It wasn't recording in the first place for crying out loud Okay, please stop recording. I did stop recording. See this is this is why it's stupid It's it just doesn't doesn't want to do what it's supposed to do. Oh Anyway Here's something a lot simpler and you guys you should not Overthink all this stuff for example here's something that you know, you just jump in it's called twisted wave and Instead of arming the track and setting a new track and doing all that stuff you open the program You hit record and you start recording. I mean come on You know, it's like okay. Well, you know in Reaper you've got all this stuff. It's like you know I can make custom buttons that that's right You can do and customize everything with this you can record. You don't like that. You delete it You want this over here? You know command C and you put it in here and I mean come on It's it's not rocket science. It literally isn't rocket science Yeah, it was to wave is like a word processor for audio almost. It's really straightforward. The other ones are Hopefully frustrating. Yeah, it really comes down to What is everybody's like? Well, what's the what's this software? What's this dog? What's this thing? What's that thing? Forget about all that stuff. Yeah, you can try it. You can learn it. The thing is You know, my son is always asking me. He says, how do I do this? I'm like well Take about 20 years Practice and do it Because you're not going to learn this stuff overnight you have to understand After a while you get the feel and the understanding of what it is that this software does and how it does it and You don't need all of this other stuff. That's why I'm always constantly harping on the idea That the most important thing when you were home for your home voiceover studio is the acoustics of the room Mm-hmm. So Yeah, I mean yeah, that's a bit of a rant but we love gadgets. We love software It's it's fun to play with this stuff But if it ever gets in the way of you're finishing a job Anyway, yeah, we want to keep tools simple when they're used in live production environments If you're doing recordings on your own Let's say you have this big e-learning project and you have three months to do it You get all the time in the world to learn Experiment try to find automated ways to do certain things and save time The rest of the voiceover world is more high-paced. It requires a deadline. It requires Efficiency and reliability and we want tools that don't get in your way guys. That's what we care about. So Yeah, we just finished a teaching module on Reaper. We had Stephen cunning Stephen Gonzalez come on And he really does know his stuff Even I had my eyes rolling to the back of my head watching how to set up Reaper for voiceover So why use it in the first place when you can just it just hit record and do your job All right, we got lots of great questions from our vast audience So we'll get to those in just a couple of minutes. So stay tuned. We'll be right back after these important message This is Bill Radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with Dan Leonard and George Whidham V obs dot TV Vacation time is just around the corner Around the world for example Here's Australian voiceover pro Andrew Peters on vacation in London recording a commercial with his port-a-booth pro Why is the port-a-booth pro gaining users worldwide? Well, just listen winter's tough the rain the wind Cold performers can capture great audio even an acoustically untreated spaces with the port-a-booth pro your microphone Here's the sound of a human-sized sound booth at a fraction of the size and cost The pro accommodates large and long microphones lengthy scripts and e-reading devices The Harlan Hogan port-a-booth pro is lined with Aurelix studio foam It's a professional quality sound studio that assembles in less than a minute and its Multi-pocketed carrying case makes it super easy to take your gear and your voice wherever you go order your Harlan Hogan Port-a-booth pro now just 389 99 only at voiceover essentials calm Well at the time of the show where we talk about source elements and their flagship software source connect Which is a tool that every voice actor who's really kind of taking their game up to that next level Should have in their toolbox now. Here's the thing. I've been hearing people say well. Do I need a subscription? Should I buy it outright? I don't like subscriptions Okay, there's a couple ways to use it and a couple ways to own it So some folks do like the buy-out thing and what that means is you buy it up front and you own that license for life It does mean that over time the license loses value essentially in that when there's new versions coming out a year or two Or four later you will have to pay an upgrade fee But the good news is that you own it for life And you don't necessarily have to upgrade it until a totally new version comes out probably sometime by the end of this year But let's say you just want to test it out. You can do that You can get a demo source dash elements calm get a demo start playing around with it Learn it sends it out You can even actually get certified and what that means is you get tested and run through some training By the team at source elements to make sure that you really understand not only how source connect works But how your own studio works Really actually a pretty good idea, right? You're not just saying I'm certified You're saying I really do understand my gear and and what works and what how it works and how it's all interconnected Or and even how to deal with a troubleshooting issue on the fly And that's the kind of thing that a certification can help you with But let's