 I wish I'd gotten the memo about wearing something floral a Hawaiian shirt. Yeah, no I just I just have a shift to Trader Joe's afterwards, so Nice the road BSW you guys just showed up to setting up the booth right next to me and So I'll pull them in later for our tech talk. Cool. I Love a built-in guest. Yeah, excellent. Oh for once we'll have a guest The Hile gets right next to them Microphones Ohio, yeah, Hile mics, you know, Ohio. Yeah, they like making those those those dynamic mics for broadcast Not very good ones Don't don't see that very loud. No, they do not like the sound of the Just remember we're live That's actually what they sound like this microphone And we just have the pretend microphones that we can just hold up Okay, so we're having trouble streaming to facebook. This may be an issue on facebook It is possible the stream was ended or deleted on facebook We'll keep trying to let you know if it's resolved. Please check facebook to ensure the stream looks okay And if this continues, okay, let's see what's going on tell zuck to stop fighting with elan and jiggle the damn handle right So ryan from road has a shirt that says road on the front And it has the gold dot right in the middle. Yeah, I told him the logo is on the wrong side The logo is supposed to be on the back of the shirt the gold dot on the front of the shirt Because that's how the mics are. Yeah And that's why everybody talks into the wrong side of a road mic because I look at the t-shirt The branding is on the back of a road and the gold dots on the front of the mic and they talk in the wrong side I think we need to manually enter this on facebook because it's not it's not broadcasting there Well, we're on linkedin of youtube, so yeah, I know but most people watch well, where do people watch this thing anyway? 30 people watch it live So well, it's just post something on the facebook page Okay, saying to go watch it over here and over somewhere else or something Okay, it's I've also embedded it on the website. So it's on bobs.tv. Okay Yep, though the embed is good on the website. That's good You know, it's funny on facebook on the little on the screen screen our window. It says green check You are live on facebook, right, but we ain't And when you go to facebook facebook says we're also live on facebook and i'm looking at it live on facebook Yeah, but it's not on No, it is live. Oh, you can see us there. Yeah. Oh, okay Oh now it's there And lay against it indeed it is So we are live on facebook cool and linkedin and youtube Yes, and there is a way we can stream it as a podcast, but I think it's it's totally independent of uh What we're doing here, so it's probably not worth it. Yeah, it's too much work The whole point of the live is interaction and one thing people don't do on podcasts is interact Right, right. It's the last thing somebody doing listening to podcasts actually do Is interact so that's to me it's kind of a waste We want people that are engaged typing in the chat You know and that's where these social platforms come into play. It's interactive people are there They come every time, you know, we've got regulars, which is awesome so Yeah, okay. All right, let me change my battery because my lamp just turned off, but I think the light is the light on me still okay Actually, it's okay I don't need this light. Okay You're done light just shift the cam a little bit to your You want it to be all black curtain? There you go. There you go. All right. There you go That works much better. Yeah, maybe move that one chair Yeah, I mean when I have the guests on from the other that'll be oh, then you just I'll bring that later Yeah That's like it's like magic Exactly. Yeah, the light's actually not bad in here. Yeah, you look good The usual expo light or those bright downlights that make bags under your eyes Uh-huh, and these are like flat led panels in the ceiling that spray light out in a wide area Way better in here. Hmm. Cool. This is a brand new place Yeah, so where is it? This is the gay lord rockies gay lord convention center, which is right next to the airport in denver Wow, jeez. So you don't even have to go into denver No, I mean, it's really far from denver. Yeah, it's out in the prairie Really is far Hey, you guys do you have do you guys make something that holds mics? Oh, okay I'm just gonna handhold this thing. I guess They're literally unboxing two road PSA one mic arms There's 11 of them you think you can spare one Can we hand just like one just just for now? I don't want to bring another one home. I'm good You look like a talk show host I don't mind I mean I've actually I've done others where I didn't even have a cable so the mic was plugged directly into the In the nest like this and I did the whole show just holding it like that. Oh, no It's amazingly effective. It's uh It's shockingly decent. It's just hard to type when you're holding a mic Well, that sounds like a good voice over. Um, a slogan shockingly decent Shockingly That's a good one it's live streamed so you got to get to it before anybody else does The OBS shockingly decent All right, you guys missed all the fun yesterday. It turned out to be a big nothing burger You know what though, you know, it wasn't nothing burger was when my girlfriend's FaceTiming me from the apartment Yeah, telling me hey, look at the rain and then there's a friggin earthquake in the middle of it Oh, yeah, that was the exciting part Yeah, I was sitting right here and I felt and then it was like For about 20 seconds. She still does not see you gotta understand where my girlfriend's from There's earthquakes in Iran No, no Where my girlfriend's from and that part of the world Earthquakes kill tens of thousands of people, right? Oh, right, right It's a different deal like the one in Istanbul Killed a lot of people she said when they first reported the earthquake they said 5 000 dead maybe more She said you watch it's going to be 50 000 people. Oh, yeah, she was right They make everything out of out of concrete there and just She totally called it. She's like no, it's probably more like 50 000 I'm like what? And sure enough the death cold has kept going up and up and up and up and up I was like so anyway When you're from that those regions earthquakes are a lot more scary Than they are in la where we build buildings for this stuff right I still have to tell my girlfriend don't run outside We're fine right here to stay right here. It's not going to collapse She seeks out Yeah, I felt terrible, but I had never been on a live stream with her a lot like a live face time With somebody in an earthquake I almost thought she was joking and then I heard her phone giving you the earthquake alert Oh, so I could hear it going making the Yeah, yeah, there was a bang first then the alarm went off Yeah, well, I don't know. Yeah, I mean maybe there was there too. Here's the crazy thing You know earthquakes are guess what they're they're waves, right? Yes So waves and pee waves right so where we were it shook the house where scott parking lives Which is I'm not even kidding six blocks from us. Yeah, he's like I didn't feel a thing I was like he said I've been through many earthquakes. Nothing was swinging. Nothing was going on. I was like so you were in the node He was in the node or the area where the wave was like canceling out and we were on the other side of the wave Because it was right down the street Yeah, crazy stuff. I I felt it in here. Jacob felt it in his room But marcia was just sitting she was listening to a book or something. Yeah come running and You know and the chandelier is going like this. Yeah. Yeah Anyway, scary enough. All right, sue wants us to start five o'clock. Let's let's get rolling here She is waving her hand at us and it must be time to do the show Is my volume okay compared to It sounds pretty good. It's hard to tell from here. Is mine loud or is it okay? No yours is fine So are we about the same day? I mean, I mean, I think so I think so One two three four five six seven eight nine ten sounds the same to me Well, I mean I need you to compare Elaine to me. That's how we can tell okay So if I go one two three four five seven eight nine ten She is very clear and yeah, am I quieter than her or about the same? That sounded the same to me But it's in my headphone if that sounds same to you. We're good. Okay. Let's do it. Yeah It doesn't matter. Sue says that I'm loud. Okay, so back yourself off like a Just a touch. Yeah Let's see. Is this is cool. Is this better? I just turned it down a little bit. That's great. Alrighty. Okay. Okay All right. Are you ready? Okay five four three Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop. How's everybody doing out there? Of course, if you're watching live, why would you care if I said that our guest tonight is Elaine Clark? Hey, Elaine Hi We are going to talk about the whole voiceover biz and all the stuff that she does Which we're going to run out of time just talking about each one of them. So Our George is not here. He's in denver or at least outside of denver at DOA at where are you at? I'm at the podcast movement expo at the gay lord rock of the rockies convention center a marriott property Cool. All right. Well, if you have a question for elaine or for us About about home voiceover studios, but about the voiceover business Throw it in the chat room because jeff holman's in there taking all those questions down And we'll get those questions to elaine right after our second break. So or after our first break So anyway, are we ready? Everybody ready? No earthquakes. It's not raining voiceover body shop right now Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials.com the home of harlan hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect Vio heroes.com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor.com your voice over website ready in minutes Voice over extra your daily resource for voice over success And by world voices the industry association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts dan and george Well, hello there. I'm dan lennard and sitting down is And you who are you? I'm george the tech there we go. All right. I told my one minute. Let's go. Okay And this is voice over body shop or vio BS All righty Well, the big hashtag yesterday was her a quake I wrote that the first time I came up with it. Oh, you came up with that. Okay Well, I did say it. I'm sure 20 people thought of it at the same time, but yeah Anyway, yes, we had a her a quake. Yeah, I mean it was a tropical storm the problem with with with rain In in los angeles is you know, they made it sound like it was a snowstorm coming or something The most dangerous part is people driving because they don't know how to drive that stuff The thing that's rushing around los angeles is is a massive metropolitan area and of course All the media outlets cover the entire metropolis from san diego Up almost to santa barba, right? So they're reporting stuff and it only matters for this narrow band of people, right? Right and it makes the rest of the whole 15 million people freak out. So Anyway, it was a little bit of a freak out for nothing, but I mean for those that had flooding I hope you're doing okay. Yeah, nothing here. It was just just wet Yeah, I mean la the basin and the valley has the most incredible flood control ever You know, so it's not really a problem for for us directly But the mountains and the areas and the deserts really that's where it gets scary. So yeah, we hope everybody's safe Apparently it wasn't too bad and then and then in the middle of that and I kept thinking, you know What's good, you know, what would be worse is having an earthquake in the middle of this? What happens? We get a 5.1 earthquake in the middle of the day I was like, well, it can't it can't have a we can't have a fire So we pull that one out. So we'll have an earthquake instead. So many typed in the comments locusts No No ratings. We're safe. Yes. Alrighty. Anyway, we have a great guest tonight One of our favorite people Elaine Clark has spent over 40 years in the communication industry Almost as many as me as a coach director Audio engineer producer casting director actor author app creator Podcaster curriculum developer and business owner and I did that in one breath from 1986 when Elaine founded the voice one in san francisco she sold it The voiceover and acting school in 2019 and Elaine has continued her quest for better speech communication And she's proud to have trained and launched the careers of over 5 000 voice actors Oh, you're the one huh from her trademark making it mine method quickly to incorporate subtext to specific use of body and gestures to achieve desired results Joining us from the big area the one and only Elaine Clark. Hi Elaine. Hi How are you doing? I'm doing great. We didn't have earthquakes. We had 10 minutes of uh, light rain Oh, well, that's nothing new in san francisco is in this, you know, but here it's In the middle of august it seemed like January only warmer It was just kind of weird Anyway, so welcome to the show once again. You haven't been with us for a while, but uh, we're glad to have you with us You know, I start with my standard question. How more importantly, why did you get into voiceover? Well, I was a theater major in college and I also uh, I got a degree in education And I was in plays and I was also a newlywed and we're still married after all these years and yay um But we've uh, but he was like, uh, am I ever going to see you because when you're in a play You're gone for like three or four months in rehearsals and shows and then someone told me about voice over So I studied it. This was in 1980 And also and then I put together reel to reel went out there started getting work I didn't take and it didn't take long because as an established actor The transisting to voice over is actually a little a lot easier Well, it was it was a bit of a challenge because I I uh moved from louisiana So I had a had a louisiana accent Um and my and I was younger my voice was a little bit higher with the accent So I had to work on it a bit, but I had a lot of like teenage stuff that I would do You know for spots Cool So I so how long did it take you started? Let's see if you started in 1980 You started a voiceover centered acting school in 1986. What prompted you to do that? You can only do so many lunches and coffees So at the time uh pick your brain Yeah Exactly So at the time there were only like 50 voice actors in san francisco. And so, uh, how did you get in? What did you do what's going on? And so I I just sort of naturally with my education background I thought well, you know, maybe I should start a school went into this Discussing director's office. They had an empty space in their office and I said, hey Do you want to rent that and I went okay? And that's how I started a school There you go. How many students did you start with? Oh, I don't know. Um A dozen or so and then it kind of grew from there So that I would have You know around 250 students a year not all of them would go Some of were were ones that were taking multiple classes that had come in from the year before So it just kind of progressed Yeah, so yeah now in 1995 we'll we'll go ahead of nine years or jump ahead. Okay You write the first voiceover training book in 1995 there's money where your mouth is And it's now in its fourth edition and it's got a different cover now Yeah, this one keeps changing covers. Yeah So well this one is uh, yes so I um It was funny because I thought, you know, I know a lot of stuff. I was directing video games Narration I was I had worked in an advertising agency I had was a media buyer prior to this as I was getting