 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk Tech talk tech talk. I forgot to echo. Oh, you tech talk, you know, we do it every other week You're gonna forget It's this orienting being in the same place at the same time. I know you gotta study your life Even though that was the norm, right? Exactly. Well, we're here to help you with your home voiceover studio And we've got lots of great stuff that George is gonna talk about a new Mac mini or something like that So stay tuned tech talk coming up right now. We want your questions on voiceover body shop Brought to you by voiceover essentials comm 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, hello there. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or VO Be as tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk Jeff tech talk tech talk talk So If you guys only knew how much fun we have doing oh, man We do we do and each time we do a different set which just makes it even more exciting I know it's amazing. You know, we've been doing it in March, which is not that far away No, it will have been 12 years since we started doing this. Yeah, 12 years I can't even I can't you would think that we would have run out of stuff. No, no because technology moves on Thankfully rolls on everybody keeps making new stuff exactly people keep buying them Even though they don't need them right and then we get to tell them how to use them, right? And the fact of the matter is when you think about Trying to keep up to date with the latest Mm-hmm or the latest dogs Thank you Try to keep up with the latest technology Requires people who are constantly looking. Yeah, and you and I are like I mean, you're a total geek when it comes to going on the internet Well, you got to try this piece of equipment. You got it. I'm a little bit more Keep it simple traditional. Yeah, maybe I'm old school. You could say tradition. Yeah Yeah, and and so I'm I'm usually like, yeah, this microphone might be good. That might be you know, here's But if something a while though, you get a surprise if something comes along you get a mic once in a while You know like like this one. I like I like this mic You know, is it would it be the difference between me booking a job and not no no It's still it still goes on what's going on in your head, but you still have to know how to record Competently you do not have to be a recording But you do have to learn some basics you have to know whistle What it's supposed to sound you have to know that yeah, that is so incredibly important And the fact of the matter is nobody seems to know especially a lot of agents Don't know what it's supposed to sound like Of course when I when I talk to people and they say well, what do you mean by what it's supposed to sound like? Or is it broadcast quality? It means it doesn't sound bad There's nothing distracting. There's nothing that's distracting the mouth noises aren't so mouth noisy that they try to distract the listener The breaths aren't so gaspy that they nothing is distracting out of the ordinary or in any way distorting your voice exactly or There's no background or there's no reflection all those sorts of if you want to learn how to do this right or have somebody set up your studio Properly look there's only two places you and generally when you go to one The other one's gonna hear about it anyway If you want to work with us, it's really easy just go to our websites like if you want to work with George you go to George the tech That's we've got a lot of resources on there from the soundcheck all the way up to design your dream studio to you know Making an audio processing preset so that your auditions are a little bit more polished or you know Just trouble shooting all your gear and figuring out why that one mic buzzes all the time So that's what we do over Check it out and take a look at see what we have to offer as well as Dan over at home voiceover studio dot com Yeah Go on over there beginning a lot of people throwing their specimens in the specimen collection the most valuable thing It is you can get your feedback for $25 and ask anybody that's done that with me And it's like why you gave me a whole lot more than $25 worth Because I'll I can I can listen to an audio George can listen to it within a very short period of time of listening and looking at various different graphic representations We can determine whether it's up to snuff or if it needs to some little adjustment is needed Right. So go on over to home voiceover studio comm check that out Alrighty, it's time to get to George's weekly or once twice a month tech update Tech update take it away. Yeah, well, we'll get out of we'll get the Apple stuff out of the way Apple I was gonna say quietly announced. They don't do anything quietly No, but they didn't schedule this they didn't promote that they were gonna announce that they didn't have a press conference They just dropped a video almost last week Geez and they dropped a video and said by the way, we have new M2 Mac minis and Mac book pros. I just bought a Mac. Hey, we all just bought new Macs, right? So this is obviously the next iteration or generation of the silicon chip processor the M2 and now they're offering it in the Mac mini which they many thought this was gonna happen in the fall but because of COVID and and a supply chain all this crap. They had to delay it right so now it comes out and What you're getting now is a five hundred ninety nine dollar Mac mini. It's actually less than the last Mac Amazingly, they dropped the price you could literally trade one in and get more computer back Kind of I mean like it's it's kind of nuts Like if you've got that desktop PC or that gaming laptop that makes tons of fan noise and drives you crazy This is a golden opportunity to step into an Apple computer. I sound like a sales guy here I know I'm sorry, but it five ninety nine It's it's it's a base model, but you got to keep in mind. What is a base model Apple computer? It's like a mid to upper mid tier PC, right? They just don't even start at there's no low-end in and that's a five hundred It's it'll do everything a voice Hatcher would and more but then that's just the base model Then they have the m2 pro and the m2 max and this is where they start just adding more Everything right who is that for it's it's for people that really do know they're gonna be doing a lot more video production They want to run three 4k displays, you know because you can do that on the Mac mini pro It's it has more just more you can put more memory in it all kinds of I Personally think that the sweet spot would be the Mac mini m2 pro Base model that it's I think that's a 1299 computer So if you if you were getting ready to spend that kind of money That's where I would put my because that's gonna make you future-proofed Another three or four years longer than