 Hey, it's time for a voiceover body shop tech talk number 57 You don't need your hands George. We have the actual number. Oh my gosh. There it is 57 times we have done tech talk and we still got crap to talk about it goes on and on and of course We would love to get your questions You can ask them in the Facebook chat room if you're on Clubhouse. You can ask them live on our show and If you're watching on YouTube, you can watch it there as well. We are streaming everywhere Everywhere you want to be that's right and more so stay tuned We got lots of cool stuff to talk about with twisted wave and acoustic panels and all sorts of cool stuff That has to do with your recording of your voiceover tracks. Stay tuned. It's time for voiceover body shop tech talk right now from the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Wittem the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master professional voice talent with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world making the complex simple Debunking the myths of what it takes to create great sounding audio Answering your questions showing you the latest and greatest in VO tech and having a dandy time doing it Welcome to voiceover body shop tech talk Voiceover body shop tech talk is brought to you by voiceover essentials calm home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites calm where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes calm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and Now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys And it's time for tech talk I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Wittem and this is voice over body shop or VO B Yes Tech talk tech talk tech talk Even when Jeff's not here Jeff's here Jeff's here. He's always here. He's off doing a movie right now So we can't and I mean with Aaron Sorkin and he's telling oh, I'm working with Nicole Kidman and oh, it's it's great Awesome, so that's good to see people's careers progressing. Yeah working at that level anyway We're here to talk about your home voiceover studio if you have a question for us, which by the way is what makes George and I totally tick Is your questions because we have the answers if he doesn't know I know if I know don't know he knows and I usually ask him Do you know he goes? I don't know Let's look it up or let's make something up. Yeah, let's make something up Yeah, sometimes we make it up as we go along, but if it works Tony Robbins once said if a miracle happens near you claim credit Anyway, again if you got a question you can put it in Facebook you can put it in the chat room in YouTube And if you're in clubhouse You can ask your question live in our next segment But we got lots to cover George has an awful lot in his weekly tech update lots of stuff that you need to know Take it away. Mr. Whitman Maybe don't need to know all of it, but there's stuff in here. Maybe that could help some of you. Well, okay to it Let's get to it Don't I have like theme music or something? Oh, there it is time for the tech update tech update tech update So twist-a-wave price raised first time ever $99 it's no longer $79 That's I don't know if that's a big deal or not But I'll tell you that means if he's kept $79 the price for twist-a-wave for how long have you've had it? I've 10 12 years You know, it's basically just gotten cheaper every year if you had inflation. So really he's just correcting for inflation So I think he certainly deserves it. And I think it's a still a brilliant buy at $99 I know on the twist-a-wave group on Facebook. That was the overwhelming, you know Feedback not I didn't see anybody dare say, oh, why didn't he raise the price? No, everybody feels it's well They've all been using it there and he paid there 70 well, that's the way everybody there got in at 79 bucks. So right exactly Good point They're biased but anyway Yeah, so that's a little bit of a price jump But still feel it that it's a highly highly valuable tool for the voice actor and even for the studio producer Like if you use Pro Tools and there's certain things that are just very clunky to do in Pro Tools They just isn't like batch processing Just doesn't have a good way of doing that and twist-a-wave makes that stuff super easy. So We don't get nothing for Plugging them just knowing that we're all gonna use the easiest to use software for voice over So we love twist-a-wave Speaking of which, there's a beta version that was just released You can now opt in to be in the beta program on the app and so you can ask to Be sent beta updates now as a voice actor working in your studio every day. I don't recommend that but if you're have you have more than one computer and you like testing new things You can try that and there's a new version 25 point 8.5. So if you have that extra point on the end that's the beta and It's a there's a speech recognition function being tested out now. So We'll have to figure out how we want to make use of that But it could be helpful for automated proofing of an audiobook perhaps because you'll be able to check your work as you go I don't know. It's gonna be interesting to see the use cases for this, but It's in there So it'll be something to play with I have something new sent to me All the way from a Spenya. Oh show and tell from the world I know fan mail from around the world I have a couple things from studio bricks Three sizable objects You should just stand the chair is making it harder Studio bricks We've talked about them on the show. They've they've got a really really nicely designed isolation booth but acoustically It's always had a little heads has issues. Okay, not doesn't didn't nail it on the acoustics for everybody And they've been using other companies products. Well Guillermo he and I had a little powwow. We had a little meeting He wanted to show me some new stuff and then he was kind enough to send it to me from Spain So we could actually check it out in person So I have all that stuff in my lap. So the most interesting thing is Well, okay, so there's two two different acoustical panels They they decided to produce their own in-house foam acoustical panel for I guess for more of a budget studio and It's it looks like this it looks like you're kind of your typical two by four I'm sorry two by two foot square panel It is roughly two inches thick What makes it interesting is like is the way it's split up between a thinner back layer and a thicker front layer So I like that. I like that it has that variety of surfaces, but overall over and whelmingly It's mostly just two inches thick and a lot of the panels out there their wedges or they have little Pyramids and what happens with those wedged and pyramid foams is you lose a lot of the effectiveness of the absorption because