← Everyday VOpreneur® with Marc Scott
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- [00:01]
A
You're a voice actor. You're an entrepreneur. You're a Veopreneur. Welcome to the Everyday veopreneur podcast, your guide through the business of voiceover.
- [00:10]
B
With the holiday season quickly approaching, there are a lot of fun and unique ways for you to market your voiceover business. And I recently taught a workshop that delivered a whole bunch of those ideas. Stephanie said I was on the fence whether or not I should get cash in on the holidays. I'm so happy I did. It was worth every cent. Mark over delivered and my mind is full of extra ideas. This class is going to get you thinking about your holiday marketing differently. It's available now. For purchase, head to veopreneur.com and click on the store button. The Veopreneur podcast. Hey, it doesn't suck.
- [00:43]
A
Not as funny as Conan, not as cute as Seth Meyers, not as smart as Colbert. But he's one of us and that counts for something. Here's Mark Scott, the original Everyday veopreneur.
- [00:55]
B
With the holiday season quickly approaching, obviously it is now time to start thinking about very important things like Black Friday and Cyber Monday and what's going on my Santa Claus wish list and all of these sorts of fun things. And I thought let's bring somebody in who knows a thing or two about tech who can help us to discern what it is that we want to be looking for. What are the good things that we need to buy? What are the essentials that we have to have for our studio? What are those things that we need to talk to Santa Claus about getting put on the wish list? And who better to have that conversation with than somebody who has been helping podcasters and studio owners and voice actors since 2005 with all of their tech needs. Welcome back to the show, George the tech.
- [01:49]
C
Hey, thanks for having me back. And I just thought of a new thing. It's called Santa Visa.
- [01:54]
B
Santa Visa.
- [01:56]
C
We are probably buying this stuff for yourself.
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B
Let's face it, we all need one of those. That is for sure.
- [02:02]
C
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure a lot of these things are for you.
- [02:06]
B
Yes, if you definitely a loved one.
- [02:08]
C
In your life who you know, a partner or another voice actor friend you love very much and you want to gift. This is going to be fun. We'll cover a lot of stuff and services too.
- [02:18]
B
I started getting Black Friday ads on Facebook. I think it was the second week of October for Bambu Labs for their 3D printer. And I've been trying to figure out a way to justify that purchase from my voiceover business so that I can get one and use it as a write off.
- [02:36]
C
That's a tough one, I gotta tell you. Unless you're print like custom made pop filters or something.
- [02:41]
B
Right, something. And. And then our dishwasher broke last night and I tore the dishwasher apart. I was fixing the dishwasher and I said to my wife, I'm like, look, do you see this? This is a plastic part that's broken. If you would let me get a 3D printer, I could totally fix the dishwasher. And it's on sale for Black Friday, but so far she is not buying what I'm selling at this point. So I haven't been able to get away with it.
- [03:08]
C
But my brother got his a year ago and it is amazing, but unbelievably tedious and slow to use.
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B
Yeah, I don't know that I actually have the patience.
- [03:19]
C
Oh boy. It is, it is the thing. I actually have my George the tech logo 3D printed on my desk here. It's like, it just has like these curved embossed letters. Took my brother like four hours to print that.
- [03:30]
B
Yeah, it's. It's not an instantaneous thing. And the amount of fiddling that you have to go through to set up your designs and all of that sort of stuff. But I don't know, it's. I just. This is my, this is the power of Black Friday advertising. Right. I hadn't thought about a 3D printer since last Black Friday when I saw the ads the first time. And now all of a sudden here it is and I'm like the season.
- [03:49]
C
To be, to be fomoed on. On things you didn't need to FOMO about before, but now you're.
- [03:55]
B
Exactly. So it is actually though a good time of the year if you are thinking about doing studio upgrades and you know, you joke about your Santa visa. If I actually went back through the history of my business expenses, I think that I would find that the vast majority of my large studio purchases have happened around this time of year where we get into Black Friday Cyber Monday. There's always lots of good deals and stuff like that. So I want to talk about some of those. So we'll go through some different, some different categories and then I'll give you a chance to just kind of tell us some of the other things that we don't know that we need that we'll have to go out and pick up. Because once we hear about it, you know, obviously then we know we need to have it. But let's start with microphones. So everybody talks about a 416 or the Neumann 102 or the 103. Right. These are tried and true microphones, and there's a reason why they're always in the conversation. But. Yeah, what else is out there that we might want to be looking for this holiday season?
- [04:53]
C
Yeah. Well, okay, so, you know, we. We can talk about price point. We can divide it up by price point. We can divide it up by use case or travel or however you want to do it. But let's say. Let's. Because you brought up the 416, let's. Let's talk about the. The mic that I have really become to just land on as the stunt mic for the 416.
- [05:14]
B
Okay.
- [05:15]
C
In. In production mixing, when you're working on set, sometimes you will not use the $2,000 mic. In particularly perilous situations, you will use the $200 mic. And there are some good option options. And one of them that is just. It's been around a really long time, and the more. The longer it's around, the more it keeps showing how good it actually is compared to the competition. And that's the Audio Technica at 875R. This is a very, you know, affordable sub $200 shotgun microphone.
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B
I like that.
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C
It's in no way super remarkable. And it may throw you off the scent because it doesn't look anything like a Sennheiser 416. So there are other mics that look like a 416 that don't sound anything like it. Like the Synco D2 looks a lot like it, but doesn't sound like it. This one sounds a lot more like a 416 and is much cheaper and much more travel friendly. So this is my favorite stunt mic. Or simply just. I can't Quite justify a 416, but I really want to have a shotgun mic in my arsenal. This is a good option to start with.
- [06:23]
B
Right? Okay.
- [06:25]
C
So that's a nice one in that. In that affordable range. If we're talking mics, let's throw one in. That's a total wild card. And as a price point, that is impulsible.
- [06:37]
B
Okay, that sounds dangerous for many.
- [06:40]
C
And so this one, you're gonna be like, what? So SSL makes a bizarre mic called the Connex C O N N E X Advanced USB Microphone. And it's really odd because it looks like a pyramid with the top half cut off. Right. So imagine a pyramid that's just flat on top. Okay. And it is a four capsule Four capsules, meaning it has four little elements inside. And so it can pick up four people sitting around a table, for example, having a conversation, a podcast, whatever. And it has all kinds of fancy, fancy DSP and all this stuff that, like, controls the mix of those four capsules, depending on who's speaking, and takes out the background noise and all sorts of crazy stuff. But what's really crazy is this mic used to be, I think, in the $200 range. And for whatever reason, SSL must have made a lot of them and then realized that they are not selling.
- [07:37]
B
So they are now quite as planned.
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C
These things are now 69 bucks.
- [07:42]
B
Oh, my gosh. Holy.
- [07:44]
C
Okay, so you don't need this, but you might need. But you don't need it. But when you get it, you'll think of uses for it. I think one fun use for it being the holidays, it would be to actually plop it on a coffee table or somewhere and have your. Your grandparents or parents or whatever sit around the table and tell stories. Tell stories of the past, share, you know, stories, things that would get lost with them, you know, and just have a great way to capture and record it in an inconspicuous kind of way, you know, instead of putting a mic in their face or. Or whatever, or having to set up a microphone or obviously your smartphone is okay, but this takes that all to another level. And it's pretty cheap, so that's a fun one.
- [08:32]
B
I legitimately didn't even know that they made microphones. I thought they only made interfaces. So that might explain it right there. There might be a little bit of a branding disconnect there, which is why it didn't sell. But, I mean, that sounds like branding and targeting.
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C
Like, this is a product not targeting the pro audio world. This is a very different audience of, like, video conferencing. Podcasting, right?
