Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk number 66 Tech talk number 66. Where's that number 60? There it is 66 if you're keeping track which sometimes I'm wondering what number is this Anyway, if you got questions throw them in the chat room right now if you're watching live about your home voiceover studio when voiceover Technology will be happy to answer those and give you the right answers to that So stay tuned it's voiceover body shop tech talk right now From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Wittem the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain the professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a professional voice talent with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world making the complex simple Debunking the myths of what it takes to create great sounding audio Answering your questions showing you the latest and greatest in VO tech and having a dandy time doing it Welcome to voice over body shop tech talk Voice over body shop tech talk is brought to you by voice over essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes.com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and Now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Well, hi there, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whittam and this is voiceover body shop Tech talk Number talk number 66. Yes All righty, I got new glass losers. Yeah, look at these they're blue Oh, I'm you know I'm going for style. I think it's got blue glasses. The wife has blue hair. I have blue glasses. That's right. Anyway, yeah, we're here to talk about home voiceover studio technology. And I think that's an overstated sort of thing to talk about its technology. It's keep it simple. But there's still lots of cool stuff out there that we'll talk about. But you know, if you if you really want to learn how to record right, you know, my philosophy is keep it simple and, you know, and make sure that all you have to do is hit record and do your thing, which is be a be a voice actor. If you'd like to learn how to do it, trouble free and not have to worry about it. You can work with one of us because that's what we do. We're professional home voiceover studio technicians. I'd like to say engineers, but to me that's shoveling coal and adjusting the steam and all that kind of stuff. And if you want to learn how to do it right or if you've got a technical issue, you can work with one of us. For instance, if you want to work with George over here, where would they go? George the dot tech is the website. And yeah, it's like we're techs, but we're also have a great background in teaching. And that's a big thing that, you know, there's so many techs out there that certainly know their stuff, probably know more than we do in a lot of ways. But we know how to distill it down to what you need to know efficiently and quickly. Like you're going to get the right information very rapidly. And it's going to cut through a lot of noise. So you can find me and get my tech support, consulting, training, et cetera at George the dot tech. And then there's not that direction. He's that direction. I'm down there over at home voice over studio dot com, which is right there. Come on now. There it is. There it goes. Go on over to home voice over studio dot com and see all the services that I offer. I love to teach. That's what I do is I will take you if you don't know anything about recording, I'll get you up and running and doing it fairly competently within an hour or hour and a half. So you won't have to worry about it. And if you've already got a studio set up and you want to make sure it's sounding right, you can go to my specimen collection cup at the bottom of my home voice over studio dot com page for $25. I will analyze your audio. And if it's really bad, if you're like totally lost, we can, you know, we can set up a consult. If it's good, I'll tell you if it's a little tiny little thing, I'll tell you and we'll get you sounding the way it's supposed to sound. People love the specimen collection cup. Somebody the other day said, George, do you also have a specimen collection cup? I was like, yes. Yes, I do. It's called a sound check. But they knew about your specimen collection cup. I know it's it's been out there for a while. And then some weeks it is the cup runneth over. Anyway, what do you got in your tech update this week? All right. Well, if you're on a Mac computer, then you've been at some point notified by either a friend, a Facebook group or the Mac itself that Mac OS Ray is being released. This is the latest Mac OS that has been just released by Apple. And you know what to do, right? You know what to do, right? Don't install it. Don't install it. You hear me? Don't install it. Sorry. Don't install it yet. Now, some of you bought brand new Macs. You got you.  I had the it was in my cart. It had the buy button on my iPhone ready to and I resisted the urge. It was hard to do. I wanted to go into those new Macs. But if you did buy one of the new, new, new Macs that just came out, you're going to have Monterey. And so I would not expect to want to put that right into play in a production studio. You're going to spend some time discovering things that may not work with the way you expect. And that's just par for the course for new OSes and other new things. And there's a lot that came out the last couple of weeks. Isotope RX nine just dropped. And is there anything new? Well, from what I could tell, the only thing that really has any relevance to what we do is that there's a new overhauled D hum function that removes hum, buzz, wireless interference, and at any frequency quickly and easily. I think that was a deficient tool in the system before. And so it's great that they have something new. Should you need that tool? No, because you should not have any of that stuff in your signal. But if you're stuck having to deal with it, you just didn't notice on the day or you did something really in a rush, they have a better tool for that now. Moving on, the personas revelator IO 24 audio interface. I talked about three weeks in a row now. This is my long term test. And it's been really good. I'm so nervous to recommend new tech, especially stuff that's very affordable. Coming from a company that maybe hasn't the most stellar track record of making good, reliable hardware. All these things together, but so far or about a month and a half in or month plus of me having a plugged in running every single day, constantly and doing things like this show. And it's proven to be reliable and very happy with it. I found out just recently that you can also control their their console app universal control. There's an iPad app. So if you have an iPad laying around, you just don't know what to do with it anymore. Like I do have an iPad that never gets used. Turn that turn that on, load the app and that can become your dedicated full surface, which actually is something I want to do because I'm always running out of real estate. Where do I put the control, you know, the console now with with all these windows on my screen. Now I could have it on an iPad. So I'm going to try that. I'm excited about it. There have been some negative reviews and negative reviews I've seen have all been like one star one star due to buzzing or noise in the headphones or monitor outputs. So be aware of that. Again, that's something that should be resolved immediately with a replacement unit. But I have not