Hosted by voice-over and audio pros, George 'The Tech' Whittam, Robert Marshall from Source Connect and SUM1, Darren 'Robbo' Robertson from Voodoo Sound and Andrew Peters a voice-over talent home studio expert.
The Pro Audio Suite features interviews with key players not just in VO but anything to do with audio and voice over.
They also talk about tech stuff, VO tips and industry news!
The Pro Audio Suite is delivered weekly.
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2025 Wrap Up: PASport VO, AI Reality Checks, Source-Connect Myths and What We Learned This Year
Saison 8 · Épisode 44
mardi 30 décembre 2025 • Durée 38:36
2025 has been a big year for The Pro Audio Suite, so this episode is a full end-of-year wrap up with Robbo, Andrew Peters, George "The Tech" Whitham, and Robert Marshall.
We look back at the biggest moments, the most downloaded episodes, the conversations that sparked the most reaction, and the industry shifts that actually mattered.
From the launch of the PASport VO and real-world use cases, to persistent Source-Connect confusion, to the realities of AI in voiceover and audio production, this episode ties together the themes that defined 2025 for working audio pros.
We also talk gear myths, room realities, video versus audio podcasting, career curveballs, and why experience still beats prompts every single time.
If you've followed the show this year, this is the episode that puts it all in context.
Key Topics Covered
The biggest Pro Audio Suite episodes of 2025
PASport VO real-world workflows and lessons learned
Source-Connect 3 vs 4, and why the bridge episode mattered
Why AI still struggles with direction, nuance, and repeatability
Gear matters less than people think, but understanding it matters more
Room setup and monitoring mistakes that keep catching people out
Audio-only vs video podcasting, what's worth the effort
Career curveball gigs from the hosts this year
Why experience still wins over automation
Thanks to our sponsors:
Tri‑Booth
Austrian Audio
Recorded using Source-Connect Edited by Andrew Peters
Mixed by Voodoo Sound
We Test the Aston Element Mic, Here's What Happened
Saison 8 · Épisode 43
mardi 2 décembre 2025 • Durée 18:25
This week the team dives into one of the strangest mics we've ever had on the show. A client of George's sent through a full placement test of the Aston Element, the active moving-coil oddball with its own made-up technology name, the Rydion capsule. Aston claims it blends the bottom end of a dynamic, the clarity of a condenser, and the smoothness of a ribbon. Big call.
We compare it directly against a 416 and a TLM103, and the reactions in the room say everything. Does it punch above its weight? Is it just a quirky USB-era gimmick? Does it actually compete with entry-level VO mics? And most importantly, would any of us actually buy one?
We also wander into proximity effect, capsule placement inside shotgun mics, and George literally dismantles an NTG4 on air. Good fun.
If you're a mic nerd or you love oddball gear, you'll enjoy this one.
Brought to you by Tri-Booth and Austrian Audio. Tri-Booth discount code: TRIPAP200 for 200 bucks off. Austrian Audio, making passion heard.
Episode recorded and produced by The Pro Audio Suite.
Listen, explore, connect at proaudiosuite.com
Audio Mythbusters: 6 Studio Myths That Need Bin-ning
Saison 11 · Épisode 32
lundi 8 septembre 2025 • Durée 30:11
We're busting some of the biggest myths still floating around VO and podcast studios. From noise gates that wreck your takes to USB mics that promise "pro quality" but rarely deliver, we cut through the nonsense and share what actually works.
In this episode:
Noise gates: why they usually cause more harm than good
Noise reduction: AI vs old-school fingerprint NR
USB mics: when they fail and why they're limiting
Expensive mics: shiny gear doesn't fix a bad room
Coaching: how much do you really need once you're working?
Booths & acoustics: why treatment matters more than a box, and why high ceilings aren't the enemy
Hosts: Andrew Peters, George Whittam, Robert Marshall, and Robbo Sponsors: Proudly supported by Tri-Booth and Austrian Audio
Promo - Inside the AI Debate - Tim Frielander
Saison 9 · Épisode 47
jeudi 12 octobre 2023 • Durée 01:13
Like it or not AI is here, and it will only get better. Where does that leave Voice Artists, Podcasters and Content Creators who currently have no protections in terms of owning their voice?
Tim Frielander is an award winning, voice actor, studio owner, advocate, and educator. Tim is also the Founder and President of NAVA, The National Association of Voice Actors as well as co-owner and editor of The Voice Over Resource Guide. His work with NAVA puts him at the coal face of negotiations with the like of voices.com and the AI seeding debate. We have him on the show next week to give us an insight into where we might be headed in terms of a compromise, what protections we might be able to put in place, and most troublininly the short amount of time we have to get it done before it may effectively be too late.
A big shout out to our sponsors, Austrian Audio and Tri Booth. Both these companies are providers of QUALITY Audio Gear (we wouldn't partner with them unless they were), so please, if you're in the market for some new kit, do us a solid and check out their products, and be sure to tell em "Robbo, George, Robert, and AP sent you"... As a part of their generous support of our show, Tri Booth is offering $200 off a brand-new booth when you use the code TRIPAP200. So get onto their website now and secure your new booth...
We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it's an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners.
What gives a mic its "sound"?
Saison 9 · Épisode 46
lundi 9 octobre 2023 • Durée 12:42
Like phono cartridges, headphones and loudspeakers, the microphone is a transducer – in other words, an energy converter. So it should stand to reason that they all sound the same right? Well we all know that's not the case. So what colours the sound? And how can we use these "tweaks" to our advantage in the studio..
A big shout out to our sponsors, Austrian Audio and Tri Booth. Both these companies are providers of QUALITY Audio Gear (we wouldn't partner with them unless they were), so please, if you're in the market for some new kit, do us a solid and check out their products, and be sure to tell em "Robbo, George, Robert, and AP sent you"... As a part of their generous support of our show, Tri Booth is offering $200 off a brand-new booth when you use the code TRIPAP200. So get onto their website now and secure your new booth...
We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it's an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. https://www.patreon.com/proaudiosuite George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners.
Tweaking an already great product - Vocalbooth.com
Saison 9 · Épisode 45
lundi 2 octobre 2023 • Durée 36:03
For close to 30 years voicebooth.com have been creating booths for Voice Artists, Vocalists, training facilities, law enforcement and more. Anywhere you can think of that a voice (or amp for that matter) has needed to be recorded, you'll find a vocal boot that's done the job.
Recently, George hooked up with the guys to talk tweaking the booths for VO, and while he was at it, took the opportunity to grab Freddie Gateley, their VP Sales and Marketing for an interview...
A big shout out to our sponsors, Austrian Audio and Tri Booth. Both these companies are providers of QUALITY Audio Gear (we wouldn't partner with them unless they were), so please, if you're in the market for some new kit, do us a solid and check out their products, and be sure to tell em "Robbo, George, Robert, and AP sent you"... As a part of their generous support of our show, Tri Booth is offering $200 off a brand-new booth when you use the code TRIPAP200. So get onto their website now and secure your new booth...
We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it's an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. https://www.patreon.com/proaudiosuite George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners.
The 416 an Industry standard...
Saison 9 · Épisode 44
lundi 25 septembre 2023 • Durée 31:28
The Sennheiser 416 has become an industry-standard tool. Being a "shotgun" mic (or in tech terms a super-cardioid) the microphone is extremely sensitive in a very narrow field. For this reason, it is often used on film sets where the mic needs to be a little farther away from the actor's mouth (so it's not in the frame), and the production team wants to capture the actor's voice without capturing background noise in the room. These qualities also make it extremely versatile for use in home voiceover studios!
But who first decided a Shotgun would be great for Voice Over, and why is it now an industry standard?
A big shout out to our sponsors, Austrian Audio and Tri Booth. Both these companies are providers of QUALITY Audio Gear (we wouldn't partner with them unless they were), so please, if you're in the market for some new kit, do us a solid and check out their products, and be sure to tell em "Robbo, George, Robert, and AP sent you"... As a part of their generous support of our show, Tri Booth is offering $200 off a brand-new booth when you use the code TRIPAP200. So get onto their website now and secure your new booth...
We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it's an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. https://www.patreon.com/proaudiosuite George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. Summary Timestamps Transcript
PROMO - The 416 an Industry standard...
Saison 9 · Épisode 43
mercredi 20 septembre 2023 • Durée 01:09
The Sennheiser 416 has become an industry-standard tool. Being a "shotgun" mic (or in tech terms a super-cardioid) the microphone is really sensitive in a very narrow space, in a line extending straight out from the tip. For this reason, it is often used on film sets where the mic needs to be a little farther away from the actor's mouth (so it's not in the frame), and the production team wants to capture the actor's voice without capturing background noise in the room. These qualities also make it extremely versatile for use in home voiceover studios!
But who first decided a Shotgun would be great for Voice Over, and why is it now an industry standard?
Find out on next week's episode of the Pro Audio Suite.
A big shout out to our sponsors, Austrian Audio and Tri Booth. Both these companies are providers of QUALITY Audio Gear (we wouldn't partner with them unless they were), so please, if you're in the market for some new kit, do us a solid and check out their products, and be sure to tell em "Robbo, George, Robert, and AP sent you"... As a part of their generous support of our show, Tri Booth is offering $200 off a brand-new booth when you use the code TRIPAP200. So get onto their website now and secure your new booth...
We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it's an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. Summary Timestamps Transcript
Marketing Your Home Studio Business with Marc Scott
Saison 9 · Épisode 42
lundi 18 septembre 2023 • Durée 43:16
If you don't know who Marc Scott is, you should. The VOpreneur is helping Voice Artists around the world navigate the nightmare that is marketing your Voice!
This week, we have him on the show to talk about everything from emailing leads to the Red Socks...
Find out more about him and his great services here:
https://www.vopreneur.com/
A big shout out to our sponsors, Austrian Audio and Tri Booth. Both these companies are providers of QUALITY Audio Gear (we wouldn't partner with them unless they were), so please, if you're in the market for some new kit, do us a solid and check out their products, and be sure to tell em "Robbo, George, Robert, and AP sent you"... As a part of their generous support of our show, Tri Booth is offering $200 off a brand-new booth when you use the code TRIPAP200. So get onto their website now and secure your new booth...
We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it's an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. https://www.patreon.com/proaudiosuite George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners.
PROMO - Marc Scott - Marketing 101
Saison 9 · Épisode 41
samedi 16 septembre 2023 • Durée 00:54
If you don't know who Marc Scott is, you should. The VOpreneur is helping Voice Artists around the world navigate the nightmare that is marketing your Voice!
Next week, we have him on the show to talk about everything from emailing leads to the Red Socks...
Find out more about him and his great services here:
https://www.vopreneur.com/
A big shout out to our sponsors, Austrian Audio and Tri Booth. Both these companies are providers of QUALITY Audio Gear (we wouldn't partner with them unless they were), so please, if you're in the market for some new kit, do us a solid and check out their products, and be sure to tell em "Robbo, George, Robert, and AP sent you"... As a part of their generous support of our show, Tri Booth is offering $200 off a brand-new booth when you use the code TRIPAP200. So get onto their website now and secure your new booth...
We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it's an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. https://www.patreon.com/proaudiosuite George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional."
Hunter S Thompson
Summary In this episode of the Pro Audio Suite, we explore the intriguing topic of copyright laws around AI voice impersonation. We discuss the current legal state, revealing that there are no protections yet in place against turning someone's voice into an AI replica without their consent. We highlight our collaborative efforts with a European group aimed at contributing to the EU AI act. This episode brings to light the challenges faced by voice actors who, despite providing their work for specific projects, unknowingly hand over the copyright and potential misuse to the receiver. Tune in to the Pro Audio Suite, brought to you by Tripoos and Austrian Audio, on your preferred podcast platform to delve deeper into this complex and evolving issue.
#VoiceAI #CopyrightLaw #ProAudioSuite
Timestamps (00:00:00) Copyright Law & AI (00:01:01) Pro Audio Suite
Transcript Speaker A: Coming up. Coming up.,Speaker B: Next, the Pro Audio Suite.,: Sneak peek.,Speaker A: So to give this some perspective, is there any sort of copyright law or anything in place at the moment that protects someone from having their voice turned into an AI voice without their permission?,Speaker B: That's a great question. Short answer is no. We've been working with the Cop office. I gave a presentation to the FTC last week at a roundtable. I've spoken with multiple lawyers and people across the country and across the world. We're working with a group in Europe to help with the EU AI act. Most actors, voice actors, we give away our files as a work for hire, and the understanding is that that audio will be used for this very specific big project. Unfortunately, that also basically gives the person we've given the audio file to the copyright and the ability to do whatever they want to with that.,: The Pro audio.,Speaker B: Suite. Thanks to Tripoos.,: And Austrian audio. Listen now on your favorite.,Speaker B: Podcast provider.
If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here:
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional."
Hunter S Thompson
Summary In this episode of Pro Audio Suite, George Wittam, Robert Marshall, and Darren Robbo Robertson explore the complex dynamics of microphones. The team deliberates on how mic's are each individually tuned by their manufacturers to produce a unique sound, and the way this sound is received is subjective to each person. They discuss how modern condenser mics are so similar to one another and the importance lies not so much in finding the right mic for a specific voice, but rather the right mic for a particular situation. They emphasize the value of a flat mic which can be customized through EQ, and argue against choosing a microphone based on its prestigious model. They also discuss combos that work well together like the coupling of a 41 six and a neve like preamp. Listen in to gain more insight into the world of professional audio. To connect with the hosts and find out more, visit theproudiosuite.com.