- [08:54]
B
Yeah, very informal podcasting. Right. Sitting on the table. You got guests around the table. Sor of deal or something like that.
- [08:59]
C
Yeah, yeah. I. I have not yet splurged on this microphone, but it is a stocking stuff for almost level products. Yeah, very fascinating. So get them while they're hot, because I have a feeling they made so many of them and now they are blowing them out, so.
- [09:14]
B
Right on. Okay.
- [09:16]
C
All right, we'll go back into the practical direction again. The rode videomic. Go to. Still one of my favorite USB mics and one of the very few actual USB mics that I would. I would specifically recommend for a voice actor. I typically don't go right to usb Mics for voiceover because there's so many much better options with XLR for pro use. But this mic, at $99, just always surprises us. It sounds very good, it's very small, but it plugs directly into mobile devices or laptops, so it doesn't matter. Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, this mic can plug into all of them. And it's again, surprisingly nice sounding with the human voice. So this one's a great one to throw in the glove box, keep in your laptop bag. But it also works as a video mic, hence the name. So if you also do some vlogging and you want to do some better audio for video content now, that's also what it's designed for.
- [10:19]
B
So that could be like a quick, you know, if you got to submit an audition while you're out for the day or something like that, you could plug that into your phone maybe and record something quasi decent in your. In your car or something like that. Yeah, maybe it's just because I've started using a little bit of road stuff in other areas, but it seems to me like they're really stepping up their game. Like they are constantly coming out with new stuff and a lot of really cool stuff, too, and not just on the microphone front. Like, I'm using a Rodecast Pro 2 right now for, for this. And I've been looking at their new. I've been looking at their new video switcher that they've just come out with.
- [10:55]
C
Oh, yeah, that brand name is going to come up later in, in the gear list as we go into the higher, higher price stuff for sure. But yeah, road is. Road is, as we say, killing it in terms of innovation right now. So really amazing stuff. And then we still talking microphones, we'll. We'll stay focused on microphones a little bit more. The Earthworks ethos is a very unusual microphone, one that you would never think of in the voiceover realms. But every time I've thrown this mic up and tested it, because I have one, it always amazes me how accurate it is in terms of, like, it's just, it's not a colored mic. It doesn't have a tone or a sound or a character. It's just like reality, you know, and also it's designed. And I know most of you won't see this, but I'll show Mark because he's watching. It's designed to actually work like a broadcast mic. So this could be used as a podcaster's mic or broadcaster's mic, and it's designed to Be kind of that SM7B killer. And it's actually the same price as an SM7B. And by the way, if you really are in the market for buying a Shure SM7B microphone for your podcast, because for whatever reason you think that's the ultimate mic, do not go on ebay and search for that mic because all you will find are knockoffs, fake counterfeit, Chinese SM7Bs galore.
- [12:21]
B
That doesn't surprise me. I mean it's literally. I mean, I'm actually using one right now. Watch any video podcast on YouTube and everybody is using, pretty much using that 7B. So it doesn't surprise me that there's such a hot counterfeit.
- [12:34]
C
But this thing for the same price point is remarkably better and in really every way, in my opinion. It just sounds amazing. And dare I say, you could really use this for voiceover. I mean, I don't know if it's going to be many people's first choice, but. But it's an interesting alternative to the typical voiceover mic. So that's the Earthworks ethos. Another one of those was really expensive and then became more affordable mics. I don't know how companies do this. I don't know how they release a product at say 700 and then, yeah, you know, we really should sell that at 400. That kind of boggles my mind. But that's.
- [13:07]
B
It gives you a sense of what the original markup was on it. Probably.
- [13:12]
C
Yeah, the original markup or maybe they found a new way to scale manufacturing.
- [13:15]
B
Whatever, something. Yep.
- [13:17]
C
Like I said, watch out for the tangents.
- [13:19]
B
I won't go.
- [13:21]
C
And then going up the price point scale, you could go to the rode NTG5 shotgun mic rode. Again, this is, this is again, I would say, I wouldn't call it necessarily a stunt mic for the 416, but certainly a mic that is also similarly voiced to a 416. Similar in design and at about half the price. Right. So another kind of a price point option for those who are. Who are aspiring to having a 416 or just want to have an alternative or backup to the 416. And then I'd say the most expensive mic on my list would be the Austrian audio OC818. This is a mic you probably haven't heard of either, but you've probably heard of the AKG C414 maybe if you've been around studios. That's a venerable studio microphone.
- [14:13]
B
Okay.
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C
This is really. The Austrian audio is actually, actually the same engineers and the folks that designed those microphones from the 60s and 70s. They actually started their own company when AKG was essentially bought and sold a few times. The microphone division kind of got closed down and so they went off and started their own company called Austrian audio. So the OC818 is just the new incarnation of that microphone with just a lot of interesting tricks up its sleeves. But it's an amazingly good, very versatile mic with multiple pickup patterns and it gets very geeky. It even has dual capsule output, so you can record both the front and the rear capsule into your DAW or into your Apollo and create mic models that never existed. And you can just. It's a really cool mic, but even if you don't use any of that stuff, it's an incredibly good sounding microphone. And dare I say, I won't say it's a Neumann killer. It's just an alternative. And if you're looking at a TLM103 at the same price point, I would say look at the OC818. Go any place that lets you demo mics or even has this a killer return policy and try this one out. And this is a $1,200 mic. Okay, so very much pro level price point.
- [15:39]
B
It's a Santa Wishlist one.
- [15:41]
C
It absolutely is. Yeah. But that one is quite remarkable and has been very impressive. And I've put it up in different scenarios, small closets to bigger studios. It's thrived because of the switchable polar pattern, meaning you can make it more of a wide cardioid for general video work, or you can focus it in more tightly for hypercardioid. When you've got a bookshelf or a computer monitor or a piece of glass like reflecting sound, you can focus the mic. So very cool.
- [16:11]
B
Nice. Okay, so there's some microphone options. When I was building my booth a few years ago, I thought I was being smart and I ran a whole bunch of Cat 6 cable from my booth to my office area and I found solutions for HDMI over Cat 6, for USB over Cat 6. And I was like, this is going to be the way that I future proof everything. And then I ran into a little bit of a situation where I had a USB interface and it worked really great for quite a while and then it died. And all of the interfaces now are USB C, most of them are USB C hookup, and I could not find an easy USB C over Cat 6 solution. So I actually ended up going to the Focusrite Rednet line, which is audio over Ethernet. So I've got the Rednet X2P, which is a really cool interface. That's one that I had never heard anybody ever talk about before. I was just desperate for a solution and I was like, okay, well, I've got all the Cat 6 ran and everything already, so I tried that one. So that was fun. But I think interfaces are like microphones. Everybody talks about the 416, the 102, the 103. On interfaces, everybody talks about either it's like the Focusrite or the Apollo. Those are the big ones that come up all the time. But what other options are out there that we might want to look at for interfaces?
- [17:28]
C
Well, you said you tried it and it was fun. Does that mean you're not using that?
- [17:33]
B
No, I still use it, yeah.
- [17:35]
C
Oh, it is still what you're using?
- [17:36]
B
I still use it. The Rednet X2P is what I'm still using.
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C
How is the learning curve getting it set up and using it?
- [17:43]
B
There may have been a profanity or two in the beginning.
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C
Okay, just curious. I've known about these networked setups for a long time. I just. The use cases for them are so limited for our little voiceover world that it hasn't come up that often.
