 Hey, guess what? It's time for more tech talk only this time. It's number 33 Remember math and keeping track now. It's 33 and boy have we got stuff to talk about tonight I mean not only have we been busy talking to a lot of people So we got lots of stuff to talk about but George you got some cool stuff we're gonna be talking about touch screens and and Adapters and we've got we're gonna have a good talk about Do you really need to go remote plus all your questions, right? All right, so stay tuned tech talk is coming up 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 video studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a 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 voice over body shop Tech talk Voice over body shop tech talk is brought to you by voice over essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites dot com where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes dot com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover 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 Hey there, I'm Dan Leonard And I'm George with them and this is voice over body shop or VO BS Perfect there. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. You know how much I have to jump the gun for that to be in sync I have to jump it like you're literally saying The last thing and I'm saying the next thing to get them to sink. It's really bizarre But I've got to work. I think I think we got it down now though. Anyway, if we're getting there time for tech talk And I've got lots of stuff to talk about tonight, but first off we have to get this off our chest This is what George and I do and we're really busy right now because Everybody has to have a freakin voiceovers. We've only been telling you for the last nine years Belting it down your throats and all of a sudden it's like, oh now I have to have one like it was your idea Yeah, I know I know a lot of people been avoiding it as long as humanly possible and they're getting caught and it's not comfortable for a lot of people right now, so Yeah, that's what we're here for we're trying to take the hands of the scared and the timid and the uninitiated and Walk them into the home seal. Yep, and it's not that hard But if you if you want proper instruction because that's really what it takes because you know You can take acting classes and voice acting classes and all this other they don't teach you the tech They just teach you how to be an actor, which by the way is the most important thing when you're a voice actor Is your voice acting? It's acting Got to be able to communicate one-to-one with people and make it believable, but The the home studio piece of it is one that and we're gonna talk about this a little later Where you know, you don't want to sound bad But in order to not sound bad you need to be properly instructed on how to do it and You can go into Facebook forums and listen to people who are real experts at you know One microphone, which is probably USB microphone now. Everybody's an expert Nobody has built as many home studios as mr. Woodham and myself. We've just been doing it longer We know what it's about. We know what it's supposed to sound like So if you want to learn from the guys that actually know what it's about and set the Standards for what a home studio is supposed to sound like we've actually done that You can work with George by going over to You can head to George. Oh, it's the dot tech. Hey, there it is George the dot tech if you're if you find that confusing because you're new to the internet You can also go to George the tech comm that also works But yeah, that's where all my tech stuff is there's a menu on there with all sorts of options for services You can get a sound check if you're not sure about your sound quality you can get support for source connect and all sorts of other stuff and You can do some things that are scheduled and you can do some what I call self-service Services where you send your files and I send back the results and the information that you need So that's a few ways to work with me and Dan. You're also working online these days. Of course, aren't you? You're heading over to Yeah Dan's website Views over studio.com home voice over studio.com voice over studio.com home voice over studio.com home voice over studio.com Home voice over studio.com. How can you forget it five times fast? That's right Yeah, so if you if you go over to home voice over studio.com You will see of course my website talking about really what you need to do for having a good home voice over studio Also, I do consultations with people and I can teach you from the beginning to the end Well, hopefully yet the ends might be a little further down the road, but at least we can get you up and running So your sound competent and your sound will not be an issue when you are sending out auditions or if you're doing any production work and One of the ways we can find out if you're doing what you're supposed to be is by clicking on my Specimen collection cup at the bottom of my home page scroll all the way down there and for $25 I will Analyze your audio See if it's where it's supposed to be and if it's way off We could talk about consulting if it's just this and that you know you could you're a little too close to the mic We'll throw you that and we'll try and get you sounding as good as you can so check those out So, yeah, we've been a little busy It's like the phone doesn't stop ringing the the email inbox is completely overflowing and everybody's like They're trying to catch up there. There's a lot of us out here that been ready to do this for the last 15 years and now everybody's got to learn it overnight and you're not going to learn it overnight, but We do the best we can and get you up to speed as fast as possible So what do you got in your tech update this week? Mr. Whitton? Yeah, most of the stuff isn't so directly related to audio It's more about some ways to enhance the way you do everything else but I'll start off with the first thing that came across my radar in the last couple of days and I think it could be pretty darn useful and it's called the Luna adapter So what that thing does is it's a little USB dongle thing. I'm a jig actually. It's not USB. I take it back It looks like a USB Flash drive or a little device that plugs in but it's not USB. It's actually Mini display port so what it does is this little guy plugs into the mini display port of your Mac And now what it does is that sends out a video signal that using their app on your iPad Can be viewed in fact it can be used on an iPad it can be used on another Mac and Believe that it's also Windows compatible So you can really use any other computer as a second monitor for your Mac And why is that cool? Well, the reason