Welcome, Hi to the Pro Audio Seek. These guys are professional and motivator thanks to try Booth, the best vocal booth for home or on the road voice recording and Austrian Audio Making Passion Herd Introducing Robert Marshalls from Source Elements and someone Audio Post Chicago, Robert Robertson from Voodoo Radio Imaging Sydney to the vo Stars, George the Tech, Wittam from La Andrew Peters Voiceover Talent and Home Studio Go and welcome to another pro audio suite thanks to Austrian Audio Making Passion heard try Booth. Don't forget the code tri PAP two hundred that we'll get you two hundred dollars off your purchase. And of course the passport vo from Sentrance and the Pro Audio Suite should be out by the end of the year. Still some available if you want to buy one, just go to our website, the Pro Audio Suite dot com. You know what I forgot to tell you guys about my landing page two. You know we have a landing page at George the Tech. Okay, he is doing that part of the show, George the dot Tech slash tp as. That's where the coupons and promotions live for anybody listening and watch listening to the show right now, it's ten percent off on the website. So head that over to George the tech slash tp as look at you your sneaky bugger? Hey lovely, Hey hey, Now funny you should talk about the Passport Vo because during the promotion, when we were selling the Passport Vo, we also ran a competition and one of the winners from that competition, how did demo made by Robbo with a little bit of help from me? And he's our guest today. Gooday, mamma, how are you doing. I'm great, Thank you very much for inviting me pleasure. Well, it's a bit of gratuitous self promotion on our behalf, actually, because Rubbo and I have decided that well Rubbot is going to start producing demo, which he has been for a while, and we'd kind of set up a little bit of a partnership. If anyone's interested in having the two of us make the demo that might be after hearing this, I will you never know, I'm sure they will, yes, And I feel very lucky that I was the chosen one. So, speaking of which, being the chosen one. How was your What was your experience? It was great. I mean, I've never done a demo like this. Most of my demos, well, actually all of my demos are demo reels of things that I recorded. In the past. I used to record a lot and from different things, crazy stuff, normal stuff, so it was very easy to have a demo reel. But I realized that demos now are different. So this was my first experience with the process and it was more elaborate than I than I ever thought. So we had a first session through source Connect and we talked about what I wanted and you heard very patiently. We said some jokes and everything was great. It was a wonderful hour of fun and just ideas of what I wanted to accomplish. And as many people can hear, I have an accent because I'm originally from Mexico. I moved to the States when I was a grown up thirty years old, so I will always have an accent and I'm okay with that. And this was the first time that I embraced my accent and I said, you know what, I need a demo that portrays my accent and portrays my voice as as I speak. Like this, and so you suggested to have some scripts that will showcase that, and that's what you did. After the first stock that we had, then you you sent me some script and they were very good and they showcased precisely that by bilingual way of being just myself, and it was wonderful. Those were the first two parts. Yeah, it was a challenge because we had to think of something. There was no point getting you to read just straight scripts because we had to think about, okay, what would you book with an accent? So we had to find, you know, the right kind of material that would actually highlight your accent that also would make you bookable for that kind of work. So hats off to Robo because Robo whizzed off and put the scripts together and wrote them all and all that kind of stuff, and of course did all the donkey work when it came to putting the whole thing together. But there was one interesting part of it, and Robo and I decided that we would get all the takes and then we would actually edit up what we thought were the go takes from each of the scripts, and then we didn't share them with each other. So it was quite enlightening when we actually did get to hear each other's edits of your voices. Well, the session itself, I guess before that was kind of interesting too, because we all three of us sort of bounced ideas around in terms of the way directions we could go, and you know, things we liked and things we didn't liked about certain reads and all that sort of stuff. So even that was kind of interesting in itself, just getting three different perspectives and then going, Okay, what's the best way. Yeah, it was wonderful because I had two directors with two different point of views. So when I thought something should be like in a high note, then one of you will tell me no, no, no, let's start this slow and then you build up to where you were. So it was wonderful. I mean, it's great. I highly recommend that, I mean, have different people directing you, because you will get different intentions and different and sounds from your voice. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was interesting for Robo and I because we're you know, even though we've well we've known each other for god how long we've known each other through twenty thirty years? Yeah, something like that. Yeah, it's thirty, isn't it. Yeah, we'd be so we'd be close at the thirty Yeah, yeah, holy shit, anyway, we are getting old. But it was like, because we're coming from different kind of areas where you know, Robo produces the spots and I voiced the spots, so we're kind of seeing it from different angles. It was interesting how many we got the same though, where we picked the same takes, but there were there were certainly differences in there as well. No, no, not that. It was very interesting when I received both your versions. Some were very similar and some were very different. Yeah. Yeah, and I guess you know, coming coming at directing that stuff from two different angles is is is probably the secret. And it's interesting though because I think I think there's only I think there's only one or two spots out of the five or six that we recorded that are actually that are actually all just you know, the one the one edit from me or from Andrew and the rest are all hybrids. So yeah, because there were what there's seven there are seven spots, seven spots. There were two that are one hundred percent me and two that were one hundred percent you, and the other ones the other three were shared. Should we play it? Yes? Why not? Indeed, this is the edit of all the spots put together. And just a warning before you hear it, this opening music is near worm. You'll be doing this for the rest of the day. So it's it's the world premiere. Well, it's the world premiere of the the Andrew Peters and Robo Demos producing company. Good sell. Can you tell what's the name of the company? By a weak god, we kind of we kind of agree on takes. Can you imagine trying to agree on the night of the company. This is for you. This is fifty five minutes of slow grilled flavor, and this is always fresh and cut to order in this place. Colors Sick Night and Blaze mighty creatures on leash of the roars. Everybody yearns for something, if you have the drive to reach out and take it. Hey, how are you Ian or English? It doesn't matter. We're in Miami, believe it or not. Makita has been making cordless power tools since nineteen seventy eight. Fifty years later, There's no name more trusted for rugged, hardworking, long lasting performance. It's like part of the family. Abuelo gave it to Dad, and Dad was going to give it to me, but I got a new one. A cup of chicken noole soup, anything hot to warm you off and take away the hunger. A donation to food Bank can make that happen. Make yours today, all right, I'll cloud because no one is clapping at the first thing I thought was clearly a conscious, a conscious decision to cut around brands, like because I hear a lot of demos, and I mean, people want to flaunt a brand. I think it makes them feel like the their demos somehow. I mean, I'm guessing it. People will leave a brand name in thinking that we'll give some more weights or something to the demo. But you guys chose to keep it completely unbranded, which I thought was really interesting and I think a really smart choice. I think as a voiceover talent, it works in your fever. And not to have the brand because you might be showing the demo to someone that's a competitor or that will be a conflict or it's great, it's a big one, absolutely, but the demo. We wanted the demo to be more about about memo too. We wanted it to sort of highlight as we talked about with the original discussion. We had the three of us together, was that we wanted to accent his accent, I guess more than anything. So we wanted the whole thing to be about him. We didn't want it to be about people going, oh, he's done Chevy, he's done this, he's done that, and he just wanted it to be, Hey, this guy's really good and you know he's versatile, and sort of hopefully put them in a place where they can hear a read and go, okay, well that sits perfectly with this script I've got in front of me. Let's give him give his agent a call. You definitely hear the styles and the range of the of your performance there. I mean, it's really it does. It does exactly what it's supposed to do, is highlights your voice quality, your voice style, and you're acting. Yeah, thank you that that was a point, So thank you for mentioning that. But we didn't also wanted to build a demo where memo would turn up somewhere and then can't replicate the read. There's nothing worse than, you know, a flash demo, and then you realize pretty quickly that they must have spent hours and hours getting the performance because this person can't actually do it anymore. So this is all the stuff we knew Memo could do like that, you know, yeah, and that's a good point, you know, I do say two hours recording it, but we did seven scripts, and we did full scripts. What Memos walked away you with is that edit, that seventy five second edit, But each one of those pieces involved in there, we actually created a full a full spot. So I mean, nothing's to time, but you know it's not thirty or forty five. But we recorded the full scripts. We put the whole all of those scripts together. So Memos also got those individuals, all paces that he can go away and stick up on YouTube or on his website or whatever. He says, and thank you for your patience because I I to me, this was more than creating a demo. It was like breaking a barrier because I had this mental block that because English is not my first language, I always had a respect and that imposter syndrome that you get as an artist because you know that you're not right for this. But the way you guide