 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. It is actually number 94, but Sue's not here to draw the 94 that goes in here so we'll go ninety Four That's close enough Because I don't buy that I can't show not well if you show nine I can show four and true All right, but if you've got a question for us throw it in the chat room Especially it has to do with home voiceover studio technology. There must be something you want to know We've been doing the show for almost 12 years You figure we know just about everything, but then someone will surprise this was something well I'll say people need to be retaught things over and over as as today's a lessons in my client Experiences we know you need repetition to really get things to sink in so that's right Here we are to answer those same questions over and over All right. Well in that case We'll get the chance to discuss that stuff because you've got your you've got your your tech update And I want to talk about bad internet advice When you put it in there as internet advice, I thought you're gonna talk about what's kind of cable modem to get Well people can ask that but you know, it's like no you you know about bad internet advice We're where we're definitely know what that's about. Alrighty. Well, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk right now Brought to you by voiceover essentials calm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements the makers of source connect voiceover heroes become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor websites calm 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, hi there, I'm Dan Leonard and on George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or VO Be as tech talk tech talk tech talk. This is tech talk This is what people want to hear they want to hear George and I talk about stuff I mean we talk about all sorts of stuff when we're together and we get to discuss stuff But it always comes down to not necessarily talking about any specific clients We won't mention any Happens it does happen, but we won't say whoop But we all we talk about our lives and all those other things But when we talk about home voiceover studios, everybody seems to want to listen Which is why for the past almost 12 years. We've been doing this during show And you guys keep asking questions and you keep coming back And you keep coming back for even more than that and that's why we're here And we want to make sure that you get all of the answers You need to keep your audio sounding really spiffy There's a word. That's the word never used no more whistle. What's just gonna use spiffy from now on Yes, we need to come up with an acronym for spiffy sounds pretty Never mind Well, here's the thing George and I do this this is we're experts in home voiceover studio Talk about a niche There are a lot of people out there that say that their voice acting coaches and then they're also I coached with so-and-so But they never taught me any of this stuff Well, or you coached with so-and-so and they taught you the wrong wrong thing that also happens a whole lot And we'll talk about that a little bit later But you can work with one of us because we're the experts We're the guys that actually know and understand what goes on in your closet in your PVC booth Or in your in your pre bet prefab booth or one that you've built yourself What's the right equipment? What is more importantly? What's the right way to use that equipment? That's the stuff we do and if something breaks I I missed your t-shirt that says I'm here cuz you broke something. I miss that too. Where is it? Probably hiding in the dryer. It was a long time ago. That's sure had to get it had to go out of rotation Okay, I get the what you're wearing shirt t-shirt with holes in it. I don't want to see that Where am I gonna put them, you know, these are legendary t-shirts from legendary conferences Anyway, if you want to work with one of us, especially me or George because that's one of us If you want to work with George, where exactly do they go to do that? Between coughs you go to George the dot the tech on the web. That's my website and it's going to be new Just like Dan used to tell us he has a new website coming and I actually do and you did Mine is coming. I I'm still not gonna say a date, but it is coming and it's gonna be revolutionary But anyway, you can still book services and get access to all the things that I know and do and teach and train Over at George the dot tech and Dan you do a lot of the same kind of thing I do my styles a little bit different I you know, I I will talk equipment and I will do all those you probably get a little bit more life coaching or Actual coaching coaching slipping in there, too. Oh, it's like I'm a therapist sometimes. Yes I'm sure there's there's a lot of panic out there There's yeah, I don't know how to do this, you know What's involved in the beginner beginners course? Well over at home voice over studio calm I will answer all of your questions and we can do a consult whether you're starting from zero You've got no equipment. You obviously have a computer if you email me or unless you just use your phone And I will teach you from soup to nuts how to get it done, right? So you don't have to be an audio engineer, which I think is Probably a big misunderstanding with a lot of people getting into the voiceover business is like I gotta be at all these processors I'm gonna it's all to me at least it's all physical That's what I keep telling George and I think he almost agrees with So it's it's it's the acoustic of a proper properties of your booth or where you're recording space like technique And you're my techniques setting proper levels and all that kind of stuff, but that's not really all that technical That's really simple stuff and we've broken it down into really super things and if you go over to home voice over studio calm I've got my specimen collection cup at the top of the page now and you can click on that send me a raw sample And for $25 I will Do an analysis of your audio to see what's good about it and what can be fixed And if it's really bad, then we can you know, we can troubleshoot it and see if we can get your sound Sounding what it's supposed to sound like Anyway, it's time for George's tech update and seeing as he's only been like taking prescriptions all day I imagine you've had some time