experienced that yet. So I've been in good shape. The new MacBook Pro M1 Pro chips, the new MacBook Pros come with the M1 Pro or M1 Max chips, even faster. You know, but I'm really waiting for others that do high end computer tech reviews professionally to to sink their teeth in. There have been numerous reviewers that already have the hardware. It's been embargoed probably until today or tomorrow when they start arriving at people's homes and we'll really start finding out in the next day or two how they perform. Just like I don't want to recommend something until I've used it for a while. I wouldn't want to put a MacBook Pro, the new one into my studio until I know it's been worked out. This is brand new hardware, new design. Who knows? I mean, who knows what's going to happen? I'm going to wait a little while. Let somebody else test it before you bank your career on it. Yeah, there are those out there. Rene Richie is a guy I watch on YouTube who does a ton of Apple reviews. I guarantee he's already spent a week or more on that new computer. So I'm sure he's dropping a new video tomorrow. I'll be watching for that. And then, you know, a few months from now, I'll see how Christmas is today. Biodynamic DT700 Pro X headphones have just been released. This is their new update to the very, very longstanding model, the DT770 Pro. I'm wearing them right now. It's got an updated industrial design, an updated look. It's got a detachable cord, which at this point should clearly be the norm. I mean, any pro headphone now should have detachable cord so you can replace them. And our friend Juan Carlos Bagnell, AKA some gadget guy, he did a nice little review of it. And he found it a subtle upgrade, I think, to the DT770 Pro. But in pretty much every aspect, all those things add up to a better headphone without sounding too foreign or different from the original. You know, and you're going to release a new edition of a headphone like this, one that I can tell you from experience I've used over 20 years. If it sounds too different, it's not going to work out well. So it needs to just be a very similar headphone with just a few little improvements here and there. It's got better ear pads. They seal more tightly so they block out more background noise. But it's a lot more expensive. You know, it's a $300 headphone now, not $160 headphone. So we'll see if that's my next pair of headphones. Because also, another one of my favorites, and I love to use them all the time, the Audio Technica ATH M50s have a Bluetooth edition. And what's cool about that is they're not just Bluetooth. They're also standard corded headphones. In fact, they look almost identical to the regular ones. You wouldn't know unless you look at the bottom of the ear cup and you'd see some buttons down there for the Bluetooth. So they've managed to bake the Bluetooth into the same exact headphone you wouldn't even know. So now you can work in your studio with the headphones that you're used to, the way they sound. And now you can unplug them and walk out the door with your iPhone or whatever and have the same headphones. I think that's pretty exciting and interested. Yeah, so lots of cool stuff there. Interesting, this week I had a client who was sending me, and this is a guy, a very accomplished guy, and the sound was very, very thin. And he was working with great microphones. Yeah. And one of them was, he said it had a roll off at 150 Hertz. This is a well-known voiceover microphone. That's a Neumann U87, my friend. Yeah. And I was like, why does it sound so thin? And he's thinking, well, I've always done it this way and I'm thinking, what are you listening on? And it's one of those questions I might ask is, why does it sound so thin? Why does it not sound good? And why did he not notice it? And why did he not notice it? Exactly. How are you listening to playback? Great monitors and stuff like that. So we're still trying to figure that one out, just a really, really thin on the bottom. My theory is that it may be thinning it out in the mic, but his monitors might be making up for that thinness because they might be boomy. That's very true. So that might be what he's hearing. So that's a good question. Yeah. Well, we'll figure that one out eventually. Yeah. And then there's also the Shure MV7X. Yes. The MV7 came out last year. It's a USB mic from Shure, clearly designed to be an affordable, easy to use SM7B. Well, now they came out with the MV7X, which gets rid of the USB in all the electronics. It's just a dynamic mic. That looks like an SM7B, but it's half the price at 200 bucks. So it doesn't sound like an SM7B. It sounds similar, but not really the same. Now, I just saw a great review before the show of this guy who reviews tons of gear that is relevant to podcasting called PodcastAge. You'll see him on YouTube. He compared it to the Shure PG-58 side-by-side, and they are nearly identical. And the PG-58 is a handheld style, basically an affordable SM58. They sounded, I swear all they did was stick that 58 inside a housing and made it look like an SM7. That's a $50 mic. So keep in mind, these dynamic mics do not overpay for them. They're incredibly simplistic devices. You should not be paying $300-400 for a dynamic mic these days, trust me. And another thing, PSA everybody, a little PSA, save your raw audio. Shift-Command-S is your friend. So as soon as you finish recording something, and this is mainly for jobs, not auditions, keep a raw copy of that audio. Keep the master tapes, because you never know if you might go along and end up finding that you've processed and sent in a file that shouldn't have been, and now you're stuck with it and save a copy. So keep your raw audio. If you're using destructive tools like Adobe Audition Waveform or Twisted Wave, you got to keep those raw files because you never know when you get to go back. Hard drive space is cheap. And getting cheaper. All the cheaper all the time. Five terabyte backup hard drives, USB ones like this big are like 125 bucks maybe. For the time being, there's probably still a pile of them being on ships out in Long Beach right now. That's true. The price might go up for a while. So save your stuff. Very important. Dan, you got a demonstration? Yeah. One of the things that, you know, we did a webinar a couple of weeks ago, and a lot of people are asking about, you know, editing. And editing is one of those things that I love editing. I hate editing. You know, people who are audio book narrators, they hate editing. Because it's a lot of work. And it's the opposite of acting.  How do you go back and how do you fix that? You know, or it does say the client says, no, you got to pick this up somehow.  They're like, well, could you redo this line? Because they have no idea what it takes to actually do it.   