Podcast The Pro Audio Suite by The Pro Audio Suite Episodes

Explore every episode of the podcast The Pro Audio Suite

Dive into the complete episode list for The Pro Audio Suite. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.

	Title	Pub. Date	Duration
	2025 Wrap Up: PASport VO, AI Reality Checks, Source-Connect Myths and What We Learned This Year	30 Dec 2025	00:38:36
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	02 Dec 2025	00:18:25
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	08 Sep 2025	00:30:11
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	12 Oct 2023	00:01:13
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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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. https://georgethe.tech/tpas If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "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.
	What gives a mic its "sound"?	09 Oct 2023	00:12:42
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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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. https://georgethe.tech/tpas If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "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. #ProAudioSuite #FindingTheRightMic #AudioEngineeringInsights 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.
	Tweaking an already great product - Vocalbooth.com	02 Oct 2023	00:36:03
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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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. https://georgethe.tech/tpas If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.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.
	The 416 an Industry standard...	25 Sep 2023	00:31:28
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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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. https://georgethe.tech/tpas If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson Summary 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. #ProAudioSuite #VoiceoverTechTips #TriboothDiscounts Timestamps [00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to Pro Audio Suite [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? 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. 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.
	PROMO - The 416 an Industry standard...	20 Sep 2023	00:01:09
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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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. https://georgethe.tech/tpas If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson Summary 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. #ProAudioSuite #VoiceoverEvolution #BenchmarkSound Timestamps [00:00:00] Sneak Peek into the 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 Transcript 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.
	Marketing Your Home Studio Business with Marc Scott	18 Sep 2023	00:43:16
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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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. https://georgethe.tech/tpas If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "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. #VoiceoverMarketingGuru #ProAudioSuitePodcast #MarketingInAudioIndustry 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.
	PROMO - Marc Scott - Marketing 101	16 Sep 2023	00:00:54
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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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. https://georgethe.tech/tpas If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.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. #ProAudioSuite #SnailMailMarketing #StandOutStrategies 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.
	The Home Studio Of The Future	11 Sep 2023	00:45:12
It started with just a select few, then it grew in popularity to become a trend, and these days, guys like our very own George "the Tech" Whittam are installing home studios at a rate of knots while others create their own acoustically treated paradise in the basement. So what's next? What does the future hold, and can we ever recoup the costs by charging our clients to use them?? 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson In this episode of the Pro Audio Suite, the team delves into the upcoming Nexus from Source Elements, a plugin that effectively routes audio, virtual audio interfaces in and out of Pro Tools. The team also discusses novel features such as the Dim operation and incorporates talkback functionalities. The emerging future of voice-over artists working directly from one room, rather than traditional booths was examined, suggesting industry shifts. There is discussion on the need for talent to show their value in order to increase pricing, given the significant investments made in equipment and learning audio engineering. Other elements discussed included the limitations of the iPad in a pro audio production workflow, the strategic placement of preamps, and the anticipation of the passport and Nexus release. The episode rounds off with a nod towards their future plans to incorporate higher levels of control. #ProAudioSuite #SourceElementsNexus #VoiceoverTech Timestamps [00:00:00] Intro - Meet the Pro Audio Suite Hosts [00:00:52] Discussing Nexus: The Innovation in Audio Routing [00:08:38] Efficiency of Nexus on Channels [00:09:13] The Future of Voice Over Workstations [00:12:05] Charging Reality in Voiceover Industry [00:15:19] Value of Remote Studios and its Impact on Pricing [00:22:18] Investment Expectations in Preamps, compressors and Microphones [00:28:04] Nexus Router's Flexibility in Sound Production [00:32:40] The Role of iPads in Pro Audio Production [00:37:16] The Controversy of the Preamp's Location [00:42:02] A Light-hearted Detour from Nexus Talks [00:42:20] Anticipating the Launch of Passport & Nexus [00:44:40] Pro Audio Suite's Collaboration with Tribut & Austrian audio, and a Mention of George Wittam's Tech Support Services. 