 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop. How's everybody doing out there? We got a great guest tonight somebody who's gonna inform us about some new technology and some other cool stuff because he knows everything about everything audio or at least We we've been led to believe that More than we need to know let's put it right Robert Merkel's our guest tonight. Say hello mark. Hello. Thank you for having me It's a pleasure having you We got lost to talk about so if you've got a question throw it in the chat room whether you are in Facebook or YouTube live or if you're some strange reason watching on LinkedIn. We'd love to hear from you there, too This is a great time to ask questions about source connect. Yeah, of course not about anything about passport There's no audio interface or really just about voiceover production in general Robert produces, right? Are we ready gentlemen? Let's do it. Time for voiceover body shop Right, wait a second. I got to be in the right place, right? Voice over body shop is brought to you by voice over essentials comm the home of Harlan Hogan's signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect the oh heroes comm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training Voice actor comm your voice over website ready in minutes Voice over extra your daily resource for voice over success and by world voices the industry association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts Dan and George Well, hello there. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voice over body shop or VO be as We picked up on All right, well, we've got a lot to talk about tonight, especially dealing with some new voice over only technology dealing with Plus Again if you have any questions for Robert Marshall about You know audio engineering or what? He's been engineering or source connect or some of the stuff from source elements Feel free to throw it in the chat room where Jeff Holman and his forehead will put us We'll get put the the information in front of us and we can ask him in our next segment So don't hesitate to ask a question So anyway, it's time to introduce our guest who is no He is not a a mystery to us Robert Marshall is the innovations co-founder of source elements He holds degrees in electrical engineering and music composition Using his skills as a musician engineer and producer He is the visionary behind the idea of leveraging internet connectivity to make post production faster and more productive Let's welcome back to our show Robert Marshall. How you doing? Good. How you guys doing? Thank you You're doing okay. Thanks for joining us. I feel like I've talked to you much much much too much lately Yeah, well, we've been we've been trying to get the word out and It's a lot more emails than talking actually. Yeah, you're right. No, it's a whole lot of emails But it's good to see your face here and thanks for joining us to talk about your side of the side of the glass So to speak you say the glass the other side of whatever Anyway, so let me let me ask you. How did you start in audio engineering? Trying to be in a band Basically You were the guy in the band that had to deal with the sound because nobody I I figured out like I Don't know I started a band with my friend and all we really had was guitars And then I had another friend who had a little cassette four track and I was mesmerized and they had done like an album and Maybe it was freshman year high school. So I Recorded some songs over there and then eventually my neighbor had a broken t-act 3340 real-to-real machine, which is a nice quarter-inch four track and Gosh what happened my uncle fixed it he worked for GE he could read a schematic Like fix one thing in it boom that thing came back to life and then I Recorded an album with that and the other thing I had was an insonic SQ1 keyboard sequencer where you can get your drums and Imagine out of it and and you'll get a kick out of this like to sync them up I just had a mark for the playhead or the record head and I'd put a mark on the tape and I'd line it up to Either one and I would just that the t-act like you hit play and it would just go There wasn't any like so I just hit play on the two at the same time I know why like in sonic not only in my cousin have an insonic ESQ on but they were founded and ran and Malvern, Pennsylvania Oh, which is a suburb between Philly and Westchester where I grew up So that's probably the saddest thing about in sonic is they got sold to like sound blaster And right sort of went just completely consumer and that's right creative technology is the pin and we're sound blaster today Yeah, well probably bigger. Yeah, they probably made more money than making keyboards So so you you came out of you know as a lot of people do Learning the the recording engineering from doing music and then you drifted over to some other stuff Namely, yeah, this thing that we've been talking about for the last 15 years called source source connect So how did you start source on that so so basically I get out of school from music composition and electronics and I work at some studios and I eventually end up at this post house in Chicago called cutters and they had Video editorial they had finishing there's like, you know, Hollywood on two floors of an office building they had just all the disciplines and in that was audio and They had just switched to Pro Tools and I'm Coming out of college. I had They had a Pro Tools system at college version two if you can believe that and Then I bought my first Pro Tools system because I was working a retail job and I decided I was gonna get it with the discount so I got a Pro Tools 3 system way back then in the 90s and I knew Pro Tools so I got my gig cutters and cutters was doing a lot of ISDN sessions and They used to I guess complain whatever comment on how expensive the bill was the phone bill was and I think at the time it was You know as much as like $2,000 a month And wow, yeah. Oh, yeah you know like a doll like a dollar a minute or more kind of stuff and and so At the same time they had a t1 line if you can believe that and that was like, oh my god We have this like super fast internet connection because everything else was 1.5 megabits per second Right. This is like most people are still getting dial up for their house at this point, right? Like it's mostly 56k if you're really fancy. Maybe maybe you have a DSL connection Cable companies are not providing internet at this point and so I was like hey This internet thing, you know, ISDN's 128k and The internet here is on 1.5 megs like shouldn't this be possible? And he just sort of like was like whatever like go figure it out If you think that's such a great idea and I ended up doing a proof of concept And just streamed audio. I think actually using quick time at the time from the Chicago office of the California office seemed reasonably Feasible there was some latency there were some dropouts and We began trying to find people that would be able to put You know like sort of build the software the system the way we thought it should be and Every single quote was just out of hand. It was insane Like, you know, you go to all the existing music companies and all the vendors that cutters had is You know, they're just