say you've got the demo But you're not going to pay for it because you're not getting those clients You can even activate a two-day license just to get source connect for brief periods of time So lots of ways to pay and use source connect head over to source dash elements calm and get started And we'll be right back to answer tech questions right after this Hey there, it's David H. Lawrence the 17th What's it like for you when you check your email and there is a voiceover audition waiting for you to dive in and You go great. This is awesome. And then that fear starts to creep in. Am I good enough? Do I know what I'm doing? Am I going to give them what they want? Listen I've been there and so has my friend Michael Kostrov who is now one of my voiceover clients very excited about that He's applied his audition psych 101 process and method to voiceover And it's awesome. He's got three free Uh lessons right now that are available at audition psych 101.com slash join That's audition psych 101.com slash join go watch these right now by the time you watch this Maybe they're all out who knows but it's worth every moment to help you get your mind right On the psychology of auditioning audition psych 101.com Slash join Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop All right, we're back With a bunch of questions You still have time to throw your questions in here If you happen to have a question for for us about your home voiceover studio The first one was mailed in so therefore it goes first in the queue. That's right From patrick lug read he says i want to ask you about headphones Okay, we'll talk about headphones. I recently made the switch from a pair of fairly high-end sony headphones He says they're mdr 75 20s But I think have been discontinued and I don't know the model of A pair of of the pair of barren dynamic dt 770 Zero pro 80 ohms which I saw george recommends in the gear section of his website Love the sound of the sony's But the plastic body made noise when I would talk and it would often get picked up during live sessions When I switched to the the the bare dynamics I noticed that the sound they offered lacked the bass and richness of the sony's Which in turn didn't make my voice sound as rich full and deep as I was used to But the sony's also seemed to reveal things like I I didn't want any my auditions and takes such as plosive clicks and so on You couldn't hear them in the other ones. Can you talk about what headphones should offer? Which offer the wrong things and what those wrong things are? Thank you very much Well, thank you for that question patrick. No, but it's a great question because it's like Well, what headphones are going to be really really good? For and make me sound the way I like sounding as opposed to I had to look these up, right? I I'd never heard of them before Um, and it's not like they're a really old model. I don't think men don't look old No, but uh, they they discontinued them. Maybe because they were $500. They weren't selling very well Not really sure. Um But it stinks when you have a pair of headphones that you like to sound of But they don't do everything really well So what do you like to use in your studio for your headphones? What do you find comfortable and have good fidelity? I I have my harlin hogan signature series headphones. They are they have a very flat response and I'm wearing them right now too, and I'm I'm moving my head around to see if they make any weird noises or They don't and they're incredibly comfortable. They're made of metal Not plastic, which is you know something that harlin was really Thought was really important when he designed them But you you like the bare dynamics. I know well, I got them both and I got my bare bar dynamics on now And um, they're quite different from each other. They feel different on my head. They sound different to my ears They have a different character I find these humongous ear cups these big soft billowy ear cups to be really comfortable So I like that feel I can eventually get used to the sound of different headphones These harlin hogan sound different than the dt 770s these sound different from the sonys Those sound different from the audio technicus, right? They all have a different sound What it comes down to is get something that you can wear For long periods of time that don't irritate you And you will eventually learn the sound of the headphones. It will take you time But you will learn them Moose who's been on who's asked questions on our show. I saw him post on facebook recently said I have sony headphones They're this and that I tried these other ones. I tried the austrian audio x60s or something like that. I didn't like them I said just You got to get used to them bottom line is you need to be able to wear them for hours on end Have them be comfortable enough to wear But you will get used to those different headphones. So you have to just Find something you like wearing because that's something you can't really change if if they're not comfortable You're always going to hate them. I mean, I've got headphones over here These are one of the best sounding headphones made in the history of headphones And they're horribly uncomfortable. I would never wear these You know, like I don't care how good they sound. They're uncomfortable So I would say pick things that are comfortable first and you can kind of become accustomed to it the these versus the via the The Harlan Hogan's The hard Harlan Hogan's are a bit mid-range forward. They have a little bit more mid-range forward sound Which when I'm talking on mic and wearing headphones is pleasing sounding But that doesn't really matter for production. It