 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk and We are celebrating 11 years of voiceover body shop now We started a disease east-west audio body shop, but when I came out here to California, we changed it to VO BS and we can't believe we've been doing this for 11 years But one of the reasons we've been able to do it for 11 years is because we talk tech and you guys can't seem to get Stuff because we keep giving us new stuff to talk about and now we have some great stuff What do you got tonight for us George? Well first? I want to give credit because it's where it's due the name change via BS. Yes from comedian Chris Eward Look him up. He does the laugh factory. He's in Canada That was his that was his She's like the middle of the night he emailed me. How about VO BS voiceover body shop? I was like Yes So he deserves credit for that. Um, yeah, we're gonna talk about the new Mac that just came out that you know Are we're a little out sink on the news cycle with that? So by now you guys have probably heard about it But my take on it a new noise suppressor plug-in and some updates on gear that I've had to get Warranty repaired or updated or whatever. So And a little tip for your business if you want to have a little bit more sophisticated phone system without buying Phones this isn't a way to do it You got a pile of them sitting behind the curtain over here of old Lameline phones and we're also going to talk about limiters and sort of about compressors Which is something that a lot of people ask about all this limit the knowledge too much Where's my you know, it's on here if I keep forgetting to hit the drum roll or the the rim shot anyway Voice over body shop tech talk. You got a question. Throw it in now great time If you got a question about your home voice over studio because it's time for voice over 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 The professional VO 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're 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.com 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 voice over training J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and voice over 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 Well, hello there, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or VO the ass tech talk tech talk tech talk Tech talk 11 years. We've been doing this Jorge in it's Unbelievable Everybody knows who we are for crayon out loud. It's different You know Technology in voice over is just really really hard for a lot of people and we were talking about this before the show that You know people go to coaches and they they learn how to be a voice actor or something Nobody teaches them how to do the recording stuff despite the fact That that's how it is we can do what we can do From our home studios now more than ever exactly more and more demands on you as voice actors to know the engineering side That's right, but it's not really Engineering, you know, it's the important stuff is to know the basics and if you can get away with the basics You know that we talk about all the time about acoustics and mic technique and setting your levels properly Which you know, we'll get into a little bit tonight That's really the key to having your audio sound what it's supposed to sound like whistle and And and there's a way it's supposed to sound and when George and I get stuff and we listen to your audio Was take five seconds and we know what's going on in your studio. We know the acoustics in there We know your mic technique. We know your levels because we look at them and go where's where's my loop? I can take a look at the Wave forms in there And we're here to teach you about it and we do it professionally We give you lots of tips here on the show and you know and that and that's important We answer your questions But if you're really trying to learn it from the ground up or if you're an established professional and you're doing well and You say you have a technical crisis Something's not working Or if you just want to learn a little bit more You're looking at the two guys that can do this, you know We do it professionally. We're easy to get a hold of well, at least I'm easy You're everywhere these days, but you've got a system for for making sure that people are covered if they've got a technical emergency And if they want to work with you Tell them a little bit about what you do and where they go. They go over to George the tech and that's our home on the web It's kind of a messy website. We're working on it We are in the process of literally at this moment designing a entirely new Interface for the site to make it easier to book services and find what you need But the key thing on there is really Consulting and support that is where most of you need to start just get a 30 minute session with me We're gonna cover huge amounts of ground in 30 minutes and get you off on the right foot No matter what your needs are but if you have more specific needs than that, you know from just a sound check To designing a studio your dream studio or should I build a studio or should I buy an iso booth pre-fabric? You know, we have those conversations every week and that's all part of the deal over at George the dot tech and well Dan does a lot of that stuff too And he does it over at home voiceover studio Com oh, there it is. Okay. Good. Yeah, I'm a full-time voice actor You know my approach is from the perspective of being a voice actor the engineering I try to keep simple because you really don't want to be an audio engineer there are a lot of people out there that are We'll call them audio geeks and they're like, oh man, I got this thing and I got this mic And I got this which has nothing to do with voiceover You know one is one mic better than another some mics might be more sensitive There's all those sorts of things but what I do is I teach the basics if you really don't understand it if you're like Flailing in the dark or in are intimidated by it. You can talk to me and I will Talk you through it to where as when I'm done with you after an hour or hour and a half You're gonna go. Oh Well, that was easy Now I understand it now. I'm not intimidated by it and that's you know That makes me very happy as a teacher to get people to understand that plus if you want to have your audio Analyze you got you set up you got your mic you have your your interface you have your booth your closet You know your backyard wherever it is you're recording and you can send that to me on the the specimen collection cup Which you'll find currently at the bottom of my home page within a couple of weeks It will be at the top of my home page and for $25 I will give you a very thorough Analysis of what your audio sounds like what you probably need to do to get it sounding better and what sounds right? amazing how many times the acoustics are right, but the levels are all off and You know, there's a lot of background noise and things like that and you know I will teach you how to address those Mostly from a physical