I think that's pretty neat is it takes away some of the pain of having a second display hook to your computer or specifically in this case your Mac and Really makes it easy to move that display away into another room into a booth into a closet And why is that helpful because a lot of you are thinking why don't I just use my laptop? I could just put my laptop in there. Can I well the problem is especially now Computer fans are going like crazy because we're not just recording anymore folks now We're doing zoom and video chat and any time you get video chat mixed in there The computer is doing a lot more heavy lifting the processors are much busier the graphics Processing is churning away, which makes the computer hot Which makes the fan come on and now you can't have your laptop near the mic So this is a way to very easily get your laptop or whatever that computer is it's noisy away from your microphone in another room and Still be able to see what's going on and beyond that control it So this thing is makes like an iPad into a touchscreen for your Mac So it's like having a touchscreen Mac, which is something that doesn't exist I really prefer this solution and I again, I'm basing this off of some research I read a great article about this on I more comm Called how to use your iPad Pro display with your Mac mini and it really explains a How to make this device work and why it's superior to some of the other systems that are out there some people on Catalina might be familiar with something called sidecar Which will make your iPad be a second screen, but again that relies on having a Catalina system With this device it's think it's about 50 bucks for this little adapter It will plug into any computer with mini display port and they also have a USB C version for all the new Macs So it's it works over as many years of generations of computer and allows this to happen I'm so excited about I bought the adapter and I bought an older iPad air You can buy the first gen iPad air I got one on eBay for like a hundred and fifty bucks shipped and that becomes your second monitor So I'm excited to try it out. It could be a really cool solution for this this problem of getting that Mac out of the booth So we'll see how that goes Also other things that are you know bugging me right now Because you've got a lot of time to be bugged I think Audience we're big fans of the audience hardware over the years I mean, I have recommended or used the audience series of products for a long time ID for ID 14 ID 22 But there is a quirk and I've been wondering why this is the case You've probably noticed having used these devices if you do that the game control is a little I don't know quirky. I'll use that word again. You have to turn the gain up for voiceover work to probably nine out of ten To get the gain to about where you want it to be so almost all the way up And so what happens is the last 10% of the turn of that knob is a pretty big jump in game So you find that the range of gain control that you might use is a like a very small adjustment Very tiny and that is obviously quite a bit a little bit annoying now What they did on the ID 14 was add this plus 10 button So that's a nice little fix a little work around so if you're doing voiceover turning on plus 10 to the game Might be helpful because now that gain knob may not have to be so high and you get a little more range of adjustment But why did they do it this way and they say they did it for sound quality? But in fact, I didn't know about this till actually Dan Contacted them and he got an answer from an engineer at Audient named Daniel Mills. He says the gain taper is Logarithmic not linear and so I was wondering well why you know Why do it differently than most other interfaces like the scarlet et cetera and he says it just keeps the preamps more stable and Provides better clarity. So their reason for that is quality of sound So the you trade off an easier to use gain control for theoretically better sound quality overall Jury's out whether it really matters where it really helps I don't really know but there's your answer because I've seen that come up on Facebook and People wondering what's the deal and that's why it's not a bug. It's a feature Yeah, and it's and it's sitting in a box here while I try to figure that out Yeah, I'm that's something to keep I I found that, you know, it's a little weak for voiceover I mean, it sounds great, you know, even if you know if you if you're a little under modulated But you can raise up the game a little bit But really it was designed for music It has a lot of headroom. Yeah, so it worked really well recording at say 24 bits Using more conservative gain and you know, it's a little annoying for voiceover because you end up with a very low signal coming into the computer And if you're doing zoom or something that means the level going into zoom is going to be low You know, it's it's not ideal ideal, you know, you can get good sound quality out of it But it's a little more a little bit more annoying. So keep that in mind I would definitely check out the new evo for from Audient though. We did mention on the show a while ago Reviewed it I reviewed it and that definitely changes that mindset the gain control is much easier To set and the sound quality is still really quite good So if you want to try something new from Audient try that one out a few little things If you want to use your iPhone as a webcam, why would you do that? First of all? You've probably noticed that the webcams built into your laptops even including the MacBook Pro are pretty mediocre to lousy They were darn good ten years ago Because they were the first some of the first ones on the max coming out as at 720p webcams Which was pretty new ten years ago, but we've definitely surpassed that quality big time in a lot of ways So if you're looking for a better webcam look no further than the one built into your iPhone The the cameras on the iPhone and the iPad blow away the cameras on the Mac So if you're trying to get the best quality you can get into your computer for zoom skype Dan's actually using his phone right now. That's the iPhone camera Being sent into our switch right now over something called NDI But you're gonna get an idea of how good that looks and here's a little secret. I'm gonna do in the show tonight on my iPhone This is not my laptop. This is my iPhone So the camera is really good on the iPhone But if you need to get video directly from an iPhone into the Mac, and I believe don't get me wrong But I believe they also have drivers for windows Epic cam which is spelled E P O C C A M is the tool to get the app for the iPhone. I think it was like eight bucks I'm experimenting with it. I have not used it for a production environment