to go on to the internet and come up with a couple of Tech issues and tech things that you want to remind us about Yeah, I was spending entirely too much time on the internet and it was getting annoying Which is why COVID probably a little bit of this little bit of that but I got tired of I got tired of doom scrolling and so Well first I a microphone showed up a microphone that I'm using right now in fact to do the show And that's the road video might go to Dan's familiar with this Mike because he has it So here's here. We'll do it an opposite sides here. Yes. Oh, etch it'll be over here I had fully intended to bond borrowing it when I saw it was on a temporary promotion on price at $79 I was like, oh geez I'm just should buy one and so here I am using it. So So I was going to mention this adobe creative cloud thing first, but My voice needs apparently a rest because I've been coughing. So I'm going to play this A video that while I was laying in bed today Oh, I actually had the energy thanks to probably some Miracle pax lovid drug treatment I got today to get me over COVID I had the energy to put together a video review of the video Mike could go And you know, as usual it goes into a little bit of depth It goes into a little bit of troubleshooting and how to And I hope you enjoy it Here it is Buddy it's George the tech This is the sick in bed edition Of an unboxing That's not something I've done before but what the heck On board So this just came in the mail I bought it with my own money because I've heard about it for a while now My friend Dan Leonard has one and a few other people And I just thought, uh, I gotta get one because I've been telling people to use them Without actually owning one, which I think is not good. So now I own one And it's the video Mike go to from road, obviously So what am I excited about with this mic? I'm excited the prospect of one a mic that's very affordable To a mic that's extremely portable and three A mic that sounds really good All these things are important to voice actors the price thing being what it is I mean at twice the price. It's probably still a great mic At 99 dollars Insanely good mic. I think but let's find out So let's pull it out of the box What does it come with in the box? Well, it says it's got a digital output And that's what I'm really most interested in is using it as a usb mic However It does not include a usb cable Which I found out because it shows what comes in the box and one of those things Is not the usb cable They obviously did that to save money. They did it because they have several different usb cable models One that goes to lightning For a iphone or ipad one that goes to usb c And one that goes goes to usba. Now. I happen to have these second two the first cable. I don't have But I do have an adapter which I'm hoping is going to work. So we'll see what happens And then I'll plug it directly into the phone and finish the video using the mic on the phone That's what you see inside What does a really great job of doing great packaging? Sort of a all-paper packaging. No plastics, cardboards There it is Look how small it is Here's the cable that comes with it to plug it into a camera This is not going to work with a smartphone with a trrs cable. This will only work with A camera with a trs eighth inch input connection So most dslr cameras or Mirrorless cameras or pros and cons say is the word Here is the very very cute And very well made shock mount If this well, I was going to say if this alone was $50 it would be worth it And it actually is these are actually $50 shock mounts that I recommend for people using sennheiser 416s and other shotguns and pencil mics So the fact that you're getting it that's half the price of the mic right there That's insane. Okay The rest of what's in there is silica gel on a very tiny little Tiny little user manual. It's probably just legal ease So that's it. That's the whole thing. I'm gonna take the windscreen off get a better look at it It's got a little tag on here. This is the person who inspected it for quality control Very nice touch Even at $79 these mics are tested individually in quality control to make sure they sound good Not made in china made in australia Pretty amazing Here's the line output jack. This also doubles as a headphone jack So when you're using it With the usb port right here This actually allows you to monitor the mic. It actually has zero latency monitoring built in Which is pretty remarkable All right, so the next question is can I plug it into the phone and have it send audio in? I know this isn't going to work Right So I grabbed a few cables I have this lightning To usba adapter for example, we'll see if this works If so, it'll save me 30 dollars buying the lightning to usb c cable that they sell Let's find out. I'm going to stop the recording plug it in and cross our fingers Okay, it's plugged in first good sign is that it has a little light lit up Indicating it's plugged in. I don't know if that light has multiple colors or modes But if it actually is working right now, then you should be hearing me Far better than before Okay, well first test shows that the mic was not being used even though it was plugged in and the light was lit saying i'm on It was not actually using this mic So you can see the light is lit right now And I don't think it's using this mic So either my adapter won't work with this a cable Or some other magic sauce Must be happening from road and their special cable to allow to talk to the extremely picky apple devices So let's try some other tests. Okay. Well now the mic's plugged into my mac so let's see if Twisted wave sees the mic audio And put road video might go to boom. Is it recording this mic? Definitely one two three four five This is one foot away one two three four five about eight inches away one two three four five About six inches away one two three four five about four inches away one two three four five And two inches away one two three four five all that without the pop screen So over the network I copied the road Central app which is what allows me to update the firmware I ran the firmware updater and it was successful So we have some actual software features that the mic has which is amazing considering again what this thing costs And you've got a high pass filter which has two points of high pass 75 and 150. There's flat Flat high