there's a lot of areas Where the panel is less than an inch thick as it goes into the little Valleys between the peaks and the panel like this you're gonna get a lot more effectiveness over the control of the sound But this isn't the exciting thing for me so much. It's really more this one This one is a new panel that they're making in-house That is made of some recycled materials. It's not all recycled But the main material it's made out of is something called PET Which I believe is recycled plastic from I think like milk jugs Is that right Dan? Have you heard of PET plastic before? Yeah, that's what that's here. It's recycled It's yeah saving the planet and using sound in the same process. Yeah, exactly So this panel is made out of a blend a blend of material a lot of it's recycled And as you can see it's got a really cool interesting look to it It's it's the way it's designed you can kind of bend it around corners So if you want to make it a corner trap it can be set up that way It has a nice Easy to attach backing on it. It's not like it's almost hard plastic so you can pretty easily attach Adhesives or velcro to this But to me the most important thing is has No odor It has no chemical odor odor of any kind it really is odor-free and for a lot of folks That's a pretty darn big deal You know a lot of us are very sensitive to to smells and on a volatile compounds VOC's We don't want stuff in a booth that we're gonna breathe that has volatile organic compounds low VOC We want or no VOC. This is a no VOC product. So they're gonna be offering this in their booth At some point, but also you'll be able to buy these just as panels that you can use So I only have one so it's kind of hard to test it in context of a studio, but It works Yeah, it doesn't weigh that much it's certainly heavier than a piece of foam of the equivalent area because it's a more dense material But that's also why it works so well I think and then also he sent along with it a diffusion us two of these actually have two of them They're a little diffusion panels. So what they let you do is experiment With your acoustic treatment and you can place these into the panel and It's got little it's got a little mounting bracket on the rear that just interfaces with the panel And so you can put these up in your booth and add a little bit of liveliness to the booth as you wish Yeah, I was gonna say that's that's a good way to because every room is different every voice is different So if you can experiment with that makes a lot of sense. I think it's really neat I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out in the real world There's I have heard people doing games and certain things where the where the director is like you sound too present You know you sound too close to the mic you sound too on mic or whatever Which is obviously the opposite of normally what you want But for characters and games and things they're trying to get these different sounds and so to be able to throw those diffusers up And and sort of liven up the room a little bit. It's something that they may really appreciate So someday you might be let me change the booth sound and putting these little panels on the walls. Who knows? Moving along quickly if you're using the newer M1 max as Dan and I are now using for the show Be aware that if you are someone that uses third-party sound Processing plugins that aren't already inside the Apple like the twisted wave Audio units or what comes inside Adobe audition You're still gonna have to run your softwares like twisted wave and audition in Rosetta mode So that's a compatibility mode that will run the software as Though it was Intel software and then it it emulates Intel Using something called Rosetta and it's totally seamless once you've switched the mode over and then the Mac is translating and That allows those plugins and there's still pretty much all of them are falling behind a little bit in developing their M1 plugins But allows them to function. So If you are like on the edge of buying an M1 Mac or you've already bought a new M1 Silicon Mac or the new ones that are coming out like the new iMacs and the new next Mac book air coming out soon Just be aware of that you may not have an out-of-the-box everything just works experience Because some plugins are just not gonna work on silicon of the new silicon Macs yet So just be be aware of that don't buy that as your only computer buy it as an upgrade to when you have and take your time Transitioning over to it until you've tested everything Which is exactly what Dan and I did we kept our other Mac minis around until we were feeling confident in the new system Moving on there's a new microphone in town a new USB microphone And we were just talking about USB mics last week about the hype mic and that you know USB mics are maturing and clearly Sound quality is really not a problem anymore with USB mics and but this company called antelope audio Which I have mixed feelings about because they have a pretty small us distribution Meaning that if things go wrong, it's harder to get parts and support But I'll tell you they are innovating and they have this one called the We can throw that up on screen actually show you guys Sue's got it. Thanks, Sue. All right. It's called the antelope audio Axino synergy core that rolls off the tongue doesn't it? It's a USB mic. Why can't they just Be Mike, but they don't want to call it that because they don't want it down You know, I think USB has a little bit of you know, it has a little stigma attached And so anyway, it's a it's a fully featured large diaphragm condenser you microphone It looks and feels like a normal studio mic, but on the bottom of the mic it has a USB port And what's nice about it is it has a proper microphone gain knob on the front And it has a proper headphone level knob on the front so you can quickly adjust levels as needed It's got a high-pass filter. It's got a pad things you expect to find on a studio mic But then it's got a lot of magic inside the box and that magic is all of These microphones can emulate other mics Yes so And I can't I can't say I've tested this mic against all these mics I can't say I've Abed against all these vintage mics because it's sure as heck. I don't have them But the the technology of this mic emulation has definitely matured It's getting to the point where it really really does work and the the names of the mics are clever They cannot say Neumann. They cannot say AKG So what they do is they say the name of the city Where the mic's from and then the model number So there's the uh, for example the berlin 50 the berlin 67 The berlin 87 Stuff like that. There's the illinois 7b What do you think that one is? This sure as some 7b um, so anyway All these mics are built into the