like, oh, yeah, we'll build that for a million dollars Or something like I like no and at the same time I had some friends who had built software out of their basement and had made Done really well doing that. And so I knew that a It doesn't take like a big company. It just takes one really motivated person and they can do a whole would seem like an application, you know, you learn a lot of these things later, but I couldn't get him to do it because he was busy doing his own thing and but friend of a friend and I had met Rebecca and we're just getting a beer and You know, I'm like at this point. I'm probably just bugging everybody with the idea. I bet and Like I want to do this thing and Rebecca is like, oh, yeah, I could do that for $30,000 Well, that's better than a million. You're right. Exactly. It was like this is this is how you get it done So we we actually ended up putting together like a business proposal Like I forget it felt like it was probably over a couple days. It felt like one night at this point, but Got got this business proposal together got everyone to Start writing checks and it was far more than $30,000, but it's sort of like Vegas like once you got people throwing coins into the slide Eventually there was gonna be a source connect popped out of that thing. We just didn't know how many coins was gonna take So so you decided that you decided to get a tool working. When do you think source connect became a True Alternative or backup to ISD and when did it really start to take ahead of steam by by? 2007 you've got people bridging and trying to find ways around ISD and using it for traveling That was one of the first things like the really high-end voice talent was like I can leave the house And I can bridge and the really high-end ones would set up their own bridges I would say definitely. I mean George. When did you set up the bridge with Steve? Because that would have been that's a really good question. It was around 2005 oh no, I had to be after that because we were we just sold our first copies. I think that's more like 2007 Okay, 2006 2007 somewhere in that ballpark. Yes it was probably like two years for us like really rolling the rock uphill and I feel like by the time Steve Definitely by the time Steve got into it and people are like I'll build the business off of bridging to this thing, right? like Yeah, I had gotten some roots It's been so long since I worked with Steve and out of here that I don't even have a client folder called out of here That's how long it's been like if that gives you it's time Like I know I don't have a record going back that far. I mean Alfred, but what it's been a long time I'll tell you how I know like it only actually it only happened this year When we started we were like Who who's the company was like eating it? They were the ones like all the really high-end connections were going through eating that we're like can we beat eating it? Well, they're out of business now. So yes Now you can't well you've outlasted them. Yeah, yeah, definitely like And they weren't really the same thing. They were more like a service provider of other people's stuff I mean they ended up selling our stuff at the end, right? So so they they're not exactly the case, but we were You know, it's funny because like that was success at the time But I think the mark has moved Little bit. Yeah. Yeah, tell us a little bit about your your your studio cave recording It's a mess right now. How's that? Well, I can only see parts of the mess. I know there's a drum on a shelf behind Yeah, yeah, like this it really is a mess right now, but I'll show you anyways here right here goes that light So there's the Amic big with there's Pro Tools with the monitor that's not turned on You can see that. Oh, yeah, just keep working out got some amps over there in the corner diffusers behind me Whoops, I'm gonna pull my headphones out. Hold on those diffusers. You guys made yourself or no those are actually RPGs that I got from Avenue edit when they ripped out their audio rooms and I'm not far out. They were in a like a Another post house in an office building. So then here here's fun stuff ready lots of gear gear. Okay Neotech Preamp four band EQ eight channel side tech Which is basically like a newer version of the attack the guy from the attack millennia preamp. This is Vincent's When you clock focus right ISA preamp, I say this is a black lion Like API clone for channel preamp over here. You got a spring reverb. That's goofy from DOD a Distressor which is a fun compressor kind of chameleon classic dbx 160 compressor an old Dynamite I don't use this. This has been since some it's like these are all Vincent's actually It's like a gate compressor thing. This is a Chinese clone. I'd forget what company Accelerate Alceron or something, you know, I might there's a UAD version of dynamite. Yeah, universal audio and it's really good actually Really? Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's an interesting one. It's kind of a little bit hard to set Valley people yeah for those who see poor value right there For those of you who are watching this going wow, I have to get all this stuff to do voiceover No, no, it's part of this is your stuff. It looks like there's an LA4 or no an 1176 Yeah, basically the spring reverbs mine The Distressor and the 160 and these things down to the Neve Actually all the way to the 1176 is Vincent's the LA to a clone is mine The Altec Compressor is mine and these goofy never heard of them tape a thong It looks like a tape a thong. These are the head amps from It looked like an amp ag tape deck, but it's a tape deck called tape a thong Used in radio stations in the 60s and 70s and my friend has gave me the tape deck And I ended up selling the the transport on reverb for like 50 bucks, but I kept that kept the head amps and I had someone convert them into mic preamps because they've got Langevin Amps inside of them which if anybody knows like Langevin's are pretty sweet and they're transformer in transformer out I had someone basically wire in phantom power to them and like often Tape head amps from the day you could can be turned into preamps. And so there you go. I had those and then Over here patch bay got the whole patch bay. Oh boy Tts patch big TT hell. Yeah, or TT. Yeah, and then up here is a speaker switch And then this is the monitor controller because it does but more than what the big does and Then patch bay for the whole big and all the outboard gear and then your converters And this is a controller for a preamp called the paint pot Which the idea with it is that the preamp goes right next to the microphone And then the controller is far away and that way you have the shortest microphones And then up here Very sweet son tet EQ this mainly like a music mastering rack This is a manly very very new compressor stereo And then this is an Avalon also a compressor But really the great thing here is this passive EQ, which is pretty awesome the top band. There's at 32 K And you can't hear it, but it's just like glass and It's a mastering it's it's the air thing. Yeah It's wonderful And that's a real music studio right there that that that is totally geek it out as far as yeah And then there's the live room over there, which has got drums and a