pass filter 75 hertz high pass filter, which is what I would probably use 90 percent of the time And 150 if I was outside lots of wind or something There's a high frequency boost which is something that comes on there road ngg for series mics Nice to see it here Direct monitor. So if you have the headphones plugged into the device You get direct monitoring and you can control how loud the direct monitoring is from here How cool is that? And then you have a pad which would be for recording Extremely loud things or maybe in this case voiceover because since we use the mics are close We might actually want to have the pad turned on So we can have more granular control over the gain If that would be the optimal thing to do or not But for now leaving the gain about 25 seems to do the trick Well, this is my last test to see if the newly firmware updated video mic go to from road Will work as a video microphone plugged into the iphone using an iphone camera adapter Then connected by usba to a usb-c cable Cross our fingers Yeah, it looks like you do have to install and use The road central mobile app. So you do have control over the microphone But once you've done that you now can record your road mic over the camera connection adapter kit and if you go into a video app Now i'm in the video camera app again being ios It doesn't tell you what mic we're using which i absolutely despise But it is working i rest assured and i'll scratch the mic as proof There you go What does it not come in the box that you will need if you want to use it in the way i'm using it You will need a usb cable. It uses usb-c. So you'll need any standard usb-c the usba Or a usb-c the usb-c cable Which is what i'm using right now to plug the microphone directly into my mac book error The other thing you'll need is a an adapter to attach this shock mount to a standard microphone Stand assuming you have a microphone boom or stand that has a 5 8 microphone thread This has The european standard Which is a 3 8 inch thread So it's not even a quarter inch thread like we all have on our tripods here It is the standard that's used overseas For production sound and and pro sound which is 3 8 inch that's all you need usb cable and the adapter So you buy those things if you don't have the cable already you're at about 125 bucks if you paid full price for the mic Thanks for listening George the check out All right, well What did you think the whole time do we learn anything? Yes. Yes, you have the right cable Yes, I I have two of them. I bought an extra just in case Yeah, that was the usb-c to lightning cable Yeah, it's a great little mic now. This is what you're using right now that you're talking about It is yeah, yeah as you can hear it sounds great as a remote unit because this was one of the discussions that we saw on on facebook this week is People are like well, what's a good road mic? How about a road mic? Yeah Yeah, this thing is hard to beat. I mean at $99. It's a good deal. I mean it's a great deal I mean at $199. I would still recommend it without any reservations They have one up up the food chain. It's called the videomic ntg It's $250 I don't know if there's any major upgrade you get with that mic. I can't figure out what it would be I wasn't sure if the self-noise of this little, you know inexpensive usb mic would be usable for pro use and From what I can tell them self-noise is very acceptable so I gotta say i'm really impressed Yeah, with with all you know with when a lot of people do video work with their iphone because the camera The camera's amazing You know and you and I have done remote stuff with it and you know Once you hook up that mic to the to the iphone And it just it's like having It is having professional sound uh for your video. Yeah, I mean you heard it in my video directional Yeah, the first half of the video was the iphone mic Picking up all the room reflections echoing the whole thing and then the second half was all with the with the video mic I mean it was night and day And then you could tell before what is with your voice sounded before you take took plags of it A little higher. You're right. It has changed. I also I also have a road psa one plus um boom which um because the boom has the same 3h thread this threaded right onto it and um what's impressive about the boom is You know, they just took the old one the psa one and they just Upgraded everything they could and they're the only ones ever seen anybody do this they they put these neoprene sleeves over the entire arm So that there's no Picking or any noise or anything from the mic arm as you like from springs Yeah, there's no springs you can move this thing around like I am right now and there's no mechanical noises You know, it's It's a darn impressive piece of hardware and in the the mounting brackets everything about the machining of it is like really top notch So It's uh, it's a very impressive mic arm. The mic arm is more expensive than this mic I think it's about twice as much How did they make it so cheap? Yeah, it's crazy. Anyway. Yeah, something else son about uh, it has to do with adobe's creative club Many of us use. Yeah, so like you were saying I had some time on the internet today When I wasn't watching the uh, the press release uh from the uh center barbara police and fire department about the uh, nine to 12 inches of rain They're expecting over the last 24 hours. They literally gave all of center barbara county a Shelter in place to this morning when I wasn't watching that Um, that was pretty sketchy. Uh, I was found I found this article that um, somebody shared on facebook and um It was um, oh gosh, I can't remember your name. I'm so sorry if you're watching. Um, but It's an article about adobe's creative cloud Um, and that they they opt you in not it's not it's one of those things where they opt you in for something by default Instead of opting you out of something by default And what they opt you in on is of course, you know how every time you install install a new mac or new mac os It always asks you Do you want us to send user uh information to us? Do you want us to uh, do you want to send? How your do you want to send feedback automatically to us about your equipment and your software so we can improve Uh, you know the apple products, right? And if if you read that if you're like me you probably turn that off Well, that is also the