Timestamps [00:00:00] Introducing the Pro Audio Suite Team [00:00:35] How Microphone Sounds Differ Based on User Perceptions [00:05:20] The Versatility of Flat Mics and Helpful Recording Tips [00:09:04] Choosing the Right Microphone: Mics vs Preamps and Selling Opportunities
Transcript Speaker A: Y'all ready be history.,Speaker B: Get started.,Speaker C: Welcome.,Speaker B: Hi. Hi. Hello everyone, to the Pro Audio Suite.,: These guys are professional.,Speaker C: They're motivated with tech. To the Vo stars George Wittam, founder of Source Elements Robert Marshall, international audio engineer Darren Robbo Robertson and global voice Andrew Peters. Thanks to Triboo austrian audio making passion heard source elements. George the Tech Wittam and Robbo and AP's international demo. To find out more about us, check theproudiosuite.com welcome to another Pro Audio Suite.,Speaker A: Now, this week I saw on a very large voiceover forum a question about someone wanted to buy a microphone and wanted to get a microphone that suited their voice. And another conversation happened when I was doing a session with Adrenaline in Vegas and we talked about U. Everybody expects you to have that because that's the industry standard. But the point was that if I had a U 87 and Adrenaline's got a U 87, they would sound completely different because they're in different environments.,: Yeah. This is where things get really interesting, right? What is it that makes a mic sound the way it sounds? Right. There's a lot of factors, right? There's the capsule, there's the electronics, there's other factors. There's the actual designer. A mic is tuned to sound a certain way. It's tuned by the manufacturer, it's tuned by the designer. They make an aesthetic judgment right, of how that mic should sound. How a mic should sound to that person is a unique subjective thing. That's why vintage microphones especially are so varied. And this is why I think modern condenser mics are so non varied. They're all way more like each other because the commonalities are. So they're just table stakes now of what a modern condenser mic sounds like. And that could be because of a couple of mics, could be because of a 41 six, could be because of a U 87. But whatever it is, there are sounds that of mics, there are voices of mics that are now considered like a reference point. And everything that's different is now just considered a vintage sound or a different sound. There are variations, the word colored, color, there's coloration.,Speaker A: Exactly.,: The thing is funny though, is like, we don't want a non colored mic, right? If we wanted a non colored mic, we would be using dead flat omni mics or something, right. But we all kind of agree that's not exactly what we want the sound of our voices to sound like either. Right.,: We want the boost and like the hyper reality thing. And a mic can bring that focus. But I kind of think the difference isn't so much like the right mic for the right voice. I think much more that it's the right mic for the right situation.,: Yeah. And situation, the space, the context, like.,: The space for you to deal with the microphone if you're traveling, like your whole situation and all the appropriate stuff.,: The background noise, is it going to be an outdoor setting.,: One mics sound better than the other. But if this one's better at cutting out noise or focusing better in a tight booth, then this one the pros outweigh the cons. Then every now and then you get that weird thing that happens where something like the 416, which was, sorry, the 40 116, where something like the 4116 was designed to reject noise and be a mic for a specific purpose which might have some compromises. And then over time, people find that they actually like the compromises for the effect. And there we come back to the word color and the color and the sound that it has. And so you have something like the 41 Six that has that cut, which was really a byproduct away of its initial design to reject noise and record just the voice and made it a less ideal microphone in a true I'm flat kind of respect and more here I am for the situation.,: Yeah. It's not a quote unquote musical mic. It's a utility mic that makes voice rise above or cut that Robert mentioned. That is what makes that mic character work for many voiceover scenarios. But maybe isn't the best mic for a voiceover where it's not a voiceover, it's an audiobook. There is no music, there are no effects. It's a voice and a vacuum that isn't you don't necessarily want a mic that cuts. So it is a little bit of that. There's also mics that I will hear on a voiceover's, voice that I don't just subjectively, I don't like the way they sound. I don't like the choices of how that mic is voiced. I don't like the EQ. Again, sometimes they call it a vintage sound. Right. And some of those quote unquote vintage sounding mics to me are subjectively. Not what I would want. Will they work? Yeah. Can I EQ it later? Sure. And we've said on the show before, the flatter the mic is, the better you can EQ it, the better you can get the sound you want.,: You're not fighting someone else's EQ. The way I think of it, if someone gave you a nice flat piece of metal and basically said, give me a curve, you'd have a pretty easy time doing it because you'd have one thing to create. If someone gave you a big curved up piece of metal and said, give me a smooth curve, you'd have trouble making a smooth curve out of it because the thing's already curvy in a different way.,: That's a good analogy. Yeah. If that metal had several little bumps and bends in it and they said, make it a perfect smooth curve. What a pain. How much work you have to put into that thing to get that piece to yeah. I don't know. The science of it is it's not a science. It's completely subjective. You can chase the perfect mic for your entire life, Andrew.,Speaker A: Yes, you can.,: Is that a problem.,: I think you can play to certain mics and use them in different ways. It's not like Bob Dylan with harmonicas, but if you're doing a certain type of read, really, you can get more out of a 41 six than some other mic that doesn't have that same proximity in that focus or something at the same time. If you're going for a really smooth pillowy kind of thing, maybe an 87, but probably not a 41 six.,Speaker A: But I wonder, if you were just if you could only have one mic to do everything, would it be a 41 six, OC eight, one eight? An OC eight one eight, and then you can do everything. But it's funny, this discussion the other day, though, where it said if you actually put in the gear you have in your home studio and you had 41 six, u, 87 Avalon, everyone would go, oh, yeah, well, they're professional, they got all the right gear. Right, but it might be all the wrong gear because it might not work in their situation.,: Yeah, exactly. I would say, really, if it's really a valuable pursuit for you, it's just something you've always wanted to do. Maybe you've been in this for ten plus years. It might be worth it for you to invest in a modeling mic. Because now you get to have the fun, the pleasure, the pain, whatever, of trying out a humongous variety of microphones and trying them. Now, here's the thing. Do not record these models of mics to impress yourself. You will end up picking the sparkliest, shiniest, prettiest sounding microphone, I'm guaranteeing you that, and that is not necessarily what you want. So you may want to do that exercise and then send that recording to somebody else, a trusted producer, engineer George the tech, offers mic check. We will evaluate and rank a whole bunch of mic samples and we will tell you subjectively, or I would say subjectively, what is the best of the top, maybe the top three for your voice, ranked from best to worst. So that's what you want to have. Don't try to impress yourself. Unless you are a producer and you spend your days producing and you've heard a lot of voiceovers and a lot of different contexts, I would not try to evaluate yourself. I think that's a tricky spot to get yourself into.,Speaker A: Well, interestingly, out of the choice I did for a session the other day, I offered the OC eight one eight through the Neve and I offered the 40 116 through a Grace and they went with the 4116 through the Grace and loved it.,: And this was an industrial yeah, it.,Speaker A: Was actually a training industrial film medical thing.,: Did you read it all in a vacuum or did you hear the music that they were going to put behind it?,Speaker A: No, I didn't hear it, it was all in the vacuum.,: Yeah, but I can see why it's funny, because after you get like a long form thing, in a way, you probably end up wanting the smoother mic after a while.,Speaker A: It certainly has something and depending on the voice, it certainly brings things out in a voice that could be quite appealing.,: Yeah. It's also the combination, because I don't know if you spent the extra energy to do the other combination, the neve.,: And the little bit of too many variables, but.,: A neve is a colored preamp. A Grace is an uncolored preamp, so that combination of color and uncolored could be a pro and a con, depending on what you're doing, too. So you may have found out that the 41 six neve was the best combination. Yeah, it's hard to say when you're changing multiple variables, it's just a matter of luck and opinion. They're going to say, you gave me two choices, I picked choice B in that case was what really worked out well. So, yeah, I think some people find the coupling of a 41 six and a neve like preamp is a good combo.,: I think it was the 41 six. It was the 41 six with the Grace, wasn't it?,Speaker A: Yeah, and it sounds great. I mean, it must admit, it does actually sound really good.,: Sure, it's clean and just on a dime. I imagine it'd be pretty similar to like a John Hardy and a 41.,Speaker A: Six, which is yeah, or a millennia.,: Or millennia, yeah, millennia especially.,Speaker A: Yeah. But it's got that there's something about it that the combination of the 40 116 and the Grace just has this kind of and it's a really weird term, but kind of a 3D thing going on, if that makes any sense.,: That is one of those audio terms. It's funny.,: Yeah, it is a funny audience term. I don't know how to describe things as 3D yet, but I'm working on it.,: They pop out.,Speaker A: So, anyway, the conclusion is there isn't one. Really?,: You're not going to like our answer.,: The right mic for the voice in the right situation, in the right time, in the right place.,: Yeah, I think the bottom line, there is no right mic for the voice, because the voice is not in a vacuum. It's working in a context of a space and of a production script. A script, a style. Yeah, right.,Speaker A: Oh, on that note all right, anyone want to buy some mics? I've got plenty.,Speaker B: Well, that was fun. Is it over?,Speaker C: The Pro Audio suite with thanks to Triboof and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by Voodoo Radio Imaging with tech support from George the Tech Wittam don't forget to subscribe to the show and join in the conversation on our Facebook group. To leave a comment, suggest a topic or just say G'day. Drop us a note at our website. Theproaudiosuite.com.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional."
Hunter S Thompson
and welcome to another Pro Audio Suite. Today we're a bit remote because George is up in Oregon looking@vocalbooth.com he's there with Freddie Gaitley and they've been working together on something. Some secret sauce, let's say. What's happening, George?
Speaker B: Well, you know, at first I thought it was kind of be secret for a while. Freddie's like, hey, man, we're ready to go. We're ready to talk about this, right?
Speaker C: We're nimble.
Speaker B: How are you doing today, man?
Speaker C: I'm doing great, George.
Speaker B: We've had an interesting couple of days here. Freddie brought me up to meet up with the whole team here. There's 13 guys that work here@vocalbooth.com, and I've gotten to work and collaborate with the whole team.
: Is guy still there?
Speaker C: Oh, Guy. We put Guy out to pasture a few years ago. So he's enjoying his grandchildren.
: Did you take him out behind the barn?
Speaker C: We haven't not quite that far. But he's enjoying his grandchildren and enjoying retirement.
: All right. Yeah, we liked working with Guy.
Speaker C: Yeah, Guy's a great dude.
Speaker B: Yeah. So the journey begins where you guys know me. I've been working with all the products that are out there. Right. I've dealt with all the booths. I know what works, what doesn't. I have my own opinion about the pros and cons of all the different products. That was three or four months ago. I reached out to really nobody, just, hey, vocal booth.
Speaker C: Put it out there.
Speaker B: I put it out there and I said, you guys be interested in collaborating or just chatting with me about what could be done to your booths to make them go to that extra mile, that extra 20% or that last bit that will make it go from good to great acoustically. And Freddie answered my call. He had a zoom meeting with me really quickly. We had a great chat and flash forward a couple months later, here we are.
Speaker C: Here we are inside of one of these vocal booths that's all treated out. And George the tech approved.
Speaker B: Yeah, we're in a four x six vocal booth. The ceiling is just under maybe just under 7ft. And typically the vocalbooth dot coms are treated with well, you tell us a little bit about the design of these booths and how they've been built and the philosophy behind them over the last 20 or so years.
Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So we service a whole bunch of different markets. Of course, people call up that are looking to do the voiceover thing. Voice acting, long form, short form narrations. And then music and then testing or big facilities, education, industrial projects. There's all secret industrial projects that we can't talk about.
: Do you have, like, defense contracts? Like, you have to sign in?
Speaker C: I can't confirm or deny. We might have some boots in Guantanamo Bay, we might not. I don't know. There's a lot of companies. We waterproof it. We don't ask. What you're going to do inside your Vocal booth is your business and the CIA's business. Yeah, which is everybody's business. We never know exactly who's going to come in. So we offer all kinds of different levels of isolation, different layers of treatment. What we tried to do is kind of have a one shot fits most type of situation with, like, our Gold Series. So we offer nearly floor to ceiling pyramid, acoustic foam, silent ventilation, over 200 different sizes of booths, custom heights, anything that somebody might really need for their specific recording purposes. And then we can also scale up or down for the amount of isolation that they're going to need. So if it's just something in a really quiet room, we can go with something like a Silver Series. Normal office environment is going to be like a single wall Gold Series. Then we go up to, like, a platinum, which is our double wall. And then we've even got another platinum plus, which we start to put in layers of mass loaded vinyl and do a lot of crazy testing and things like those in those booths for really stringent use cases.
Speaker B: More industrial, maybe. Yeah. So I got to know their product. I mean, I've been in and I've helped move and I've listened to and I've tuned all these booths.
: I think you and I have a history with Vocalbooth.com just being here in the US. Andrew, I'm pretty sure you've never been in a specific Vocal booth.com.
Speaker B: Booth?
Speaker A: No, I've been in the quiet one.
: Okay.
Speaker A: The one with the quiet name.
Speaker C: Yeah, right.
: The name which we shall not say.
Speaker A: Correct. Yes.
: Right. Because I've owned one, which I guess I should admit I sold for a profit.
Speaker C: Outstanding. That's what we do, too. That works out.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: You're on the same page.
: Right. To me, what Vocalbooth.com is is very effective, especially for the price point and good finish. It's like a good looking booth, I guess. We won't talk specifically about others, but it's just like, obviously they hold their value plus.
Speaker B: I can say what attracted me to their product. The first time, rather accidentally, I guess, is I was at a client's house and she had a I think it was a four x no, it might have been a four x six. And I was in the room setting up gear and tuning it and listening to the record, and I was like, let's do a test now with the ventilation on. And she said it's on. And I said, really? And she said, yeah. And then I reached up to the vent and put my hand up, and I was like, oh, it is on. And I was really amazed and impressed with the attention to the ventilation that was being paid, because that is where everybody else is falling short, like, very much so is ventilation. They're either running too many fans, too quick, or too slowly or not enough, or you know what it is? They don't run a big enough duct. These guys are running a six inch duct. And does that start in the Gold series?
Speaker C: Yeah. In the Gold Series. Right now, the Silver series used to have it, but the Gold series and the Silver series kind of alert a little bit. And now we have a brand new Silver that's out there. It's got a little bit less airflow, but in doing a little bit less airflow, we can go down to a smaller vent, but more of like an integrated system. We've also changed the price point and stuff to be very approachable.
Speaker B: The silver is brand new. They just launched a new version of it. And the ventilation is 100% integrated into the ceiling. It's a very simple but elegant solution. And there's some lighting in the ceiling, too. Very cool. But their bigger ones go with this bigger duct. And so bigger duct means slower airflow, more volume, but slower. That means quieter. And it's just a much quieter solution than everybody else. So that was always impressive to me. But really, at the end of the day, when I emailed them, they were open to talk to me. First of all, have a dialogue, we chatted. I could just tell by the vibe that we were kind of getting along on the same page. They're in Bend, Oregon, which is like, to me, a dream outdoor place to go. I've always wanted to go. So all these things came together and they're like, why don't you come up? We'll try out some things. We're going to start making some panels to test out. And I had no idea how quickly they could not only come up with ideas, but get them made. I would say, hey, we need to put one of these of this size in here. Carl would say, all right, go make me know. Or he would CAD something up and draw it up. And within an hour or two, we would have essentially a finished prototype that we could immediately start testing.