me through their recording made the whole difference. So I actually was able to go past that and felt very comfortable recording in English, and I really needed that, so thank you very much for that. That's golia. We had fun. I think that the way that you cut it was really interesting too, the way the spots kind of flow together. Did that take a long time to figure out the sequencing and then where to actually place the cuts? So what we did so the end of the process, I guess was once Ap and I had done our individual cuts, we just labeled them script one A, script two A, script three A, and then one B, two B, three B, So Mimo didn't know who it picked what or anything like that. It was completely blind for him. And then I send my recommendations. Yeah, he sent his recommendations, and we cut together those recommendations. Then we jumped online and played through them again and made a few more changes, and then we did some Francis as well. We did yeah, yeah, so yes, finally that's what sort of went into it. So then there was the final decision of okay, this is this is the order, or we think we'll put them in. Did we decide on slices or did I think I picked those? Didn't I I think I picked those? You did? Yeah? It was it was funny because you actually said you might there's something I'm not happy with, you know, And all I'm going to say is in the beginnings if you can find it. And I listened to it and I came back and so I don't know what you're hearing because I can't hear anything that's standing up to me that sounds weird. And it turned out there was just the first spot was longer than he actually wanted to the edit to be, but it made sense because memo went from that soft up into more of a retail on that first spot, so it sort of led you into the next part. Yeah, but in terms of picking the actual slices that I used, it was more about making sure that we showed off the best parts of that read. So it was sort of listening to the read and sort of going, it's all good, but what's the bits that really stand out in there? And they're the ones that get shopped together. We like Andrew just said the Polo Loco chicken spot at the beginning, it bothered me that it was long, but it also worked for me and I couldn't figure out why. And that's you know, when Andrew sort of said to me, look, he goes from two tones. He goes from that sort of light happy thing into a bit more of a retail read. So it was sort of showing off two reads in the one spot, I guess. So you know, it's all that sort of stuff. It's kind of figuring out what's going to work. And the nice thing about that polo loco thing, too, is it shows it shows memos versatility that he can go from two he can swap between styles within a read. Oh yeah. It was a fun process, it really was, and collaborative every step of the way, which I think is important. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because once we were hearing them, I realized that all maybe I was wrong with this one, and you guide me to choose the best option. So that's why we have the Frankiees and it was the best of everything. Yeah. I think you need to I think you need to domessify. A colloquialism is what does the Frankie's when you grab things from one spot or from one take and put it into another. Yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, Yeah, it makes sense. We had a lot of takes because when I recorded sometimes they will tell me, oh, just do the tag or just do this part, but I like to do the whole script, because I don't know, it has a flow. It flows different than just doing one part, so you were very patient then letting me do it from the top all the way to the end of the script, so you had tons of takes, so I guess it was not easy to select. That's the other thing there too, though, is I mean by doing a whole script, all of a sudden, we have you know, five or six different options in terms of bits we can take from that script, rather than doing just a couple of lines and going or we're stuck with that. Because you know, there was a couple of ones where when I was writing scripts, I thought, oh, you know, the final edit, that's probably the line or two that I'll use, and then you've nailed it somewhere else and it's like, well, there's no doubt about it, that's the bit to use. So it was interesting with some of them because I, you know, I'm thinking, oh, this could be really soft and intimate and whatever. And Robot remember saying can you just you know, up the projection a bit on this spot and it was the one for food Bank. I think yeah, And it was like I thought, no, that's not going to work, and it did. Work. I don't know what I'm talking about sometimes, So what did you record on? Since obviously a record you're working remotely, tell us about your studio at your end. First memo, I have stores Connect Pro and I used that, and I'm in a four by four whisper room that George knows because he came here and it sounded not up to what it could have sounded. So he recommended for me to put some bass traps and that made the whole difference. And I've been recording with the bass traps everything. So that's that's what I recorded from in Miami. And then your signal chain, your microphone and what you connect your mic two. Yes, I have a four sixteen. I also have a U eighty seven, but for this whisper room, the four sixteen sounds better than the U eighty seven. And then this goes to an Apollo solo and from there I go into a Mac M one mac and I record two pro tools. And