yet. So tonight I'm actually running zoom on my iPhone. So that's how I'm connecting to you guys But that that's a tool you can use to connect the two worlds together It will pass video over Wi-Fi, but it's definitely best to use USB You'll get more smoother frame rate so you can USB right into the computer So there's a little a little utility you guys can try out and use the best webcam you already have Lastly a little little thing that's been bugging me because I've been using it more lately as the mic port pro 2 If you're noticing that when you're monitoring on headphones, and yes, I know you shouldn't always monitor yourself on headphones doing voiceover But if you are wearing headphones more lately because of zooming and all that stuff You might notice that the monitoring on the mic port pro while it's clean sounds a little strange And you probably don't even think about this until you play back And that's because it sounds to me like possibly the monitoring circuit is out of phase What that means is the signal coming out of the mic into your headphones is 180 degrees out of phase It's like a mirror image of your own voice But reversed and that's it's hard to describe this conceptually you know it when you hear it But you know it when you hear it So when you listen to yourself in your headphones Record yourself and then immediately play it back all of a sudden you go Whoa, it sounds so rich and I can hear the full range of my voice It sounds amazing and right now what I'm hearing is not that my voice has a thinness to it It doesn't have the full range. It sounds like there's a hole in the middle. That's the phase problem talking about So I'm wondering if any of you guys have noticed this maybe my mic port pro Which was sent to me as a review unit Maybe it was one of the early ones and maybe this was just a fluke in mine I'm waiting to hear back from the guys at centrance about it But if you've got one the mic port pro 2 Specifically try this little experiment record and listen back through you both through your headphones. See that happens to you I'm curious if it's more than just mine Anyway, oh, that's my bit. It's a lot of stuff though. It's a lot of stuff You spend a lot of time on Amazon. Don't you I'm like I too spent a lot of time Actually, the that Luna thing is only sold to that company direct. I didn't see it on Amazon So that's an interesting cool interesting product, but uh, here's to try it out. So anyway, what are we talking about? What's our discussion? Well, we've got a couple of topics. I wanted to throw out tonight Because these are things that directly affect what you and I deal with on a daily basis and that's dealing with people who are trying to get their of their voiceover studio up and running or There they've have one up and running and they want to upgrade So so the first thing we want to talk about was Because there has been a lot of Said about being able to record remotely which of course those of us that have been doing this for a while Of course, you got to be able to do it remotely however Some of the edicts that have been coming down going if you want to be hired You've got to be able to record remotely Does that mean that you should immediately go out and purchase this type of a system to record remotely? Even though you may it may take you a while to develop your your voiceover practice to where you Might actually need it. You can always tell people you've got source connector IPDTL or one of these systems because they're very easy to get But do you really need to have it to get work or do you work to get it George? That's a good question It's a good question. I mean Maybe it's a little disingenuous to say you don't to say you have it when you don't but I can't say that It's a good idea to at least have initialized your license or created like a trial or a temp demo or something With IPTL that means you can sign up for an account purchase a I Think they have like a month-to-month type thing So you can just pay for a first month and have it up and running and then let it you know lapse That means you have an account you have a username, but when you need to use it again, you can reactivate it So that's a little workaround. That's complete to me completely legit because that means you've set it up You know, it's working You've gone through the process of learning how to use it and you should anyway You better have done that before you have to use it and the same holds true for source connect You can get the license trial. You guys have heard me say that's on the ad for them up on our sponsorship over and over But have it ready, but you don't have to spend all that money right now Just be ready and understand how it works so that when you're called when you're called upon to use it You have it, but Dan, yeah, what do they do when the production says you need to sound? broadcast quality Anybody that's worked with me in the last couple of weeks It's thrown out that broadcast quality term usually gets an earful for me, which I suppose I should back off on a little Broadcast else being used a lot more now. So how do we define it for everybody? So we can actually sort of use this term now. Well, yeah, because I personally when people use it I would usually throw that question back at them. Can you define right? But the fact of the matter is is most people can't well it sounds like it's broadcast Yeah, well broadcast quality to me is a term that it's probably about 40 years obsolete because it referred to the audio quality of analog broadcasting and television and radio 25 30 40 years ago if you go go on the game show network and Listen to the audio from something from the late 60s and you'll realize that it's not Anything like what is acceptable as professional quality audio today Digital digital recording is completely different So George and I would like to throw out there the next person who is going to be hung from a lamppost that says this Should use this term instead and that is professional quality audio Because it it encompasses a lot of different things, but people say broadcast quality. I'm sorry. It's like hey That doesn't mean anything to me and clearly it doesn't mean anything to you because If I asked you to define it, you wouldn't be able to so well, I mean now we're throwing out professional What are some parameters to define that? Well, we know it's not sounding bad Right, we know when we know when we hear it, right? We know we the thing is is we may not notice if it's broadcast quality But we certainly don't know that we do notice when it's not not professional Yeah, you know and there are the things that we usually throw out there What are the things that you've got to do right your acoustics have to be right? You can't have a very