Can You Build a Proper VO Setup in a Tiny Room?

Already history. Welcome my name, Hi. The pro Audio site thse. You guys are professional and motivated. With tax The video stars George Wissam, founder of Source Element, Robert Marshall, International audio Engineer, Darren Robot, Robertson Global Voice, Andrew Peters thanks to Tribo, Austrian audio making passion her Source Elements, George the Tech Wisdom and Robo and APIs International Demos. To find out more about us, check the pro AudioSuite dot com. All right, and I'm welcome to another pro audio suite. Thank you Robert. This week brought to you by no one. Yeah, this either three of us because at the moment we're between supporting sponsors of our show. And if you know anybody or a vendor or a company who you think might like to continue supporting the Prioritio Suite, would you please let us know. Yeah, that about it. Because the Priority of Sweet would like to support them. Yeah, we certainly would. And some of you guys listen and watch our show. We know there's somebody out there. We know there's lots of people out there, but. We'das into a giant void. The into the war. You can tell who's got the toys, and who hasn't. I haven't, but we have them. Yeah, you have them. Indeed, now the topic for today, and this could encourage a sponsor to jump on board, because what has happened is my daughter has moved out to a sharehouse in the city and she has a very tiny space and she needs to set up something that's kind of permanent for her to record auditions and stuff. By the way, we always recommend it to be as permanent as possible. Yeah, that's something that you gobble up and take down and put up and take down. Yeah you want to. That's that's the sure way to screw it up at one point, or not have consistency with your sound. Absolutely. Yeah. So it can be consistently bad. Well yeah, but at least it's consistent. That's not the goal. So I'll tell you what she's got so far. This is this is the kit so far. She has a mic Port Pro, a road NTG three, a Porter booth the standard one, not the pro, the cube shaped one, the cube shaped one. And she has what she got for headphones. I'm trying to remember. Oh, I think she's got a pair of Oh, that's right. She stole a pair of my old OK one for ones? Can she still about. I remember? Now? Yeah, the silver ones have gone, so she has a pair of those. You have a pair of those? They look like the. Yeah, that's the one for one, isn't it? No, that's not one on one forties ones? I have two. I have two forties here, But the four o's are opened back and the four ones are closed back. Isn't that how it goes? I think? I don't know, because I've got two pairs of kit one kite ones. What are those? Are those forties or two forties? I have two forty Yeah, that's what I got here, which. Both actually probably well over thirty years old. Maybe I do like the way. The two forties sound. But the two forties are open back. I'm pretty sure they're semi open back, so they have a. Fair out there. Yes, yeah, yes, but they're light on the head and they sound very balanced. I think, yeah, like. I think my oldest pair. Uh, I've got a gold pair of Kite one full ones and they are. Forty forty forty six years old. Wow, it's still getting strong. The current edition, I think is that one forty one Mark two I believe is what it's called and they're black or something. Now yeah, yep, they're just made out of more plastic. Yeah. Well, one of my clients put tape over the ports on the back so they wouldn't bleed as much. Oh really, yeah, you know, it's just like once you find something that's comfortable, you just like, I don't want to change, you know. Yeah. They used to be standard kit for radio. So the first pair I was given, it's like when you change radio stations, they gave you headphones. So the first ones I got was in nineteen eighty that was a city radio stations, I should say, the ones that had some money. Someone stole those. And then the second pair I got was nineteen at the end of nineteen eighty you know, eighty one, it must have been eighteen eighty one, so they're forty five years old. Anyway, speaking of headphones, this is totally nonsuch. Wherever have you seen the headphones they use when you have an MRI, they have headphones that you can listen to music or a podcasts while you're get an n MRI. Because it's I've never had an MRI, I, but I know that they're very loud. Yeah, I've had a few, and so the headphones are plastic one every single element is plastic. So they use they use air tubes to feed the sound from the source wherever the sources. I don't know where they put that, but. Like the old airplanes did that. Yeah, yeah, air tube. They had a speaker in the arm rest, I guess, and then it would just blast the audio up the tube. Through the tube. So definitely not Yes, it's like would you rather listen to or so it's like that's what you're listening to. The m R. Yeah, we love headphones, don't we. We forgot all about what microphone. She was using the funny tube device, which is not really a tube as you would think of it as the Cooper I think it was the Cooper time cube or whatever, but it used a hose to put the sound into and delay it. You mean like the Hile talk Box. Well, the Hile talk Box was just using a tube to do the like yeah, I had I'm talking about audio tubes network. Yeah, yeah, that. Was talking about actual tubes. Like it's like it was like a garden hose. I think they practically used like a garden hose and just wound it around to create more space for the sound to go through, and that was like a very early like slamp delay kind of thing that had a very unique sound that of