point of view as opposed to let's add this technology to it to try and clean that up Which we generally don't recommend Always best to get it right up front which saves you a lot of time on the back end So check those things out. I'll be happy to hear from you. Anyway We got time for all sorts of stuff. We're gonna get to your questions in just a little bit But George has all this stuff that he has been compiling all week because he's had nothing better to do Except fine stuff on the internet. What do you got this week? Well By now whether you want to or not, you know, there is a new Mac And just a little bigger than the mini a lot of a lot of you are Windows users We know that and we know we we have a lot of discussions on the pros and cons of one over the other and There's never been more reasons to not use Windows for audio production because Why is there glitches and clicks and pops why does my audio never go above minus 6 DB? I can't make it louder on and on all these things that plague Windows systems because they just weren't designed for audio production The drivers are convoluted. There's multiple versions. There's inconsistencies from one thing to the next There's updates that come every Tuesday morning without your without being able to stop them There's just so many things that are just moving targets Well, I mean is if the the Mac M1 systems that Dan and I are now using and a lot of you guys are now What if those weren't powerful enough and amazing enough? Well, they said hold my beer over at Apple and he came out with or hold my apple My apple they came out with this thing. It is a big fat chunky Mac mini As as a as a Leela port calls it the fat book the fat boy It's basically boy. It's it's so clearly just it's a Mac mini That's been stretched vertically and the reason they stretch it vertically was really mainly not to jam more You know chips in there It was for cooling because that really the top half of this case is a huge cooling fans that run counter clock like it's like two blades of a Drone they spin opposite directions to reduce reduce turbulence and Watch the keynote if you haven't already it's very impressive. Just skip ahead skip past the iPhone SE and all that boring stuff Go right to the this thing It's about 35 minutes in and see the what's inside. It's really impressive. They but you know They do things that Windows people just nod their head like oh, you know, you finally put us an SD card on the front Yeah, we've had that for years on our Windows computers. We've had ports and well, okay It's back to the Mac mini. They have it finally an SD card on the front two USB C ports on the front But glad to know that. Yeah But it's it's behind there and get it in there. Yeah, it's oh here we go. I was wondering how to spin it around there We go On the back There's a couple more ports from the Mac minis that we currently are using Dan and and I and some of you it has two additional USB for or thunderbolt for ports so It's got a couple more ports and lovely that they didn't take away the HDMI port I thought for sure that port was going to be gone But no, it's still there and it's still the main way to plug in your screen It's and it still has a power supply inside so on top of everything else It doesn't require an external power lump like the old og Mac mini. Do you remember those? They had a big power supply. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's built in it has that weird Mickey Mouse licking plug That's becoming more and more common thankfully It has a proper headphone jack and I know most of you don't need it because you've got an audio interface But the headphone jack on it is they literally said this during the door in the keynote can drive high impedance headphones The fact that they actually said that was pretty impressive So it's got a lot going for it now. The main thing that is really making it sell is Is it is the horsepower and the analogy I have for it is like anybody that likes Tesla Knows how the original Tesla Model S was quick, right? That was the M1 This is this is now the ludicrous mode and the plaid mode max because it is Redunculously fast extremely powerful They launched a brand new chip in this one called the M1 Ultra Where they tie two M1 pro chips together or max chips and make this double st I mean, it's it is outrageously powerful. So who is this computer for it is for video producers. It is for power Hungry applications that do tons of video Maybe if you're like a music producer and use a ton of plugins and Native instruments and samples and That's who this is for for everybody else. It's bragging rights Purely, I got one of these it is purely bragging rights I'm telling you this thing has more power than anybody in voiceover could ever need it starts at two grand That's a reasonable price for a super powerful computer and half the price the M1 mini is perfectly suited For what we're doing You're watching this whole thing over we're using it. So anyway, that's the new max studio. The display looks really impressive too This is really expensive It's a cost of a decent computer just the display. So I'm not running out and buying it I'm just not but you know again bragging rights It's got a 12 megapixel camera. It has this mode called onstage So like if you want to move around It it digitally recrops and follows you on frame and it's just It does some slick stuff, but it's it's kind of over the kill overkill. Anyway, in contrast to that contrast to that, yeah windows Windows, um, well, you know, I don't I don't need to rub it in I don't need to rub salt in the wound But if I I've definitely been converting windows users to mac more lately than ever and I think At this point if you're still on windows, it's because you're a hobbyist that loves pc. You love customization You love troubleshooting You love trying to figure out how to get the most performance. You're you're a hot rodder Right windows. I think windows users are hot rodders. They're not going to go buy tesla model s plaid They're going to buy 58 You know chevy bel-air and hot rod it that's to me what a windows computer is now you can buy one pre-hot rod it You can and you can do this in in with cars You can go to a hot rod shop and walk out of there with a hundred fifty thousand dollar You know 67 camaro And that's how I feel like windows are like it's Once they're super hot rod it dialed in and optimized and there's I found a 30 minute video on just optimizing windows for audio You do all that right and it will probably work pretty well for you until the next update comes that you don't know is coming Um, but that's that's the thing about windows and people are like well I bought a gaming computer and it's supposed to be this and that it's uh It's i9 six chord. I'm like it doesn't matter if if if everything doesn't work together like a well oiled machine You're gonna have problems. I what I said recently online was like windows is cheaper, but there's a hidden cost Of saving money and going with windows for a voiceover