So there's a real easy way. And it works in any one of the platforms that we use, the ones, of course, that we recommend Twisted Wave or Adobe Audition or Audacity, which apparently a lot of you guys use out there. So I figured, why don't I just show you how to do a real simple drop-in edit. And I can show you in a couple of different, different dots so you can say, oh, I can do that in mine. So let's, let's start say with, with Twisted Wave here. Let me share my screen here. Share my screen, share, share screen, share screen, and share Twisted Wave. And there it is. Look at that. It's amazing how we can do this stuff. Anyway, I have my sample script here that I use for everything and I'm going to, I'm going to want to change something. So let me just read the copy for this. Let's see here. Companies can no longer afford to be reactive. Across all industries, organizations rely on the uptime of their equipment to be as productive and reliable as possible. As systems age, predictive maintenance efforts need to be kept up to date. Today, new technologies have become available, allowing organizations to become more proactive than ever before in their reliability journeys. Okay. So I didn't necessarily like the way I said today, new technologies have become available and perhaps the client didn't like it either. So if we play that back as possible, as systems age, predictive maintenance efforts need to be kept up to date. Okay. So say I want to do that differently. Now in Twisted Wave, it's super duper easy because you just put it there and, you know, you go back and you just re-record the line. Today, new technologies have become available, allowing organizations to become more proactive. Now here's the fun part. Okay. So what I will do is, you know, with this because I did some other stuff in there, I copy that and you go up to edit and undo the recording you just did, but I copied it so it's still there. And now it's here. Wait, got to take that out of there so now you can hear it. As systems age, predictive maintenance.  But I've copied the proper way to do that line. And then because I, what I did is I went back, I undid the recording, but I saved the recording that I did and then just paste it in there. And now it's liable as possible. Today, new technologies have become available, allowing organizations to become more proactive. Today, new technologies have become, okay, to become proactive. Today, new technologies have become available, allowing organizations to become more proactive than ever. More proactive, allowing organizations to become more proactive. proactive. Okay, there's a P. Find the P over here. Organizations to become more proactive than where's the P? More proactive than what we have worked. There's the P right there. There's a little delay on Bluetooth here, so it's a little bit tough, but I think I got it. Organizations to become more proactive than ever before. Yes! Yes! Yeah, we're having to use the Bluetooth just for the playback so that you guys can hear it. That's how it'll work around tonight. Yeah, it's a little slow, but I nailed it! You'd never be able to tell that that's where there was an edit there to become available, allowing organizations to become more proactive than ever before. So that's how you do a drop in edit. Essentially, what you do is you record it, you can record it somewhere else in in the file, or you can record right over what you did. Copy, go back, undo recording, and then paste the correct one in there. And if you edit on a consonant like I just did with the P, that's how you do a drop in edit. And you can do this in any format. You can do it with audition, you can do it in audacity, but it's always undo recording after you've copied the thing you've replaced. Does that make sense? It should. Anyway, so I figured I would demonstrate that. George, your thoughts on that?  Now, for sure, what we said earlier about saving and keeping copies, make sure you're working from a copy. Yeah, so you're working from the original. If you have to process the audio, make sure you're working on the version that hasn't been processed so that when you record a raw piece of audio, you're recording and inserting it into something that is also raw without processing. So the processing, if you have to do so, should be the very last thing that's done to the entire file at one shot. It's much harder to process that little piece that you've inserted to make it match the sound of everything else. Right. So I do not do not process too early and always keep the unprocessed copy of anything that's important, like jobs, keep versions of what you're working on. Right. Yeah, something that's long. I mean, what I will usually do is we'll copy it. If it's in the processed version, and it's like just a quick little thing that they want me to throw in there, I'll throw it in there, but I will use the same processing that I used on the rest of the file, and then I will listen to make sure that it sounds right. If I need to adjust, it's a great thing. It's not destructive.  That does usually work.  So just watch, make sure those levels match and make sure your mic technique, your mic placement also matches. Very, very important. Absolutely. Be consistent with your mic placement. Right. Now, some people will go, well, again, you just do punch and roll. Not one of my favorite things. You audio book guys, use it to your heart's content. I'm always of the opinion that when you hit record and do your stuff, never stop.  See these old ones, these are. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, these know this is the east west audio body shop ones, but yeah, we still have. But you can make a physical thing there that you can see as an edit point. And if you've got that with lots of practice, you learn how to just match stuff up and put it in there and no one would ever notice, which is why I like that thing about always editing on a consonant. Because if you can do it in the middle of a word or in the middle of a sentence, no one will notice. You can also punch and roll after the fact. You don't have to do it. You can sort of do a hybrid approach like exactly what Dan did, but using the punch and roll function. So if you want to hear that pre-roll and have it auto punch, that's really what it's called. When it gets to the point where you put the play, that's where it starts recording. You can do the exact same technique Dan just taught you, but using that function in twisted wave. And you can also say, don't record over the rest of the audio, insert it just like Dan showed you so that the remaining audio remains in place. And that way you can control exactly how they fit together and you have better control over the final product. Absolutely. Well, I just figured that we needed more visuals. Yeah, I like it. More demos. Yeah. Let's show you guys exactly how to do the things that we do as voice actors. And you've got to become a good editor no matter what you're doing. Don't be intimidated by it. Try things. Get used to them. And then it's like riding a motorcycle or a bicycle or a scooter, which I've fallen off of many times. Which is not good at my age. But practice them and make them part of your body function. It's really because that's it's man, muscle memory. It's, you know, you're like, okay, I can do this, do that, but we'll go and get it out the door. But it's a great way. You know, if you can do that and your clients say, how did you do that? Did you rerecord the entire thing? No, that's what they think you do is you rerecord the entire thing. Can you rerecord that? No. No, I should get back to you clue that you added it. Yeah, that it should just disappear. Right. It should be utterly seamless as it was in that particular example. I'm shocked that because of the Bluetooth delay that I was able to do that. I'm glad I was able to show you. All right, well, we're going to take a break. We got tons of questions from our great audience here. So don't go away. We're going to answer those questions properly right after these messages. Hi, this is Bill Farmer and you are watching VoiceOver Body Shop. It's great. As voice actors, we