piano and stack of microphones It's like a recording never enough by the way. Yeah, so yeah, it's raining Do you care if I turn that light off? This is better or worse Streets through me. It's right through a specular specular or whatever We're getting we're getting a mass spectrometer of the elements in your studio Rob head room Anyway, so one of the things you and George have known each other for a while And one of the things that you guys have done and we had you guys on is a group Last year. It's the pro audio suite. How did how did that come to be and and you know Is it just the idea of let's be totally geeky and let's do a podcast about being geeky I this this is like the dating game because I can't remember but I think So I'm pretty sure like George was on the show separately from me and maybe I was on the show separately but at one point we end up on Robbos and yeah, we end up as like simultaneous guests on their show and the whole thing ended up being just like a combustible mix of stupidity and Yeah And then we were like, let's do it again. In other words, we had fun. Yeah fun. It was enjoyable. We kind of we clicked People seem to enjoy listening to it. I don't even know if we care to people. I don't think so We just knew that we had a good time doing We just like it was like the right combo of like Andrew was like wanted to listen to you and I geek out Robbo was like, oh, I can like this is actually interesting information and And then whatever and and we did a micro didn't we do like the thing that kind of took off as we did that microphone shoot out and the The the road ended up sounding like ridiculously like a 416 An NT1 sounded a lot like a 41 6 41 6. I'm sorry the way we pronounce it on on via On the priority this week because never remember down below. They're down under right so they say they say the 416 They call it the 416 and we call it the 416. So it became the 41 6 And that's the proper way to say it by the way. So if you're with it, then you would know Right, of course Okay, and the water goes the wrong way down The hardest part about doing the show together honestly is the time zone stuff It's such a pain like whenever we switch to the daylight savings Throws out throws everything off an hour and then somehow ends up being two hours off because I think Robo tries to compensate and goes the wrong direction and I'm just like And no matter what time you make it. I will be like Something else will be happening five minutes before that. Well Robert you are You somehow managed to deal with multitasking at a level that I've long Long since to give up giving up it will shorten your life. That's what I'm worried. I'm really worried about you now You got to take it easy. I love Robert's an incredible resource to a lot a lot of people I mean he's dealing with source element support He's dealing with internal source element stuff with their own company his own business And then also he's he's one of our top Phone tech support if you call towards the tech Very good chance. You're gonna get Robert on the phone. Especially if it's a source connection Yeah, especially if it's a source connection if if I get paged on that I'm like, oh, this I'm a partial. Well the first thing that I tend to just move as one's like sometimes I see the other stuff. I'm like It's like I just want to like go up there and like just bat the lob Like here you go We have a question when they call in is is your issue source connect related and if it is then we Yeah, you pretty much are not your number one on that call Once again, if you're just joining us, you've missed lots of hilarity And lots of information we're talking with Robert Marshall from source elements And if you've got a question throw it in the chat room, especially if it's about source connect Or about what we're going to just talk about in just a minute Something that George and Robert have been working on Dilligently for the last a while And that is a thing called the passport vo which is an interface designed specifically for voiceover By people who do voice-over Which people seem to endlessly not understand why the product needs to exist. They're like, why have a scarlet? Yeah, why was like why don't you want to record both mics at the same time? No, not really. Actually, that's a problem. Like Yeah, like so, yeah, so we we we were talking about it on the show a couple of months ago Just having one of the type types of things we talked about what we just love the geek out about product And so the show is about what is the best interface for a voiceover artist, right? That's literally what the one that works Well, and it came down to like either the super simple thing or You get the UA Apollo and you can do everything you want but the huge Problem with that because if you wanted to be able to do everything Then you had to understand the Apollo which could do everything and then more stuff that you didn't want it to do Or else you were trapped in a kind of simple interface and then having to do a bunch of software stuff To or there's still software But you still end up in a murky world trying to make it do everything you wanted to do because these are music devices Design, you know, they're designed for music Everything's designed for music. So I think it's really cool that you guys decided to get together with Mike Goodman over at Centrance to come up with this Great thing that we're about to see the passport vo Tell us all about it and what it does and why it is specifically for voiceover I'll I'll take a quick shot at it for me the reasons why it's specifically for voiceover um The first feature at the top is um You have a selectable microphone So you can have two microphones and then pick which one you're going to use But you don't have to switch your routing in your software It switches the routing here. Which microphone do I want going in? No software to change just the front panel Then it has an actual mic mute, which I don't think you can really find except for on the Apollo on the channel strip But most of these interfaces don't have a hardware microphone mute and that's useful When you want to just curse out your client and then get back on the line and be like Yeah, what was that other direction you wanted? Yes. Yeah, we'll make a bodily function That too, right Then the the next probably most specific reason why it's for voiceovers because The microphone does not speed to the speaker outputs, which are actually on the Is it the back or the front george? What is he calls it the front? I don't I I still I think it's on that back Yeah, but this is the front that's the front. Yeah in the entrance parlance So the the speaker jacks are here on the front and yes, they are small But that's all we could fit on this little guy and the microphone inputs right next to the speaker outputs Do not be the speaker outputs So you don't have to have a microphone You don't basically have to monitor create a pa system in your home studio Well, you're constantly fighting you feed you don't have the muting speakers to avoid feedback But the microphone does go to your headphones in the booth where you want it to go And then I think that pretty much brings us to the back panel back panel Which has You know, this is where we the idea was that we set it