course, I believe you A was like, we have to do the analog model of this. Thing, because yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool, I think. Anyway, so we do what what does the outcome of this? Uh? Has it been used yet? Well? It could be both actually, because I mean she's going to be down there and she may have to do something from it. It's in the middle of the city. Is it going to be quiet enough from like buses? She's too bad because her room is actually detached, kind of detached from the house, so it should be relatively quiet. I mean, it's still in a city, so you've got a lot of that sort of noise. Got on the front of the front of that building, right on the street. Yeah, but she's at the back of the building, so she's up the street, not next door to the fire department. No, no, So what kind of computer is she using? She has a one back book er one yeah. Yeah. And then software did she make her? Did you make her use. Twisted wave or twisted Wave's in Twisted Wave okay? And she has source connect source connect. Yeah, she's equipped. Is the mike port the original barrel a little rectangle one or the two channel one. The single channel one, the. Cigar shaped one, the original. The original one with a light on the bottom. No, I don't think so. It has two cords, one for charging, one for signal. Yeah, you you need a You need a mic cable to go between your mic and the mic port. You can't just jam the mic port right into the microphone. Yeah you can, you can if you have the right mic. Yeah. Oh does the NTG three? Does it have a slim enough collar to plug right into it? It does? Yeah. They They are a very good job of replicating the four to sixteen body without getting sued for you know, design patent infringement. Like they the body is identical to a four sixteen, but the slot design is different than the different scene. It's different looking. But I made the blue ball point pen. It's not the same. Yeah, the any mic I count us with a sentrance ease the CCI because the buddy's too thick. Yeah, so I've got a barrel. It doesn't work with my shore MB seven either. No, I would imagine that, I would imagine I wouldn't imagine that book. Well, the body, I think the body on these C eights is bra I think it's brass. Yeah, it would be. They're pretty thick. Yeah, yeah, they're thick. Yeah. They built like a tank. But it wouldn't work with like a Noyman Cam went eighty four either, like the C eight's not unlike other small diaphragm mics that have pretty Yeah, like I think the four sixteen is unique actually in that sense. Doesn't the CAM one forty have that small body? Not not on the edge? Okay, I can't imagine it one forty plugging straight in funny enough, the one mic that would would be probably like a Sennheiser for twenty one. Oh yeah, it has a little a little funny little a little larder kind of stub sticking out the back of it. Yeah, and it's just it's just the xl R. How about would be. And definitely well, actually it might work if you can get next to the the SM seven B would work except for the mic mount that it's right next to right, true, Yeah, because the SM seven B is literally just an exposed XLR. It's just it is. It is. I don't know, and I'm not too sure how big the color is on that, but it might work on it, but you'd run into so much other crap on the SM seven B because it's right next to it. Yeah, it's not my ideal pick, but yeah, I mean, what does she do when she records and sends her to auditions? Anything? Just record out its sound? Yes, she does, and she'll well up until now because she's either done stuff from a friend's place in Melbourne or here, so she's recording it'll be in here. But she's pretty good at sort of organizing pillows and doners and stuff like that, just to try and control some of the reflections and whatever. So I'm just trying to get something set up in a don't know where CHI can go in and it's not going to be perfect by any means, but just enough that it's not appalling. Because the trouble is, even though people are no, you know, audition, don't worry, just just do it on your phone. It's like, don't do it on the phone. I know they don't care, but they do care. They just say they don't care. Although I did a commercial with a fine microphone for Fine Mike. Yeah that's so, that's so. It's called it's spelled f f I any meaning it's freaking. Fine, yeah, fucking fine Mike. Yeah. Yeah. It was like that was interesting because I was I was trying to we won't say the client was, but basically it was for a spot and this talent was like you know, like those things where they find someone who's candid person, so they didn't want to The person was far away from any local studio and clearly they didn't want to pay for a studio anyways, and they the other person, didn't want to drive two hours to the closest studio we could find. So I was decided that we would send them headphones and a microphone and a two day license for Source Connect. And when I was suggesting, look here's one hundred and sixty dollars road mic. It's going to do good. You should get that one, they're like, we ended up getting like the sixty dollars for fine mic that I believe came with a boom arm and the microphone and anyway, it was this a USB mic. No, the headphone we got thirty actually the headphones was pretty goose thirty dollars Sony's I was like, at least the person can keep those Sonys and they'll be actually decent headphones. But the whole thing was like amazoned over. The total was less than one hundred bucks. Oh my gosh, that's ridiculous. Yeahs the ad. I was like, really you can't. Yeah, you can't slurge for an extra sixty bucks just to and the