my my voiceover career going I thought, um, you know, I'm going to write a book on voiceover because there isn't a training book out there Um that I am going uh, and I that way people will leave me alone and I'll just be an actor So I uh, I was talking to to someone and said, hey, here's the the direct line on For the guy who's who's the publisher over at random house. Here's his direct phone number. So I called him up Talked to him. He said, uh, write a proposal. I wrote a proposal two weeks later. I had a contract and that's how I got the book Outstanding. Yeah, how did you structure this book and what makes it unique? I mean one of the things I about Books about voiceover is unless you hear it. It's you're you're just describing stuff How did you how did you format it make that work? Well, this is um Well, it's it you can tell the difference in and size, you know from where it's where it started to the Uh, to where it's become but it's I have a lot of techniques So that I've worked on over the years and the techniques are Uh, how to put it in your body how to move how to how to interpret the script Because you know learning the voiceover business people would go that's great, but you had no idea what you did So I had to figure it out for myself So uh, so the first part is about technique The second part is about application to a whole series of different types of scripts And the third part is about marketing and then in the midst of it that I have people that I've interviewed Whether it's bob bergen or a dave finnoy They're just a ton of people that that are out there In their different areas of expertise So that they would say what kind of microphone they use what their setup is here's some here's some Advice so it's really very very thorough So I just wanted to Give what I had inside me and say here. This is it and people say I should create an audiobook of it No, it's too much. I did something else instead. I created a podcast Yeah, so early on in the podcasting days, how long have you been doing? Well, I wouldn't say that was early on so the what happened then I changed publishers and I went uh to to the one that I currently have um and And this is at all worth press and then they had a meeting and this is like in 2018 and said we uh Your name came up And so we want you to write a book about uh called voiceovers for podcasting I said, okay And then I wrote a proposal they sent it to me They said, you know sit me in advance and then uh, that's when I I came up with the idea for this So what I did, this is so funny. I was holding it up with one of my one of my old cassettes cats. Yeah, look I forgot that I put that behind Did Yeah, that's that's where I was it real to real prior to that. So anyway, that's a a glimpse at a past thing. That's funny. Um That was unintentional the uh, so anyway, so I thought well, let me take it from my advertising background And one of the things as a media buyer we had to work on uh, horizontal versus vertical Formats and how do you do advertisements within that format? Like news talk is vertical because they're different people talking and it could have sports in there But uh, but uh music station is horizontal. It plays different music but within that same genre So I thought well, this is something that people should know when they're setting up their their podcast how to establish it And also I thought well, you know, if I was going to get into it I want to know what's easiest if it's from one person to a dozen people or a team So I just went through the various styles Of podcasts and said here's the positive thing that you can get out of it and here's the negative That way people can then figure out what to do So but uh, that was with like a 100 hours of research and and stuff to go along with that Yeah, and and then there were those of us who were in broadcasting or public service directors Who do those saturday morning and sunday morning shows that were on at 5 30 Which was essentially podcasting. It's like intro body outro boom Absolutely, and that's why I was coming from the same background. I had my class three, you know radio dj license back in college and would put on a long song if I saw saw my friends and You know that I wanted to hang out with for a few minutes and then come back, you know, and it got a divita was great Um But what we referred to as a crapper Okay, there you go So after I wrote the book people kept saying well, where's your podcast and that's why I thought well, I'll um Uh, I'll create real talking tips and that way people can see What I'm suggesting in both of the books Uh, so that they can uh, and I use the educational background that I have to say here's the problem Here's how you solve the problem. Now. Here's your homework Now i'm not saying hard homework, but just something as a takeaway and you can hear it, of course as a regular format at audio, but you can go to my website and and uh, get the Get the whole visual of it or go to the youtube site to see it as well But it's like because I know that people learn Um Auditorially visually uh and kinesthetically so I try to put all of those things together All right, once again, we're talking with elaine clark and we're talking about voiceover technique and podcasting technique and all the things that she teaches if you have a question for her about any of this stuff throw it in the chat room right now And jeff holman will get that question to us and we'll get to it in our next segment So I think that's a elaine is the one person you should really be asking all these questions to so Okay, so along with that You've created two Not one or two or three, but two voice diction and speaking apps Activate your voice and adding melody to your voice Tell us about those and and how they benefit a voice actor. Well, everything I do is I I see a problem and I try to solve it as efficiently as possible and And the activate your voice is a 99 cent app. That's uh five minute speech addiction because I realized that people had poor diction They needed and needed more residents Resonance and they also needed to work on uh keeping their volume going all the way through to the end Uh of their phrase Right and then you have to fix it and their technical issues which you two might know something about so, uh, anyway, so that's how I created that and then um And I realized that my signature really as a coach is about how to embody things So it's like I I try to take things out of people's heads You know, there's a basic amount of information that you have to know But it's really when you put it in your body that you understand it and we make movements all the time But no don't really think about it because it's just part of who we are So I broke down all these movements and then I uh, so I have an interactive app app that's uh adding melody to your voice so that you can play around with You know, what is a dot? What is an arrow up? What is a carrot up? What's a carrot down? What's a wiggle wobble? You know, what are the different? How do you stretch out a word? So then they're they can record themselves. Yes What is a wiggle wobble a wiggle wobble? It's like jazz hands Oh, it's like whoa It's like wow, you know, so it just wiggles. I mean, that's a technical term wiggle wobble But jazz hands is really more accepted All right, that's just hunky dory. Um, is that a technical term too? Yes hunky dory. Absolutely Along with a number of other terms, um So yeah, give us give us another example of that I mean because people are you know, they're always marking their scripts or at least they're supposed to And uh, what what are what are some of the tips you give people for you know making sure that they do those things Well, it's about how to take direction quickly or how to make how to solve a problem quickly So, uh, and I would just see people write on a script going slow down on this word Well, by the time you read that you know, you're past it. Yeah, you're way past it So and if uh, uh, if you're given direction and they say can you just make that real short or real long or make give it some Emphasis or whatever it is. There are just ways that you can just put a dot or wiggle or an arrow up Yeah, so if you're gonna I'm gonna set something up so I can arrow it down to finish that thought I'm going to stretch it out and then I'm going to speed up around it and then it's going to be smooth But then that needs to be shaky. So the thing is we don't want to be the same otherwise, that's boring so When we're reading most people get into what's called reading conditioning What's all sounds the same and it's very metered, but we all talk Um most sentences with three different tempos So it's also about how do you put it in your body using your right hand your left hand and two hands together Where do you put it in the power box? A lot of this is broken down in the real talking tips I have some in the app. So it's like every time I realized that people needed something else. I just created it So, I mean that the uh adding the adding melody to your voice is just 999 and you know Apple and Google play take most of it, you know, so you know a little bit comes my way But it's I didn't do it for the money I did it because people needed it and the app and real talking tips is So there's a lot of information or ways to practice at home So um, so that which is the most important thing is you can read all about this stuff But if you unless you practice it, it's just you're just reading it Yeah, but how see how how many different movements that you have right there I would then take those the shrug of the shoulder and the stretching out the hands And though there's I think that was a wick of wobble. So anyway So how do you take that and just say it within you within everyone's Way of performing. How do you interpret those little markings? So that it has so that it has a smoothness and a variety to how you're reading something Right. Once again, we're talking with Elaine Clark You've got a question for throw it in the chat room because I'm sure you all have questions after she's talking about all this stuff Now you we know you coach voice actors and we've been talking a little bit about podcasters but you also coach business professionals and teach them how to Speak better because I've seen some people get on some of those political talk shows or business talk shows and go. Why did they put this person on? That sort of thing How do you how do you teach them? Well, it's all about communication but with different scripts That's really what it's about so and different purposes and um, so with um, so what if I'm working with a business executive They're usually going to some sort of event or being interviewed or doing a presentation They want to make sure that x happens in a particular way. So then Uh, I watch usually watch them for uh, do their thing and then add Comments of how to correct it and then how to get feel comfortable when you're doing it Some people are getting ready for ted talk. Some people are Going on being interviewed for a product that they've um that they've created or service that they have That they're going to go on a junket. So I help them with how to succinctly talk about what They're they're called to action is or what their main thought is because especially when someone's in business They have so much stuff that they know It's easy to go on a gazillion tangents and then people just know that you have a lot of stuff But they don't know why you're actually Talking so it's just so part of that is just shaving off what they're saying All right Notice how I just shaved off right there. Yeah, explain what you mean by shaved off. I'm like Yeah, well, it's not how do you stop stop talking and don't make it Constant so you have to make it. That's how the interaction happens I know a couple of people that could learn that Take a breath Finish your thoughts stop. Let somebody else say something. Yeah, and when you start editing That's when you realize man. Oh, those little breaks are great Yes, they sure are Just like articulators are great for editing So the t's the d's the k's, you know, so if you leave them off, you don't have as easy an edit So that's why you know, I just Some of the exercise exercises like tata tata tata tata or in the the app Ah, all right. What's the name of the app again? The activate your voice And the other one is adding melody to your voice I recommend those to anybody who is learning how to do voiceover or has been doing it For 40 years like I have people that say they do they work on those right before any meeting before any recording So it becomes sort of like they're they're centering Mm-hmm Now you're also a featured instructor in terry nicole's voiceover e-learning accelerator course How did that come about? Hey, you're doing everything. Well, I get connected. Well, I was um Everett oliver was was coaching terry and said, you know who you should go with he said because uh, he said go to go to elaine I'm uh, I'm called the reprogrammer So I take people out of their head and put them in their body and figure out not that she was but it's just like Let's reprogram. We just hit it off because she came from an education background She got then she got a mfa in it. So it's like, well, we are way ahead of me You're using bigger words, but uh, you know, I just got it got an additional degree So, uh, anyway, so we started talking and then she started talking about e-learning and I've I've worked on at least a thousand e-learnings over the course of time Either either recording it at performing it casting it Engineering it something, you know directing it. So the whole thing for for years Since the beginning of dial-up, you know, we had to wait for it to come out Yeah, it took a while to get there, but we actually could hear it. So she started talking about this, um voiceover e-learning accelerator And then wanted me to provide some content and that's where I add Added the melody section to it and some other other parts to it. It's a really really good You know self-guided program that you can just you can get um That's to to Anyway, she just did a fabulous job putting it together and I'm really pleased to be part of it Alrighty once again, we're talking with Elaine Clark. Got a question throw it in the chat room We will get to those in just a couple of minutes Now you also have a connection in Bristol, England teaching video game acting classes for brava uk How did you get there? I mean you're you're working with everybody It's all about relationships You know So, I mean the one reason why George and I are friends is because we were the only ones left after a veal atlanta thing And then we just looked at each other and said our plane's not leaving for a long time Went to a restaurant and had some drinks and that's when we became friends It was really just because we looked at the whole hotel was empty. So that's when it all happened So that was so it's really about building relationships and uh, so she was in san francisco And took some classes with me and then we started I thought well, she's like the british version of me in a way So she went back to england and was uh used her demos that that I you know, because I I produced demos I produced them for her and it was getting her tons of work But she was already had been in radio for a long time and had a lot of experience And she said I think about starting going to start a voiceover school So just prepare yourself, you know, I had mine for 32 years It's going to be a lot of you got to set your set your time limits because it can be a lot so Anyway, so she she does everything really classy. So I um, I'm not sure whether you know that