need to hear the clear, transparent and honest sound of our voices. Harlan Hogan Signature Series Voice Optimized Headphones 2.0 provide both that accurate transparent sound with enhanced mid-range audio, less bass, and the creature comforts voice workers deserve. Clearly different from traditional studio headphones, the upper mids and highs are clear as about no muffling or cross bleeding between frequencies. Like a pair of studio monitors, the low is there but at the same level as the rest of the spectrum. They're comfortable like no other phones I've worn. That's because Harlan used actual leather for the pads. It's like putting on a pair of leather gloves for your ears. They're also very light for their size as Harlan made them from aluminum instead of plastic. The headband is flexible like a watch band and the plug comes out for walking away. Get the only headphones designed for VO. Harlan Hogan Signature Series Voice Optimized Headphones 2.0 for just $149 with free shipping from VoiceOverEssentials.com. Well, hello there. I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice denouncer guy on your new orientation training for Snapchat, were you? This is Virgin Radio. Well, okay, we're not that innocent. There's jeans for wearing and there's jeans for working.  She's a champion of progressive values, a leader for California, and a voice for America. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smartphone, but it's so much more. It's a, the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice? Check out this song. It's the end of the road for red. This is your neighborhood. When hope is lost. The I8 from BMW. Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's J. Michael Collins.  I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. It's jmichaelatjmcvoiceover.com. Now, if Dan will stop waxing his mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show. All right, let's thank Source Elements because they sponsor our show. They've been doing it a long time and they make a tool that helps productions record voice actors around the world without a lot of time wasted in post, gathering files, organizing files, putting them in the right place, etc., etc. Because when that session's over, the file's already in the timeline and because Source Connect is a plug-in that producers can plug in right into their system, usually Pro Tools, by Logic, Reaper, whatever they're using on their end, New Endo. Pro Tools can be inserted, or I'm sorry, Source Connect can be inserted directly into the workflow and capture the audio straight into the production. And they love that because the quality is what it needs to be, to be going to final, and they have that control. They have that flexibility and they have that convenience. So you want to be able to work on those productions. Those are the ones that are the most well-paying. They're usually the highest production value because that means they're hiring producers and engineers to run the session. Makes sense, right? So you want to make sure you have those tools.  It really is. It's sort of now having ISDN at one time said, I am a pro. Having Source Connect now, the version of Source Connect that you need, Source Connect Standard or Source Connect Pro, that is what's going to show that you're a pro. Now, voice actors should get Source Connect Standard. That's really the one you should try out. And you can get that right now at source-elements.com. Get a 15-day free trial and get yourself familiar with it. And if you need extra help, head over to georgev.tex.sc for additional help setting it up. Anyway, thank you so much for your support. We have a ton of questions, so let's get right to them right after this. Yeah. Hi, this is Carlos Ellis-Rocky, the voice of Rocco, and you're watching Voice Over Body Shop. And we're back. Tons of questions. Tons of questions. The first one was written in by our good friend, Jack DeGolia. It happens to be about Source Connect. It happens to be about Source Connect. What is iLock and why is it used? So far, it seems to be a four-letter word that just generates more four-letter words. Yeah. So iLock was developed many years ago as a way to secure software licenses. I don't know what the first product to use it was, but it was made famous certainly by Pro Tools, because Pro Tools uses it to secure their license to keep you from ripping it off and copying it and giving it to your friends. So iLock exists because of software piracy. So you can thank all the folks who steal, rip off, crack, and give away versions of software to their friends for the invention of iLock. Okay? That's why it exists. So unfortunately, you have to use it to use certain high dollar programs like Source Connect. Now, you don't have to have an iLock key, but you do have to have an iLock account. And that account secures that license to your computer. And doing so, it's a pretty complex operation, actually. And apparently, if you're on a new M1 Mac and you've run the latest OS update, which usually is a good idea, if you're on, like, say, a certain OS, Big Sur, for example, it's usually a good idea to go to the next update when there is one. That usually means there's bug fixes. But apparently, we found out from a support person at, I think, iLock, that the Big Sur 11.6 update did break some issues in the iLock system. And they actually have a workaround for doing this. Actually, Elena is from Source Elements, and she provided a link to how to activate your iLock license on a new Mac if the actual license update or built into Source Connect doesn't work for you. Okay. So, yeah, there is some frustration around using iLock. It is definitely part of the barrier to entry to using Source Connect. We, it's unfortunate, but that is how they've been able to stay in business and not be put out of business by software pirates. Yeah.  Let's see here. Craig R. Heinz. Great show tonight, guys. Thank you. Trying to set up my walk-in closet for recording. Okay, a walk-in closet usually makes it very, very easy. I know four inch rock wool panels are the way to go. Yeah, about that. But how does one determine the best size and placement of panels? We'd like to get this done before doing a sound check with this guy. Well, you know, George and I, we go into a walk-in closet. Generally, if you've got lots of clothes, that helps first. It saves you a lot of money and time and effort. Yeah, it does. But rock wool panels, how do you determine what size?  And if it works, it works. Yeah, you're going to find that they're almost all two by four feet by default because that's the raw material that they make them out of comes in bales and it's generally going to be two by four feet pieces. So the most cost effective and the best bang for your buck is going to be two by four foot panels. Where do you put them? Essentially, as many as you can fit into the space, it's hard to overdo it. But if you're dealing with four inch thick panels, you don't need to probably have quite as many as if they were two inch panels, you can leave some space between them and they don't need to be on the floor. So you don't need anything for the last two, three feet below, below your knees. And you don't really need anything all the way in the corners at the tops of the walls.  