maybe the base model and I'm saying that Not even really knowing what's gonna happen. Sure, but they'll come up with something new for sure They say that like if you pay a more upfront the computer has longer life I I guess that's kind of true the thing is the lowest Mac mini the performance is so bonkers Right, it is so fast and they last for five or six years and so quite five I mean I I had my 2011 Mac mini still running as like a server You know a video sir can watch movies on my TV that Kid right they're on that hard drive. So it's they they do they do last so that's that's new from Apple You're probably wondering if you're really if you're really looking at spending big money You're probably thinking shouldn't what about that Mac studio? What about that Mac? What about that Mac studio big? It's basically a Mac mini that it has a double stack And the top part is basically fan Well, the fans are what let you eke out that last bit of horsepower over a longer period of time, right? That lets you export Video for longer periods of time. It lets you do photogrammetry things like that at maximum performance, which is By the way And the other problem is those fans come at a cost and that is noise. I've seen many little People saying Apple studio computer There's a whistle like a kind of a whiny whistle sound from those fans So you can't put it in the booth. So the Mac mini again very quiet cooling and great performance Dan and I both use them the mini M ones for years. You know the M ones we last year Yeah, well, we've had minis for years, right? But we've had the many we both got the 2020 and we're it's been it's been very good Going into software software Bertam de Noiser, which you guys maybe you've heard me talk about on the show or not it's a it's a noise reduction plug-in and They've always had this free freemium version, you know, I or what do you call it honor with? It's free, but you can kick me some money. Oh, yeah, right Shareware, maybe that's what we call it, right? So a long time ago when I discovered it I thought it was so cool. I kicked the guy 42 bucks, right? He said hey, by the way, here's a license to the new pro version I'm just giving it to you because you're one of the top donors Okay, that's 42 bucks Only how's this guy make a living? But anyway, he released a pro version. Do you need the pro version? I don't know. I just installed it today. I didn't have much time to play with it It had five more fader things to play around with so it definitely adds complexity But it also supposedly has this adaptive mode, which could actually be Worthy 25 bucks that he's charging So you can demo it you don't have to buy it But give it a try and see if the auto mode is kind of magical for removing some of the background noise in your studio And see what you think. Yeah, I think that thing about background Yeah, there are some things you can you'll have to work very hard to remove them and Somehow it's going to leave some residues. Yeah So if you've got a that the real key to using a lot of these denoising products is to get your noise floor At least down to minus 60 if you can't so you make these really great pieces of soft Transpawn yeah, the the lower your noise to begin with is the far better these tools can do the better They can do the job and then better they can do the job Without without creating any Distractions like it without being noticed. I guess that's the thing you just transparent transparent That's not distracting the listener. It's one of those things like a good tool is great when you turn it off and you miss it But when it was on you didn't know Exactly like if it's on you're going okay. That's good. I can't tell it's processing, but it sounds fine I like it and then you go. Well, let me just hit bypass and then you go. Oh, it's kind of rumbly in here now I hear lots of what say your kid. That's that's a good tool It's it's just when it's on you don't even know it when it's off. It's like, oh, I'm missing Anyway, Bertam does that really well. I like that one that Bertam.com Bertam The actual website is Bertam audio Com Bertam. I think it's like two names slam together his names We're Bert and exactly now another one is and this one I'll just throw up on the screen because this is an interesting company. Can you throw that on? It's easier. There we go. There's the Bertam tab. Let me go ahead and share this tab instead. There we go I like it out of that little button. Yeah, cool this is a company called angry audio and They definitely market to the radio broadcaster segment, right? But they make problem solvers and I I love problem-solving things, right? They make the audio gizmo and it doesn't look like much and you're thinking why does it have network connections? I was gonna say why does it look like just a router, right? What it actually is is just a very compact and simple line-in line-out audio interface So if you are if you're looking for that thing Which just takes the audio from your mixer or your preamp or whatever and just injects it into the computer No, it's nothing else. It does that and it does it without noise because it has Isolated galvanically isolated everything so everything inside the unit has electrical isolation So you're not gonna get hum or whining sounds from the computer You're looking at those RJ45 connectors that has become a Radio broadcast standardization now where they connect things this way because it's using in because it was telco Yeah, they have those cables already. It's he so they do have like these little breakout cables that give you you know XLR stuff anyway, it's kind of cool But he also is doing this other project which very few of you need but those that need it will go Oh, thank you. And that is the see if I can find it. It is in this There it is the Bluetooth gadget So he made what I believe really is the only Really like pro quality Bluetooth audio to adapter, right? So this not only is a very high quality Bluetooth playback So like playing music from your phone and having it come into your system Stereo XLR balanced audio also digital ae s which none of us really use but broadcasters do It does that but it also it also has the input mode. So it'll be a phone patch So if you have say an Apollo or a mixer and you've got that extra line-in line-out where you can inject something else This now can become your phone patch has And it again not a lot of people need this but there are some folks I work with who are like listen I still get dialed in on a telephone pots plain old telephone Every day, but I don't have a telephone Who does me so I'm using Skype or I'm using something else and Skype's kind of wonky and doesn't sound very good And there's just a lot of reasons to just use this familiar thing And so this is a way to connect this to yours anyway, that's the cool It's the it's the