In Ears for Voiceover: Brilliant Isolation or Total Overkill?

Any history. Welcome, Hi. The Pro Audio Suite. Thanks you guys are professional and motivated with text. The video stars George Wisam, founder of Source Element, Robert Marshall, International Audio Engineers, Darren, Robbo Robertson and Global Voice Andrew Peters. Thanks to trib Austrian Audio Making Passion, Herd, Source Elements, George, the Tech Wisdom and Robbo and APIs International Demos. Find out more about us check the Pro Audio Suite dot com and welcome to another pro audio suite thanks to Austrian Audio Making Passion. Heard today, we're talking about in ears or not in ears? Yeah, so in here or not to any Yeah. So okay, let's first tart about why anybody would consider an error monitors and her voiceover booth context. Or super duper duper isolation, right, Yeah, and they also tend to like if you get good in theirs, they are usually very good headphones. They sound very good. And also open back headphones. We should check that in the mix as well. Boo, the literal opposite of in ears, yeah, absolutely, yeah, the other end of the spectrum. Yeah, so who needs maximum ear bleed not ear bleed protection bleed protection? So you're trying to keep the mic from picking up the bleed of your own voice or somebody else's voice or whatever for who is it or problem. I was chatting with a fellow that I met at Get Out of Your Booth conference. His name's aj DeLong, happens to work at Sweetwater, and he's been demoing a bunch of iems from Ultimate Ears in his case, and he said, the reason I want i ams is for what I'm doing WALLA sessions. I can see that. Yeah, yeah, So why would maximizolation be very beneficial for doing Walla? Because you have multiple people that are being recorded at the same time. Like Bob backgrounds and all that, that will. Ruin the record. They had The only time you really need good isolation is WALLA or radio interviews, because that's when you're echoing back through the headphone, bleed will actually ruin the recording on the other side. That's what I was saying before that, Like in a voice over session, it's courteous, it's nice, Yeah, it's nice, it's courteous. It's good to have a good isolation, But ultimately, when you're doing the voice over take, everyone should be off their mic. You won't be hearing them back if they hear you, or if they hear themselves back a little bit and ghosting in the background saying to read it faster with a smile. It's not going to destroy the session, except for the most picky clients who whatever like it's it's not going to stop the session. But wala a radio interview where that's getting into the other ends recording, Now you got a problem. I also think you've got a problem, and I think you've also talked about this before, Robert, where you've had to do a pickup and the person has worked to music with their headphones too loud, and then all of a sudden, you're moving, you have to cut a piece of dialogue into another spot, and then the music doesn't work because it's bleeding into the wrong spot. That is a problem, yeh, because again, something is getting anytime anything's going to get into the recording from your open bag headphones or leaky headphones, that's going to cause a problem for the recording. So if you can make the assumption that when you're performing, nothing is coming into your headphones except for your own monitoring, yeah, you know, like that's not going to cause that much of a problem. Technically that is actually another extra source of audio getting into the mic, but at least it's the same thing. But also I ie the tip, which is something I do. Whether anybody wants to listen to any of my tips, it's fine. But people will say, oh, do you want to do this to the music bed, and it's like, not, just play me the music bed so I can hear it and get it in my head and then don't turn it on when I'm reading so I know the vibe of what we're reading too. Do you find it distracting to read to it or do you like it? I don't like. Yeah, see some people do. That's that's the funny. That's what's not funny. I mean, it's all personal taste. But there are people who would prefer to hear it. If you've got it, I'd love to hear it is their words. Or there are others who like you just go, Can I just hear it and then that'll do I think. I think sometimes even when they say it doesn't change the read, it does change the read, and it puts energy in it, and it's a subtle thing. I think it changes the read. But if it's someone who doesn't want to hear it. It can also change it in a bad way because they're struggling with it. So I think you've got to go with the flow on that. I've never really had someone who doesn't like actually just all together and get a better read from reading with music. Actually, funny enough, I don't. I don't disagree with you. But unless you I kind of still feel unless you're forcing them to unless they're like ap yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but no, if people, if you can get them to read to it, all the better. Absolutely agreed. Yeah, I