mic Which is pretty pretty wild. So not only that there's also a full-blown monitor mixer inside with loop back um, there's Sound processing which you know for some of you. This is a gold gold and for many of you. It's totally unnecessary But it has a whole suite of plugins like a eqs and express compressors All of this is built into the mic and then you use their little console. So, you know developing news here This is a mic that seems to me as it as a techie person who loves to have Elegant solutions without a lot of extra gear. This seems like a really fun thing to experiment with and Certainly could be a killer webcasting Tool, you know, yeah probably casting. Yeah, I mean again All this stuff is made for making music You know now crossing into podcasting and I was and then the next point was is they're now making all this stuff for podcasting Voice over they don't talk about this in the board rooms. We need to make a voice over mic. It doesn't doesn't happen We're just borrowing this technology. Yeah. Yeah, but it's it's fascinating And I'm looking forward to getting one when there's a veil when there's an available Mike a westlake pro is a dealer for them. They don't it's on their site. They don't have any one So that's the issue with these smaller companies Um, I moving on quickly RME total mix if you know what that is and you've always been confounded about the total mix mixing interface I did a video with jerry pelleteer friend of ours who loves his rme Audio interface and how and he demonstrates how he uses Total mix. Um, it's on youtube. It's on my george the tech youtube channel Um, sue might be able to even throw the link on the screen Not that that will help you because who wants to type 12 random characters, but there is It's it's youtube youtube.com slash f capital f lowercase w c c c x z uppercase c s Oh lowercase c There you go for you those who are listening never forget that I gotta remember we got clubhouse listeners. We got podcast listeners and lastly headphone bleed. Um I had a client just recently who was saying everything I record has this little weird echo in it and I don't know what's going on And um, and we did a session together and I listened and I realized it was headphone bleed Meaning that she had her headphones up so loud That the the sound of the headphone was bleeding or being picked up by Her microphone and it was creating this mysterious reverb or echo And um, we figured I figured out what it was during the session which got we got it sorted But it comes to a couple of points and we've hammered these a couple of times over a hundred times probably One of them is uh, how to avoid headphone bleed number one Don't wear headphones. Well, there's there's that. Yeah Don't wear headphones when you're voice acting if you can't avoid it number two Is turn down the monitoring level in your headphones. So if you're doing a directed read Um, and your interface allows you to control the monitoring blend Like there's a knob that lets you say more input versus more playback or usb whatever it is Uh turn yourself down and turn it more towards them And number three is just simply turn them down. Just turn down the headphone level um, but uh, um, there's also of course headphones that have better seals Like my client in this in this case was using the sonys and They don't have a very tight seal. So that's another reason they were feeding back Um, but i'm telling you if your headphones are loud enough to feedback with a mic It could be damaging your ears too What? So be careful when wearing headphones all these years. So damn loud. Yeah, exactly So let's talk more about acoustics and foam and stuff. What did you have to have in mind Dan? Well, you know, there was a there was a posting on facebook this morning Not that I go in there, you know, I just read it for the articles. Um And someone was asking how do you attach foam to the wall? And there were like 40 comments on this thing and there was not that straightforward actually Well, it but it can be once you know how it is once you know, of course Exactly, uh, a lot of people mentioned 3m commander strips, which are you know, it's two-sided tape with velcro, which is which is great Um, it's expensive. It's expensive. And by the way, it doesn't stick to foam Uh, which is what I was going to come up with you have a hack for that Yeah, yeah, there are people who love the spray on glue, which if you're renting an apartment Don't do don't do that in a rental. Oh my god. No never do that. Never do that So there goes your deposit right there. It's going to destroy the closet wall um You know people's t-pins that was that was a good one, you know great if you're making model airplanes too um Yeah, there's there's one I think that people won't get unless you're a little older and you know how to make Balsa wood airplanes are also used for dissecting frogs and stuff. Yes. You gotta gotta hold the the gut out, you know I remember that from high school. Yeah, that's what I think of T-pins get put you get them on a wax tray and slice them open and Yeah, um, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of ways, you know, but here's here's what I do and and actually Uh, mr. Smith over at oralex actually loved this one. Alex is the name Eric's Eric Eric. Yeah Yeah, Eric Smith He actually wrote me because I did a video on this many years ago and he wrote but hey, that's great I hadn't thought of that that is if the best way to To get the foam on the wall Is to put it on a piece of cardboard So like if you know, someone's thrown out a refrigerator box in the alley, I grab it Because there you got some nice thick cardboard and you you can you can put it on On a piece of cardboard glue it on there And then get some You know a drop cloth from ace hardware or from wherever We're home depot. Yeah and cut it up and then Staple it like you're upholstering a couch if you've ever done that and then you suddenly have Something that that's something you can easily hang Easily hang it and as you can hear this it just works great and Then you can you know hang it like a picture you can put command strips on there you can You know You know lean it up against the wall, which I've seen plenty of times, but this works. Yeah, but this works great and You can you know, I could paint a mustache on there if I want That's right, you know, or you know, I think what there was was it or lex that actually had They were making out of coffee bags Uh, or a ts one of it was a ats. Yeah, because I remember I I did some voice work for them and they were like You know, where did these panels come from? You know So you can do anything with these and then you're not stuck with you know gray, you know pyramids Or or something like that. Yeah, I was gonna say too. Oh good. Good. No, go ahead. Good No, I there's a cardboard thing I had a client who had bought a big box of one and foot square, you know, uh rlex panels Where do we get the cardboard the box? Of course the box they came in Immediately chopped this big huge box that comes I chopped it into sections The box is already naturally the right dimensions because it's holding One foot square foam. So It was super easy. I just cut it into into the right sizes and uh That's the beauty of this you get a rigid back and you get to use the spray glue outside Where it dries and cures outside. You never have to spray inside, you know So that stuff is pretty nasty hot glue gun works too. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely And of course once once you wrap it with this stuff, it doesn't matter Yeah, so nicely, you know all there's there's another little hack There's another way to use the the command strips with with spray glue So I found that with velcro or command strips if you do spray a little spot of the spray glue on the panel and then attach The command strip or velcro to that that does stick really well So that's a little that's a little trick if you just want to have like two command strip velcros Hanging the panel up. They will stay on with a little spray glue. Yeah So but there there are many ways to hang these panels Um, you know acoustical blankets make it a lot easier somebody somebody said they took a an old curtain And pinned them all to the old curtain and then hung them on a curtain I I mean there were some great hacks in there. I thought those were pretty good See if I was doing it I would have the curtain. Well, if it's a nice curtain I'd have the curtain in the front and the foam in the back Right, you know just to cover the phone. So there's a lot of ways you can layer this stuff and be creative with it So yeah, all right. So yeah, so if you guys got some questions George and I have the answers. So if you're on on clubhouse if you're on facebook if you're in youtube Type it in the chat rooms there. They come right up. This is a great thing about this program I get to see all the questions coming up. No matter where they are. How do we do that? It's it's magic Yeah, so we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back with your questions And the answers right after this Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great We've been sequestered for over a year forced to watch undubbed turkish soap operas I don't know where I came from And face it. We're all zoomed out But now it's time to get back on the road again And if you have to record your voiceover tracks on the road There's no better way than to use a harlan hogan portabooth plus with one zipper assembly in seconds had lined an orlex studio foam The portabooth plus is your answer to professional recordings on the road And because summer travel and remote recording are finally back Here's voiceover essentials gift to you buy a portabooth plus and the first 50 buyers will get their fabulous portabooth plus travel bag Absolutely free There is however a limited for booths with the free travel bag per customer So go on over to voiceover essentials dot com and just click on the portabooth plus carry-on travel bag by now button No promo code needed Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you stick around? You don't want to miss this Power 1039 at target. We want you to come as you are be comfortable. Okay. Maybe not bathrobe comfortable Pants for the customer and aisle four, please Watch anywhere anytime on an unlimited number of devices Sign in with your netflix account to watch instantly at netflix.com The ice cream maker is a big risk that can have huge reward Until you forget to turn it on Well, that's it guys Time is up. Hey, it's jmc. Thanks for watching the voiceover body shop If you're demo ready or looking to get there check out jmc demos dot com and see a sample of our work Now let's get back to dan and george and this week's tech wisdom Well, it's the time of the show where I talk about source elements and source connect This is the industry standard. Uh, really has taken the Taking the torch from isdn and carried it now as a way to connect your studio to other studios around the world It's been around quite a long time There's a lot of other comp competitors and there's been Way more that have certainly come up in the last couple of years, especially during the pandemic The thing is the problem is that most of them are facing being new to the scene and not around that long Is they don't have a lot of support not just from the studios Picking up using them But they don't have a lot of support on the technical side either and that's where source elements. I think really shines They've made that investment in improving their on-demand and scheduled support So you can get that support and get your session going That's a big big deal and I really feel that's One way they really did separate themselves from the rest If you're a subscriber and you subscribe to using source connect, you'll always have their support It's part of having a subscription You can buy it as well And if you don't like subscriptions and you'll get support for 90 days and then you have the option to Then purchase a support plan after they try to work with you However, you like to buy or use your software, which I think is great If you want to get a demo head over to source dash elements dot com slash The uh, well actually, I don't know the slashes just look for the demo and get the 15 day trial Um, and they've got instructions on there on how to get it set up and running They've got a link to a video I've created on how to do so and it'll help you get rocking and rolling and learning Why source connect is probably a tool you need to play at the next level Uh, because it's what the big studios use Anyway, thanks for listening. Let's get to those questions Right after this You're watching v obs dot tv I don't know why it's crazy what they do here. I think I'm gonna go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich Hey Well, we're back by the way, you know I failed to mention at the top of the show that george and I do this for a living Perhaps you You know, perhaps I didn't put plug a palouse in the in the show notes this week But gotta do that because by the way, that's what this show is all about So, you know that george and I are the experts when it comes to home voice over studios talk about a niche This is this is our niche This is this is what we do We do it more than anybody else on the face of this little blue globe that's spinning around the sun I'm telling you Everybody else is an expert in one studio Their own You know, there's a lot of other guys out there that are well qualified and their