And that pretty much, you put, you basically put them around the perimeter. You're going to be in pretty good shape. If you've got the space and the patience to do it, hanging one above the ceiling, on the ceiling right above you is also a really good idea. A ceiling cloud position, you like to call it. Yeah, we've got four of them in here, which is why it sounds so good. Four big ones. Those are four by fours. So that's a big room, the big open space. And a cloud is really, really helpful. I remember when we first opened this studio and we grabbed one of the panels because there was a drum isolation booth in the corner of this recording studio. We snaggled it out of there and George said, why don't we just hang it above where you're working? And it made a huge difference. In a closet like that, it's going to be great. But the thing is, as you were saying, you don't have to cover the entire wall. You've got to leave a little bit of human space in there. And if you don't want it totally dead. Rockwall is really effective. You don't need to, like people probably usually do with foam, they wallpaper it. You don't need nearly as much coverage with a four inch thick Rockwall panel, trust me. Yeah. Yeah. But they're fun to make. Yeah, they're actually sort of. Can be. Yeah, that can be cool. Okay. You got the next question from our Mr. Holman. Right inside the house, Jeff Holman, he says, is there any problem with speed or data loss to stretch an Ethernet cable 50 to 75 feet for a broadband connection? Not that I'm aware of. I don't know what it is. But yeah, you can run them three to 400 feet, I believe, without any issues at all. And of course, it depends which cat series cable it is. I think the higher the cat series, cat 5e, cat 6, the longer I think you can run the cable without loss of quality. I am not a networking geek, definitely Wikipedia or Google search that, but 50 to 75 feet, not a problem. Like no issues, definitely. Have you heard of anything to do with the problem of buffeting and headphones from the personas revelator 24? I mentioned that earlier, right? I said that some people had complained about it. You probably read about it in the Amazon reviews or the sweet water or something. Yeah, I guess it sounds like one in five people that reviewed it had this problem. That's about right. I think every cheap USB audio interface, one in five people have a problem with the gear like quality control at this price point is not the greatest. So that's why I'm so careful to say, everybody go run out and buy it because one of you in five may have some issues with the hardware. So yeah, you may want to wait a little longer. I don't know. I've been fortunate. Mine has been absolutely flawless.  You test it out for a while and replace it if it ends up being faulty. I can't answer that question. It has not happened to me yet. It's fascinating though how things can change between computers. You might both have the same model computer, but something's just a setting, a mouse click somewhere is just a little bit off. Or an electronic issue like a grounding power issue or bad cable or some other mystery issue. Yeah, exactly. From the one and only Fred North who rhymes with orange. Question for Tech Talk. That's us. I'm running Windows 7. Oh well. On my two workstations with Adobe Audition 5.5. Okay. Yeah, it's going back 10, 12 years. But yeah, it works for you. This is my new laptop for travel is Windows 10. I can record with it set on ACO, but when I play back, I get no audio. I switch to MME. These are the drivers. And I get audio and can edit. Then I have to switch back to record. Am I missing a setting or what? I know. Buy a Mac. Well, yeah, there you go, Jeff. That's all Fred. Just go ahead and do that. You don't have to do any of that monkey business on a Mac. There's just one sound driver. Yeah. So ASIO, yeah, that gets really what basically what ASIO does is it allows the software, in your case, Adobe Audition to sort of communicate very directly with the hardware. And it sort of bypasses the Windows sound control panel in the middle. But sometimes it steps on other applications or one application might be running the background and take over the sound driver and then you don't hear anything. That there's a lot of troubleshoot. I would definitely do a little search online for setting up or preparing your Windows 10 PC for audio production and and read through the steps. There are tremendous numbers of steps to go through to prep properly prep a Windows machine for audio production or many because there's so many considerations and what drivers said to use and where, whether they're in exclusive control mode. There's so many things to sort out and that's that's your driver is conflicting with something. That's that's what's happening. If you don't have to use ASIO, turn it off. Just use MME and just if you can record and play back like normal in MME and you have good audio, just go with that. Drop the ASIO driver. Fred by a Mac. It just solves so many problems. The audio drive, if only Apple, I mean Windows 11, right? That just came out. If they simplify the audio driver universe, so you have a driver that just does everything like a Mac, that right there would be like, OK, let's talk Windows. Let's let's see what they have coming down the pipeline that's friendly and easier and less of a pain point to use. And if they do that, I'll be a lot more interested in talking Windows systems. But man, sound drivers are a nightmare. Yeah. Which is why you want to avoid using Windows for voiceover. Yeah. Great for doing models of global warming. But, you know, per voiceover and accounting and bookkeeping. Yeah. Fabulous for that. Jim Mcnicholas, how does Source Connect deal with the latency for a voice in New York, Atlanta, Dallas and all being recorded right here in LA? We were talking about that last week with Bill Holmes, who was doing this massive podcast with this massive cast and there were a couple of people had to do it remotely. How does it deal with the latency with that? Well, there's always going to be a latency just like there is on a cell phone or a Zoom call or anything else when you're sending audio over the Internet. And Source Connect basically lets you, the user, choose how long that latency is going to be. You can actually set the buffer and choose how long it should be. And with great power comes great responsibility because you have control over it. You can actually set that so low to the point where it will start to glitch or drop out. And that's so, so longer latency is safer, less dropouts. Shorter latency is better for real time communication or collaborative acting or working with other people, but you have more chances for dropouts. But it's going to at the beginning of the session, once the session is established, that will, the latency is going to be is what it is. And what the act, what the producer has to do with the engineer is they have to realign the tracks in Pro Tools so that everything lines up correctly after the, after the take has been done. So it's not that it's, it doesn't automatically do this. You actually, the producers have to realign things to make sure they line up, but they know how to do it and they can do it predictably and easily. But yeah, Source Connect itself doesn't automatically realign stuff if that's kind of what you're asking. Yeah. And of course, if, if you're doing a live session, there's going to be latency, but generally the client is going to, you know, mute their mic, their talkback mic to you. So hopefully you won't be hearing yourself coming back. That's another thing.  