 Oh, let's see, you're going on a date. You'll be done at just before nine. Oh, okay, good. And then when we're done, you can, you know, cause we're gonna, we'll cut out probably about four or five minutes before the top of the hour. Okay. And, and you can just leave after that because we, it's, we can't talk to each other and say thanks, you know, for being here. Oh, sure. So. Sure, sure. So once you say thanks and dismiss me, whatever, I'll just leave. We go to commercial, then you're free to leave. Oh, very cool. Yeah. This guys, this is exciting. Great. Are you chill? Do you want more of a chill tone or do you want more of like, exciting? Whatever mood you're in, because we never go really hyper here. Okay. Unless there's drinking involved, we're pretty chill. Right. And that rarely happens around here. All right. I don't want to blow your vibe here. So, you know. No, I think, I think Mishka is a little bit more excited about being here, aren't you? Oh, my God. Look at that baby. Hmm. Yes. Are you going to be a good girl? Oh, cutie pie. You're a new cutie pie. Thank you. I know any minute, Jeff's going to say, pin my comment in Facebook and I can never, ever, ever find the pin button. I'm working on that right now. Yeah, they hide stuff pretty well. Anyway, yeah. So, George is like right over here. I reached my hand over. Oh, I see a hand. Yeah, next to the dog. Yeah, so he gets the pet and Mishka the whole time. Or do you want to go back out? Because you're going to bark the whole show, aren't you? Oh, look at that face. That face is really ambunctious. He's going to be barking. Yeah. She looks so cute on camera. Oh, my God. Don't kick me out, Daddy. Don't kick me out. Don't kick me out, you guys. I promise I'll be quiet. I love your show. She was sold to us by the rescue people as a Maltese. A Maltese, thank you. And what is she? She's 50% Chihuahua, 25% Beagle, 20% Doshund, and 5% Ashkenazic Jewish. Truth in advertising, eh? Therefore, she knows Yiddish for sure. She's in the right house. She's a multiplex, a multi-cup. She's a Chihuahua with a brindle. I love it. Oh, you're a good girl. Oh, my God, she's so cute. What a puttum. You should have named her puttum. Look at that little thing. Yeah, well, she came with the name Mishka, which is Russian for bear. Yeah, I know it. Mishka, right? Mishka bear. Yeah, Mishka. Mishka. And our other dog is Ari, and he's like almost 17. Oh, wow. That's so lucky to have a dog that old. That's great. Yep, yep. And some days, he's like, he'll sleep 20 hours a day. And then the last couple of nights, we'll be taking her for a walk, and he's like, I'm going too. And he will walk out our gate, out on the front lawn, and then out where we're the outer part of our, by the street. And he'll walk about two houses, stop, turn around, walk about two, and sometimes he's really motoring. Like, where was this done before? Good for him. He's got a lot of light left in him. He does. He does. Yeah, for him. And he's a total chow hound. So yeah. That's two French bulldogs. They totally look Jewish. They look so cute. They're the cutest dogs. Yeah, there's like this big Frenchie club. Everyone loves Frenchies. Yeah, they're very popular out here. They're being stolen at gunpoint. I know, like Lady Gaga's dog, right? No one cared about the poor pet sitter. Everyone was worried about the dog. Right, exactly. I mean, they are fun. They're clowns. They're Lady Gaga's dogs, after all. Yeah, they're clowns. They're hilarious. They make you laugh all day. All right, we got a good-sized crowd already in here. For those of you who are tuning in a little early, if you've got a question for Laugh, throw it in the chat room. I know Jeff Holman's hiding in there somewhere. And he will be relaying your questions to us. And because we're going to cover a whole lot of stuff tonight, as far as the stuff that Laugh was working on and the organization that she's put together, trends in voice casting, marketing, styles that are prevalent today. You're hearing it from the people that actually know this stuff, as opposed to just guessing. So if you've got any questions about that, throw that in there. We're going to get going here. We do guessing on our own time. We get paid to give the right advice. Right. That's the rules. If I guess while I'm on a session with a client, I give them a disclaimer. This is a complete guess. I don't know, but that's it. You match if we told our clients that, I'm just guessing right now, but don't worry about it. We can get a refund on Venmo. It's OK. Right. Exactly. That is funny. That's funny. So funny. Where are you guys out of right now? Where are you? We're currently. Well, my house is in studio in Sherman Oaks. Oh, you're close. OK, you're close. I'm on the West Coast right now. OK, good. Where are you on the West Coast right now? I'm in LA. I'm on Melrose Ave. I'm right next door to Paramount Pictures. Oh, heck, you could have come over here. I didn't. I don't know. I didn't think. I thought you were in Jersey or DC. Usually I'm in Boston or New York, but we're out here for two weeks doing huge events and showcases. And then I'm going to speak at the Sova's thing. That's Voice of, you know, Awards thing. Conference. So I said, oh, I'll stay up. Well, son of a gun. What a quinkity. Well, howdy, neighbor. Are you in a hotel right now? I am. Yeah, it's nice and quiet in there. It's great. This is the Hollywood historic hotel. It's really beautiful. Oh, cool. Yeah, it's gorgeous. Really gorgeous. All right, we are a minute away. Dan is coaxing the dog outside, trying to get the dog to do it on her own fruition. She really doesn't want to. No. You're stuck here, dog. Aw. Amazing I haven't fallen and killed myself in here yet. Oh, we want to come up here. No, it's not happening. Come here. Come here. Sit down. There you go. There you go. All right, five o'clock. It is time. It's showtime. It is go time on showtime. All righty. Not that we're endorsing any particular streaming service over another. I have a one week HBO Max trial, so I'm binging. So I've binge watched White Lotus, season one and two. Season one was pretty good. Two was probably, I hear, is very good. So I didn't know that season two had seven episodes. So we got to the end of the sixth one, and we're like, what the hell is this weird cliff hanger ending? Literally, no stirrill lines are tied up. We thought it was the end of the series. And then everybody on the weekends like, wow, that was an amazing last episode. I was like, oh, there's another one. Yeah, that was pretty surprising. Did you like it? Did you get into it? At the first one, more than the second one. Would you recommend it or not so much? Yeah, no, it's fantastic, fantastic acting. Good, I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, I'd like to see it. Beautiful settings, cool editing. The music is an acquired taste. I liked it and my girlfriend didn't. Okay, gotcha. You know, you can't win them all. All right, welcome to Stream Talk. Then we're now watching Minks, because our very own Jeff had a role in that. Oh, that's right. Yeah, I was like, hey, it's Jeff. It's always cool when we see him. I'm like, hey, we know this guy. Alrighty, are we ready? Five. Okay, all right, Sue is now giving me this. Okay, all right. Five, four, three. Hey, it's time for VoiceOver Body Shop. How's everybody doing out there? And tonight we've got a great guest, somebody who knows the business really well. It's Lollipetus. How you doing, Lyle? I'm so awesome. I'm so super LA awesome right now, Dan. Really? Yeah. I thought you were on the East Coast and you're here in LA. I'm like, you know, the Vio wears Waldo. Like, where am I today? You know, today, I'm in LA, because I couldn't pass it up. There are so many cool things going on on your coast. That's right. Okay, well, I'm glad you're out here. You know, we can almost yell to each other from here. Anyway, if you've got a question for Lau about anything that we talk about, throw it in the chat room because Jeff Holman's in there and he is writing down everything that you guys are saying in the chat room or at least your questions. And we'd love to hear from you and let us know that you're watching and enjoying the show. So, are we ready? George is actually over here. So we're in the same studio tonight. Anyway, it's time for VoiceOver Body Shop. Are you, everybody ready? Let's make it happen. Let's go. It's time for VoiceOver Body Shop. Brought to you by VoiceOverEssentials.com, the home of Harlan Hogan's signature products. Source Elements, the makers of Source Connect. VoiceOver Heroes become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training. VoiceActorWebsites.com, where your Voice Actor website doesn't have to be a pain in the butt. VoiceOver Extra, your daily resource for voiceover success. And World Voices, the industry association of freelance voice talent. And now, here's your hosts, Dan and George. Well, greetings out there. I'm Dan Leonard. And I'm George Whitom. And this is VoiceOver Body Shop. Or V-O-B-S. Easier to sync when you're like within an earshop. I know. I was like automatically trying to say it off sync so that we would be in sync and realizing, wait a minute, I don't have to do that. See, because he's actually just over there. And that makes it a little easier. Anyway. It's nice to be here. Back to the center cam here. Well, we're into the holiday season now. And everybody's like, what do I get everybody? And of course, all of your spouses and significant others are all like, you want a what? Holiday season means everybody in L.A. drives like... Well. Badly. Poorly. Aggressively and angrily. That's been like that for a couple of months. It just gets worse right around now. Yeah, since I got mine, somebody hit me from behind a while ago. Yeah, if you're gonna... It's been going around, hasn't it? Yeah. If you're gonna drive in L.A., drive a tank. Oof. Or a really old beater. Right, exactly. Yeah. Have a weekend car. And trailer it to Nevada. And go drive it there. All right. Well, tonight, hey, we're gonna talk about voiceover because by the way, that's what this show is about. We've got a great guest tonight. And again, if you've got a question for Lalapetis, throw it in the chat room. Because Jeff Holman's there and he is taking down your questions and we want to hear from you because we know you're in there somewhere. And you want more information perhaps. She will tell you everything that we need to know. And I will try and coax everything out of her. But if you've got something perhaps that I forgot, throw it in the chat room right now, whether you're on Facebook, whether you're on YouTube Live. It's right. And you've got you covered. That's right. Or just yell really loud and maybe he'll hear you. Anyway, let's introduce our guest tonight. Lalapetis is founder and president of Lalapetis Company, a boutique coaching, training and production company for voice talent and actors. Programs include hybrid online and in-person workshops, seminars, one-on-one personalized coaching and showcases in New York City, LA and online. Laws Media and Broadcasting Career Coaches, all work in television, film, radio and theater. That's quite a widespread. Let's welcome for the first time to our show, Lalapetis. Lyle, how you doing? Hey, I'm awesome. I'm so excited to be here. Yay, this is my inaugural Dan and George time. I'm excited. Thank you for having me on. Yeah, only took 11 years, but we'll get to you. Anyway, and thanks for joining us during the holiday season right now. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into voiceover as somebody I know likes to say, your journey. Oh, my journey. It sounds ever so important. Well, I'll keep it kind of short and brief and say it's been a whole lifetime journey. You know, we always joke at the studio, like we're all in overnight success, right? Yeah, we're a 40 year overnight success. So I literally have been, you know, in performance and entertainment my entire life. I've never not done it. I've never had another career. So even as a child, when I started out, I was primarily a dancer actually. I was a dancer, I didn't speak. I didn't talk, I just danced. And I did that for a long time. I danced with the Boston Ballet. I danced with Bob Fosse troop. I loved it and I found my rhythm. And thank goodness I did that because in voiceover, we need that so much, that kinesthetic rhythm. So I found that as a very young kid and kept it in my muscles, kept it in my body, became an actor and started working professionally. When I was about 15, I was hired for my first touring troop as an actor. 