audio engineers and stuff like that The fact of the matter is is every voice is different Every room is different as we were just talking about a little while ago when talking about diffusion inside your booth This is the stuff that we know we know what it's supposed to sound like We know what it takes to get it to sound that way So, uh, if you need help with your home's duty If you don't really understand it if you got a technical issue If something's not working and i'm sure we'll get a couple of questions about that All you got to do is contact one of us. So if you want to talk to george What do you do you go over to george the tech I still can't figure out which way to point to that thing Uh, george the tech is my website if that makes your brain fry. It's george the tech dot com Yes, that also works New website coming soon from voice actor websites.com. I'm excited about that But you can uh book services with me online. You can send me a sound check sample I can make you an effects rack for auditions. Whatever it is Uh design a studio a lot of services that are available to you So check that out and dan does a lot of the same stuff including taking specimens Is that right too? Yeah, if you go to my home page, which is home voice over studio dot com Uh, if you scroll all the way to the bottom You will come across my specimen collection cup and that is a dropbox click on that follow the instructions Thoroughly I want to hear the raw sound of your studio nap like all the processing you're doing which is probably wrong uh, and um I can give you a very thorough analysis Based on my formula of what it's supposed to sound like and what you can do to get it sounding better or What's wrong with it and be amazed at some of the things that I hear and george is just as amazed as some of the things he hears so, uh Go on over to our websites and check us out and and hire us to do what you don't know how to do Yeah, that that's a slogan that doesn't work very well, but you know what I meant Save yourself a lot of time And money ultimate shortcut Yeah, really Yeah, it it amazes me, you know I mean hours and hours of mind numbing frustration if you really don't know what you're doing Just contact the guys and especially we get support through committee Absolutely. Yeah, do not crowd source Your home voiceovers do you see it's a lot of time. Yeah, we got lots of great questions here So why don't we fire those off? All right, so I start then like I'll start I'll start at the very beginning because it's a very good place to start Douglas voice guy That's a good name. Um, his question came in earlier and it's about fruity loops Yes, delicious for those that don't know is really a recording software Um, it has a what's called a heat map on its parametric equalizer Which seems to be an enhanced form of a spectrogram It looks extremely helpful for voice actors to understand frequencies in their voices Or spaces Or if their spaces are especially wrong strong I'm not reading that right. It looks if their voices are especially strong Gotcha. Okay. Voices or spaces are especially strong. Got it Any common voiceover DAWS, you know DAWS for voiceover That have anything similar Well, I have to think of audition because it has a spectrogram very good one Yeah, when you're paying 20 bucks a month, that's what you're paying for is that spectrogram in in audition Uh, you know the the fact of the matter is this a spectrogram is a very very powerful tool now They may be calling it a Heat map You know and it has to I I think it has probably more to do with as he was saying the loudness of your voice What a spectrogram will show you is the relative volume of Frequencies of your voice to show you where your voice is stronger. Usually it's like, you know between 100 hertz and say about you know 1k Uh, where the majority of your voice is and some of the upper level stuff is you know a little higher than that But it shows you things that you can't see on the waveform. So george is now Pulling that up. Let's take a look at what this heat map is And an example of it here. Yeah, but you know the fact of the matter is map looks like It's there somewhere So it's showing you a spectrogram type display Underneath the ecu. So as you're See I tune ecu by year It's old school what engineers do you listen you tweak A lot of people don't have that experience yet. And so for them a visual representation of the ecu might be better So that's what's going on there. It's it's rather unique I don't know of a of a simple vo doll or editor that has that exact exact same feature Um, so very interesting. Yeah So Let's see. Let's see if something else anybody knows leave a comment down below If you know of anything similar in any other doll that's certainly more Voice over friendly. You could use free loops It's just there's so few of us that know it and and know how to make it work that it's just hard to Get support when you need it. Yeah, we got anything in clubhouse Um, yeah, actually guess who it is our friend Pillar Hello Hi george. Hi dan um So a voice over friend of mine. Let me their tlm 103 For a few days and uh, I keep getting requests For a big condenser mic and I have 416 So my experience with the tlm the last time was not very good because I was in a studio I was doing an audiobook and I was it was a big space and the person who was recording me Had more experience with music Yada yada, so I just I'd love to have some tips on how to deal with A tlm 103 so you don't go crazy with all the extra Uh ambient stuff. It's gonna crop up What do you mean like ambient stuff like background noise? Well, not background noise, but like it's just so delicate that microphone is so delicate. So placement Um, is it is it it's not it's obviously not like the sennheiser that you put up above you Where do you put it how you know just like little things like that? Actually, it's not all that much different. Uh, I mean, there's the way that you know, you can see how george has his uh, his his uh Audio technica there or that's that's the road. There's a road. Yeah road. Yeah, ntg 5 the ntg 5 uh You the idea is to have the diaphragm in the same place And And about the same distance. It's just it's a different type of microphone. You have it like that have it at eye level And talk underneath it the way the way we always show you how to use a studio condenser mic That's not going to change You know, how much it's going to pick up Because the noise is there isn't is the noise that's there and something like a tlm 103 is going to capture everything You know your refrigerator You know lawn mower two houses down, you know those sorts of things Uh, so it really isn't any different from any other microphone You know and it's Some people say it's brighter. Some