A good producer will have a lot sorted out for the after, so that will be painless. Yeah. A bad one or an unprepared one is going to make your life pretty bad. Yeah. It does make it probably a little bit tough for, you know, if you're doing it with more than one person, if you've got two people in two different places, it's a little bit harder. It's a, it's a little bit harder. So for sure. All right. Dave G from YouTube question says, here's one for Georgie Boy. I don't know what that means. I was using my ID for MK one, which is a audience interface from, from audience and, and it just stopped, stopped. Was told it might be a voltage bar or something in the box sent sent in for service, brought an MK to weird, right? Also, thanks to you guys, I was able to talk my niece through getting her booth dialed in with rockwool panels, etc. Thanks. Well, weird. No, not I unfortunately know. I've had a lot of audience ID 14, ID 22s. I think even a, maybe a couple ID fours, but mainly the 14s and the 22s have massive failure like power supply, power issue failures. It's unfortunate. Hopefully the MK two series, which is an awesome, they've done a lot of cool upgrades to it. It's a really nice, really nice piece does not exhibit any of those issues. But no, it's not, it's not weird. We've seen a lot of issues with the power supplies fail.  Yeah, I'm not even talking about the wall warts, something internal to internal power supplies. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it was just a wall war. I'd say go buy another one. Yeah. But yeah, I don't, I don't know enough about how they're built and what components are in the power supplies, but it all takes as one capacitor or something to burn out. And if they built a 10,000 of these units with a component that has a failure, it fails after three years, then they're going to have thousands of these things failing after three years. Yeah. And that's pretty, that's tough. Yeah. Pretty amazing. You know, I, I, I work with old radios, which have capacitors in them, but they're made of wax and how they worked. I'm not exactly sure. Electrolytic capacitors. Electrolytic capacitors and all these other things, they lasted 70 years until they melted.  And I guess it's one of the things that, you know, back things were made to last forever. And now things are a little bit more disposable. Perhaps they use cheap components, you know, something, something falls out of tolerance. And suddenly there's more power going through something than it should. And suddenly it goes, not often, but, you know, it depends on the manufacturer. You know, Audion is a great company, but, you know, if they're having problems, they need to look at their designs, I guess. Yeah. And hopefully that's what I mean, the MK2 or the MK2, hopefully they found what the issues were, evaluated them, upgraded those components and solved them. Yeah. That's all I can hope. Yeah. Now, this question from Alton Hoover, this requires a diagram. Yeah. I'll let you read this one so you can describe it slowly. Doing this in a podcast format, this is a blast. Okay, Alton, I'll try. Can you advise how to be able to run multiple sets of monitor speakers on an Apollo X4? The first set is a pair of powered JBLs plugged into the monitor ports. Okay, no problem. All right. Makes sense. The second sets of monitors are connected to Apollo's line out. And there's a line out one, and there's a line out two. And he lists the entire series of cables, adapters, amplifiers, and all the other stuff he has connected to them, right? And he's saying, basically all of these tabletop audio interfaces, the vast majority of them, were never designed to be connected to more than one set of monitors. That's just the long and the short of it. Even the Apollo X4, which is an expensive $2,000-something desktop interface, it still is only ever designed to be connected to one pair of studio monitors. So you're going to need to get, to make it yourself sane, you're really going to need to get a secondary monitor controller box, like something that lets you switch between two sets of monitor speakers, like a Mac-y big knob or some of the other devices that have been coming out lately. You want something that's passive, doesn't have its own power supply, nothing just can switch between A and B monitors and probably has its own volume knob. In most cases, they do. What about a distribution amp? Yeah, I guess you could. I mean, the distribution amp would be if you want to hear both sets of speakers at the same time. If you want to mix them together, that would be ideal to be able to do it that way. You could also get a personas monitor station, which can set up, you can connect up to three sets of monitors and switch between them and you can volume match all your monitors so that they're all the same volume. But it's just, it's a weak point in the Apollo's, they just didn't build them for multiple sets of monitors. Could you use the line outputs? Yeah, it's just a big pain in the neck because now your speaker volume knob isn't going to control the level coming out of the line outs. It's not ideal. Why run several sets of monitors? I never quite got that. I don't really know. I mean, you'd have to have a very good reason for that. They should be dramatically different, like small desktop speakers and really big control room monitors because the reason to have two different sets is because they have different sound characteristics to them. So if they sound similar, there's really no point in doing it at all. He's got JBL control 28. Those have been around a really long time. Maybe he's just used to those and he wants to still get that sound that he's accustomed to. But once the modern, I think they're 306p Mark IIs available as well. So in big studios, yeah, there's various reasons for it. Some engineers really prefer small speakers. The clients usually want to hear the big impressive ones. The really, really big ones mounted into the soffits. That's what's going to make them impressed. But at home, there's less of a reason to probably do that. Yeah. Or as somebody mentioned, maybe it's two different rooms. Yeah. Would you listen in two different rooms? Yeah. That's not clear to me based on that, whether that's the case.  They're cool. I've got them hooked up in stereo. Two different sets set up stereo off the same line out. Right. Because those are mono amp, mono speakers. Right. So now you've just split it so there's a left going to the left radio, a right going to the right radio. Yeah. And it sounds fabulous. That's cool. That was just the fun part about it. Last one. Yeah, from Patricia Andrea. So I don't mean to sound like a total newbie, but I so am one. Once I finalized my computer purchase because my old 2014 basic MacBook Air will not even power my DAW and mic. I don't quite understand why that wouldn't be the case, but we need to probably ask a few more questions. So once I have this new computer, how do I start the learning process of a whole new DAW and all of this? Yep. And yeah, you're right. Learn twisted wave if you're on a Mac. It's real simple. I guess the question- You can run that on a 10-year-old, 12-year-old Mac. And then when you get a brand new Mac, it's the same program. You don't have to relearn anything. Right. And the newer ones, the updated version, the twisted wave is even better. But it always ran on old stuff. I mean, it was running twisted wave on a 2006 MacBook. 