Bluetooth gadget and I have one probably get one to play around with at some point in test So but it's a cool company. He makes these really neat little problem-solver things and that's and that's angry Audi The very last thing I have was oh Well, that was actually it one other thing this camellian What it is is his way of creating a hardware box and you guys know we have our own trouble on the show getting Audio is all audio levels all exactly like between the mics and the commercials for example, right? This is a hardware box that does that. That's literally what it does It's hard for us because software we have we do everything in software, but this would be something you put between your mixer and your Broadcast your radio or transmitter or whatever your streamer. I guess And you can set the output lufts on the box. So you say I want to now put an average level of Minus 20 minus 18 whatever and the box is automatically calibrates the levels for you all the time Not only that they make one for headphones Which you know we all talk about this in VO you don't use headphones to to create This fake version of what you sound like, you know because it's coloring you but in radio Well radio the whole other point is to be in love with the way you sound on the right So this box the C3 I think it's called does this job, but just for your headphone So it gives you that perfectly leveled audio Loud and clear when the commercials come in it's to say everything comes in at that same Full level all the time and so you can make yourself sound beautiful to yourself and Not screw up the recording with processing. You shouldn't have been using it. Anyway, that's a weird little product, right? But I just thought it was interesting Maybe I'll get my hands on one to play around. I know some voice actors who could probably use it Yeah, I know one that turns his headphone knob up and down and I know who you're talking And you know who I'm talking about I might get it for him Anyway, that's that one. So he doesn't have to the beauty of it. He doesn't touch it. That's a good Anyway, there's a few new fun things to check out. Cool So here's what I want to talk about because I get this all the time people who are beginners people have been doing it for a while Maybe, you know, a lot of people use a desk That's really what I want to talk about You know, we always get that question. What's the best microphone? What's the best software for now? I've now I've been doing this a long time. I have been recording digitally for over 20 years It's changed a lot. It's it's gotten a lot better And it's gotten a lot easier But the thing that there's two elements that allow you to do digital one is your digital interface Your face or this be Mike that takes your analog audio and turns it into the ones and zero hands and turns it into the graphic representation of audio whether it's waveform or spectrogram or All those weird things that you see an isotope It looks like a you know a model for global warming The the thing is is what really is best when it comes to soft? I Am convinced that all software in the aggregate all sounds exactly Digital audio is digital It's what the software can do to either enhance which of course, you know, I think about enhancing on or clean it up or Has what I like to call the proper workflow for doing that's the buzzword Right because when you're doing auditions all the time You want to be you want to you want to get it out the door? If you've got a project that they give us three takes is well You want to get it out the door you want to be able to edit it quickly and of course you want it to sound Right now of course you and I agree that the best way to sound right is to have the best environment to record in Yeah, proper microphone technique and learn how to set proper levels Those are the three basics it does out of the way Yeah, as long as you do that any software is gonna a lot of we know there are a lot of professional audiobook narrators They'll use an audacity because it's got the right workflow for what they do My I personally been using Adobe Audition since before it was Adobe Audition Studio sound booth sound booth and and I've been using that for well over years and It's amongst software it has a workflow for voiceover It's because it's designed to be for voice not for music because all of this stuff is We never recommend people use Now some people learn down pro tools. Yeah, they started a long time ago And they know how to use it. Yeah, you know this I know we know a lot of people who do voiceover who do a lot of multi-level things where it's Lots of different files and they're like, well, I know how to do it on pro tools. Yeah, therefore I will do it Pro to they learn that workflow. They learn like how the clips work in the regions Yeah, deal with multi-track. Yeah, how to manage the file like their whole system is built That's that's that's true. That's especially if they were musicians Because then they will or if they were trained by studio owners or producers that know Yeah, the thing is his pro tools is not going to make you a better It will make you may be a better recording engineer But again, if you go for those three basics, who cares it might also make you a more Frustrated voice actor when you get confused because you changed the modes of the operation of The editor and now the playhead doesn't start at the beginning and it does this and you're like, why did that up? Right that yeah, yeah pro tools has a lot of complexity to Adobe audition has some complexity But it's kind of a sweet spot. It is because you know, I mean you can do multi-tracking So like if I'm producing podcasts. Yeah, it's fabulous. Yeah, can if you need to balance the levels and work on each individual track But as voice actors your primary thing is one mono File and you don't need as I like to say a control room for a nuclear reactor to control a hamster running in a wheel I'm glad that audacity. Maybe was it a year or two ago adopted the oh, it should just be one track Right mode like that's not the default right now that they've done that it feels and works more like One track quarter Yeah, the latest version lots of features, which is really cool It does and of course a lot of people who are sending me audio. How do I fix this in audacity? How do I make this? So he can go Oh, I haven't used this for oh, they changed that right. Yeah, and now I have to go figure that out Yeah, it's like 3.2 point Three or two or whatever 3.2 point two. Yeah, I just updated yesterday because I updated at 3.2 point one Last week, right? But audacity is great stuff. I mean and the best part about it. It's free. It's free, you know, it's free You know, you use twisted wave as well. I do use twisted wave That's kind of the one that I I have kind of hung hitched my wagon to if you want to call