reflective room Yeah, it has to be somewhat sound isolated trying to create a soundproof area is Literally impossible in a home area. There are some very very good vocal booths, but they are a significant investment So you need to find a place that is very well isolated a closet a walking closet with lots of clothes in it Fabulous good place to start great place to start I've I've had some really professional quality audio coming out of a lot of people's closets So, you know and a lot of people making good money next to their underwear and pants and shoes and socks and stuff and so That's that's the first place you start is the acoustical Signature of the room you record it and you've got to know is it reflective. What is too reflective? What is you know not too dead your voice can't be sucked into the walls? It's got a it it has to sound like you're having a conversation with somebody in a room Second is your microphone technique Microphone technique is is key if you watch the guys that have been doing Animation and professional voiceover for years. They know how to work a mic we had Pat Fraley on a couple weeks ago and he knows how to use a mic like nobody else and These guys really understand it. You've got to understand the proximity of the mic And and how you can change your volume Simply by how far away you are You then you can talk louder, but you have to talk quieter when you get closer and you end up learning What is the the right amount? So my techniques very important and as we like to say my technique is have the microphone upside down Primarily at the bridge of your nose so your copy is underneath and You can go Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers all day long and you're not gonna get any plosives That's opposed to talking directly into the diaphragm where you go Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers and you get plosives I can't hear myself, but I know was that close of a George? I have this thing so processed Hardly noticed, but yeah, there was a little bit of close. Okay. Yeah, so you got to avoid the plosives Plosives are not Broadcast quality although the stuff I've been hearing on the radio from some people and TV news like what the heck are you doing? It's been pretty they're letting some low quality stuff slide through lately, right? They sure are so maybe that's what broadcast quality is and the final yeah The final thing has to do with sample of some broadcaster doing a commercial nowadays, you know, it says this is a broadcast quality Absolutely the last thing is setting levels and we're gonna talk about that in just a couple of minutes So stay tuned we'll be right back here on voiceover body shop. We'd still love your questions throw them in the chat room We'll be right back This is Arianna Ratner, and you're listening to voiceover body shop VOBS.TV Well, hello there, I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat This is virgin radio. Well, okay. We're not that innocent. There's jeans for wearing and there's jeans for working Dickies cuz I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values a leader for California and a voice for America It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smart phone, but it's so much more It's a the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice check out this song It's the end of the road for ring When hope is lost the I8 from BMW Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's J. Michael Collins. Bet you think I'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. It's J. Michael at jmc voiceover dot com Now if they will stop waxing this mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show From voiceover essentials.com. It's the relationship savior the multicolor LED VO recording sign not just a stock on the air or recording sign It's our exclusive voiceover recording sign this brilliantly lit led 20 color beacon tells everybody at home Which is currently everybody. Hey, I'm auditioning recording podcasting narrating or broadcasting here and a few moments of relative quiet would be very much appreciated What's more the wafer thin remote control lets you choose a multitude of options from color to brightness Flashing to fade in and out you can even set up your own personal codes red means I'm recording blue playing back green It's a wrap plug in the seven foot long cord and hang it on a door knob or wall hook using the included chain for voice workers Silence really is golden and gold is one of the 20 colors. You can choose from Order yours now for just 69 95 from voiceover essentials.com. That's voice over essentials dot com Hi, this is Bill Farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great Everybody it's time to talk about source connect That's that software you've probably heard about created by source elements And it's used for connecting your studio to other studios and producers and engineers All around the world and now especially at home a lot of studio engineers are now recording sessions live and Not just what you might normally think of as source connect sessions like big Commercial gigs, but they're doing even audiobooks. They're doing animation all sorts of different projects are being recorded Over source connect. It's a software you run on your computer it's an application it runs on Mac or Windows and In order to use it There's a little bit of a process to get it set up if you head over to George the dot tech slash SC you can get some free tutorial information over there to get you up and running a little bit faster That I've put together, but get a trial license of source connect now Not source connect now, and that's why I said that it's a play on words source connect Standard source connect standard is the tool that's being used by the pros So if you want to get that up and running head over to source dash elements comm get a 15-day free trial Get your iLock set up and get it going so that you're ready and you can tell your agent and you can tell your clients I am source connect ready. I'm ready to go and that's what you should do You should be ready be ready and make sure you have source connect. We'll be right back Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky the voice of Rocco, and you're watching voiceover body shop, and we're back On voiceover body shop. We got a lot of questions. We love getting questions This is what makes the show interesting. I mean we ask our own questions, but we love your questions And the first one we had tonight is from a new viewer and a donor by the way Dominic Carlos he says hello Dan and George I have often heard of terminology being used to describe booth sounds and microphones like boomy bright muddy and dead I Have an idea in my head what that sounds like But I