I'm one of the lucky ones that has a perpetual So I took the option like a year ago that they let you upgrade one will yeah, yes, put that thing on ice. Don't upgrade anything. I know exactly right where you are, Yeah, exactly so, and I do. I was like, I think I remember you had a U eighty seven. I don't know why I remember that, but oh yeah, I was so lucky because a studio closed and they were selling it in eBay, and I called the guy and why don't you sell it to me? And because well, if you give me two thousand bucks, I'll give it to you. And of course I gave two thousand bucks, and I how about eighty seven? Yeah, I wanted to say, like, because the U eighty seven can be challenging in small spaces, that there's a couple of things to experiment with, and you know, you'd be amazed at how many things you can do to change the way the mic sounds. But a big one is, first of all, just literally changing the placement of the mic in the space right. Obviously, you're not going to make it much lower or much higher, because you know you're you are the height you are, but moving it in that plane so whatever the whatever the height of the mic is, whatever, if let's say it's eight five feet seven inches off the floor or something or whatever, and then moving the microphone forward, back, left and right. Three to six inches and hearing how it changes can be quite an interesting experiment because you'll definitely notice differences in the way the mic sounds or hears you really, and that's such one interesting experiment. And then another one is playing with figure eight pattern, which you'll find the mic sounds like a totally different mic. It's a different instrument. So now it's like you're like, I didn't even think of that, and now the microphone has this unique sound that's even more unique from the you know, it becomes even more smooth and warm and less bright and crisp. So yeah, it's not going to be good for a lot of things, but it's quite a unique sound. So it's just it's worth experimenting with it because the figure eight pattern will help it tune out some of the where it called room nodes. It's where the room basically builds up certain frequencies due to its physical size and shape, you know, it's dimensions. So you know, that's an interesting experiment because that once it's in figure eight, the microphone becomes essentially deaf or doesn't hear anything on its sides and it's top in its bottom, so that that that's a fun experiment to try as well. Well, George, then I need you to come to Miami. Helped me out with that experiment, planning that that's something fun for us to experiment with. Yea, when I next day I make it down to South Florida, which I'm well way you overdue for doing that. How do you look? How do you look in a white suit? It's about time I find out. That's about all I can say. Summer's almost over. Yeah. I actually did use figure eight with the OC early and when we first got the ice, yeah, and I thought it sounded great, and then it wasn't till I turned it off and then light it up next to just straight card. The ordin went, that's a bit buffy, right, right, So yeah, when you're going to figure eight, the mic has a larger or a deeper proximity effect, so you actually probably find yourself working the mic farther from away to compensate. Yeah. Yeah, So that's an interesting side effect because then if you want to not feel like you're so if you want to get the mic away from you, like physically farther from the mic, it's a good way to do that and still get that immediate focused sound so, but I did find that the UITY seven in figure eight definitely has a different tone, right, whereas the OC eight one eight was a bit more linear or a bit more consistent from pattern and pattern for various reasons other than being a very modern mic with a lot more electronics. Probably they could do that with the figure whereas the Uity seven. I've had clients where I say, let's try that figure eight pattern and I like the way it sounds, but they don't because it sounds too different to them. So it's just its weird. Yeah, it sounds weird in the headphones. That's definitely gonna be run reason. Yeah, it's just it's not as crisp, it's not as you know, articulate, might be a little bit woofy, as you said. So it's an interesting experiment, So with placement of the microphone instead of interest. If you're in a whisper room like Memos with a four by four and now the ceiling hight, it's probably any about what's six foot six or something. I guess floor to ceiling inside, Yeah, I'm guessing a little. So would it be better as far as trying to get rid of all those artifacts of theorious things? Happening inside that whisper room to do your voices sitting down so you can move the mic lower and you'll scent it in the room. Yeah. I one of my clients, Reno Romano, I've been known for years. He's a promo voice here. That was his trick that he told me about quite a long time ago, and I've been recommending it. I mean, I know that some people that's just not going to work for them. They really need to stand. But if you just can lower the mic six inches even by sitting on a tall stool or leaning on a stool or whatever, that even can be enough to make a considerable difference. So, yeah, the smaller the space you're in, the smaller that chamber is. If you think about, the smaller the chamber, the more the more an adjustment will matter. Yeah, right, the more you move a mic one way or the other, the more it's going to