it that I mean ever since bow we were told us Yeah in 2000 2007 2008 I remember when I first met you and you were showing people this Remote system you had there was twisted wave on that was in 2008 So it's been around it's been a long time and it's proven itself to be a very stable reliable and Super duper simple simple and he hasn't met he hasn't mucked with the user interface. No, he has But you just it pretty much looks and works And I think professional tools Don't muck with that thing that makes it work makes it familiar, right? You know that was that really bugged me about Apple with garage band when they gave it a whole a makeover, you know And it's you had to really go back to school and learn how to use it again You had to watch all their training videos. I'm speaking for myself It drove me crazy. This is a long. This is seven six seven But still that kind of like thing where a company will just arbitrarily change things because somebody decided it needs a That's you don't want software that Adobe doesn't do that either. No addition has not changed at all pretty much in years. Yeah adds features and things that you can do Yeah, I like that. You can hide everything. You don't need to see enough You can hide a million different Right on the I know people also like reaper and I think the reaper speaks computer to speaks the computer geeks more because It's more like lego's like it There's a lot of pieces that you have to build correctly for it to do a good job as voiceover For voiceover like you can use it out of the box, but you'll be banging your head against wall until you're completely custom But once you've done that it does its job One that I just can't wrap my head around studio And I know for making music Yeah, I know don barns is is an absolute pro and he has a whole system for teaching it Every time I open it and I've seen some of his videos and all this stuff. I still wonder Why did they go? Why did they take that weird? Securitas route to get to the end product? It's just it just doesn't jive for me and it's and the interface is so Noisy noisy meaning lots of things going on a million different things. Just it's just kind of a little overwhelming I yeah, I that's why I like twisted wave because twisted wave is just super duper simple It gets out of the way it you turn it on you you boot it up You hit record and you go. Yeah, and it gets out of the way it gives you there's lots of it has everything you need to do voice It's you know, it's got all the any filters you want to use how many filters High-pass filter and maybe and and I've really stopped really not using a lot of compression The more experience you have you'll find the less you'll use less unique Exactly, you know if you know how to use your mic if you set your levels right compression is not that important I mean, it's always important. The thing is is if you give Somebody your audio that is going to manipulate the audio after you give it and put it into a mix Give them as we used to say in education a tabloid a blanks Something that they can play with that, you know, it's like, okay. There's all right, maybe You know transient a little spike here, but I can calm that down as long as it sounds good to start with That that's all they I'm not a big fan of reaper because reapered has a green to darker green vu meter Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, they don't they don't have what I would call like a properly Yeah, it needs to go green yellow red, right? Exactly. I mean that's that's kind of universal Right, but reaper doesn't do that. So when you're trying to explain that to somebody in reaper, what? It's just green. Well, all right. Well, yeah Software that'll give you green green yellow Orange and red which audacity does audition does and twisted waved up. That's why we like Anyway, that's my take on software take it for whatever it's worth Uh, but audition twisted wave, you know audition works across platforms We understand that thomas is making a beta for pc for twist. Oh, yeah, you can go download it right now In fact, he's even supporting stacking. Wow in the way the windows version. I am in fact I wish I mentioned it earlier, but now you mentioned it There is cross compatibility. I can make a stack as long as the plugins Are windows compatible. So they have to be vst Right as long as i'm using those plugins and you have the same plugins I can make a stack on the mac and it will load on pc. So that is happening in in the windows twisted wave So that's encouraging to see let's say if you self the trouble You know, you know, you know, sorry Anyway, all right, we're gonna take a break. We got lots of questions. Jeff. Yes. All right Yes, we'll be right back with your questions right after this. So don't go away. We'll be right back with voiceover body shop This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george wittem v obs dot tv Voiceover essentials.com has the ultimate answer for mic safety Look, your mic is the most valuable part of your audio chain. 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This is the simple solution that simply works You'll kick yourself or not having thought of it Lock it in place with our abs the adjustable boom stop Get it now at voiceover essentials.com I'm to talk about source elements, uh, the creators of source connect And a whole slew of tools we mentioned the word workflow earlier today and that's really the name of the game Um source connect There's a I mean there's a lot of tools now that stream audio over the internet that allow for multiple people to collaborate, right? We there's there's so many things out there now But source connect has a very well embedded workflow into Into the studios that love to use it and that is why it is really the tool of choice for the pros You know the it has its Downside which is well as an actor you also have to own it, right? And that is something that not everybody likes but the good news about it is First of all, you can demo it for free Secondly, you can subscribe and get a monthly subscription for the software And if you find you're not going to be using it in the long term, maybe things have gone a different direction Your career's changed whatever You can stop paying for the subscription and you end up investing far less than actually buying The software license outright others of you hate subscriptions And we'll end up buying the license outright and that's fine, too But whatever you choose to do Go over to source dash elements calm and learn more about it and how source connect can work in your studio Yes, it's windows and mac compatible. Yes, it's a little bit more mac friendly Um, but it absolutely will work on both. So give it a try and let us know if you need anything because We can help you. Anyway, let's get back to your questions right after this. Thanks