- [17:56]
B
But what was really nice for me because I have my booth in a totally separate spot in my office, and I was trying to figure out how can I easily connect those two things without having to run a whole bunch of cables or whatever. So I was very easily able to channel Cat 6 through the. Up. Through the wall and across the ceiling and down and ran a couple extra runs and I'm like, okay, perfect, just in case, or whatever. And so it's been great for. For that. But, you know, does the rednet come with all of the features of the Apollo or whatever? No. No. But do I need all of the features of the Apollo? No, I just needed to connect my microphone to my. My computer and it does. Great. And I don't have cables running everywhere.
- [18:39]
C
Right. I mean, tangentially, we have run Apollos over long distances, but you have to get an optical Thunderbolt cable. Believe it or not, these exist and they're.
- [18:48]
B
That sounds expensive. Yeah.
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C
Two to $300 for a cable.
- [18:52]
B
Yeah. Cat 6 is way cheaper.
- [18:54]
C
It's way cheaper. Yeah. No, it's cool to hear that you're using that in the quote unquote, real world. Like you're using this every day and it's turned reliable. And again, tangent. I'm sorry, because you brought it up. Does this plug into the network router in Your office, like the standard network, you don't have to. It just plugs into the network and it shows up as an. You install a driver on your computer and boom, there's your audio interface.
- [19:18]
B
It uses the DANTE sound driver. So I had to download the DANTE virtual sound card. But yeah, once it's hooked up that way I'm able to do that, and then I can route it through a separate piece of software. And these were. Because I have no idea about this stuff. So this was the stuff that I was figuring out on the fly when I was trying to get it hooked up. But yeah, I've got my U87 and my 416 hooked up into. It runs into the, into the computer in the, in the booth, and everything. Everything works great.
- [19:44]
C
All right, well, we will start speaking Dante in 2025 then, because that's a big thing. I mean, DANTE is a. Is a protocol for sending audio over networks. It's used in big studios, radio stations. It's very popular. And, and, and. But, you know, again, finding uses for this in a small home studio. Interesting find today. There you go. Right from the. Right from Mark.
- [20:05]
B
Yeah. If you don't want to buy like I was like, I didn't want to buy like 100 foot USB cable or.
- [20:10]
C
Those things are not reliable.
- [20:12]
B
Yeah.
- [20:12]
C
Running USB over long distances.
- [20:16]
B
And I also didn't want to have to have my computer in my booth. Right, right. So all I have in my booth is my monitor, which is hooked up via HDMI over Cat 6.
- [20:26]
C
Another Cat 6 cable.
- [20:28]
B
Yeah, HDMI over Cat 6. And so that mirrors from my. From my main studio computer. And so everything works really good on that.
- [20:35]
C
It's pretty mind blowing. What? Yeah. Cat 6 cable or ethernet to send them is a very, very versatile tool. It even can be used for carrying analog audio. There's a really cool audio engineer named. I think it's Dave Rat. And I mean R A T literally his last name. He's most known for doing the sound systems for Coachella. So big, big sound systems. But he invented a thing called the CAT box. And what it is is an adapter that plugs into a normal Cat 5 Cat 6 cable and just gives you XLR in and out. So it just gives you a way to run actual analog balanced microphones over a Cat 6. So this is another alternative that would allow you to run signals in a long. A long distance over cat without without having to go to, say, a Rednet or something like that. Something else to know. So moving on to more traditional audio interfaces for Everybody who does want to.
- [21:32]
B
Go out and buy the Rednet and.
- [21:33]
C
Go through that pain listening and going wait a minute, this was supposed to be about stuff I can actually understand. So I guess at the entry level point still my favorite first audio interface that is easy to use and is great sounding but isn't overwhelmingly complicated. Actually it's very simple. I will still recommend the SSL 2 made by SSL. Same as we mentioned before, SSL known for their audio consoles but they've been playing in the, in the, you know, the basic home studio field and this is one of those things. Now you might go out and Notice there's an mk2 or a mark2 variation of the SSL2. The only thing I can find in it that is anyway interesting at all is that it does 32 bit recording. I won't even get into 32 bit. That's a whole nother episode. But the bottom line is you don't need it for voiceover. And the way that they use this 32 bit technology is just really. No, there is absolutely no benefit. It is not the same as 32 bit float recording technology which is what's built in to the rode nt1 5th gen.
- [22:43]
B
Right.
- [22:44]
C
That's a whole different animal which is so confusing. I do have a video by the way about 32 bit float if you guys want to watch it on YouTube and kind of demystify what the heck all that means. But anyway, when you're shopping for the SSL 2, the, the original version still available and quite a bit less expensive sub way under $200.
- [23:02]
B
Maybe you get a package deal for that in the, in the microphone that you were talking about earlier. Maybe they'll have a Black Friday bundle or something.
- [23:08]
C
You never know. I mean who knows. See what kind of the retailers are come up with like if they threw in the Conex for free if you buy an SSL2. Yes, score, score. But yeah, so the SSL2, I love that as a great easy to use. All the knobs are on the top, you can see everything. It's just such a user friendly professional looking interface which I really like. Moving on to other options, I would check out the. You know we mentioned of course the Apollo. So who is the. Let's just, let's just talk about the Apollo for a second.
- [23:44]
B
Okay.
- [23:45]
C
The Universal Audio Apollo interface is a juggernaut. It is super popular, very widely used and supported and reliable. Reliable, like pretty reliable. I've been recommending and setting them up for folks for phone. Geez. Since they came out 12 years ago.
- [24:02]
B
It doesn't feel like they've been on the market for that long.
- [24:05]
C
It's mind blowing, right?
- [24:06]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [24:07]
C
And. And as far as I know, the person who. For whom I installed the original rack mount version, it's still functional, it still works, and they are very. They have a very good lifespan. So who is the Apollo for? So what? The Apollo is for people. And I. This is my new way of summarizing who the Apollo is for. The Apollo is for people who are addicted to headphones. And why do I say that? That means you. You gotta wear headphones when you. When you do your voice records. You need voice in all of its glory while you're recording. And you want to hear the way it's going to sound on the finished product in your headphones real time. Who are these people? They are radio people. All the people coming from radio who are now doing voiceover work are addicted to their headphones because they listen to themselves through a mic preamp with tons of processing in their cams for many, many years. And to pull off the headphones, it's a weird.
- [25:07]
B
It's a weird experience, I admit. It took me a long time to get used to it as a. As a former, you know, a recovering radio guy.
- [25:14]
C
Absolutely. Yeah. So. So those are the people who. For whom the Apollo has real benefit because it does mean that they can hear the processing that they're kind of accustomed to hearing while they're performing, and that kind of informs the way they actually perform. And what I've been saying lately about headphones is you use headphones as part of your costume. It's your voiceover costume. So if your voiceover character is announcer, put on the headphones. This is part of your costume where you are now cosplaying as an announcer. And headphones are part of the package. That's what you do, right? As someone that's promoting or doing promo or announcing and then everything else, many other genres. That's not part of the. That's not part of the role. That's not part of what you do. You pop off the headphones and it will change your performance. So the Apollo is for people that really gotta wear headphones and they need to hear that sound. For everybody else, I recommend much more straightforward devices. Or if you're doing more streaming these days, more podcasting, more. More training, you know, like webinars and stuff, there are some other options. So I'll start with the Rodecaster duo. Since we mentioned rode a couple of times, Mark and I are Both using a Rodecaster Pro 2, which is great, but honestly, it's very overkill for most because it's got, you know, I literally.
- [26:40]
B
Bought it for the lights, George. Like, I'm not even gonna pretend that it was anything other than, oh, look at all those buttons.