studio. There just is and that's That's all that other stuff that you have to deal with the overhead Anyway, moving on I don't think it's ever gonna get better, but if it does I'll let you guys know As soon as somebody says windows microsoft changed something that makes sound drivers now work the way they're supposed to It's just easy like okay. Um, I'll be there pigs fly I'll be there. It might be windows 12 or whatever it is. I don't know but ain't windows 11 um In the in the plug-in side of things Our friend jim edgar is a great voiceover technologist of his own right He did a little quick video about a new waves plug-in called clarity vx And I think it's biggest selling point because you know, they want to take some thunder away from isotope in this area Is it's a voice denoiser At a very low price So with isotope if you want their all their suite of plug-ins, you gotta buy a suite of plug-ins You gotta buy a whole package With this you can buy just this one plug-in called clarity vx the basic model and it's right now It's only 29 dollars So it's a very affordable noise reduction plug-in I will say this though If you've never had a waves plug-in before There's a learning curve of just getting it installed like those you have to install a plug-in manager Now isotope has the same they have they have a plug-in manager too. You have to install that first And you have to get the licensing going. There's a bunch of steps to get it up onto your system But it is a very simple interface in terms of noise reduction. It literally is just a single knob That you turn and that is kind of nice the simplicity factor Um, jim found it to be very comparable. He thought it sounded better for certain things I saw some discussions. Some people thought the isotope rx voiced a noise actually was better in some ways They're just different and uh, if you're gonna really if you're really curious, give it a try get a demo and see if it's worth it to you Um, I still like bur tom the noiser Um, not bur trim, but bur tom ver to m that's still my favorite noise reduction tool It's not quite as simple one knob operation. It does have six sliders that you you have to monkey around with a little bit, but I think it sounds amazing and it's free. I mean you can pay for it for believe me. You should But you can install it for free. There's no License manager thing. There's just you can just download it install it and use it very quickly I I love that about burtum denoiser. It sounds great. What they call shareware Yeah, it is kind of like shareware. I also call it honorware Like reaper, you know, you everybody knows it reaper. There's probably a lot of you out there Don't you won't admit it, but you probably launch reaper and then wait for it to count down five seconds And then and then you start using it. Yeah Uh, yeah, it's kind of like that. It is. It's like a shareware. Yeah Um, moving on so revelator prosonus revelator another way to revelator I was so excited Because they finally released an update that was going to fix my problem with my pan slightly to the left thing that was weird I installed it. I was all excited then today. We're getting ready for the show And i'm like, hey, can you guys hear that when I play that back? Can you hear it when I when I play the v obs uh tech talk voiceover intro? Everybody's like nope And I look over at the console and I realize a whole section of the control unit the software control Uh, this and I have it running on my iPad here Wow, the color is bizarre It's all purple. That's not what it looks like this camera is is crappy. Um A whole section of the control panel is gone. There used to be a button right here that said stream And it's gone and there used to be three mix of four mixes here main Um mix a mix b mix c and now there's only three mix not four I have no idea why that disappeared. I have no idea what happened to my stream setting but the bottom line is It sort of crippled the revelator. It doesn't do everything It's supposed to do it doesn't do what it was always that I always what I loved about it Personas, what's going on you guys? It's you're killing me. It's a glitch. Maybe you just got to re-download it again I'm running it on I'm running it on my iPad. I'm running it on my desktop system Um, you know, I followed the instructions from the support ticket. I had opened because of the complaint and they're like install this I don't know guys so It's not all still happy happy happy in revelator land. So um, I'm not going to be giving it a glaringly happy review I I love what it's been doing for me But at the end of the day if you have to do what we do here on which is do live shows and stream and have multiple sources of Audio the roadcaster which dan's got in his studio is still kicking butt. So sure do. Yeah um, the road ntg 5 is back That's the microphone i'm using tonight, which i'll switch cameras so you can see my microphone It's back. This is the road ntg 5. It's been replaced under warranty I had some that the dreaded sort of clipping issue And it's gone now because they sent me a new one I know it's new because I sent them one in just an envelope padded and wrapped in bubble wrap and they sent me back a retail box So I have doubles of everything The shotgun that the big pistol grip All the accessories I have doubles of everything, which is nice. Thanks road. It's nice to have spares Anyway, but the ntg 5 is back. I really hope whatever the bad batch of Capacitors or whatever the component was that was failing and a lot of people's mics. Hopefully that's been resolved now And uh needed a new tube Yeah, there's no tube in this tube But yeah, whatever it was, uh, I hope it never comes back, but i'm back on my ntg 5 It's a great sounding might the ntg 4 plus was working just fine and it's stead But there's just this this has a little extra something something that I that I really like sounds great Last thing before I wrap up my tech update and this is off-tucket topic from pure audio tech but if you want to kind of like Come off with a little bit more of a professional front end in terms of your business and accept more maybe phone calls Um to to far as a way for people to reach you and interface with you That if you may not want to have two cell phones first of all, right? So maybe you've used google voice to have a separate business line and separate business from pleasure But google voice has a lot of limitations too. Um, and so I've recently started using open phone And it's a virtual business phone And so you you can create you can port your existing number into it Which is what I did or just make a new number And it gives you a lot of customization including actually a phone menu So now if you call, uh, my business phone number 424 226 8528 It will ring this new system and you can press one to be patched into my phone You can press two to go off to customer service and it rings my assistance phone You can you know, I have a phone tree or what do you call it an IVR? Whatever they call that Um, and it's not expensive and it's