Speaker C: We tried to be real nimble with everything that we're doing here.
Speaker B: It was really neat.
: What was the original background of Vocal Booth? Wasn't it? You guys were building houses or parts of I forget what it was.
Speaker C: Yeah, actually, Vocalbooth.com started as so many businesses start in a garage. And Calvin Mann, who's the founder here, he started in his mother's garage. He was living there for a while and needed a place to record to keep doing some singing and songwriting and then built kind of a little four x four booth and then put an add online in 1997 and actually got a hit and a sale and then went, oh, my gosh. Now I got to really build one of these for somebody else. And are they even going to like it? And the funny thing is, he took off to deliver it himself to somebody over in I think it was new Jersey. And so he loaded up the u haul truck, the spray glue and the wood, and he was literally finishing the booth as he went across country and doing that in the back of the u haul. Got it to the guy, put it together. The guy was stoked. I still see him at NAB. He comes up every year and then shows me. He's like, hey, I got number one pictures and stuff. And he's been cranking with that thing for over 20 years. So then he came back and started a business and started really working at it. And then for the last 20 years, we're just always, always looking for a way to push it forward, like, whether it be finding better fans, because new fan technology is coming out all the time, so we're always staying ahead of that stuff. New acoustic materials, a better building process, more options, something that just performs better. And that's where, where, when george came up and kind of, you know, do you guys want to know what's wrong with all your well, yeah, of course.
Speaker B: This is not news that is taken that well by everybody.
: George had tourette.
Speaker B: It's not taken as well. I mean, it's not that they'll say, f off, but they just will be like, okay, that's nice. Thank you for being a fan of our product and bye bye. But they were like, no, let's chat. Let's see what you have, what you're talking about. And then what's been really fun is being here physically on site, watching them come up with a product, putting them into play and letting them hear the difference, and they're like, whoa, there's not a subtle difference. They can immediately hear it. And it's been a fun discovery for me as well, because we've used some products I'm familiar with, as well as some other products, substrates and materials that I haven't spent much time working with and discovered some things. It was as much a learning process and like an r and d process for me personally as it was for creating something for them. So that's what's made it super cool. And now we're standing in and one of the key mics we used for all of our tests was a TLM 103. Freddie has one. We also used the rode nt one fifth gen. He also has one of those. And we used an NTG five because we wanted to have a shotgun as well. So we did extensive recording. I've probably spent three or 4 hours setting up different scenarios, different combinations of materials, and different microphones. I recorded all these files, logged it all, and I've got all the tests to prove it. So we can actually hear what these are doing.
Speaker A: And I bet yeah, I bet the microphone that was least successful would have been the NTG Five fifth gen.
Speaker B: I wouldn't say that's the way to no, I wouldn't say that's true. I would say when comparing those three mics, which I did the most, I was the least impressed with my final output with the NTG five. I liked the sound of the Nt one and the TLM pretty closely, equally, very similarly. And I mean, you know me, I'm big on mic placement. We all are. We always talk about proximity. We talk about being in the sweet spot. We talk about a fist and a thumb or a shock pinky thumb. Right. Right now we are in a four x six booth. We are minimum, I would say, 14 inches away from the mic. We're standing on either side of the mic, facing inward, so we're not close to this mic at all. And I don't know what you guys are picking up on your end. What do you think of the overall tonal balance? Does it sound colored? Does it sound natural? What do you hear?
: It sounds pretty not overly weighted on either frequencies, but really no presence of any bumps and there's no bounces, essentially.
Speaker B: And there's not really a bounce sound.
Speaker A: Which mic are you on now, out of interest?
Speaker B: We're on the TLM 103. Yeah. Okay. And I liked using this mic because I always consider this to be the torture test mic for a small booth unforgiving. Every time I get a recording with a 103 and a small, I'm like, oh boy, here we go. And so when Freddie said, I got one of those, I was like, that's we're going to focus on that. And when he also just happened to have the Nt one as well, I said, well, that's a great one to test as well because it's the more affordable entry mic. It's still an excellent mic, just the price point. And so it was just a no brainer to do all our tests with.
Speaker C: Those two mics and kind of looking back at when we decided to work together, too. I mean, that's really been our culture and our philosophy on everything, is keep learning, keep moving forward. We're willing to have a conversation with just about anybody, even you, George. It's worked out, though. So it's been, you know, in having a booth that, for instance, the Platinum series, we don't force anybody into studio foam on those ones. It comes with basically just walls that are completely covered in like, an acoustic felt. And then we'll talk to somebody, if they're very much just starting out and they have no idea about how they're going to dress their booth out or something, then, yeah, a good snapshot is saying, okay, let's just get you a bunch of foam in that booth and then you figure it out. When I talk to professionals, somebody who's moving up to having to have that booth, that is, like George would say, the quiet on demand booth, then we'll go ahead and make up like an acoustic package for them. Or we'll just say, hey, listen, you get your booth. We're just going to make it completely covered in the felt. We'll take care of the isolation part, but you will have to work with somebody to get that tuned out to your voice, to your microphone, to whatever that you are doing. So being able to have something kind of right out of the gate that we could do, we can send out somebody confidently and know that this is like George is saying, this is most of the way down the road to being professional, being usable right out of the box. That's really what encouraged us to get together with George and get this thing produced.
Speaker B: I mean, this is what I've wanted from any booth manufacturer to do. Right. I wasn't at all picky about necessarily which company it was. I just wanted somebody to pay attention. And when they were so willing to listen and pay attention and try something and then put their money where their mouth is, bring me up here, Freddie. Put me up in his personal short term rental know, so I had a place to stay. They've been feeding know, it's been a nice experience, right? But they took that chance and that risk to try something, experiment. And the results speak for themselves right now. So we have a room that we've just made improvements by simply placing two new panels on the two walls. So it's sort of like a corner we've created with the new panels as well as bolstering the ceiling with a much heavier, thicker panel. So it's like a deeper ceiling cloud on the ceiling. So there's three new panels in here. Grand total is less than two x four. Two x three ish and three ish by four five on the ceiling, something like that. But the difference was dramatic. It was a dramatic improvement. It was just really a big deal.
Speaker A: Where was the difference out of interest.
Speaker B: So for me, the difference is in two main areas. One of them is just the general mid range. There was still a little bit of mid range ring that you would get in this room, especially if you got too far away from the mic. Like, if you're in the sweet spot of the mic, you were fine. If you wanted to relax, get back off the mic. And this is really a big thing for video game producers and engineers that are always acting the actor to stand back from the mic, give us some more space. That's where these booths, they don't hold up well. It gets very boxy. There's too much resonance because the two inch foam on the walls can't control much energy below roughly 1000 Hz. After that, they don't do that much. So what we've done is we've now focused treatment that's broadband and now can work much below 1000. It even goes deep enough that it seems to deal with down to at least as low as my voice will go, which is roughly 80. It flattens that out. And the back of a TLM 103 is going to be sensitive at low end. Right. Because when you have low end, it's going to be essentially an omni mic, right. Like cardioid only matters for mid to high frequencies. Right.
Speaker C: Robert?
: Generally, microphones, even omni mics are more directional, often in more one direction, and then as the frequencies go down, they become truly omni.
Speaker B: Yeah. So these mics are the back of them is always a big problem. They're going to pick up any buildup. We've killed that low end buildup with these panels. And so it changes the character of the mic to something way more linear. Like you were saying, it sounds more linear, it's not boomy, and it has just a more natural tone. And so that was the goal. The goal was to do that, but then the next goal was to make it so vocal. Booth sales guys and everybody can just say, here's the package. We know that if you do this, we have not the numbers to prove it, we have the tests to prove it. Right. We did a lot of recording so that it's hard to back this stuff up with science, I should say. With numbers.
Speaker C: With numbers, yeah.
Speaker B: With specs, it's just very hard to back it up. But when you literally record somebody and play it back, it's an obvious improvement.
Speaker C: And that's always really been a big thing for us, is like, I mean, somebody needs to get their booth and be stoked with it. I mean, that's the beginning of our next sale. Our future sales is really the person who's getting the booth needs to be happy. It needs to do what they expect it to do, and it needs to be just like a valuable piece of their studio and of their career. I got to say, we weren't completely ignorant to who you were, and I'd followed you online and stuff for a long time, too. We all were familiar with your videos. I think we may have met briefly once at NAB or something, too, but never really got to have. And a lot of my clients and stuff, too did go and they worked with George. And so I would hear know, oh, George got this booth and he loved it, or George got this booth and he had to do some things to it and now we really love, you know, we kind of knew what was going on there when we developed these panels and stuff. After a few of our zoom calls and trading back and forth some emails, everybody kind of looked at it and went, well, is that really going to I don't know, who is this guy and is this going to work? And then we installed them, we got them up there and then everybody walked by them and then went, whoa, whoa. Like even just out in the factory went, wow, these panels are crazy. And then so it became grabbing everybody from around the factory and going, oh, you guys got to check this out, look at what this thing is doing and stuff. So everybody was super on board and really excited to put together a few booths and to get some testing going and to invite George down. And we're really thrilled with the product that we have to offer.
Speaker B: And I'll say one more thing. Another thing was a client had recently gotten one and he couldn't say more about the customer service experience, how helpful you guys were. I had more than one person tell me how you really seem to get it like what's important, what the priorities are. You listen to their needs, very attentively. And that was, to me important. That was really mean. You know, we're all about service. George the Tech is all about service. We're all about working with performers.
Speaker C: Right.
Speaker B: And you guys do that all day. Yeah.
: So the George the Tech vocal booth option, what if I have a vocal booth and I'd like to upgrade it? Is it possible to just buy the option and self install or I don't know, or what's required?
Speaker C: You bet you so that's really a good question. And when we were looking at designing something like this, it had to, number one, be extremely easy to install. So we've come up with a way that you'll see that's very easy to install and depending on what height you're at, too, it doesn't require any tools and you can just get it dialed into your space, your height, your microphone. So it's not even just like it's pretty much a one size fits all because it's so adjustable.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: And then the way that we've been building our booths for probably about the last five or six years, we could retrofit any gold series very easily with no extra tools or anything. They just call up. We could absolutely fit it right in.
Speaker B: You don't have to screw anything into the wall. No, not at all.
Speaker C: And then if we did our platinum series, any of our platinum series would be ready to go for that one. So again, like modularity and upgradability, it's all there in the value. No forced into any kind of a new booth and no planned obsolescence for what we've been doing.
Speaker B: And these products would obviously work in other products as well. I mean, they would work. The principle is going to be the same. It works particularly well in this booth because the walls are already treated with a two inch thick pyramid foam. So what we're installing is actually over top of the existing foam. So you're getting this hybrid of material, and it ends up adding up to more than almost six inches thick. And that's another reason it's so incredibly effective.
: What's the inside space? That's kind of residual left over? It's six inches thick times two, because you got two walls, so you're losing almost a foot.
Speaker B: Yeah. So, like, looking directly in front of me, I got my hand on one of the panels, and that's really directly behind our mic. It's like eight inches behind the mic right now. And then to my left on the shorter wall, we're facing the wide wall. On the shorter wall is the other panel, and they're horizontal, not vertical, and they're centered right on the mic. So equidistant top and bottom, above and below the mic. So you're focusing all of that treatment where it needs to be right on the mic itself. And that's why I think it works so exceptionally well. And then the panel on the ceiling is of a similar well, essentially same design, and we're both about 6ft. And so that panel, even though it hangs down four inches, is still a good six to seven inches above our heads right now. So it doesn't feel claustrophobic or cramped. It still has a decent feeling. And that panel on the ceiling takes care of the pressure zones. I've been giving them, like, a crash course on some of the acoustic properties of spaces and chambers and dealing with pressure zones and room modes and all this stuff, because that's what it comes down to. But we don't have to all understand the science of it. It's just cool to visualize and show them on a computer, like, okay, here's where these areas are, and here's what we need to do.
Speaker C: And it's been so cool to talk to somebody who has a practical understanding of that. Because I can't tell you how many times over the years we get a call from somebody who they have no idea what they're talking about. But they've read all these buzzwords or they're trying to get something for tech. Told them that they need to get this.
Speaker B: Yeah, they're hung up on some they're.
Speaker C: Hung up on stats. They're hung up on some things. It's like, in the end of the day, what does it really mean? And that's also, like, even just how we explain to some clients. They'll say, how much isolation? What's the NTC rating? What is the STC rating of your booth? And you're like, well, what are you dealing with? Let's just start right there.
Speaker B: What's your source?
Speaker C: And then showing them some videos from some clients and being like, here's a guy with some construction right outside his room. Or a leaf blower, like the nemesis of the voiceover world. It's like, oh, these people are they got leaf blowers out there. And then they walk inside their booth, and it's good to go. So that kind of real world application and also, that's really a big thing of like, you're talking about our customer service and the way that we conduct our sales is we do just see ourselves as consultants. All of our sales guys are going to have teachers hearts and we never go for the kill. I mean, it's not just about selling a booth. It's about creating a long term client. And that's worked out really wonderful for us.
Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the whole thing about all this is it really is a dark art, the whole treatment and acoustics in a booth. Half the time, if you build your own booth, you either get lucky or you don't get lucky. But I guess with your one you don't have to worry about tossing the coin and hoping you get lucky.
Speaker B: Because the idea is with this improvement, there's a very predictable good. We know this works and it's just on my own. I haven't had the time and space tools, resources to do this type of experimenting. Like I could have done it over the period of time. But the fact that I could stay here for a couple days, focus on this, have people making things for me, let's make some of those boom done. It's just been an awesome experience and really a great learning process too.
Speaker A: So what about shipping? If you're not in America, what's the furthest afield?
Speaker C: Yeah, no, we do a lot all over the world. We do a lot of things even for know, Amazon, intel and, you know, there's things will be in Dubai, all over India. We just sent out stuff from Japan and Singapore. We do a lot to Australia. We used to do a lot more to the UK. We did lose a UK distributor out there about six, seven years ago, just to kind of an unfortunate accident. But we can ship anywhere. Yeah, we ship all over the world. We do international freight. We are confident with being able to be the importer as well for people. So we do are able to do that. We can go ocean freight, we can go air freight, and we can get usually a pretty darn good competitive rate even with doing that.
Speaker A: Do you have distributors in each of these zones that you're talking about?