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 thepro audiosuite.com line up. Speaker B: Learner. Here we go. Speaker C: Welcome to another Pro audio suite. Don't forget, if you do want to buy a Tribooth, the code is tripap 200 to get $200 off your purchase. If you'd like to leave a comment, by the way, on your favorite platform, please do so. It's good for our analytics, and we might drive a bit more traffic, which is always handy. Now, something that may be out as we speak or maybe about to be released, is the new Nexus from Source Elements. You've definitely had a look at it, George. I think you've had a look at it, Robert. And Robert knows all about it because it's his baby. Speaker A: How much do you know, Robert? : Let's be honest, I'm clueless. Yeah. Speaker C: No, that's me. That's my Robert. : I know it all, but really, don't I'm just like yeah. Speaker A: Can I just say, before you dive into it, it's a very sexy beast. Seriously, it's very clever. Speaker C: You've had a look around the whole thing, haven't you? Speaker A: I have. I've sort of had a play with it. But, I mean, Robert's going to explain it the best, so we should leave it to him to run through the list of features. : I like hearing what kind of mess other people make out of it. Speaker A: Well, you know, what inspires me the most, and I think is going to be the most useful for our listeners, I think, is simple things like the Dim operation, the fact that it actually just drops your mic level. : Drops the levels. Yep. Speaker A: And all that sort of stuff. : A lot simpler than a Dugan mixer. Speaker A: The gateway from a studio point of view, from me looking at that gateway, everything's all in the box. I've got video, I've got everything there. But, I mean, you should explain it all. : Yeah. So basically, Nexus started out, oh, God, how many years ago? 2007? I don't know. But I was like, wouldn't it be nice if you could route audio, virtual audio interfaces in and out of Pro Tools? And it was like, we made that, and it was kind of a hit. And what it was primarily used for was to interface the client side of a remote voiceover session, or just a remote client side. So think of it as Source Connect was the remote connection for voice talent into an engineer setup, who then also has remote clients. And Nexus was used to empower things like zoom and hangouts. But we all know that all of those have their various issues for instance, one of them is if you're broadcasting and you've got talkback going over zoom, there's very different goals of the talkback versus the broadcast that you want to have your clients listen to, so the talkback can have echo cancellation on it. And actually that helps because many times your clients don't have headphones, but your broadcast, you don't want it to be impeded by the echo cancellation and things like this. So what Nexus is, is it still represents to me that sort of client side connection. But now we're completing more of it. Instead of saying, oh, just like throw Nexus at Zoom, or throw Nexus at whatever it is that your clients are using Microsoft teams, here's a gateway for it that does what you need as a professional audio and video person for collaborating with your clients. Instead of trying to pound Zoom into a hole. Speaker B: Here's how it was described ten years ago, you sent an email out sourcenexis is an audio application router. Record remote voiceover from Source Connect directly into Final Cut or Media Composer playback itunes to Pro Tools, even patch Pro Tools to and from Nuendo all at the same time. Route any audio application in and out of Pro Tools, even if that application does not have any plugin support. Speaker A: There you go. Speaker B: That was December 2013. : So that's like a very broad, broad strike explanation. Sort of like it's round and so it rolls, but this is a wheel for a car. So yeah, the rolling part of it is well, it pretty much is a router that was put in the Daw so that you could route external interfaces in and out and do things like that. And the primary thing that it got used a lot for was those client side connections. Speaker C: So how would it work for someone like me? What benefit would I get out of Nexus? Speaker B: So the talent side, what do they say? : I think the same thing. So just like you've got Source Connect and you're running with studios and engineers and it has that rock solid queued up connection that's going to pick up every bit. Even if the internet does its thing, as you know, voice talent are being forced to take up much more and more of the burden and you have the situation where, hey, can I get playback? So one of the things that Nexus has is it's now a suite, by the way. It's not just the plugin. So there's the original Nexus IO, which is sort of like just the raw plugin. You have to know what you want to do with it. You have to build your own template for it. Nexus Review is a Nexus plugin that now has several ins and outs going into it and out of it. So it brings your talk back over to the gateway, which is our web meeting room. It gets the gateway back into your connection so that you hear it in your headphones and it plays your playback to the connection and everybody. And it does all that without you having to even think about what the word Mix Minus is or if it even exists. Because it's done all in one plugin. So what used to need two, three Nexus plugins and a talkback plugin is now Nexus Review. Okay, straight, just drop that plugin on your master fader, your setup is complete. Speaker C: So when you do playback, it actually mutes everything else. So you don't get obviously well, it. : Doesn'T in this iteration, but there's going to be all kinds of stuff that starts to happen within the suite, within its sort of capabilities. And I think that right now, the