up So it has a default setup that makes sense for most every talent and the first thing is Again a voiceover specific feature The the record you can choose to have the second channel of the recording should you choose to record two channels? You're only going to send one But are you going to record a Gain reduced version of the first mic or the selected mic a safety channel a safety safety in case you clip your input On a really exuberant performance Or do you want to record the other channel? So if you have two microphones and your clients don't know if they want the 416 Or the u87 Then you can record both Which is pretty much the mode that most of the normal music interfaces give you at that point That means they'll work like a scholar too are too essential And then the next one which brings in the next huge feature to this thing is can you record the comms and what are comms? What are comms comms are communications and inevitably this you know now everyone's working remotely Ideally with source connect but with whatever And so really the passport vo is two Audio interfaces in one and this simplifies everything tremendously because if not You have to figure out how to feed things into your audio interface without feeding your clients back into the audio interface So that you don't get a feedback loop And then if you're on windows you have to figure out how to get two applications To want to use the same audio interface at the same time without budding heads and we just decided to Kind of do the Keep it simple thing and give you one interface which is on the left for the recording That's what goes into your backup recording software And one on the right, which if your comms which would go to source connect or maybe some other platforms I don't know which ones I can't think of any others But it would go to some other platform if there was one right, right And so here with that record setting you can record the comments Comments that's what comms stand for by the way is comments Commentary and of what your clients told you so maybe you need to have notes for editing And they're like that's a good take and whatever or you just want to review the session so that you can We're getting coached and you want to keep a track of your coach's notes There you go or you're recording an interview because you kind of do podcasting and voiceover So there's some flexibility there, which is a lot of people And this is the most common thing that people need to do and they just lose their head trying to Make their computer do this and once they make their computer do that then they can't go back to the old way Or they get all discombobulated. So here's a simple three-way switch that really takes care of the three most common needs of a second channel And then the two interfaces keep everything separated. So there's no feedback What's next I guess the um, the big ones. Um, it's got a compressor in it, which is nice Which uh, and it's it's meant to be a transparent one not A limiter which is very yeah like like I might not even be mad at you for turning it on But it's very light. It's got a meter that's usable on the front panel without using software to see what's going into the thing Standing um separate high-pass filter separate 48 volt in case you're using a ribbon microphone or whatever reason You don't have 48 volts on What else it's got a headphone extension output Yeah, which you can use to feed this out It's got a power switch Yeah, it's a power switch This was something we thought was helpful because it's got two usb's right So sometimes you have to reboot a unit Because some device isn't talking to the unit or if there's a communication or you just want to shut your studio off There's just a single power switch that shuts off the unit and And and also if you're using it mobily you can switch which interface is the power because sometimes or often the phone can't power this thing up So you would power it with say an external battery or a wall wart going to the comms port and you can use the record port Or or you could power it from the computer use the computer as a completely separate backup To the your phone if you really wanted to have like completes not not just a backup in the computer But in case the computer explodes Really everything you can need without going into like I need to Filter an eq and really do some heavy-duty processing on my rice. I think this is what Most every voice talent needs without going completely overboard. So you could buy this start out as a beginner And this thing will take you well into your career is a reality. I think And and it's in the site. I never got to go to break here a sec but the sidebar thing is that This is something we can send out to any actor and they they will be able to get it working Um, we could send it out in the field for a field production We could send it out to a talent to do an interview no soft broadcast situation And they're not going to get too far into the weeds using this thing It's just it's just elegantly designed so that every button has a specific function without a million Layers of menus and screens and everything to get lost in Because there's literally no software for it Yeah, and that's a good thing and that's we look at it as a good thing. Yeah, all right We're going to take a break. We're going to talk a little bit more about the passport vo If you've got a question about this Because i'm sure most of you your eyes are rolling to the back of your head Going what how do I use this we can we can go over it a little bit If you've got a question about it throw it in the chat room right now And jeff holman will get that question to us in the next segment So stay tuned. We'll be right back with robert marshal here on voiceover body shop. Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great Vacation time is just around the corner around the world For example, here's australian voiceover pro andrew peters on vacation in london recording a commercial with his portabouth pro Why is the portabouth pro gaining users worldwide? Well, just listen Winter's tough the rain the wind The cold performers can capture great audio even in acoustically untreated spaces with the portabouth pro Your microphone hears the sound of a human sized sound booth at a fraction of the size and cost The pro accommodates large and long microphones lengthy scripts and e-reading devices The harlan hogan portabouth pro is lined with oralex studio foam It's a professional quality sound studio that assembles in less than a minute and its multi-pocketed carrying case makes it super easy to Take your gear and your voice wherever you go order your harlan hogan portabouth pro now just 389 99 Only at voiceover essentials dot com It's you. This is my live ad for source connect. It is. Why don't we just have robert do this? Oh god No, don't don't make me do it. We'll make them do that make them do that Anyway, this is our this is our chance on the show to thank our sponsor source elements because As robert's well aware he and the the team at source elements has supported us for quite a long time and there it's a no-brainer because Source connect is absolutely one of the strongest tools in the toolbox that a voice actor can have And the key is really the the the team