Speaker C: No, we don't. Anybody can call up vocalbooth.com and talk to an international sales specialist anytime. And we'll just work directly with you and then see it all the way through the process as well. So things are getting ready for shipments here. We'll start talking to what's it going to go through once it gets through customs. We'll try to get ahead of all that process, get them all the paperwork that they need, and then we can even see them all the way through, even taking care of the clients duties and customs so that they don't have to have another intermediary in between.
Speaker B: That's what is so great. I mean, their willingness to deal with logistics, not. Every company wants to deal with that logistics, or if they do, they do it poorly. Their handling of the logistics. And that painful part is another reason to look at these guys when you're looking at products, because it really makes the difference. Having somebody to deal with all that stuff is very frustrating at times, especially customs and port and the last mile delivery and all that stuff. It's a lot to deal with. So you guys doing that in house is really great.
Speaker C: Absolutely. And it doesn't stop there. As soon as we get it in and we actually get it there, we tell people that sometimes we can't always control the very last mile of a booth like that. Something might show up. You'll have to tell people, hey, worst case scenario, a giant truck is going to show up in front of your house with a driver who may or may not speak the same language and might be frustrated and have no idea what's going on. Don't worry, that's completely normal. Just call me right away and we'll show them a little video. We'll video chat with the person and we'll help you over that one. And then once they get the pieces in there too, don't hesitate. Just give us a quick call, quick text. We can take care of something on FaceTime, even on a Saturday. And just we want you to be able to get that booth up and.
Speaker B: Get you guys aren't that frustrated, so big and so busy that you can't make the time to do that.
Speaker A: It's very individual work, which is really important. There's another product that I was having a look at, your website, that fascinated me as well, which was the let me think.
Speaker B: I know what it is.
Speaker A: You're guessing me, aren't you? Yeah, I know what it is.
Speaker B: The vo one.
Speaker A: Yeah, that looks really interesting.
Speaker C: Yeah, the vo one. It first came out of a trip to NAB where we had our booths set up at our space. And we always had like a 20 x 20 space with several booths, but we were like, I don't think anybody knows what's in these booths. We look like another something. These could be meeting rooms or anything. So I asked Carl, our production manager, I said, hey, can you whip me up a mockup of what would be an inside corner of a booth so I can put it on the outside? I can hang up some micro phones, some guitars. It'll be pretty colors, pretty cool. It's just a cutaway.
Speaker B: Exactly.
Speaker C: And people can kind of get the idea before they even go inside the booth of what it is. And we had people coming up and saying, okay, yeah, that's great that you do the booth, but could I get just this? Because I just have an office and I just need this. I'm not ready to come into an entire room. I don't care. I love the way this sounds. And then they'd walk inside and it was a pyramid studio foam that was just kind of a wedge. And they'd walk up there, and even in that show environment, all of a sudden they go, whoa, the sound changes right here. This is amazing. My voice sounds better and everything. And you're like, oh, yeah, this is going to be a product that we're going to figure out and stuff.
Speaker B: How long has it been shipping now?
Speaker C: We did that right in I believe it was in 2020 that we started that. And that was the other thing, too, is that there's so many people were going home and needing to record from home. And the other thing is we'd always looked at, how could we possibly get away from that giant freight truck that's going to show up and create all kinds of confusion? Is there any way we can get something upsable? So we kept looking at going from those big panels that were just a mockup to finally we have this foam core and this way of putting this thing together where it just velcros together, but then it gets very rigid. It works really well. It still has, like, you would say that vocal booth sexiness to it. It has a functionality and it sounds really good. And so that's really where that one was born. We had a local guy here who's in a rock band. He was not touring at the moment. He was like, hey, do you have something I could pop up in my studio right now to do vocals? Because I don't really need a four, but I'm like, there's another client, we need to talk to him. So we got one over to him really quickly. That was Christian Martucci, and he does Stone Sour and Corey Taylor. And so in his home studio, we popped one up, he started doing his vocals, and he said immediately he was recording with an SM Seven, b all of his vocals in there. And all of a sudden he went, oh, dang. I was able to bring my nice microphones back out. Yeah, I didn't realize how much this SM Seven sucked until I was able to get my Neumann back out and start doing these vocals.
Speaker B: Mic is part of the equation. It's kind of like acoustics is to photograph. Acoustics are to the microphone as lighting is to the camera. And you can use the good camera when you got the good lighting. And you can use the great mics when you have the good acoustics. Yeah.
Speaker C: So that's been a great product. Again, we say it doesn't provide isolation, but if you got a quiet spot, you can pop this up anywhere. It's helped a lot of people get going on voiceover, or even, I think, Mark Preston. When his house got trashed by the hurricane, he called me up because he has been a long term vocal booth client. And he was like, oh, man. I went in there and my vocal booth is molded. I'm going to have to get a new one, and my whole house is I'm going to have to get all new gear. It's a mess. And so I said, oh, where are you right now? He's like, I'm at a hotel. And I said, I'm going to send you a vo one. So popped him one over there and he was like, popped it right on up in his hotel room and just was able to keep working and keep going. Something that's only about 80 pounds and folds down into four Ups boxes. And right now we're shipping those all across the US. At no charge. And then we can even ship them into Canada as well.
Speaker B: Cool.
Speaker A: Yeah, they look really good.
Speaker C: Thank you.
Speaker A: Very nice. Funny you should mention Mark Preston. I've been communicating with him over the last day or so.
Speaker C: Yeah, mark's great. He's really built up his community over there. Just a real nice, safe place, I think also for people trying to learn a place where they're not getting hawked wares all the time. I appreciate he'll call me out every now and then on one of his groups and say, you know, I think Freddie could answer this and stuff. So I kind of wait for the invitation. But it's always a nice being able to jump in and give somebody some practical advice. And sometimes that advice is like you said, hey, just jump in your closet and get started.
Speaker B: Get going.
Speaker C: You don't need an $8,000 booth to begin with. You're just starting out. Get your training, get your stuff, and then kind of figure out what you need past there.
Speaker B: Yeah. When you give the right advice, when you create trust, then people will keep coming back to you.
Speaker C: That's important.
Speaker B: That's the key. Yeah, that must be our issue. Hey, Freddie. It was awesome. I'm glad you could cop into this booth with me.
Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for inviting me.
Speaker B: Chat with my pals around the world.
Speaker C: No, it's really great to introduce you.
Speaker B: But Andrew is in Melbourne, Australia.
Speaker C: Excellent.
Speaker B: Sorry, Robbo is not here. Robo is in Sydney. Okay, great.
Speaker C: Yeah, we just did a really big thing down there to University of Sydney. Lots of multiple diamond series boots and stuff.
Speaker B: Very cool.
Speaker C: You can see that on the gallery section of our website. And they have a very cool setup.
Speaker B: Nice. And then Robba Marshall in Chicago. So, yeah, we wrap the globe when we do this show.
Speaker C: Wonderful.
Speaker B: Finding the time to do it is the hard part. Yeah.
Speaker C: Well, great.
Speaker B: Exactly.
Speaker C: It's wonderful to be a part of it. And nice to chat with you guys. I appreciate it.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional."
Hunter S Thompson
In this episode of the Pro Audio Suite, hosts George Wittam, Robert Marshall, Darren Robbo Robertson, and Andrew Peters take a deep dive into all things related to professional audio equipment. The discussion covers the technicalities of the legendary 41 six microphone, its proximity effect, and how its placement profoundly influences the output. Renowned rock and roll voiceover artist Steve Britton's microphone technique is highlighted, including how he utilizes the aggressive nature of the mic to enhance his voice. The hosts also discuss other microphones such as the eight one eight, the SM Seven, and the 4116, comparing their various characteristics and potential uses. Additionally, they touch upon potential changes in the industry due to the advent of AI voices. The podcast concludes with advice for individuals dealing with their own audio issues, encouraging listeners to explore and make the most out of their equipment like iPhone mic, acknowledging how surprisingly good it can sound when used correctly. Check out theproaudiosuite.com for more information and use the code Trip a P 200 for $200 off your tribooth.
[00:00:30] Exploring the Proximity Effect of 41 Six
[00:03:33] Voiceover Pioneer: Ernie Anderson's 41 Six Influence
[00:07:44] Microphone Showdown: 416 Vs. SM Seven
[00:12:16] Unraveling the Versatility of Eight One Eight
[00:17:56] Mic Recommendation: Small Diaphragm Shep
[00:23:19] Debunking the Myth: Foam on 41 Six
[00:25:32] The History of Headset Mics
[00:30:25] AI Voice Realm: A Threat or a Boon?
Speaker A: Y'all ready be history.
Speaker B: Get started.
Speaker C: Welcome.
Speaker B: Hi. Hi. Hello, everyone, to the Pro Audio Suite.
Speaker C: These guys are professional and motivated with tech. To the Vo stars George Wittam, founder of Source Elements Robert Marshall, international audio engineer Darren Robbo Robertson and global voice Andrew Peters. Thanks to Triboo, Austrian audio making passion heard. Source elements. George the tech. Wittam and robbo and AP. International demo. To find out more about us, check thepro audiosuite.com line up learner.
Speaker B: Here we go.
Speaker C: And don't forget the code. Trip a P 200 that will give you $200 off your tribooth. Now, I've been playing around with the proximity effect of the 41 six, the legendary 41 six, and I've never really set it up to shoot straight down the barrel.
Speaker B: So what's your default placement?
Speaker C: Usually slightly off to the side.
Speaker B: Okay. So still relatively level, but just coming pointing at you a little bit off to the side.
Speaker C: Yeah. And pointing down. So pointing down but slightly side.
Speaker B: Got it.
Speaker C: This way is still pointing down, targeting the mouth, but going full it straight at it. And I did one read like that, then I followed it up with one slightly to the side, and then I followed that up with an eight. One eight. But I know we've talked about the proximity effects of the 41 six, but I actually couldn't believe the difference. It shocked me that it was so bright and it's how I remember the 41 six sounding.
Speaker B: So what you're saying is like, you've kind of detuned the mic, you've detuned it to calm down. What makes the mic so aggressive? By using that placement and then when.
Speaker C: I put it back holy crap.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's what that mic?
Speaker A: Well, it's interesting because there's a guy who AP and I know and have both worked with a guy called Steve Britton, who's sort of the big know, rock and roll voiceover guy, and he actually uses it to his advantage because he's not so hyped. His natural voice is not so sort of steeped in those sort of high mids and highs. So he actually gets right up on it. The best way I can describe it is he pretty much swallows the thing when he does a voiceover and uses it to his advantage because it sort of obviously accentuates that part of his voice that isn't really there naturally. The only deficit is that from an engineer's point of view, that as soon as you touch anything in the highs, it just blows up. You've got to be so careful around up there with him when you're sort of mixing him.
Speaker C: Well, the strange thing about his voice is you think you're going to have to play with all the lows because it's such a big, deep voice, but as soon as you touch anything, the highs just go mental.
Speaker A: Well, yeah, and that's the way you've got to work with Steve's voice, is rather than sort of additive EQ, it's subtractive you've really just got to sort of balance it by taking away some of that deeper stuff that's there in bucket loads. And just leave the top alone, otherwise it will just destroy itself. I've seen people with three DS's on a track trying to get rid of it once they've started sort of trying to get that typical radio cut through, which is the biggest mistake. And as soon as you say start again, but don't touch the highs, just cut some lows, they go, yeah.
: Okay.
Speaker C: So my question is with the 41 Six, it was the guy who was the voice of The Love Boat. Was he the first guy to use the 41 Six for Ernie Anderson?
Speaker B: I don't know if he was the first, but he was certainly the most well known for it.
: I thought Don LaFontaine made it really popular.
Speaker B: Well, Ernie is the one who's caught on camera using that mic on video and other things, where he's in the studio at ABC and he's literally doing know.
: And I got to imagine someone just did it because, like, here's a mic. It's the one that the freaking news guy uses. But here you go. Say the word.
Speaker C: The story I heard was not like I think he was a bit paranoid and he didn't like being in the booth because he thought people were talking about him.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: And so he wanted to sit out in the control area.
Speaker B: That's right.
Speaker C: And he couldn't use a normal large diaphragm, couldn't use a U eight seven.
Speaker B: Out there, every damn thing.
Speaker C: So one of the guys on the floor came up with the idea of using the 41 Six. That's what I heard.
: Why don't you use this razor blade to record your voice?
Speaker B: Yeah, it's probably a 415 or whatever they had at the time.
: Yeah, probably a T powered 415 at the time. Yeah, I got a couple of those. Those sound a little bit different than the four.
Speaker B: Little bit less distorted.
Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B: That sound, for whatever reason, better, for worse, it's become the character of what a voiceover sound sounds like. Like when you listen to a voice recorded with a close up mic, I think we've gotten incredibly tuned what that sound is. It's become what was the word you used? Robo? Standard, but something else.
Speaker A: Yeah, I did, didn't I? I used a big word printed benchmarked. It's a benchmark.
Speaker B: Benchmark, yeah. Kind of a benchmark, yes. So I've been hearing that mic with my clients and promo people for so long. So when I hear another mic, right, upside of it, if it's an accurate mic with very little color, such as the OC 8118, it sounds well, it sounds like this here. Here's a 41 six of Andrew and then the eight one eight. So this is what a non accurate mic and then an accurate mic sounds like side by side. And then you did it in two different placements, right?
Speaker C: Yeah. I did that was because of our discussion a couple of weeks back, where we were talking about placement with the 41 Six, which I'd never I thought, yeah, well, whatever.
: Andrew, where do you like the 416?
Speaker C: You'd be surprised where'd you like that. He's got a dark brown voice. No, he hasn't.
Speaker A: Well, if they say that your voice is chocolatey, you can tell them why.
Speaker C: Yes. Getting a bit messy now, is it?
Speaker A: Yes, indeed.
Speaker C: I always had the 40 116, sort of like facing down, but to the slightly to the side. So I'm sort of almost not quite side addressing, but you know what I mean? That's how I had it and I got used to that sound. And then after our discussion, I thought, I wonder if the proximity, I wonder what it really is like. So I moved the mic and went basically pointing straight at me, but slightly downwards towards my mouth, and I couldn't believe the difference. It was just like two different mic. It was two different mics and it was the old get a toothpick and stick it in your eardrum kind of sound that you get with the 41 Six.
: Yeah, which is the other reason why I think engineers like it, because you get a voice recorded on that and it's just going to cut through everything and you don't have to do a lot more to it. It just sort of has this pre processing that works for a lot of that in your face advertising.