people say it's warmer Everybody hears differently And so to make it make it's very objective as to you know What you know, what difference that mic is going to make? So that's a pretty honest mic and the one dan's using is the harlin vio harlin hook and vo1a Which is very similar to the tlm 103 q y's and sound wise And um, they're very honest with a little bit of brightness to them So they're not really dull and flat. They have a little bit of brightness to them Um and beyond that, you know, yeah, I I still like the above hanging down bat the bat position like that That was my next question. I still like that. It's still more practical It just as you can see uh for those that are on clubhouse Check the check the feed later and see how dan and i have our mics, but um the the bat's position hanging down So it's just above eye line Four to six inches if you have a really good studio eight inches away. Maybe Um is a good place to start. Um, but take a really good care of those large diaphragm mics. They Any of those mics can't handle humidity very very high humidity. They can't handle getting too moist Um, they can actually sound funky Um, so and they're certainly more fragile. So just be more careful in in using them handling them. Yep Okay, thank you. You're welcome Cheers Uh bob ledum asks would you care to mention a good cough mute switch for vo? What are you doing it live? Uh, you know I mean, well, if you're on george has went and you don't want to be embarrassed by uh Yeah, well, I have one over here. I'm gonna see if I can I'm gonna see if I can get to it without taking my headphones Yeah, I mean I I've got a button on here on on the board where if I want to cough Off and then you know pretty simple. I the roadcaster has that which is really kind of nice But for for more a more simple setup like say you have a scarlet or Even an Apollo actually anything where you don't have a dedicated proper mute button This is my favorite one. Um, have you seen this one before dan? Nope, so this is made by whirlwind Um, I like it because it's just a simple on off Mike is on Mike is off It's very simplistic It has a blue light that comes on when it's on because it does Pass through phantom power and that's another thing I like about this is it works well With phantom power mics. I've found that some mute buttons Either make a pop or they don't really truly mute the mic they like Turn it down almost all the way which is still audible I found out from Clients who I'd put in a mute button for them and then they'd say uh, George they can hear me Oops, oops You know To somebody off you like one of the family members or the dog or I mean while they're like are you are you okay? You okay? Um This one really does cut the mic and made in usa. It's made of metal. It's tough as nails Uh the ppd mic mute mic mute one word ppd Um, not cheap about a hundred bucks, but it's still like a tank Even if you don't buy new scarlets All righty, what's the next question we have here from like to board to go for it Uh, we have Mike the board asking about uh, like a question I know I'm probably gonna get a lot of crap for this, but I recently bought a mkh 416 and today I sent it back Um, I started in the voiceover biz Several years ago after spending 35 years in radio. Okay, so yeah Yeah, there is my problem. I started with the infamous sm7b and then I bought a stellar x2 I seriously could not hear much of a difference between The 416 and the x2. Am I nuts? Am I bipolar? Should I ask my doctor for medical marijuana card? I don't get it I had such high hopes for that 416 and it just didn't float my boat. What gives here's what gives Mike Just remember that you Don't hire you I I you know, I get this all the time and I know you get a two george that people are like What's you know, it's this is like the old what's the best microphone for voiceover? Well, we usually say the one you got if you're trying to satisfy your own ears Especially if you came out of radio because that's That's a whole different delivery and you know and people in radio tend to be a little bit closer to the mic Uh, the fact of the matter is it's maybe not floating your boat But if you're doing it to really make you to show how much you love your own voice Then you're listening for the wrong stuff The idea of your home voiceover studio, how many times have I said this? It's gotta be in the civil the idea of your home voiceover studio is not to make you sound great, especially to yourself It's to make you sound Like you So if it didn't well, I mean the fact of the matter is is you're not if you're the only judge How do you know if it wasn't the right mic for you, you know, if you're not sure That's what the specimen collection cup is for that's what george's You know drop off is for Have somebody that knows what it's supposed to sound like Listen to it and it's amazing people. It's got this it's got this i'm hearing this i'm hearing that I'm listening on a pair of yamaha h5s At the right distance in the right acoustics if it's there's something there I'm gonna hear it and if something is there george is gonna hear you can we listen on headphones We listen on studio monitors It's usually like oh, well, you're listening to it on your laptop speakers that might explain a thing or two But anyway your thoughts Yeah, I he's comparing the 416 to the stellar x2 I I don't know the stellar x2 very very well. I've heard it a few times and I've always thought it sounded pretty good for the cost um You know the fact of the matter is a lot of microphones in the voiceover world I think are eq'd to be a lot like a 416 um Because the 416 the sound of that mic is so pervasive in the genre of voiceover That the way a voice sounds through a 416 Is now so familiar That if the mic doesn't sound a little bit like a 416 It sounds off Does that make sense? It sounds in other words different. It sounds different, right? Yeah It might be accurate. It might be more accurate It might be flatter like more more, you know, not as not as much treble there could be a lot of things but we You know back in the what when did we go from ribbon to condenser mics in the 60s or 50s? I think condenser mics came around, you know in the in the late 40s, but they you know, they You know they they it was a slow transition Right, so there was there was a time where the sound we were all accustomed to of the human voice was through a ribbon mic Of this very very very very very very warm sound that was the what everybody was accustomed to And if you were on a mic that was thin and bright everybody would think something's wrong So there's a certain sound that we've become accustomed to and I really do relate it to the 416 Because it's been used so pervasively in the voiceover world and especially in hollywood