source element Hey there, it's David H. Lawrence the 17th with the acx master class We're coming up on a full decade just a few months shy Of the training that we've been offering on how to make acx a place where you can build a business as an audiobook narrator And all this week and all next week We're celebrating with a series of free video training sessions On how to set up your business what it takes to be an audiobook narrator What you can expect in terms of the equipment and the production process and working with rights holders The authors and publishers who have books that they want you to read Just go to acx masterclass.com and you'll get all the details there'll be a link right there for you to see the videos and we'd love to Be part of the reason that you end up creating an audiobook narration production practice That you become an audiobook narrator Join us absolutely free great information acx masterclass.com. That's acx masterclass.com Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great And we are back talking tech I'm tech talk tech And we got lots of questions today But people have written in there because we keep telling you guys I'm impressed write your questions in because then you go to the front of the queue and your question gets in I'm really impressed with how many came in. Yes. Now this particular question when I saw this earlier this This this is this this is has your name all over it. Yeah, absolutely Josh Smith writes I recently had a voiceover instructor call me out in a group class Setting for head in a group class setting for having my Neumann tlm 103 Right side up as opposed to upside down like that Yeah, they went on to say Some mics are designed to deliver a warmer richer sound when positioned upside down, which is essentially bs Uh, is there any truth to the statement? No, it's bs Whoever was instructing you had no idea what they were talking about Uh, now he says I've experimented with lots of different positions and I find when it's upside down I tend to stay a little too far back from it So I like the right side up position as it's easier to orient myself to Here's why I recommend and I think you recommend as well Why you have the mic like this Upside down Suspended like that at the height of the bridge of your nose And anywhere from five to seven or eight inches away. So your copy is down and underneath And you can see it clearly you can gesticulate without banging the mic That's a big thing So there's a lot of advantages to kick the stand right you're exactly and it's it's out of the way But here's the big psychological and why and when I tell people this and they go, oh And then they write back and go you've freed me because You're supposed to sound like you And Sometimes when people get on mic, they think they have to talk louder because they're on a microphone If it's up here, it's at the periphery upper periphery of your vision It's still picking you up just fine like you're hearing me write this moment Copies down here and you it's unobstructed Right and that's because you want to concentrate on that Not on being on a microphone Yeah, you're not talking at the mic the mic It isn't a 1940s dramatic radio ad where you're talking at the mic. That's right The mic is listening in on you. It's eavesdropping right and you'll also notice by having it there. It is at the same Height as your ears the same height is your ears, which is how other people perceive you If it's right side up you have to be a little off axis to see your copy Yeah, it's got to be like one side of the right and that's not good But the statement about it's warmer if it's upside The only reason it would get warmer is if you start using proximity And i'm not changing the tonality of my voice at all and it you can hear it gets deeper Don't use the microphone do that let it pick you up as you exist I think it's a lot easier to pop the mic too when it's down below And that's the other reason because I can go peter piper picked a peck of pickled Peppers and there are no plosives. Yeah, so why have this big black screen in front of your mic? That's going to distract you and remind you that you're on a microphone. It's gonna start sagging down Exactly, you know exactly so hopefully josh that answers you I I think that might have been something that got that notion got sort of uh co-opted convoluted with Tube microphones and that they needed to be upside down or right side up because the heat of the tube would There was some really old-school old-fashioned notions about this, but yeah, it's the mic can be the mic can be oriented Literally all 360 directions. It's the capsule facing you that would be like going to this mic and saying well if if I twist it This way make a difference sound better now. No it doesn't the capsule's round it doesn't Um, anyway, um big case says I'm a renter looking for a relatively quiet rental location And I'm considering getting a vocal booth to go acoustic booth and putting it in an interior room or walk-in closet My attraction to this particular booth is that it doesn't weigh anything like a regular booth I guess you mean like an iso boot. Yeah And thus would be acceptable to the landlord because landlord weighs everything he brings into his apartment Um, would it need acoustic fine tuning like bass traps, etc Like some other booths and is there an optimal size to get for acoustics? um, the problem with putting these Blanket booths into a closet is now the closet is the defining factor of how it's going to sound because now you're in this chamber And so if you're if you stick it in a small closet, it's going to sound like you're in a small closet But a little better, right if you stick it in a large room Now the room isn't as much of a factor because there's a lot more space around you and it will sound much better Right, you don't want to have it up against the wall. Yeah, if you can avoid having it flat up against the wall That's usually a good idea Um, and it depends on how heavy the blankets are and what it what product it's made out He's talking about a vocal booth to go and those are the producers choice blankets are good heavy They're very very good. Yeah And uh, you know and and they make a bunch of different sizes of this too. Yeah, they do. Yeah So what kind of room does vic have in order? To have a booth. Yeah, so we mentioned bass traps I I'm going to speak now to my own product because i'm the most knowledgeable about it I helped rick wasterman design something called try booth and this is our take on this type of concept And what we have found is that it does sound best when it is not up against any surface Not against right up against a wall or in a small room Closet because when you're in those small spaces There are bait. There's bass reflux and that's where that bass trapping notion really be Because