only matters That the end result sound good, you know, so right and the thing is is Those of you who are wearing headphones while you're recording unless you're listening to a director or something Don't wear them because that sucks you into the sound of your own voice It's distracting. Yeah. Yeah, the only reason that you know, we wear headphones on here is because we can't get the mix minus to work and On stream yard. We need we need to have yeah, no echo and we do need we're live, right? So we need to confirm that the audio is functioning all the time. So we have to live monitor. That's right And tonight it's you know, rather challenging Uh, although it seems to sound okay at the moment So at the moment I'm I'm gonna make sure I don't touch anything with my feet Because apparently I bumped a cable into the desk. Oh, that's what things you're fault. Okay. I think that's what it was But yeah, no, I you know, I like these because they're very flat sounding Um, but I hardly use them the only time I use them is when we're doing this show Right or if I'm doing a session a live session, you know I was doing a live session with five guys in turkey this week Wow. Wow. Yeah, and and and I have lots of great stories about doing Sessions in other countries Norway, you know Turkey, I mean they gave me a lot of work too, which was great. Um, yeah I'm now on all these four truck commercials in turkey Go figure, but I I needed to be able to hear them and uh direct and it works great But for the most part I I just recorded my norm my natural environment. I'm hardly using the studio anymore I'm about here on my desk and that's the stuff that's going on the network stuff. So You know, then again this this when do you go into the booth versus sitting at your desk? What is there certain things we're like? I think I should go on my booth It's that little voice in the back of my head that says, okay, I got to go use the 416 I got to go be in the booth Although the more I'm doing it out here the more I'm thinking, you know, that would make a great closet so Yeah, but you know, but I you know when other people come in here, you know If we're recording some character work for for jacob's animation or we're doing a project uh for for somebody Yeah, somebody comes in to record a podcast Absolutely, they go in the booth so I can operate things That's right. Yeah, but you don't need to be wearing headphones All the time unless of course you don't want to disturb everybody and for editing You really do need to have a good pair of headphones But not something that overemphasizes the bass and makes your voice sound rich because guess what? Your voice sounds like your voice and no matter what you do with the headphones It's not going to sound that way On the other end for whoever's ever getting you on. Yeah, there is no pair of headphones that gives you a Honest or perfect representation of the audio every pair of headphones Whether designed to be flat or not have a sound They all do so whatever it is You just have to become really familiar with them. That's why I've been using the same two pairs Well, I retired one pair, but I've been using the same biodynamic headphones. They have new versions of them They have upgraded versions of them. There's the pro 770 x There's the 17 70s But no, they they will all sound a little bit different I don't want to learn new headphones and I like the way they feel. So that's my Headphones are so personal even more than microphones Yeah, you know to me headphones are what you listen to ping for as far as I'm concerned Uh, but that's just me Because I I generally don't worry about you know, I have good studio monitors And once you have a good set studio setup studio monitors are a really good thing to have If you don't that is if you don't have to bother Anyway, next question from oh look at this from epic voice guy. You want to take this one? Sure Um, he says is there any good option for a lightning adapter compatible lavalier mic For iphone or ipad that works with existing apps like instagram tiktok or the built-in camera The road makes that that that thing that you clip on Well, they have the road video mic go Right was that what's called? No, they have the road mic go Which is a little transmitter kit that you can put one on your phone and one on your body right Um, those are okay the ones that I But he's what he needs is he's doing live streaming. So he's or he's recording into these apps So he's recording an instagram or tiktok. I'm assuming here with the or the built-in camera And so he needs that signal to go live into the phone and what my experience with doing live audio into an iphone Into an app over lightning has been very unreliable like really bad I mean, it's we we were at via we were at vio Atlanta, right? I had the porkcaster with me Um, I had it plugged in with a lightning cable. No, no, that's not true. I had it with me I was using the road video mic go to With a lightning adapter into my iphone and I had the road Representative showing me how to do it And we tested it and we he's like here's what you do You load the video mic app or the road app You make sure the road app gets the right signal from the right source because the video apps don't have an input selector for audio You don't know what the hell it's going to use. Is it going to use the mic in the phone? Or is it going to use the mic in your device? You don't know So you go through this process long story short dan I did how many packages that I record and say hey dan. Here's all these videos use them on the show Did any of them have audio? No, they did not not a one Not a one So my takeaway is and I I don't want to