since the early 80s late 70s So other mics like a stellar x2 are going to sound probably kind of similar And the subtle differences between that and a 416 Might be lost on you. Um, they may sound very similar to you Um, the way you work those mics is different the way they're going to interact with your room is different in your case They might have just been simply a waste of money which If you didn't hear the difference and you're still booking and you're still getting a good sound if it sounds good It is good. It is good. You don't need to buy The industry standard or whatever that is. Um, what industry are they talking about when they say that? So, yeah J. Horace black Yeah, he started to we talked about if if you have plugins running with the ua Apollo will the plugin work on the m1 mac mini and your answer was Oh in this case, yes in this case, yes because the plugins Well, it's interesting the plugins don't actually run on the mac They're running inside the Apollo So You don't have to worry about this incompatibility problem So if you if you just plug an Apollo into an m1 Yes, you're going to get some error message that you have to do this update and You got to hold down this hotkey and restart the computer You you got to hack the computer because right now they don't have native silicon mac m1 support But once you go through those steps and they do outline it on their website It will work. I've tested it. I have got it working in a few studios and all the plugins Do work so that's that's kind of cool Like if you're dependent on those plugins working on a new mac, you don't know You don't have to worry about that compatibility problem at all. It's actually a good question I hadn't talked about that, but it's true. Yeah Uh, we got anything on clubhouse? Not on clubhouse. No, um, but I just found another one from Facebook actually from someone's who's name. I haven't seen yet and that is From a lady named shrubani Bacha Raya I'm gonna go get her that name. I'm so sorry. I think she might be in india or something. Sorry about that Um, she asked is a pop filter essential For recording. Hey, that's a question we haven't talked about in a while. No, but are we using pop screens right now? I don't see george using one and I don't you don't see dan using one That's why because we know no, can I can I use the bat hanging the hanging bat thing here? if you The the the thing is you know The pop screens, you know, I think for me I just believe it's something that prevents, you know, saline dion from singing, you know Spitting on a $10,000 Neumann microphone or or a geffel or something like that You'll see them in recording studios Where you'll have vocalists vocalists have a tendency to really work the mics because the engineer can really pull back the gain on it and That's what they're protecting these mics Does it prevent plosives? Well, it can But if you use the mic right In the method that we always show you which is hanging upside down Have the diaphragm about the bridge of your nose your copy underneath You can go peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers All day long and you're not going to get plosives the pictures you see of when you type in I want to see pictures of someone doing voiceover You get someone with headphones talking into the mic like that. Those are not pictures of voice actors. Those are pictures of singers So again that crossover between, you know, recording music and recording voiceover You don't really need to have a pop screen According to me I have to hey, I have to agree. Yeah, okay. It's definitely that you agree. Yeah, it's definitely a mic placement thing Um, there are occasions where it's helpful. Some mics are so pop sensitive that it can be helpful Um, but overall it's just not that necessary anymore Just with my proper mic placement should we squeeze in two more quickies these we can't all of a sudden Yeah, there's one zoom question. Where is that? Um, grace says i'm a i'm a regular guest on a podcast that uses zoom Um, I have the scarlet solo third generation, which is the current model after about 10 minutes in the The audio From I guess it's from the mic drops And I have to disconnect it and I go with the default computer audio any ideas No, I I don't have any. I don't know if you're on windows or mac. So that kind of helps Yeah, that's that's usually a an indicator. But yeah, I don't know I mean, there's zoom has had some issues with various things, you know, I you know, I've noticed uh, you know, sometimes the the uh If the data rate changes or something like that that can throw it or the sample rate sample the sample rate Yeah, it's going to screw that's going to screw things up Because you know, there's a difference between 40 148k and uh, sometimes I love george's term for this silenning You know, it'll it'll do that Yeah, if it dropped generally, I think that's that's a driver issue. So it might be on a pc Uh, I haven't heard of windows issue. Yeah, it's something I couldn't have. Yeah, she just confirmed windows Ding I would contact Yeah, I would contact focus, right? They're always updating their drivers for windows support issues Get the latest driver update from focus, right and install it go to the website look for driver updates install it And restart your system and go from there and if it's still happening then definitely contact focus, right Support because that is not I ain't right. I ain't right. That's right. No and again, what's the problem? windows You know windows windows and sound drivers is a juggernaut Yeah, it's a real Yeah, you know, they're great for running models of of global warming and you know population trends and radio automation systems Yeah, but not yeah, but not for voiceover my friends, you know, I mean, yeah, you can run pro tools on it It'll work. I think the the thing is is that Again, your computer is not really so much a computer as it is a cassette recorder And all it really should do is hit play record Rewind and all that other stuff and forget about all the techno babble that goes on Yeah, and all that kind of stuff utility you want it to be reliable Exactly one last question from mr. Black j. Horace black says I need to replace my old equator studio monitors that are making noise Like the sound of your voice Any models or brands that you suggest that would be good replacement Before we do that Please I want to say this it's disappointing that company went out of business Yeah, they were really cool speakers Um, I what what can happen? I've had this happen with studio monitors over the years. This is not unusual The amplifiers are inside the speakers and there's components in there called capacitors And they sometimes start going bad and when they start going bad the speaker starts getting