Speaker B: The Hamburger Helper of microphones.
: Yeah, it's just like in your face advertising. Right there, done.
Speaker B: Here's what it sounded like. Here's the samples. I got them right here.
Speaker C: The MercedesBenz GLE SUV is the complete package. The MercedesBenz GLE SUV is the complete package. The MercedesBenz GLE SUV is the complete package. So that's first one was straight down the barrel, second one to the side, and the third one was the eight one eight.
: And you can hear it, it just gets less and less edgy, less and less. It does.
Speaker A: The interesting thing about the 4116, and I guess its impact on the industry, is it's been copied a few times, probably, or tried to be copied. But I'm on an NTG five right now and it's probably the closest, I reckon, that I've heard.
: I don't know. The NTG five has got more bass. I'm on an NTG five, too. I think the NTG five is a warmer mic. Yes, it does have that shotgunny in your face thing, but it's a little bit actually bigger sounding, but it's not necessarily more cuddy. I think this the eight one eight. You could take it and EQ it to do what the 416 does.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
: Pick up more room. But the 416 is just sort of like there it is, it's going to.
Speaker A: Put done for you.
: It's a cut.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: I'm so used to the way that bright cut condenser mic sounds that I add EQ to my own mic because I want it to sound more like that bright, condenser mic sound. Right. Now I'm talking into the Earthworks Ethos, which is a very flat mic. And if I cut my what is it, ten khz? Six DB shelf, basically. It's not a shelf, but it looks like one. Then it sounds like this. Right, and it still sounds good. It just doesn't have that top end, that bright sizzle.
: I think the extreme difference would be go from a 416 to an SM Seven.
Speaker B: Yeah, well, the SM Seven has like this kind of this mid range thing that I've never been a big fan of the way that sounds.
Speaker A: For voiceover.
Speaker B: Yeah, for voiceover.
: Do you like the PL 20? The Re 20 better than the SM seven.
Speaker B: Yeah. Personally, radio voice, the PL 20 is the Re 20 without that big basket on it, the front, right.
: No, I cannot tell you the difference between them, actually. I believe they are the exact same, just years difference.
Speaker B: Oh, got you.
: For this year to this year. They made the Re 20 and then they I think the PL 20 was before the Re 20 got you. Yeah. No, I think that as powerful and big of a mic. And no matter how much Rush Limbo wanted to gold plate his, I think the SM Seven beat the PL 20 in overall installations since the Pandemic, at least. It's like, holy cow. Did they get the SM Seven out there on podcast?
Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B: I don't know who they have to thank for it, but Joe Rogan is probably high up on the list because he's been YouTubing his podcast for quite a few years now.
: I mean, there's an ad campaign that I've never seen an ad for an SM Seven. That's marketing.
Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
: Yeah, you need it. And I didn't even tell you.
Speaker B: I mean, I just installed a podcast studio and the mic was not chosen because that's the best mic. It was chosen because that mic was seen on another podcast. Yes, exactly. Because the owner is and the 416.
: Has got that, too. And so it's like, yeah, the SM Seven, you can abuse it. And it's going to be pretty consistent and whatever dark and warm. And it has that thing for radio where it's not going to pick up. It's just going to seem to pick up the voice and not the other stuff. Right. Like the 416 has got the cut.
Speaker C: Yeah, the SM seven. SM Seven b basically eat the things anyway, and they're built like a tank, which is perfect.
: Yeah. You can abuse the whole mic and you won't hear. I mean, I don't know how Howard Stern gets away with abusing his Neumann condenser the way he does and you never hear it.
Speaker C: Can you explain that one's?
Speaker B: Still a mystery.
: It's like it should just be like.
Speaker B: This kind of shit all over the.
Speaker A: Place because it's not connected, I'm sure of it.
Speaker C: I don't think it's connected. It's a fucking prop, isn't it?
: It's a prop, yeah.
Speaker B: Now this sounds more like an SM seven B, doesn't it? This is that it does a little.
: Darker fatter, a little bit less top.
Speaker B: End, a little bit more mid bump around one k, couple of DB. Now it's like an SM seven. I could go to the low frequency and boost up the bottom end. Now, they would sound even maybe a little bit more.
: So in the spirit of don't send us a processed voice. Stop using 416s because they sound too processed already.
Speaker B: Yeah, stop using them altogether.
Speaker C: But it's kind of weird, isn't it? We're like, we get a large diaphragm mic or something and then we try and EQ it up to sound like a four one six. Just use the 41 six and be done with it.
Speaker B: Really? I've caught myself doing that where somebody's like, okay, here's a sample of my 41 six, here's a sample of my TLM 103, can you make me a stack for each of these two mics? And over the time I'm just like, okay, I'm not going to touch the EQ at all on the 41 six.
: Yeah. And then you're going to make their tail on 103 sound like a 41 six.
Speaker B: What, did you resist the urge? I used to, I used to, but I resist the urge and now what I'm doing is I'm mostly just going to do corrective EQ.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: When there's like a harshness, a nasal, some resonance in the booth, then that's it.
: I think with the TLM you could give it a little bit more of a glassy sound and not so much of an upper mid, but a way airy high frequency kind of airy boost and make it nice and it'll still have some sort of I wouldn't call it cut, but presence, literally. But it'll be different than the 416, which has that frequency that every speaker has. It's like four k, eight k all packed in there. It's like your worst speaker on earth plays back those frequencies, for sure.
Speaker A: Yeah, no doubt, yeah. Well, and the eight one eight, well, it's the polar opposite, isn't it?
: I think eight one eight is like the TLM. You could just give it like a glassy airy sound, you're not cornered into the sound of the four six. I think the eight one eight could be more of a chameleon than the 416. The 416 does its thing and that is it.
Speaker C: Yeah. It's a one trick pony, that's for sure.
Speaker B: It's a one trick pony, but the way you manipulate it is by placement.
Speaker C: Yeah, well, that became obvious. Yeah, absolutely. It did sound like two different microphones just by moving it.
Speaker B: I mean, the first time I saw.
: A 42 different voice actors sometimes, yeah.
Speaker B: The first time I saw a 40 116 in an audiobook production facility, I.
Speaker A: Was like, yeah, that seems like for.
: A long term thing, it's like that's a harsh mic to be listening to 8 hours of the same person. You'd want nice pillowy mic?
Speaker B: Yeah. So I don't know what post they were doing on the audio. I'm sure they were doing some EQ.
: It's like listening to classical music on NS Ten s? Yes.
Speaker A: I was going to say you'd be pulling the earbuds out halfway through mowing the lawn. You'd be going, Jesus, my ears are bleeding.
Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
: Well, maybe it's good for the lawnmower. You're mowing the lawn. It's like I can hear 4K.
Speaker A: I've got Ebays in to stop going deaf, but I'm going deaf anyway.
: Yeah.
Speaker B: Here's a little test. Tell me what this is.
Speaker C: The MercedesBenz GLE SUV is the complete package.
: That is either the 416 straight on, I think, or maybe to the side.
Speaker B: All that was was the eight one eight with a shelf high shelf on it. It was an eight DB shelf starting at seven.
: Wow, that's a shitload. That's a lot of DB.
Speaker B: It's so funny. I opened up the Au filter plugin, which is like a really simple four band EQ. And the setting I had last loaded, wasn't that's what it was? It was just like an ATP shelf at seven k. Wow. I was like, all right, let's see what that sounds like. That's what that sounds like.
: Sounds like so the 416 is boost at. Boost at.
Speaker B: But if you ran that EQ on the 416, well, you would get this.
Speaker C: The MercedesBenz GLE make it stop.
: D 416.
Speaker A: Try selling a MercedesBenz with that sound. Yeah, exactly. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker B: Off brand, for sure. Yeah, but it's weird, there's a lot of commercial work getting booked, especially female voice stuff. That is really bright.
: Yeah, it is. I used to say a lot of the times, depending on the 414, some females didn't work as well with a 414 because their voices were already kind of airy and then you get that really top end mic on it. Yeah. And it's like they overcompensate and sometimes like a U 87 worked better because just sort of try to pick up some of those lower mids.
Speaker B: I used to recommend the Rode NTG three all the time for women because it was a very dark, flat and warm mic and so it worked really to their advantage a lot of times, in fact.
Speaker C: That's funny you say that, because that's the mic I got for Somerset for Interg three, because it just did not sharp and nasty.
Speaker B: So, yeah, it's funny, when you have a good mic that gets all the information with no distortion, you can really EQ it. And when you have a mic that is pre filtered, pre EQed and arguably has some degree of distortion, it's much.
: Harder to correct it like anything with audio, it's easy to work with a blank slate compared to trying to uncompress.
Speaker B: Oh, boy.
: It's impossible or unds.
Speaker B: Right?
: Or UN crazy 416 EQ something. Because no matter what you do, the fix that you apply will create other harms, and you'll just end up with Swiss cheese in the end. So these broader, flatter, big diaphragm mics or what's interesting is, I think, to get a really accurate voice, I've not seen anybody try to record voice with, say, like a Km 184. And sometimes you see a lot of the opera singers what's an opera singer set up, like, a nice small diaphragm away from the singer?
Speaker B: Yeah. Distant placement.
: Distant, right. And then you get that just like that is what it is. There's no proximity. And I'll bet you for some people's voice, maybe something like a really pure small diaphragm condenser would be pretty interesting. That's why I was curious about those rode TF. Mics.
Speaker B: Yeah, TFI.
: Those look pretty high end small diaphragm condenser. And I bet you those would probably.
Speaker B: Wait, didn't one of you guys get the small diaphragm Austrian audio?
Speaker C: Yeah, robert's got them.
: I got the OC eight. I got the OC eight. And those are good. I was going to say, I don't think they're sheps killers. They're closer to 184s. They're not sheps, but they're much closer to like honestly, they're much closer to, like, 450 ones. They're a little bit less full and very good for symbols, but not necessarily the whole I think a really good small diaphragm mic like a shep would be amazing on the right person's voice. But you'd have to have the right booth, right? There's no way, you know, you can.
Speaker B: Get a chef's headset microphone. I actually demoed it once. $2,400 headset mic. It was an ultrasound headphone. $600 headphone with a chef.
: And the microphone is like a pencil. It's like a pencil, yeah, it was pretty big, actually.
Speaker B: It had a big windscreen. It was for sports casting. It had a big gooseneck on it. And it was like this ridiculous contraption that I was able to get a demo of one time, and I used it. It's on YouTube somewhere. $2,400 headset. Headset mic.
: Chefs and BNKS. Man, not cheap mic.
Speaker B: No compromises.
: Yeah, they are good, though, definitely. I mean, Neumann's, too, but those are like, chefs. Doesn't even try to make a 103. They're like, you're going to make $1,000 microphone. Ha. We'll make a $7,000 microphone. Our cheapest mic is $2,000.
Speaker C: I would love to, at some point, find out how the 41 six did become so prevalent.
: Honestly, I always hurdles, don LaFontaine. I remember I was shocked when I found out, like, really? 416?
Speaker B: Just for the record, it was not the mic that was in this booth when I met him. Like, I never saw him using that booth.
: The 416 was not the mic that Don LaFontaine used, not when I met him.
Speaker B: I mean, I worked with him in 2005, but he'd already been recording for 20 years by that point.
: Andrew, when did the 416 become all the rage, because when I started in 1998, it was like, u, people are using shotguns, but I'm just an early engineer who's like, shotguns are colored. You only use them because you have to because you have mitigating circumstances. Why would you ever use a shotgun in a perfectly clean booth? And I start working on higher end commercials, and you start finding these voice talent who are using it. And actually, come to think of it, cutters. We had VIP 50s until, like, the early 2000s VIP, and then we got these Mylabs. Okay, very interesting mic. Rectangular diaphragm. So the skinny side of the rectangle is supposed to give you the best of a small diaphragm mic, and the long side of the rectangle is supposed to give you the best of a large diaphragm mic.
Speaker B: Far out.
: But they were good. We even had some voicemail go like, what's that mic? Like, I need your setup. And one guy bought one. But by the early 2000s, we put 416s in all the booths, and eventually that was just the mic. Like, the VIP 50s got pushed to the side, and everyone who walked in just got recorded on a 416 by default. And that's by 2005. I feel like we were just all 416. So Andrew, I don't know. When do you feel like the 416 took over?
Speaker C: Because I was in radio until 97, so I didn't really see any commercial studios because everything was done in the radio station. So there was from memory, I don't remember seeing any shotguns in any radio stations. It was usually SM seven.
: You still don't true. You still don't see shotguns in radio stations.
Speaker C: Well, you do here now. You do see them in the production areas.
Speaker B: Really?
Speaker C: Absolutely. They're all 41 sixes in the production areas of radio stations. So the first time I saw a 41 Six would have been probably late ninety s ninety seven. Ninety eight, I guess.
: So that's when it started taking over, in, like, late 90s, early 2000s.
Speaker C: Yeah. And then they became everywhere. And a funny story, actually, because I had to do a job when I was in La. So I had to find a studio. So I went to La Sound.
Speaker B: And.
Speaker C: Of course, they had the 41 Six there. But I was talking to I won't mention the person's name because he's pretty high profile and might get the shits with me, but I was talking about the 40 116 with this person and about the foamy, and he said, no one in this country would ever have the foamy on their 41 six. It just doesn't happen here. I don't know why you guys do that. That's ridiculous. That's crazy. Never seen it before.
: Well, usually you just put the normal you put the normal steadman screen windscreen in front of it.
Speaker C: Yeah, I sent him a photograph. There's me in the booth, La Sound with the foamy on the 41 six. So they definitely had the foamy on.
Speaker A: Well, there you go. I always use the foamy. I used to, because there's plenty of people who didn't know how to use the mic, used to get up all over it and just make it.
: Here's a funny one. Even Harlan Hogan's vo one A was based on an older MSL. Model. Was it based on or was it just an older MXL model?
Speaker B: No one will really know except him. But they say it's, I think, a 1006 or something.
: It's a 1006.
Speaker B: And I have two of those and they sound amazing.
: I got several.
Speaker B: A really fucking good cheap mic. It's a really good cheap mic.
: It was the first $100 large diaphragm mic I bought for me, too. And then I won't say who in Australia modify one.
Speaker C: Yes, I know who that is. Yeah, we'll leave that bit out.