I've you know I've worked on like 85 video games either as a director casting producing engineering ads and I've uh, and I directed the original American version of jojo's bizarre adventure and a few other anime and some some cartoons So I thought well, I'll just do the character So I'm ahead of the character track. So I just wrote a script And then we go in and and we record it over in their studio And bristle, which is really fun. And then I of course do zoom classes, which which is fun Because it's uh morning in the u.s. And it's evening for them, which I like Yeah, it's always always fun doing stuff in Mumbai. Can you can you can you do it at you know at six in the morning? Like do you want me to be coherent? And it's late at night for them and they've been doing it all day and they're like, you know, they're hardly coherent either Yeah, well one of the things about me not to cut you off, but um, sorry, um, but it was uh I I like to find patterns in what what is there So I have I've been teaching character stuff and directing it for years and years for decades So what I do is and when I teach it is just I do you learn this and then with that and then with that And then you build it because also having an education degree A lot of people just do a dump of information and it's really hard for the actor to Filter through all of that and needs a needs a program in order to to get there And I think that most everyone when they start teaching they just say i'm so excited I have so much stuff and then it just is there And so over a course of time it just it just sort of changes Yeah, you got to chunk that stuff down You can't yeah, you can't like aim a fire hose of information to people and expect them to know that All right now. This is fascinating. I'm I'm going to list off a bunch of your skills And let me know if I left anything off. Let's see entrepreneur business owner educator coach actor author Audio engineer app creator podcaster who's worked in some capacity or another in commercials e-learning museums museum tours video games anime cartoons toys film looping film acting And apps did I leave out anything? um Yeah, um audio books is one So I I work with some of the the major Publishing companies and record famous people in my studio and also sometimes I record myself I'm currently working on a really good reading. I'm narrating a really cool Book about art right now. So anyway, so, uh, that's I'll give you a little little tidbit of information. So in the 1960s uh, well 1964 the um They're uh, they had the new york world's fair and they wanted to bring in A huge statue that was at the vatican And so they put it on a u.s. Nuclear sub I remember seeing you it was the pieta Yes, but can you believe that that is crazy. Anyway, so I'm just I I just love history and I love Hearing about all that stuff. So anyway, that's one on the other is I'm a playwright. I've written a few plays have been produced. I'm working with a Really good producer right now. So we hope to get the get this comedy up and going next year We had some fits and starch. You might have heard of the pandemic That was kind of giving a Camilla problems in the theater World but uh, anyway, so the goal is to try to get it out there for the world to see because it's really pretty funny All right Once again, we're talking with elaine clark got a question through it in the chat room We're going to take a break right now and we're going to get to your questions right after that So don't go away. We'll be right back on voiceover body shop This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voiceover body shop Setting up for voiceover recording on the road can be a real hassle You can't bring your boomstand with you the solution After six long months harlin hogan's voiceover essentials dot com finally has their popular desktop stand back in stock The harlin hogan adjustable height desktop stand fits us and all international microphones with its thread adapter It features quick assembly and has a low center of gravity for great stability Making it great for home and on the road The two-way adjustable desk stand gives you infinite height adjustment from five and a half to eight and three quarter inches And the rubber rings low profile base fits perfectly into the pre-cut desk stand slot of both the portabouth pro and plus They're back and they're keeping the pre shortage price Damn inflation has become their motto the harlin hogan adjustable height desktop mic stand just 39.95 And only at voiceover essentials dot com And now's the time on the show where I talked about our sponsor source elements the creators of source connect And i've seen a new version It's less and less vaporware all the time. There's a source connect four on the horizon The alpha tested version is starting to get out into the testing community and I got to give it a run through on friday and it's a really nice design and more importantly it's More actor friendly, which is what I think a lot of us are waiting for something. That's a little more just actor Friendly more easy to use. Hey, what's up roland? Roland wants to sit here where I'm doing my spot. So I'm going to be moving here in a second um, and uh, so they're uh, got an incredible product coming on the horizon in the meantime Source connect 3.9 is your friend get set up start learning how to use it and get familiar with it because it's a tool That's going to make your go to the next level in your business Anyway, thanks again source elements. Let's get on to the next spot so we can get to those questions right after this And oh, hey, uh, I am about to shoot uh, the fourth Of five lessons in this year's big ol course that i'm giving away for free called getting started in vo thriving in the ai world where we meet What it takes to get into the world of voiceover what it takes to be better at voiceover With the incursion of artificial intelligence and maybe some things that you can take advantage of in terms of artificial intelligence as well So, uh, we're in the midst of it's been a banger We're in midst of five lessons all free If you go to voheroes.com go you'll get those lessons And it will culminate with the opportunity to join as a voheroes pro at a very special price with some very special bonuses But first take the free class. Just go to voheroes.com Slash go that's voheroes.com slash go and i'll see you for all five lessons And let's see what happens with your vo career This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham vobs.tv And we're back george is moving his location because they're kicking him out of in the booth. He was He'll return shortly. Anyway, let's get into some of the audience questions of which we have a large amount of Starting with terry brisco Elaine, what is the most common mistake you see with new voice actors? thinking thinking it's all about the voice and not about the message So really it's out. We are a vehicle for presenting our clients information to them and also Using the rhetorical triangle Properly, which is ethos logos and pathos so that you have you have your authority your logic and your emotion That's equally balanced and a lot of people that are starting will do too much of one It'll be you know, you're talking happy about something that is just logical And there's another one that's you know, that will just say logic logic logic logic It means you don't feel anything and then with the authority Um, I mean one of the things I struggled with at first with the word authority I kept thinking of my high school principal Bounding down the hallway when someone had done something bad. So when I heard I saw the word authority I would just think I had to kind of bristle But an authority is someone who who knows it so well that it looks like it's nothing and so That's a really hard thing. That's that most people overlook And there are a lot of tells When I hear someone that they are not the authority and therefore not bookable Excellent now part two of that What techniques or skills did you learn or develop that you've moved on from over the years? What what what is you know, were you working on and doing and they're like Eh, maybe this doesn't work anymore or never really worked But there's some things that that you've you've you've to moved on from Well, I think it's the biggest one for the first Uh, I think eight or nine years that I was teaching I gave a lot of intellectual Direction, how do you do things? This is how you break down the script. This is what you want to do Here's the stuff. Let's go ahead and study and people became really book smart But I realized that it got locked in their head and that's why my biggest change Happened when I said, okay, how can we do less with the book smarts and more with the body? So I started using the body first and how to How to how to feel and and commit and get that, you know Get the authority stand a different way use use that away and that's um And also I developed a program called making it mine that I trademarked That's a different way of looking at motivation the moment before Intentions that are actions the need that's the through line and e that uh stands for emotions. So by uh integrating the techniques And they're in the book There's money where your mouth is and also in the podcast and also the subtext Working on that then if you have that, you know, a lot of the script stuff, uh, the script analysis It's useful, but it's really only about 10 of the job. The rest of it is what do you do with it? And I think that it was flipped at first when I was teaching Yeah, make you make in other words you became more organic with with how you got people to do stuff And what works what works within, you know, your particular parameters and your voice and how you talk You know, I I find that a lot of people who get into coaching, you know after you know doing voice over for a year or two Uh or have been doing it for centuries They tend to try to create people in their own image and that's that's not the the idea you've got to you've got to find What is individual what is unique about that individual and how does that work for them? Well, it's interesting also I think uh, I used to have things really planned out what I was going to do and how I was going to teach it But then I realized when I had my general idea of what I was going to do, but gave it some freedom That that was a better way of teaching So I often just listen to what someone's doing. I try to find and see if if uh, if they have a pattern That is causing the problem and then identify it and work on waste it to To break it open. I we have song in the background now. This is getting so Fun joined we can hear you know, he's having a great time. I had to gain at minimum on my mic, by the way No, it's okay. I was just enjoying it. I just sort of went off on a tangent there just listening Like of all the locations there's a stage right over here. There's sound checking You know, we don't get ad dollars on youtube. We don't have to worry about copyright strikes, you know Sorry about that Well, and I think one of the other things is you know, I produce a lot of demos and then and being a writer I also um I I always work with someone to come up with original scripts And I would just I give them an assignment We write something together and so that everything is new and it's really funny because sometimes people will look Uh, and then they'll uh, I know some some radio stations would call me up and said I didn't know this particular company was doing ads How did you how did you do that? And I go? Oh, I I just they used that product and I just made it up So they were like, oh dang. I thought I had a sale there So but that's good. I think I want it to be original I want it to be interesting and I want it to reflect the person's personality and that goes back to I don't want them to be me now. I want them to be them And that's and I think that's a hard thing for for a lot of coaches because you hear your voice Rattling around in your head and sometimes I have to hear myself directing that way And I have to take a step back and go, whoa, hold on It's better their way Because I couldn't do it that way and get away with it, but it really works for them Alrighty, we're answering questions from our humongous worldwide audience George Ramos or Justin Ramos has a question George. Why don't you take that one? That's a two-part now that it's quiet I can do that. Um, Justin Ramos from uh, youtube Chyman and saying there's a two-parter for Elaine. Do you have a recommendation for vo schools in the bay? Obviously voice tracks sf or voice one There's some obvious choices, but uh, what do you recommend? Well, I don't think that you have to limit yourself to the city that you're in I mean, I don't have any connection with the school that I started right, you know any more and so it's uh And I don't have a connection really with with voice tracks um because so I don't Um, I I'm not paying attention to really what they're doing at this moment. So I I mean I coach people Uh there I send them to other people who are you know, uh that they can work with on zoom So but if they want that, you know, they want to go there to either though that those that's fine Yeah, and the second part of it is uh, do you recommend any coaches for video game voice acting? Um when she is just so booked for example, so if you're too busy Like I'm too busy. Yeah, like who else to go to for voice for video game voice coaching Um, I think that uh ever ever at all of all of her is really good and also Dave Finoy, but some of them will uh I think that you need to do your research get your foundation what I find is that Well, you know, if you if you have the right Director you have the right coach. It won't take long if it's A not not a good fit You're gonna feel it and it just takes too long and it doesn't matter who it is I mean, that's that's the thing and you have to figure out what's What's working for you? So I have a you know, I have a system That I work through and it just because I have everything listed doesn't mean I do that every single day I don't go let me start at the top and work through everything and I'm gonna write six plays today It's like it's this combination. I've been in the business for 40 years. It just it just You know happens. So and I tried to uh, that was one of the reasons why I sold the school because I was I was directing and producing and acting during the day And then I had classes on the on the evenings and weekends. I said if I keep doing this, it's gonna kill me So I I thought well, what do I want? I want the day work So that doesn't mean I don't work sometimes on the weekend But they're usually my projects or something like that But I limit my evenings and weekends now and my family loves that They actually are seeing me sometimes Which is nice Sort of a follow-up to that What's the difference between coaching somebody for video games as opposed to just doing Commercials or e-learning or something or even that or like even animation which may seem related to video games But it's quite different. Yeah. Well, I think that you have a basic foundation of technique So, uh, and then when you have the technique down Then it's about styles, but you got to then know how to twist those styles When uh, what was really nice about living in the Bay Area is that we started out with a small commercial business And then Silicon Valley came in and then the corporate stuff took off And then the the video game business came in and we worked on the video games And I worked on a lot of toys and the toy business was going really big and so I was able to grow When when the business was growing So now when people