real centric system. Yeah, it's not expensive. It's very, uh, easy to set up And it works really really well So, yeah, you can have auto responders for a text message letting people know hey I'm here, but right now I'm in the booth. I saw I can't get back to you. Just give me a minute You know, it's it's a really great service So I'm very happy with it so far if anybody's looking at something a little bit beyond The same phone number for everything Or even google voice it rings and only two or three people call me so Yes Actually, if you call that number and you press nine that dispatches to the 911 tech support Dispatcher and that's what we can get you to You might even talk to dan Leonard Because he's one of the on-call texts that might get your phone call So, um, it's great to have the flexible ways to be reached and come off as a pro Instead of, you know, maybe just a guy with a phone if you that's in if that's something you're into Well, you know, if you're a voice actor and you answer the phone, it's like hello Oh, you have a great you basically yeah, you basically get the gig the second you answer the phone It was when you have a great voice actor voice. Yeah, it doesn't hurt dan. Let's talk about compressor limiter And what the heck they're for Well, yeah, when should you use them or when you shouldn't well, uh, I I got a call from our our good friend Debbie Dairyberry this week One of the top people in animation and she was saying that, you know, she had been recommending a, you know A certain interface that we're no longer recommending and I wrote to her and I said hey And if you don't know what you're doing, don't tell people to get that one, you know Get a get a focus right to y2 or a solo or something She goes well, sometimes people are using that in animation. They they have to ride the game with that You know and and because they have to talk, wow, they have to talk soft, you know and by riding the game I mean, you know, heck literally having your hand on the game dial and turning it down when you're talking loud and Turning it back up when you're more conversational So there is a device Uh, sometimes it's analog. Sometimes it's you know in digital programming called a limiter and Sometime and I and I'm like, well, you know, you could use, you know a limiter on an interface You know, there's the there's one that has a a compressor on it, which sort of does the same thing So what's really the difference between a compressor and a limiter? Basically, and then George and I will demonstrate for you a a Limiter is something that you set a threshold that the volume of your voice will not go above So you don't over modulate And when you over modulate If the audio will break up and somebody gets an over modulated file on the other side They're gonna go, this is over modulated. You can't fix over modulation if you do it. It's dead You know, the there are some programs. Oh, we can fix that and make it usable. No de-clipping or de-clicking de-clipping de-clipping And you know, you don't want to go there and you don't want an engineer. Oh crap now I gotta do the de-clipper on this. Yeah, you want to get it right up front So one way to do it and for somebody who perhaps who's doing animation or gaming where you You have to go through loud voices and soft voices You know, I used to say look do the loud stuff first do the soft stuff second Or vice versa. So you don't burn out your voice for the soft stuff Um, you know or use proper mic technique. We had David K on last week and he was demonstrating for it's just him talking to us How you know if you're gonna yell at somebody you don't do it right on mic because you don't yell in somebody's ear But if you're you know talking conversationally, you know, like this the way you normally would over a cup of coffee You know, you have to turn the gain up To get the proper level But if you have to shift between them constantly A limiter will if set at and where is a good place to set a limiter If I use one it's probably like minus three Or minus two something like that. So it doesn't go up near zero and it doesn't clip no matter what it automatically reduces Your volume. So it it's it doesn't it doesn't clip now How is that different from a compressor? Because you know a lot of people say you got to put compression on there What does a compressor do a compressor makes the loud stuff? Softer and the soft stuff Louder so everything is even which is why it's called a compressor Uh and george, what are we going to use to demonstrate exactly what that means? I was going to show a compressor here. I have loaded on twisted wave. Let me see if I can share this Uh What's weird is when I click away from twisted wave the compressor window hides itself Uh, yeah, because you have to actually highlight that when you when you share Oh, that's the trick, huh? Yeah, I gotta click on the word and look the plugin go to share Yeah, when I click share it disappears again Dang it. All right. I'll just share the whole screen. There you go. And then I don't know if we can crop in and show it or not, but Here we go networks Okay, now you can see it. Yeah, so here's a compressor. Um, this one's from a company called Melda productions, which I was shown this suite of plugins recently and they're very affordable slash free More sort of freeware, which is nice um So a compressor has more controls than a limiter a limiter typically this has a threshold And maybe an output setting so the threshold the lower you set it the more the compressor before the more the limiter kicks in The ceiling is how loud it's allowed to go. That's sort of like the normalizer, right? Right can't go above minus three minus two But a compressor has a lot more controls. Um, you've got one of the main ones that's very different is a ratio control So a ratio control controls how much the level is going to go down or is it it's going to get reduced, right? Once it passes the threshold With a limiter that ratio is very very high So when the level crosses that point a threshold point It just is stopped like A brick wall sometimes we call it they call it a brick wall limiter brick wall limiter, right? But with a compressor you got that can you have the control over how much The audio is going to be reduced by so a compressor can be a lot more subtle And uh enters a result a little bit more transparent But you use them differently and I tend to use a compressor before the limiter. I tend to use the limiter as the very last Output setting maybe it's like the last line of defense if you want to call it that But um, so that that's the main difference the the tool set looks Uh, a lot simpler when you're using a limiter does let me load a limiter in here Uh, let's see what we have perhaps the basic au one or yeah the au one is so so simple It doesn't even have any meters. Here's the here's the audio unit peak limiter. This comes on every mac And it's got an attack and release time, which I usually set where they're at because they're fine And really you have one knob that you