- [26:47]
C
Exactly. Most of us, the vast majority of us are going to have one. Are going to be one person operations, one studio, one mic. So the fact that has multiple mic inputs and stuff, and it's rather large, it's pretty big, you know, it takes up. So the Rodecaster Duo is a nice alternative. So if you really want to have the additional bells and whistles of the sound effects pads, like, pull up quick to get with them, you know, that was a good one. Then. Then you can get the Rodecaster Duo. It's just a shrunken version with just two mic preamps. And who is that for? It's for. People do a lot of training and content. It's much easier to do a live stream and a record and have processing that you kind of need to have for doing live stuff for the Rodecaster. Does it now? I've been burying the lead because I've been wanting to talk about this other thing for such a long damn time, and this is my chance. Then there's the sentence Passport vo. So what this thing is, by the way, you can see it@sentrance.com PassportVo and Pass, by the way, is with one S because it stands for the Pro Audio Suite podcast, the first audio interface co developed by a podcast, as far as I know. So the Passport VO is taking the whole concept of an audio device for pros and going the absolute opposite direction from the Rodecaster or the Apollo. Right. Those things are a technological digital tour de force. Right? Tons of processing, DSP touch screens, multiple sound drivers, on and on like a whole different animal. This thing goes the other direction. It has no specialized drivers, no touchscreens, no firmware updates, no software consoles at all. It's completely analog. But what it does is it gives you the feel of something that feels professional because it's one knob, one function, right? Each knob has a job. I love that rhyme. Right? Each knob has a job. So it's like you don't.
- [28:57]
B
Audio interface for the minimalist. Yes.
- [28:59]
C
You don't have to wonder, when I turn this knob on my Apollo, what the heck is it doing at that particular moment? Is it turning up the gain on my.
- [29:07]
B
When you bump it by accident and it totally changes the setting or it's maddening.
- [29:13]
C
Like, those things are just they're so tweaky with. With this passport, there's a gain knob for mic one and there's a gain knob for mic two, and you're going, what's the big deal? That's a scarlet. Okay. That's where the similarities completely end, because this thing now lets you seamlessly switch between those two mics as you're recording microphones. So you don't have to go into drivers, software, choose channels, nothing. You just simply press a single button and you're switching microphones. So that all right away is unique. There's no other audio interfaces that have a mic switcher built in, and it just makes workflow for folks just like you that have two different mics in your studio. Way easier to deal with. Then it also has a dedicated mic mute button. So you have a Kachunk hardware button you press to kill the mic at any time.
- [30:02]
B
Which come in handy sometimes.
- [30:04]
C
Yeah. When you're doing Live Direct, this is your friend. In fact, who the passport VO4 is for are. Is really for people to do a lot of Live direct sessions. Right. They are on the line with clients studios.
- [30:19]
B
Sure.
- [30:19]
C
Or they are on the flip side. They are doing production, they are podcasting, and they want to have control over audio that goes not only to your daw, but also the audio going to and from Zoom Source Connect, whatever the tools that you're using. And what makes it unique is that it's not relying on fancy, complicated sound control panels and drivers and all that. It really only has two USB interfaces built in. That's the key. It's got a USB for recording and a USB for communications. When you plug those both in two USB cables. Now, the device appears to your computer as two devices. So you basically say, hey, Adobe Audition, use the record driver. So you'll see Sentrance Passport, VO Record. And then you say, hey, Zoom. Hey, Source Connect. Hey, Google Meets Microsoft Teams. That's become very popular lately. I've been hearing you use the Sentrance Passport VIO comms driver. Now the two worlds are separated. And as soon as you hit play on a track and you play something back, the engineer or the producer or the client hears the playback. You never have to think about, how do I make playback work?
- [31:40]
B
Yeah, that's slick.
- [31:42]
C
That's just one of its many little tricks up its sleeves of its sleeve. But this is the password vo. This thing is so new that I'm actually still playing around with the prototype. The actual. The actual finished copy of these are shipping out in the next month, and we did an initial run, and there's still some available in that initial run. So these things are made in batches. So they're made about 100 something units per batch. And so they're limited. And we've already sold the first, I think 95 of that batch. So if that's something that's compelling and you want to learn more about it, just go to sentence.com passport vo and you can actually read about it and pre order one for delivery by the end of the year. So that's Passport vo. It feels weird sort of hacking, hawking my wares. I just, I'm. That's not ever been a thing. But in all these years that I've been doing this, I get. We get frustrated when there's not the right tools for the job. For voiceover. We're always adopting or adapting both, I guess, adopting and then adapting all these tools for musicians and trying to make them work. But this is really for us, this is the FUBU of audio interfaces, I.
- [32:55]
B
Guess just a playback capability alone, because I know that's the struggle is real for a lot of people to try to figure out how do I send this back, the client wants me to play back or whatever. And so just that just that functionality alone is. That's a huge deal.
- [33:09]
C
Yeah. I mean, we're not the first to do it, but hopefully we've done it better and more easy to manage than really anybody else. And, you know, it also doubles as a podcast tool. There's a mode where it will record the zoom caller or the comms caller on channel two. So if you want to do that, you can do that. It has a safety track, so if you get too loud, it will record a second track at a lower volume. It has a compressor limiter that's extremely transparent. I almost forget it's on. It's so transparent. So if you do a lot of very high energy reads and you want a safety, you want to have another level of safety, you've got a compressor. So anyway, that's the passport po and I'm super proud of it. And it ain't cheap, folks. It's 6.99. That's why I saved it for the end because this is really definitely something for the pro, someone that understands why that is valuable to them. Right. So. But it is, it is. Again, we've got about 95 people who have committed to getting one so far, and it's pretty amazing. So that's. That's my audio interface list.
- [34:10]
B
Okay, let's talk acoustic treatment, because I think we could probably actually do an entire podcast episode just on acoustic treatment because I think that it's something that's misunderstood and, you know, floor to ceiling foam and, you know, every square inch cover.
- [34:26]
C
The foam wallpaper or sometimes they call it the foam Iron Maiden.
- [34:30]
B
Yes, yes. So, you know, and that's not. That's not always necessary. Sometimes you can get away with just some panels or things like that. So if we are thinking about some sort of studio upgrade, we're going to put that on our Santa wish list or we want to watch for Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals or whatever. How about some acoustic treatments that we might be able to look for? What do you suggest?
- [34:53]
C
Sure. Well, this is where I can kind of dovetail in a little bit of service offerings, because I can mention acoustic treatment. But the tricky part is what is the right thing for your specific use case? What is the right thing for the size of your room? A lot of the times, the way we're going to treat a small booth or a closet versus a large room, we're going to use different materials, different thicknesses, et cetera. So I definitely can recommend our acoustics tune up service. If you want to make sure your studio sounds the best it can and you're buying the right stuff the first time and putting it in the right places, this completely eliminates the guesswork. Right. So I'll get that little plugin for our acoustics tune up service, which we'll have linked conveniently from Mark's landing page at georgethe Tech Ms. Yeah, we'll put.
- [35:49]
B
That in the show notes.
- [35:50]
C
That will be in the show notes. But that's the first step is to make sure you're getting the right stuff from that point on. There is so much available nowadays. There has never been more variety in terms of what acoustical treatment's available to you than now. And it's. Which is. It's awesome. And I think a lot of that is because of the popularity of podcasting.
- [36:10]
B
Yeah.
- [36:10]
C
That the podcasting world is obviously much bigger than the voiceover world. Right. And so there's so much more cool stuff. So at the really, really affordable end are these pet felt acoustic panels. They're often sold online in a hexagonal shape. You'll see them like a honeycomb kind of shape.
- [36:32]
B
Okay.
- [36:32]
C
And what those are good for is getting rid of what we call flutter echo, or just room reverb. So let's say you have a larger space and it sounds pretty good, but when you clap or when you get kind of loud, you still Hear that? You still hear like a. We call it the reverb tail. It's a little too lively.