2006 MacBook. I've been using it since 2007. Yeah. And it still works. It's just a very simple program. I guess the question becomes what program is Patricia using to record with it? If she's using Pro Tools, yeah, you're probably going to have a problem with that. And then the question is, is why are you using Pro Tools or Reaper or some big multi-track program? Maybe it's Adobe Audition. Yeah. I mean, as you go on in time, some of these digital audio workstations, DAWNs, there's not enough memory or there's not enough processing power to run them because as time goes on and memory becomes less expensive and computers have bigger memories, the programs take up more and more memory. And therefore, you're going to get, you know, it's going to create latency or crashing. That's what I love about twisted wave. It doesn't have this feature creep bloating issue where it just keeps bloated more and more bloated with features. It runs on a 12-year-old Mac and it runs on a brand new Mac and you don't have to keep relearning something over and over. That's right. Well, you've taken another hour of your life and listened to how to run your home voiceover studio correctly and we're happy to do it for you. Now, last tech talk, I put up that poster from the 300, which apparently a lot of people really liked because they're reaction from that one. Got a good reaction from that. If you only knew how much fun that is on a Sunday morning when I'm like putting those together, you know, we're George and I are everywhere. So, you know, if there's something you'd like to see us in, you know, let me know and I'll try and put that together. Okay, that's all the questions we got, but there's still a little bit more to talk about when it comes to voiceover body shop and we'll get to that right after these important words. This is the Latin Lover narrator from Jane the Virgin, Anthony Mendez. You're enjoying Dan and George on the voiceover body shop. Hi, here I am in my normal workspace with a question. What's the biggest challenge you have with voiceover? What's been the puzzle you need to solve? The question you need answered. Well, David H. Lawrence, the 17th and the coaching team at vohurals.com want to know. They're creating new courses and training and they want to know what you need most and it's easy to let them know. Just drop an email to david at vohurals.com. That's david at v-o-h-e-r-o-e-s.com and let him know what you'd like to know. Is it tech oriented? Is it auditioning? Is it about booking more work, finding an agent, podcasting, audio books, performance questions? Whatever it is that keeps you up at night that makes you scratch your head or what you've always wanted to know about success and v-o. Email David and ask. The email address again is david at vohurals.com. In these modern times, every business needs a website. When you need a website for your voice acting business, there's only one place to go. Like the name says voiceactorwebsites.com. Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online in a much shorter time. When you contact voiceactorwebsites.com, their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are. They work with you to highlight what you do. Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are and how your voice is the one for them. Plus voiceactorwebsites.com has other great resources like their practice script library and other resources to help your voiceover career flourish.  You're still watching v-o-b-s? Yes, you are. Well, for another couple of minutes anyway. You know, it's a fun show to do and thanks for all your questions and we really appreciate it. Next week, we have another great guest coming on. So make sure you're here. We have a fresh show every other Monday night live. We love having you here live so you can ask your questions. But of course, you can always ask your questions here and ahead of time by simply sending us an email to the guys at v-o-b-s dot tv. No, I know it's here somewhere, but we'll get to it eventually. Maybe you can find it, George. So if you have a question, the guys at v-o-b-s dot tv is the place to write it to. If you watch us live, you can ask it in the chat room and then you can like listen to the answer as you ask it. YouTube or Facebook. That's right. Who are our donors of the week? We've got Rob Ryder, Petty Gibbons, Philip Sapir, Thomas Pinto, Tom Pinto, Greg Thomas, Graham Spicer up in Canada, Shelley Avellino, Brian Page, great actor, and Mr. George Woodham. That would be Mr. Meaning My Dad. Thank you for your support. We appreciate it. Once again, you need help with your Home Voiceover Studio. You can go to george.tech or we could head to homevoiceoverstudio.com. That makes it a lot easier because better to talk to somebody who actually knows what they're talking about than crowdsourcing it on Facebook or LinkedIn and say, hey, what's the best microphone? What's going to work? Every voice is different. Every room is different. Every Home Voiceover Studio really needs to be individually tailored to you. And it's the right source.  That's George and me. So it makes it a lot easier. Thanks to our amazing sponsors, Harlan Hogan's Voiceover Essentials, Voiceover Extra, Source Elementsmakers of Source Connect, VoHeroes.com, VoiceActorWebsites.com, and JMC Delos. All righty. Thanks to Jeff Holman. Great job in the chat room tonight getting all those questions to us. Hatt Merlino, the Matt Hatter. Take your hat off to Hatt. Yes, Hatt Merlino, son of Sue Merlino, our usual technical director. Oh, is it getting started there? Yeah. And of course, Lee Penny for being Lee Penny. Well, thanks again for joining us here on VoiceOver Body Shop Tech Talk. We'll, of course, be back next week. But remember, when it comes to your Home Voiceover Studio's audio, don't try to please your own ears. But the bottom line is, if it sounds good, it is good. I'm Dan Leonard. I'm George Whidham. And this is VoiceOver Body Shop or VOBS. Hey, we'll see you next week, guys.


Ayo, it's good to see you, DJ Rages. I told you, it only happens right here on Hashtag Hip Hop. Thursday you got good stuff. Well, stay tuned and make sure all the way you stay. My name is Michelle Ashira and it's about the time we get to dive into an interview. But before that, I would like to give a little bit of a bio about our artist who'll be coming through now and as to it. So he's not just a songwriter. He's a producer and also a biotech. Wow! He has done biotechnology and he's still in music and we're speaking much more on how he could balance school and still be doing music and be good at it. And in one year timeframe, he has released three music consecutively for month to month. Tui, thank you for coming through. Welcome to the building! Thank you for having me. Okay. Tui, as you've introduced me. Yes. People have to see that. Introduce yourself. So I'm Tui. Tui means black. And as you can see, I'm light-skinned. Yes, so you're light-skinned. Melon in all the way. Light-skinned. Light-skinned. What sort of potential social media? Trag is the region, quarter-quarter. Yeah, anyway. Okay, so I'm Tui anyway. Tui? Yeah.  