make a difference. Because the space is smaller, the math everything's tighter, the dimensions are smaller, everything matters more. And as you go to a much larger room with a much higher ceiling, everything matters a bit less in terms of like how close and how far you are and stuff, so yeah, it should. It's the little things and those subtle adjustments make it pretty big difference. So the ideal spot, if you're in a whisper room or a booth that kind of size, the ideal spot or any smaller room is to have the microphone exactly in the middle, so floor to ceiling, wall to wool, all that kind of thing. You know, that makes sense because your farthest from anyone's surface, which is really what you want to do. Right. There's pressure zones. They're called pressure zones, and every wall and surface will have a pressure zone. But it's not that simple either because there are harmonics for second etc. And those are far more plentiful and in more places, So it's very complicated the inside of a space, and the pressure zones at different locations build up, so it's if you ever want to see what they actually look at, just literally type into Google room mode calculator. You'll get this website called am rock and it will create this really interesting three D image of what your booth would sound like or look like in terms of sound in different frequencies. And not only that, it provides a tone generator, so you can mouse over whether these different frequency resonances are and hear what those frequencies would sound like. It's really fascinating and I use it well all the time when I'm trying to help people tune rooms. It's funny, you know, I think most most people just fluke it if it sounds good. They've they've literally flute it. Oh, I mean I've been doing it that way all my whole career. Yeah, Like, I'm like, I want to just have more ways to have something that is of actual usefulness and less random. You know, when people to hire me to tune their boothe I have that kind of almost and pastor syndrome problem where I think, well, I don't have all of a math and the science behind this. It's just experience, right, And so I had that feeling too occasionally, like paying me to do this, and I'm just saying do this because I think it works. That's like anything though, I mean, that's You've summed up me perfectly here. You know. It's like, I've never been to any type of school to learn my craft. I started in radio and I was lucky enough to work with a guy called Jeff Thomas who who creatively well. His last job was working for how it sterns. So if that says anything, you know, that's how good he was. And then I went to a place, an advertising agency, and I landed with this guy called Steve Hessel and technically he was Alliance, so you know, I learned stuff from him. But yeah, you're sitting in the room by yourself and you go, you know, even producing the memos memos demo, you know that it's my scripts, it's my recording, it's my production, and you play it and you go, what are they going to say? You like, it's it's it's it's it's a nervous wait. It's like going on stage. You know, it's like you you just put yourself out there constantly and keep your fingers crossed that what you've done is everyone's going to go, Wow, that's good and not holy crap, Are you serious? It's funny, isn't it that. One of the best things I ever heard, which I refer to a lot, came from a guy who's based in Sydney. His name is Dave Gibson and he's kind of a comedy sidekick when it comes to like breakfast shows and stuff on radio. But he you know, he's also a stand up comic, and he does a lot of sort of character acting kind of stuff as well with his voice. I was with the session, well, he was doing the session. I just happened to be in the control room and he was doing it, and it was him in a crowd. So he's trying to shout over the top of the crowd. That was the script. That's what the brief was. And his question to the engineer was whereabouts in the crowd am I? And they like looking again, what do you mean? What do you what do you mean? He goes, well, there's a big difference. I'm in the front of the crowd, the middle of the crowd, back of the crowd? Where am I? And you know, it's like that is really smart creative people. They always find a way. Yeah, they do, don't they? They do? So when are you coming to Miami, George? Where am I coming to Miami? Let's see, I'm on I'm on Hoover dot com or not night. What's it called? What's the website? Prepare the kayak? I'm on kayak right now looking for flights. No, yeah, hopefully hopefully this fall, for sure. I have a lot of East Coast and mid Coast stuff to do Dallas in a couple of weeks and and heading heading to Atlanta, South Carolina. So it sounds like an East coast or his brewing. Look out for George the Tech on tour coming to a stadium New U. Can I make a promo? Oh man, Oh yeah, that'd be great. George the Tech rocks the house. It looks like he just volunteers for another job, Brobo, well done. Oh do you have a promo? George? No worries, thanks man, not a problem at all. I need it. Stick it up on Facebook. Lookout world, he comes, George, I'll do it in Spanish. There you go Spish. Yeah. No, we very much want to have multi lingual content on the site. It's absolutely part of our five year plan have all of our content dubbed by human actors, not AI, you know. And that's a that's a that's definitely a goal, you know. So memo's got a new demoye. Maybe take a listen and see I feel suit Yeah, call