rant tonight And we've already ranted to enough we've it's been a rant fast apple I effing hate you with a passion of a thousand burning suns because you will not give the users a selection input selection For choosing your audio device in ios You just refuse We're on version 16.4. If you haven't done it by now, you're probably never going to do it and I hate you for it I'm not much of a ramp there The macOS you can select the effing mic No question you can choose what input you're using You're good, right iphone No Well, it's a crap shoot. Yeah, I mean they do make some some mics for it. I mean we've got the the go and the There's and then sure makes the mv88 I'm telling you I used the video mic go pro go to For iphone and had no audio on six videos That's what I'm telling you That's why you monitor it as you're recording. I was I monitored the whole thing But the files I gave you did they have audio on them? Not a bit. No, okay, so that's my point So what's the solution? Um, it's hard to know because Of the reliability issue um, I would use An apple headset adapter, they're like ten dollars You know, it's the little thing that goes from lightning to a headset jack Right, it's the thing that the it was the it was the stopgap after they removed the headphone jack from the phone right I would use that And then I would use um I would use honestly if you're really serious about this thing and I know you are because I know you I would use something like this Because not only can you feed the audio into your phone on via usb lightning You can also feed it in through the trs cable tr rs cable And it has its own recorder in it So you have redundancy here. You can record a backup Dan and I did interviews at vio north using this thing and we had Several with no audio and we had the recording in this thing as a backup So we were able to sync it up later Saved our butt saved us a lot of wasted frustration and time Right um and having that backup recorder is crucial. I think the dji mics as well dji mic Are killer because they also have internal built-in recording So yeah, again same if you have connectivity issues, you're doing an interview You can't monitor the audio going into instagram You have no idea if the audio is working or not Or something else or you're doing a A record video record You can put the audio back in later because the recording is internally Stored in the mic and it does it automatically the second you pull the mic out of those little charging case It starts recording It's really hard to screw it up It's what I it's what I had uh allison patrick get for For her show for allison wonderland is those dji mics. So Yeah, that's I would recommend backup recording mics like that. It just will save you a lot of Great question from grace newton since we were talking about software. She's I've been hearing about Again, I've been hearing about Uh a digital audio workstation called Descript How long has it been around and what are the key features? I love twisted wave How does descript differ from that if you like twisted wave? Why bother but do you know anything about the script? I haven't heard a whole lot I've been using it extensively. Okay do tell um So what descript does is they're trying to strip away the audio engineering side of recording audio and Leave as much of that to the to ai and other tools like, you know Automated tools as possible. So what does that mean? You still have to have a decent mic You still got to put it in the right place. You still have to do all the right things Coming into your computer But once the audio is captured in descript It has some automation features that can save you time one of them is automatic transcription And that really is the descript Business model like if you run it in basic mode or free mode and don't use the transcription You're good. You can use trans you can use descript as much as you want or free Absolutely for free, but they won't give you transcription Okay, well, so you don't need transcription. That's fine. But that is the whole point of the script is the transcription Because once it's transcribed all your audio Into a script now you can edit the audio by editing the script So now it feels like editing in a word processor So you can go through go. Well, you know what this whole part we were just getting ready to start the show highlight Delete and it edits it you this part is where I stumbled and I said it again I can highlight the the first take not not the waveform but the text Delete it and it makes the edit the edits are perfectly crossfaded They don't have a clicker pop and it makes a pretty good edit Now it has another feature that is a dangerous one that I do not recommend using it for pro use And that is the automatic filler word detection and removal function The interview that are scary on its own Well, I just used it on the interview that I was showing earlier where I when I recorded the interview with bad animals The first thing I did when I brought the file in was I said detect all of the filler words filler words are um Uh things like this, right? And then instead of just detecting them. I said just get rid of them, right? So it went through and found every instance of uh or um And just did jump cuts. It basically cuts the word out, right? It worked good on about 80% of it the last 20% it made a mess out of it It just needed a lot more editing to clean it up, right? So it's it's clever It can end up making you think you're saving time But you end up having to go back and fix the things that it tried to automate So it's not perfect for everything, but it does have cool features like you can make an audiogram I did a little