15 years old and I really never stopped working since then. I did regional, I did repertory, I did equity theater. I have a very rich theatrical background and long story short went for my graduate degree and was selected to go to one of the top actor programs. So I did my residency, my graduate studies at UC Irvine in California. And it only took me four years to get in but who's counting? And it was well worth the wait. I gotta tell you, I was so excited. I was 29 years old at the time. I had performed everywhere. I had acted, I had danced. I had started voiceover, just started voiceover. Didn't really know what it was but just started my journey on voiceover. And then got into the MFA program and just said yes to it. So I moved 3000 miles away from my Boston home to my new Orange County home in California. And did three years full-time in a residency at UC Irvine which really was like the the turner for me. It really just changed the whole trajectory of my life. It was a program of marriage. I was married to it day and night. It was full-time residency. It was a full tuition scholarship. I had a TA ship to teach both undergraduates and in the community. And I just said yes to everything. I was one of those performers that I just didn't think too much about work. I was intellectual and analytical but not when it came to work. I just said yes and I took all the work that came my way because I really didn't know where it was going to lead me. I just loved performing. I loved voicing things. I loved bringing scripts to life. I love bringing copy to life. So whether it was improv, whether it was Shakespeare, I did a ton of Shakespeare. Whether it was a voiceover ad copy. I just said yes to it. I was like one of those yes people. And then when I got my graduate degree, I fell into teaching. So teaching was really for me while I was performing the thing that helped me survive. I had that really incredibly important piece of paper that MFA degree that allowed me to walk in and I just by happenstance ended up at some of the top business schools which very strange, very strange turn of events because I had no business education. I had no knowledge really about business per se. And I said, okay, let's go with this. So I started creating programs for some of the top business colleges around Boston. And that was primarily for performance and speaking and MFA trapped students. Those were people that were about to launch businesses, people who were about to pitch their products, their services. Now, granted, I'm gonna be honest with you and your audience. I knew nothing about this. Like I didn't go to business school. I didn't have an MBA. I had an MFA. I was like selling. I was all of a sudden, I was thrust into an arena where they were saying, teach us how to sell. Teach us how to speak. Teach us how to deliver as if our whole life depended on it, which could be for an angel investor, getting money for their business, putting all their savings into something. So the stakes were very high, just like actors who study stakes. The stakes were high. Yeah, I think it's really important because we're always trying to emphasize to all the people that George and I talked to and other people that are mentoring, they forget that freelance acting is a business. And that you're the one responsible for getting the work and all that. And too many people are like, no, I'm gonna get the show business. I'm gonna get an agent and boom, I'm gonna be, you know, but it doesn't work that way. That's it. That's right. And it really is true. When you teach something, Dan, it shows you what you know and it shows you what you don't know. So how you impart what you know to the different levels of students that are out there taught me how to appeal in a client-centered way to a business forum, right? I didn't know it yet. I didn't know I was gonna open a business, but I knew I love teaching. I was good at directing. I love leading things. I loved being at the head of organizations. Like that was probably for 10 years teaching at all of these schools, you know, Babson University and Harvard and Boston University. And it all landed when I was 40 years old at opening a studio. And that's when I opened my studio 14 years ago. All right. Well, you, again, we're talking with Lalapitas and we're gonna be talking more about the voiceover business because that's what we talk about here. And if you've got a question, throw it in the chat room. There's gotta be something you wanna know that perhaps George and I won't get to and perhaps you're curious about. All you have to do is write it in the chat room whether you're in Facebook live or on YouTube live and you should be in the chat rooms and interacting with everybody else. It's watching this show at this very moment right now. So you've got these two companies. You've got Lalapitas company, which is your studio and MCVO, which is an agency. How do you balance those two things? Well, you know, it's an interesting question. I was thinking about this question myself like how do we balance? How do we balance what we do in our life? Whether we're performers, business owners, both parents, I'm a mother of two kids. I mean, how do we balance all of that? And I think primarily for me, the baseline of everything is just the sheer love and enjoyment and passion for what I'm doing. I would do it whether I got paid or not. I want to get paid and I do get paid but it's the kind of thing where I can't not do it. I can't imagine not doing it. I remember Meryl Streep was getting interviewed at one time and they asked her about her career. And they said, I think she was at the studio doing an interview and James Lipton said, if you could do anything else, what would you have done? She said, I can't imagine doing anything else. I guess I would have been a photographer, maybe, but I can't imagine really making a different choice in my life and I sort of feel that way. So the balance factor really comes from this ideology that I'm not giving myself a choice, right? Failure is not an option. It's just, it's a life. It's what we call a lifestyle business. It's not a business that we're creating for three or four years and we're gonna sell it, move on to another kind of business. It just isn't that kind of thing for me. It has to be integrated with my life and I'm so fortunate that my family, my network, my group of really close family and friends completely are a part of it. They support it, they work in it, they love it, they get it and if they don't, then they're just like, they're total supporters. If they work in something else, they're total supporters. I don't have anyone in my tribe that says, don't do that. You can't make a living at that. I don't know why you're doing that because you have to have a really positive mindset crew that surrounds you to keep you going during the tough times and during the tough days because it is hard to balance. It is, there's no question about it. And the longer you go and the more you do it, the easier it gets to figure out how to balance it but the more intensive it gets because if we're adding on services, if we're adding on products, if we're scaling now online, which we're now a hybrid, we started out as a very personal in-person business. We're still very personalized but we're hybrid like 90% of our people are now online. So figuring out how to re-envision, how to recraft, how to recreate the thing that you have created from the beginning takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of mind power. It takes a lot of, as my dad would always say, fire in the belly. That's like, what makes you get up every morning and put the key in the door, the proverbial door is the thing that makes you successful, right? Absolutely. Now, one of the things that I find fascinating is that George and I and we do live presentations and we're coaching and we're teaching and doing webinars and seminars and stuff and people ask lots of questions and sometimes they don't know exactly who it is they're asking of the question if they know the right answer. So like, what's the difference between an agent and a coach because you do both and what are some of the questions that perhaps people give you that are like, well, that's not an agent question. That's a coach question or it's not a coach question. It's really an agent question. What are some examples of that? And what can people learn not to ask? Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a weird oxymoron to say you need to ask the question before you ask the question but it's really important that you have this close network of people that you can rely upon to go out to ask the question and test it out before you ask the question of the actual party that you need to ask it out. And sometimes you get the answer so that you don't even need to ask the question of the person you were going to ask. So a good example might be, if I'm in front of say an agent, a lot of voice over talent are gonna go up in front of agents, whether they're submitting, cold submitting on email or they're doing a live showcase or whatever the case may be, they're gonna go up in front of an agent to find representation, right? A common question, and I just experienced it the last four days in my LA bootcamp and I couldn't believe I heard this. A common question is to an agent, what do you do? And I think, okay, it's okay to ask a question like that cause you wanna learn what they do but it's not okay to ask that question to the agent because the agent would say, hey, listen, go online, go check it out, talk to your friends, da-da-da. You can, anything that you can answer easily by Google or by some of your friends don't ask that person because that's a direct giveaway that you're really green, that you're really starting and that you don't know or asking a question that's completely inappropriate that would be for someone else. So for instance, I ask an agent, can you give me feedback on this and tell me what you think about these reads? And the agent thinks, no, I can't, that's not my job, that's not what I do, I market you. If you're ready to market, send me your stuff and then I'm gonna move you like a house. We're a commodity, right, in a good way but we are a product, we're product-based. I always use a real estate broker as an example. It's like inviting in a real estate broker and saying, hey, can you give me advice on this room? Like how should I decorate this and should I put the furniture there? Well, once in a while, they'll give you a couple ideas if they wanna sell the house but much of the time they don't have time to do that. They come in, they do a walk around, they price it, they say, hey, when you fixed it up, when you flipped it, when you're ready to sell it, you call me and then I'm gonna come out and I'm gonna move that very quickly for you. So in my mind, it's kind of similar to that. I mean, no one's gonna get super angry or offended by it but it's a tip-off that you're not yet a pro or you're not yet working because you don't know the roles of the people involved with the team that you're putting together, what their jobs are. Once again, we're talking with Laulapetus and we're talking about the voiceover business and coaching and agents and all these things that sort of commingle into all the stuff that we do. And again, if you've got a question, you can throw it into one of the chat rooms depending on where you're watching, whether on YouTube live or on Facebook live. Is there like a roadmap kind of a thing that kind of lays out the structure of how these kinds of voiceover businesses operate? Like go to this place and you can see at a glance how this all connects. Yeah, well, I mean, it's all over the place. It's like the world, right? It's like go to the world. Everyone has their own network. Everyone is developing their own little tribe, where we go and how we learn our information. I don't believe it's streamlined in any way. I think it's very large. The reservoir is very big. But I think over time in anything, whether you're an actor, we're tradesmen, we're craftsmen. We're putting together our tools. We're getting our techniques in order. We're figuring out what market we wanna work in, what the pricing is, all that stuff. So whatever market you're about to work in or you currently are working in, you can start asking people who are working in that market. Oftentimes they're very willing to talk to you, very willing to help you. I always say try very hard not to make people your competitors. Try to make them your colleagues because we all work together. It's one big family in a very interesting way. Like the world is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And so if I'm gonna be super petty about other coaches or other producers, right? We can't do that because we have to learn. We're constantly learning best practices. We're constantly learning like how to find out what is the industry standard? That's what we're going for. And I can't, like, I look, I'll be honest with you. Can I be honest? All right, I'm gonna be honest. Can we talk? Sure, go for it. Listen, can we talk? All right, listen. Start now. I'm 54, I'm gonna be 55 years old, okay? I can say that because I'm not an actress anymore. All right, here's the deal. I don't look good day over 30, but anyway, that's a conversation for another day. My point is I'm constantly learning like every day in my own events. I'm sitting there, I'm listening, I'm writing down notes, I'm talking to industry. I'm finding out what the changes are, what the upgrades are, whatever. We can't sit there like we're a golden calf. I'm like, oh, I got it, I got a studio, I know everything. No, no, no, because every day it shifts and changes like in every industry. There's innovations. There's pioneering of you guys, your specialty, new and updated technology, upgrading your technology. If you said, I got a mic, I got a studio, I'm all set, we're never all set, we're a work in progress. So if I can impart to the audience to just think of yourself, it's not a finished product. Even when you have a demo, right? Or even when you cut your commercial and it's mixed and it's mastered and it's perfect and it's beautiful. Guess what, we're casting for the next one which has changes. It's not gonna be the same as what you just did. It'll have edits, changes, scripts will be thrown away, everything is gonna shift and upgrade. All right, once again, we're talking with Lalapetus and talking about the voiceover business. We're gonna get into some other things here. For example, now you've got your companies, you've got an agency, you've got your studio. One of the things that you've done is you've created something called the talent inner circle. And tell us what TIC is and why people should think about joining that community. Thanks, Dan, I'm really proud of it. I have to say I've been sitting on it for about two years just analyzing it. And then we all know analysis is paralysis after a while. It was something that I actually didn't think of myself. A lot of my talent that worked with us at the studio started to plant the seed of saying, hey, I'd like to see something online. I'd like to see an online community in between coaching in between classes and between all the stuff that's economical, that's something I can dig and something I can be a part of on a monthly if not weekly basis. And I think you can create it online, right? And I said, oh yeah, sure. So we sat on it for a while and we said, great, let's do this. So we launched it this past August. It's almost new, brand new. It's only four months old. It's still a baby, but I'm really happy to say we have almost a hundred members and counting in it. And it's really exciting stuff because of course, I'm a more is more kind of person. So I loaded the boat. We've got a ton of programming that we do every month. We have guests that come through that are amazing people. We have A-listers. We just had a workshop with Mike Pollack who's the Eggman from Sonic Hedgehog and just like really incredible producers and coaches and casting people. We had an agent come in from the Midwest and she came in and she swept up half of our crew that came into the workshop and signed them under contracts. I was like, what? Are you kidding me? It was like any time you're in front of someone, whether they just hear you or they see you or they meet you, you're always auditioning, always. It could be a class, could be a workshop, could be just to chat, just to meet. They're always listening to you, always you have to think about that at all times. Even if you already have an agency, maybe you don't want a rep. Maybe you don't need any of that. They're still listening to you with that kind of ear because that's how producers are trained and casting directors live and agents make their bread and butter off listening to you and giving you that feedback. So the talent inner circle is really for professional development, for education, for socialization and really just kind of level people up in saying, hey, let's make a commitment to learning more technique, getting more tools in the tool belt, having accountability people, let's have some buddies ready to go so that I can practice my reads, I can practice my auditions, I can send an MP3 and say, do you have any background noise you're hearing? Whatever, whatever the case may be. And it's been going really well. And Dan, you're coming in to be a guest. I'm so excited. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking, you know, you should have some tech people on there. I'm like, oh wait, you already put me in there. So I'm done. I've been kind of busy this month. Anyway, once again, we're talking with Lollipetus and we're talking about the stuff that she's offering is as a coach, as an agent, and now we're talking about her talent inner circle. I always find it really, really important, especially for people in the voiceover business because we are, we're all snowflakes. Everybody's different, we're not really competition. There's something for everybody, but there are certain things that, you know, other people who have some experience can always impart and creating relationships and networking with other voiceover people is really, really important. So once again, if you got a question, throw it in the chat room for a while right now. How important is marketing for a voiceover career? And we sort of touched on this at the top of the hour there, but tell us what your thoughts are on marketing. Because everybody's got their own idea about how to do it. Yeah, Dan, that's the question of the day, isn't it? I mean, I think that big marketing word is like, what's the word? It's a dark cloud or a lot of things. What is marketing, you know? What is marketing? Like, does that have anything to do with buying food, you know, supermarket? No, so marketing is the thing that you have to get good at and you have to embrace in order to run a business. And I always look at voiceover talent as being entrepreneurs or solo entrepreneurs if they're starting it themselves. Of course, we all started ourselves. So how do we do it? We have to start thinking about creating community. I have seven pillars that I created to doing that. And one is like community, community. How do we create that so that we can always call out to each other, rely upon each other, help each other and get work for each other? I would say probably seven or eight times out of 10, I'm getting my work through referrals. Referrals are really huge in our industry as you age and as you stay and you have longevity. You're gonna get more and more referrals to build your client list, but that doesn't come cold. It comes typically because you put down the groundwork for your first five years or six years or however long you're working at it to say, hey, world, I'm here. This is who I am. This is what I love. And this is my value. Here's my value proposition. Let me just share that with you. And one exercise I do as a coach is to say, to discover your value proposition, take 12 words or less, no more than 12 words. Even that's a lot for us to remember almost like a tagline, like make it memorable to someone. Describe what is your value as a voice over talent and repeat it over and over and over again. So when you do pitch yourself or you email yourself or you do a cold marketing, you always have that value proposition in there and reminding you that it changes. Again, it doesn't stay the same. It changes oftentimes based on the clients that you're target marketing. So it can't just be this is what I am. This is who I am. And that's it. Like stay static and kind of militant. You got to be very flexible. You got to be like that. You know, I always say you got to be like that really tall, huge building in Chicago. That's massive and goes up to the sky. And it's the foundation has got to be very, very cement strong, right? But the higher up you go, the more you're going to sway in the wind and the more you're going to flex because there's high winds up there and you're up there working on the 47th floor, you're going to shift with the winds. That's what we do as voice over talent and as actors is we have to shift with the trends and the winds in marketing and not fight it, but embrace it and say, how does my value proposition have synergy with what the trends are doing right now? Where do I fit in? That's like my job to figure that out. So then I can articulate that and present that to prospects. Absolutely. Once again, we're talking with Lollipetus and we're talking about the voice over business and marketing and she mentioned referrals and all that. But we're going to take a quick break right now and we'll be right back with your questions right after these messages. So don't go away. This is the Latin lover narrator from Jane the Virgin, Anthony Mendez. And you're enjoying Dan and George on the voice over body shop. From voiceoveressentials.com, it's the relationship savior, the multicolor LED VO recording sign, not just a stock on the air or recording sign. It's our exclusive voice over recording sign. This brilliantly lit LED 20 color beacon tells everybody at home, which is currently everybody. Hey, I'm auditioning, recording, podcasting, narrating or broadcasting here. And a few moments of relative quiet would be very much appreciated. What's more, the wafer thin remote control lets you choose a multitude of options from color to brightness, flashing to fade in and out. You can even set up your own personal codes. Red means I'm recording. Blue, playing back. Green, it's a wrap. Plug in the seven foot long cord and hang it on a door knob or wall hook using the included chain. Order yours now for just $69.95 from voiceoveressentials.com and for easy giving for the voice talent in your family, get a voice over essentials gift card too. And speaking of great sponsors, how about Source Elements, huh? Source Elements, the creators of Source Connect and so many other amazing tool sets that will really integrate your studio and your production world into the rest of the world so you can have a really efficient productive workflow. I was just the other day looking at the Netflix production FAQ section. There's actually a whole section deep on their website for anybody that contributes any content to Netflix. Guess what product was listed on their website? Source Connect. It is definitely a tool that is now heavily, heavily integrated into so many of the workflows of the top level of the voiceover business. And that's probably why you wanna be familiar with it. Are you ready for it today? You may not be, but it's a perfect time to get familiar. So go over to source-elements.com. Get familiar, get set up with at least a trial. If not the subscription, if you're feeling like you're getting closer to that level of work, and become familiar. If you have any trouble, their support is absolutely second to none. We wanna thank them for their support. Thank you Source Elements, and we'll be right back with the rest of the show after this. Hey there, I'm David H. Lawrence, the 17th and with my company, VO Heroes and my team of coaches and my community of voiceover talent, we guide voiceover actors along their journey. And you may be watching VOBS here, and not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching. You may not even have started yet. And we actually specialize in helping you do just that. So if you're watching all the stuff going on here on VOBS and going, I have no idea what they're talking about. I don't know, but I really wanna do this. I'd really like to help you. Please go to voheroes.com slash start. That's voheroes.com slash start. And you can take our Getting Started and Voiceover class, which tells you everything you need to get started as a voice talent. And I'd love to hold your hand along the way and help you with that journey. Again, voheroes.com slash start. That's voheroes.com slash start. This is Bill Radner, and you're enjoying Voiceover Body Shop with Dan Leonard and George Wittem. VOBS.tv. Alrighty, and we're back here at Voiceover Body Shop, and we got a bunch of questions from our massive audience that is out there. Lots of people watching tonight, and that's what we like to see. And let's see here. Why don't we start off with Grace Newton there, George? You got it. This one from Grace. She says, I've been advised to get a jingle demo done. Is there a demand for jingles and does anyone come in mind who could record and produce it? Who comes to mind? Oh, that's an interesting question. I very rarely get that question, because on the East Coast, we don't hear a lot about that, that traditionally has been more of a Midwest to West Coast kind of thing to do. I'm not so sure it matters where you live now, but that wasn't something that was in our realm. And it's not, honestly, Grace, it's not something we really handle because our market is much more straight streamline commercial work. We don't really get into jingles at MCVO agency, but I would suggest that before you do anything, you know, talk with some really great coaches who specialize in jingles. They specialize as singers and they can help train you and work with you as a singer as well as a voiceover talent, because that's very specialized. There's a lot of singing coaches out there, but they may have no idea about what a jingle is or what voiceover talent really does. So I think you need that crossover of a great VO coach who also does jingles. And if you can't find it, then just get a really good jingle coach, someone who can help you with the singing and a voiceover coach that can partner together and work together for a common end game, which is gonna be your demo that houses the best jingle delivery that you can do. And they have their own jingle. Jingle coach, jingle coach, jingle. That's right. Mike E, age 66 on YouTube says and asks, with all this economic doom surrounding us, what do you see for the voiceover industry? Put on your crystal ball. Take out your crystal ball and tell us what you see. I should give you a weird accent with that. Right, Mike, I see. Listen, here's what I see. Here's what I see. Yes, okay. We're in inflation, we get the recession, we see everything media hype. Okay, it's true, I get it. Now let's move that aside for a second. And let's think about your business. Let's think about how you launch and how you grow your business. We all have launched, I know when I launched my studio, Mike, it was the first like biggest recession under the Obama years that I've ever seen in the history of our country. And if I thought, oh, I shouldn't be doing this because there's a big recession and there's no chance for work and whatever, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you today, right? So we have to be on one hand, super researched, very smart about what's going on in our economy and what the climate is in the environment, economically speaking. But then we also have to be, paradoxically, a clock-eyed optimist and think, I'm not gonna worry about that right now. I'm gonna go to my business plan. I'm gonna go to my model that I created. I'm gonna go to the five-year plan because I'll tell you in five years, things change. Things don't stay the same. They change and you have good years and bad years at ebbs and flows, ups and downs. So you have to know that things shift and change over time. You have to stay the course. You have to get super steady and you have to not worry too much about that dark economy. You have to say, okay, I can float within it. I can live within it. I can shift my rates along the way as I need to, but I absolutely will survive. I absolutely will work and I'm telling you, I have a lot of colleagues right now who've been in business for a long time, Mike, who have raised their prices now. All righty. You get the question from Glenn Lindner. You got it. Do you still prefer a live studio supposed to a Zoom when doing a demo? That's part one of his questions. I'm imagining you're talking about when producing a demo slash coaching a demo. Yeah, cause I'm old school. Yeah, I'm old school. I always prefer doing a demo. I'm doing a, I just finished up. I wrapped a big LA showcase that I co-produced the last four days. I could have done it online. It could have been virtual for sure. I wanted to get on a plane. I wanted to come out to an LA studio. I wanted to have the experience, the vibe, and be with people in a live space. So if I have the choice, I'll always go to the live space and be with the folks. But I love having the technology and being able to zip online like I'm doing tonight and talk with my friends and not worry about having to get in a car. So I feel like it's the best of both worlds. I get it, totally, we agree. I mean, it's revolutionized what I do. Of course, working remotely is incredibly effective. How about New England voiceover work? What would you recommend to attack that particular market? Do you have any experience in the Boston area? Well, you know, it's so funny about that, George. The whole reason, I don't even know if I answered your question down the way that you asked 20 minutes ago. All right, I'm gonna answer it now. So the balance of the studio and then MCBO, we launched, I launched MCBO right at the height of COVID. So literally in the middle of COVID, we were in lockdown. And I thought, and I'm Boston based, I thought, gee, what do we need in the market? Because when we open a business, we always think, what is the problem to solve here? What's the need to fill? And I'm not in the healthcare field and I'm not in other fields, I'm in the entertainment. So in New England, I thought, gee, what's the opening? What's the need? And it was voiceover. We had no voiceover division in any agency umbrella in New England. I couldn't believe it, but we just don't. We get some voiceover through, but we don't have voiceover agents. So I said, okay, then I need to become one. So long story short, I collabed with my dear friend and colleague, Tim Ayers. He's the owner of Model Club Inc based out of Boston. He represents actors on camera, on camera actors and models for 20 years. And I said, we need this, what do you think? He said, let's do it. I don't know anything about it. You're gonna have to do it. So I launched the division under the umbrella of Model Club Inc. And that's where it lives. I'm the lead agent. I run the division. I stalk the roster. I handle the auditions. And then he'll come in and help with negotiation of contracts when we need that help. And sometimes we do, but here's the amazing thing. Bottom line, it's not even New England anymore. It's not even localized. Now we're at national. We represent some of the top talent