first thing you would say is it just makes playback easy. Your question specifically, Andrew, which is like, why would a voice talent want this? It makes playback easy because really, in that sense, you're just like the engineer at that point. You're recording stuff and you're playing it back. That's kind of like what? So this just makes that setup way less daunting because all you really have to do is and also we're going to probably come out with that as a standalone app as well. So if you're using something like Twisted Wave, you can just route Twisted Wave into the Nexus review app and same thing, you don't have to be on a daw. It doesn't have to be a plugin, but it does your Mix Minus and your talkback Twisted Wave. Actually, here's a question about twisted wave. Do you have the option to monitor live through it? Speaker B: It does have a monitor mode that you can turn on, of course with a little bit of latency, but it does have that capability, right? : So you might want to do that. And funny enough, if it does create a latency with yourself, there's a handy mute button so you can mute it and you don't have to listen to it, but at least your clients can hear you monitoring through Twisted Wave. So there's little individual situations that might come. Speaker B: What would be the benefit though? Like if you don't have to monitor yourself in Twisted Wave, what would be the benefit of turning that on? : Well, the reason why is that you're either going to direct your microphone live into Nexus Review, but then if you want playback, you're going to route your Daw into Nexus Review. And if you call Twisted Wave a Daw, then you want to route Twisted Wave into it. Speaker B: Okay, so you set the output in your Twisted Wave output setting to the Nexus review plugin input. : Yes. Not the input of well, in this case it would be the input of the application, not the gotcha gotcha, because in the Daw sense, the input is taken care of. It's like whatever channel you throw it on, the input is implicit. Speaker B: Right. : And then that same ability for all you video editors out there and things like that, the review set up and integrating my talkback with a talkback button if I want all of that is just like done, whatever, I have to set up a template in Pro Tools or I have to have a mixer. All the different things that people do. Speaker B: To be able to passport vo. Speaker C: Yes. Nicely sliding there. Speaker B: Right. So just to get a little bit deeper. So I'm in Twisted Wave. I'm the actor. I've recorded myself. I hit stop, I hit play to hear playback. I want to hear the playback and I want it to also send to Nexus. If I set the output of Twisted Wave to Nexus, will I myself on the local side hear the playback also or will it be shunting the audio. : To you would hear the playback and so there is a fader for you. Speaker B: Oh, Nexus handles that for you. : Nexus has a fader with the mute on it that you could mute that if you want. Speaker B: Nice. So that solves that problem. Beautiful. Right. Speaker C: The question I've got though is it seems that we as voice over people are going to end up sitting in one room with microphones and screens and computers in there with us. So the booth is pretty well fast becoming redundant. : Well, it might be that radio style booth. Speaker A: Yeah. Do you just have it in your booth? That's right, that would be my yes. Speaker C: What I mean but it's become like a radio. Speaker A: I think that's going to happen anyway. I kind of think that for me, this thing's sort of ahead of the game because I can see that coming, I really can. The more and more I even had two sessions in the last couple of weeks canceled because the creative guys just jumped online with the voice and did it themselves. They didn't need an engineer. : We do see a lot of that. It's like the phone patch may have gone away, but the direct to client session and where it comes up and it's really funny because clients don't really save time when they do this. They think they do, but they don't. So they say, hey, let's not book a studio to record the talent. Let's pay the talent the same amount of money and make them record it and complain at them if it didn't work out the way we wanted, by the way. So now we have the talent recording everything and inevitably, no one keeps good notes. And even if someone does keep good notes, you don't know how well the talent is cutting up the files. And it's very easy if you've ever been in a session sometimes to get your take numbering off from what you're writing down and what's actually happening in a computer, especially if you as the talent, you're busy trying to do other things, like read the script and not look at the computer screen. On what file number Twisted Wave is on. And so inevitably, someone has to put humpty Dumpty back together again after the talent has recorded everything. And that's going to take just as much time as just recording the session with an engineer online who can cut everything up and do it for you. And that way the talent only reads what they need to. They're not reading a bunch of speculative takes because no one knows if A is going to edit back to take 65 or whatever. You can just hear it. You got it. Great. And it fits because we timed it out. Speaker A: You just touched exactly on the problem that came from one of these sessions the other day. And this was a well known agency, a global agency, that they did one of these sessions where they just recorded it with whoever it was locally and they were on the phone, but the creative rings me and goes, yeah, kind of. I'm really happy with this. But we did some takes. I asked the talent to do this, but of course, with no labels, no notes, no nothing, I've got to go through every single take and go to him. Is it this one? No, that's not it. What about this? No, that's not it. No, it's more like this. Oh, hang on. Okay, well, is it this one? No, it's not that. It's like if I was doing the session in Pro Tools, it would be labeled. I'd have a page full of notes as well. This edits to this, blah, blah, blah, and it's done. But it took, like half an hour to find one take for this guy. Speaker B: The pennywise found it is pennywise pound foolish. : But the other problem is that what happens is that they're all working off of flat bids, right? 