- [36:50]
B
Okay.
- [36:51]
C
That's what these are perfect for. They, they're inexpensive, you can cover large areas very quickly, and they will get rid of that reverb tail beautifully. And they actually kind of look cool. So if you do have to be on camera a lot, put an array of them behind you and it's just a cool color. You can have color patterns and it's a way to be decorative with your acoustic treatment. So those are, those are available in packages maybe like of 12 for 50 or less dollars. I think they're very affordable. Right. But where these do not work well are in small booths, because small booths require much thicker panels. And that's because the smaller your space, the more low to low mid frequency sound builds up, it resonates and gets more and more energy. It rings like a bell, kind of. So for those situations, we use much thicker panels. And now we're talking about stuff made out of rock wool, maybe cotton, and some other kinds of materials that do a much, much better job. And so one company that's been my go to for many, many years for this panels is ATS Acoustics. They're just, they've just been a really good, consistent company with fair prices and they ship quickly too. So ATS is great. If you're in Canada, you might want to check out Prime Acoustic because they're a Canadian company.
- [38:18]
B
So literally, what's on the wall behind.
- [38:19]
C
Me, that's the London. Those are the London panels, I think.
- [38:22]
B
The London panels, yeah, that were, they were. I've got. When I set up my very first home studio, actually one of my clients that I was doing voiceover for was a production company who does installations of, you know, churches vet, large venues, small venues, all that sort of stuff. And I called him and I was like, what do I want? He's like, get these. London Acoustic, prime acoustic, whatever. London 8 kit, I think is what it was. And so, yeah, I've been using them for years. And that's what's in my booth too.
- [38:50]
C
Yep. They are made out of, I believe, like a compressed fiberglass. It's a very dense material.
- [38:55]
B
Yes.
- [38:55]
C
And it's very, very, it's very effective. So those are a good place to start. But I still find them to be oftentimes a little too thin in some booths because of base buildup, bass trapping. So out of frustration and also just looking to innovate, you know, I've been looking for alternatives and packages that are just sort of like a one by turnkey thing. And it didn't exist so I helped invent it. So vocalbooth.com and I partnered a year ago and we created the VEO acoustics kit. So now you can get. It's. They really just, really just three panels. It's one on the ceiling, one on the wall behind your mic and one on your side. Left or right doesn't really matter. And it's, it completely changes the way your booth sounds. Now whether you already have, you can use these with the existing foam that's in your booth. They actually include mounting setups that will mount right over your foam or they can mount directly to the walls or the ceiling. Whatever works in your space. In my case, I have a studio bricks one, the original little baby sized studio bricks booth. And they actually work beautifully in there too. I have them set up in there. So these are great because again, guesswork eliminated. They are the right thickness, the right materials and they just work beautifully to make any small booth or really a closet sound much tighter and controlled. So that's another way to go if you. And again, you don't need to hire me first. These things are pretty much ready to go. Like these are for the small booth. I would say they're going to work extremely well in booths up to like four by six. And if it's much larger than that, you might need to get additional panels or more coverage. So that's another direction to go in. So. And then the ultimate acoustic package would definitely have to be the Tribooth. So you've mentioned it on the show. I've heard you mention the Triboot.
- [40:54]
B
I love my Tributh.
- [40:56]
C
It's, it's, it's in its sixth year.
- [40:59]
B
That's crazy.
- [41:00]
C
Six years of the Tributh. And it's an acoustic package because we call it a booth because it resembles a booth, but it's really more acoustic treatment. Right. And it's an entirely freestanding acoustic treatment. So you can stick that in your office. You can travel with it in a suitcase and deploy this thing. And now you've got acoustic control that works in pretty much any room that you would need to use it in. Right. And that's the concept of Tribooth, by the way. And so if you want to see more about that, go to tribooth.com and you can see, see pictures and get an idea of what that is. But Mark, have you been using the Tribe booth yourself?
- [41:39]
B
I used it this summer, so I got mine in November and I Was just waiting for the opportunity to use it. So when we spent a lot of time up visiting my wife's family this summer and so I was able to use it in, I had it set up in the hotel for a couple of weeks and it was super easy to set up and it sounded great. I actually had to do a pickup on something that I had recorded from home and when I put it in to what I recorded in the tribe booth, like this much of a difference. Like, like almost just as good. Yeah. So I, I, I love mine. So easy to, so easy to set up. And now I've got it. I've, for now I've just left it at my mother in law's place. I packed it into a suitcase, one of, one of the hard shell suitcases. It's just sitting in a, sitting in her closet in her basement. So it's out of the way. But now next time we go up there, there, it's there, it's ready to go.
- [42:29]
C
Yeah, I, that's a popular thing that people will say, you know what, I love it. I don't need to travel with it, but I do go to my mother in laws or I go to a family home every, you know, twice a year. Yep. Leave it parked there. That's an awesome way to get, you're.
- [42:42]
B
A, if you're a cottager or you got a vacation home or something like that or like a timeless. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That becomes the thing that you just kind of leave there and so that it's there when you need it and it's definitely a solution for that. So.
- [42:55]
C
Yeah. And I think a hidden benefit of it that, that you know, when you use it but you don't maybe notice it or think about it when you're shopping around is ergonomics. Right. The fact that everything is where it needs to be so it feels like a, a proper home.
- [43:10]
B
There are parts of it that are actually set up nicer than my booth at home. I was like, man, I need to, I need to implement some of these, I need to get some of these gadgets to put into my booth at home because it's, it is very, very well done in that regard. Yeah.
- [43:21]
C
Yeah. Well, Rick, Rick is about the details. He and he really over didn't miss any details. Right. And so the tribe booth's been around again almost six years. It's time for a new tribooth.
- [43:34]
B
No, don't tell me that.
- [43:38]
C
We're actually, we are working on. And Rick, I would say we meaning Rick, he does all of the Hands on assembly and testing. He's working on a new variation with a different mindset, which is this new variation is about working from home, primarily.
- [43:54]
B
Okay.
- [43:56]
C
When I say that, it's because in its full form, with all the blankets and everything, it's definitely heavier and larger than the current one. But this one's more about sitting down, doing long form work. It can fit over a workstation. It can fit over a desk. It can fit over a sofa.
- [44:12]
B
Nice.
- [44:12]
C
That might be my favorite mode.
- [44:14]
B
Dang.
- [44:14]
C
As you can see, I want to.
- [44:15]
B
Do my e Learning from the sofa now. Come on.
- [44:19]
C
You can fit it over your couch or whatever. Your most comfortable chair in the house. You can fit this over it.
- [44:25]
B
That can be problematic.
- [44:27]
C
Yes, I know. I'm a couch guy. I do a lot of my work from the couch.
- [44:31]
B
I literally have a recliner, a leather recliner in my office over here. And now you got me thinking. I'm like, man, that would be a way nicer place to record, you know, long form elearning from my. From my recliner.
- [44:41]
C
Damn straight, man. But, yeah, this thing is very adjustable. It's larger overall, so it accommodates bigger people needing more space.
- [44:49]
B
Okay.
- [44:49]
C
It also accommodates people in a wheelchair, which was a big part of the design impetus for this. We have a partner, we have a member of the team now who is wheelchair bound herself. And so we designed this around her and her use and her needs. And so that's another unique thing about this, is you can roll in and roll out of this booth. And so that's the next variation. The name hasn't been finalized yet. I. I texted Rick this morning. I am going to be talking about this. What's it called? He's like, we don't know yet. It's been like, called the Tributh 2.0 or something. But the real name we haven't determined. But it's coming soon. I mean, we've got. It's pretty close to coming out of its testing phase. And then maybe by holiday, maybe by end of this year, this thing will be available. So stay tuned@tribe booth.com to see what that next version looks like. But if you sit down and work from home a lot, that this could be something you would love. Adjustable height as well. That's another part. It's adjustable height.