from New York, LA, everywhere in between. And we have five countries of talent that we represent now. That's the beauty of voiceover. So it starts in New England. It was launched out of New England, but it's definitely a baby of the universe now. Alrighty. Question from Terry Briscoe. Hi guys. Hi, Lau. Lau, I constantly get auditions where they want the conversational read. But when I see the commercials on TV, I very rarely hear what I would call a conversational read. What should we actually be delivering in these auditions? Ooh, wow. That's part two. Okay. It's a loaded question in that our industry is incredibly subjective. So if you start at the get-go by thinking, this is what they're looking for. Stylistically, this is what they want. Well, why do they want this? We can guess that oftentimes the millennial generation, which is now the largest population in the United States, oftentimes is appealing to the millennial generation for the products and services that are being put out in the commercial market. The generation is what we call digital natives. So when you're growing up on a computer, you're literally growing up on a computer. So I think stylistically, we organically wanted to have face-to-face communication where it was going away. It was leaving us. People were not having conversations. They were online, they weren't seeing each other. They were texting, emailing, chatting, all of that stuff. So I think organically, that's where it grew out of. Artificially, what is natural, stylistically and conversational may or may not reflect what we do in real life. It may be a reasonable facsimile of it, but it may not be real life. It's similar to a non-camera actor that stylistically does a scene like a Woody Allen film who is the father of height naturalism in film. He was the first one that did real looking stuff in film. But the truth is it's not real. We've got cameras everywhere. We've got lights everywhere. We've got people with scripts everywhere. It just seems real. It looks real. So I think stylistically, we're trying to go for something that's connected, something that psychologically makes us feel like we're being listened to, and something that is recognizable. But it may or may not be something you do in your kitchen, if that makes sense. It does actually make sense. And Terry goes on with part two, because he could. If you're already represented and can't be signed by the agency, can you still be on the roster of another agency? I think is what he's asking. Yeah, so basically the way it works is this, if you are signed exclusively, you would know that because there would be a clause in your paper contract. You have to have a paper contract, a physical contract. It would say exclusive. There would be exclusive wording in that contract. And you would know that you're exclusive. And you're exclusive to the particular geographical regions which you have to know what those are. Meaning, let's say I'm exclusive in the Midwest. I can't work with any other agencies, say 100 miles within the radius of this Midwest agency because I'm exclusive to them. Outside of that, I can. So you have to get really clear, are you exclusive as a talent? Is there something in writing? And what is the geographical reference point for that? If you're freelance, it means you're not beholden to anyone, you can work with anyone anywhere. But oftentimes you will be asked to sign a freelance contract. It gets a little confusing. Like, why am I signing a contract? You're signing a contract because it's a psychological bond. They wanna know that you take it seriously working with them. Like, MCBO is a freelance agency right now. Eventually we may go exclusive, but we're freelance. And we ask you to sign a contract that you've got a broadcast quality studio that you're gonna behave yourself and act professionally, that you're gonna show up when you say you're gonna show up and that you're not gonna do something crazy. So it's a psychological bond that says, I'm here to do this, we all understand this and that's what we're gonna do. But the freelancer can do that with six other agencies or wherever they wanna go, they can do that. And they should do that. I mean, that's how you start making your living as a talent. Absolutely. And sort of on that line, Davey Lee Hawkes asks, how would you recommend working with multiple coaches or would you recommend working with multiple coaches? These are such great questions. You guys have the best people ever. They're really engaged. Yes. All right, so of course, obviously it's a subjective answer. Everyone's gonna give you a unique and different answer according to their own experience. I think that there are certain coaches and certain instructors and programs that do not want you to work with other coaches and instructors because they have a particular methodology that they're imparting to you and they want you to stay focused on that and not get confused with conflicting processes. There's a lot, especially like, well, if you go to graduate school, places like that that are structured through school and professional training programs, they only want you to commit to their program. A lot of coaches may not care. They honestly may not care. You paid them by the hour or however they wanna be paid. And then they say, here's your work. Here's your homework. And then I'll do what I do with you if you return. So I think it depends on the coach and it depends on the level of commitment you're making with the coach. I do think as a coach myself, I do think there's a great benefit to working with a team of coaches. We have a team of coaches at our studio. I'm not the only coach. I've got eight coaches on the ground level of Boston and then we've got New York coaches and then we've got LA coaches. Because you need perspectives from different markets and different backgrounds. There's someone who's very particular to say audio book and audio book interpretation and all of that good versus commercial, which is very, very different. So it can be helpful to have different coaches for different specialties and different genres. You don't have to, you don't need to, but keep it open as an option. You have to feel like you have to get married to one person. Absolutely. Once again, we're talking with Lalapetis and we've got your questions here. Catherine Campion on YouTube asks, I book most of my work off demos or auditioning against a handful of talent. This is industry standard for most markets out of North America. How much are you securing work for talent off demos? That's an excellent question. One I always wonder about. That's such an awesome question. Sometimes I don't even know the answer to that because when we invite a talent into the agency, Kat, we will list them and have them create profiles on our breakdown services so that producers, if they want to come in and listen, they can listen to you if they're interested in hearing the demo. So we can't, we don't track that. We can't track that. We don't know who's listening to what, who's coming in at any given time. We only know with direct communication when they reach out to us. Oh, we're interested in Kat. We want to book Kat. Do we know if they've listened to your demo? I really don't know. But I'll take an educated guess and I'll say, in what we do on our end, more than not they are not listening to those demos if they're quick turnaround auditions, they're getting to the read right away and they're focusing on the read. If they have a longer, more open turnaround time for you, they'll say, hey, send us the demos. We just want to hear the demos. We're not sending out a script yet. We don't want to hear reads yet. We just want to hear the demos. So in our private client base, like I have producers that come to us from all over the country and say, I got three right now. I got one in Miami and one in the Texas market. They'll want to hear demos. They'll say, yeah, they're pro, they'll have a demo and just get the flavor of their voice before I send out a script. So to answer your question, Kat, I'd say probably 75% is your profile listed up there and then getting the audition and then submitting that. And then probably the other 25 or 30% is going to be submitting your demos before you actually get the reads. Interesting. All righty. You've got one from Gerard McGuire. I don't know, jump to Gerard. Percentage of jobs you send out or do that you send out or union? That's the first question. Oh, I get asked that question a lot, actually. And I love you. I'm pro union. I'm all over that. We're a signatory of course. And we're seeing more and more union jobs come through, which is really great. I don't actually know the percentage. I'll take an educated guess. And I'll say probably 30 to 40% is union coming through whether it be through casting networks or whether it be through a private client or whatever. I do find though that our client lists, our private client lists, they don't care much. They're very much about, let's just find the talent. You know what I mean? Just find the talent, just get us the talent. The unionized jobs are much more structured coming from places like actors access, casting networks, places that have a healthy understanding and respect oftentimes of what that means when they're getting union talent submissions. But it's hopeful. It's really hopeful. There's more and more coming through now than there was like a year or two ago. Yeah. In part two of that. Yes, part two. Which is a great question also because everybody asks about this one. Are there any P2P or pay to play sites worth the money in your opinion? Hey, listen, it's a hot topic. I know there's a lot of controversy over it and people feel very, you know, honestly, here's what I think. I think like a business person. I think like an entrepreneur. I think like a business person. I hope you can see me now. Go and get work where you want to get work. Whatever direction that work comes from. Sometimes it will come from a pay to play site. Sometimes it won't. It's like developing a private client list. If I go in this particular genre in this particular direction, you know, will I get work? I really don't know. I have to test it out. I have to test the market. I have to see what, you know, what's my booking ratio. How many, I always say what you invest in time and money is what you're going to get out of it. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like what you're going to get out of it. And that could be in any direction. That could be in cold calls. That could be in marketing submissions to lists of agents that could be in pay to plays. That could be in maybe you're going to a lot of conferences this year, a lot of great conferences out there. Well, you know, there's a lot of work to be had at those conferences. So the time that you put in, you know, what you're spending should be an ROI. There should be a return on your investment over a period of time. Can we measure that? I can't measure that because that has to do with your investment and the level of time that you're putting into it. And then you'll be able to really track that over a year or two. You'll be able to really see that. But I'm a big fan of like, try everything. See what works for you. Before we go. Yeah, we have one more. We need to know how you get, how you get. How do you get in touch with, wow. How do we work with you? Jeff wants to know. Oh, how do you work with us? Oh my goodness, it's so easy. All you have to do is email us. I mean, you can DM us on social media. That's fine too, awesome. But the most direct is just email us your demos. We take demo submissions all the time. We're constantly growing the roster. We have about 400 of the top talent. Still very much looking for diversity talent. There's a lot of cool trends out there. We need a language. We need buy and try lingual people. We need ages, different ages. So don't give up before you start. You know what I mean? Like make sure you market and make sure you submit. If you have great professionally produced demos, I want to hear them. Send them over to me, Lolliputas Company. Boom, and subject line at MCVO submission. And that way we know it's going to go into review for the agency if that's what you want to do. Very good. Well, wow, thanks so much for joining us tonight and giving us some of your expertise. And we really appreciate what you do in the business. And it's always a pleasure to see you whenever I get the chance, which is not a whole lot, but you're in the same town. We should get together. All righty. OK, we're going to take a break. We're going to finish things up here. And we'll be right back. Thanks, Lau. Great job. Thanks, guys. You're still watching VOBS? In these modern times, every business needs a website. When you need a website for your voice acting business, there's only one place to go. Like the name says, voiceactorwebsites.com. Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online in a much shorter time. When you contact voiceactorwebsites.com, their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are. They work with you to highlight what you do. Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are and how your voice is the one for them. Plus, voiceactorwebsites.com has other great resources, like their practice script library and other resources to help your voiceover career flourish. Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros. Voiceactorwebsites.com, where your VO website shouldn't be a pain in the, you know what. Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead. There's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer. That place is 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, 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 voiceoverextra.com. That's voiceoverextra.com. Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky, the voice of Bronco and you're watching Voiceover Body Shop. And we're back and our thanks again to Laulipetus for enlightening us on the kind of stuff that she does, which is fascinating. She likes to pack it in. That was a lot of information. It was, so yeah. High value content. Yeah, fortunately, you can always watch the replay and take even better notes now. That's right. Which is one of the great things about the fact that we have this will be on all week on Facebook and on our website, so. All weekend forever. You can watch it anytime you want by just going to our website because they're all there as well. Well, next week on this very show, unless you're watching live, in which case you should hang out and stay because George and I go into tech talk right after this and we'd love to get your home studio tech questions. So stay tuned for that. You got any webinars coming up or anything? Nothing is solidified at the moment, but we should be having one come up the first week of January. It's gonna be about new tech tools, new things to revolutionize your business. But if you wanna check it out, see when we go live on that, just go to the, actually my website, georgethe.tech slash webinars and on any services you can get 10% off with the coupon code, during checkout of V-O-B-S fan 10. All righty. Thanks for asking. All right, and of course Whirly gigs. Yeah, by the time you guys see this show, it's still not too late. No, it's still not too late. Okay. My dad might be like, no, no, I don't wanna sell anymore. But if you wanna email, if you like Whirly gigs, those cute things you put in your yard with propeller and it makes little things move around, little animations. My dad loves making them and he has a bunch for sale. Just email him, fairweatherwhirlygigs at Comcast.net. And by the way, that's spelled W-H-I-R-L-I-G-I-G-S. That's the proper spelling of Whirly gigs. So, take a look. Okay, let's see, what else we got here? We have, of course, our donors of the week. We have a new one. Yay. Like Grace Newton. Hey, Robert Liedem. Steve Chandler. Casey Clack. Jonathan Grant. Thomas Pinto. Greg Thomas. A doctor voice. Antland Productions, A. Uncle Roy. Martha Kahn. 949 Designs. Lee Finney, that is. Christopher Epperson. Sarah Borges. Philip Sapir. Brian Page. Patty Gibbons. Rob Ryder. Shawna Pennington-Bear. Don Griffith. Trey Mosley. Diana Birdsal. Hey, Diana. And Sandra Manwheeler. All right. Hey, join our mailing list too. That way you know exactly what's gonna be coming on. And I send that out right before the show, maybe an hour or so, you're like, oh yeah, I was gonna go bowling, but no, I'd rather watch VoiceOver Body Shop Live. So that's, you know, does anybody still go bowling? Apparently. Yeah, there would. It's never been more expensive. I can tell you that. That's for darn sure. We need to thank our wonderful sponsors like Harlan Hogan's VoiceOver Essentials. VoiceOver Extra. SorusElements. VioHeroes.com. VoiceActorWebsites.com. And WorldVoices.org. WorldVoices.org. The Industry Association of Freelance Voice Talent. Our thanks to Jeff Holman for a great chat room duty tonight and getting us all those great questions for Lalapetus and Sumer Lino for surviving all that life has to give her and us. So, yeah, when she's our technical director and of course, Lee Penny for just being Lee Penny. Anyway, we're gonna re-rack for a tech talk. So stick around, get us your tech questions, get them in the chat room, whether you're on Facebook or on YouTube Live and George and I will be happy to address those and give you an honest answer about it as opposed to all the other garbage you'll find on the internet. You know, this is not an easy business. That's why we're here every week, bringing you the experts and the people that really know how to succeed in this business and of course, the technological stuff because we've actually come to the conclusion that if it sounds good, it is good. I'm Dan Leonard. And I'm George Whidham. And this is VoiceOver. Body Shop. Or VOBS. Stay tuned for tech talk. Have a great week, everybody. Alrighty. Don't you guys go anywhere? Cause we're gonna, we're re-racked for tech talk here and you got lots of cool stuff to talk about. And again, if you've got a question and you're watching on YouTube Live or on Facebook Live, just throw it in the chat room and we will get to that question. Cause George and I know the answers to all these things. And if we don't, we'll make something up. That's right. Between the two of us, we'll come up with something. I mean, we'll find the right answer. We'll tell you where to go, find the right answer. That's what I meant to say. Google this. My dad says, that's my dad's line. Right. Can I make something up for you? Yeah. Okay. Let's see. One thing I needed to check here. Did I turn that off in audio? I did. Okay. Good. Excellent. All right. Let's do some tech talk. Give us your tech questions, guys. We want to hear from you, but all right. Let's roll on this. It is 6-0-4. Mark the time. And let's roll. Five, four, three. Hey, it's time for VoiceOver Body Shop. Tech talk. Number 93, I believe. Wow. 92? Maybe it's 92. Maybe it's 93. We're in the 90s. Somewhere in the 90s. We're going to reach 100 sometime in 2023. That's right. I can actually probably even count looking at the calendar. So anyway, if you've got a question, throw it in the chat room, especially if it has to do with Home VoiceOver Studio Technology, which by the way, is what we know the most about of anything. I mean, we know some other stuff too, but we're ready to roll here. It's time for tech talk on VoiceOver Body Shop right now. Tech talk. Brought to you by VoiceOverEssentials.com, the home of Harlan Hogan's signature products, Source Elements, the makers of Source Connect. VoiceOver Heroes become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training. VoiceActorWebsites.com, where your Voice Actor website doesn't have to be a pain in the butt. VoiceOver Extra, your daily resource for voiceover success. And World Voices, the industry association of freelance voice talent. And now here's your hosts, Dan and George. Well, hello there. I'm Dan Leonard. And I'm George Whidham. And this is VoiceOver Body Shop, or V-O-B-S Tech Talk. Tech Talk, Tech Talk, Tech Talk, Tech Talk. And we have to lead off, since this'll be next week. It's like, put on your yamaka. It's time to celebrate Hanukkah. So, absolutely, eight crazy nights. So, you know. Which night is the craziest? Or are they all pretty much evenly crazy? First night's usually pretty crazy. Last night's the craziest. Gotcha. Because you get the most candles, and it's like there's seven candles. The most melted wax. Right, and one in the middle, so. No, eight candles. What am I talking about? Eight candles. I thought it was nine candles. No, no, no. Isn't it four and four, and then a big one in the middle? And the big one in the middle. Okay. That's the one that you use to light the other candles. Other ones, that's right. Because that one doesn't count. Got it, got it. It's there, but anyway. Happy Hanukkah to all of those who celebrate the Festival of Lights. Anyway, we're here because George and I know more about Home Voiceover Studios than anybody else combined. Because we've been doing this for a long time. I mean, I know I've been teaching it for like 15 years. And, you know, as we like to say, you know, you teach best that what you need to learn most. So, the more we teach, the more we learn. That's right, absolutely. So there's really nothing new under the sun until somebody shows us something new under the sun. Did you see this new thing? And I go, no, you don't need that. You really don't need it at all. But that's what we do. We're here to help you get set up and maintain your Home Voiceover Studios because everybody's got to have one today. The pandemic made it mandatory, but it also is just important because you've got a lot of producers out there that are like, you know, it's cheaper to work with somebody in a home studio if their home studio is good. And it's, and, you know, and again, if it sounds good, it is good. Right, that's right. You know, and more importantly, you have the paid version of Soros Connect, which seems to be the one that most agents seem to be asking about. Yeah. And setting that up usually takes Mr. Wittem's help. Used to be, you know, their support has gotten really good. That's good. They have their own academy now. It's really, they've stepped it up big time. That's good to hear. But if you'd like help with your Home Voice Studio, aside from watching this show, which you should all be doing anyway, you can get in touch with us individually. George and I have our own businesses and we, you know, consult with each other about certain things. But, you know, we work on Home Voiceover Studios. And if you'd like to work with George, who knows more about this stuff than anybody I know, aside from me, where do they go? You go right here. Oh, that's, it makes it easy. I'm for the podcast listeners. I'm referring to my t-shirt, georgethe.tech. That is my home on the web. Soon to have a new website. I know I listened to Dan teasing his new website for months and months. Now it's my turn. I mean, it's actually up. I've been, you know, I've been teasing it. I'm still teasing it. Still teasing. Ah, maybe January 1st we'll have the new website. But anyway, that's where we go for tech support. You can schedule sessions with me and actually a few others on our team, Tim Freedlander and Rich Green now. You can schedule sessions with them, automated through the website, call for emergency support if you need it desperately and or just get a sound check or as Dan likes to call them. My Specialman Collection Cup. That's right. Over at homevoiceoverstudio.com. It's now on the top of the page. So when you come to homevoiceoverstudio.com, there it is. And for $25, I will give your audio thorough analysis. And I've been doing this a long time. It takes what, five, 10 seconds to know what's going on in the studio. Takes longer to type it than it does to hear it. That's for sure. That's true, but there's nothing new under the sun that I haven't heard. I'm like, okay, all right, you sound like you're under a shelf. There's a loud hum in the background that is also at the same frequency of your voice. Your microphone's facing their own direction. And which happens, you know? I mean, yeah, it's amazing. How many times do people say, hey, you know, why does my audio sound so weird? Because you're talking into the wrong sound. Everybody says this sound really weird and boxy and yeah, yeah. Although of course, the other one is you're talking through the mic on your laptop. Oh boy. Well, I mean, that happens to the best of us, I'll tell ya. But we'll recognize the sound of those problems within seconds and let you know what's happening. So, all righty. All right, well, to start off this Hanukkah week tech talk, number 92, I think it is actually 92. I could be wrong, but... Who's counting? We aren't. Wait, apparently not. Sue is. She's like, hey, what are we trying to do? She's like, come on you guys, don't you listen to me? Anyway, it's time for Georgia's tech update and you got a pile of stuff, 92. Thank you very much. I just have to reflect a few minutes for the show and it starts to flood in. Oh God, yeah, there was that. And then, oh, there was this. So as Dan and I like to do, we kind of like to reflect on the last week or two of tech that we've been dealing with. And so a few things that just come up and I thought I would share. So one, we've talked about a lot of the voiceover booths, those pre-fab booths that are out there, right? The usual suspects you've heard us mention. Studio Bricks, vocalbooth.com, whisper room, and Scott Peterson right here in LA who's shipping his booth still. But there's this other company that's been around and still in business, just hasn't really been in the conversation and that's Gretch Ken. Gretch Ken booths and they're still around. Yeah, the website looks like it was designed 20 years ago. I mean, it's very, very dated. But what they lack in slick websites, they make up for, I think, in a good product. And from my client that had one, the takeaway was from what I was hearing, the acoustics were quite good. I didn't feel like I had to give them any notes about the acoustics, which is saying a lot because a lot of these booths don't get the acoustics right out of the gate. So the downsides really were, let's keep going with the pros. The other pro he found was their excellent service. Like when you buy a booth from them, they're clearly all made to order. And they really do an interview with you to make sure you're buying the right product. Do you really need double wall? Do you need enhancements of any kind? They really talk through it over the phone. So again, instead of having a slick, really automated site, they kind of go old school. And if you like that kind of service, you're gonna like dealing with them. The only cons that he mentioned really was the pieces that assemble the booth are very heavy. They're quite massive, larger than most other companies' booth segments. So that's one little gotcha. I think similar in the way to the VocalBooth.com. The sections are very massive. So be ready for that. And he has to turn off the ventilation when he's recording. So maybe a small modification with the fan, maybe having a variable speed, you would be able to leave it on, but he did find that to be the only issue. So anyway, just another brand to check out when you're doing your research. Don't skip Gretch Ken. Now, today I was at a studio where as much was spent on dealing with and trying to make sure we eliminate the noise from his heating cooling system from the source, well, it never really panned out that way. And it's still disruptive enough in some scenarios where a client, a really, really picky one, like a video game producer, will say your noise floor is too high, which is really frustrating because acoustically it sounds incredible. Well, fortunately for him, he happens to be using a universal audio Apollo. And we all know how I feel about the Apollos, right? Overly complicated, expensive, customer support lacking, et cetera, et cetera. However, there's a killer tool and that's called C-Suite C-Vox. I showed him how dropping that right into his effects chain, he could real time knock down the noise and completely eliminate the rumbling noise of the forced air heating system that was still too noisy in his booth for some and he was blown away. So if you have an Apollo, if you do a lot of live directed sessions and you're dealing with really picky clients and a family doesn't like to freeze there, took us off. Is that the noise? Is that the right way to say it? Use just the right amount of flim. Just the right amount of flim, yeah. Perfect, who doesn't wanna, maybe the C-Suite will save your butt. You don't need this again if you're not doing live directed sessions or source connects. You can do the whatever post is necessary later, but this is a very specific tool that does a very specific thing and it does it really, really well. And $350 for the plugin, you better need it because it ain't cheap, but man, it does a great job. Moving on to, if you're using external displays, like a lot of us wanna have a bigger display and maybe buying a standard 27 inch or 30 inch monitor ain't big enough, you end up buying a 55 inch TV, okay? Yeah, you can do that, right? The problem with TVs is they often have a lot of processing on the video signal to make it look as good as possible, especially to make it look really amazing in the retail store, right? Extra bright, extra