Speaker B: So the chef's headset is the HSC four VXP. It's the model number, if you want to look it up, and very unique mic. And the capsule on it is what probably you're more interested in. And they make different versions, so they have a strong proximity compensation model so you can get it, like, designed to actually compensate for proximity effect. Which is interesting because, again, Sports, they want the boom right up in front of their mouth to reject background.
: Let's start let's start putting, like, parabolic mics in the booth.
Speaker B: I know you talked about that. That would be crazy. Well, the capsule, which is funny, I'm looking at an ad for the mic and they don't mention the capsule, but I think I did in my video. I have a video on YouTube from years ago. If you just search for Widows World episode 90 Headset Mic Roundup, you'll find this video. And I actually try out a bunch.
: Of the Kip Winger headset mic roundup.
Speaker B: I mean, I was trying from really cheap crappy stuff all the way up to the ships and everything.
: The stuff that you start out with the mics that only pick up S's.
Speaker B: Right, or have no low end response period, they just roll off below 200 something.
: If you des them, they go silent.
Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Well, there's just been a tradition of bad sounding headset mics for so many years.
: Sure has. I mean, do you remember that audio technica that I was playing around with? Is it the really cheap one headset mic? I think it might have been a dynamic and it didn't even have the headset. It's just a head warning mic. But it didn't even have headsets.
Speaker B: I use those in many aerobics or fitness studios where budget was an issue because they could be destroyed and it wasn't a huge loss. But, yeah, those are classics. But audio Tending, it just came up with a headset mic. That where they graphed basically an at 2020 capsule onto a headset boom. And it's like a $200 headphone with a 2020 capsule. And it's pretty freaking bad. I mean, it's pretty good. Again, comparing it to what else is out there, it's pretty good, but it's.
: Still well, that's the reality. Honestly, if someone gave me a voiceover recorder on a cell phone, I'd get it on the yeah, you find a way and I'd find a way, and I'd freaking bass synthesize some stuff and make it sound as good as it can go. And unfortunately, with a lot of clients, they're like, okay, sounds good. I understand the words. Sounds like a commercial to me. But we know there's a huge difference between all that stuff. I don't know. I still don't like it. But I've had a couple of voices. Now I've run into the tiny, basically rode video microphone, USB video mic.
Speaker B: Go two.
: Yeah, it's like your pinky.
Speaker B: That's probably because I've recommended it to a bunch of people.
: You can blame me for that one. Yeah, it's like it's okay.
Speaker B: It's $100 mic.
: Yeah. The flaws are exposed much quicker and the escape routes are smaller.
Speaker B: It's probably marginally better than the phone mic in the iPhone. Just it's a shotgun, so it's a little bit more directional. Yeah. At the end of the day, I'm blown away with, when you use the iPhone mic correctly, how good it actually can sound. It's crazy.
: Yeah. And especially if they start putting, like, arrays of microphones in there and doing.
Speaker B: Beam forming, they're doing I don't know which vert well, they're already doing that. I mean, you don't realize it, but they are doing that. They use three capsules and it's a beam.
: Oh, the microphone and the iPhone is a beam.
Speaker B: They have been for quite a while. I even had an LG phone. It was like a V 40 or something. It was probably six years ago. And I could steer the microphone pickup pattern front to back, depending on who using the little slider on the screen. And I could say, make it pick up the guy in front of me and then make it pick me up, and I could go back and forth. So that's been around in cell phones for a while. But anyway, I had a lot of fun doing interviews with the new rode wireless kit with the wireless me, because the rode capture app on the phone will shoot both cameras. So I'm shooting a video of me and shooting a video of the guest. And they have a mic and I have a mic. So when I'm done, I have two videos and two audio tracks to manipulate and post. And it's amazing how good of a production you can make from that, really?
: From your pocket.
Speaker B: It's crazy. Yeah. I posted a couple interviews.
Speaker C: Was that the one with the woman from Heil? Yeah, I saw that.
: This is why we're all out of business.
Speaker C: I thought you'd actually done some naughty shots, but I didn't realize you were actually live with your bits to camera as well.
: What's going. On with the AI voice realm? Has that calmed down or are people still freaking out on AI taking over?
Speaker C: I haven't seen much like it's less.
: A little bit less discussed recently?
Speaker C: I haven't seen much at all.
Speaker A: What microphone do you use on an AI voice?
: How many drummers does it take to change the light bulb? I'll tell you the same number of voiceovers it takes to read a book.
Speaker A: None.
: Because you just get an AI to do it.
Speaker B: Well, that was fun. Is it over?
Speaker C: The Pro audio suite with thanks to Tribut and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by Robbo Got your own audio issues? Just askrobo.com. Tech support from George thetech Wittam. Don't forget to subscribe to the show and join in the conversation on our Facebook group. To leave a comment, suggest a topic or just say good day. Drop us a note at our website proaudiosuite.com.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional."
Hunter S Thompson
In this episode of Pro Audio Suite, we delve into an intriguing story about a paranoid voiceover artist who disliked using the booth, even in a professional setting. His preference to sit in the control area led to an unconventional solution - using a 41 six instead of the customary large diaphragm U87 microphones. This switch, made by one of the floor guys, not only satisfied the artist but also resulted in a unique sound that rapidly became the benchmark for what a voiceover should sound like. Don't miss this intriguing tale about breaking norms and setting new standards in the audio world, only on Pro Audio Suite.
[00:00:11] Innovative idea from the Brainstorming Floor
[00:00:22] Emergence of 416 Sound
[00:00:33] The Character of Voiceover Sound Revealed
Speaker A: It's coming up. Coming up next, the Pro Audio Suite sneak peek. The story I heard was not like, I think he was a bit paranoid and he didn't like being in the booth because he thought people were talking about him. Right. And so he wanted to sit out in the control area. That's right. And he couldn't use a normal large diaphragm. Couldn't use a U 87 out there. Yeah. Every damn thing. So one of the guys on on the floor came up with the idea of using the 41 six. That's what I heard. Why don't you use this razor blade to record your voiceover? Yeah, it was probably a 415 or whatever they had at the time. Yeah, probably a T powered 415 at the time. Yeah. So that sound, for whatever reason, better, for worse, it's become the character of what a voiceover sounds like. It's become the word used. Robo, it's a benchmark. Benchmark, yeah. The Pro audio suite. Thanks to Triboos and Austrian audio. Listen now on your favorite podcast provider.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional."
Hunter S Thompson
Summary On this episode of Pro Audio Suite, voiceover and marketing coach Mark Scott is featured. Mark shares how he started his career in marketing out of necessity to make it in the voiceover industry. Now, he helps other voiceover artists navigate their own marketing journey. Covering a range of topics from social media strategy, dealing with rejection, the power of micro habits, and avoiding distractions, Mark provides valuable insights on how to set yourself apart in a saturated market. He also emphasizes the importance of continually bringing in new prospects to maintain success. The episode also dives into his experimentation with affiliate marketing and his innovative use of national days for promotional sales. He shares his approach to gifting clients, stressing the importance of showing appreciation. The discussion also touches on techniques for enhancing creativity, a crucial skill for both voiceover work and marketing.
Timestamps [00:00:00] Pro Audio Suite Introduction [00:00:39] Guest Introduction - Marketing Guru Mark Scott [00:01:27] Mark Scott's Journey to Voiceover Marketing [00:03:21] The Challenge of Offline Marketing for Voiceover Artists [00:08:49] Pros and Cons of Social Media in Marketing [00:10:37] Cultural Influences in Marketing Strategies [00:11:42] The Power of 'No' in Building Relationships [00:13:55] The Impact of Micro Habits on Growth [00:17:05] Distraction - The Enemy of Marketing [00:20:56] Tailored Marketing Advice for Voiceover Artist Andrew [00:28:49] Mark's Recent Marketing Endeavors [00:31:48] The Danger of Complacency in Successful Businesses [00:33:04] The Art of Gifting in Business Relationships [00:34:27] Capitalizing on Unconventional Sales Opportunities [00:36:36] Sparking Creativity for Social Media Content [00:42:30] Pro Audio Suite Closing Remarks
Transcript Speaker A: Y'all ready be history.,Speaker B: Get started.,Speaker C: Welcome.,Speaker B: Hi. Hi.,: Hello, everyone, to the Pro Audio Suite. These guys are professional. They're motivated with tech.,Speaker C: To the Vo stars George Wittam, founder of Source Elements Robert Marshall, international audio engineer Darren Robbo Robertson and global voice Andrew Peters. Thanks to Triboo Austrian audio making passion heard. Source elements. George the tech. Wittam and robbo and AP's. International demo. To find out more about us, check thepro audiosuite.com line up.,Speaker B: Learner. Here we go.,Speaker C: And don't forget the code. Trip a P 200 to get $200 off your tribooth. This week we have a guest. He hasn't as many kids as Robbo, not as cute as Robert, not as smart as George, but he's one of us, and that counts for something. Would you please welcome the marketing guru, Mark Scott. How you doing?,Speaker B: Mark, I see what you did there. I totally caught what you did. Somebody's been listening to my podcast and playing off my opener.,Speaker A: Who would do that?,Speaker C: Exactly.,Speaker A: Really?,: Cheeky monkey.,Speaker B: Look at you guys doing your research.,Speaker A: I appreciate know we go out of our way. We do work hard.,Speaker C: We do indeed.,: Don't speak for yourself. I just show up.,Speaker C: Actually, I was lying before. I'm the same. Yeah. So the question I have to get the ball rolling. How did you sort of end up being like the voiceover marketing guru?,Speaker B: Because I needed to make money in voiceover, and I had to figure out how to do it. I'm one of those voice actors, show of hands, who's been ceremoniously, dumped from their radio career, right. And defaulted into voiceover. And I wasn't making any money when I first started in Voiceover, and I was like, I know I can do this. I know there's a way to make money. Casting sites will only take me so far. And so I started figuring out, at first by accident and then with a little bit greater intention, how to actually market myself. And I remember I read a book that Gary Vee wrote. Everybody knows Gary Vee in the marketing space and in that book, Gary Vee said, you should write a blog. And so I thought, all right, well, if Gary Vee says I should write a blog, I should write a blog. But I didn't know what to blog about. So I just started blogging about all of the marketing stuff that I was learning while I was on this journey. And I guess the end result of that was people thought that I was a marketing guru. And so I just roll with it.,Speaker A: Is that how you see yourself?,Speaker B: I mean, now I do see myself as a voice actor and a marketing coach for voice actors. And even though that was never the original intention, voiceover was obviously the original intention. The coaching thing was just one of those things where I guess you get to a point where the market kind of dictates it when you start getting a lot of people emailing you saying, can you help me with this? Or do you offer coaching? Or I got invited to speak at a couple of conferences and I was like, man, maybe there's something to this, maybe I should roll with this. And I think the best part of it is that it helps to keep me sharp. I can't get complacent because I'm helping other people and having to stay on top of what's going on and having to pay attention. And so that keeps me sharp too.,Speaker A: Because marketing yourself is a hell of a job, isn't it? It takes a lot of time.,Speaker B: It is.,Speaker A: Is that something that you sort of, as part of your coaching, you're teaching people, is how to best use their time as well, to fit all this stuff in, to run a database and to do prospecting and to send emails and are you sort of helping them with their time on that as well?,Speaker B: Well, I mean, the thing that I always joke about is people ask me, how many marketing emails should I be sending? And my response is what you're really asking me is what is the minimum amount of marketing that I can do and still get away with it? Because this is not what voice actors want to do. Right. They sign up to be in the booth and do the recording, but the reality is, if you're not in the booth and you're not doing the recording, it's probably because you're not doing the marketing. So it takes time. Yes, but for me, it's like, what else am I going to do if I'm not recording? I might as well be spending my day making new connections, getting in front of new people, so that I can open the door to do more recording down the road. Right?,: It's probably better than obsessing on whether you have the best microphone for voiceover.,Speaker B: Yeah, I think so.,: It's much better use of your time, I can tell you.,Speaker A: Yeah, because marketing is something that I mean, I'm basing my assumptions here on the Australian market, but 20 years ago, a voiceover artist marketing themselves was unheard of because you had an agent and they pretty much did all that for you. So it's only a sort of recent thing. Do you find that maybe that's part of the issue is that voiceover artists in general have only just recently been thrown into this situation and they're madly trying to figure it out without really anyone to sort of base their marketing strategy on or whatever. Do you find that maybe we're all a bit new to this?,Speaker B: It might be an oversimplification, but I think looking out at the macro level, I think there's probably three different classes of voice actors. There's the voiceover veterans who were around in the glory days of voiceover when it was all agents and in studio, and your agents did everything for you and they brought you in studio and obviously the industry still exists like that in certain areas, but not in a lot of areas anymore. Then there was a group of voice actors who kind of came in during what I call the glory days of online casting. And so for them it meant signing up for a Pay to Play membership, submitting auditions on Pay to Play and maybe they had an agent or two as well. And for voice actors that have come in, we'll say the COVID era voice actors, the glory days of online casting are over. It's not really a sustainable way to build a full time business. Obviously the agent model has shifted a ton and so I think those voice actors are more in tune with the fact that marketing is how this gets done. And I think that voice, like, I came in the glory days of online casting and I was in denial for a while, but when I started seeing things change on the Pay to Play, I knew, okay, I got to figure out a better way. And I don't happen to live in a New York or in La or a Chicago where the full agent model may still work for some people. And so I do think that for a lot of voice actors, they're creatives. They operate from the creative side of their brain. They want to be in the booth doing creative things. And marketing, I think, comes from the other side of the brain and so it's not a natural fit and that's why they don't think about it initially, it's why they don't necessarily want to do it. Can't blame them for that either. But it opened up the door for somebody like me to be able to come in and help them with it because I'm actually not a creative. So I operate from the business side of my brain first.,Speaker C: Yeah, it's interesting though, because winding the clock back, I remember when I like, you finished my radio career and moved to Melbourne 25 years ago. I got into voiceover, got an agent and I was sort of started working, but it was a slow thing. And I walked into a studio one day and I remember sitting and waiting to go in. They had no idea who I was, they just had a name on a piece of paper that I was coming in to do a voice. But I watched the way they communicated with the talent that was leaving and it was like, hey, see you Matt, blah, blah, blah, whatever. It was all like face to face. They knew each other, so I thought there's got to be a way of shortcutting this so I can actually become visible to them as opposed to just being a name on a piece of paper. So I went out and found a photographer and I got a whole bunch of shots taken. And the brief was there were certain colors that I wanted to do, but I wanted to make it look like I was releasing an album on a CD. And I was the singer, so I was the artist on the front cover, which I did. And so I produced all these videos, which in those days was VHS for on camera stuff. I did a bunch of CDs with this picture on it and it was an immediate shortcut because I just did every studio, went to every studio, dropped these kits off with my demo and all that kind of stuff, and it was amazing. When I walked in, they knew who I was because on their desk was my photograph on the CD and everybody else just had their name and a contact number.,Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say at that point in time, probably nobody else was doing that. So it makes it so much easier for you to stand out. Right. That's how you get noticed.,Speaker C: Yeah. And it worked. It was like, it was an immediate shortcut. I probably saved about six months of traipsing around the studios.,Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.,Speaker A: Is there an online equivalent of that today, do you reckon, Mark, or is it just a slow slog?,Speaker B: I mean, social media is I wouldn't call it a shortcut. Can you get lucky on social media if you find the right audience or hit the right niche or do the right thing? Of course, I've seen many voice actors who have gone viral on TikTok or on YouTube or on Instagram, and that has led to opportunities. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily the norm for it to happen quickly, but I do think that if you use some of those tools consistently, over time, you start to build a following, you start to get recognition and people start to notice who you are and pay a little bit more attention.,: Yeah. I can tell you from someone who's started his business at the beginning of social media, it's been a very long slog because you do just spend time building up the brand and the name recognition and establishing yourself as an authority on the subject of something. So, yeah, it's a way to do it. It's definitely not the fastest, I would say.,Speaker B: Yeah, I would say now, I don't know that I would release the VHS, but I would say that there's a full circle coming around. Like I've had some success doing things like postcards because everybody else is doing email and inbox and social media and nobody's sending anything through the mail anymore. And so that's one of the ways that you stand out. So walking into a studio today and dropping off a package, nobody's doing that again now because everybody's doing email and social media, so there might be a full circle opportunity to kind of jump the line a little bit in that regard.,Speaker A: Will that be the next episode of your podcast, Mark?,Speaker B: Yeah, maybe I'll bring you guys on the show and we'll talk through that one.,Speaker C: As far as countries are concerned, do you find the attitude towards marketing changes depending on which country you're marketing yourself into?,Speaker B: I don't know if the attitude changes as much. I think maybe the platforms change a little bit. Like for example, I've got some clients in South America who don't do email at all. Everything happens on WhatsApp. And so if you're emailing them and they're not responding to you, that's why. Because they don't actually operate on their inbox, they operate out of WhatsApp. And so that's a little bit different. I think the whole North American 24/7 hustle culture, I don't think that necessarily plays the same way in certain European markets where they actually take time off and leave the office and end their workday. And so if you're dropping marketing emails in their inbox at eight or 09:00 at night or whatever, I don't know that that necessarily lands. So I think there's little things, little nuances maybe from country to country, region to region. But at the end of the day, we're all trying to accomplish the same thing. We want people to hear our voice and if our demos are great, then hopefully that does the selling for us.,Speaker A: Yeah, well, talking about email, I've heard you mention a couple of times that no hearing no is actually a good thing. Do you want to explain that to people who maybe haven't heard you talk about this before?,Speaker B: I think that when we're sending out our marketing emails, obviously we want everybody to say yes and we want everybody to hire us and we want every email that we send to be a potential opportunity. And so when we get that rejection, our natural instinct is to take it as know, I might not be any good or maybe my demos aren't good enough or maybe my studio stinks, I need to call George. Whatever. Right. We start to go into all of this negative spiral of everything that's wrong with us when the reality is maybe they don't use voice actors or maybe they've already got a full roster or maybe there's just nothing that fits your voice or whatever. Right. There's 1000 reasons why they don't need you. Only one of those reasons is they didn't like you. But by them just telling you no straight up now, you know, so you don't have to put any more effort into building a relationship with that person going forward. And so much of marketing is building relationships. I would rather devote my time, my effort, my energy to building relationships with people who are potentially going to hire me than spending it on somebody who was never going to hire me in the first place. So the sooner they tell me no, I'm not interested, the better it is for me in that regard because I can devote more time to better prospects.,: Yeah, kind of the same thing as like unsubscribes. Like whenever I send out an email campaign, there's a certain percentages of unsubscribes, maybe a half a percent, but I used to be like, oh man, people don't want to hear it. And it's like, no, that's good. Now you've weeded it down. Now the ones that are left are the ones that really do want to hear from you. And that lets you know people that's true from you, because they're telling you they don't want to hear from you. It's not a bad thing.,Speaker B: When I started building my email list, I took it so personal. Like, I wanted to call up every person who unsubscribed and be like, did I say something wrong? I'm so sorry. Right? You don't want that rejection, right? But now the unsubscribe is a gift in that sense, because now you know that's somebody who was never going to work with you anyway, so focus your attention somewhere else.,Speaker A: I want to take a bit of an off ramp here and head in a different direction, just for a second, because you and I have one thing in common that I know of and we're a bit of a fan of a book called Atomic Habits from a gentleman who I've been lucky enough to interview for an hour or so. A guy called James clear. And his book talks about how micro habits can actually change our lives. Just little things that we do every day that become a habit, can actually change our business, our family life, anything that you want to change, really. And I was wondering if you, in your time of reading James's book and sort of thinking about the things that he's spoken about, if you might have like three habits or so that a voiceover artist should get into in terms of their marketing if they want to become more successful.,Speaker B: One of the things that I talk about all the time with email marketing is send ten emails a day, which is not a big number when you break it down. Ten emails a day, that's not a big number. That's something that realistically, you could probably do in about an hour. It doesn't seem like a lot ultimately, but if you do that five days a week, you just sent 50 emails. And if you do that consistently for a year, that's 2500 emails. And if you get a ten or 15% response rate, that's 200 and 5275 prospects that are now in your database. After a year of just sending ten emails a day, like just focusing on one simple, small task that's an hour out of your day at most, but can create an exponential growth opportunity for you if you do it consistently for a year. And so I think the same applies to social media, though, too, right? Like if you post once a week or twice a week, but you just do it consistently, you get into that habit of doing it consistently, not sharing an update when you've got an update and then falling off for 30 days and then coming back. And now you got to start all over again with the algorithm, and you've got to retrain the algorithm, right? I think some of those simple little things that you can break down into daily tasks that you can accomplish in 10 minutes, 15 minutes, an hour to send those emails or whatever, it does make a big difference, and it's important. I work with voice actors. There's a group of voice actors that I coach for an entire year. Every year, I build out a mastermind group, and in December, we meet. I meet with each of one of them one on one, and we set the big goals for the entire year. Like, when I get to the end of the next year, these are the things that I want to accomplish. And then the next step from that is breaking it down into, okay, what does that look like over individual quarters? What does that look like over a month to month basis? And then, what does that look like on a day to day basis? So that you don't just focus on the great big overarching goal for the entire year, but you're breaking that down into more bite sized pieces, right? It's the whole idea of eating the elephant one bite at a time. And I think that's the concept, basically, of the micro habits. And that's why I love that book. I think everybody should read that book.,Speaker A: It's a ripper, isn't it?,Speaker B: It really is.,Speaker A: What do you think's the biggest enemy of doing? Easy to for me, it's so easy. If I'm getting on to do my socials, it's so easily to get distracted and go, oh, look what my mate Sean posted last week. And look at this, look at that. Do you reckon distraction is an enemy of our marketing?,Speaker B: 100%. There was a study that came out, and I know I'm going to get the numbers wrong, but it was something like, for every time that we allow ourselves to get taken off focus, it takes, like, 26 minutes to get back on track or something like that, right? And so one of the things that I say with social media, and I teach this to voice actors, like, okay, you're going to use LinkedIn because you think that that's a really good platform for you based on the type of work that you want to get. One of the things that you got to do on LinkedIn, if you really want to gain traction, is you've got to be consistent. Okay, what does that look like? And I say set a ten minute block in your calendar every morning and use an alarm. And when that alarm goes off after 10 minutes, get off. Because social media is designed for the endless scroll, right? Like, they've literally engineered these sites to keep us there as long as humanly possible. And so you have to be intentional about getting off and moving on to the next task. Otherwise it is 2 hours later and you're still flipping through reels on Instagram or whatever. And so I think you've got to be very careful about stuff like that.,: Yeah, I had to come up with a hack for me, I am one of those keep many tabs open in Chrome, people, all the things I use to run my business, all the different software websites, everything is like tabs, right? So what I do now is I check Facebook and then I close the just that one little thing keeps it from looking at me and taunting me to click on it because it's just not there. And that's my little hack.,Speaker A: James Clee would be proud of you mate. That's an atomic habit.,Speaker B: So often during the day my phone is not in my office because it's too easy, right? It's too easy. Apple lets you set up the custom focuses in the operating system and so I can set a custom focus that the only people that can text me or get a call through to me during certain times of the day. When I'm in that focus is like my wife and my kids, right? Everybody else can wait at that point because I don't want one ping on your phone. One notification is never just let me just check that one text or let me just answer that one email. It's always 25 minutes later and checked the weather and checked the stock market and went on Twitter and had to look at Instagram or whatever, right? And so it's too easy to lose the time.,Speaker A: Is that a thing for you if you've got that set up on your phone? Does that mean that there's a time of the day, I guess given outside of voiceover sessions and stuff but is there a particular time of the day that you do this sort of work?,Speaker B: When it is available in my schedule because my days are very unpredictable but I try to leave certain parts. Like you can't schedule a session with me before 11:00 a.m. So the first couple of hours of the morning, that's time when I can really just focus on my business and you can't schedule a session with me after 04:00 in the afternoon and so there might be an hour or two after 04:00 where I'm focused and that's where I'm going to do my things. But then if I have spare time in a day where somebody hasn't booked me for whatever reason, phone goes into the focus and it lets me settle in to do whatever the task is that I need to do. 30 minutes of deep focused work is so much more productive than 2 hours of periodic distracted work in between checking socials and text messages and getting yourself into a.,Speaker A: So let's let's, let's get a little bit micro on know, let's take Andrew as an example. Andrew's got an agent here in Australia. He's got an agent in the States. He does work that he drums up himself out of Singapore and Dubai. What should a media strategy for someone like Andrew, and I'm not asking you to give him a freebie here, but in general terms, what sort of things should Andrew be thinking about if he's going to go out there now and market himself and drum up some more work?,Speaker B: What kind of work is Andrew looking for?,Speaker C: That's a very good question.,Speaker B: Probably particular genre.,Speaker C: I'm just kind of thinking the things that I probably do mainly, which is promo work, TV promos, radio imaging.,Speaker B: Then.,Speaker C: I do quite a lot of mainly commercials, long form stuff. So I do like everything really. But I guess the main thing is what I'm booked for is the imaging or promo and also the soft sell sort of luxury product kind of voice.,Speaker B: So one of the things that I think you could be doing is looking at you got a great voice, you got that you sound like a TV promo documentary.,Speaker A: God, don't strike his ego anymore, please.,Speaker C: Oh, come on, someone's got two.,Speaker B: You have the kind of voice that people will sit and listen to on TikTok. You do. And I think there's one of two things that you could do. I think that you could either just do it straight and record yourself reading promos imaging, stuff like that, make some videos in the studio of you doing that as just a way to demonstrate, but also give people the opportunity to hear your voice. Or I think there's an opportunity to go in a completely different direction. The person I'm thinking of in particular is Christopher Tester. He's a voice actor out of the UK who is a classically trained British RP theater actor. And he goes on TikTok and reads monologues know, plays and historic books, different things like that, right? And he's created this whole niche with videos that constantly are going viral, but then people are also constantly writing him and saying, hey, do this one next, or do this one next, which keeps the audience coming back, keeps them watching, keeps the videos going viral. But it was a demonstration of his acting ability and so people end up booking him for voiceover work specifically because of that, because they're seeing his acting abilities. So I think if you could come up with a fun way to do some social media content that highlights your voice but demonstrates your skill, I think that's one of the things that could be done in a relatively short amount of time every day, dedicate 30 minutes to it. Making videos for social media doesn't need to be a complex task anymore. If you've got an iPhone or whatever, you've already got a superior camera and you've got a studio, so you've got great audio, so that's really easy. And I think that would be one thing that I would be looking at. And then the other thing is, I would set a target for myself of I'm going to connect with whatever it is, five radio station program directors every day. And maybe that's going to be through LinkedIn, or maybe that's going to be through email, but it's just getting yourself in front of a few new people every day, and that number is going to change. Right. For a successful working, six figure talent who doesn't have a lot of time, right? They can contact 2025 people a week and just keep some new, fresh people in the pipeline. For the voice actor who doesn't have a whole lot of work right now and is still trying to build their business, you're going to contact ten or 20 people a day and work at filling up and creating that pipeline. But those are two things that I think that you could do to open up some opportunities for yourself. And that one's okay. That's okay. It's on the house.,Speaker A: There you go. And I'll be expecting to see the first video tomorrow. Andrew? Yes.,Speaker C: I wonder what I'll do on TikTok. I dread to think we're going to.,Speaker B: Premier it with the podcast episode.,Speaker A: So you know what's interesting in hearing you talk about that, Mark, is that how niched our marketing needs to get. Then? If we're aiming for a TikTok audience, do we really need to niche it down to, okay, I'm going to do it about acting, or I'm going to do it, or is there any scope anymore for just that I'm a voiceover actor and I can pretty much do everything? Or do we need to niche all our marketing down?,Speaker B: I think that it's possible to do a niche that has absolutely nothing to do with voiceover whatsoever. If it is a niche that you have a skill in or a passion in, and you can connect with an audience in. The best example of that is Stefan Johnson. So he's an American voice actor who does food reviews on TikTok, and they're hilarious, irreverent, fun. And the guy's got I don't even know at this point, he's probably got ten or 11 million followers on TikTok. Every video he does, I think, goes viral. That pretty much is the way it works. Now, he is not talking about voiceover. He's just talking about food and snacks and fast food and doing his reviews, who's got the best burger, who's got the best pizza, whatever. But because he reaches such a broad audience, so many people are watching his videos, it's inevitable that somewhere in that audience of millions of people are people who make buying decisions about voiceover for whatever, from the local video production company to the executive producer at a cable network or whatever. And so that has opened up a door for him for tons of voiceover opportunity. And so I think sometimes we limit ourselves by getting too focused on the voiceover box and thinking we have to. Be in the voiceover box. And so is there something that you can talk