this buzzy or makes a buzz noise My mackey monitors, which are sitting on my desk. They're 20 something years old I've had to have them fixed There is really not really much out there. That's in a direct replacement for those speakers. They're unusual designs. They are coaxial drivers And for what those things cost there's hardly anything that exists. I think that matches their Their quality I have to say not that there isn't things there's Myriad I mean personas Irises are great and everything there's tons of them, but I would recommend getting them serviced Um, I really would I there's a company called audio rehab Friends of mine One of the guys who works in our scott hamilton I love following him on instagram because he shows pictures of like priceless vintage microphones of some rock star He can't name, you know that he's fixing on his bench but they fix all kinds of stuff like this and uh They might for a reasonable amount a reasonable reasonable amount Maybe less than replacing them Be able to recap them. That's a thing recapping and Get rid of the noise in the buzz and clean them up and have them working the way they did when they were new I would I would recommend giving them a shot audio rehab.com They're here in hollywood Get a quote and see if it's worth it to you I would recommend it. Yeah, there's those amplifiers are pretty simple. They're repairable and they're They'll replace them with components that will arguably outlast the factory parts Right. It may it may actually be higher higher quality too. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah, that's the great thing Yeah, that was the great thing about fixing old radios is learning about capacitors and you know, and if there's a hum in there It means it's the filter cap the filter capacitor, which is something it changes ac to dc and And when those go when those dry out you start getting buzz and hum You replace those. Oh, those are electrolytic capacitors, right? Yeah, there's there's a fluid inside them. That's actually Eventually what dries out it dries out. Yeah. Well, they're in wax paper and Yeah, they're a mess if you look inside and you see little things that look like tiny little cylinders like tiny soda cans Those are electrolytic capacitors. Yeah, right. Yeah, anyway They can be fixed they it can be you know, or just go out and buy another pair You know, I've got my yamaha h5s, you know, k rks. There's so many good companies that make good monitors recommending monitors is like recommending headphones or microphones like it's just it's such a Very much a personal choice, honestly Alrighty, that's all the questions we have for this week So we're gonna take a quick break and we'll wrap it up for another two weeks right after this I think I heard the voice of a body shop. I did I did hear the voice of a body shop little body shop Getting into vo is quite an accomplishment and accomplishing anything in the world of performance can be really tough Getting great information is tough getting the right advice and mentoring is tough Simply getting ahead is tough and the best way to get ahead is to simply get started Let's make it simple to get started in voiceover. The best way is with vo heroes free online course Getting started in voiceover You'll learn everything you need to know to create a successful satisfying and profitable voiceover career The link is really simple. Here it is vo heroes.com forward slash Start again, that's vo heroes.com forward slash start Get ahead in voiceover. Simply by getting started go to vo heroes.com forward slash start 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 Yeah, and we're back to say goodbye um, you know, we're gonna be off for a couple of weeks because Next week is memorial day And we have a policy of not doing things on on federal holidays which means memorial day we're going to be off And the fourth of july will be off because the monday is the fifth, which is the day everybody takes on We're actually going to be gone the entire month of july aw But we but what we can have you do is Go back and if there's a something you wanted to hear if there was a program you missed or a guest you missed Let me know because we'll replay one of those great interviews that because Cripes with this is we we just did episode 206 Of our interviews and this is episode. This is 50, you know tech talk number 57 You know, there's a lot of knowledge in there There's a lot of great stuff and uh, if there's something you've missed We'll be happy to put it on and I think I'll look through and see what we're really the best ones We've done not that they aren't all fantastic But we'll be sure absence will make the heart grow fonder. That's true. That's true But you know the mrs. And I are going to iceland Taking the cruise to iceland. Yeah, I've been wanting to do that my whole life And now we get I've always wanted to see an erupting volcano not some distant mountain that's got some smoke coming out of it you know, it's like We're going to pennsylvania My twice I'm taking my girlfriend And my daughter to pennsylvania. So we get to do family stuff the first week of july. So all right, cool Uh, who are our donors this week? Will we have a bunch of familiar names like robert ledham christie burns graham spicer uncle roy michelle blinker sarah borges and christopher epperson all of these folks i'm pretty sure are subscribers because Read their names every other week or so That means they're subscribing through our website. You can click uh donate now On the site you can make a one-time or recurring donation if you like anyhow any way that you like to support Just head over to v obs dot tv to do so and we thank you for doing that And once again if you need help with your home studio if you want to learn it from the ground up Or you get a technical issue you can contact george over at George the dot tech and dan's reachable over at home voiceover studio dot com We need to thank our magnificent sponsors who've been with us all these years like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra Source elements vio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and mc demos Thanks to danie burdenside over at clubhouse for tuning in some of his guests over there Sue merlino our fantastic technical director. We're all going to be together soon in the same room Because i miss making iced coffee for everybody And of course lee penny simply for being lee penny. That's going to do it for us this week again Got to get got a sound right, but here's the thing if your audio sounds right if it sounds good It is good I'm dan Leonard i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vio b Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk have a great week everybody. Good night everybody