see, I'm not hundrepresent about that, because I think it does change the way you read if you're reading with music underneath. Don't you think it changes the read for the better though, because you've got to feel for what's going on, and you sort of you can get a you can get in tempo with the music and all that sort of stuff. It spends what you're doing a subtle thing where even the piecing of the words it's fit with the music and the energy ramps in the right way. I don't know, it's it's. Well, doesn't the music have to be in sync? Then it's like whatever you're singing over it's got to be synth. To no, because it's still like sync that It's like, okay, if you're syncopated, or if you're on beat or off, but you're still in you're still in time. There's still like a correlation that happens. Yeah, it's like if you take an a cappella vocal, you can still slide it around to fit yeh. Yeah. But the thing about the music is, I don't want to read to music. It just changes the really changes the delivery. And if the script is written properly, you know exactly where the points are where you actually, you know, step it up or step it back, or slow it down or speed it up or whatever. So maybe if the script is not the best grating, maybe the music, well, the news is probably gonna be too. I mean I used to. I used to back in triple M days. There were times when I used to get the station voice to voice to promos. I'd already built beds for Yes, I get that because I knew his voice. So I knew his voice so well that I could, you know, basically read it myself and get a basic, really you know, reasonably close idea of the timing that he would need for stuff, and so I would build promos and get the station voice to read to that. I mean I used to read to pictures and music or sound when well, the last one I really did it for was when I was the voice of Lorel Paris, and that was always to pictures because you always had like some celebrity head delivering lines and whatever, and there was music, and there was there was also a lot of captions you know, what do you call. It, titles and all that. Yeah. Yeah, so they'd be popping up with all these sort of weird sort of things. So obviously that's where you've got to get your timing right. So you need to have the backing track for that. But if it's just a straight read, I don't want to hear it. I would have thought reading trying to read to picture would be a little more distracting than trying to read to music because you're sort of you're trying to do something visually at the same and you know, you try to read a script and keep an eye on the picture at the same time you're trying to read, whereas with the audio, just the music just runs in the background. Yeah, but I never used to do that. What I do we do a run through, so I would read watching the pictures at the time, and I get the audio accues of my head and then I wouldn't look at the screen. Yeah, yeah, it's funny. We've spoken about it before. DSP the editor that I used to use at George Pats, which was sort of the first real digital sort of editing I ever, did this thing where you could put a point on your timeline and it would the video. It would superimpose on the video in the booth, and so it would give like a three to one and then a cross yep when the voice had to come in and all that sort of stuff, so it's like a visual que on the picture as well. That was always really clever. Yeah. So it was an audio editor but with a video component. Yeah, it had a little video out the eperqre thing too. Yeah like it yeah, like, and that's all it did. You couldn't play picture out of it or anything, obviously, but it would put out this signal that you could mix into your video chain so that the voice artist had a hard in Q and I think you could also set up I was. Just tooked off like electrodes or the voice over talent was just like electrodest little twelve vaults go. I'd always put a little pip on a separate track so they'd get a pip in their head, you know when they used to had to come in and all that sort of shit too. Yep. But going back to headphone Bleed, I have to I have to tell this story because I'm kind of a little bit proud of it. I'll be honest. I actually had Headphone Bleed save this podcast last week. We did it for those who Risen regularly, it brought to you by Waves and New Yeah, yeah, yeah, well we did. We did a Waves region episode and for anyone who was listening, we know that Robert was at his mum's place recording on her crappy old iMac. So I got Robert's audio from the episode, and there was all these dropouts, most of which I could editor around, but there was one where as usual, Robert dropped some gem and the whole conversation changed completely changed direction, and so I needed that audio and I real long story short, I was going to get AP. I sort of picked up the phone to ring AP and he was at the gym or something, and so I left him a message saying call me back, I need you to record something for this. And while I was sitting there, I realized in my headphones there was bleed of