come in they're just, you know thrown into it So I think you have to figure out whether or not you are You can learn a whole bunch of things or you just get muddy because I remember You know when I was just going from a commercial to a to a video game I would be too big for the commercial and I wasn't big enough for um for the video game because I would get it got it all muddy in my head What do I need to do stylistically? Technically it was correct So that's that's the big difference. So you have to figure out what you can handle and that's an individual answer Right because because sometimes the video games could be, you know, lots of guttural stuff lots of And and stuff that wears people's voices out and stuff and Right, you know, and sometimes I'll ask you to be several different characters and I'll come back and say well It sort of sounds like you. How do you differentiate characters and stuff? What's what's some of the techniques you use? You know, one of the things is it Everyone has a different vocabulary And knowing what the specs mean means something slightly different to everybody And so after a while you got to figure out what is that what does that mean is is introspective just going I wonder what's going on or is it? Hmm. I wonder what's going on You know, what does that mean? You know, and that then becomes the the choice Of uh of the team that's working on that project so, um I don't know if I answered that but I think you have to then figure out what is too big or too small But this is where I have something is in my real talking tips podcast about how to How to use the power box? So if I have the the power box being If I have something very small and I have to talk about it very small I'm going to have small movements that are right here But now if I want to get bigger my movement's going to be bigger and it must be bigger My body's going to get bigger So I don't have to think about that at all My body's telling me what to do if I get closer to the microphone or if I get further away It kind of knows what to do because it's an ear Right physicality. Yep. I think some people forget that physicality is an important part of voiceover You you've got to be able to gesticulate and have room and not bang into your your microphones Yeah, and ergonomics is super important in your studio and your booth because you need to be able to do that And have your script at the right place so many times people have the script and Oh, I just read it from my phone or I hold it on a piece of paper. It's like no It's like everything the script is everything. It's got to be like right where you can see it and So physicality is a big deal Yes, because that's how you create your 3d world that you're speaking in So you got to know where everything's located. You need to know what your perspective is in it and that's where you know They're just And it's and it it incrementally gets in the body You can't just say tomorrow. I'm gonna be great We we say that it doesn't always happen. Yeah It has its own it has its own schedule Well, lots of praise from our viewers here a jb voice actor says, hey, elaine. I just bought your book from google books Yay, thank you. It doesn't say which book maybe all of them. But the whole just all of them. Yeah, there you go Tracy ral says I took a couple of workshops from elaine at her studios about 2001 or so her teaching helped me gain agency representation. Nice to see her here Nice to see you fiber jazz says, uh I don't even have a mic yet and i'm already I already want to hire I don't know if they mean they want to get hired Or hire. I think they they want to hire elaine. They're so excited. They didn't uh, yeah I'm nervous with all the emphasis that I hear about conversational style. My normal speech Is quite animated. Am I in trouble? Ah So it's a matter of of your range that goes back to the power box So if you're very animated and they want it very condensed You have to bring it down So it's like if if you take If you take your hands and you put tension on it as you making it smaller You're actually engaging more of the muscles in the core So that's how you can bring it down And then when you're going you're making it really big you're a lot of times It's you know looser muscles and you know kind of like whoo like doing the way whoo I didn't use really use any muscles unless you're playing a character that's got some grit You know, so it's really what I always do when I'm finding a character Is what's the core location of the character? And how can I build from there? so that's Anyway, it's it's just how to how to how to do that Well, he's saying, you know, he's he's I'm nervous with all the emphasis that I hear about conversational style There are some people that just You know, they'll send me a demo or so I can hear their audio and I'm like, oh my god They're just over the top trying to be an announcer Thinking that that's what voiceover is and they're you know, probably, you know 50 years behind the times there. How do you get people someone to get out of that that announcer sort of You know, mindset it's the imagination You have to imagine where you are what you're doing Why you're talking? What's your purpose? So we all have walked into a room and been either been too loud and realized it was inappropriate You know, it doesn't mean that you were not genuine to yourself But it just meant that it was inappropriate. So you got to figure out the application And I think that that's why Doing some research and knowing what the styles are and how they're going to be used and how you're solving someone else's problem And then you're just offering the suggestion That's what you're doing rather than trying to get the next voiceover job and making your voice sound lovely Yeah, that's not that's not conversational Now exactly but a lot of people keep doing that which is why Most people are trying to be in voiceover and some people are Swinging and doing it swing and miss swing and miss Alrighty great question. Yeah, great question here says voiceover requires constantly altering Slash manipulating emotional state to effectively emote That's quite a sentence right there I don't even know I understand that. Okay. Okay. Well, can this impact one's emotional mental health stability in life? Okay, well now that's that's like a major acting question Right for some people. Yes, I think if you're in commercials Um We are happy And that's why I think one reason why the voiceover people community are very happy people because you have to You have to you go like, oh no, I have an highway, but it's fixed It's really it's very if you get into video games that can be more intense So if there's a mental health issue dealing with a certain kind of game and a certain kind of character say no You know, but if but for commercials and narrations typically You don't really have A lot of those a lot of those issues Um, you know just because it's just you have an hour you fix it Everything it's all better. It's all about the simplicity. You always have to show the pain point Just like with any business going back to the question about how do business execs I have to recognize what their pain point is and then um Work on get I'm getting rid of that pain uh identifying it getting rid of it and then having a solution at the end That's everything that we pick up So even george was talking earlier the pain point was with actors with source connect going How do I use it and you're going like some of the pain points about to go away? Yeah, so that it becomes more actor friendly friendly and then we go whoa Yeah, that's what we're looking for friendliness and I think I think people I think he's wondering if he's going to become like nicholas cage because I think everybody thinks of nicholas cage As being the character nicholas cage In real life because all they ever see of nicholas cage is on movies, right? Even did that film where he plays himself In real life as an actor, which is hilarious. It's so great. I like that You know, so I think there's a concern of that happening But certainly being an act. I mean, I'm not an actor at all like I have no training and I don't act but Doing the show hosting this Being on having to sound uh articulate string some words together improvise a spot for source connect for six years Um all that kind of stuff that's all skill that's built over time And it does bleed into real life because then when you're in it, I feel that I find personally That it's easier for me now to be in a mixed situation sitting down for dinner or lunch with people. I don't really know and I can Maybe sometimes I have to dial it back and not be on and feel like I'm hosting Um, but I feel more comfortable and it's because of doing this Year after year after year So hopefully whatever you get out of this training and practice of and craft of acting and voiceover Oh will always end up being a net Positive to you in your personal life. Not a not a negative at all. That's why it all comes down to communication I don't really call myself a voiceover coach as much as a communication coach because it it goes through the whole You know your whole life. So I would tell people like as you learn voiceovers How you relate to people is very very similar because it's not The art of advertising is never to demand but to suggest And so when you suggest change to someone they're more likely to take it to make that change than when you demand it And so all of a sudden you start doing enough of this and your regular day job It starts seeping into your your personal life Yeah, so All right, I think that's a positive. Yeah. Well, link. Thanks so much for joining us tonight. We really appreciate it But I almost forgot you also have an informative newsletter That george and I were actually featured in this month. We're seeing that and going. Oh, there's my name somewhere other than you know I'm in my mailbox How can people sign up for it? Yeah, they can just go to this right there. Well, that's the newsletter one the other one that they just put contact But if you can just go to the elaine clark of eo.com. There you go Um website. I have a lot of information. It tells a lot about my background, you know, uh, about You know, I just uh has the podcast it has the newsletters. It has uh events all sorts of things I'll even might even put this on my website too. You're gonna be all over the place Well, you've just made an appearance so that belongs in your media and appearances Absolutely All right, you need some sleep elaine. It's clear that you're just you're doing this 24 hours a day Thanks so much for being with us. It's always a pleasure to see you no matter where but it's great having you on our show tonight You too. We could just talk forever We can wonderful and thank you so much for inviting me to on your show Alrighty All right. Well george and I'll be right back to wrap things up and get ready for tech talk Right after these important messages that don't go away just yet You're still watching vlbs Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions Bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books auditioning home studio setup and equipment Marketing performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voiceover success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports. It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voiceover xtra.com Well, guess what? It's time to talk about voice actor dot com. Yeah, it's a pretty simple website name But what they do is websites for voice actors make sense And it's real real easy to be a voice actor dot com All you have to do is go over there and you'll get your website set up Like that because that's the whole idea It shouldn't be a pain in the butt to get your your website together if you are a voice actor You absolutely positively Have to have a website and if you go over to voice actor dot com All you have to do is go in there pick a template You can change the colors add pictures do all this stuff It's incredibly user-friendly And you'll be able to get your website up and running In no time and you can start off for free And actually have your website on on the internet, which is where websites are supposed to go Uh, and then it's 20 a month you get Even more features with that But if you have to have a website, what you absolutely have to do is a voice actor go over to voiceactor.com and that'll make things a lot easier for you for getting online. Thanks voice actor dot com We'll be right back after this important message We are the world voices organization Also known as wobo. We're the not-for-profit industry association of freelance voice talent voice over is a complex entrepreneurial business Wovo is there to promote the professional nature of voice work to the public to those already established in their voiceover practice And to those who want to pursue voice over as a career Membership benefits include a supportive and creative community a profile and demos on voiceover.biz Our searchable directory of vetted professional voice talent our exclusive demo player for your personal website our mentoring program Business resources and our video library our annual wovo con conference a fun and educational weekend with other members With the chance to learn and network webinars and great speakers and weekly social chats with other members around the world If your world is voiceover make wovo part of it world voices organization. We speak for those who speak for a living Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky the voice of Rocco, and you're watching voiceover body shop Yeah, you are and George and I are still here and thanks again to a lean clerk one question there Is her app available? for android Yeah, we she says it hasn't shown up, but she says that it is we got the thumbs up on that So I don't know why somebody couldn't find it, but uh look on the google play store for that All right. Well, thanks again to Elaine for joining us She's always a delight to talk to and has a lot to talk about which is pretty amazing Next week on this very show or if you're hanging out with us live right now And I see a pile of you out there watching the show live Stay with us. We're going to do tech talk live in just a couple of minutes And uh, you know it's for next week, but you get to watch it live and you get to ask your question So that's really important being here live as it's privileges. That's right. It'll be tech talk 109 next week Uh, George, you've got discounts and services for people Yep, we've got the landing page if you go over to georged.tech slash v obs Anything we've got to promote to you guys like our 10% off coupon code is right there So go check it out if you want to get a discount. It's amazing how many sales come in that don't have a discount applied when I've got probably 30 coupon codes floating around at this point So there's always one, you know to be found, but that's the one for us. That's v obs fan 10 Is our current coupon code Alrighty and if you like this show, which apparently a bunch of you do because we've only been doing it 12 years Uh, you can donate to the show to maintain the Amazing technical quality that we have become that everybody's become used to no longer Is it every week? It's apollo 13 like it was 10 years ago, but you're not allowed to do that until you make a plug For jeff's imdb page. Oh, I just noticed that in the tech talk area. We didn't put it in this one Oh, there it is. You want to find our our man jeff holman in the chat room go to imdb.com Slash jeff holman go hire the man. He seems to know what he's doing on camera Yeah, just a great character. He's a pro. He is We need to thank