behind it, you know The software has been around quite a long time, right? And there are other tools coming and going by the way that do similar stuff to source connect But really I think that makes it Such a compelling and loved and relied upon tool is the team behind it. It's the support that keeps it running It's the ability to get help when you need it. Um at odd hours. They have folks are literally around the globe Um on call to provide support in emergencies and you can so you can schedule support as well So if you know, you're going to need some help with it or you want to get some help in advance scheduled You can do that through the website. There's a lot of great education over there and There's just a huge installed user base Of source connect. So when you start using source connect in your studio, you're now in this database and you're now searchable and findable by studios and producers Around the globe. So that's also not a bad thing So anyway, we want to thank source elements again for their sponsorship of the show If you want to get started head over to source dash elements dot com and you can get a trial over there get yourself started Get into the process of getting it up and running and uh Be in play so that you can be available for those big gigs Anyway, let's get on to the show. There's so much more to do right after this You know, I speak about the acx master class the class that dano day and i teach that helps actors and voice talent Add audiobook narration to their options for making money for doing work with a great sense of pride because hundreds and hundreds Of those performers have taken the course and together They have produced over five thousand books That are on sale right now on audible It just blows my mind that there's been that kind of production level from the people that have taken the course And the cool thing is we're about to do the course again this summer the home study version of the course and right now this week only You have the opportunity to do a three-pay monthly no interest lowest price anybody will pay For the course payment plan. So if you go to acxmasterclass.com, you'll see a little link saying take me to the three payment plan Right now this week three payments lowest price only for the acx master class This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george wittem v obs.tv All right, and we're back So you told you I can handle the breaks. It's no big deal Well done, sir. Thank you. I'm not fishing for compliments Anyway, we're talking with robert marshal from source elements and we've been talking about the passport vo Now before we get into some questions here, you guys have to move a bunch of these things In in the very near future. Do you not? explain We have to move things or you have to move these units. We have to hit it. Oh, I see. Yes It can't happen unless there's Unfortunately, the reality is that the reason why all these companies are making music audio interfaces is because They know they can sell more of those than something that's so specific So in order to get sentrants to do this with us, um They have to know that they can run at least one one run And these are really a small batch thing So the the other thing about it is just this scale of economy and the you know, like more specific it gets it is You know, it's two interfaces in one your average interface is probably 200 bucks for a stereo So if this was two units, it'd be 400 but what's the cost george? There's a lot of routing in it and everything else. Is it six you'd Mikey you got you got mic switching mic the mute controls Things that you would normally cobble together It's a $699 to you would you right like like the mic mute button That's like a $50 box if you get it as a foot switch junkie one 50 a good one's a hundred I have one of the good ones All right, so so basically but I forgot the price point. How much is it? $699 so so we got we've got was it 25 more To make to make the batch that would seed it because then it can actually become a product if they can't Get a hundred of them then there's none of them is the kind of situation Yeah, that is the truth of the matter So I know a lot of you are watching a number of you have actually have bought into the campaign already for that we thank you very very much And you're basically in on you're in on it now So if you if you want to help make this thing come to life Tell your friends why you decided to take the leap and and invest in it and that you trusted us Because we're going to make sure this thing is the most useful longest lasting Great greatest sounding little device you've ever owned, you know, that's that's what we want to do I find it fascinating that my good man over at over at centrance and in chicago of all places. Yeah, yeah He he comes up with these things and does these somewhat limited runs of these Very very specific types of interfaces. I mean we've got we've got the passport vo I have this one That's that's the uh, it's a porcaster porcaster So the the unit we're getting getting made Is going to feel and look a lot like this So in terms of size It's pretty small, right? I've got the uh, I've got the the original one What was it called the mixer face the mixer face without the recorder? So it's like right I think they don't even sell it now without a recorder. That's right But that's the thing about michael is that he's approachable, you know, there is no approaching Focus right like hey, we think you should make these things that we think we can sell a hundred of them Yeah, we're a bunch of yarns that want you to make this thing Not gonna happen. Yeah. Well, we got a question here from jack colar who's watching on youtube He says please brag about the specs for this thing. Is there any self-noise It's basically the same specs as as the other centrance products So it kind of starts out with a really kick-ass platform to begin with Yeah, I mean the the so what you're getting here is sort of what's being inherited from other Products from centrance, right? We are not inventing new preamps and new converters Right, we are repurposing what's already been optimized and developed by centrance and other products. So For those that care about numbers here, they are Um, you can you can count on them being extremely similar to these numbers Because again the preamp circuits line ends that converters everything across through the high pass filter You know in fact actually I thought that was a fun discussion because it's first like do we want a steeper one? It's like, yeah, like the really gentle thing even though It makes sense. It just yeah, it's a gentle roll-off meaning it starts high But it starts very gentle and by the time it gets down to the rumble frequency below 60 or What or so it will have rolled off quite a lot by that point So it will really be effective at rumble without taking out too much low into the force It's not easy to have a high pass filter that has a single setting And be right for everybody. So that's why it was chosen like that I mean a high pass filter really as long as you're like 80 hertz and below that's that cuts out so much of the The observable noise that you'll have In your file, um, even though it's below perhaps the threshold of it's not going to get rid of