that chamber is resonating with your booming with your voice and those blankets the while they're nice and heavy They still can't stop that resonant low frequent Right so you really don't want to get into those chambers, but when the booths freestanding it sounds amazing Yeah, man I've also found that if you're talking towards a wall It's going to bounce too because these these booths the blanket booths are not sound proof Right how many times over the 12 years we've been doing this show have we told people there is a difference between sound damping damping You know diffusion and absorption right and soundproofing they are two totally different things Right, so if you want to put up you can put up all the soundproofing foam you want It's not going to stop any sound from coming in your boot But the thing is is when you use a booth like that, it's got to be in a very Quiet room, which is why closets are good Yeah, I can see why someone would pick a closet if that's the quietest place they can find right And it also depends on where you position your mic because if you're talking towards the wall, it's going to bounce back So why not have the mic facing out towards the room? Right, which will also depending on the mic you have will also prevent noise from coming Directly into your mic out of a window or something like that mic orientation can do a whole lot to help with your noise You can so think about that. Yeah, so I I think uh, you know, you're gonna have to go with what's comfortable for you Debbie Debbie, uh, Debbie last week said, you know, you need some a space where you can put your hands up like this So whatever it is If you're gonna be acting and hit things all the time, then it's probably too small, right? So in terms of size Um, it really comes down to what it's going to fit your body and your body size and type and how you like to work Right, but those booths do a very good job dampening Yeah, yeah Sound goes right through it reflections right they do that really really Aaron Goodson you get Now uh getting worthy because this is this is your department Okay, do it First, uh, Aaron says hey fellas. Thanks for all what you do and providing guidance and resources for all those vr Love your podcasts and the universe. You're useful You provide so i'm having an issue with my xfinity service provider the port forward I have been using source connect for a while now initially had no problems setting up my port forward I recently bought a new route computer And now when trying to delete the port forward from the old computer ip address and transfer to the new one He keeps giving me an error message and won't go through i've reached out to xfinity tech support and they couldn't help me It's not a surprise logging into the router the port forward section is disabled and tells you to App it's correct But the app continuously gives an error message when looking through some posts online It looks like this is a recurring issue for many people Short of cancelling my service and choosing a new inner provider. Good luck with that because if you could you would have by now Um, I'm wondering if there's another workaround to get this port forward set up on my new computer's ip address Is there another port? No other than the six thousand six thousand one that I can use I use source connect on an almost daily basis And I want to have the longest connection. Thanks for your help. Well go Go first. Why have you not done a session with source elements support yet? a Because if they don't know nobody does B I ran into this very recently with a client of mine and she had this exact same problem And it turned out in her studio. She also had erode You know those internet network wi-fi extender thingamabobs, right? And I realized that the euro is also around So she had the xfinity modem The xfinity router and the euro what did I do? I deep six the xfinity router I just got rid of it. I plugged the xfinity modem into the euro and made the euro the router And then you do your port forwarding on the little app on your phone That's the only thing that bugs me about the euro. You got to do everything on a mobile phone I guess for security or something. But anyway, once you do that it works beautifully It gets rid of all the xfinity pain in the neck limitations So my other than talking to the source elements and getting their help Don't use xfinity's router Period don't use it Just just use their modem and use whatever router you want and there's a million options Eros are really good Synology I have a Synology router myself. We have a Synology router here Netgear, you know, there's a ton of companies that make good routers nowadays But just ditch the xfinity router Get rid of it take it out of your life if you can get fios fiber You should have by now if you can't You're stuck with you're stuck with xfinity cable modem I mean you get what you can get in your neighborhood not everybody can get those technologies You can use any any cable modem Well, yeah, you don't technically have to use xfinity's own cable modem either I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think If there's anything that maybe you want them to provide is maybe the modem because it's provisioned for them and if it burns out They know what's going on. They can they can communicate with it from there and blah, blah, blah But um, I just it's just it's much better to eliminate equipment because that it is definitely a head scratch And it does happen when you get a new computer because it remembers the old computer It knows the mac address of that computer on the network and as long as that computer still exists In your house, it will always be wanting to talk to the old computer The new one will conflict with it and you'll get errors and it doesn't work Yeah, it's Anyway, it's annoying really annoying and it's already said to Okay, uh, moving on now Jay Horace black has a question about VPNs now as far as I know about VPNs It's what people in russia use to make sure that putin isn't listening in Yeah, or you're on what it what is a virtual private? Because he says what's your opinion on on on VPN? Yeah, so a VPN is yeah virtual private network The way they are marketed mostly I've noticed is for privacy so that you can connect to your office computer from anywhere in the world And not about somebody snooping on you. Um, and it's also marketed as a way to watch Uh, let's say your favorite netflix shows from the bbc that are only on in england So you log into a vpn server in england and all of a sudden you are in england and you can watch all You see that would explain why I can't watch netflix in spain Right. So when you're in spain, where's my series you need to log into your vpn and connect to a us vpn And then you can watch stuff. Um, unless you're watching a lot of youtube tv and google's just too