worry about and that's the pre gain So if you don't want to change or increase the gain in any way You just leave that at zero And so now you have a limiter it will prevent levels from going above zero and you're done But if you want to add more level beyond that so you want to come you want to Build up or make up loss of level because of your other processing Then you can add more gain called pre gain and it will increase the level of everything all at once Right which takes a little bit of experience to know How much to increase it or reduce it based on on any particular file? So you have to you have to base it on what exactly you're doing because yeah too much of that And you'll end up with something that looks like That And uh, we don't want that technically clipping that's going to come across as like really overbearing And sometimes almost distorted sounding to the listener So you got to be careful with how much limiter you put on stuff and make it If it it needs to sound good at the end of the day And the and these are and these are all plugins for post You know doing it up front is a little bit different which we can talk about there Oh, yeah Well, let's talk about that too because that was kind of the impetus for this right is some some a few select Interfaces out there have that function on the input side, right? Yeah, we you know, we know the the mic port pro 2 has it Which is something that that you know that i know debby is testing because she wants to go on vacation and like I need a limiter because I don't want to have to ride the game. So, you know, we share that one I know there's a compressor on the The yamaha series. Uh, well the the yamaha, uh, ago 3 and the ago 6 that's a A a dsp limiter or a dsp Compressor on there, right? So I suggested a couple of those and then there's the the roland rubix 24 that we were looking at That is built in so you can do it in the hard run and right Yeah, and having it in the hardware can be nice because of a reliability factor like I was saying earlier the revelator it has that too But it's software driven or firmware driven and if the firmware update doesn't work the right way Well, you get what you got today And if you have something it's hardware based like the like I reviewed this a couple weeks ago the portcaster It's all in here all the controls are in here all the routing is in here Even the limiter is a little switch on the front that you can turn on So, yeah, tim fridelander has mentioned here Thanks for watching tim that the scarlet 2i2 is being blacklisted by some new york city studios Yeah, I talked to him about this last week and um, and he mentioned he is like I he's like I recommend a lot of the same stuff you do but I've stopped recommending the scarlet 2i2 because He's had some instability issues with some of the scarlet But mainly because there's literally studios and I don't have names here guys Can't call anybody out here But apparently there's a few studios that are like, oh, you have a scarlet 2i2 Not next And that doesn't mean you have to buy an Apollo. No, it just means they they have a A prejudice if you want to call it that against the 2i2 right now Here's the thing get something just as cheap as a 2i2. It just can't be that Tell them you have an Apollo for crying out loud if they're hearing you on the other end. They don't know I mean it's like Tell me. Oh, sure. I'm using this and that and they're like they don't know It's I think it's You know what they hear what they read and all that Anyway, we got lots of questions to attend to here We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back with your questions And the answers to those questions right after this on voiceover body shops. Don't go away. We'll be right back This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george wittem v obs dot tv Voice over essentials.com has the ultimate answer for mic safety Look your mic is the most valuable part of your audio chain. So protect it from boom stand disaster It's the abs the adjustable boom stop It's simple ingenious and infinitely adjustable the padded non slip pouch fits almost any size boom arm It has a unique double loop webbing system for an unlimited angle of the down strap It works with tripod and solid round bases A strong articulated strap keeps your boom where you want it without weights sandbags or knuckle busting tightening of the boom clutch The light gray webbing lets you mark and repeat stand settings for just the right spot for you Or anyone else who uses your microphone saving time and guesswork This is the simple solution that simply works. You'll kick yourself or not having thought of it Lock it in place with our abs the adjustable boom stop get it now at voiceover essentials dot com During the break. I thought I was gonna be clever And switch audio interfaces, but no that didn't work out that way I couldn't get chrome to redetect my My backup interface. So if I if you're hearing clicks and pops from me, I apologize It's the revelator personas gods mad at me for bad mouthing their product earlier in the show apparently Anyway, I'm taking thunder away from our beautiful wonderful lovely sponsors source elements the creators of source connect and source connect is A tool for professionals from the bit from the top to the bottom of the production from the producer engineer side to the actor side It allows the actor to interface directly into the session as though they're right there standing in the studio And bring that audio straight into the timeline of pro tools That's really what most of the studios are recording you on because that's the tools they like And going right into their timeline so that that means on the fly they can punch you in They can replace something they can edit you They can listen to you back with whatever else is in the production They can throw together a an approval mix for the commercial clients who are often listening in on the session and they can do that all on the fly Because there are all your audio is being fed right into their system So this is why it is preferred by so many Engineers, you know, there's a lot of tools out there. Some of them are cheaper. Some of them are even free But this one is just it's just so well established and it's so Heavily relied upon by the top jobs out there. So maybe you should probably have it in your arsenal If you want to get a 15 day free trial head over to source dash elements calm And if you want to learn more about what it does and how it works head over to george the dot tech slash sc My page on source connect you can watch a video on how it works and get support if you need it Anyway, thanks so much for the support source elements. Let's get on to the tech questions right after this Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you? This is virgin radio Well, okay, we're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies because 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 smartphone 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 red It's your