video on centrance on the centrance passport recently It was an audio recording from clubhouse And then we had a little waveform bouncing around on the bottom of the screen That's called an audiogram. The software does that for you automatically It also will put captions in your videos So you can have nice captions of different sizes and formats So if you do a lot of content for social media Descript, I think is really useful. Would it be good for pro voiceover? As a substitute for twist away. I don't know. I think you would have to use it for a while and make the decision for yourself Get it get a demo of it and play around with it for a while and see how it saves you time You may find it frustrating. So My two cents all righty Uh Dan Alpern asks plugging a radio transceiver via the 3.5 jack that works with my iphone Headset into the rcp one via trrs Why would it give me a squealing sound on the rcp, but not on the headphones when both use trrs? There's a lot of code in there a radio transceiver via 3.5 that uses That works with my iphone headset if it's a squeal. It's probably a feedback of some sort. Yeah, well, hmm That's a good question. Dan. I don't know Why yeah, some two things that are both trrs. I know there is more than one way of making a trrs cable Um, but you're saying that if it works a little bit, yeah Yeah, if it works through the iphone it should work with the roadcaster too because they're wired the same way Right. Um, man, that's that's a question for that's probably a question for road although if they don't know what your transceiver device is which You interestingly left out that detail. Yeah, we don't know what the product actually is or the model number Um, but you know that might be helpful for them to help you troubleshoot it. I will say it road has really good support Um, you know, it's worth it's worth checking with them and seeing what they have to say I don't know why it gets squealing um That yeah that one that sounds like feedback That's happening somewhere in the setup and it might be happening internally in the transceiver Or you're too close to the mic wearing headphones and words mercury retrograde and words it's that Uh question from jeff holman. Here's a really good voiceover question. I know all rooms are different But if I have a 4 by 8 a ts panel on a 10 by 15 wall Is that enough for one wall or will I likely need more panels elsewhere on the wall? And should I get two inch thick this or four inch thickness? One panel a 4 by 8 panel That's massive. That's a that's a big panel, but 10 by 15 wall is also a big wall. It is a big wall Yeah, I mean we've we've learned that you know covering every surface sometimes Is not the best idea you've got to have a little bit of life in the acoustics is very holistic, right? It's yeah, it's not all about one wall and one surface It's how the whole room interacts with each other right what else is in that room what furniture What you know how you're using your mic how far away the mic is But if you cover 75 60 to 70 percent of that wall Here it's a good start. That's a good start at 10 by 15 foot walls. So that must mean you have a 10 foot ceiling That's uh, that's a really really high ceiling. Um, so yeah, you you probably are going to have to treat A large portion of that wall to get rid of all of the reflection Yeah, maybe a cloud would help too if you've got a high ceiling Maybe yeah, like it's hard to say without seeing the whole room how it's laid out the size of the actual room itself Um in terms of two to four inches panel You probably don't need four inch thick because that really is for really much more important for A small room or you really need to deal with the lower frequency Build up in a really small room So a room that large probably you won't notice any direct benefit going to four inch over two inch That's my best guess but again, I don't I don't have the whole room designed to work with Devils in the in the details. Yeah, I would need to lay out the whole room and and know the size of it That's why we do this for a living. We have a whole service around designing acoustics for rooms And we can help you with that Jeff. That's a service I can provide to Yeah, and speaking of acoustics the last question we have this week Uh, I have a it's from jay who's watching on youtube Uh, I have a studio bricks one plus vio edition coming in about a week George you have a youtube video putting one together I remember that video any tips or learnings from that Also, there there was never a follow-up to george's video from putting a studio bricks together I'd love to hear if they ended up needing more acoustic tree you know, well, it's First aside from the honor guard you need to carry the door Uh, because it's got a massively heavy door too strong folk Yeah, or four if you can find them in a keg of beer Um, you know, it's like it's kind of once you get started on it's not that hard Yeah, um the acoustics of the new models which has the new panel that I've showed you guys on the show a bunch of times It's the gray grid work different Well, it looks like this Yeah, that's there If you're getting one of the models that has this inside which all the new ones do know This is an incredibly good acoustic absorber like it does an amazingly good job of sucking up sound And then the the vio edition is going to have a huge bass trap made out of the same stuff Install above above your head like up on the wall And that does a really really good job of sucking more of the room Um Out and getting rid of more of the low end. So yeah, the long and short of it is the the The the acoustics of the newer studio breaks models from this year Are