- [45:49]
B
Yeah. That opens up to a whole entirely different market too. Right. Not just voice actors at that point. Like.
- [45:55]
C
Right. Audiobook narrators.
- [45:56]
B
Yeah.
- [45:57]
C
People that do a lot of training.
- [46:00]
B
Yep. Again, podcasters and stuff.
- [46:02]
C
Podcasters, yeah.
- [46:03]
B
People doing traveling that Want a quiet place to do zoom meetings from the road and stuff like that.
- [46:08]
C
Even so. And beyond that, we're going to offer a lot of more a la carte sort of, sort of ways of buying them. So let's say you want to buy it without the blankets. And because you just want that cool framework, I think that's going to be one of the, what do you say, the SKUs on the website. So you'll be able to get something that you can diy or let's say you want it to travel but be a lot less heavy because the blankets are the heaviest part, honestly, that's why they're good. And you just want to DIY something at the other end. That's another variation you'll be able to do. So check that out. It's coming, coming soon.
- [46:41]
B
Okay.
- [46:42]
C
And at the very top end of price point, which there's no reason to go any higher than this if you're starting out, is the Silver Series vocal booth. The SilverSeries vocal booth.com is sort of their entry point, soundproofing booth.
- [46:54]
B
Okay.
- [46:54]
C
It will knock down the noise a fair amount. And it's a turnkey setup with, you know, lights, acoustics, ventilation, all the. All the fixings. And I think it's delivered to your home for like 36.99, something like that. So. So this is their answer to something that's easy, affordable, but as a next step beyond a tri booth. Right. So, yeah, that's another option for you.
- [47:22]
B
Okay, let's talk. We've talked a lot of hardware, so let's talk software. Because Cyber Monday, right? Oh, yeah, everybody's watching for. I mean, I've got RX10 now. I don't even know where they're at now. What version are they at?
- [47:36]
C
RX11. RX11 shipped this summer.
- [47:39]
B
Okay.
- [47:39]
C
So it's got a couple new tricks up its sleeve. Yeah.
- [47:42]
B
So that's software is a big one that you can watch for to score some pretty good deals on Cyber Monday. So what are some software solutions that we might want to look at or, you know, plugins or whatever it is that could help us with workflows or sound or all of that sort of stuff.
- [47:58]
C
Yeah. So, you know, when I'm recommending software to voice actors, I think of a few things. One is what it. What it. Obviously what it does, you know, what is the benefit. But I also think about how easy is it to deal with its licensing. And we all know that the licensing for certain softwares can be a hassle. It can be Annoying. And a lot of the software is nowadays plugins and everything. Some of them have gone to more of a subscription model. Right. So it just means that in a year or so you might have to renew a subscription, you might sit down to do something and it will say you're in demo mode, you need to renew or pay more frustrating.
- [48:38]
B
And so the days of CDs.
- [48:41]
C
Yes.
- [48:41]
B
Buy it, install it, own it forever.
- [48:44]
C
Yeah. So believe it or not, even though subscription models are taking over, I would say overall in terms of software, there are a few companies that are kind of, I would, I don't know if you say disruptors, but they've just decided we're just going to sell the plugin. Here it is. And one of those that really stands out in terms of how well it works in, let's just say get away with situations, you know. Like I would not say this should be your fix off for your home studio, but this is like the I'm traveling or I need to get this done, I'm on deadline, but dang it all, now they have to be jackhammering my street, that kind of thing. And you're like screwed. The Hush plugin or the Hush application, it's called Hush Audio app, is amazing. Now I have to say there's a huge, huge disclaimer on this. It will only work on a modern silicon based Mac, meaning an M1 or higher Mac specifically because it's using the additional processing cores for machine learning that are on those machines. So it does require that additional thing. So that's going to eliminate a fair amount of you, I hate to say. So I'll start with that one and get that out of the way. It either runs as a standalone app or it runs as a plugin. But bizarrely, it's only a plugin in Pro Tools, which ah, frustrating. So since so many of us don't use pro tools. But that is something to know if you. This is a oh my gosh, what am I going to do? Pull a rabbit out of my hat trick fix. This is Hush is the pull a rabbit out of my hat. I need to do something, I need to make a deadline, I need to get it to the client. You drop your wav file into the app, it does its magic stuff and then you send the file. That's if you want something more traditional, plugins wise. I also have my favorite free plugins. Who doesn't like free? And I'm a huge fan of a couple of them. One of them is TDR Nova, which stands for Tokyo Dawn Records. Why Tokyo Dawn Records decided to release free plugins I have no idea. But their TDR Nova plugin for compression and EQ even de essing is awesome. Is it easy? No, unfortunately that's why it's free. Yeah, it doesn't always mean easy. There's sort of a disconnect between something that's free and something that's easy. But when it's been tuned, and of course that is something that we do with our custom audio presets service, it is an amazingly useful resource, very powerful. Sounds good. That one is really amazing because it's free and it works really well and it's very flexible. It can be a de Esser, it can do multiple things and I love that one. Another one is Bertom. Weird name. I think it stands for Bert and Tom. Okay, Bertom Denoiser Classic. And they have multiple versions of their Denoiser but the Denoiser Classic Free is an amazing noise reduction tool. It's really good for reducing room tone and getting rid of a little bit of a too high of a room noise level. It's tunable, which translation means it's not easy. It's got a lot of controls but unfortunately that tends to be the way things go. These more power user tools that are provided for free tend to be more complicated. Now if you want something simpler for noise reduction, you want more of a plug in one knob solution then I pretty much can't get away at this point without mentioning izotope RX11's repair assistant. Not only do they have a repair assistant, but they also have a dialogue repair tool. And that really is single slider solution in terms of repairing. It lets you pull down room reverb and lets you pull down room noise by just pulling a slider. And because it's again NewTek using machine learning, that means AI kids.
- [52:43]
B
We like it when it works for us.
- [52:45]
C
It really is remarkably good at removing noises and stuff and does it without having to tweak everything like a, like a car stereo EQ from the 80s. Like a lot of these have a whole bunch of little sliders. This one doesn't. The better tools that are easier to use are not cheap, but they work with a minimal amount of knowledge. They just work. You just pull a slider. More, more, more, less, less, less.
- [53:13]
B
Right, so let's talk about RX11 for a second because they are one that will often do Cyber Monday sales or you know, different, different.
- [53:20]
C
Notorious for lots of sales.
- [53:22]
B
So where would you say is the upgrade point? Like if you had 10. Do you need to go to 11? Or would it be like. Well, if you had eight or nine or you might want to look at it at 11. Do you have thoughts on that?
- [53:36]
C
Yeah, well, okay, so one there. It's one of these things where these companies, what they do is they will, when they do a new version, they'll go, okay, what do we have that's new in version? What do we have that's new for RX10 standard users in RX11? Not much. So why would somebody upgrade? So what they trickled down from the RX Advanced software package, which is a lot more expensive, like way more or three times as much I think is something called Dialogue Isolate. And that dialog Isolate plugin is one of those simple. Just a couple of sliders, you know, very. Okay, just a couple weird. A couple of sliders that you can very easily control the noise and hear the results, you know, as you go without having to really understand frequency adjustments and attacks and releases and all kinds of other engineering stuff.
- [54:30]
B
Stuff.