favorite when hope is lost the i8 from bmw Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's j michael collins. I 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 Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great Well, you know what they say about storage The more storage you build the more stuff you shove in it. Well, we have more time today. We still shoved more stuff in Anyway, so we're running a little behind, but we got lots of questions and we want to get to your questions How am I sounding now guys you sound fabulous. There was no more clicks and pops. No, no, well when it turned on, yeah Anyway, now i'm on the uh pork caster instead of the revelator Ah, okay, so hopefully the clicks and pops are a thing of the past. We'll find out. Yeah, turn your game up just a little bit Alrighty Uh hungry for the devil girl from mars to be my venus youtube george is using a rhoda ntg 5 there. Yes, you are it's fixed um Okay Play the voice real kids vo family. That's quite a name We picked up a 20 year old 416 dad I think people have learned that if they change their youtube name we get to slip in a plug for their youtube channel Oh real kids vo family on youtube Anyway, she says i picked up a 20 year old 416 last week from a tv producer How long do they last if well cared for well, there's always that joke about you can hammer nails with those things Well, they'll last longer than longer than you would imagine. I mean for what you're paying for it. You're darn well better Yeah, no, they're they were made to last Yeah, and those were designed to be road warriors because they are video mics for road crews That they go out and shoot stuff. So it's probably just fine The only way to find out is to record something on it. Let us listen and go. Ah, sounds fine Yeah, I would be more worried about buying one on a major discount. That's new in the box Those are the ones to avoid because believe it or not. There actually are um counterfeit Sennheiser 416s So I would be better off. I would feel a lot better buying a 500 dollar one. That's 20 years old Then a 500 a one that dollar one. That's brand new. So just keep that in mind Yeah Now jeff holman has a great question here because we were just talking about this He says Dan, do you ride the game when you do video game auditions that have some normal volume lines and some yelling lines We were just talking about it Or do you back away from your mic and use mic technique when I do video game auditions? I sound so quiet because they asked for men them to be at a minus 18 level And only the yelling lounge line sound good. That's because he's using one level for all the different stuff And uh, you know now i'm hearing an echo from your headphones. Um Yeah, no, I use mic technique, uh, but I also know that if i'm going to be doing things that are Louder and softer You know, I might do the loud stuff first and then the soft stuff second or vice vice versa Especially with video game auditions, but if i'm going to yell, you know, like I will kill you I mean come on you just back off the mic. You don't yell in somebody's ear And they're still gonna hear you these mics will pick up anything if you're you know at the right The right time, but we were just talking about limiters and some people like to use a limiter Because they want to be consistent from the mic even though Our voices come to people from different directions and different distances and I think it's important that You know, you practice that you know using different mic technique, but work with what works best And that's usually the best answer to that. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what the engineers are telling actors, you know when they say And I'm not even sure what they mean by be at minus 18 level It would be nice if they explain that to you is that yeah, does that mean the loudest you're allowed to go is minus 18? Um, because that is really low. Yeah, I think what it is they want is minus 18 so that the you know, so you don't over modulate when you're loud and Turn the game down, you know, yeah, I mean You know, even apparently they've been blacklisted You know on the two high two or on the solo if you look at the game dial here I have a line that says you know yelling and one that says Conversational I just know where they are. You don't need like 17 different incremental settings You really only need one for extreme high level And one for most everything else and you're gonna be fine. So yeah, I mean riding game during a session is not easy So splitting it into two different passes loud stuff and everything else It seems like a very reasonable way to get around that problem Right, and you've got to find the sweet spot for you for your yelling and for your conversational stuff Uh question from matt davis George, uh, what do you guys think of the at 2020? It depends I've heard them sound okay, and I've heard them be a little bit noisy I've heard them sound a little bit sibilant and crispy. I've you know, I It's not blanket. No good by any means I've it's certainly gotten some good recordings from people over the years and I I still know a few people that use it That's their day-to-day daily driver mic I think the 2035 for a little bit more money is a much better mic They've upgraded essentially everything about that mic Um for only 50 50 dollars more it is by far a better value. Yeah High-pass filter built in has a shock mount. It's it's a bigger capsule It's quieter It's about everything you can think of is better at only 50 percent more price. I think it's the way to go Yeah, and those at mics are those are heavy duty too. They build them, you know, like yeah this 3035 Which hasn't even made me more it's been hanging around my studio since I was a live recording engineer And it still Works without a no problem. Yep. My first voiceover mic too Uh terry briscoe asks. Okay guys I've been asking you both about usb mics for a while now and I want to let you know I have finally switched over to xlr as of yesterday Now I do have a question. I'm in the middle of an audiobook. Should I keep using the mic? I started with or go with the new equipment. Congrats on the 11th year anniversary, by the way That's a real simple answer Keep the same mic. You cannot change anything On the second half of a book and certainly not in the middle of a chapter They're going to sound a little different. They may both sound good But they're going to sound different and it's going to be noticeable to the listener What do you think? Yeah, definitely never change anything about your studio mid-audio block Unless you like to make the engineer that's doing your mastering hate you Or you're going to hate yourself Trying to make sure everything matches Don't do it I mean if it was if the mic was good enough to start the book. It's good enough to finish the book Yeah, they hired you Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean usb mics aren't categorically bad They don't categorically sound bad Um, they're just you know, don't they have