was wondering if you had any examples or if there are any good past videos to watch that would give me a better understanding Well knowing that you were gonna ask this question George, and I have set up a little demonstration here to give an example of How am I how different microphones might sound? generally most studio condenser microphones have a frequency range from 20 Hertz to 20,000 Hertz or 20 kilohertz and There's a little variations on them What's going to make a mic sound muddy might be something different than what you think but Let's let's run through Some of these scenarios and and show you what these different things sound like so where do we start? Well, maybe let's see if we can try boomy first. So So what I just did is to simulate boomy I turned up a huge amount of gain on my eq At about 90 Hertz for your mic, so man Let's see what that sounds. Okay. This is this is what a boomy mic would sound like and Yeah, as you can hear not broadcast quality unless you're you know, you're trying to be you know in a basement somewhere I guess I know you don't really hear it damn, but I definitely get in my headphones this Very ponderously thick heavy sound and it actually sounds like right now You're like you're inside side some kind of small Closet or whisper room or something because it's got that boomy sound. Yeah All right, what's that? That's boomy. That's now let's change it to muddy muddy. Let's try So this is more like what muddy would sound like. All right. So yeah, what is what is meant by muddy? Well, this is a this is a sound that is kind of muddy now as a microphone going to sound muddy It probably has more to do with the environment than the microphone. Absolutely Absolutely muddiness is very much a result of the environment Not being set not to be acoustically tuned. Well, so that's a real common one. Yeah, and then bright Right, let's boost 12 db at Well, let's try 8 Thousand Hertz. Oh, so now we're gonna boost 12 db at 8,000 sir. I'm like I'm on am radio All right. What's the traffic today here on kfi? You know that's the way we've added 12 12 db of boost a lot at around 8,000 Hertz So that's that bright Very edgy Sibilant tone. We will refer into when we talk about bright. Yeah So dead is a little harder to emulate in a room because you have to actually You really do have to change the acoustics of the room To get an actual dead sound So that's not going to be quite as easy But dead is referring to how reverberant the room is and right for voiceover. We want it to be Pretty darn dead. We don't want there to be much ringing and resonance In the room, which how do you describe it? It's kind of like talking inside I mean the best way to describe it is to walk into a closet Right. Go in and just talk with your eyes closed and listen what that sounds like. Yeah The way your voice just gets sucked out of your face You know, that's dead or standing in a completely open field Like a meadow really no trees nothing to reflect sound just an open space That's that's pretty dead too. Yeah, so it's another interesting shoveling your driveway in a snowstorm Also shows what dead Yeah, don't you love it? That's the one thing you miss about snow, right? Is that that's the only thing The only thing is when you go outside when it's been snowing and there's a foot of snow and everything just is so quiet Yeah, and damped It's a huge acoustical blanket on the whole world. Absolutely. Absolutely. So thanks for that question, uh, dominic Yeah, it's a good one. Never been asked on the show. I never remembered that one. That's a good one We love it and that's gonna sound great on the podcast Uh, chris duke asks Talk about the proper gain level that you should set on your usb interface. I use a scarlet 2i 2 I just happen to have one here Um, what a quinky dink. Yes, uh, how far should you crank up the output level on hardware interface? Based on the db levels you see in your DAW to obtain the cleanest audio with the lowest amount of room noise Yeah, okay. Okay. Well, that's it's it's a lot easier than it sounds. Uh, yeah, let me throw on the ndi camera here and you can see Unfortunately, the ndi camera is reversed here, but here's working though. Yeah, here's the gain knob right here For a channel. It's hard to do that. Isn't it? It is hard to point the right place Sort of like hearing your voice twice, but you want, you know, this is this is 10 and this is zero all the way over here A lot of people say it's really quiet because I've got it set. I like using the clock face analogy Me too. Yeah, uh, it's a 12 o'clock. All right. Well, maybe it's at 115 the best place on most interfaces is Usually at about 75 to 80 percent and we were talking about the audience earlier where it's got to be even a little hotter than that So you you want to be peaking? You don't want to be like underneath 9 db on the scale. You want to be peaking upwards of minus six to minus four With an occasional jump to three if you're getting a little bit more boisterous This is for conversation conversational, right? Right normal speech, right? If you are getting louder, you have a couple of options Especially if you're doing odd, you know video games or something you can turn away from the mic Because we don't yell in people's ears. We usually are farther away when we yell And you learn the right proximity as we were talking earlier or You turn the volume way down To about noon or maybe a little quieter And if you're going to do loud sections record those separately and edit those in To your takes later on so you at least you are at a consistent level Set for that mic and you can do all the louder sections that way that makes sense Sounds good to me. Yeah, sounds good to me. So um Let's move on to moose. Yes moose has to be like one question per person for for now because we got so many coming in Right. Um a couple of questions. Let's see this one's talking about Um There was the bird noise from last week, but oh, okay. Well, I appreciate that This is actually well, I think I'd like to mention this Um, he said for dealing with bird noise outside your studio I recommend an owl or bird of prey dummy You've probably seen them on buildings sometimes all the time. Yeah Just set these on the roof outside your studio and just the presence of these dummy birds Um scares off the all the other birds That's freaking brilliant. Yeah. Thank you, man. Yeah, I think um for that George question then so you mentioned 120 Hertz hum from just regular home electricity current Um, I have my gear plugged into a power conditioner. In this case, it's a monster power pro 3500 Um, will this negate that hum? Um, all right That hum is is hard to deal with it's hard to It's hard to say because that hum sometimes isn't coming literally through your