case with adobe's creative cloud if everybody that uses creative cloud Anything you upload to the creative cloud and that's the that's the thing everybody's kind of having a little bit of a panic moment Techno panic moment unless you're putting everything you do your photography your videos Your voice over recordings if you're unless you're using the creative cloud thing It's a it's moot. Okay, so let's get that out of the way But people were having a little bit of a fit because In this age of ai is stealing our jabs jabs jobs, you know, the other stealing our jobs um in this world then They're looking at this going holy crap. That means adobe is Scanning every image and every video we send to the cloud And using it to build new ai derivative tools and you know learning Learning how to crow these things and learning how to learning how to teach an ai with our content and uh People freaked out when they started reading this from basically from the article I have here from fastcompany.com I found quite a few articles about this, but there seemed very Very measured about it. It wasn't you know from the perspective of the damaged artist or anything else it seemed like a very fair and balanced kind of pov They said look, it's not really what's going on But at the same time the photographer creator they interviewed in the article said You shouldn't be putting your stuff up in the creative cloud in the first place so So when I had the cough button there Yeah, so I was a little late on the cough button. So when when I saw When I saw that I was like ew, that's a bit of a biting comment, you know, like Nobody professional would put all their content in the creative cloud is what the guy literally wrote in the article um, but at the very end adobe's adobe's weasel out on this whole thing is we give customers full control of their privacy preferences and settings The policy and discussion is well, they do at the end the the policy and discussion is not new And has been in place for a decade Um, so help us enhance our products for customers The spokesperson directed any customer prefers their content be excluded from analysis to the options on the privacy page and the article actually links to the actual privacy page on the On the on your user account. So if you do want to turn this off You're going to go to adobe.com. You're going to log into your account And you're going to go into your privacy settings and you're going to turn off the privacy the the functions that share that content It's not very hard to find If you're if you're just something you're paranoid about or if you feel like it's possibly could hurt you in some way This is a way to turn it off All right, that's it for me as you can tell my voice doesn't want to talk a lot longer Okay, well then I get a chance to talk about internet advice. Yeah Uh, George and I spend a lot of time on the internet Uh, especially in some chat rooms where people say some stuff or people are They're learning voiceover and their coach or the person teaching them whether they're a coach or not Or why keep using the quotation mark? I think you all know what I mean There's a lot of bad advice out there when it comes to home voiceover studios as I like to say Everybody Aside from George and I and maybe three or four other people are experts in only one studio and one voice And that's their own and that does not give them the license to tell you what's going to work best for you So I would suggest going back to the start of this segment talking about what George and I do Talk to people that actually know what they're talking about If you ask a recording engineer somebody who is a multitrack recording engineer who records lots of spots They have no idea what's going on in your closet And all the stuff that they do I think the problem is is that they live in a different world from what we do So they're like well if you're going to do voiceover This is what I use Well, that doesn't mean anything if you have no idea how to use it. It's not the equipment That gets you the work It's what goes on between your ears and comes out of your mouth And how it sounds in the room in which you're recording it and how you use your microphone and how you set your levels Everything else. I'm sorry is bullshit Um, you know how many times I've seen like commercial or like, you know studio Engineers recommend voice actors by an sm7b for example a dynamic microphone for voiceover Exactly. You know how many times I've seen sweetwater recommend an sm7b for your voiceover studio It's like grab them by the head and slap them or I've told the people at sweetwater Stop doing that. Well, yeah, we don't make as much money that way that you know Well, the other the other thing is yeah, because then they get to sell the cloud lifters to You get to buy our friend roger cloud another another boat Um, but uh, we love you roger. Um, here's the deal. Also as dan was saying These forums what I've discovered And I'm speaking for myself here a little bit Is people get a dopamine hit? By answering questions. Yeah, okay I think we all have been there a little bit. You feel good. I I I will speak for myself I feel good when I get to answer a question And give what I think is the right advice and I think everybody has a lot of people not everybody But a lot of people on these groups That are all looking for that. I want to answer the question first and I want to have the best information They're all looking for that same kind of dopamine hit and so your your information Is not driven by You know a tremendous amount of depth of knowledge. Sometimes it's very very cursory Sometimes it's not based on your actual audio because all you did was post a picture of a waveform or something else And so that's another thing I've been thinking about. It's just why do people answer all the questions? Um, what's the purpose and what are they getting out of it? There must be a medical reason for it And you say yeah, you get a dopamine it again dopamine hit. It's either that or take zoloft You know, yeah, I mean I I tend to I tend to agree with you That's but there are also some people just sending out misinformation because that's the kind of people they are It's not a lot of them. Most people have very good intentions with the information they send out there But how many times have George and I had to get out the mop and ringer and mop