Leeds. Kabisha. So that's what I was actually saying after listening to a riff that he has done. Yeah, Bost. And you'll be telling us, yes. Bost riff. Yeah, I'm sorry. Whoa, go up to date. Anyway, so you tell us from all the way to LD to Sosomafikanai. So what was the music scene for you? Did you want to just... Was it like an in-thing with Konajua after minimalism campus, after studying? I just want to do music. Or what was the decision coming through for you? I actually started recording back when I was still in primary. But then after... Okay, I sang all through up to high school. But when I was done with high school, my high school, I had some form of imposter syndrome, you know. Yeah. Just like Kangalya say, if you copy Bonamisi song, you know. And then also I had a lot of pressure academically at home since I had performed quite well. So when you say imposter, do you mean like, do you feel like you needed to sound like someone else or what exactly do you mean by... Yes, but not one particular person. Just looking at everyone who's saying mainstream at that given point and you're an upcoming artist. It gets hard because it gets hard to be original since you think that you have to do some type of music in order for people to listen to you, you know. So it gets hard not being innate, you know. Okay, so original was your first single. Yeah. And it's actually this year. December. December. Did you start publishing your music in the time frame from last year? Or did you actually produce your music?  Did you just start it from way back and this is the time that you're releasing? Or when did you take music professionally? Actually, I think that's the case. Because I've been doing it for... I've been writing, I've been producing for quite a while. I've also worked with other producers, other artists. And as I told you, I'm working on producing my own projects. But then last year, December, I released my first music video, which was my debut single. Yeah, I could say that originally. Okay, so again, so far you've not done like production for your own music yet. But I don't know, you told me that you've done it. Yeah, I worked on the first track. Okay. So why TUI? Because if I was to go back when I was in high school and we used to do QE. So TUI. So Black, why did you go with the name TUI? I love to imagine and I do. Yes. So TUI, actually I have three reasons to why TUI. First reason, TUI means Black in my mother tongue. And I'm all about being Afrocentric more than being Westernized or Easternized, you know. And then another reason is TUI is a Black New Zealand bird and it sings. It's also quite intelligent. And also TUI sounds nice. Yeah, it sounds, it's simple, it's catchy. Yeah, so it's catchy to the ears. So it cannot slide like that. We want the kitambulissian. Kitambulissian. Ian Ruto. Ian Ruto. Wow. Just wow.  Rajis. That's happened when I was on the page and I was like, kitambulissian. Today you're not escaping this one. Kitambulissio. If you want to know how much it costs, it's up to you. If you want to know how much it costs, it's up to you. If you want to know how much it costs, it's up to you. So it's true. So make sure you send them. So anyway, TUI, you studied music. Way back you started releasing them kindly. And tell me about original, the first song. And it had a vibe from an old school kind of urban youth sound. Young people listen to it and just get down to it. It's just a fun kind of music. It's very hyped. It's good for the club banger. So what was the message and the idea of the creation when you were starting the studio and decided to write the original? Writing or releasing it? Both. Let's go both, the process of creation and the whole theme and idea when you threw your message through the song, the original. So when I started working on the track, I was slightly past my imposter syndrome phase. And I was feeling like I needed to do something that's just original. It's who I am as an artist. And what I am feeling, what I have seen and what has gone through before me posting music and up to me posting music, you know? So it was just about me being an original version of who I am and not being anyone else. And just saying what I'm feeling, who I am, what I'm saying such. So what made you decide to do a refix of Booster? That beat was mad. It had a mad bass line. It's a very catchy beat. I'm not usually into so much of the upbeat type of beats, but then when I listen to that beat, it's musicality which is just awesome. Okay, so I'm going to drop your own line and then you tell me which song I may tour. So everyone is losing, but all you have to do is change perception. Original. Original. Oh, you got it, sir. It's his song, so he got it, sir. You have good jumps and I love them. So probably when just winding up, you can tell people what to expect from you and highlighting to the fact that you just released a new jam 11 hours ago. So, of course, you have to perform that. We are looking forward to hear the refix of Booster. You can tell people using coming fall, like a lineup of projects that you have coming up. Because I've seen, like, in your timeframe, you're releasing music in a period of just this year. You have consistently two, three other songs consistently. So tell us about your... Is that the lane you're trying to go with in the pace of releasing your music and if any other project is coming up? Okay, yes, first thing. I think that's my part of reference. Because if at all I choose to be consistent in my music, two things will happen. One, I'm going to get more opportunities, statistically speaking. And then the other thing is I'm going to improve on my own as an artist, my growth. It doesn't have to be about my image or marketing. But then, yes, so you get the cash they drift. Also, for projects, this year I'm working on singles, but then I am also parallel recording my project. Explain what is parallel recording? I'm doing my solo projects and I'm also working on my album. Oh, right. Yes, I love the music you've come with, just in your singles and then hearing an album. Yes, continue. Yes, but I'm working on perfecting it and I'm not working on it alone. I want to team up with a crew. A crew, a bogey of producers, mostly from the past doing ka puka kitambo. I just want to have some original vibe with that Kenyan sound. It's hard to explain it until you listen to it. Okay. So guys, remember, I try to find a channel that's for how you get asked at Michelle Oshira. So if you have any questions, comments, let them come through. All right. To you. I'll let you use camera 4. First of all, explain what is bogey in terms of how you... Yeah, there's just an explanation which is something to do with the ballers and stewie. So you'll give you the definition and then you'll drop the buzz for this particular song. And it has bogey, bogey, bogey. Bogey. Bogey. Got it right. Let's do this. So bogey, bogey kuali gamta just means random or crew, a group of people because I decided to do it with that bogey vibe because I'm a teamwork kind of guy, you know. And moving with a team is usually what I do. And I'm also urging many people to do it whether musically, all those forms of expressions, it would be better if you do it with someone else or assist someone else or assist each other. That's why nili kujya na bogey kujya peke ako. Okay. So this sound is different in terms of compared to what you've been doing. So why did you choose to take this direction? As I told you, it's not really a directional approach. It's just I can also do something in this. You see, it's not bogey, we are safe. Perfect. You sure? We can do this. Okay, I'm ready to dance if you're going to drop this buzz. So I am ready. Let's do this. DJ Rajesh, are we good? Are we good? Yes. So this song is coming up and then we'll leave him to drop his lines. Yeah. And we'll be coming back. Okay, we're good. Let's do this.