microphone. So I was like, Okay, the gain's low, can you turn it up? Then they turn it up, and even though the meter's not fufilled, it's distorting, clipping. It was clipping like internally before it even made it to the A to D converter. You know what I mean, This is all right, I turn it down. It was just like barely okay, it just it worked. But it was like, man, but. You were gritting your teeth the whole time. It was a little bit. But but the guy had a closet. And I am glad on one thing because I did insist on getting a boom arm because they wanted to get one of these mics that just had a death stand. And I was like, how is this guy ever gonna put it on his shelf? It won't be it like, it's more important to get it in the right position than having the right mic. Yes, so I was like, I just think we're going to be better off with some stupid boom arm that he can actually get in front of it properly than trying to stand it between his sweaters and his T shirt. Speaking of which, that was the one thing he didn't mention, actually is what is she? What is your daughter bounting the mic too? It's just there's a stand and then that's going to be sitting inside the little porter booth. Yeah. Yeah, so you have to find a place to set the porter booth at the right height for her, correct. Yeah, I mean with a porter booth, you have to go with the dust end. You can't really use a porter booth with a boom arm. Now they have a zipper in the back and you can shove the boom arm through the back of the porter booth and have the mic stick through that way. Yeah, at least the ones I've had. Yeah, yeah, which is not bad. That's actually a really good idea. I'll not get her a boom on. I don't know if that'll work for that setup, but you'll have to see how you're going to fit all that into that cubby. You might just be better off having a wooden shelf just mounted at the right height and just yeah, you know, put it on there for the boom. See. The trouble is that the time you put the mic and everything in, it's going to be quite heavy and probably pull the boom arm down. Yeah. No, the boom arms should have enough strength to well. Harlan even made the boom strap. He had the abs, the adjust chestible boom strap sometimes we call it the adjestable jock strap, and it was. Just for for booms that have lost like viagus boom. It is to keep it to keep your boom supported, you know what I'm saying, keep your boom elevated. And it was a strap that hooked to the rear at the word, the rear of this boom, and it would go down to the baby. Can quick quote you This is to keep your boom support. That's right, capt your boom supported. And now we just need something to emotionally get you into the reed. Yes, sir, I wonder if he still sells it. He does, he does still sell it, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. This one's for your boom and this one's for your mind. Yeah. The adjustable boom stop still there. It is twenty four ninety five keeps your boom from sagging. It's not a bad idea, you know. Apart from that, it's not a bad idea, like because some of the you know, you get these heavy microphones hang them off a mic stand on a boom you're come in the morning. I mean that's some seven will but but the NTG three is not a problem. That's not that's how it works. There you go. You gotta admit that's a very simple and pretty genius design. Yeah, boom sagging anymore? Yeah he wants a saggy boom anyway. Okay, okay, So. So basically no boom stand or no no boom arm, but microphone on a table or on a shelf. How does she get the microphone placed? Well, if she just has like a little short we ten inch stand. Well we're just going to have to suit the booth on just on a shelf of some sort to get it at the right height. So the MIC's going to stick out in front of that is. A port of booth. Really net sare if she's got a ton of clothes in there, Oh. It's a buy or sync. Well, it's like a like a little kitchen. I thought it was in her clothes closet. No, that would be good. Oh yeah, it's a very small run and she's going to do full sessions from the setup. I would think not. I would hope not. But it's just for her to be at an audition for stuff hopefully does and because she gets a lot of auditions sent really weird times now because of the time zone. But is she mainly doing stuff recorded in studio then in that city? She yeah, which is really good. Actually, think about being in Melbourne is you can actually go to studios. It's just easier to go and it's good for her because you're get in front of people. Yeah, of course. Yeah. What is the standard now in Austria standard practice for a voice actor having a home studio does a home studio bill as a separate wine item because you're you're you're studio owner producing it should? I know it should? Doesn't ship sailed about fifteen years ago when this was all getting going. Yeah, that's probably probably my fault. You think it's your fault because I was helping everybody get home studios. But because you told everyone not to charge for it. Well, no, I never told them they're not to charge of it. Yeah, but no one said don't charge for it. But I mean, I just you know, it was such the standard that you had to have a production quality home studio. And I mean, it's not my fault, it's really it's really the fault of the agents and managers. In my opinion, they should have been making sure that their talent was being compensated for their production time. I think it's also the fault of the talent who tend to try to one up each other and well that's some way like oh, I don't charge you for the yah booth, like I'll do that gig for. Yeah, you know, well