me. I know that would be amazing to hear, for sure, for sure. How much do you work a memo in in Spanish versus English? In Miami and all? That's most yeah, my bread and butter is in Spanish. Yeah, but I know that the Spanglish is a big thing, right not. I haven't done that much. I mean I once in a while I'll get one, but not as many as I want to, and as you would expect. I think it's more people with an American accent doing Spanglish or whatever, or is it not. I think it could be. And also sometimes what I do is do it in I do both the Spanish and then the English, so that is mostly what I do. But but Spanglish, yeah, it's very rare. I think I've done one or two. And that was part of the break when we talked about your demo originally, wasn't It was that, you know, there wasn't a lot of that work out there, but you know, we wanted to do a demo that showed you doing that. So that is where we went. And I think it's it's going to start happening more often. And when I heard a commercial where the dad was speaking in English but then they switched to Spanish, I mean it was very powerful for the Spanish speaking people. So it makes you makes you feel something. So I'm sure there will be more like those in the future, and now I have a demo beautiful just quickly coming from a country where there's only one language. I mean, obviously there's a multicultural community, but you know, there's there's no voiceover work for Chinese accents or Vietnam accents or anything like that. Is it is it a niche thing over there? Like getting into getting into it originally? Was it difficult or was it just finding the right people who were doing the right type of work or I was very lucky to land in Miami at a time where they were looking for new options for voiceovers. There was a very big Cuban community here, but suddenly Argentina's were coming, Mexicans were coming, and they wanted a different sound. So I was here at the right time and I started working because they wanted not the Cuban sound, but a more neutral sound. I know, when we say neutral is not really neutral, but they wanted that difference from the Cuban sound that they had in Miami. And here there was a lot of work here, and of course you have a lay but I think Miami for Spanish speaking work, this was a place to be. So it was just pure luck that I was here. And then of course, you send your demos to production companies, to studios. Of course, I sent mine to all the studios here in Miami, and then I started working with different production companies and add agencies. And what I did was the people that I worked with, I would save their names and then I will send something at the end of the year to all the people in that company, not only the people that I worked with, and I started creating my list, and I've been doing that for more than twenty years, sending a little something to remind the client that I'm still here. So yeah, it's a process, and you have to be patient and just be grateful to the people that you work with and be professional. That's the most important thing. Because in Mexico, for some strange reason, people like to play during their recordings and do funny voices and waste everyone's time. So, for example, there was a guy that used to say separately instead of saying see, he would say separately, and to him it was funny because in Mexico they do that, but here in Miami, when he said it the first time, everyone was shocked. And then the second time he said it, the producer asking I'm sorry, what are you saying, and he went semparately, Oh, it's because I instead of saying, see, I say semparately. Everyone just stayed silent for a moment and the producer, oh, okay, let's continue. So you cannot do things that you do in your country before you understand how how it works here. Time is money and you have to be professional and ethical and and that's it. On. Once you know how things work, then just do that. Be respectful, professional, ethic and that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, same the world over. Indeed, it is really, isn't it, especially in this night totally. Well, I think we pretty well cover that off. Thank you memo for joining us on this journey of the demo, the memo demo, in fact, my pleasure the memo demo. There you go, And if you'd like to get your own demo done with AP and I, the best place to go is the pro audio Suite website, which is the pro audio suite dot com. And if you want to be even more specific, you can go to the pro audio suite dot com forward slash demos or drop us an email. Listen. Just go to the website and drop us an email and we can talk to you from there. As well, and if you want to find out more about figure eight, George the Tech is your man head to what's your website, George? Is it just George the dot tech or something I can't remember. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, so the first few pages on Google, if you tape any variation of it, you'll find As an audio engineer, I highly recommend you investigating the figure eight because it's a great sound. Yeah it is. Well, that was fine. The Pro Audio Suite and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connects, edited by Andrew Peaches and mixed by Voodoo Radio Imaging, which tech support from George the Tech, which I'm don't forget to subscribe to the show and joining the conversation on our Facebook to leave a comment, suggest a topic, or just say good day. Drop us a note at our websites Pro audio Suite dot com