up after them because it happens every week I was just today like I have a client who was like trying to send me a wait show. I'm like send me Eight, you know just send me a little dry sample, right? She didn't send it to me before so she records one and I'm not screen sharing So I don't know what she's doing right and then she sends me the file and listen to it While we're on the call and it's crunchy and brittle and distorted. I'm going it didn't sound like that on zoom And then I do a screen share and she's running studio one This multi-track software with a ton of pre-built tracks with all sorts of processing in it And then I said can you send me another clip with no processing on it at all? She sends me another clip. It still has distortion. I said, are you sure you have all the processing turned off? She says I have the gain turned up to a what I'll tell you a 14 db or something on this track. I'm like, do you know why? She says no. No, I said turn that off And now record me another sample third sample is the charm No clipping no distortion. I said you've got it now. We're getting somewhere So yeah mopping up pulling out a lot of wires and cables getting back to basics Putting the mic in the right place all those things the basics never get old Because people need them. So come to us get the right information quickly and efficiently The other thing here is that people can talk about stuff and write stuff The only way to know if it's right Is how it sounds and you have to know what it's supposed to sound like Whistle exactly and and so, you know reading an entire book about how to record just means nothing to me You've got to experience it. You've got to understand what things are supposed to sound like And you don't try to satisfy your own ears until you are well trained To know what it's supposed to sound like and that can take years. I mean, George and I've been doing this I mean, I've been listening to audio since you know, 1974 Uh, I I know what it's supposed to sound like. George is an expert in audio We're the guys to talk to so if you got a problem That's where you got to go. All right, we're going to take a little break and we got a pile of questions to answer So don't go away. We will be Right back. This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widdum v obs dot tv From voice over from voice over essentials dot 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. 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They have On that website their support is second to none. Thanks source elements We'll be right back with tech talk and all your questions right after this Hey there, i'm david h. Lawrence the 17th and with my company vio heroes and my team of coaches and my community of voice over talent We guide voice over actors along their journey and you may be watching v obs here And not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching you may not even have Started yet And we actually specialize in helping you do just that so if you're watching all the stuff going on here on v obs and going I have no idea what they're talking about. I don't know, but I really want to do this I'd really like to help you Please go to vio heroes dot com slash start That's vio heroes dot com slash start and you can take our getting started in voice over class Which tells you everything you need to get started as a voice talent And I'd love to hold your hand along the way and help you with that journey Again vio heroes dot com slash start That's vio heroes dot com slash start This is bill radner and you're enjoying voice over body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv Hey now We back Let me unmute your mic for you. It's nice because we can both control things. Oh, there we go I figured it out by myself. Hey, you know, I mean we can do all sorts of things with this We can go like that we can go this we can do that We can do it's nice though because if my mic's muted, you know because you can't hear me If your mic's muted, I know because I can't hear you so it's like we can watch each other's backs that way Exactly. Well, we got a huge audience right now and they've got a huge amount of questions So let's let's go to them here. Vic case asks George now this was written in somebody emailed this so it gets to the front of the line All right, george. You made a passing remark about the hypercardioid pattern in the last tech talk For mics where you can select between a cardioid or a hypercardioid pattern Do you recommend one or the other for a voiceover studio or does it depend on the mic? He has a cad m179 in his home studio And that's a really cool mic because it's got lots of switchable patterns in it like a u87 does But it doesn't cost nearly as much as a u87. What are your thoughts on the the m179? It is a bizarrely decent mic for how cheap it is I gotta say Cad is such an interesting company, right? I mean we've we've known we've a lot of us have known and heard and you even used Their cad e100 s dan you have one, right? I have one haven't used it in a while because I've got this wonderful mojave here now in my 416 But there are situations where you might use it. Yeah, it's a very different mic from the the 179 now Yeah, well that one's a fixed pattern mic, right? It does one. It's a one trick pony there It's a it's a I don't know if they call it a super or a hyper I think it's no. I think it's a it's got a very wide cardioid pattern to it, but it also has a Pad on a 20 db pad which everybody turns on like why is it so quiet? Yeah, it's a big number. It doesn't mean it's louder There's a minus in front of it, right and a high-pass filter, which is kind of nice Right so but the 179. Yeah If you want to change patterns, what does changing a pattern do for somebody though? Yeah, I mean it very much depends on the booth and uh and how you use the mic so That that I think the the pattern the pattern control on that is actually Completely variable which is also really unusual especially at this price So you can you can dial it in so at the end of the day what makes sense is completely 100% based on listening And so what I would recommend is to record yourself on a track And while recording that piece of script or something turn started at cardioid record, you know a sentence of the script Start turning it an increment and then record another sentence or the same sentence