like plosives It's not the high right. It's not the high pass filter that's going to take care of that But the thing about those is that unless you you really need a tunable one to do that one right because if not you're going to eat into your voice And and then the other one is that you're going to have a steeper order And you're going to get some phase shifting with that which is we're just trying to be really minimal It's the same idea with the compressor. It's just a really light Gonna buy you some head room Gonna kind of just beef up your level just a little bit, but it's really going to be hardly observed Right. Um, and that's what you want. You want it to be seamless Seamless transparent not distracting. It's not going to get you in trouble Refuge There's all sorts of things that can get you in trouble too Uh question from jeff holman and by the way if you've got a question for robert marshal about this particular thing Or about source connect because I know you all have questions about source connect Uh throw it in the chat room and jeff will get that to us right now And speaking of jeff he has a question Uh, so he says uh, so has all that hardbox equipment in your studio been rendered obsolete now By software in an interface like the relevator in the apollo Yes, I mean does it matter though, right? So i'll like i'll i'll tell you even funnier story that maybe george can relate to but One of the I I think it was freshman year out of college because I my my my dorm looked like a recording studio My my roommate was a saint because I Took that thing over and I was doing like rap sessions in there and everything else and uh anyways I'm and I'm on summer break and I draw this setup because I was tired of going to people's places setting up everything It would take three hours to set everything up and you have to tear it down so I wanted this Table that had everything set up on it with a patch bay and I drew this big cartoonish single plug like a one power plug I could just walk in with this thing and plug it in and I was using a cassette eight track at the time That was like the center of this thing task cam task cam 688. Yep God actually that thing's a wonder of science. Anyways, um And so that's like the late 90s by the time that's Like I've been using the hell out of it and then I get my first pro tool system And that really is a studio in the box the first TDM system was you know granted it was like a pile of rack gear, you know, probably a four rack space chassis and another computer but By you know easily by say 2003 you did not need all this stuff if you don't want to there's subtle differences with all of it but anybody you know if if you give someone a stack at sm 57s and a Bearing to your interface and reaper the only reason why they can't make a good record is them at this point Yeah, it's skill. Yeah the limiting factor is skill now. It is not The gear anymore. It's all nice stuff to have and creative. Yeah. I mean, this is like really finer point stuff but it's You know in a sense, maybe it just keeps you Motivated and it makes it fun as the engineer yours are inspired. I think this is the word But there's a lot of subtle differences and for a lot of the compressors, it's ridiculous how close they get for being Software Yeah, once again, we're talking with Robert Marshall if you've got a question for him Even about source connect because nobody knows more about source connect than he does there actually is one Oh, there is a question source connect. Yes Can I see questions? Is it guardians source connect updates? I have source connect standard. Um, I signed up Three years or more ago, I guess. Um, will I get notification when there are updates or will it automatically update? It's this version update is going to be a big one. So, uh, it won't automatically update. You will run the updater and We hope to have it I'll I'll get killed, but I'm going to say definitely this year Probably before the end of this year. Can I be vague enough? Um Source connect four is a major rebuild for us. Um, it's every other version of source connect was built off of the same original platform that we literally established in 2005 and so we've Learned a lot of stuff And we didn't want to get into the position that a lot of companies had gotten into where they Really overexpanded the software and the foundation wasn't able to take it. So We completely re-platformed it. Um And it's been a very interesting education. Um, we Tried to not make any of the mistakes that we made in the last 20 years And And you're no pressure. No, you make those mistakes again and but at least this time It's like we realized when we were there and we had backed out of certain spots and it's been a very methodical thing and we're very happy with what we have now So I think like source connect four is going to be a big difference in terms of just even compatibility with windows That's just going to help like actual compatibility um, all the features Being able to conference things easier having all the features work without having to set things up no port forwarding No iLock How did how did you get past the port forwarding thing? I think that's Probably would intimidates most people about So so port forwarding is the right way to do it and but we just realized that like we cannot lift the world up anymore and so, um It like the difference between having a forwarded port and using source stream is essentially that One way or the other you have to trust the party that you're that you're connecting with on a sort of internet level And if you have port forwarding that's essentially setting up that trust And if you don't have port forwarding we might be able to knock our way through Especially if one side has there's their ports forward and the other side doesn't But eventually if both systems can't trust each other The only thing you can trust is us because you're both common And then we have to pass all the data in order to complete that connection and that's what source stream is So it's not the ideal um way, but it gets the connection done period and Source connect 4 is going to be a lot smarter about being able to Find its own way through the firewall Really get that port that that peer-to-peer connection set up Probably without needing the port forwarding and then if the port forwarding Isn't available because we're just not going to have it be part of it anymore It'll just kick over to source stream but source stream will be Automatic and across the whole platform And and we've kind of beefed it up some more We had to do a lot of work on it actually early in the pandemic because we just got pummeled But we've sort of made that industrial strength as well So a lot of um behind-the-scenes things, you know in the sense. It's like well, it still just connects me like what's the big deal? um It's a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff that makes it different platforming it so that We will be able to introduce video to it All these kinds of things that are just assumed um on the engineer's side. It's going to multitrack really easily So a lot of this setup that you used to have to have to do an ensemble voice record is now just boom there And you get the that's good It's sort of like the best of source connect