they have limitations that we've talked about many times So don't worry about it. You're excited to use that new mic. We get it But be patient use it on something else not on that currently in production book Yeah, you get the next question from bc bc Loving the show. Thanks. Um, each time I want to record I assemble my booth with various partial walls of acoustic foam and bass traps. So he's got a build-on-demand booth All right, quiet on demand build on demand Any way to get a consistent sound or is this mission impossible? It's not mission impossible But why would you want to have an nearly impossible mission every time you record voiceover? That sounds difficult. I I get it if you're using a multi-use space and Or you're dealing with family or maybe you're building it in the closet of your walking closet and you know, you can't be in the way There's a lot of reasons why someone might want to do attempt a temp booth like that But it is really difficult to get it right every time It can be done though As long as you put everything in the same place But the mic in the same spot Stand the same distance and you do that time and time again You can certainly get consistent sound. Yeah Yeah, it's yeah But having something that you got to keep putting up and taking down and putting up You really want to try and create as much of a permanent space that is consistent So you don't have to go through that. Oh man consistency is so important Like if you're really taking this seriously as a business That's one of the things that will get you more bookings is if every time you send them audio they can count on it being the same And consistent that's what's going to bring them back over and over. Wow, this guy's great Everything is always the same level and it sounds the same and we can drop it in something That's two years old. It's going to sound the same now that They they love that, you know, that is really what that's gold when you can get that Achieve that I see there's a second part about noise coming in through exterior windows How do you stop the noise? Dan, do you have a magic solution that doesn't cost a ton of money? It stops Well, I mean somebody once asked yeah, somebody once asked I you know, I got a flock of birds that keeps coming by here How do I how do I keep that from making noise? I said you got a shotgun Yeah, there'll be a loud noise and then no bird noise at all Is it Regan or DC Dulles one of those airports does that They have these air they have these cannons at the end of the runway to scare the birds away Yeah, no, um, you know, there's window plugs. There's all sorts of different things I know George you were you were looking at something that you know that seals the window and stuff like that Indo windows if you have the money and the patience to get them Indo windows.com those are those are pretty awesome. If you don't want to damage your windows if you're renting They're a really nice a really nice option. But yeah, they they'll take weeks Maybe months to get one of those because they're I guess they're just under such massive demand Yeah, now this next question from terry truett. Um, who's also on youtube Uh And and I have some distinct thoughts on this it goes. What's your thought on the waves c1 gate You know, no, what's a gate a gate and we were talking about compressors and limiters and stuff like that a gate essentially when You're if you've got background noise when it reaches a certain level Below a certain level or above a threshold a threshold It will reduce the volume by a certain ratio The thing is is if you're going to use a gate and I know people that are using them They have to be set right and you can't have a loud noise floor and then try to hope have a gate You know hide the noise exactly. Yeah, because if you've got a loud background noise Even if it's really fast if you got fast attack on it. It's still going to go, you know And you will hear that you've got background noise You'll hear it. Yeah, you'll hear it come up and when you start talking the gate opens and that noise is loud enough It's going to be quite audible behind your voice. So it's not not a fix all I've never used the wave stuff the waves plugins extensively, um, I I don't like all these third-party plugins that require licenses and have these invasive I just I'm not into that stuff, but wave stuff is renowned. I mean obviously engineers use this stuff constantly I just don't have I've no experience. I won't I won't say I know anything about it. I I've never used the c1 Um gate so as long as it's got a ratio It's probably okay if it doesn't have a ratio control Or a range control don't use it because it's probably just cutting out your room tone And that's really bad. Yeah, you know To me physical Try and isolate yourself better. Do not rely on technology to fix these things for you That's why you find a closet with a lot of noise in it or a booth Because if you try to do it with technology, you got to know how to use the technology having the technology is not going to help you Yeah, the input gain is also really critical with the gate If you vary your input gain It's screws up the gate and then it doesn't do what it's supposed to do either. So they're really touchy Uh for recording. Yeah question from grace newton, which I actually have the answer to What does one typically mount their road arms to or you know, you're retriculated arm, you know this guy uh, and she says uh You know mine's currently mounted to the desk where my mac and interface are But last tech talk george said that's not advisable because of bumps and stuff like that You'll notice when I bump my desk It doesn't do anything to the mic because my mic is bolted to the wall with the special hyal You know, you have the wall mount for i have a wall mount. Yeah connected to the wall So it's not connected to my desk And you know and you can get those depending on what what arm you have and you can get those those adapters, right? Yeah, if you can't find the hyal for a while, it seemed to be out of stock There is some company on amazon selling a wall mount bracket For your typical road Hyal and many other brand mic arms. So yeah, get it off the desk mine is on my desk on a hutch I think because I have a high pass filter on my interface. You're not getting too much. I'm also using this fancy uh, isolator shock mount thing on my mic that's helping a little bit But um, it's definitely not advisable getting it off your desk and on the wall or and if there's no wall nearby Stand that stands separately from the desk is probably your your best bet All right, two quick questions one from patricia. Andre. This seems to be a topic tonight Says what's the best way to set the twisted wave for voiceover so we can edit the loud portions after with twisted wave I use apollo solo and sometimes oven newbie. I don't know what to do after I normalize With minus 3db, etc. But then some loud portions are still loud Uh It's the same thing Nobody she's not writing the game and you know and the soft stuff is