- [54:31]
C
And that is their most, I'd say, innovative tool. Dialog Isolate. It has a repair assistant as well. This one is sort of like a one size fits all plugin where it's got de reverb and all these different little plugins in one bundle. I've actually had some pretty good success by using it. Just the key thing is knowing what to turn off because it will turn on a lot of things you probably don't want to be using.
- [54:57]
B
Right.
- [54:58]
C
So RX11 standard is it? Probably that's its killer app. If you're really thinking about upgrading from 10 or 9 or 8 to 11, it's that dialog isolate. So don't buy it right now because as of this moment they are at full price. And you know, this stuff is on, it's on sale so often that I sometimes forget. Oh, it actually is 399.
- [55:20]
B
I forgot to have a full retail price for it.
- [55:22]
C
Yes. But typically you're going to find it for half that price a lot of times. And you also seen, you'll see disc discounts for upgrades available. So now, you know, I, I don't plug a lot of companies in terms of retail, but if you're buying plugins from anybody except the distributor themselves or the actual company, probably buy it from Sweetwater because you're going to get the same discounts from them and a little extra hand holding in terms of support. Sure. So that's kind of nice. They really do go the extra mile supporting folks after the, after the Sale. If you want to learn and kind of compare a lot of these new fangled machine learning noise reduction plugins and stuff, I did a webinar back in January. That's my next level production techniques webinar for 2024. And I demonstrate and you can hear how all these different new generation plugins actually work, what they do, what they don't do. And it's another way to kind of learn about these tools. So. Okay, that is kind of what's coming down the pipeline. I'm expecting in 2025 to see mouth Declick take a new, take the next step and be more of a machine learning mouth.
- [56:30]
B
Yeah, I was going to say it's only going to improve as they use AI to do some of these things.
- [56:35]
C
Yeah. And then if not at the same time, I'm also expecting a debriefing AI type tool too to do a better job of controlling breaths than what we have currently, which all the current ones, by the way. I don't count on them. I don't, I do not recommend them. I see all the time. Can you just teach me how to remove all the breaths?
- [56:54]
B
Yeah.
- [56:54]
C
If you remove a breath, it's because there's a breath that shouldn't be there and it's not part of your performance. Most of the time the breaths stay there. But these tools can be. Well, we'll see. We will see what happens. I don't have a crystal ball, but just seeing what tools are innovating and coming out, it seems like that's going to be a logical next thing is a more of an AI assisted breath reduction or breath removal tool. So expect to see that next year.
- [57:19]
B
I'd say, okay, let's do one more because I know, I want to respect your time, but this is all good stuff. Obviously the holiday season, sometimes it's about the splurge. It's the thing that you, you need, you don't need, but you want. Right. So like last year I scored a sweet Boxing Day deal on a 49 inch ultra wide monitor, which I love. But at the same time I'm like, this thing is so obnoxious.
- [57:49]
C
I'm quite familiar with that monitor because I've installed it for at least one or two clients.
- [57:53]
B
And, and so when I took it.
- [57:55]
C
Out of the box, I was literally.
- [57:56]
B
What?
- [57:57]
C
I was literally laughing out loud.
- [57:59]
B
I was like, I gotta go buy a new desk now. But that, that was my splurge. Right. That was my. I don't, I, I don't need it, but I really, really want it and I got, I scored a good deal over the holidays. What are some of those? Maybe you got a couple of those like splurge type things that they're like, you know, it's not necessarily that you need it, but it's a fun addition to have in your studio or a, a fun addition to put in your office or something like that.
- [58:23]
C
Yeah. Well, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna mention a product that I don't have a specific model number or name to recommend because it's such a bleeding edge tech right now that there's not a lot of mainstream companies doing it and they're. Well, I'll just get into it. AI AR style glasses. And what I mean are glasses that you put on, they connect to your computer and become a display.
- [58:49]
B
Yep.
- [58:50]
C
The whole idea here now is that you have a virtual display that's hovering directly in front of you that is essentially a massive display. Virtualized. So it's as though you're looking at a hundred inch screen across the room.
- [59:04]
B
Room.
- [59:05]
C
Right.
- [59:05]
B
If I didn't have four kids that I was gonna have to put through college, I would already have a pair of Apple Vision Pro.
- [59:11]
C
Like I'm, I was gonna, I was gonna mention Apple Vision Pros, which are redonkulous. Absolutely stupid. At what, 3, 500?
- [59:19]
B
3,500. Well, 3, 500 U.S. so I don't even know. For me that's probably like 5,000 bucks Canadian or something.
- [59:24]
C
Yeah, exactly. I was gonna mention that it's kind of silly. But hey, you know, I, I do know one gentleman who has one and he, he thinks it's pretty cool. But honestly, the problem with the Apple Vision Pros is a couple of things. One of them is it's still a pretty big thing that you strapped to your face like wearing ski goggles or something. Crab.
- [59:44]
B
Yeah.
- [59:45]
C
Not everybody's going to want to have that strapped into their face like with a sort of an airtight seal.
- [59:53]
B
You're talking more like the new ones that Meta just came out with the Ray Bans that they just introduced.
- [59:58]
C
That's true.
- [59:59]
B
True.
- [59:59]
C
Yeah. So what I like about these other AR glasses that are in the 300 to 500 range is they're not attached to any one company. They, they don't require any Facebook or any. They're really, they're not as flexible, let's say. The Meta glasses are very clever because they become like an AI AI assistant so you can talk to them and they, they, they. Inside the earpiece is little speakers and that fires sound down into your ears and they're really clever.
- [60:27]
B
I.
- [60:29]
C
Those have tempted me quite a lot. But these AR glasses are way more of a practical splurge. So what you can do is put these on and when you're in your booth and that becomes your display. So you don't have to have a physical giant piece of glass in your booth. That eliminates a huge piece of reflective.
- [60:46]
B
I didn't even think about that. Totally wireless, seamless way to move into the booth to have your script or whatever. Adobe Audition on the screen. Yeah.
- [60:56]
C
Oh yeah.
- [60:57]
B
Dang it, George.
- [60:58]
C
So now you throw your. Your daw up on your glasses, walk into your booth. It's right in there in front of you. Now, now, I guess you would have a trackpad or a mouse or something in the booth to control it. Again, this is something I have not made personal use of, but a friend of ours in the voiceover biz, Jason Lanier White, okay. He is a great voice actor here in the LA area. It does a lot of gaming work and stuff. Stuff I think a year ago or more he mentioned getting these and thought they were awesome. So I'm blaming you.
- [61:29]
B
When, when my wife comes for me, if I buy some of these over the holidays, I'm totally telling her this is George's fault because that I never even. It never even dawned on me about putting them on and taking them into the booth and not having to worry about a secondary display. Or, or. And not only having the secondary display from the technical standpoint of getting a monitor and mirrored in there, but also, I'm assuming from an acoustic standpoint point.
- [61:51]
C
Right.
- [61:51]
B
I got a 24 inch monitor hanging on the wall in my booth.
- [61:53]
C
And that's just one more thing to kind of deal with is like, yeah, you know, we do a lot of like, well, let's angle the monitor a little bit this way. I'm still hearing a little reflection off your monitor. This eliminates that completely. So smart. Again, logistically, how well do they work day in, day out? What's the battery life with the. How reliable are they? How is the image quality? Is it sharp enough or is it a little blurry? This is all stuff that's obviously a moving target and it's obviously getting better. As we say with the AI stuff. It is all the worst it will ever be. Right now. It's just getting better. So these are something that'd be fun to splurge on that is not connected to, you know, Meta or any other company, which for a lot of you, privacy is a big thing. You may not want to have those products in your, in your life. So. But yes, that, that would be my splurge but still useful thing.