small They will still shut you off because google is well, they are the internet So, um, so that's what a vpn is really for I don't I haven't really used one on any consistent basis call me the you know Lacking caution or a little carefree. I haven't done it The other thing is vpns will slow down the network because you're going literally through another network connection somewhere else in the world Before it goes to somewhere else. So obviously there's going to be Additional latency a little more slowing down. It's not as high performance But if you just want to watch your netflix when you travel the vpns I I had This little thing here for our next question. Oh, he had a second part. Oh, there was a second What's your opinion? I'll be real quick clean my mac x max cleaner pro apps I I do have clean my mac. Yeah, I've had it for years. I have installed it on some systems I find it works fine Most apple enthusiasts will say you don't need them because they say apple knows how to properly Manage its own system, right? But it is helpful if you're a little bit zealous with installing crap like me It helps you uninstall. Yeah, it really helps uninstall things that are loading at startup And why is that thing always in the menu bar no matter how it helps you get rid of those apps It does have a good malware malware scanner If it doesn't have any in it itself Yeah, yeah, so I I do I do own and use clean my mac I think I think it's fine, but I don't think it's necessary. I think it's just a helpful set of tools That also has a really good way of scanning your hard drive to Hidden ginormous files Duplicate files Yeah, like a lot of people that if you if you plug your iphone into your computer to back it up People don't realize that it's kept backups of every version of ios you've ever And all of a sudden you've got like 60 gigs of backups on your computer. So it helps you find that's happening Grace newton who always has a great question says I need a webcam for my video podcast But I have nowhere to plug it in is there a hub for a mac book air that has more than two usb ports But of course there is sure. I mean you get one of these which has usb c on it And it's got three more ports. So out of one you get two extra ones. Yeah, what else is it's It's got usb one two three and then another and another usb c connector over here Yeah, and then oh this has another little surprise It's got a power in jack on sorry here's the camera. It's also got a power in jack So you can plug your apple charger into this And your other devices into these and then you only have to plug one thing in That's so and this is usb only but they have some that are thunderbolt They have some that have five usb ports and a micro sd card reader and an ethernet Yeah, I in terms of brand j5 is kind of like the house brand at best buy Sometimes okay. Sometimes not these were varies I like anchor brand. I find they've been doing a very good job Yeah, well the 10 one Yeah, a and ke are they they're one of those like they were an off chinese brand and now they're they're so well established They're totally mainly kind of like tcl tv High sense and all these companies that came from nowhere and now they're like amazing product Anyway, yeah, that's the way to go. It's just get an adapter and it's it solves that problem real quick Yeah, you probably thought that nobody makes it because apple doesn't make one I still don't to this day Understand why apple leaves that money on the table they could make two ports Yeah, the apple could make a badass $200 usb hub. I would maybe buy it. I don't know a lot of people would They don't I I still don't get it's a very weird thing and they could make billions of dollars selling hub Anyway, there you go Jeff has a question All right, okay when they ask for audition jeff holman our social media Tsar When they ask for auditions without post-process Is it cool to still use inline filters? George has set one up for me in personas revelator George, can you demonstrate how to bring video into twisted wave for audio editing? It's drag it and put it in there Well, yeah, there's two questions. So the first one Um, if they if they know that you're doing it, you have to turn it off That's the rule Exactly like if they if they can hear that you're processing you can't use it I know that's a very nebulous If they say no, don't kind of kind of lens into what I was saying before if and it's on you don't know It's on but when you turn it off. It sounds a lot worse then you might need it If if nobody knows you're using it and it's doing some very very minimal thing applying a high pass filter and then maybe A dsr or sibilant control if that's what you're using it for whatever this it is in your user kit If it just takes what you do and makes it I don't know polishes it up without distracting or sounding processed and it's probably okay but um But yeah, like if there's a gate and there's a gate putting in and out use a gate. They're going to know it They're going to hear it's going to drive them crazy Probably not probably not but I don't remember Yeah, high pass filter an amazing amount of stuff for you. Yeah, that's where it's inaudible mostly It's on the meter and an engineer is going to see it Yeah, high pass filter is nice because it keeps that junk from getting through down the line Especially on source connect because if they you can imagine you're connecting to a $10,000 set of speakers Right as your microphones picking up all this rumble, right? Well, when you record yourself who cares you just filter you just eq it or high pass filter plug in whatever But when you connect to that studio live real time, they're going to see it on their waveform worse off They're going to see it. There are speakers going like You know and that's not good. So for live record sessions And question number two, can you demonstrate how to bring video into twisted wave for audio editing? Please so if you're talking about editing the audio on a video track versus editing a video What is the content? So like you've got a you got a video. It's got audio on it. It's like you're doing a self tape You want to clean up a self tape? It's beautiful. The beautiful thing is it will work exactly like a wave file You won't even notice the difference except except there'll be a little video window That's floating there But you just work and do everything in the exact same way you normally do Stack or whatever And then you save it and as long as you've paid for that you have to pay for the video license But as long as you have that video license It will save the video back out again with your chain So it the beauty of it is it works exactly this. How do you think I turned this into a podcast? Are you using that now? I just take the mp4 file Throw it in the twisted wave Boom there you guys use any you know any