now and source connect Combined in the run is essentially what it is with um, yeah, uh jay asks Is it worth it to get Source connect certified explain to us what that is We we think so yeah Of course we do um It it's essentially just a process of making sure that you're fully set up that You have the confidence that when you set up when you do a source connect session and something is not right It's not you that you've checked off all your boxes and know you and you know, you're good to go as an actor I think it's very easy for some studios to put a lot of downward pressure on the actor And um, it can be really stressful and I'll be honest like sometimes These studios are not all together or they're just kind of There's a lot of chaos in everyone's life. We'll put it that way And so they don't necessarily maybe have their port forwarding set up or their routing isn't right And when you hook up with the studio and you hear an echo of yourself Just understanding that there's no way that you can cause a 400 millisecond echo for yourself. It's them um, and so being certified also means that your connection is solid We've run through everything and therefore people can book you with confidence Um, so that's that's what it's about and we think it's worth it We're going to try to drive some more value into that whole thing as well um With with future updates in in the community, but that's currently what it's about is mainly just are you technically good to go and Are you confident for yourself and your clients have confidence in that as well? Right Once again, we're talking with robert marshal We're talking about a couple of different things We still have a couple of comments sort of questions grace newton asks Hopefully you guys will do a rundown of all the features which we've done because I don't know enough about it to ask any questions I I am interested in the two usb ports now One is for one thing and one is for the other right? Right one is for recording and the other one is for communicated I I do have a a slide here that I don't think if you don't Fundamentally understand what the features are for this may not help you spreadsheets Here I'll here's here's a common situation that the that the that the passport just takes care of easily You hook up with your clients. They're recording you on zoom because they don't want to hire an audio They're recording you on zoom because they don't want to hire an audio engineer And they're again putting everything on you to a you're like make sure it sounds good No one's going to double check it because we're hearing it over this connection So we don't even know what it sounds like and then we're going to ask you to play stuff back Because we're just sitting in a conference room or a zoom room and we don't have any audio person here It's just you reading scripts and we're going to give all these files to a All your files to an avid editor after the fact so With the passport playing back is as easy as just going to your backup recorder stopping and playing back and Literally, you don't have to do anything to your setup I I can tell you that people have spent Hundreds and thousands of dollars getting their studio set up for these types of playback situations And other things but just the playback thing alone. Some people have really yes I've set it up for a lot of people over the years and it was always pretty complicated People have been buying apollos And it did make it shrink into a box, you know now all that stuff is in here But it doesn't work two audio interfaces, right? Because George, what were you doing before the Apollo with a lot of people you'd set them up with two audio interfaces You see a 202 right the playback loop for For your communications and a power and a pile of cables that you couldn't go on vacation with Yeah, yeah, so it really does simplify a lot of things even though those speeches make no sense. I think if you're not Using this type of gear on it on a regular basis, but that's kind of the point But that's kind of the point is that you can buy a scarlet And you're going to spend another 200 later You're you're going to outgrow it and and you're going to spend a lot of time trying to figure it out and then you're going to spend a lot of time trying to figure something else out later or We think this is something that starts where you're at gets the core feature done really well and grows Reasonably where most voiceover talent kind of get off the train anyways They don't want to be full up audio engineers But they just need enough to be able to give playback be able to adjust some communications Maybe record somebody every now and again Yeah, and that's why this is sitting on a stool Right Right, there you go. Exactly. Yeah, no, no, there's interfaces. They're piling up over here $1,000 and it can't do a lot of what are that's the that's the yellow, isn't it? Yes. Yes What are people thinking about this keep it and that's the point that the yellow was designed to be super super super simple What wasn't that one of the points of it was like, yeah, you can't mess it up It's like high quality and ridiculously simple But but lose is important features. Yeah one last question from patricia tucinata. She says I almost got it, but I'm too much of a newbie. Not sure if I should I have an Apollo solo right now Will we get a chance to get this particular device the passport vo In the future later on only if we can sell a hundred of them What how long do we have george like a week? I mean essentially here's the deal we passed our 15 day window where we were yeah, we failed We technically failed didn't we it did all right? No, we failed. We didn't sell 100, right? So after that big push Michael Didn't want it to die because he believes in it now. He sees that there's real value He has seen that you guys have backed up this product by Making pre-orders and he doesn't want it to fail. So he's still supporting Trying to reach that goal. The problem is he can't do it all summer, right? He's going to europe He's got trade shows to do and he's a small up. He's got some other products on the deck too I think he said on the deck and yeah, so we really do I think really about a week, you know a may I think you're saying may 7th 9th somewhere in that range is when he was going to cut it off. So We'll push it at woe vocab this weekend. We got we'll have some point It's not fair to the people that didn't put the money down It's going to take Once we get the go it's going to still take several months to deliver And so we can't just like sit on people's money right Is the centrance centrance is holding that money now to be really? Yeah, we're not doing this is all I hit the goal the money goes back If you get the product in the mail in four or five months and you don't like it you get your money back Like you this is not a donation It's not the money It's not a go fund me project. It's not a go fund me. It's not kick in to go go or kickstarter this money You are not donating money so you get the product and getting it from Super well robert. Thank you so much for joining us tonight and telling us about the the the passport And all the other cool stuff that you do and and good luck with With that one and of course with source connected with the update