and keep Incrementally adjusting the mic and recording another sentence and keep doing that But don't listen to it right now not until you've completely done this whole recording test This might take you five minutes going through all these different settings, right? You might even you might even slate with the recording and saying now Uh cardioid now. This is more more hyper cardioid or whatever whatever you have to do right and listen to the difference And listen to the difference it's going to be very hard to judge that while listening real time You've got to stop and then listen to it and play it back and then when you're done You're going to know and if you don't know then your your your hearing isn't tuned well yet You don't have the experience and then you might want to bounce it off Me or dan because then we'll help you figure out what is the best Pattern setting for your voice and your booth, right exactly and and that's it. It's all acoustics which is One of the most important parts of uh, you know getting your your booth set up is you know sound coming in You don't want that. You don't want it bouncing around Like you said using a certain pattern might actually help you Get the sound that you really really need as the mic gets more um It was as a mic gets more directional in one direction like the right out of the front of the mic It does some weird things it grows a little tail in the back So as it gets more directional this way it actually starts to have a tail on it, right? Well as you go to the farthest extreme which is called figure eight That's the extent of that. It is literally the front and the back of the mic are equally sensitive But the side effect of it is the sides of the mic are completely null or dead So you might find that even figure eight works well Yeah, right there you're hearing mostly just thumping and not much else right because it's the back of the mic As you do figure eight the sides of the mic have no pickup So you might find a figure eight is a surprisingly better pattern Because maybe you've got a window to one side or maybe you have a desk right underneath and that's all reflecting sound The figure eight pattern will tune it out. So yeah, try it out and listen all right our next question From alicia hurley on youtube. Oh, don't skip don't skip jeff. Oh, no, we'll get to him. We'll get to him. Okay, okay She says I need a backup interface and was looking at the focus right to i2 I just inherited a free Focus right eight i6 gen 2 Is that just as good for basic voice over with a mac? An interface is an interface. What what does an eight i6 do? It adds a lot more crap to play around with that's right, you know, you have to have a run you have to run a control panel To access all the features Yeah, yeah, if you're using all of those features, you might be better off just using a 2i2 You know, but keep it simple. It's the simple interfaces That work best because you don't have to do much with them set the level Plus all the features are right on the unit like the 2i2. There's a direct monitor button You turn it on you turn it off With something like this you might not hear yourself in your headphones And you won't know why and to install their software and then you install the software and you get lost in their console And you start realizing. Oh my god. What did I do? Why am I using this thing? So keep it around because you got it for free. It's nice of them But use it as a backup for the 2i2 Deal with that problem when it comes when it comes to it because you won't you won't need it Hopefully the 2i2 won't fail on you. Right. Um Let's see you want in the past we've recommended a power surge strip for equipment. Could you address that again? Yeah, it's a good way to make sure that you've got the right power is using a a line filter uh and a What they call a line conditioner And getting making sure that you've got clean power Going to all of your equipment, you know your interface your well, you're mostly your computer That's where a lot of a lot of the problems happen with the electronics and your monitors and whatever else always good to have a A something it's going to keep your 120 at 120 and monitor what it's at, right? Yeah, I mean the subject of these products is sort of a rat hole because there's like There's $50 devices $200 devices 500 and they go up from there, right? Some of them are line conditioners. Some of them are some of them have voltage Regulation. Oh my god on and on and on, right? Um you know and It may reduce the noise floor of your recording. It could if there's a lot of noise in your power And and you're always dealing with that and going where's the noise coming from it could conceivably reduce the noise In your recording, but here's the deal a lot of times they don't do anything at all And they just cost a lot of money. So if you're going to try one Either just get one that's cheap because at least it's got a surge protector to protect your expensive equipment from a surge Or get a really expensive one like $200 plus And actually try it out and record with it plugged in and see if it actually does make a Audible or in any way noticeable difference and then if it does then you knew it was actually worth buying Yeah, or go to a garage sale and pick up one while someone's thrown out of stereo Which I did I've got a monster cable power conditioner here that I've been using for over 10 years that I bought for 25 bucks at it I have a firman. What is this thing called? Oh, okay. Now you're gonna become a power if powers Filter snob Well, I've had it since I was running a studio. It's an ar 1215 and I've had this since 1998 So That's the only reason I I have this it was like it's like a 700 power conditioner But I had it in my recording truck back in the day and talk about gear that lasts This is literally the only thing I have from those that era and it still works Okay, great. Okay. Now. I'll do Jeff's question. Alrighty as a matter of fact, I'll let no, I'll read it You're we'll rest your voice here. Thank you. This is he says the road video go mic to this guy This guy, um This is is really sensitive like too sensitive I'm standing like two two and a half feet in front of it and the camera It sounds like it's reaching into my mouth and amplifying my mouth noise to untenable levels Can I aim it to the side much much like I would by 416? So I'm