compression we use for podcasting because podcast yeah And uh, no twisted wave is great. It's so easy to do it. It's just drag and drop Now if you don't have the video license when you do the same exact thing When you save the audio from the video you only get the audio right still got to sync it back up Yeah, there's no video on but when you have the video add on then then you're gonna get the Exactly, that's that's how that works. And the final question tonight is from patricia. Andrea No information on luna. Is it any good? I meant luna the software that comes with the apollo digital audio workstation. It's very good for music producer Full stop And again most of this stuff was never designed For voice over they're not sitting in corporate board rooms going, you know, we need to make a voice over mic We need to have voice over software. We need to have You know, nobody's gotten it quite yet. No, I but because we're a small niche market compared to say podcasting Where which is why they're making podcasting mic podcasting interfacing according to v.com There's a small niche market of two million voices website Small niche market. Wow Yeah, there's a lot of voice actors. So, um, yeah, no luna is definitely a multi-track mixing recording production It's designed to emulate a real analog traditional recording studio Huge analog desk 92 tracks. Yeah, and then you have a 24 track tape machine that has its own sound and That's what luna does. It emulates all the whole signal flow of an old school I'll do traditional But I I I think I installed it the day it came out and I looked at it and said this isn't for us It's the last time I opened it. Maybe there's something new I haven't looked at in a couple of years. Yeah, but patrice if forget about Yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't bug. Don't don't buy it Well, that's a lot of greed It was thanks for thanks for all those and thanks for all the pre show questions too We appreciate the pump right just right to us at Are you ready sue? the guys at v obs dot tv It's right there and uh that way if you write to us during the week I get them in my little You know e-wab shop I know Change that But it comes into my inbox and like there's a great question. Can we use it on the air? On the internet, what's on the flies And uh It goes to the front of the queue So keep them going write those questions. Uh, of course, we love you to watch the show And ask interactively. Otherwise, jeff would just be sitting here going. Yeah We like interaction Well, actually what would happen is jeff would just have all his own questions answered right exactly and we don't want that down All righty. Well, we're gonna wrap things up in just a minute here. So don't go away. We'll be right back. These incredibly important This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice of her buddy 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 dot 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 dot 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 dot 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 dot 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 voice over extra dot 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 blouse 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 dot com. That's voice over x t r a dot com This is bill radner and you're enjoying voice over body shop with dan lennard and george widdum v obs dot tv All right, all right. Thanks bill. Which camera is it that one there? We need to have tally lights. Yeah, we've always wanted to do that. We need more stuff Let's just have jeff Have a flag there. All right. That's the camera Wave a flag over this one and helps looking at them Anyway, uh By the way, that was a great session Yes, it was. That's the way tech talk supposed to be. Yeah, we had a great time. Yes Right made up a few things. Exactly. You just have to figure out which ones we Just kidding. Totally unscripted here kids. Just kidding. Uh next week jason lenear white promises to be here. Yay And he's he's a he's a great guy Great group Maybe he can demonstrate some of his Is some of his mo cap stuff in the middle of the room. Yeah, you've cleaned out the space He can start doing acrobatics in there. There we go He's the most physically active voice actor i've ever met It's amazing and he's got a big booth to do it in too. So yeah, anyway, uh, who are our donors of the week? We have we've got a few of them. Uh, robert ledham steve chandler kasey clack jonathan grant thomas pinto shelly avaleno Greg thomas a doctor's voice ant land productions Uh, martha conne martha nine four nine designs christopher epperson sarah borges phillips apyr prime page patti gibbons rob rider shawna pettington baird don griffith Tremors lee daniverts all and santa man willer. Yeah, we appreciate everybody Uh, you can you can donate by just going to our website and there's a button that says donate now and you can Set it up to pay monthly If you want a dollar a month it it helps We're gonna read your name no matter what? Well, yes, and we get to read your names Do that You never know. All right. What do you got going on? You got um, well Let's see by the time you watch this if you watch it on the release day Then on tuesday this week. We're gonna have that free webinar Ask me anything michael pierce and adams from waves audio who has interviewed and worked with all the top engineers in the business Noz audio left right front ways noz audio plugins. He's extremely knowledgeable and a very nice guy Australia He'll be coming in from brisbane. Good day, which is in its own time zone Even though it's right north of melbourne. It's an hour late earlier. It's so weird. Anyway, and it's at the international date line So who cares it's all it's all messed up. Anyway, it's wednesday morning australian time Tuesday evening our time and we know people Uh, we need to thank the people who also made the show Well, that's jeff holman Montering the chat room doing a great job with that. Sure and sumer lino who just continues to just succumb to Every every win that we throw at Our director who does a great job with Uh, let's see what else we got going on here. Um You know, that's pretty much it. Yeah, I think we're done. I think we can let these guys go home Exactly but look voiceover is not an easy business. It's a very niche thing And you have to learn how to be a good voice actor. There are many niches in this niche of voiceover There are and there are some people that are better at some niches than others But when it comes to your audio If you do it right if you set it up right and you talk to us It'll sound great because if it sounds good, it is good I'm dan Leonard and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vo bs tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk See you next week everybody