soft and the loud stuff is too loud and You know, you've either got to adjust it use a limiter or a compressor so Or change the way you actually perform those different parts so they're not the loud stuff isn't so loud Right, you can back off the mic Yeah, there's such thing as a theater loud versus really being loud or not theater loud What's the word for it? There's like a you know projection and you can sound like you're louder without getting six times louder That's right. You know, there's techniques there. You can back again back way from the mic You can there's a lot of things you can do but you know the day human voice and performance is dynamic So there's going to be very wide ranges and dynamics with certain types of voice work Especially of course character based stuff And with that is that's just part of natural the natural performance dynamic Yeah, I wouldn't worry about it too much. But if you want a special processing Setup that will be transparent to the listener and doesn't distract we can help you with that That's something I do Is make a setup that will control it for you But you mainly don't need to worry about it because engineers are going to deal with all that dynamic stuff later Just get it clean Without the clipping Yeah, and then she finishes mouth clicks. What's the holy grail to prevent them? alcohol Yeah, david k last week he he gave his regimen, which is extreme hydration He said I I drink three glasses of water and my nose starts to run. That's how I know i'm hydrated That's what I'm excited to try that tomorrow Last question from from tj mezzacapo Voice over. Hey dan and george. I'm using a rhoda nt1 and anodian id4 with mogami gold cables For some reason though, the audio is super low and has a lot of interference hiss. What can I do to fix this? I'm betting he doesn't have it on as the input There's so much we don't know in this question. That's right. I mean I can't even begin We don't know what kind of computer it is. We don't know how it's plugged in. We don't know what os it is We don't know Said this is too much. We don't know figure. We got to hear it Yeah, I mean we'll know for sure if it's not the nt1 that's actually being recorded But that's a telltale sign if you hit record start talking Turn the gain up and down and the lave the level doesn't change one iota Guaranteed you're not recording through the id4 You're probably according to the built-in mic of the computer so Right or with the id4 you got to turn it up pretty high because the the audience stuff has a A ratio at the end of the scale that is a little bit more incremental Or a little more dynamic gives you more gain at the end Yeah, there's also a very small chance at the microphone or there's actually an actual equipment failure You know that is possible. Um, so we can roll that out Yeah, we want to hear it and then we'll be able to tell you well Believe it or not another hour has gone by 11 years has gone by but we're still doing it. Uh, we're going to take a quick break. It's been fun I know it's it's still fun every every other monday We appreciate it But we'll be right back to clean things up and sweep things out of here and Right after these messages. So don't go away Before time began there was v obs dot tv Watch or else I don't think there's a feeling quite like that moment when Something you've auditioned for becomes something you get booked on Especially when it comes to audiobooks you audition for an audiobook On acx or in some other form or fashion and then somebody says hey, we like what you did We want you to be our narrator If that isn't a feeling that you've had lately because either you haven't figured out how to do audiobooks or because the efforts that you've put toward audiobooks Just don't seem to be working. I've got a solution for you Let's start with some free videos and then if you want registering for the acx master class I'm david h. Lawrence the 17th along with dano day I teach that class and you can get to those free videos and to registration if you'd like at acx masterclass dot com Slash join that's acx masterclass com slash join I'd love to help you get there In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online In a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish They'll try it yourself Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice of our body shop all right To the next 11 years where prince is among men. That's really nice rich. Thank thank you, buddy He said we're princes among men Okay, I don't know how to take that. Thank you. Yeah, okay Uh, thank you. Thank you richard. Um Next week on this very show we have the lovely and talented martha con We'll be joining us and talking about getting your kids into voice over Yeah, have them pay the rent for crying out loud. You know, they're running around. Hey get in here She teaches kids how to do voice over and I think that's a fun thing to do Yeah to help them, you know pay for their college Don't straight Yeah Our donors of the week. We got plenty of them like philips appear thomas pinto Shelly avaleno george awinham my dad brian page patty gibbons rob rider Greg thomas a doctor voice. I believe that's dr. Nathan carlson ant land productions uncle roy Yeah, shanna pennington baird Martha con. Yeah. Yay don griffith tray moseley diana birdsall hey diana and sandra manwheeler Uh, hey again, if you need help with your home voiceover studio, you can go to my place my website, which is home voiceover studio dot com Or over to george's place over at george the dot tech and if you want to see my latest, uh, isotope rx webinar That's been recorded last week. Uh, just go to george the dot tech slash webinars where you can find that and review it and Learn what the heck that thing does my dad watched it actually He's like I had no clue what I was watching but now I do. I'm like, oh, that was the point Well, that's good to know Uh, we need to thank of course our sponsors like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements Vio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and jmc demos All righty. Well, thanks for joining us this week guys. You know a lot you We love having the live audience, you know people actually, you know giving us the questions in real time and that makes us, uh It's what george and I do So, uh, anyway, and then we appreciate the all that stuff and we appreciate your, uh, your participation in our show Here's to another 11 years. Hey stranger things could happen I can't I'm looking forward to it. I don't know if my wife is but I'm looking forward to it All right, thanks to jeff holman and for doing the chat room sumer lino for getting it done in the director's chair and lee pennie for just Which he continues to be Uh, that's gonna do it for us this week We're here to help you with your audio and the bottom line is if it sounds good It is good. I'm jan ledd and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vio b As tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk. We'll see you next week Bye. Bye. Thanks