not speaking directly down the barrel reducing game doesn't seem to help. Yeah, that probably would help It's going to reduce plosives And what cameras are you plugging it into? I don't know Yeah, I mean, I don't know what's going on after your mic Yeah, so I can't couldn't tell you what's going on. He may not have the the limiter on or something like that Well, yeah, the camera's got in manual gain control. You want to turn that way down turn that down That might be where the issue is it's so hard to know and yeah, if you don't the pad is only going to matter he's asking me Is it he said iphone 12 pro is it plugged in with usb or or something else if it's plugged in with usb It like just like in the review video that you just watched you saw that I installed the road Central app you need to install that so that you can then control the mic And then you can turn on the pad So this mic is so sensitive That you may actually need the pad for the use case of what you're doing So yeah, it's surprisingly sensitive, but then again, I have the road ntg5 And this mic is stupid sensitive. So I bet these mics share a lot in common internally This is a $500 mic. This is a hundred dollar mic Um, it whenever I use this whatever was plugged in last it's 10 db louder than anything It's ridiculous. So that is exactly what you're dealing with and that's probably one of the few cases of where where the pad is And it makes sense. Yeah All right, uh, grace newton who always has a good question. She says I have an a macbook air m1 for Thunder that's what that was. Did you hear thunder? I just heard thunder. Whoa. It's really coming down. It's so rare here That's going to make jacob very happy. He loves thunder. He loves the rain is jackson brown one said Um, she says I have a macbook air m1 for video podcast recording Do you recommend the purchase of an external webcam? And if so, which ones are the best for that use? Well, there's this one that you know, george is like making me play with all the time. Yeah It'll do all this cool stuff Yeah, this is a pretty insane camera like this is the the the the mac the camera is built into the macbooks apple Yeah, I don't understand you. Uh, they're terrible. They are terrible um Even a $80 logitech camera is better than what's built into the macbook even the new macbooks But an iphone camera is an amazing These things are fabulous Yeah, and you plug that in with a lightning cable And then you can install any number of virtual camera driver programs you can use OBS, which is hopelessly far more complicated than you probably need Or you could install what do I have on this machine because I have something It's just not on my dock right now. I think it's called, uh, camo studio camo studio. Yeah, that's what's on my phone Yes camo studio and that will turn your phone any one of the cameras on your iphone Into the best webcam you've ever seen So I would use the camera you already have now if you don't have an iphone Which you could be the case. Dan, what is the name of that one? Isn't the insta 360 link the insta 360 link? Yes, yeah, this is great little cat. Look at look how clear it is. It is got great color. It has a great picture It's a little more techy and geeky than your typical webcam and certainly a little more expensive And it will follow you it will follow you if you wanted to it will be if you wanted to I'm not gonna have it do that. We found out that not turning that on I was using it for for a consult the other day and I'm like walking around from the booth and it's like following me around Like whoa, it's kind of creepy. I also have this camera here, which I will not recommend This is called the luma lumina That's literally that's the name. That's the brand That's the product. That's the model number. This is called lumina I thought it was going to be awesome. I bought it on a Kickstarter And it's I've been a year since I got it and it still sucks Yes, you still have it mounted there perhaps Well, because they keep releasing new firmware for it because they keep saying one of these days You'll be able to hold up a little color card and it will automatically calibrate the camera and look amazing And yes, this feature works now a year later and it still doesn't look very good So that's never mind. That's a $200 camera right there. So the one that Dan's got I mean the brio also has been around like five years the logitech brio dan's got one of those two um We also we also both have a uc 70 by a company called mocosi m o k o s e That one is tough to use because the lenses are completely manually adjusted So they're tough to get focused and everything So I wouldn't go with that one unless you've got an absolutely Like i'm using it now, but I never ever touch it You know and I don't hold anything close because if you do it's never in focus. So anyway, there's our recommendations All right, we got time for one more here from patricia andrea Says would george be doing a webinar on how to use twisted wave to add sound to video the right way, please Not that hard. I mean well addition is probably better for doing that. But yeah, definitely Um twisted wave is not used for adding audio to video Just like twisted wave is not a multitrack program It's not a multitrack video program either. So you can't lay audio over a video in twisted wave directly You probably can hack it to do it But it's not designed to do it and so It would not be my first choice For that purpose. It's great for editing the video. You can do very very easy and fast edits But that's sort of the extent it's kind of a one-trick pony Have you played around with it yet dan the video function? I haven't needed to I you I just use adobe audition Yeah, because you have adobe I could just throw the the video file in there and I can I can dub stuff I can sync it up with somebody speaking german and it's like, yeah Okay, I can move it over here a little bit trying to match the lip flattons Yeah, not as easy to do in twisted waves. Well, it'd be I mean it'd be Ridiculously hard or basically impossible, right? So one last thing play the voice real kids family voiceover voiceover family Is this is this the same as a rye coat? Yeah, I think what happened. I think uh rye coat made a deal with road A licensing deal whatever it was And so road is making the rye coat. It's the same one that I yeah recommend for sanitizer 416s