crisp, all this stuff they do. What that does is creates latency. And you know what happens when you move your mouse and you wiggle it, it's like, there's like a quarter to a half second. It is super frustrating and that's what my client today was facing with. After a little bit of research, reading the manual, googling, we found out that yes indeed, the majority of these issues were all on the TV side. Once we figured out how to put it in low latency mode, even TVs have low latency and turned it onto basically gaming mode, it improved dramatically. So if this happens to you and you're going, oh crap, I bought the wrong display for this job, don't worry, most TVs are really all of them. This was an LG in this case, 4K TV, had a way to detune that. It just wasn't very obvious how to do it. So don't sweat it, there's probably a way to fix it. Another thing we were dealing with was HDMI cables. And man, they are my absolute nemesis. Dan hates them too, I'm pretty sure. Because I had them piled up here from when we took everything out of here. Yeah, we, oh my God, the more problems we've had with HDMI cables. The thing about HDMI cables is they're kind of like USB cables in that there's tons of different standards. You know, with USB there was one, 1.2, two, three, 3.1, and yes, now, four. There's all these different standards. Well, HDMI is similar. There's probably even more versions of HDMI cables available. So it is mind numbing and frustrating. And what you pay for the cable is not necessarily gonna tell you whether it's the best cable has the right standards. So what's the rule of thumb here really? I recommend if you're gonna buy one HDMI cable on say Amazon or something and you know you don't wanna have to mess around, buy a second one from a totally different brand. Have a backup. Really? Yes. Because- See which one works best? See which one works best. I'm telling you, half the time that cable that you bought you installed. This way I went through this and one of my clients wanted a white cable instead of a black so she bought the white one. We plugged it in, ran it through the conduit, through the wall, into the booth, and guess what, it didn't work. So frustrated. So we had to come back again and that time I had to buy a couple extra brands of cables and that time the first one I tried worked. So save yourself time. HDMI cables on Monoprice and Amazon are cheap. Have a spare because there's so many standards. I would look for HDMI 2.0 cables at this point. Those are probably one of the most common ones or most current ones. And again, unless it's a really long cable do not spend more than $20 to $25 for an HDMI cable. They can be very grossly overpriced. Lastly, this is just a cautionary tale. If you use your iPad or your iPhone for pro audio sort of use cases, this goes right in there with the rule of thumb of not allowing your system to auto update. I was stung this week when my iPad that I used on my workstation that I used to control my interface is the personas that I used personas to your revelator. It updated its software, the UC control software. No problem, right? Except it said you must update the firmware on your hardware for it to continue working. So that one software updating caused a cascade effect. So now I had to upgrade the firmware on my hardware which was I'm telling you the last thing I wanted to do. Okay, then to get the firmware update I had to do a software update on my desktop computer which personas said, yeah, it just works. No, it didn't. I had to go somewhere else on their website to go download it and install it because it said I had the most current version. Anyway, it was a pain. I spent an hour to two hours dealing with this problem only because I had that software automatically updating on my iPad. So I really do recommend if you're using an iOS device for a specific job, like running a studio, running a remote or doing any kind of studio tech stuff, turn off the auto updates. It's in the software settings of your device. Just turn them off and it will save you a lot of frustration when that auto update happens and causes just random BS to frustrate you and keep you from working. So there's my rule on that one. I've noticed there are a lot of programs that are not catching up to Ventura. What have you run into? What's been a gotcha? It's sometimes, I think I mentioned this last week, it's stuff that is slow to respond. You can see Rosetta sort of saying, okay, let me figure out how this program works and you'll get the spinning beach ball. Do they start with A and end in E by the chance? Any of these programs? Like Adobe? I think very Adobe. No, Adobe's working great. I watch Adobe Audition. I watch it bounce on the dock for about 15 seconds. It takes a while for it to load, but it's a big program. Yeah, it is. But it's totally worth it, which is why I use it every day. Yeah, I've noticed that there's little things and I have a feeling that some of these other apps will catch up and will work. I'm having trouble with StreamYard for some reason. I think that probably is like- StreamYard? Yeah. Or ScreenFlow. ScreenFlow, ScreenFlow. Okay, because we're using StreamYard right now. It's working great. You're all hearing us and seeing us. No, but ScreenFlow. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me that much, I have to say. I mean, we're always talking about some of these software companies that are like, okay, we're issuing a new thing and you're gonna have to pay for a new one so we can show you what we fixed that you didn't like in the last one. Right. So we're paying for their mistakes, essentially. Yes, yes. Anyway. Anyway. But that's my rant. Good rant, then. You're gonna talk about dynamic versus condensers? Yeah. Is that our topic tonight? That is our little basic topic tonight. I see you have one. I have brought my RE20. Yes. Because I never use it. There's a reason for that. I get a lot of, oh, there goes that. I get a lot of questions and people saying, well, of course the old standard of what's the best microphone for voiceover. And of course, I will say, I try to keep it simple. You and I are like, look, if you're just starting out, there's no microphone that's gonna change the way you read, copy, really. Any good studio condenser microphone will work great. For example, I finally got to use the Mojave tonight that we were talking about a couple weeks ago. Oh yeah, that's the MA50. How do I sound on this? I mean, there's no processing on this. It's just me. It sounds fantastic. It's a great sounding microphone. But it's also a great sounding microphone being used by a great sounding voice. Well, that doesn't hurt. In a well-treated room with great acoustics. You know, all of the important elements are in this room. Which is the most important stuff. A lot of white sounds so good. Right. I mean, if you have a great microphone in a bathroom, it's not gonna sound so great. I once did this video. I never really put it out there. Where I was singing something from Barbara of Seville in the shower. Yeah, yeah. You know, to a show. This is what it sounds like. And my wife is like, no, you're not putting that out there and showing off your hairy chest and all that stuff. So, but why, a lot of people are going to dynamic mics these days. Mostly the popular one is the Shure SM7B. Right. And, you know, if you're doing a podcast, it's okay. But if you're doing voiceover, there's a reason why some people would say, yeah, use a dynamic mic. What's the difference between the two? I can give you a quick, you know, scientific explanation. Studio condenser mic is much more sensitive. You have to feed it with a 48 volt current. It charges this plate that's in the middle that you can actually see this round thing, which is the diaphragm. And as the diaphragm vibrates with your voice, it changes the resistance in the line. And that's what's interpreted as your voice. And it's because it's charged with electrically, it's very, very sensitive. And you can hear me from this distance away without any trouble. But it will pick up everything else within an ear shot of that microphone. So I brought the RE-20 in, and whoa, crap. Do you have it plugged into a chain? Can we hear it? I do have it plugged in. It's like right here. And can you, we'll just ignore what went on there. I needed to get rid of this stuff anyway. Yeah, let me, you know, get off this mic. Okay, so now I am talking strictly on this one. Why is this not so great for voiceover? One, and this is even with a lot of, oh, we'll say there's no processing on this at all. A lot of gain. There's, I got this thing cranked to the top. And of course you're not gonna hear any background noise. It definitely kills off the ambience of the room. Right, but in order for it to work, even with, you know, and I've got this guy on here, the fat head on here to give it a little bit more gain. Oh, you do, yeah. That basically turns a dynamic mic into a quote-unquote active mic, kind of because it adds a whole bunch of level to the output of the mic that I otherwise wouldn't have. Now I sound good on it, but in order to get a good level, I have to talk this close to it, which is what you see when people are doing podcasts or if they're on the air doing radio. And you notice there's an aesthetic to it. An oral aesthetic to it. That sounds like Dan's doing a radio show. That's right. Hey, it's 20 minutes after the hour right now. Yeah. Right. You know, or welcome to our podcast. But it's warm, it's very rich, but it's very broadcast. Right. And the fact of the matter is it's, we don't talk half an inch from somebody's ear drum. Right. So that's why we use a studio condenser mic, which as you can hear, sounds a lot better and a lot clearer. And why do people recommend the dynamic mics? They're great for singers. And I guess I got to explain this again. When we're doing voiceover, we're being very conversational and we want to remain conversational. Unless we're like doing gaming or something along those lines where we have to get louder. We're just talking the way we do when we're just having a cup of coffee or sharing a beer or somebody with a good friend. Unless you're in a really noisy bar, in which case you're shouting like this. And you wonder why your throat is sore the next morning. Which is why when you go to conferences, use your indoor voice. But using a condenser mic, it will pick you up clearly from a good distance, like from there and you're gonna hear me. This guy you got to use really close up. Another reason dynamics are popular in podcasting and stuff is you can have three or four of them all in close proximity to each other. And you don't get a lot of bleed, cross talk between all those mics, right? You do that with four condenser mics. One is gonna hear the voices of others sitting near you. And yes indeed, that does create a little bit of a phasey, hollow echo-y sort of sound. So that's another reason why you'll see dynamics much more commonly used in a podcast situation with multiple people sitting around. Absolutely, and so, but the reason that singers like mics like this is because they can take what we call a lot of high SPL. This guy was designed as a bass drum mic. I mean, and that's what Electrovoice was using it for and what they were selling it as. It became popular in broadcast studios because why did it become popular in broadcast studios? Because the acoustics in a lot of studios are very bad, especially radio studios. And if you've listened to any podcast, you'll hear that most people are doing them in their living rooms and it doesn't always work. So that's why they will use something like an RE20 or an SM7B. But it doesn't sound natural, guys. I'm sorry, it just, the condenser is just much better. Especially this one. Yeah, well, this happens to be an exceptional mic. Yeah. And I actually really like this one. But of course, I also like my custom built. Your home built. My home built mic here, which, you know, I'm gonna tighten up a little bit. Yeah, this is from mic parts. This thing sounds great. But it sounds a lot like this one. And who can really tell the difference? Nobody. Only engineers that have like six mics lined up next to each other. Right. Can they get any kind of a real impression of how mics compare to each other? Exactly. So that's my spiel on why you don't use a dynamic mic in your voiceover studio. And I know a lot of people doing it. But the thing was, oh, that was the thing I was going to show you is that this guy can take a lot of SPL and you can yell into it and it's gonna handle it. That's the mic that Dee Snyder used on the radio for many years from Twisted Sister. Right. You think he talks softly and calmly into the microphone? I don't think so. Probably not. But if you talk too loud in one of these, you're gonna over modulate. So you don't do that. But that's one of the reasons that people use them. Great for singers, I do not recommend them for voiceover. The SM7B is actually a little better than the RE20. Little better, but even less sensitive. Exactly. It needs even more gain. Exactly. And that's the thing is you need a lot of gain for the dynamic mic, so don't use those. All right, we're gonna take a quick break here. I'm gonna mop up and we'll be right back with your questions here on Voiceover Body Shop Tech Talk. So don't go away. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Bill Farmer, and you are watching Voiceover Body Shop. It's great. From VoiceoverEssentials.com, it's the relationship savior. The multicolor LED VO recording sign. Not just a stock on the air or recording sign. It's our exclusive voiceover recording sign. This brilliantly lit LED 20 color beacon tells everybody at home, which is currently everybody. Hey, I'm auditioning, recording, podcasting, narrating, or broadcasting here. And a few moments of relative quiet would be very much appreciated. What's more, the wafer thin remote control lets you choose a multitude of options, from color to brightness, flashing to fade in and out. You can even set up your own personal codes. Red means I'm recording. Blue, playing back. Green, it's a wrap. Plug in the seven foot long cord and hang it on a door knob or wall hook using the included chain. Order yours now for just $69.95 from VoiceOverEssentials.com. And for easy giving for the voice talent in your family, get a VoiceOverEssentials gift card too. Well, it's time, yes it is, to thank Source Elements for being a sponsor of our show. The creators of Source Connect and other tools that are coming down the pipeline. I know their Source Nexus is something that Robert Marshall, one of our team over at Georgia Tech, who also is a co-founder of Source Elements, Source Nexus is something he personally is very excited and proud about because now they have something called the Nexus Gateway that allows you to be like the audio traffic cop in your studio. With that system, you can really route audio between different applications very logically and sensibly. It's amazing because what it does is it creates drivers of your design. So if you wanna have a sound driver, that's the input for Zoom that includes the sound from your audio interface and the sound from the output of your DAW, twisted wave, whatever. And so both of those can be sent back down the line to whoever's listening. That's something you can do with Source Nexus and a heck of a lot more. So it's something you might wanna check out if you wanna have more flexibility and how you route audio in and out of your software. You're more of a power user, not just a basic voice actor that you just have more capability, need more capability. You might wanna check out Source Nexus, a new tool set from them that is, like I said, the audio traffic cop in your studio. Well, we thank them for their support. Of course, Source Connect is their flagship app. You by now know what that is. So I thought I'd talk about Nexus, something different. Let's get back to this, to all your tech questions right after the rest of these messages. Hey there, I'm David H. Lawrence, the 17th. And with my company, VioHeroes and my team of coaches and my community of voiceover talent, we guide voiceover actors along their journey. And you may be watching VOBS here and not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching. You may not even have started yet. And we actually specialize in helping you do just that. So if you're watching all the stuff going on here on VOBS and going, I have no idea what they're talking about. I don't know, but I really wanna do this. I'd really like to help you. Please go to VioHeroes.com slash start. That's VioHeroes.com slash start. And you can take our getting started and voiceover class which tells you everything you need to get started as a voice talent. And I'd love to hold your hand along the way and help you with that journey. Again, VioHeroes.com slash start. That's VioHeroes.com slash start. This is the Latin Lover narrator from Jane the Virgin, Anthony Mendez. And you're enjoying Dan and George on the voiceover buddy shop. All right, we're back. And for some reason we have audacity on the screen. Don't need it yet. Sorry about that. Okay, all right. Not even gonna ask. Well, I will. I had a question coming later. I wanted to be prepared. Okay, that's the most important thing. Well, after spilling an entire glass of coffee on my road procaster. It's still working. And it's still working fine. I didn't hear any crackling, popping, no smoke. That's right. Now, I'm impressed. You know, all the switches work and that's really important. Okay, we got lots of great questions here. Thank you for submitting your questions because that's what makes this show really work. So let's start off with Steven Pearson. He says, you know, there's a school of thought that when submitting auditions, we should submit two takes in contrasting styles, even when not asked to send two takes. What is your opinion? Well, I definitely have an opinion on this. This is one of those things. What does your soul tell you? You know, when I submit stuff, now, if the agent I'm working with or the roster I'm on and they give specific instructions saying submit two takes, you submit two takes. As a general rule of thumb, you should probably do that. The thing is, if you're not asked to send two takes and they say send one take, don't send two takes. Sometimes they will say, read the entire copy. Yeah, we know it's a lot of copy but that's the only thing they'll accept. You read the entire copy. But unless they say only one read, give them two reads. You know, if it's a short thing, if it's a 15 second thing, you can give them three. Just make it sound very, very different from what you initially submitted or what you initially did. And sometimes I'll read something, you know, I really like the way I read that the first time and then I'll go nuts on a second one and then I'll listen to that and I go, you know, I'm just gonna take this and I'm gonna switch them around and I'm gonna put my lead take. And because what they're listening for in any audition is how are you gonna do it differently from everybody else? Because everybody else is gonna do it the same way because they haven't been trained properly and they're getting a hundred auditions. Just come out and do it differently. Not necessarily using a different voice, but you know, how your cadence is and anything that you can do to change it up as long as it fits within the scope of what it is they're looking for. So, you know, do a normal read the way everybody else would or the way you normally would and then do it differently. And maybe you'll find that by doing it differently somehow, even if it's just weird, just throw it in there because sometimes it's not how you do it. It's the mere fact that you did it differently that's gonna catch somebody's attention. And they're gonna go, well, there may not be right for this spot, but I really like the way they changed that or that they came up with a different way of doing that. And they'll remember you and when another thing comes up, they'll, you'll be tops on their list. So, yeah, always do two unless they say only one. I mean, come on, that's just logical. You got the Rob Rader question. I was gonna tag on to that too. Oh, please do. I mean, I've also heard of certain people, they might send the same read, but they might say it in one dry and then one with some processing on it. That has nothing to do with the acting. That's just another way of sending two takes. Do you feel like there's any value in doing that? I don't know. I have been submitting stuff, just full modulation with what I'm using here and that's what people wanna hear. I mean, there are gonna be people who are, oh, no, no, you gotta use compression. You gotta use this, you gotta use that. You gotta do that. I'm like, I don't know. They're gonna hire me because I've read it better than somebody else. And that's generally the bottom line. And if you're trying to show off what a great producer you are or that you understand all that software and all that processing, they don't care. Yeah, the people I know that have done that, we're doing very specific kind of things like radio production, where production was expected to be part of the puzzle. Rob Ryder on YouTube says, have you heard the new beta Adobe podcast? Which I happen to know is podcast.adobe.com. Is it possible that online processing and the AI that Adobe says they're using might save a lot of work for critical voiceover work? So what are some of the things that are going on? I've heard bits and pieces about it. Yeah, it's still any invite, sort of, you have to sign up and get on a list and then wait for them to accept you into the program. So I've only been able to watch some demos. But the bottom line is the AI processing that I've heard in a lot of different contexts is usually pretty noticeable. It's not, doesn't sound, it's not gonna fool you into thinking you're hearing raw audio, right? So it's not very transparent. I have been playing with some newer processing tools that do have the capability of giving a very transparent end result sound, such as Waves Clarity VX. That one does an incredibly good job using a form of AI to separate your voice from the background. And when used correctly is extremely transparent, but I would never rely on so far from what I've heard. I would not rely on Adobe's AI engine for sound fixing on anything critical at all. Podcasting, fine, no problem, but not things where the audio is expected to sound studio quality pristine. I have to say, I've really never been impressed with Adobe's take on a lot of different types of processing, especially if you look at their presets. If you pull up any voiceover, any preset that has the word voiceover in it and listen to what it and then look at the settings, they don't really seem to understand what the voiceover industry actually is looking for. So I wouldn't trust it. I think because Audition is for video. It's well, it's audio for video. It's designed to really interface with Premiere. Premiere, right. And perhaps that's the way they think about it that way, but we as voice actors don't necessarily think of it the same way, there's a certain way we want it to sound. And I use the presets all the time. If there's something I wanna fix. And it's generally- Because you hear the result and you know whether that preset's appropriate. We're not blindly applying it because it has the word voiceover in the preset. But here's the thing. I generally don't use these things myself. It's with all the audio that people send me, I'm like, okay, what will fix this if they're not willing to find themselves in a much quieter spot? Or if they're- They're not just not able to. Right, and so there are noise reduction strategies and high pass filters and things like that. I try to keep it really, really simple. And sometimes, now some of the noise reduction things that I have found, if the noise floor is not that bad and it's at frequencies that are not harmonic with your voice, they work okay. Would I submit an audition with that? My thing is always do the physical thing to reduce the background noise. If that means unplugging your refrigerator, just remember to plug it back in when you're done. Yeah. I've seen that one happen a few times. So yeah, I would tend to agree that you have to know what it's supposed to sound like, whistle, and try not to satisfy your own ears and let somebody who knows exactly what it's supposed to sound like listen and give you that background on how to get it sounding right, which is something that Mr. Widdem and I both do. Mm-hmm. All righty. Ann Grist asks, overachieving voice actor question. Okay. George, what mic boom is visible in your live video? Well, that's my- Like this shot right here? That one there. That's just your standard banjo and porium mic stand. Mic stand, yeah. Yeah, it's an onstage mic stand. And the mic on the end of it is the Harlan Hogan, the good old Harlan Hogan VO1A that's been in our studio from the get-go from Harlan. That's all it is. Maybe it looks funny because it's sideways. For on camera, I didn't want it to be too conspicuous, so I just turned it sideways. But yeah, that's all it is. All right. And now I'm back in the frame, which is, see, that actually worked pretty well. How do you like that? Yeah, no, and it's, by the way, an important thing when you're dealing with a boom microphone stand. Now, a lot of people buy the real cheap one, that's a tripod. And if you've got a small booth, like a PVC booth and blankets and stuff like that, you're gonna trip over that. And you're gonna kick the mic stand and stuff unless your booth is placed in a good spot where you can really push it out and get it out of the way. I always use a round metal stage stand for it, because one, you're not gonna trip over it. And two, you can take a sack of rocks and put it on there and it'll balance it out anyway, so. It's working here because it's leaning against a table. Table, right. Right, because I have my boom arm way, way extended out, so it would fall over without weight, but it is just, it is resting against a table. Yeah, interesting to note how George and I have our mics in different positions, but literally, we don't, because we're both addressing it the same way. He's got his sideways, because he likes to do it sideways. And I like having it like this. Now I'm starting to, there's a great commercial for a memory product that starts with a P that I won't mention because it's expensive and it makes your brain kind of weird. But this guy in Chicago, who's his armor writer and armor producer, and he's in the studio doing voiceover and son of a gun, he's got the mic set right. It's upside down. This is the way it's supposed to be. And the diaphragm in front of your eyes, the top of the mic at the bridge of your nose and you talk underneath it. In George's situation, he is talking in the same place only at sideways. You have to realize that the pickup pattern on a microphone like this is a hemisphere, not a flat plane. Right. And so I can talk to it this way. I can talk to it that way. I can talk to it that way. I can literally talk to the middle of the microphone. I just don't want to address the diaphragm straight on because you get plosives. Plosives. Although this one, this thing is actually quite nice. I like this. It is quite good. Yeah. So do I have to send it back to Mojave? I don't think so. I think we get to keep this one. Oh, okay, good. I like this one. All righty, let's see, what's next on here? What happened to the question that was just there? I don't know, it's gone. All right, but okay, well, let's, Max Goldberg asks. What does he ask? What's the best shock mount for a 416? Knowing that this question was coming up, I happen to grab a visual aid. These are great. I mean, it's the same that you would use. Is that made by? This is made by, I don't know, it's made by Banju and Poria, I think. It's kind of a generic one. Yeah, I can't even remember what this came with. Yeah. I like the Rycote ones. I know they're kind of spendy. Yeah. I mean, the ones that look like. Yes, yes, yes. Like this. Presactly like that one. Like this one. Yes, I love those because they do not have any rubber bands or elastics that will wear out ever. Cool. So I love those. That's called the Liar, L-Y-R-E. For obvious reasons. Yes, made by Rycote. That's my preference. I mean, you could use this with a 416. Oh, definitely. You know, but I'm using it with. This is the. The little video mic go-to. The go-to mic, which is, by the way, a great mic for, you know. While you're borrowing the Mojave, I might want to borrow your video mic go-to. Okay. That's a fair trick. As long as you don't need it. I, you know. We'll talk later. Yeah. You get that right. But one of these guys, you know, will work great with it. You want to have something that's got, gives it a little bit of suspension. And you know, I've got this one. I've got another one that I use in the, you know, in my booth. That's just, you know, as long as it's strung up and it's suspended, that's really the best thing. Mm-hmm. Yep. Hey, Grace Newton's question, go. I ran Ventura update from a MacBook Air One because she listens to the show all the time and we tell her not to. And Audacity wouldn't work. So I had to install the newest version of Audacity. I can't find the time shift tool anywhere on the new version. Did they remove it? No, they just renamed it. And now we get to- And how I know that. And now we'll show you Audacity. They