our donors of the week because they have helped us to maintain this technical amazingness like greg cooper Oh, thanks greg grace newton christopher epperson robert ledham steven chandler crazy clock crazy clock crazy crazy cracker Casey clock that is joneson grant thomas pinto greg thomas a doctor voice ant land productions martha con 949 designs sarah borges phillips apyr brian page rob rider shawna pennington baird don griffith tree moseley diana birdsall and maria macchis And sandra mantler. I just wanted to get that last and you want to get the and in there? Okay, you can join our mailing list by the way and uh, just go to our web page v obs dot tv And there's a little thing there's a sign up for our mailing list and you'll get to know what's going on We need to thank our sponsors as well. Harlan hogan's voiceover essentials Oh, we also have hara voiceover extra good sarah salamance v o heroes dot com voice actor dot com and world voices dot org the industry association of freelance voice talent Wow Yes, we also need to thank jeff holman throw the imdb thing up there again and uh, so we can Because jeff runs our chat room and and he's doing a great job with that Uh, Sumer lino for being an amazing director and making sure that everything is there when it needs to be there And lee pinney just because he's he's lee pinney Uh, well, it's stay tuned for tech talk right now. You know, this is not an easy business You've got so many things you've got to learn you can listen to people like Elaine clark and some of the other great people we have on this show telling you what this business is all about But when it comes to your audio, we've just come to the conclusion if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan lennard and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vo b s Stay tuned for tech talk Everybody can see how cool it looks Yeah, because I got a hub, but it's all a ports. Thanks elaine. Thank you adapter All right, you can you can just go I can go Okay, i'll email it. I gotta talk to you about some other stuff too. All right, the hubs are a ports these days No, thank you. Well, you have a great time All righty. Oh, I need to anything to get out of here Uh, I can I can just remove you but i'm like I can kick you from the studio But I could ban you as well, but I think i'll just I don't know All right, all right, i'm gonna switch cameras. I'm gonna go to my wide camera. Okay All right, everybody stick around right now We're just uh re-racking it for tech talk if you've got a tech question for us throw it in the chat room Whether you're watching on facebook or wherever it is that you're watching from Uh No, that's there you go. There's your other kid. Is that your phone now? Yeah, it's my phone Oh, okay. This is the noisy booth. That's next to me. That's been being constructed the whole time Yeah, every time he backs up we're gonna get Yeah, this is this is serious xm money right here. That's what you're looking at. That's oh, okay They they heard about podcasting Yes, I yeah, I mean they've they've got a studio that runs podcasting stuff for them Yeah, they're a good deal. They are you know, and I do a lot of work for serious. So that was really nice All right, we're gonna get a demo here live with ryan from road. So that's a special treat Yeah, excellent. We're gonna plug in a roadcaster duo Right into a power bank. So we can actually show it light up in real time. We'll we'll turn it on that you guys see All right. Well, we have no idea how we're gonna format this but We'll wing it because that's what we do. This is gonna be the tech talk segment. So yeah And then well, I'm gonna I'm gonna donahue him Okay, hello. Hello. Hello. Hello like that All right, and we'll uh, we'll be ready to rock them all your headphone is yaw Is that volume okay? It is great. Okay Cool. Okay. Are we ready? I was gracious enough to do this because they just had they just flew in The boy their arms tired. He just flew in we we together We like ran back and forth across the gay lord convention center hotel complex three times Trying to figure out where their stuff is. Here's the camera, by the way Trying to figure out where the stuff is right and then they finally located everything Had a quick dinner and then set up their the booth over here. So It's uh, it's fun to have him sit down with us tonight. So this will be this will be fun Super um, so we're ready to go. So we're gonna watch our our producer sue right here She's gonna count us in and then dan will go to us and do the cold open and then we'll go to a opening commercial Okay, great. All right. Here we go. Whenever you're ready sue Three two Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk Tech talk tech talk number 109 109, baby Boy, I'm believe 109 tech talks. Anyway, we've got a very special one tonight We've got ryan white joining us from road microphones tonight too. Great to have you with us Because there's lots of cool stuff that road has to say hi ryan. Hello everyone. Thanks man. All right lots of great stuff that We're podcast movement here in denver and uh, we're in the middle of the expo show floor Which I thought would be a relatively calm place to do it But we had sound checking and booth building going on all around so it seems to have calmed down now So we should have a nice little time to chat with ryan here. Alrighty voiceover body shop tech talk lots of cool stuff coming up right now Voice over body shop tech talk is brought to you by voiceover essentials.com the home of harlin hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect Vo heroes.com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training voice actor.com your voice over website ready in minutes Voice over extra your daily resource for voice over success And by world voices the industry association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts dan and george Oh, hello there. I'm dan lennard. I'm george winem. And this is voice over body shop or vo B. S. Tech talk tech talk tech talk Okay, so george tell us again where you are and why it's A little noisy in the background. Yeah, I mean the we've gotten the noise floor down a bit I'm gonna do the Share the mic technique here between the two of us since the noise level came down a bit um Spoke too soon picks up again, right? Yeah, there goes the scissor lift. So I'll go close mic again Yeah, we're here at podcast movement and I was able to get in here a lot of the things in part to BSW and road they hooked me up with a Greatly discounted pass which was really helpful because showing up to podcast movement is it's not cheap It's it's there's a fair cost involved to attend the show and it's because of the sheer volume of content is Massive so i'm going to be here all week just trying to Suck in as much useful information as well as try to share some of my own information with people and do some networking So after we get through the intro of the show ryan's going to give us some A little rundown of the road caster duo during the tech talk Excellent excellent. Yeah, so if you're just joining us for the first time here at voice over body shop tech talk We talk about home voice over studio stuff and since george is that podcast movement we there are some parallels of audio for for For podcasting as there is for voice over and george and i'd know how to deal with both of those things because We both do them We've been doing it a long time to talk and walk the walk And and we've been walking that walk and talking that talk for 12 years now at voice over body shop. So Not only do we have we been doing the show a long time, but we've been doing home voice over studios and recording stuff for much longer than that And if you need to have your studio built right It doesn't have to be It doesn't have to be the taj mahal. It can be your walk-in closet There's all sorts of places you can do it But you have to know how And it's not the equipment. It's how you use it But if you need to know what it is you got to have and how to use it You can work with one of us for example if you want to work with george Where do they go? You can head over to george the dot tech and not only can you work with me You can work with a whole bunch of us because we are actually a collective of The greatest tech people in our midst and we have an amazing Amazing amount of resources. Of course we have the huge library of content We've already generated in our webinar area. We've got a lot of free resources We've got our peer recommendations and trusted vendors pages And of course you can just get a sound check The most valuable thing that we do Is a sound check over at george the dot tech Dan I like the name that you gave your sound check What do you do it? What do you do over your place? Well over at home voice over studio dot com I have my specimen collection cup. Yes, uh, which you know, you can deposit an mp3 of your audio And I want it raw You know, this is just going in the sewer all still one. Yeah, it's I want raw audio. I don't want to hear what kind of processing you're doing and all this stuff that you probably shouldn't be doing I want to hear the clean raw sound of your studio. So if we have to make adjustments we can do that It's just 25 dollars for the analysis I will give you a very Thorough analysis ask anybody that I've done that for and they'll tell you. Yeah, that was really really thorough So anyway, uh, you know and of course you can communicate with both of us if you just write to us at the guys at v obs dot tv Right there. So, uh All sorts of ways to get ahold of us So anyway, it's time for george's tech update and since he's at podcast movement and he has A guest with him whose car just happens to be still sitting on my desk right here. What a quinkity. I know, uh Why don't you tell people about ryan and what he's doing there? Well, I've got ryan white here with me We've met for the first time in person at veo Atlanta, right? Indeed when we were both at veo Atlanta And um, I have known and worked with road products for a really long time. They've also been a supporter Of uh, they've been a supporter of another show. I'm on called the pro audio suite And so I have a long relationship with road. So thanks to them I'm here because of that relationship You know it and I would not have probably have come had it not been for that little boost from them So that out of the way, um, I thought this would be a really cool opportunity To be able to sit down and actually talk to to ryan in a relatively quiet environment And since he's showing a new product today, we could get a little sneak preview of it. It's it's pretty new just starting to ship Right 100 percent just starting the ship. It's uh, 499 full price and it is two channels less than the previous version So it's for those people who are looking for the compact version of the roadcaster pro 2 That's right. It's the roadcaster pro shrunken Which you know, a lot of folks have looked at the roadcaster pro 2 In the voiceover realm because it look well first of all looks freaking cool It's covered in lights, you know has a lot of cool features But it's too big. So they they shrunk it And this is the roadcaster pro duo So so who is this for? Obviously it was Mostly podcasters in mind But who else do you think are going to find they get a good use out of the roadcaster duo? The first thing I always mention for both the roadcaster pro 2 and the duo are that they they have the new Preamps inside of them. So you're getting 76 db of as clean of gain as you can possibly get inside of a Uh proo sumer style piece of gear So you're not going to have to break the bank specifically on a preamp and then integrate that into your circuit Or otherwise or a bunch of different outboard gear to get that clean gain Right from the desk, you're going to be able to actually achieve that with those preamps that are inside of it So those are a new revolution preys Wow that now now i'm using a roadcaster, you know, the the first one This is looks yeah, it's it's what's really different about it. Really it's probably it's condensed. It's all the same stuff It's just it's just just condensed. So so it's obviously a smaller footprint So it's going to be a lot more friendly to a compact or cramped Desk, right? Exactly. So, uh, the roadcaster pro one, I won't get too deep into the differences in the two versus the one That's where we really took the idea of the roadcaster pro and And just drove it home. Uh, like I said with those preamps and just a lot more features on board Dual usb output and various features like that with the duo versus the roadcaster pro two We wanted to keep the exact same board That's why the price is where it's at is because you're getting the exact same feature set Minus two channels. So you lose two faders for your mic two mic channels, I should say and it's still mic line And all of the inputs instrument inputs all that stuff, but you only get two So if I show you the backside of it right here, you're just going to see the two Right next to it. You're going to get the the two channels of headphone output instead of four channels of headphone output It still has your line level outputs for speakers or for a send if you're wanting to use it in that Manor and then on the front you're going to notice that there's six pads instead of eight One thing we did add to this that the two does not have is we put the trrs jack right back where it belongs On the board. So it's actually in front now and it goes perfectly with our nth 100 m's Which will have the microphone. I have the nth 100 technically I do have the nth 100 m's because I have the microphone right over there I want to try that out and we should you should try that out before we leave the show We will exactly so now you actually have that feature set back on the road kester duo So that that jack on the front is a trrs jack, right? It's a headset jack It is a headset jack as well as a microphone input. So when you're on the channel, you can actually assign it as an input for a channel Very cool. So that that no matter what kind of headset you have whether it's like a More of a mobile device headset or a gamer headset. You can plug it in Yeah, yeah when when you guys came out with this originally And uh, george and I were looking at it and you know, it was designed specifically. I think for podcasting Because you've got four channels and all that kind of stuff But we immediately saw that it would be very valuable for for voice actors Uh, you know, not that you need four inputs unless you have three other people around you But it had a lot of cool features that made it very useful for voice actors especially if you're doing remote stuff and And those sorts of things have have a lot of people come back to you from the voiceover business and said Hey, this this actually works for voiceover too because it sounds great. It's got those great preamps and and so much versatility and of course I still love The pads and all that stuff that you can throw in there, which is Exactly or or like when things get quiet. I throw a girl from eponema on there. It just makes it a lot easier That's the jay air button. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, and we did we we put everything on this and so uh, whether you're talking about the rocaster pro 2 or the rocaster duo You are still talking to voiceover actors The exact same as you are for podcasters. We actually call this a production desk now a production studio instead of a podcast studio and so we can talk all day long about The gain structure of a rocaster pro one a cloud lifter need it don't need it dynamic mic condenser mic in your world and voice over We're working on condenser microphones, which typically have that gain structure But you need it to be as clean as humanly possible. So once they actually brought that into the two Shut down that conversation real quick about clean game And then with the duo now it's for those people specifically that are Maybe multifaceted but not needing four people right and if you don't need four different plugins Even if you're doing guitars or music or some kind of other thing into your production Then the duo can suit you if you are in fact using four different channels And you need that all on one board with clean gain you can go right back to the two no problem Yeah, if you know how to use one you know how to use the other they they have the same underpinnings and then tell us a little bit about the Capabilities on board that you get with this which again are shared with the two Yeah, so one of my favorite things so we talked about the preamps With the rocaster pro one the original versus the two and then the duo was combo jack So I do have the versatility to plug in even high-end Outboard gear if I would like to add that into my signal chain a console for matter You know those are the combo jacks there. They look like an xlr with a big hole in the middle Those are combo jacks if you ever hear that term. That's what we're talking about Exactly. Thanks for clarifying. Absolutely because that will accept a quarter inch for a guitar Or like I said your t r t r s cables from a console or otherwise So you can integrate it into existing signal flow as well Whereas you couldn't with the original but again to the design of it We wanted it to be an all-in-one place right now I am literally plugging it into a portable power bank and it is powering the entire unit And so we are literally as portable as we possibly can And inside of the board with these two channels or the four on the two you have ds-ing roll-offs compression all that processing that again You may not want to use if you don't have a good initial sound But once you have that good initial sound then you add those features onto it And I always just tell people that you're Half produced for the final product right if you do it right you might even be right there towards mastering and finishing your product for distribution One thing I like is I just set up a roadcaster pro 2 for cloud 10 media And uh one thing I found in setting it up and using it. I actually have one myself as well But I don't use the record function. I love that you can record dry and monitor wet. And what does that mean? It means that the the talent on the show listening in headphones the people's interacting with each other Can be benefit they can be benefited by having some processing in their headphones, right? It it can reduce some of the background noise or distractions and it can clean up what they're hearing the headphones There's a couple reasons why some processing would be nice But you can track that recording without the processing and you can choose to send that recording to the computer via usb also without processing and that's really a really cool feature because You're not stuck with the processing right what you hear live while you're doing a performance whether it be podcasting whether it be acting really Is not necessarily what you want on the finished product It can be and if you're a good engineer and you're really good at doing that stuff live It's not easy But if you're good at it Then you can commit it But otherwise you don't have to worry about that which is really clever about uh way this thing is designed We we fully came into this with the idea and honestly with the with the original we We learned a lot along the way as well. I don't know how many firmware updates we had from the one I was there from the very beginning I had it when it first came out and I thought wouldn't it be cool if wouldn't it be nice if Every three to six months new firmware. It was like the product had a rebirth. It was a mind blowing 100% did and then we did get to the point to where the processing inside just couldn't quite keep up A lot of people ask him for reverb and and various effects and now as many people know the two and the duo have Reverb and echo and you can become a monster and whatever whatever effect you want to add to your microphone channel And then to your point as well one of the the the last things i'll mention to anyone This is not meaning that this is the last thing i'm mentioning here is just that two usb ports are available to you But that what most people don't understand is that's three i o and it gets very daunting and this is where things get off But i love talking about this stuff and it gets a little complicated So why are there two ports and why is that three interfaces on two ports? And i won't get too crazy too techy right but the idea here is that Inside of your computer you got to have a communication between the audio interface Which is essentially what this is acting like when you plug it into another device And on the main channel on usb one rather you have main and chat So in most cases what a lot of our audience is looking for is that conversation between Let's use video gaming for an example right now for voiceover I like to talk about it a lot in signal flow you can choose two different places to go if you Are in fact doing a live stream like we're doing right now Or if you're trying to record in multitrack so that you can have a wet dry post Dry and while you're there wet well, i mean a common scenario for voiceover is you you are the engineer right You're you're recording yourself You're facilitating the communications patch that could be zoom or whatever it is at google meet whatever the heck they want to use Right, then you get the dreaded Hey, will you play back that take i think that was the one can you play that back? This can make that super easy right absolutely one of the reasons i liked it so much is that you could do that Exactly so with uh with the two usb's you're literally sending returning twice over to whatever Means you would like and then if you plug in a second usb port that usb 2 you get secondary engaged as well What a lot of people in that production, especially to that level will do is plug in a second computer And then have that playback Have producer mode any kind of like exact Extra send and or return i love a second computer for the output to a stream So that one chat and main are kind of being things that i'm manipulating live Like you said a zoom conversation or something like that But if i have a final destination that doesn't get changed much I want that in a secondary place so i use the second for that as well And uh you have different choices in uh multi channel or stereo pre or post and Just a lot of signal flow things that could be daunting or scary But the other thing that i'll bring back on is that you can plug it in today and just start recording And or sending and returning on your computer and it's just as easy as plugging it in Another nice feature if you do use monitor speakers is you know the channel You know the frustration of having to always make sure that the mic in your studio and the monitors are not feeding each other Or you're not getting that dreaded pa system feedback loop This lets you control that right you can say when my mic is on my speakers are off Exactly we have the auto mute monitor output function And then to that extent we also have like auto mute and bluetooth so that If you know you're not getting a feedback loop either physically through speakers Or sin that you don't want to get that feedback loop through and it's not necessarily a You know an auxiliary send or anything like that It's just saying as soon as one of those microphones is sending any form of signal boom mute your speakers Yeah, so what i what i really liked about it when i first saw it was having coming out of broadcasting It just reminded me of A broadcasting board, you know that it's got you know you can you have an audition channel You can mute the mic, you know really easily just by And you know and then you're you're muted. So if you got a cough you could you can do that Uh, but it's it's just a great unit. I'm really cool. It's really cool that you guys have You know brought out a line of these, you know to for every purpose Yeah, they've iterated, you know and and they've iterated because So well because they listened to The users Like this thing this thing was designed the roadcaster pro 2 is designed by the users right in a way right absolutely You if you were on facebook or whatever platform you wanted to pick Our instagram channel was hot, you know where it was just here's a new product Or here's a new video about it and then inside of those chats You could see road microphones actually show up So we were there in the conversation all along the way trying to Not only just answer questions about how to do it if you're in the if you're not aware of how to do it But to then take notes on what was Highly sought after with reason right and that's the other thing is as a manufacturer you you you want to appease everybody that you can Maximize it as much as humanly possible And I think we did an absolute terrific job Like I said right from the rcp one where it kind of caught us off guard And then we just ran with it and that never stopped with the two And it's still going to the best of our ability. We brought back the trs check a lot of people asking for that Yeah, they wanted to see it again. So you took that opportunity and put it on a product So what else do you have? I mean, we'll we'll I might well I guarantee that I'll have some time to shoot some Packages while I'm here. Um, what else did you bring along today with bsw? Yeah, the the one question that I think a lot of people are asking because george and I have been talking about it For months now since we were in atlanta for for bio atlanta And that's the the nt one fifth gen which is just an amazing microphone You know at a great price point and it's just tell us about it And then you can try and explain 32 bit float to our audience because they're all lost first Tell us which side of the mic to speak into yeah, that's more important to the gold dot our branding You can see it on my t-shirt one underneath my badge and everything But yes, it is a side address microphone large diaphragm cardioid pattern Condenser microphone if I didn't say that and yes, you're going to talk right into the front side here and road has long since the gold dot A wonderful branding piece for us has been right underneath the capsule So you're going to aim right for that spot right under right above that gold dot and it is cardioid So if you do in fact talk into the other side of it, you're going to be reduced significantly in both frequency response and Gain so that's going to be a problem for you for sure But the fifth generation of this as the name would suggest it is our fifth rendition of the nt one And that does include our nt one anniversary which is still around live and kicking But what we did was introduce our dual connectivity So inside the xlr port you have a usb port as well as an xlr port And so the xlr port is just a your traditional analog with the lighting where there's no way we're going to see that usb c I can see it's in there Yeah, great And the usb c is then going to allow us to 100% use this as an audio interface and a digital microphone right into our computer So if you open up a 32 bit float session on your computer in a da w You can then record this in 32 bit float the simple thing that i'll tell you about 32 bit float is like I said This becomes your audio interface that your computer is communicating with so it's transforming The microphone audio that analog voltage into a digital signal We do this four times over george. I don't know if you knew that, but we have four audio. Yeah, this is something I started to grok From the great youtube videos you guys have and then also talking to you Yeah, and most people that have created 32 bit float. They're wonderful devices They are magical and it all comes from that that algorithm that's inside of it that i'll get to in a sec But most people do two audio interfaces inside of there So we actually did four with this we put the revolution preamps inside of it four times over Taking that into like I said a it's essentially four audio interfaces and we'll record it at four levels So if you take the entire headroom of the microphone, we record it four levels inside of the entire headroom of it and then in a digital Magicals uh algorithm you can actually recall that in post in your 32 bit session So if you go too loud and you're clipping well the microphone still recorded that properly at a lower gain You just have to go move your window into that lower gain And so it's an unclipable microphone at that point And so do any performances you would like at an average level and then you'll be able to save that if it clips Or is too quiet in post But you don't have to make that decision as As the engineer producer The thing that wraps that that took me a lot about my head around is you don't have to go Oh, I need to find Like there's there's four signals right the The combination of those four the algorithmic combination if you could say that Is happening for you. Yes That's the important part right you don't have to go into your DAW Find four essentially tracks of audio Find the right signal one and then Comp them together re-edit them. It just it just happens It just happens at the output And all you have to do is make a signal correction. Do you I mean I've I've been using normalized to do that Is that what you recommend? I I think normalized is a great place to start And the what I've been pitching to most people in this from an application standpoint, right? Forget about the nerdiness of how it happens because I promise you you could get lost in the math of it all But we don't really care right when in the end we want to know how to use it properly and why to use it And I talk about performance. It just doesn't stop the session So if you record it at Whatever level again, you started an average and then you can go into that session and then fine tune it We met with we also met the guys at hindenburg at that same time at v.o. Atlanta And they showed me their auto gain function So a normalized is a great way to do it hindenburg has software where it can auto gain it down But you're going to get to choose. Let's say you don't want it to be even come You don't even want to come in close to that negative point one dbfs, right? If you want that negative 12 as a max peak You just then normalize it to negative 12 max peak, right? And obviously every daw or plugin that you use to do this will be there But normalize is a great place to start to get it to the Peak that you want and then you'll need to still find your averages later Yeah, what's what's fascinating about this is road mics have are traditionally and legendarily Very quiet, which is very important in this particular situation Because if you're normalizing a really low signal A lot of times you will get the extra noise that a mic produces But road mics don't seem to do that. Well, how how is it that you've accomplished such quiet mics? I Unfortunately can't speak on the manufacturing side of it, but I was before even an employee of road microphones a fan of that because they're nt1a Even their tube microphones the ntk nt1a. I believe was uh five dba south noise or Uh Yeah five and then the nt1 fourth was four five and this one is four so Again without the nerdy speak four dba south noise is Very very very quiet. So every bit of circuitry has some form of inherent