wire It's coming through your building It's the whole it's all the machinery in the whole apartment building or the condo All resonating in harmony with each other at 120 Hertz That's more likely the hum you're going to pick up in your studio on your mic It's a lot less common to have actual ground hum or electrical hum coming through the wire If the ground hum is coming literally through your power lines Then yeah a power conditioner can help Your mileage may vary. You always got to try these things out. It may not do a dang thing Yeah, so you might to try it. I don't know. Yeah, you can see it on a spectrogram It's like right there at 120. Well, that usually is an indication of where it's coming from Sort of Then you've got to find the source of where it's coming from We know it's one of these things or one of the other A lot of times you get hums. We see a lot of that kind of stuff It's usually just bad wires, you know bad xlr cables Usually not usb usb goes bad. It just doesn't work But with with a with a mic cable with an xlr cable where you've got, you know a two-phase thing It's going it will cause problems if there's a loose connection there So exactly. Yeah By the way, I think you changed your mic input george because you sound much farther away Yeah, do I do I did it come back or is it still thin? It's still see now. That's thin Because I lost connection connectivity to my mic port pro there right in the middle Let me re plug and see what happens. Oh, okay. Let's see what happens Okay, I'm hoping that it just automatically Well, we can't tell right now it looks sounds like it's switching on the same. Yeah, it's okay One two three four five one two three four five not quite as deep as it was before but Bomber. All right. Well, I'm gonna get closer to the mic because the mic is now my iphone. Okay. Well, there you go. Um Working portably not always the best Douglas voice guy tech talk question. What are the most cost-effective materials to make a window plug? Okay, number one drywall That's definitely the cheapest thing to use to fill windows with drywall Yeah, if they're building houses, yeah, if they're building houses in your neighborhood, there's usually probably some in a dumpster so Yeah drywall is very inexpensive very very heavy and thick And uh, it's very effective at creating a window plug. It's probably the first place I would start and it's super easy to trim it and readjust the size Right trim it. So it's a little bit too big at first and then just Take off a little the overage you need Yeah, would you put a rubber seal on the outside of it to make it hold in place? You can Yeah, that would I mean it's not easy to get it to fit just right with a rubber seal. It's definitely It's definitely a little bit hard to build Um, but yeah, I recommend a seal for sure. It would really be a good idea to have some kind of a gasket Yeah, uh, jeff holman asks he says you alerted to it earlier last week on home visit But are you still doing on-site consultations? Not at the moment Yeah, I am not right now. I uh I might resume soon with some of my really honestly vip clients Um, but no at this point. We're still doing a hundred percent remote And I would say it's 100 effective. Yeah, so, you know, you know as long as we because a lot of what we do is listening As opposed to physically, you know manipulating things and it's like, you know turn your microphone upside down or my favorite Turn your microphone around Exactly and a lot of it's a lot of it's that and a lot of it's software stuff, right? So obviously the majority of that stuff we can help you with remotely quite easily no question So we'll see we'll see we're kind of waiting like everybody else to see when it really makes sense to be uh in in strangers homes Right. All right. Now, which jeff kennedy question are we going to go for here? uh, let's go with um Let's see. He was referring to some of the stuff you were talking about earlier about Okay, referring to Camera Let's see when george is talking about using your phone. Oh using the iphone as a webcam Um, I think that is a higher quality than the one typically used with skype I'm not really sure. I mean It depends what you're doing like a skype camera Like a like the one built in the computer can look fine for skype quality Right. Um, if you're doing something that when you want to put up online and share publicly or join into a forum or something you're going to be putting on youtube Over zoom or over skype then having a better camera can really make the difference If you're just doing sketch chat with family or doing a business meeting, maybe not that big a deal, but You know, again, it's a niche thing. It's not something that affects most voice actors But I was something I wanted to to touch on and no, we are not recommending anybody at all use anything with Linux Or linux linux. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he was also asking about You know, if you turn up when you were talking about the audience That if you turn it up too high, it'll clip Well, that's when you learn how to be a voice actor and how to modulate your voice And if you are getting really loud and in every other word You're picky. You're if you're picky. That's not the microphone It has a lot more to do with your microphone technique and your vocal technique Yeah, yeah, so I'll front versus rear cameras on the iphone I find that any modern iphone 10 10 s 11 blah blah blah the front-facing cameras are pretty damn good They're still much better than the laptop Obviously the cameras on the back are probably the best, but I'm using my front-facing camera tonight on zoom and I'm using a light 10 a $20 selfie light Yeah, that you can get on amazon one of those influencer lights that you see all the makeup girls do it, you know And uh, you can do it very easily. Yeah, and and I shot the uh The voiceover essentials commercial with the rear camera or the front camera on my front camera on my my iphone today Oh, yeah, looks great Okay, let's see here scott mary scott go ahead go with it interfaces. Yeah, what interfaces do you recommend? I have a focus right but I have constant issues with it popping Don't really know what that means. You might want to take it out of the microwave Um I bought another one and I'm having the same issues. I was looking at the audience today. Are there any others you'd recommend Um, well, yeah, we've recommend a lot of them right now. It's just kind of getting it's kind of getting hard to get certain ones Right, um certain vendors are just not stocking certain things. So that's getting a little harder You might be more limited to what's available on sweet water or a voiceover essentials.com or amazon that kind of thing Yeah, um, if he's talking. Yeah, if