renamed it and oops, sorry, Sue was on it and I was on it and we doubled it. The version of, let's go back to Audacity. So here's the thing, if you're on Mac, this is one of the best things ever. People never think to do this. If you click on the help word help and type under the search and the name of the thing you're looking for, it'll show in the menu bars where that tool is, right? You just mouse down. And it instantly takes you to where that tool is. But in this case, it didn't help because they changed the name of the feature. So no longer got the name time in it. So what did I do next? Well, then I went into the effect menu, started looking down and looked for anything that has to do with speed or tempo. And sure enough, there is actually a change speed and a change tempo flucking from Audacity. I don't know the differences between the two. I don't know where you'd use one over the other, but that's very much likely where the time tool that you were looking for is located now. So hopefully that works for you. Yeah, it's probably in one of the things that they really did change the interface on Audacity. Yeah, it's had quite a few changes done to it. Can you guys still see it? Yeah. If I go back here, effects, change. Yeah, we're not seeing it on there. Oh, did it freeze? No, it's not that it, well, it's that. Oh, it doesn't show the dropdown. It's not showing the dropdown. So you don't see the change speed window right now that's floating in front, do you? For those listening to the podcast, yeah, it's there. Exactly. So I have a change speed window available and that has the speed multiplier and the percent change. So that is definitely gonna change the speed of the audio. The question is, it's gonna change speed, including pitch. So that's not gonna be the one you would want. So the other tool in here is called Change Tempo. And this is what you would want. Change Tempo changes how fast the audio will sound without changing pitch. So that's the tool you're looking for, very likely. They've always had that in Audition and, you know, it's fun to play. In there, they just change the name of it. Yeah, see, I go hunting for it. Let's drive people crazy, let's change the name. Yes, that's a promise software designed by a free committee. That's what's gonna happen. But it's still great software. For nothing. Yeah, but what do you want for nothing? What do you have for nothing? Exactly. So it's in there somewhere, but at timeshift also, I mean, you can move it along the timeline anyway. Yeah, timeshift is for literally moving something in time, forward and back. So I'm pretty sure she's talking about. Yeah, but if you highlight a section. I could be wrong. I might be off base there. Are you actually asking about moving the thing in time? Or are you talking about speeding it up or slowing it down? That's my question. I might be giving you the wrong answer. All right. So apologies, so. Yeah, but if it's moving stuff within the goal that looked like a, did it look like a hand? Yes. Yeah. In order to get a tool like that anymore, you have to, uh-huh, you have to use, thanks for mentioning this. You have to use multi-tool. Right. Yeah, for whatever reason, the dedicated timeshift tool is gone. If you choose multi-tool, and then put the mouse on the name at the top of the clip, now you can move it. Now you can do the timeshift. So that's the timeshift we're talking about, not tempo. Got it. All right, there you go. I knew that was what you was probably asking. Yeah, that's so frustrating that that would just disappear. Although the spectrogram in audacity is really good looking now too. Not that you can do a whole heck of a lot. Yeah, it's still a little bit weak, but it's getting better. Yeah. All right, enough about audacity. All right, David Lee Hawks on YouTube says, Dan, I need to get my home studio checked out and learned how to streamline my Adobe Audition workflow. What to do? Sue, you know what to put up there. It's pretty simple. You go to. Home studio. Home voiceover studio. There you go. Go to homevoiceoverstudio.com and contact me through there and we'll set something up. And I can, I will do a consult with you. And since you got all your equipment, that's great. And I will show you how to set it up properly and how to use it properly and how to create a very usable workflow within Adobe Audition. Adobe Audition is great for some of the simple things it does. And it has other things that are for other things other than voiceover. So what I can teach you is I can teach you is less is more. And that a lot of what you have to, what a lot of your sound has to do with your physical environment. So I'm finding people are just going nuts with, I gotta find all of these things to clean up my audio. Well, how about just cleaning up the place you're in? You know, makes it a lot easier. Although some people say, no, it's not because I live next to the airport. In which case I say, well, you live where you choose to live. Okay, yeah. So go on over to homevoiceoverstudio.com and contact, just click, you know, contact Dan and I'll happy to set something up with you. Next one, Kevin Launey. All right, Kevin's question is, good news I added ventilation in my booth. Bad news, I can hear it in the recordings. What might be better? A gate or noise extraction using a sample of the noise. So I guess the noise extraction is similar to like the noise tool in, well, since we're in Audacity, they've got in Audacity noise reduction. Let's see if that's the tool there. Yeah, they're calling it noise reduction. Yeah, as long as you're using it lightly, lightly. Right? Not more than 12 dB of reduction. You know, don't go over, don't overdo it. It does a pretty fine job and that's probably the tool you'd want to use over a gate. Gates, as we know, are kind of an, sort of an audio on off switch, right? That means like every time you start talking, the gate opens and whatever that noise is becomes highly noticeable as soon as you speak. When you stop speaking, the gate will then shut again and not always quickly enough. So you hear the voice trail off, then you hear, yes, that would be a really slow closing of the gate. But yes, that is exactly right and that is bad. So gates are very rarely useful for voiceover. There's a variation of a gate called an expander. I have had pretty good luck using them, but again, it depends on the severity of the noise. More severe noise probably is gonna need something like a noise reduction algorithm. And sometimes I will use both. And when it comes to ventilation, here's a trick that I learned while building my own booth and my own ventilation system, put a rheostat on the fan, slow the fan down. Look, as long as you replace the air in a booth every two or three minutes or so, you're not gonna be smothered by carbon dioxide. And it will keep it cool. It does not have to be at full speed. So if you can change the speed of the fan and you can do it, you can get a rheostat that'll, if it's a 120-volt fan, you can slow it down and listen to the point where it's not making that noise. And most of that noise is not coming from the fan. It's coming from the air movement within the ducts. And so that's why- Turbulence. Yeah, exactly. And that's what one of the things you wanna prevent. And that's what a DAW box is for, where it diffuses the sound and reduces it. But if you can play with the speed of the fan, that can make a big difference as well. Oh boy, that is so crucial. Just check on the motor your fan uses and make sure you can find a speed controller that works. Whether DC motors are by far the easiest to control the speed of without any difficulty. So you might need to do a little research. Yeah. Let's see, David Lee Hawks says, George, are you not a fan of the Declicker and Audition as well? I didn't say I was not a fan of Audition's plugins. I said I was not a fan of Audition's presets. That's different. Yeah. The plugins on Audition are really good. And I've managed even though that the Declicker tool is not by any means new, I don't think they've made any improvements or changes to it in many years. It still does seem to help a lot of the time without causing any real bad artifacts. So it's not terrible. Is it as sophisticated as an algorithm as you might find and say, Isotope RX10 mouth to click? Probably not. I doubt it. But yeah, it's not bad. It's experiment with the tools and if it sounds good, it is good. But I'm just saying, sometimes the presets that when you load the plugin, there's a long dropdown list sometimes of different preset options are way off base. And it's the ones that are literally called sometimes male voice or announcer or voiceover or narrator. They sometimes make some bad choices because they didn't talk to me. That's why or Dan, they didn't talk to us voiceover engineers, obviously, when they made their presets. No, so yeah, not against Audition's plugins, just some of the presets. Makes total sense. Alrighty, well, we're out of questions. Oh yeah. Oh wait, Jeff Slope snuck in there. What was Lau's email from last week? Oh, oh, that's right. Okay, good. You know what? She kind of didn't really say explicitly what her email address was. Right, so well, I'll edit that in next week for the week that you're at before this. Yeah, I'm gonna find it for you right now while Dan wraps up the show. Okay, very good. Okay, thank you. All right, Sue is now waving at us madly and saying something. Okay, sounds like it's a movie. It's on the screen, guys, is what she's telling us. It's right there. You can see it on the screen. It's Lau, L-A-U, L-P-T-S, L-A-P-I-D-E-S, company at gmail.com. Thank you, Sue. Is that what you wanted there, Sue? Thank you very much. Thank you, Sue. All right. And all right, well, thanks for all your questions, guys. That's great. These were all very good questions. Yeah. And so... I think the more folks listen, the better the questions get. Absolutely. Because they become more and more high level. They've gotten the basics out of the way and now they're really honing down into real specific issues. Absolutely. All right, well, we're gonna come back. We still got a couple of things we wanna mention, so don't go away, but we'll be right back after these messages. You're still watching VOBS? In these modern times, every business needs a website. 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Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis-Rocky, the voice of Rocco and you're watching Voiceover Body Shop. And we're back. We're back. Yeah. Anyway, next week on this show, it'll be December 26th, the day after Christmas. So we need to wish everybody a merry Christmas and happy holidays. And of course, you're probably watching this all week. It's Hanukkah every night this week. So hopefully you'll get a new microphone one night and maybe a mic stand the next. A mic cable the next. Maybe a Harlan Hogan sign, you know, and one of those things. Or the gift certificates, which are pretty good voiceover essentials. We're not sure what we're gonna do on the 26th. I'm thinking we should have a little holiday party show along with Tech Talk. Yeah, it'd be fun. Maybe invite a few friends over and then we can... Let's see if we can manage to pull off. Yeah, let's see who shows up. On January 9th, we will have Kelly Mojinski from The Voice Gaster. We haven't had her on since I think I was in Buffalo. Yeah, yeah. No, wow. And then on January 23rd, we will have Jason Linear White. Awesome. January all stacked up already. That's great. And I'm still trying to get ahold of Maurice LaMarche. Okay. Anybody know his email address? Let us know. I'm his friend on Facebook, maybe that'll work. Try that, try that. Anyway, we need to thank our donors of the week like Robert Liedem, Stephen Chandler, Casey Clack, Jonathan Grant, Tom Pinto, Shelley Avelino, Greg Thomas, Hey, Doctor of Voice, Ant Land Productions, Martha Kahn, 949 Designs, Christopher Epperson, Zara Borges, Phillips Apir, Brian Page, Patty Gibbons, Rob Ryder, Shauna Pennington-Baird, Don Griffith, Trey Mosley, Dianna Birdsall, sorry Dan. And Sandra Mann-Willer. All right. Yeah, you can donate to our show. Just go to our homepage, v-o-b-s dot t-v. And there's all sorts of things you can do there. Like watch every episode ever recorded of Voice Over Body Shop and E-Wabs along with a donate now button. You can, you know, you can give us a one-time donation. You can, you know, if you think, if you think that we're giving you great value for what you're paying for this, which, you know, if you don't like it, you can get your money back. But if you'd like to donate to the show, greatly appreciate it. It helps with the technical production of the show. Let's see. We need to plug our jobs, which in our businesses, homevoiceoverstudio.com, if you want to work with me on your home voiceover studio, because I'm a lot of fun. Or you can work with George, who's also fun. And I just found out because my assistant got it up online, our next webinar is official. We're going to be doing it January 5th, 3 p.m. Pacific time. And it's going to be called Next Level Production and Vio Recording Techniques for 2023. So it'll be like kind of looking at, yeah, some of those AI processing tools, software maybe you hadn't thought of trying yet, introducing you to some, maybe some tools and techniques that you will save you some time or maybe just drain your wallet. Show up and find out. All right, I think I'm going to show up for that one, see what you come up with. We need to thank our amazing sponsors like Harlan Hogan's VoiceOver Essentials, VoiceOver Extra, Source Elements, VioHeroes.com, VoiceActorWebsites.com, and WorldVoices.org, Yes, the Industry Association of Freelance, Voice Talent, please join us today because we got lots of cool stuff for you. And we're here to help you make money, not make money for us. Big difference with some of these other organizations and stuff, I won't mention any names. Thanks to Jeff Holman for doing yeoman work in the chat room tonight. Sue Merlino, just getting it done as our director and waving wildly at us and going, right? And Lee Penny for just being Lee Penny. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, everybody. We'll see you back here on the 26th. And with our next guest or whatever is it we're doing on the 26th, so enjoy your holiday, stay warm, stay cool, do whatever it is you need to do. Just make sure that your audio is sounding right and you got to work with us to make sure that it sounds the way it's supposed to. But the bottom line is, if it sounds good, it is good. I'm Dan Leonard. And I'm George Whittem. And this is VoiceOver. Body Shop. Or VOBS. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Have a great week everybody and enjoy the holidays. Cheers.