about, that you are passionate about, that you love, that you have a skill for, that you have an education for? Whatever? Is there a way that you could create content around that that highlights your voice still or highlights your narration skill or your acting skill or whatever? Doesn't specifically have to do with voiceover, but I think the two tie themselves together eventually.,Speaker A: Now people out there are going to go, it's all right for you, Mark, you've been doing this for a while now, you've got it down pat. I'm just a lowly little voiceover artist sitting in my home studio. I have no idea where to start. Would your advice be just bite the bullet and start?,Speaker B: Yeah. Because your first video is not going to be your best video. The first email that you send is not going to be the best email that you send. The first social media, a post that you create is not going to be the best, but you've got to get the first one out of the way to get to the next one, which is going to be a little better. And the one after that, it's going to be a little better. Honestly, if I go back to, let's say, 2008 910, somewhere in there, when I first started doing a little bit of email marketing, it is honestly an act of God that I ever booked a voiceover at all because I can go back and look at some of those early emails and be like, what the heck? I didn't have a clue what I.,Speaker C: Was doing, but I was just exactly.,Speaker B: Doing it and then learning as I went, getting incrementally better. And that's what opens up the door to more opportunity down the road. And so, yeah, I think it's really easy to get perfection paralysis, right? I've got to have everything lined up before I got to have the perfect camera, the perfect audio, the perfect studio, the perfect backdrop before I can make my first video. Or I've got to have the exact formula worked out for the ultimate marketing email before I can ever send the first marketing email. And we let that become a crutch or an excuse that keeps us from just doing the thing when the reality is it's just like voiceover. My guess is, and you guys could probably attest to this your first time in the booth and your hundredth time in the booth, I'm hoping on the hundredth time you were better, you get in your reps and you get better over time.,Speaker A: Yeah. So, George, I know you're deep in marketing. George, the tech at the moment, is there anything you reckon Mark could I'm.,: Writing virtual postcards on a website right now.,Speaker A: You're deeply engrossed in this interview then, George, I can see.,Speaker C: Yeah. But I'm thinking that that postcard idea is an absolute cracker.,: Yeah. I mean, I just received a postcard from a consultant who's doing some financial consulting for me, like a financial planner type person. And I was like, oh, I haven't gotten a handwritten thank you card in the mail in a really long time. In this case, it looks legitimately. Like, she legitimately handwrote this card and sent it to me.,Speaker B: Yes.,: And I thought, man, if she's got time to do that, I mean, we have time to do that now. My handwriting sucks. It just does. And I could pay my assistant to write these cards, which I might consider doing. And there's also these websites where you can do, quote unquote, handwritten postcards and send them out and they mail them for you and they print them and they do all that stuff. So it's something I'm considering trying in those postcards, having a little coupon code for a please come back. But I have been in absolute, hardcore, full court press marketing mode for the last three months. For George, the tech, you say when you're not working, you need to be marketing. And sales really slumped in the summer this year for us. And I was like, okay, I can either get really frustrated and figure out ways to just start cutting costs and slowing things down or really just go for it hardcore. With in my case, the thing I've been really ramping up is affiliate marketing. And that's been where I've been focusing my energy. And I've got some great advisors around me. I talk to my own marketing and strategist person almost every single week. And I need that accountability, someone to follow up with me, someone to tell me, hey, we had that meeting and I told you to do all this stuff, so go do it. Because it's an insane undertaking to run this business, keep everything functional still, keep my clients happy and on time and keep all the marketing and the biz dev all going. And that's what I've been doing the last few months, actually. I started to realize I'm actually kind of enjoying doing more biz dev. And the shift of my time, of my day is it's legitimately shifted. I don't do as much billable time as I used to, but we have other people doing more billable time and that's awesome.,Speaker B: It brings up a whole other point, though, that I think is important to consider, and that is there comes a point when you've been doing your marketing and it has paid off and business is going really well and you're busy and you're in the booth consistently or you're doing studio builds consistently, or whatever it is that your thing is that you're doing consistently. And what's the very first thing that often gets cut from the schedule? It's the marketing.,: Yeah, the marketing.,Speaker B: And then complacency sets in, right, complacency sets in because you've built a successful business. I've got a successful business, everything's running, firing on all cylinders. But one thing that this industry will teach you over and over again is that clients don't last forever. And so if you are not constantly bringing new people into the mix, then you don't have anyone to replace those clients that ultimately fall away. And so complacency is one of the most dangerous things for any voice actor or business owner for that matter, who's built a successful business. Because it's really easy to work to get there and then when you get there, to relax and enjoy it. And that doesn't mean that you can't relax and enjoy it. Obviously, I don't market the same way now that I did when I was building a full time business, but it's important that I never just stop, that there's always something new coming into the pipeline.,: Yeah, well, the thing that always happens at the end of the year is everybody wants to get out their holiday cards and all that stuff, right? And holiday gifts. And the problem with the holidays is it's too damn busy to do all that stuff, right. Like by the time you're thinking about it's time to be doing my holiday stuff. Now work is like firing all cylinders. You're really cooking. And that seems to happen almost every year for me. And how do you decide and again, not expecting extremely specific answer, but how do you decide about gifting? Because I know some folks and actors and myself included, some of your clients spent more with you than others this year or over the last five years. Is it a very simple mathematics? You just look and say, okay, someone spent more than X, I'm going to give them X? Is that kind of how you look at it?,Speaker B: Honestly, it's something that I don't do a ton of. And one of the reasons why is because there are so many potential pitfalls. And I mean, I guess it depends on where you're working. I do a lot of work for corporate, right? It's a lot of corporate and Elearning and stuff. So it's a lot of corporations. There's a lot of rules around gifting and you can actually get yourself into trouble doing that. And so it's not something that I do a lot of, but I do always make sure I make a point of sending thank you cards or letting them know that I appreciate them and all of that sort of stuff. I do think that there's something to be said for that. I was going to mention too, you got me thinking because you mentioned about the holidays and it's such a busy time and everybody's doing marketing over Christmas and New Year's or Cyber Monday, Black Friday, blah, blah, blah. One of the most successful sales that I ever ran for my coaching was on Groundhogs Day. I ran a Groundhogs Day sale because who the heck runs a Groundhogs Day sale? And so when every other voiceover organization is running a July 4 sale or a Labor Day sale or a Black Friday sale or whatever, I was like, I'm going to do a Groundhog Day sale and see how that goes. And I had no competition on that day. And so that's a little bit outside of the box when you're thinking about so can you look? There's a national day for everything. George and Uncle Roy post them every day. There's a national day for everything. You need to find a national day for something that is related to audio, sound, studio, microphone, whatever. And let that be your big marketing push day when nobody else is thinking about it or nobody else is doing it. Own that day instead of trying to compete with all the noise on a Black Friday or a Cyber Monday or whatever.,Speaker A: Don't talk about Uncle Roy around. AP. He's got huge marketing issues with Uncle Roy.,: But yeah, I mean that whole top of mind, that Uncle Roy thing, that whole top of mind thing that Uncle Roy does with that finding literally a reason to every single day post something, it's a smart idea, it's top of mind.,Speaker B: And now he's associated with it, right?,Speaker A: Yeah, he's that guy.,Speaker B: So you got to find your thing that you get associated with by default. Find that holiday, find that thing and make that the George the Tech day, the George the Tech event.,Speaker A: So we're sort of making our own Black Friday, is that the deal?,Speaker B: Yeah, I think that there's something to be said for that and it doesn't mean you ignore all of those other opportunities. But doing something special on a day that has some sort of relevance or significance but nobody else is doing it, it is one of the ways that you can potentially stand out.,: Love it.,Speaker A: So just quickly, just to sort of wind this up. Creativity is a big part of what we do in our work, obviously being voiceover artists and audio engineers and George doing what he does and that obviously needs to be reflected in our marketing. Is there any rituals or any sort of thing you do around creativity to sort of spark ideas in terms of what you might post on social media or what you might say in an email? Or do you just open up a blank email and hope the words come out?,Speaker B: Yeah, I spend ungodly amounts of time staring at a blank iPad pro with an Apple pencil in my hand waiting for the idea to hit so that I can write it down because it doesn't come. Believe it or not, that creative side doesn't always come naturally to me. But one of the things that I have gotten so much better at over the years and George, this could specifically apply to what you're doing. I am paying so much more attention to what my audience is talking about. So I have a Facebook group with 6000 plus voice actors in it. And the questions that they're asking in that group, the things that they're complaining about, the pain points that they're very obviously struggling with, every single one of those becomes a seed for a video, a podcast topic, a social media post, a course that I might eventually create. And so I've gotten to a point now and this is one of the perks of building that kind of network and that kind of following is that they don't realize it maybe necessarily, but they are feeding me my content ideas. And George, I know you could do the same thing. All you have to do is spend 5 minutes in a Facebook group and see there's a dozen people a day complaining about tech this, tech that, this problem that problem, whatever. Every one of those is a potential piece of content that you could create, whether it's a video, an audio piece of content, a Facebook post, a blog article, whatever. It's all content that is right there being handed to you specifically addressing the things that your audience is struggling with. And so that's one of the things that I do is just I survey my network a lot. What are you struggling with? Or if you could have one podcast interview that you would absolutely love to hear that would change your business, who would the guest be or what would the topic be? And I throw out surveys like that and that helps me to come up with ideas. And then when all else fails, I go sit in the backyard by the fire and enjoy the peace and quiet and hope that if I can clear my head enough and quiet myself enough, a brilliant idea will strike.,Speaker A: They do eventually though, don't they? That's the thing. It's true. I know there's some science behind this, but it actually is those moments when your brain's not actively thinking about the next email or the next social post that the ideas actually come.,Speaker B: Long walk always have a way to.,: Write things down or do a voice memo in the shower. In fact, I have an Amazon Echo Dot.,Speaker A: There's no camera in there that hangs.,: On the wall right over the doorway. And if I'm like in the shower, I can say hey yo Jimbo, remind me to do this while I'm in the middle of the shower because I.,Speaker B: Don'T want to miss. That so true.,Speaker A: Yep, yep, that's right. Well, I think it was AP will probably correct me on this, but I think it was either Start Me Up or Brown Sugar that Keith Richards wrote literally in his sleep. Keith Richards sleeps with a cassette deck next to his bed. And in the middle of the night, if he has an idea, he wakes up and he sings it into his tape recorder. But whichever song it was, it was one of their massive hits anyway, he woke up the next morning and he didn't remember waking up during the night, but he looked at this cassette deck and the cassette had been obviously played. It was halfway through the cassette and he played it back and it was Start Me Up, Brown Sugar. Whichever one it was, it was there. And so he literally wrote it in his sleep.,Speaker C: Yeah, I do remember the stories. I think it was a reel to reel and the tape running out woke him up.,Speaker A: Was it something like that?,Speaker C: Spooled off? Yeah. And he's sort of like, what the hell was that running for? I don't remember starting played it back.,Speaker A: And there was the song Crazy.,Speaker C: Just crazy.,Speaker A: Our brain is an amazing thing.,Speaker B: It's one of the reasons why I have so many issues with sleep, because, honestly, that is one of the few times in the day where my brain is completely quiet when I'm in bed at night. And so a lot of my best ideas hit about three or 330 in the morning, and I can't be upset about it because they're my best ideas, but at the same time, it's like.,: I wish this would come during the day.,Speaker A: Well, I've had a similar thing because AP and I have just started doing demos together and writing scripts for those falls to me. And, yeah, I'm sort of finding that I'll sort of jump into bed and I'll start dozing off to sleep, and then I'm awake and dashing out of the room with my iPhone and dictating a script idea that's just comes into my head, into the phone. So, yeah, I think we're all the same.,: Absolutely.,Speaker B: Yes.,Speaker A: Well, mate, this has been a whole lot of fun. Thank you so much for your time.,Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. It's been fun. Thank you.,Speaker A: If people want to find out more about you, and you've got some amazing courses and bits and pieces up for offer, and obviously the podcast as well, what's the best place for people to go? To find out more about the Mark Scott Experience, shall we call it?,Speaker B: Funnily enough, that was actually the name of an old radio show. Now it is Vopreneur.com. That old Mark Scott experience facebook page might still exist somewhere. I'm not sure if that ever came offline, but, yeah, the website is Vopepreneur.com.,Speaker A: As soon as we're done here, I'm going to Google that.,Speaker B: Shit.,Speaker A: I was going to say something and now it's gone out of my head.,Speaker C: It'll come to you at three in the morning?,Speaker A: Yeah, it'll come to me in the morning. I'll give you a call, let you know.,Speaker B: All right.,Speaker A: Best of luck with the Red Sox. I hope they get better for you, mate.,Speaker B: Well, I mean, there's nowhere to go when you're at the bottom but up, right?,Speaker C: This is true.,Speaker B: Well, that was fun. Is it over?,Speaker C: The Pro audio suite with thanks to Tribut and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by Robbo Got your own audio issues? Just askrovo.com with tech support from George the tech Wittam. Don't forget to subscribe to the show and join in the conversation on our Facebook group. To leave a comment, suggest a topic or just say G'day. Drop us a note at our websiteproaudiosuite.com.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional."
Hunter S Thompson
Summary In the upcoming episode of the Pro Audio Suite, we will explore alternative strategies to stand out in a crowded digital world. Discussed solutions include utilizing traditional marketing approaches, such as sending postcards instead of emails, as evidenced by Mark's success with them. In the modern setup, where everyone is focused on digital platforms, physical mail or personal delivery might be an excellent opportunity to stand out. Stay tuned for this fascinating episode where we also consider exploring this topic on Mark's podcast. The episode is brought to you by Tripus and Austrian Audio.
Timestamps [00:00:00] Pro Audio Suite Sneak Peek [00:00:30] Success with Postcard Marketing [00:01:00] Future Podcast Episode with Mark
Transcript Speaker A: It's. Coming up. Coming up next, the Pro Audio Suite sneak peek. I've had some success doing things like postcards because everybody else is doing email and inbox and social media and nobody's sending anything through the mail anymore. And so that's one of the ways that you stand out. So walking into a studio today and dropping off a package, no, nobody's doing that again now because everybody's doing email and social media. So there might be a full circle opportunity to kind of jump the line a little bit in that regard. Will that be the next episode of your podcast, Mark? Yeah, maybe I'll bring you guys on the show and we'll talk through that one. The Pro audio suite. Thanks to Tripus and Austrian audio. Listen now on your favorite podcast provider.
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