he's talking about popping though I mean if he's talking about plosives, that's got nothing to do with your interface Yeah, what kind of popping are we talking about? Yeah, I mean we love some clarification on that because at a clicking or a digital dropping out Jeff's might type in some more clarity there. Okay. It's like he he is uh, He say, okay, right. Okay. He's having the same issue On two different. So it's not the interface. Yeah, it's not likely the interface my friend It probably is. Yeah. I mean, yeah We do like the focus lights or the focus rights scarlet series very good very rarely have any issues They're up to the gen three models. Those are nice Steinberg's you are series the 12 the 22. They're fantastic The mic port pro 2 Is a really really super high quality for its size It's portable The evo 4 we've reviewed on our show. I haven't used it long term because you gave it to me This brand new yeah, it's very new and we haven't had it that long But this one's new to the market These are some of the ones that we've been recommending pretty regularly. Yeah, they're they're all they're It's all a matter of features Versus the quality of sound coming out of these any one of these interfaces that are generally over 100 to 150 dollars like most microphones Are generally fine The you know, they've got a lot of clean gain and yeah Yeah, condenser mics have a lot of output and They can be driven properly with most interfaces these days right Jay Horst Brax black says where can we get the usb thingy you mentioned the thingy So if it's the thing I mentioned meaning the video thing Then it's the luna I'll find you the link to their website. I can't remember luna Luna display luna display com if that's the usb thingy you're referring to Because we talk about a lot of usb thingies on this show. Then that's where you find it Um, currently I have a mac mini audio interface A mac mini an apollo interface two monitors that are 4k. Whoo touch you man Um One on my desk and the other one goes in my booth and I just realized that my 4k monitor in my booth is only utilizing HD quality because there's something simple I can get that will allow me to get the full 4k resolution out of the monitor in my booth I'm using the right cables for example If you're not using a 4k Uh hdmi cable Um, it has to be like hdmi 2.0 Yes, there are versions of cables Um, it won't it won't give you 4k. So that might be um That might be what your problem is um Dominic Carlos says thank you for the examples. You're welcome. All right. Um another Statement from j rs black. Let's see if we can get to that. Let's make sure we got to all the actual questions before we wrap it up Yeah, you see anything else? Uh, um Morris Marie says it's uh, it's a it's when I turn on the focus right it makes a loud pop That sounds like an electrical issue and then it continues Yeah, that definitely is concerning. Have you contacted focus right by chance? Yeah, they they generally are contact focus, right? Yeah, that sounds like it. Well, of course if it's doing it on two different interfaces That's something different. There could be a usb port issue on your computer. I also could try different port. Yeah And change to a different port and try a different computer. Right. Um, lastly from j harris that statement I had my first source connect directed session today. It went really well I did the mount the month the month not mouth to mouth I did it's time to Um, I did the month the month just to see if I could book something that would be um That would actually pay for it unless in a month of today's booking Um goal accomplished now a note that I'm already a working actor Um in the past I would have to drive to chicago studio, which is three hours one way To get work done. Um plus parking tolls time, etc Um, I did source connect certification also, which was more than worth it to me I have to say it was very nice to work with them and they were really helpful So by the way, so certification, I always forget to mention this. Yeah, um, but when you get source connect, you can also get certified Um, what that does is for for 75 bucks They walk through it with you. They make sure you actually know how to use it They make sure your system is set up correctly Network port mapping all these things and they give you a little extra little badge next to your name a little red C mean you are certified That could help you possibly book more gigs. Maybe Um, people would see that your studio definitely is ready for source connect Um, so that's something else you can look into on source elements A website is certification. Yeah. So anyway, thanks. Yeah, but jay is a working voice actor and Would normally get hired to do stuff and now that he has source connect Is working for him, which is cool. Yep. Got one last question here from, uh, From nathan carlson Oh, yeah, and then this is a really easy question. What is your dream apple product for video and audio production? What's fast and cost less than a car? Uh, Yeah, so not the mac pro. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I mean if it's if you're talking about video production, I mean It's this thing is powerful enough to do an awful lot of stuff my friend It it can it really can It's not that you would but yeah for but you can yeah, it's a five minute web video or something Absolutely, man. I've made some damn good-looking videos on an iphone. Um, Honestly, I mean i'm using a mac pro 2018 the top the fastest one. It's a core What is it core i7 six core blah blah blah for what are they 1200 bucks or 1500 bucks? Um, it's fine. It doesn't export video at rocket speed But it does everything else absolutely fine. It everything i've tried it's never hiccups um, where you where you spend the real money is for the fastest Processing for exporting videos So when you're doing a lot of fast turnaround for television and you know for production You really need the horsepower then yeah, but honestly the mac book the mac mini nowadays Any of the i7 iMacs? Uh, the iMac pro is insane Super expensive, but it's really good. Um, you know, you yeah, it's it's it really just Nathan depends on how much production you need to do What resolution you're shooting in? Um, if you're shooting everything in 4k, you want a hot you want a fast i7 A processor mac, you know, so yeah dream computer certainly the mac pro Of course. Yeah, but my mac mini does a great job with video production. Just using you know You know, uh stream stream flow or whatever it's called screen flow. Yeah, i movie. I use both screen movie I use i movie and I use lots of lots of software out there And some of them are simpler than others just like you know with uh with digital audio workstations It's uh, you know, it's a workflow that you