what Robert had said. So I grabbed it, gained it up as much as I could in pro tools, and thought, oh, that's probably. Still not loud enough. So I stuck it through a compressor, no compression, but just to get some more gain out of it. Chucked it into Regen and regended it and dropped it into the episode. And I don't think anyone is yet to pick anymore. Yeah, I know, yeah, Roberts can just talking into any crappy old mike and to. Yell at you from here, and hopefully that goes down to. I should qualify it as saying that there was I think there was about thirteen seconds of audio, and it was pretty obvious in places that it really wasn't Robert, that the AI had struggled, So I just managed to cut it down to five seconds and just slip it in there. I mean, I don't think it's going to save you if you lose a whole interview, or hold one side of an interview or. Something that should be just slip it in there. I actually think I fire you as much as I've sort of anti AI, I actually think I found one use for it. Yeah, and trust me, you'll I'll allow you to find the limits. Well, I know AI always find a way to slip in two episodes, but we're all trying to check out the limits. Yeah. Think Well the complete irony, of course, was that it was an episode about region that it was on. That was that sort of completed the circle. Yeah, So so try this out for a second. A setup I want to do. I like having my talkback set to auto, so when I hit stopping pro tools and NEXTUS Gateway's got echo cancelation, so that's not a problem. But the talent on source connector is no echo cancelation, so then when they want to they hear themselves. But I don't want to give up the auto talkback switch. So here's what I'm. Thinking of doing. I'm going to take my monitor and I'm going to put it right at my left ear or a little bit to the side, and then I'm going to get it. I'm gonna put that monitor straight into the side of that figure eight microphone so that I talk into it, they hear me. But when the it goes right into the side of that figure eight gets and no echo. Hm m hmm. I think it for your chance to win for the rest of your lives. Just feeling the missing woods, little little panta. So none of that made it through. You know that bit on Jimmy Kimmel, No Jimmy Fallon, No Jimmy Kimmel. It's called unnecessary censorship. Have you ever seen that bit? Fuck? They take anything that came through as fuck. But the whole, the whole shtick is that it's like they take suffer out of the news, you know, politicians, and then they just bleep a random word, you know, in their phrase like it they like, you know, it's just it's not random. They pick the right word to make it something. They pick a word, so it's very clear that it sounds like they would have been saying fuck, but they're not saying fuck. But that's exactly what just happened to you. Just when I speak that, it fucks up, Like right now, I'm okay, But as soon as I actually go to say something that is meant to be heard. As soon as you start, as soon as you start thinking, well while talking, it starts muting your signal. Do you know what it is. I think it's the team full of hat he's wearing. I think it's affecting the microphone. And we'll try it one more time. Maybe it's working. Now. I want to talk to my clients us in the auto talkback switch and pro tools and mute on so that when I hit stopping pro tools, my microphone opens. My clients don't hear an echo themselves because next to suite has echo cancelation, but the talent on source connect they hear an echo themselves with source connects, So just a wide open you know, No, it's pure. So my thought is, I'm going to take my whole monitor and make it one speaker, and I'm going to put it side firing, and I'm going to put my I'm going to make my talkback mic a figure a ribbon microphone. I'm going to point the null of that figure eight right at that speaker. So when the talent talks out the speaker and it goes into the figure eight, it's completely canceled out. I can talk into the I can talk into the into the mic and you'll hear me, but the talent coming back will be phased out because of the two lobes of the figure eight. The Beatles have an open mic, just like the Beatles used to do backing vocals without headphones. But the room has to be dead though for that to work. Yeah, yeah, you're right, and that won't That won't work in my apartment, in my place. That doesn't work in any recording may have ever done in ten years. Well, I can tell you that for sure. I think that the key is probably in ease. I don't want to be on not. For in ears are not for everybody. I can tell you I have. I have a pair and maybe and I have the in ear. I have the custom old ones too, and they're just an eventually make me fucking crazy. I just. I don't mind the in ears, but there's a point in time where they can create a certain level of nauseousness because they block out so much. And I was going to say that that's one of the things about in ears is if you do in ears, you really need to use the monitor latency or the self the self monitoring of your