on that Really looking forward to all this. Thank you guys. Well, always really good to be on the show and Thank you for the plug george All right, thank you for not making for not making me's do it Alrighty we'll be right back to wrap things up and re-rack it for tech talk Right after these important messages. This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lenard and george widdum v obs dot tv Hey there Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer that place is voiceover extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions Bringing you the most current information on topics like audio boost auditioning home studio setup and equipment Marketing performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voiceover success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports. It's all here at voiceover extra dot com That's voiceover x t r a dot com All right. Well, it's time for uh Time for a little bit of name dropping to tell you the truth because um The other day I got a phone call or a text it was it was a text from our good friend debbie dairy And she's like i'm trying to get my niece A website for voiceover. What are what do I do? And we don't want to spend a lot So I sent her over to a place that Was my idea originally and our friends at voice actor websites started up. It's called voice actor Dot com voice actor dot com. What is voice actor dot com voice actor dot com Is the greatest thing ever if you're just starting out in voiceover because Everybody has to have a website. It's really really important To have that web presence when you're a voice actor So if someone you know, here's your demo and they're like, well, let me see what this person's about Got to have a website that has A number of basic things your name your demos and your contact info and it has to look nice You know, it's like, well, no, it's got to have flowers and I have to have me jump jumping around it All you need is your name your demos And your contact information and a nice background and what voice actor dot com does is it gives you templated Uh websites very easy. You can start for free And get yourself online in half an hour Even less if you're pretty good with that kind of stuff just follow the instructions Check it out start an account there. It's it's free to start And if you want to of course upgrade to something where you can get a little bit more customization Go on over there. It's voice actor dot com And uh that will get you online in no time. We'll be right back and finish things up Right after this We are the world voices organization Also known as wobo. We're the not-for-profit industry association of freelance voice talent voice over is a complex entrepreneurial business Wobo is there to promote the professional nature of voice work to the public to those already established in their voice over practice And to those who want to pursue voice over as a career Membership benefits include a supportive and creative community a profile and demos on voiceover.biz Our searchable directory of vetted professional voice talent our exclusive demo player for your personal website our mentoring program Business resources and our video library our annual wobo con conference a fun and educational weekend with other members With the chance to learn and network webinars and great speakers and weekly social chats with other members around the world If your world is voice over make wobo part of it world voices organization. We speak for those who speak for a living This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice of our body shop all right We're back Yeah, no robert's always fascinating to to talk to and uh and sealed. I mean there's a guy with a lot of stuff Yes, yeah, and how much of it does he actually use that I just like to push buttons That's really day to day. I mean a lot of it is just a collection that of of things that Are fun to play with and use and sometimes when you're When you're running a studio People are coming in they're paying you for your time and sometimes your gear they want to see What kind of unique stuff you have for them to to use what's gonna what can you bring the mojo to their recording So that right is some of it some of it's mysterious right So next week on this very show when you tune in it will be tech talk number 102 Yay, believe it or not and uh, we've got a lot of cool stuff to talk about we're gonna record that if you're watching live You can actually watch us do tech talk live and ask your questions. So hang out for that And then in two weeks Dave walsh The great great voiceover coach will be joining us and talking about a lot of cool stuff and Well, I guess he'll coach me through another spot Anyway, uh, you still got 10 off anything at george the tech. That's right. Vobs fan 10 Gets you 10 off any services or webinars at George the tech. All right. We also need to thank all our donors of the week and they are Very helpful to us grace newton Robert Liedem Steve Chandler Casey clack Jonathan Grant Thomas Pinto Greg Thomas Hey, Dr. Voice Antland productions looking forward to seeing Uncle Roy this weekend. I'm Martha Khan 949 designs Christopher Eprison Sarah Borges Phillip Sapir Brian Page Patty Gibbons Rob Ryder Shawna Pennington-Baird Don Griffith Trey Mosley Diana Burtzaw And Sandra Manwheeler All righty. Oh, by the way, last thing last thing the last little pluggy thing If you do buy the passport you put the order in please use v obs in the coupon code area That just lets them know you heard about it here If you forgot just let just email them and let them know we'd appreciate it. Yes, absolutely Uh, we need to thank our sponsors, of course Harlan Hogan's voiceover essentials Voiceover Extra Source Elements VioHeroes.com There it is right there voiceactor.com and worldvoices.org which is the industry association of freelance voice talent We have WovoCon coming up this weekend. I am so looking forward to that sounds like it's gonna be fun It's gonna be a hug fest Which is the most important thing and you'll have more time to hug everybody because there's fewer people It's not because that's right. Yeah, it's not like wait. I see her. She's on the other side of the room No, it's or like wait. You were there for four days, too, and we never saw each other That that was Atlanta. There were a thousand people that's not WovoCon. That's right We need to thank Jeff Holman for getting all the stuff in our chat room Yeah, where were Sue? Sue was busy tonight. So I'm doing all the switching right now and of course lee penny for being lee penny Hey, that's gonna do it for us this week on voiceover body shop Stay tuned for tech talk live if you're still here You're gonna get you get the chance to ask your questions to george and I about anything home voiceover studio So anyway, look, this isn't an easy business You know, it's everybody's trying to do it But not everybody's succeeding you have to have the technology and the knowledge of what it takes to Succeed along with just being a good voice actor But we've come to the conclusion that when it comes to your audio if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan Leonard and i'm george widham And this is voiceover body shop or vo b s We'll see you next time stay tuned for tech talk