noise Again, we we introduced the revolution preamps which are reaching the Theoretic limit of how quiet a preamp can be with any form of circuitry, which it is a circuit You have to have to something So road is always actively going after those two things and as just a customer before being an employee I was looking at the nt1a because of its frequency response curve. It's low signal It's low noise floor and then uh, of course, it's budget. It's budget friendly price was great But it's it was also relatively good gain. So it had a lot of headroom along with quiet noise floor Which also tends to not be a thing very often. So you You either have a really quiet mic and therefore the output's a little quieter too or You know condenser microphones. We have a a lot of headroom and it versus a dynamic microphone But when you can maximize that entire return It just it just screams great for voiceover Especially when you throw it into a digital microphone like you're talking about one that can save it in post You have to have a quiet microphone. You can't do it. Otherwise Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, we're we're going to take a break right now and uh, and then we're going to get questions And then we get we have a pile of questions. Can can ryan stick around for a while? I don't know Do you really want to I have a few minutes? I have a few minutes. I'd love to answer a few All right, we'll see if we can get him to stick around a little longer All right, we'll be right back after these messages. Do not go away This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george wittem v obs dot tv Setting up for voiceover recording on the road can be a real hassle You can't bring your boomstand with you the solution After six long months harlin hogan's voiceover essentials dot com Finally has their popular desktop stand back in stock the harlin hogan adjustable height desktop stand fits us and all international microphones with its thread adapter It features quick assembly and has a low center of gravity for great stability making it great for home and on the road The two-way adjustable desk stand gives you infinite height adjustment from five and a half to eight and three quarter inches And the rubber-ringed low profile base fits perfectly into the pre-cut desk stand slot of both the portabouth pro and plus They're back and they're keeping the pre shortage price Damn inflation has become their motto the harlin hogan adjustable height desktop mic stand just 39 95 And only at voiceover essentials dot com All right. Well, I'll put the camera on me because it's all about me And our friends at source connect Actually at source elements the company is source elements the product is source connect And the other product that uh is being used still today by a lot of productions is source nexus Think of sorts nexus as a switchboard that lets engineers and producers Bring audio in and out of things like pro tools or whatever their multitrack Recording environment is and makes it much easier for them to create this Sometimes challenging signal routing and have it all happen inside the system Well, this is an amazing technology something at the actor is it's really transparent to the actor because it's happening on the studio end But it makes it much easier At the end of the day though the one that you are going to be most concerned about learning and using is source connect Now getting on board with source connect has been made a lot easier partly because they've got a lot more Support over at source elements. There's a lot more people over there that are there to help you So if you want to get their help, I highly recommend that you do start out with a subscription Yes, you can get a 15 day free trial But if you start with a subscription which starts at around a hundred dollars You will now actually have their support to walk you through a tremendous amount of stuff and let's face it Their support is award-winning. I was just Nominated for best service provider at one voice conference along with source elements And they won second year in a row because people love their support Anyway, if you want to check them out go over to source dash elements dot com And we really want to thank them for helping us out here And let's get back to those questions right after this Oh, hey, uh, I am about to shoot uh, the fourth of five lessons in This year's big ol course that i'm giving away for free called getting started in vo Thriving in the ai world where we meet What it takes to get into the world of voiceover what it takes to be better at voiceover With the incursion of artificial intelligence and maybe some things that you can take advantage of in terms of artificial intelligence as well So, uh, we're in the midst of it's been a banger. We're in the midst of five lessons all free If you go to voheroes.com slash go you'll get those lessons And it will culminate with the opportunity to join as a vo heroes pro at a very special price with some very special bonuses But first take the free class. Just go to voheroes.com slash go That's voheroes.com slash go and i'll see you for all five lessons And let's see what happens with your vo career Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great And we are back and uh Ryan white is joining us from road. We've got lots and lots of questions here Yes, we do starting starting off with chris dempsi who says i'm new to voiceover and building a home studio Sometimes don't put the cart before the horse. You got to be a good voiceover before you build the studio Now this is the interesting party says I see a pile of information on how to build the home studio But not seeing anything of showing how to break it in well first off How to build a home voiceover studio talk to somebody who actually knows what that means which is According to from what I can see it's a handful of people on the face of the earth That truly understand what a home voiceover studio is supposed to be it is not supposed to be Something with a huge board and and processors and all these different things Although the the road pro caster and pro caster 2 and duo Probably do a great job with that and probably give you everything you need that every time you walk into a recording studio And you see in the wall in the racks. It's all pretty much Reduced down to something small But the question is how do you break it in by this? I mean what recording should I do first? I suppose recording the room would be a start. What am I looking for? How would you set things up hardware and software? Well, that's a lot of questions george and it goes on I am using the road NT 1g5 as you reviewed a few shows ago with a scarlet 2i 2 3rd gen audio interface Into a windows 10 laptop with audacity. I'm really enjoying your show. I feel like I'm getting a lot out of it. Okay. Thanks for that Well, okay. Um, yeah, you you're asking a mountain of question a mountain of things in one question. So Where you should start is simple Um That's why the road NTG NT1. Sorry NT. This is the NT by the way if you're wondering. This is the road NTG 5 this is a shotgun microphone It's a great mic, but it's not the first mic I do recommend a voice actor starting with because Mike technique on a mic like this is a bit more challenging You have to be on target if you move off target the sound changes dramatically That's why as i'm sitting here, uh interviewing ryan I have to be really careful to Talk over to talk make sound on Axis I didn't no rehearsal making noises Exactly you have to be really on target and on axis with a mic like this because it sounds off it sounds out of focus With a large diaphragm condenser like the NT1 It's going to be much easier to work with because You have a wider pickup pattern, right? If I was to plug this in and I can do this because I'm a stuntman Down With a mic like this I can move the mic around and I can physically move around the microphone Tremendously without sounding off microphone and this is good and talk to the bottom to the back of it However, if you speak if you don't speak into the gold dot, this is what you're going to get Um, so it's a very strange sound. There's a little low There's some low end a little bit of high end in a giant hole in the middle Which is where your voice resides. So if you hear this, you know, you're talking to the long side of the mic So first start with a mic pointing the right way Start with a mic at a decent distance I like to start here and if your booth is not great if you're in a closet or something maybe start Here distance wise, okay Now you also have a scarlet you can use them together And it depends on your workflow Sometimes having an interface outside of the mic is nice because you have a a physical gain knob However, I am going to do some tutorial videos soon on george the tech that are about recording with this mic plugged in with usb And talking about how 32 bit float will make your life easier Because one of the things that you know dan and I deal with all the time Is teaching people how to set their gain And it seems like it should be easy conceptually and we talk about it ad nauseam But if you don't learn how to do that first After you learn about mic technique and stuff, you're going to get some crappy recording. So We can't get into the depth of it here We're here to tell you about how to get us when you need and when you want to learn into getting the depth with it That's why we're here to introduce you to our services But we we hope you you know aren't too intimidated With the with voiceover technology You have to keep in mind. There's a lot of people in voiceover who also love the technology I deal with the majority of the folks who don't Love the technology who find it intimidating scary And confusing So if you're feeling a little bit more on that direction, you might want to work with dan or I because we're here to To help you navigate that stuff Absolutely, yeah, and it's there's a lot to learn Uh, but you got to be careful when you go on the internet. There's a tremendous amount of misinformation out there You know, you're not doing rap videos. You're doing voiceover. There's a lot of different techniques and stuff like that But you got to learn If you're doing voiceover, you have to really learn the techniques and the proper setup for You know on the internet, there's on the forums and the groups and the youtube's and now the discord channels and servers There's a lot of one wayism You know because you'll hear one person who's a working actor and they like to kind of share How they do it and so You'll feel like oh if I don't buy what they're using and don't choose what they're using I may not have a chance at getting that great audio So, you know a little investment in some consulting with dan or I Is absolutely going to be worth in the long run. You won't overspend. You won't buy the wrong stuff And your room will be dialed in and that's what's so important So we we really know whistle dan's coined the phrase whistle. I love it We know what it's supposed to sound like And we will teach you That so that you recognize that in your studio and in your headphones When you record until you know that you're going to be lost in the dark Because you'll never even know why it doesn't sound the way it's supposed to sound and you won't be able to get there So we hope that helps a little bit. Alrighty. Let's get on to the next question Yeah patricia andrea who always has a great question has a really good question She says where do we learn about terminology like leads loops and things like that? Well, live watching our show probably is one place to start But what are some other places you can I mean there are glossaries Does rote have a terminology glossary on their site? We we don't and it's one of the things not not that I can think of right off the top of my head Actually, and it's going to be one of the things that I'll find like on our blog site Because we do have a blog site and everything like that as well So, you know, yeah, I always lead people to our youtube channel because it is verified And it's the information where you're going to get it from road Even if it is some content creator it is verified by us about the truth of what you're seeing and what you're hearing So as far as the glossaries not not a dictionary of road terms Yeah, I I had one on my last website And when we built the new website We have to populate that on the new site and it's just been so time consuming So we do have a glossary of audio terms on george d.tech It's just rather incomplete for now until we populate the entire thing. So One of these days I'll get around to filling it in But if you do go over there go to the resources page at george d.tech and check out the Glossary there's a start to it. It's just not as comprehensive as we'd like it to be Yeah Next question from fiber jazz I heard someone say not to rely on wi-fi to plug direct and to plug directly into the internet Does that mean to unplug my modem and plug my computer into that jack? Sorry, just trying to learn this tech stuff. Okay. Oh, sure. So you got you got your cat five cable here which is this guy and You go into your Depends on what you're using if you have a router you plug it into the router Or if you go or you can go directly into the modem, uh, but it depends on kind of a modem you have They're gonna have a router. Yeah, yeah If you've got a router you plug it right it you you have a you have a cat five jack on your computer or a usb adapter for that and That goes the other end goes into the modem and yeah, I think george I think he's primarily probably talking about source connect And that you really do have to have a hard line for that. We definitely recommend a hard wire connection for not just source connect but any real-time audio or video transmission I've been I've been flying without a net tonight I'm using the actual convention wi-fi which is generally considered. It's working. Okay. Absolutely not a good idea But the good thing is I'm one of the only people Probably on the connection right now because it's before the show starts We'll see how it goes in the next couple of days, right? But because I'm there there's very few people here. I have a good wi-fi connection at home If your router is nearby and you're not you don't have a family of seven watching Netflix and playing games Your wi-fi will probably be fine But if you're unlucky in your wi-fi router, is it the other corner of your house? Yeah, yeah funny anecdote was that my wife was like, why are you drilling in Why are you drilling holes in our walls? Yeah, and I was literally running the the internet from our Farthest like northeast, you know corner to the southwest corner been there stairs Just to get a wired ethernet Pour it upstairs where my office is and where my home studio is because that's all i'm doing 24 seven That's my job. Yeah, we went the fattest fastest But also the most reliable pipe and that's still going to be a hard wired connection So we recommend it and that's what you got to do. There are some adapters There's something called a power line ethernet adapter. I've hooked them up for a lot of people And the pro of those is you're not wireless. You actually are on a wire technically because it's using your household wire However, your household wiring for the internet. However, the speeds usually suffer when you're using those So they're good for consistency and they'll work great for source connect But for just sheer speed uploading downloading files, they're usually nowhere near as fast So there you already lots of great questions. Here's an interesting one because you were talking about this the other day, george