yeah, it is tricky. I mean the thing is if if you like, because people are money conscious, and if you sort of go, okay, well there's the normal, right, this is the union, right for whatever it is, blah blah blah blah blah plus X for using my studio like that, will you come in to us? Then well, I mean in that case, if you're not going to lose the gig, you're just going to their studio, that's not a bad thing. But if you're losing the gig because you're saying, listen, my studio costs X. It can be your choice to provide your studio. There's two aspects to it. One thing is that often the studios are also charging for the remote connection. So we used to get auditions and the agency would say only local talent because they didn't want to pay for the remote connection. And they whatever like they were just trying to save money and they thought all local would save money, and it did because there was no charge from the studio for the remote connection. And maybe there is no charge for the if the talent was charging for the remote connection. But now what's happened is that the agencies have figured out that they can actually just require the the talent have a home studio, and they start to send auditions out that they don't see it directly, but they say things like must have a home studio, and when you read between the lines, it basically says we will not pay for the remote studio for you. Yeah. So I've actually seen talent now who have gotten really good gigs and then decided, you know what, I'm going to go hire a local studio and I'm going to pay for that out of my own pocket because I care about the quality of this thing. It's just crazy. I remember, and in fact I got away with it. But when I was in the States and I had to do a session for a big client that I used to work with for about thirteen years, it was all TVCs, so the money was there and I wasn't in town, so I had to hire a studio, which I did and they paid for it. But normally it's like, well, if you're not here and not available and you have to hire a studio, you pay for it. And that was the norm. I managed to get away with it. But so the norm was if you're a voice talent and you go on vacation, you pay for the studio. If you have to hire a. Story while on vacation, yep, absolutely, Yeah, well I guess that's fair. I guess if your budget is used to not having that. But it certainly is a flipping of the tables. Yeah, but it's you know, now, of course. She's not going to be doing you know, she's she's going to have to go to the studios. But but what if she gets remote, is she gonna go to a local studio? I guess how far is she from you to use your studio? She's only like hour and a half, so she gets a real gig, she's driving an hour and a half. To come down to it remotely, or if gonna make like it's that's the guy that's down here. He's got the studio in Melbourne, and you know, I mean he might if he's not busy, let her use the studio there. But I would say nine times out of ten, she'll be down here to do a big session. You could hire her for a big it's going to come down, yeah, But I mean eventually she's going to have to work out something where, you know, at some point in the future where she's got a proper set up where she can do sessions from home. I guess, yeah, maybe it's sea box. Who knows. Yeah, might not want to admit they're sending sea boxed audio down the line, but they are. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. I told my clients all the time to leave it on unless some picky, picky engineer goes, hey are you using that? Can you turn it off? It's really interesting, like you always pick a good engineer. And it was a guy in fact, I give him a plug. Paul Shanahan, who I saw last week, actually popped down to the studio. This was years ago. We were doing a session and we're just doing it, you know, getting levels and stuff, and he said, can you turn your compressor off? And it's like, how do you know I've got a compressor on? It was so mild in the setting, but. He picked it. I'm like, oh, damn, you picked that one. So yeah, well, you know what if you're looking at well that we're looking at the waveform. If you if you're recording actor every day, day and day out voiceover on the same kind of mic or the same exact mic, you will definitely notice the difference in the waveform. Yeah, the little compression versus not like I will I'll see it. I mean hear it at first, but i'll see it in the waveform because the transients are not quite as spiky. Yeah, kind of they're not. They're not flat tops, but they're just sort of. Like, yeah, they're not nearly as spiky, and it'll sound pretty much identical. No one's really going to notice it, but yeah, an engineer peeping at the waveform is kind. Of notice Yeah. Yeah, no, he picked it by the sound. That was pretty impressive. That is impressive. Yeah, So anyway, we haven't come to a conclusion. But I think I'm just gonna have to my thinking cap on and workout how the hell I'm gonna set her up with something that's not intrusive, but it doesn't have to keep being pulled down to Yeah, make space the voice over buddies. I know you should do you should. You should rig the whole thing on a shelf that's attached to a series of ropes and pulleys. And when she's not recording, she got hould it up to the ceiling and then oh man. The Pro Audio Suite and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by Robo. Got your own audio issues just ask robbo dot com. Report from George don't forget to subscribe to the show and joining the conversation on our Facebook group to leave a comment, suggest a topic, or just say good a drop us a note at our website. Audio