and every other Shotgun mic out there. It's essentially identical And uh, it's nice because it doesn't it doesn't have the rubber bands that stretch out and try out and then The mic is sagging, you know it in it It does a pretty good job. Yeah. All right. Hey, lots of great questions everybody and that's gonna do it for for now time flew It Well, yeah, that or whatever drugs I'm on made time slow down One one or the other way the time stretched and I think it's all in my adult brain Well in that case. All right. Well, we're going to take another quick break here And we'll be right back to clean up everything that's left right after this Yeah Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites.com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online In a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites.com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites.com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish They'll try it yourself go with the pros voice actor websites.com where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra.com Whether you're just exploring a voice over 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 Voice over extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books auditioning home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one stop daily resource for voice over success sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports It's all here at voiceover extra.com. That's voice over x t r a dot com Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky the voice of Rocco and you're watching voiceover body shop 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 All right, we're back. See it automatically comes back. I don't even do anything. It's amazing It's like my car. You know my new camera. It goes right down the center lane You can let go of the wheel if you're in cruise control It keeps the right distance from the car in front of you. That's pretty neat and keeps you in the lane Just in case just in case just in case because you'll be able to react faster than the computer to an oncoming accident probably not Automatically breaks to breaks exactly Sometimes my foot will be on the brake before you know or before my wife says stop There's a couple of other questions in class. So, uh, you know, if you write to us, we will get to those questions There's one about discord and uh, and acoustics for a studio break. So we'll We'll get to those, you know, we'll write back to you and uh, because we know who you are Or write to us directly at the guys at v obs dot tv Let me make sure that it there it is Write to us at the guys at v obs dot tv and that way We'll answer your questions You know discord has its own crazy learning curve. I've been using it in fact the video I showed you guys today I edited with discord and I had a few very frustrating quirks I still managed to get it done, but my son lives on discord. So yeah, I mean And you know, we're all calling we're calling it discord because I call it discord by mistake I think what we're actually talking about is Descript Oh, maybe the video editor Descript I used Descript to edit the video and I think grace is talking about descript Okay, yeah discord is a whole discord's a whole another deal Descript is also a big learning curve. Anyway, I will someday maybe teach a course on descript Once I learn how to use it and if people really really want to learn it Okay, so write to us there Okay, let's see here uh next week on this very show We will have another great guest. I have a couple of great people who have expressed interest People like scott brick And morris lemarch. We're trying to get them gotta get the email addresses, right? So if you know morris's actual email address Send it to us. Let us know at the guys at v obs dot tv Exactly. Alrighty. Uh, let's see here Oh, okay. We've got uh, oh, you know who's gonna be on next week Jason linear white Excellent. That's I I will be healthy for that so I can be there In person because I'm pretty sure he will be there in person unless something happens I would imagine so he just lives around the block. That makes it a lot easier Okay, our donors of the week. We have robert leadham steven chandler kasey clack Jonathan grant tom pinto shelly avaleno. Hey shelly greg thomas a doctor voice antland productions marthacon 949 designs christopher epperson sarah borges philips appear brian page patty gibbons rob raider shawna bennington baird don griffith Trey moseley diana birdsall hi diana and sandra man willer Thanks for all your support. That's how we keep this thing running the way it's supposed to run Alrighty, uh, hey if you need help with your home voiceover studio, you can go join me over at home voiceover studio Dot com and I will be able to do that kind of stuff for you Just ask your questions there if you want to do a consult go on over to home voiceover studio dot com Or if you want to talk to george George it george the tech it's that one dot the tech and uh, I do have a code for you guys v obs fan 10 gets you 10% off Your bookings um through through the old website and the new website when we finally have it All right, it will happen. It will happen. I promise Alrighty, uh, okay Hi There it goes. Uh, anyway, uh, thanks to our sponsors harland hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements Vio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and world dash dash dot org The industry association of freelance voice talent go join now right this second Anyway, uh, thanks to jeff holman for keeping a great job in the chat room tonight lots of great questions And that's what makes this show work Anyway, that's good. That's gonna do it for us this week. Oh, we also have to thank lee pennages He'll be any Um, and that's why he keeps sending us money because we keep mentioning his name Anyway See now send us money. We'll say your name. It makes it really simple. Anyway, uh, this is not an easy business folks There's a lot of stuff you have to understand with acting and business And your audio has got to be right But a bottom line is if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan Leonard And i'm george widdum Just making sure uh, and this is voiceover body shop or vio B s tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk We'll see you next week jason linear white. Have a great week everybody. Bye