a real improvement over past models. So I don't think you'll need to do much All right, you know how to find out. Yeah Is get a sound check Gotta listen that's the thing my thing is doing this it's doing that like we have to hear it Descriptions of sound are are not helping The actual sound usually will give us the answer. Here's my favorite question of the night. Okay Yeah from our friend at 949 designs dan is there a warranty on studio suit the mustache has faded As has my actual mustache as it turns wider And Yeah, well, I don't know Did you yeah, didn't some of them have mustaches? They don't have I spray painted. I had the logo on it and everything That's right. That's right. It's been 10. You know what you could do Lee is you could you could bring dan out and a catalyst can of spray paint And you could redo the mustache for you, right And they'll do it in different colors instead Anyway, thanks for all your questions. I love hearing from everybody and yes, we do great questions tonight And of course great answers. We'll be right back to wrap things up right after this. So stay tuned Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky the voice of Rocco and you're watching voiceover body shop 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.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 blows 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.com. That's voiceover Xtra.com All right It's time to talk about something very important and that is Your website That's right. Everybody needs a website And so i'm trying to find what's here. Where is it? Oh, there it is I'm going to share it. There it is. It's called voice actor.com now. This was Arguably, it was my idea 10 years ago. Somebody said, hey, I want to do something for the voiceover business I said your home voiceover studio and your voiceover career And your website should not be a pain in the ass So I said, why don't we come up with something that is templated super duper simple Well, our good friend joe davis over at voiceactor.com finally Found the technology to do this and now you can build your voiceover website in minutes It's simple and fast do it yourself website builder for voice actors made by voice actors designed by voice Actors and you can get started for free It's the fastest way to have your voiceover website up and running now george and I did this and son of a gun it took us what half an hour and we got both our sites up and Super duper easy and it was free to start They have lots of different things different options that you can use For adding more templates and things along those lines But if you want to have a website which you have to have as a voice actor Go over to voice actor dot com. Let me just zoom in on that so you can see it voice actor dot com That's where you can get your templated website and make it work for you And for everybody else to see We are the world voices organization also known as wovo We're the not-for-profit industry association of freelance voice talent voiceover is a complex entrepreneurial business Wovo is there to promote the professional nature of voice work to the public to those already established in their voiceover practice And to those who want to pursue voiceover as a career membership benefits include a supportive and creative community A profile and demos on voiceover.biz our searchable directory of vetted professional voice talent Our exclusive demo player for your personal website Our mentoring program business resources and our video library our annual wovo con conference A fun and educational weekend with other members with the chance to learn and network Webinars and great speakers and weekly social chats with other members around the world If your world is voiceover make wovo part of it world voices organization. We speak for those who speak for a living All right Well, we're back to say goodbye next week on the show. We've got dave walsh Great voice over coach Knows his stuff. He's not only a successful voice actor, but he's come up with some really cool stuff For making your voice acting even better and i know from personal experience And he's been on our show a few times and he's always fun to have on so We'll be looking forward to that We need to thank our donors of the week like robert leadham Stephen chandler kasey clack jonathan grant thomas pinto shelly abuelino Greg thomas a doctor voice antland productions martha con 949 designs. We needed moustache. Yes, uh christopher eppison sarah borges phillips appear brian page patty gibbons rob rider shana painton baird don griffith Trey moseley diana birdsall And sandro manwell. All right Well, remember if you need help with your home voiceover studio one watch v obs We give you all the great stuff But if you want to work with one of us you can you can come over to my place, which is home voice over studio Dot com. I know it's there Or if you want to work with george you go over to Yay george the dot tech and don't forget that coupon code v obs fan 10 gets you 10 off on everything On the new website. Let's see where no, that's it. Oh, here it is. It's that one Hey, thank you. Oh, you're well. That's the one. All right So anyway, so that's going to do it for us this week lots of great questions lots of cool stuff Always a pleasure to have you with us here at voiceover body shop. Um, yes, indeed You know the thing is though We have Examined so many studios and listen to so much audio, but we've come to the conclusion that If it sounds good It is good I'm dan Leonard and i'm george woodham and this is voiceover body shop or v o b s Tech talk talk tech talk tech talk have a great week everybody We have survived