want, you know adobe premiere works great Am I make my mac mini and it works great on a pc of course we have our pc is a beast It is a beast. I can actually hear howling back there in the other room. Yeah All right, all right boy, we got through all of them All right, we love answering your questions. You can you know, you can pre-send them to us at the guys at v obs dot tv And uh, we'll be happy to get the your questions on we love hearing from you We want to answer your questions We also want to work with you and make sure that your your home studios are working right and that's what george and I do professionally uh, and uh That's gonna do it for your questions So we'll be right back after these messages Don't go away. You want to listen to these and then george and I'll wrap things up right after them This is bill ratner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead Now there's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer that place is voiceover extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions Bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books Auditioning casting home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voiceover success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voiceover audition It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voice over x t r a dot com As a voice talent, you have to have a website But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you and when they finally do They break or don't look right on mobile devices. They're not built for marketing and seo. They're expensive You have limited or no control and it takes forever to get one built and go live So what's the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voice actor websites dot com like our name implies voice actor websites dot com just does websites for voice actors We believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use You have full control no need to hire someone every time you want to make a change and our upfront pricing means You know exactly what your costs are ahead of time. You can get your voiceover website going for as little as $700 So if you want your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voicehactor websites dot com where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know, what? Well, hey there hero. We interrupt the award-winning shenanigans of voiceover body shop for this public service announcement 1.5 billion That's how many students there are in the world primary secondary college university 1.5 billion And that's how many were sent home several weeks ago along with the 90 million teachers and professors who teach them And as they left those teachers and professors were all told by their principals and deans Hey, keep teaching your classes from home. Okay. Yeah, you know how to do that What that facebook live thing and that youtube and that zoom thing you don't have to do that Don't you sure everybody does except Many of those teachers don't even know where to start What camera to use what microphone to use how to set up lights how to use zoom And what makes online classes different from in-person classes But I do I know how to do that I've been doing that for years and I thought well, maybe I can help so I spent day and night for the past few weeks putting together a course on how teachers can do all that and I figured You know what? I'll sell it for 49 bucks. Anybody can afford 49 bucks, right? But then at the last minute I decided to do something different I decided to set aside the money and give it away for free So now through may 6th any teacher can have the course forever for free And I've got a favor to ask of you If you're a teacher Or if you know a teacher or two and with 90 million in the world who doesn't know a teacher or two Would you let them know about this? The course is available at teachyourcourseonline.com and I'm going to ask Dan and George To make that link available on the v obs website and maybe Mention it a time or two on the air in and the notices that they sent out. Would you guys do that for me? Okay, great. The course again is at teachyourcourseonline.com Help me help teachers be heroes at home as well as in the classroom That's teachyourcourseonline.com Thank you very much You're watching v obs.tv. I don't know why it's crazy what they do here I think I'm going to go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich More information you could possibly digest But we digest it every week and throw it back at you And make sure that you understand how to run your home studio Uh, who are next week by the way, uh next week is memorial day So we will we'll have a repeat on that you're going to want to watch I'll find the best tech talk we can and then in two weeks. We have carolin kasey Who is a excellent who is a producer and Sounds like somebody after our own heart who really understands You know the production end of things and that should be very interesting to talking with her and a voice actor herself And so she really gets it from both sides. Absolutely. Um Let's see here. Who are our donors this week and we appreciate donors We have uh, shana pennington baird. Lee pinney. Hey, lee don griffith mark martha con. Sorry martha Dominic carlos Craig gullsby pat kennedy michael kerns and christy berns. Thank you everybody. All right Hey, you can still show us your booths eventually. We'll get everyone will be back here We need one george and sue and i need a group hug. We've been apart way too long But we're getting the show done. I mean, it's look at this a marvelous set we have Um, we need to thank our sponsors as well Such as harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra sora selamans vioheros.com voice actor websites.com And jmc demos All righty and the dan and marsy lennard foundation for the betterment of live and recorded webcasting Jeff holman, uh for his great work in the chat room getting all those questions out there appreciated jeff Sue marlino getting it done from burbank not from here And uh lee pinney. Yeah for me and lee pinney. Love you lee. Alrighty. That's gonna do it for us this week. We'll be back We're always on you can watch us on facebook anytime. We're on our website. We're there every show we've ever done Is there? Which is getting upwards of what 700 800 episodes now Type in any search string and v obs And you'll find an answer all right youtube. Excellent. All right. Well, that's gonna do it for us this week Have yourself a great memorial day and Hopefully we'll be able to escape our compounds sooner or later Uh, but we're here to help you with your home studio. I'm dan lennard I'm george wittem and this is voiceover body shop or vio B s tech talk tech talk tech talk See you next good night everybody. Bye Bye