interface because you're going to only hear your voice in. Your occlude your ability to hear your own voice. Yeah, and so sometimes I think the total opposite of I E MS is the way to go, and that is a completely open earphone so that you. Hear yourself acoustically properly. So you hear yourself acoustically properly, and if you want to do some inline editing or punch and roll or something, you can you can hear your voice clearly, but you can still hear the cues, the pre rolls, et cetera. And they don't include your ears at all. Like there's these really really cheap costs brand clip on ear but ear earphones. They're little foamies. They look like the eighties or nineties cheap headphones, right, And these don't even have a headband I got and they just clip onto the ear. They don't look like they be that comfortable, but they sound good. They just did that, you know. I've got the other ones. I've got the ones that like they came out of aniceties, Wookman. But they have a head yours as a headband, right, a metal headband. Correct. They don't have a control. Does it have the light medium hard switch to control the ear press? Yeah, they even have a pair where you can adjust the pressure of the ear pad on your ear with a little sliding lever, very clever, really interesting headphones, but sometimes not including your hearing and going completely open would be the way to go. Right, if you're not doing walla, which is ninety nine point ninety nine percent of what you guys are in voiceover are doing, most of you are not doing walla? Right? Am I wrong about that? No? I think you're right. So didn't. I didn't even know what it was. It's a niche a very niche voiceover. It's more like a it's more like a foly Yeah, like a background. So yeah, it's a niche thing. But anyway, so, yeah, do you need ims? Probably not. Do you want to use them for a maximize solation? If that, if they don't bother you go for it and you don't have to spend I don't know more than two hundred dollars. Biodynamic DT is Austrian audio coming out with their iems anytimes. I haven't heard, but I wouldn't be'd be the first ap Well, yeah, I must actually ask im. Not aware of them. Maybe it's logical for them to do it because they have a lot of obviously they're targeting mesas and yeah, I know they've got a lot of drumas that are using when I ibeheads and stuff and and the you know, different drum mics. So Enys would be maybe a logical moves. Sure, I did see an interesting headphone. Actually, I think that same gentleman AJ told me about. Have you heard of a brand called I I I I. Like A like I would like to tell you very much. Brand. No, it's literally the brand. It's a I A I A I dot audio website. They have a pair of headphones called the t M A series, not t M I t M A and they're totally modular, so they have replaceable earbands, earpads, the driver cups can be removed, so you can make some folks. That's like the fast techs RPT twenties. Well there you go. See these guys can't invent the idea. Like studio headphones that people can trash and then you can still buy all the parts. That's another Well yeah that's true too. I mean biden amex et cetera. You can buy all the parts. But this is like a mix and match thing where you can have all those things and you don't need a munch of tools. You know, they they snap the keep. The jeep wringler of headphones. Yeah, well, yeah, like the cool thing is the headphones, right. The headbands have the cord integrated into the headband, right, So you can have just the headbands. I'm showing these guys on screen, but you can get just a headband. And then there's a little cord for each ear cup, right, And then each ear cup has a jack for the cord on it, so the cord can be on either ear cup, left or right, depending on what you want. And then you can put a larger earpad a smaller one the lowrier path. You get one side big on the other side. You could, yeah, why not? You could? You could literally go one earpad. Yeah, that's the funny thing is they don't have a one ear pad mode. You would think they would do that, but I guess you could just have one big earpad and one small earpad and you don't plug the cord into the other earpad. Can you have one one one open back and one in the ear that. I haven't seen. I did have a really weird pair of headphones at one point that were both in ear and over the ear. Yeah, they were really bizarre. I couldn't get again, I couldn't get used to putting on a pair of over the ear headphones that also felt like someone's fingers were jammed in your ears. It was really weird. I used to have a pair of underpants like that on your head. That's not a jack, that's a jack z. Exactly. Oh God, the run is over. The pro Audio Suite and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peaters, mixed by Robo. Got your own audio issues just ask robo dot com. Text report from George the Tech Window. Don't forget to subscribe to the show and join the conversation on our Facebook group to leave a comment, suggest a topic, or just say gooday. Drop us a note at our website audio suite dot com