It's uh from jonathan grand is watching on youtube. He says hi guys an update on the ups rfi from that's the UPS meaning the uninterruptible power power supply not the brown trucks, right? This unit was actually in the next room at my development desk not plugged into the wall running on battery and still emitting rf When it's time to replace the battery toss that thing in the garbage if you have a mic in the same building Thanks for being awesome thoughts on that. Yeah, I I uh Once in a blue moon we find out that the thing making the noise is the thing that we bought to hope that there would be no noise There's a lot of ups out there Um, the best ones are they'll have power filtration. I mean they might have avr Which is automatic voltage regulation and the really good ones are what we call online Pure sine a ups is those are the expensive ones. They're not the ones you're going to get at staples You're going to have to buy these online through a computer retailer But what those do is they actually take the power coming in convert it To dc. I believe is what's happening It's so in that process the power is basically being Scrubbed right and then it's converted Back to ac internally in a very clean pure way. So what you end up getting is this purified power And um, those are really expensive And I've even found that those units themselves make noise So you buy one you put it in your studio to get rid of noise and the things over here with a fan running or it's buzzing So whatever you do try to eliminate the gear with the most complexity because sometimes that's what's causing noise And in your in this case it was the ups anytime anybody texts, uh road gear. I asked them to take it to their Uh, their largest room that's most isolated from anything really and just get it on its own isolated power and and everything You just got to you got to get Kind of get clean audio gear away from things if you're having problems and get it away from the fridge Yep, absolutely. I think we can squeeze in one or two more questions. Oh, we got time here for a few more Of uh, you get the one from ellen cocker in here All right, right. We're gonna have an impact timer going. Uh, hey guys I like the hair news you had on your website pictures last week. Well, thank you Uh, what technology would you suggest for a newbie to replace a laptop with a noisy fan? Without breaking the budget. Well Budget you really need to be specific about budget because there are budget points all over the board Um, I'm always going to be going apple. Just I'll just get that right out of the gate I'm going to be recommending an apple And I'm going to be recommending to you Get a macbook air first gen Uh, it's called the m1 series Um, absolutely fanless You can find them brand new. I think a costco is doing like 700 Yeah, saw it this last weekend 700 something like that 700 hours for a brand new macbook air And if you if you're really resourceful, you might be able to find a refurbished one Maybe save a hundred bucks, but I'm telling you these things. They're only a couple years old the new m the silicon series They're all fanless and because they've only been out a couple of years and their value has held Even a used one is going to be very close to the cost of a new one So if you do get one refurbed make sure it's a place that's going to support it get it directly from apple Look at their refurb store and you can save a little bit honestly go that way It's you can get a microsoft surface Uh tablet or computer if you want to go windows, you're not going to save any money Um, the fanless ones are going to be in that same price 700 800 price point to begin with Um, how about do you know of anything that's really great on the fanless side? I don't know. I do apologize as well. I'm a windows fan for for other reasons, but I'm a mac fan first and foremost for audio and especially for, uh Rigidity, you know in many different reasons. So um, I've always been able variables It's so way less variables and it's just so sturdy But uh, again, there's many ways you can buy it to where it's affordable like that I bought a super computer hp laptop just trying to Do business it wasn't really for audio, but you know, I teach audio. That's what I do And so when that fan just started kicking in it was game over and it it was always on I thought it was going to be fast enough to not have to have the fan every second of the day And it needed the fan every second of the day. So I already had spent the money And still had the fan issues. So yeah, yeah, so be cautious of of those kind of items. You'll waste your money on it Yeah, well, you also to george are always like talking about getting a used one Uh or refurbished one because you can get even even cheaper too for lots of things like they're so new That even they used ones. Let's put this way. I just sold a used macbook arm one I bought it like the day they came out I got $800 for it So Their resale value is amazing. Yeah, they're like hondas. Yeah, they really hold their value So buying a used one doesn't really save you that much money I think they got a good deal because I got it with an upgraded amount of memory I usually try to go to 16 gigabytes of memory because I do a lot of multitasking. I use google chrome Uh, I use a lot of tabs So I use a lot of memory. Um, two more questions. Let's see if we can bang those out Yeah, no, this is this is a great question because I deal with this one all the time From daniel russo on youtube. He has a six by six diy booth I have pyramid and line pattern foam tiles Half and half on patterns. Can you mix them pyramid and lines foam? Oh my god, different sound results Different sound result if mixed or is it trial and it's error sound? I don't think it really makes a big difference You can arrange them any pattern you want Oralex or you know the the foam is generally designed to absorb and diffuse sound You really got to look at who made these foam tiles. Yeah, someone got better than others. Yeah, if they don't Yeah, thickness thickness is important if they're one inch thick almost useless Two inch starting to get there Three and four inch now you're getting somewhere that these are really going to be effective But you got to look at what makes them because foam isn't foam isn't foam There's many types of foam and some foam is almost completely useless other actually works Make sure that whoever you're getting from has nrc rating information Along with that foam to make sure it's actually going to be effective Yeah, don't don't get obsessive about the patterns because You know, it's not like to say no one needs to see how the sausage is made or where it's made Yeah, just make it look cool. Okay, if you've got to be on camera make it look cool Otherwise it doesn't really that doesn't really matter. You know, all right. Last one is it on point is on brand For for road. So we got the man here to answer this question This is from our very own Jeff Holman. It manages our our chat room. Oh wonderful He's the guy stuck his head up at the beginning said tecton Uh, the road into 1 5th gen. Oh only uses utilizes 32 bit float through the usb connection, right? Um, is that usb from the mic? Does that go to the interface or does that usb go straight into the computer? And lastly, can I get it to go through the interface so I can use the way my personas Use the way it with with my personas audio interface. So can you demystify that in 30 seconds? Jeff that's a wonderful question We get it every single time we have this conversation dual connect is two choices They are not one or the other doing 32 bit float. So xlr is xlr is xlr So if you run the xlr, you would go to your interface Then your interface that it's plugging into say your personas would need to do 32 bit float because the micro does There you go. I happen to know that yep the usb c is an audio interface It turns this microphone if you will into an audio interface So therefore the personas or the other interface that you might plug it into is no longer relevant in that conversation And that is when you would do 32 bit float because this audio interface can do 32 bit float I know it's a little again. I'm going to be I promise. I'm going to do a very demystifying video showing workflows of how to use 32 bit float effectively in your studio, but We'll get to that. Yeah So all right. Well, hey ryan. Thanks for joining us tonight. You know, thanks, dude Thank you for having around for it's been great. I look forward to our next couple days Yeah, me too. Yeah, gotta love this thing. This is the best arm I have ever used. Yes Yeah, the ps1 is well built. We have 13 or 11 of them over here on our booth. Yeah, come see us Alrighty, okay. Well, we're gonna take quick break and we're gonna wrap things up right after this So don't go away. We'll be right back on voiceover body shop Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra dot com whether you're just exploring a voiceover career Or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voice over extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books auditioning home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one stop daily resource for voiceover success sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voice over x t r a dot com All right, I'm here to talk about These guys voice actor dot com. What is voice actor dot com? Well voice actor dot com is a way to get your voice actor website up and running Really really fast You have to have a website as a voice actor You you don't want to just have something on facebook or linkedin saying yeah, i'm a voice actor You've got to show your professionalism by having a very professional website. That's your business card So if you don't have one you need to get one and if you need to get one fast as opposed to the like five or six months It takes whatever everybody else Go to voice actor dot com because what they have are templated websites It's you don't have to go in there and design all this stuff. You have a lot of creative Uh flexibility with it. There's different colors and you can put your pictures in But it's lots of different templates that can make you look great But most importantly you put your demos there and your name and your contact information And get yourself on the internet like that go over to voice actor dot com. You can start for free Absolutely free and get your site on the internet and then they have some other other plans like 20 a month You get some more features with that and you get a great website Go over to voice actor dot com right now or when you have a chance and get your website up and running in no time We are the world voices organization Also known as wobo. We're the not-for-profit industry association of freelance voice talent voiceover is a complex entrepreneurial business Wobo is there to promote the professional nature of voice work to the public to those already established in their voiceover practice And to those who want to pursue voiceover as a career membership benefits include a supportive and creative community A profile and demos on voiceover dot biz our searchable directory of vetted professional voice talent Our exclusive demo player for your personal website our mentoring program business resources and our video library Our annual wobo con conference a fun and educational weekend with other members with the chance to learn and network Webinars and great speakers and weekly social chats with other members around the world If your world is voiceover make wobo part of it world voices organization. We speak for those who speak for a living This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voiceover buddy shop Alrighty Well, I was a great tech talk. Kevin ryanon was just fabulous because he knows his stuff That's opportunity. Yeah, I've been wanting to have him on some of our shows and this was a Kismet, so Absolutely Alrighty well, we have to remember to plug ourselves like home voiceover studio dot com Because that's where I do my business and george is over at george the dot tech Yipper and actually if you call our emergency support line There's a chance he might actually get dan because he's he's in our emergency support phone system now This is something you don't talk about much But if you call the 424 number on the site, uh, or any on any if you see the 424 226 8528 number And you're like you're like I am screwed If I don't get my studio online in the next 10 to 15 minutes That's the number to call. Um, we will get somebody to you through our dispatch service A live human dispatch service that will get you to somebody when you need it And for those who do need it, it's a lifesaver. It's sort of a Audio ambulance if it were And if you need a good actor you can uh I am db and jeff holman because As seen on TV well, yeah a lot of stuff a lot and and on the big silver screen. That's right All righty. What else we got going on here? Oh, we need to thank our donors of the week You can donate to our show doesn't have to be a lot Uh, you can set up automatic payments or send us a large donation at once Several thousand dollars would be nice, but you can do a dollar a month or a 10 cents a week or something like that Go to our webpage and go to donate now Uh, and uh, we'll read your name We'll read your name every every week like greg cooper Grace newton christopher epperson robert ledham steven chandler kasey clack jonathan grant thomas pinto greg thomas a doctor voice ant land productions martha con 949 designs sarah borges philips appear brine page rob rider Shawna pennington baird don griffith Tremosly diana birdsall maria macchus and sandra man willer Thank you all for your contributions to maintaining this great show that we've been doing for so many years Need to thank our sponsors like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements vio heroes dot com voice actor dot com and world voices dot org it's world dash voices dot org That's which i am the president i had to mention that you know because You know i i'm i'm in charge of that right now lots of responsibility We've got some great stuff some new things that we're going to tell you about uh as as time goes on so Join us become part of the organization Uh, we need to thank jeff holman uh for doing a great job in the chat room tonight. We really appreciate that Sumer lino Who came? Thank you. So she's been a busy lady. She got herself a new job, but she will be here with us in perpetuity She cannot leave us whatever possible And So we appreciate all she does for us and lee penny just for being lee penny. Well, you know something This is not an easy business. There's so many people trying to get into voiceover And they think it's easy and it really isn't but the technology. Yeah, look at this I mean, what have we got going on here talking about technology? There's a lot of technology shoved into one hall There's so much technology, but how do you sort it out? I'll sort it all out. How do you get the stuff you need? There's only one way you talk to us You know home voice server studio.com or george d.tech. You'll find us will help you out But the bottom line is if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan lennard and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vo bs Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk. There he is. Tech talk. Yeah Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk. All right Have yourselves a great week everybody and that's why that's why minx had him on the show. That's right Because he just looks like that boom. I'm dan lennard. I'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vo bs tech talk tech talk. See you later. Cheers