- [62:45]
B
Yeah, I can still write it off. That's the most important thing. At the end of the day, if I'm going to spend a lot of money on something dumb, can I still. Way to write it off. So.
- [62:52]
C
Exactly. Exactly. And, and if you're going to buy them, get the better, get the better of the ones that are available. Read, do your research, read reviews, make sure that they're going to look good. Because if you put something on and the image quality is annoying and gives you a headache or something.
- [63:06]
B
Yeah, that's a problem.
- [63:06]
C
That would be bad. So try the.
- [63:08]
B
That's a really interesting idea. I'm intrigued by that.
- [63:12]
C
So I just want to make sure you guys know all of the stuff we're going to. Me I mentioned on the show and some other recommendations that we don't have time for. Today is going to be at georgethe Tech Ms. So you can find all the stuff and more that we mentioned today on the show.
- [63:30]
B
So let's talk about very quickly because I want to respect your time. But for people who, you know, Santa Claus shows up, drops off a couple of new toys or some studio upgrades for the booth or they do their Black Friday Cyber Monday shopping or whatever, but they find themselves in a situation where they have this shiny new toy in the box but they're not really sure what to do with it. Now talk a little bit about some of the different services that you offer and ways that you can help us make all of these things work.
- [63:58]
C
Totally. Totally well. I mean the, the, the absolute like no brainer service, our most popular service of all is Soundcheck. Soundcheck is just. I've got gear. Is it better? I don't know. You know how it is with mics and stuff. Just because it was more expensive doesn't mean it's better. Right.
- [64:17]
B
Right.
- [64:17]
C
So. So Soundcheck is a great way to just get a baseline. How is my audio sounding? And I'll, I'll also do a. I'll also evaluate processing. So if you already have processing that you use, send me the file dry or raw and send me another copy with that processing layered on. I'll listen to both and give you notes on what I'm hearing. You know, and that's the. We know what it's supposed to sound like. You know, I'm going to give you. I'm listening to it from the perspective of herding of having her heard thousands of voiceover actors, audio. So I'll give you a great baseline of where you are and that's a great way to start in terms of support. If you're just like, holy cow, I realize I bought an Apollo because I was twisted. My arm was twisted by my agent, slash coach, slash demo producer slash friend.
- [65:05]
B
And a Black Friday deal that was too good to pass.
- [65:07]
C
It was too good to pass up. And I still, I. Even though you said, don't buy one, I bought one anyway. You'll definitely want to talk to us. I do tech support and setup services for the Apollo where I will hot rod and tune your Apollo setup to work well for a voiceover setup. No, they don't work well out of the box. Yes. They need to be reprogrammed and rewired and all that. So that's something that I offer as well. If you end up with the Apollo and just general support. You know, we have guys on our team now and girls that cover a wide variety of stuff. So you either end up. You might end up working with me and you can schedule time with me directly on the site. You'll see my initials in the calendar. So if you see gw, that's going to be me. But you might get Tim Friedlander, you might get Mike McGonagall. There are others on our team that are also experts on things that I'm not as good at, like windows. Mike McGonagall, he's our guy for Windows type support. So all of those folks are available through the. Through the services page of the website. So it's a great way to get help. And. And then we also have the 911 tech support hotline. So if you're like, holy cow, I upgraded my system because the little box saying upgrade to Sequoia keeps popping up and now stuff doesn't work.
- [66:28]
B
Melted down.
- [66:30]
C
And you are SOL, as we say, because you have a deadline. Call 424-226-8528. Choose option nine and you will actually be patched through to a live human dispatcher who will get your information and pass you on to one of our on demand support team who will get you through that problem, which nobody else does. This is unique to us.
- [66:54]
B
Yeah.
- [66:54]
C
And it's something I'm really proud of is having these great folks on our team. Tim Friedlander, Robert Marshall, Dan Leonard, all of them are in our call queue and can and can take that call and help you through a bind on demand.
- [67:09]
B
I always start those updates on Friday night.
- [67:13]
C
Good call.
- [67:13]
B
That way, if it melts down. I have Saturday and Sunday to restore my system so that I'm good to go again on Monday.
- [67:21]
C
That's very good practice. And have a backup. Always, always have a backup of whatever you're doing so that you can roll back.
- [67:28]
B
So you can roll it back.
- [67:29]
C
Yep, that's right. So there you have it.
- [67:32]
B
All right, George, this is great. There's some cool toys in here. And now I definitely. I seriously have to go look at the AR glasses now because I'm thinking that that's.
- [67:40]
C
I'm glad I thought of something because I do know that you like the tech, so I. Oh, man, I'm glad I thought of something you had so desperately.
- [67:47]
B
I. I love the idea of Apple Vision Pro and I mean, I'm a hardcore Apple guy, but even I'm like, I can't spend that much money. There's no way I can spend that much money. Although. Oh, I've heard rumors that Apple may be thinking that that one didn't work out so well. Maybe they'll discount it like SSL did with the. With the mic and be able to buy them for. For a little bit.
- [68:11]
C
Only $2,000?
- [68:12]
B
Yeah, only $2,000.
- [68:13]
C
Only.
- [68:14]
B
Only one mortgage payment instead of two mortgage payments.
- [68:17]
C
Right, Right. Well, they did call it the Pro, so that definitely leaves room for an Apple Vision. So, you know, I bet there will be a more entry level.
- [68:25]
B
Yeah. Version two at some point. Point.
- [68:26]
C
Yep. Yeah. So look out for that. And I'm going to slip in a cherry on top. Plug, please, if you don't mind. I have taken over the VOBS podcast channel.
- [68:35]
B
Okay.
- [68:36]
C
So if you have been a subscriber and a follower of the VOBS podcast and it's been dormant since March, you'll notice some shows have been popping up in your feed. And that's because I have been blessed. The VOBS channel, which has been on. On Podbean for over 13 years.
- [68:53]
B
Y.
- [68:53]
C
And now that's the George the Tech Podcast channel. So on there you're going to hear interviews for the most part, just like what we're doing here today. And so if you like that audio format, you just want to listen to it passively while you do the dishes and mow the lawn or God knows what, drive the car, you've got that as a new way to consume some of the stuff that we do. So the latest episode on there is me and Dan Leonard sitting down at wovocon in Chicago two weeks ago and Dan passing the torch to me. That was a really, really cool thing to have happen so.
- [69:24]
B
Well, we'll make sure that we link that up in the show notes as well then. George, this is great. Thanks for helping us spend our money this holiday season and thank you for.
- [69:31]
C
Helping me spread the word and let me do a real, would you say, plug fest today. I really appreciate it.
- [69:38]
B
Everybody's got to ask Santa for a tribe booth. I'm telling you, if you spend any amount of time out of the house, out of the studio at all, I can't tell you you how nice it is to go into a hotel and not have to fart around with trying to build some sort of a pillow slash, blanket, forward slash. Especially now because you go into hotels nowadays, they don't have extra pillows anymore. They seldom have extra blankets anymore. Like they've taken out everything and so trying to build something so to have.
- [70:04]
C
That thing and they're more Spartan.
- [70:06]
B
Yeah, it's like there's just less stuff.
- [70:09]
C
Less absorbing sound stuff.
- [70:10]
B
Yeah, I think it was, I think it took me, what, the first time I set it up, maybe it took me 20, 20 minutes or 25 minutes to set up. Like it wasn't a big deal and I was so impressed with it.
- [70:18]
C
So thanks, man.
- [70:20]
B
Cool. All right, Jordan, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
- [70:23]
C
Happy holidays, everybody. Happy shopping. Happy Santa. Visa.
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A
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C
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B
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C
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B
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- [71:04]
A
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