1 hour for the talent. They know what their residuals are. They bid these things out. And it's really hard to get these agencies to necessarily do just, hey, we want to be creative and throw paint on the wall and pay by the hour to throw paint on the wall. Instead, they do I don't know if you've seen that. It's that thing where the guy says, like, hi, we'd like to do an advert and we want to research sound effects and do all this stuff and try two different music takes and this and that. So 1 hour. And the person in the studio is like, I think it's going to take longer than that. And then the person at the agency is like, no, we know our stuff. We know exactly what we want. We're not indecisive at all. We only need 1 hour. And then you're like, okay, now you're stuck making a commercial in 1 hour that you know is going to take longer. So even though the agency basically saddles the talent with recording the takes, they never actually face the consequences of their actions because the bid happens. Then they audition, and it's like they've already at that point with the bid, taking out the voice record. We'll just give you takes. Speaker C: Yeah. You get what you pay for. And if you don't pay him, you. Speaker B: Don'T get much, and you're going to pay later. Speaker A: It's pay now, pay later. Sooner or later, you're going to pay for it. : I really think this was that moment when the voiceover industry, they all decided that they were going to try to eat each other's lunch. And at some point, it became like, my booth doesn't cost a thing. My setup and knowledge of my booth and what to do through blood and sweat and tears, paying me figured out and literal money that is free too. Speaker B: Right? : And all that stuff never should have been free. It should have been, okay, I'm whatever. $400 an hour, and, oh, you want to use my studio even if it's $50 an hour? Speaker B: Yeah, there should be a rate attached. I totally agree. As voice actors who wanted to be providing a service and I can name names, but I don't need to who are very early on in the home studio timeline. Right. Like literally FedExing Dat tapes. Right. They wanted to be a service provider. They wanted to be ahead of the curve and create a business niche for themselves. In the meantime, they were creating a problem for the fact that home studios would eventually become the norm, and nobody was getting compensated for operating a studio and engineering a session. : It's like when you have something unique, you charge more for it. So if you're a voice talent and because you're available at home, you are available, like, instantaneously, you don't need to have a limo drive you around La. That's a perk. And it might be a perk for you, but it's also a perk for your clients. But it became part of the add in, like, a long time ago. This was in the early 2000s. This was in the days of ISDN that this happened. Speaker B: It was literally when I got into the business. Yeah. I was just being told, people need this help. And I didn't know anything about the business model. I didn't know Jack squad about who got paid what, how, what you didn't get paid for. I just was there to solve problems. So I had no idea that this was going on till much later. : Yeah, but here we are. Talent put a lot of time, effort, money, emotion into building their setup and learning this basically some aspect of the craft of audio engineering, essentially. Maybe not the whole thing, but there's. Speaker B: Like I mean, tell me this. Would there be a value I know this is off topic, but would there be a value when a talent or an agent invoices that even if the bottom line is identical, that you literally add in a line that's engineering services, so it literally shows up and they see, oh, we're paying for this. Would there be some efficacy to this? It's kind of like restaurants starting to charge a service fee or a kitchen love fee or whatever. There's been a lot of blowback to this because some people really just raise your prices and other people are like, I like the transparency. So it's kind of confusing. : I think that if you want to, you effectively want to raise your price. And the only way you're going to be able to raise your price is by showing your value. And so in that sense, you almost need to because to the point that it happens on the flip side. So not just our like there's three layers to it. It used to be that the talent went to the studio and so there's two studios and there was a lot of meat on the bone for a whole industry. Right? There was an engineer in a studio in La. There was an engineer in a studio in New York. There was a voice talent in La. Yeah, there was five creatives over in New York. It was all happening real time. And At T was like just digging into the pie, too. And now it's like the first thing that happens is voice talent or the auditions come in and they know must have ISDN or source connect, essentially, and read between the lines. And what's happening over on the bid side is there's no money for a remote studio. Only talent with home studio need apply. And George, how many times have you seen talent that have done the Voice Tracks West? Or I know a place that knows what pay out of pocket. Speaker B: I tell people do it all the time. : Voice tracks west is I'm like, if. Speaker B: You don't do these sessions that often, spending $10,000 on a soundproof booth is a massive waste of money. : Yeah. And Voice Tracks has got a tight operation. It's not like decked out in oak panels, like all the big working facility. Boom. It's like, here's a room, here's a setup. You need an engineer to set you up. We don't have staff to sit there and babysit you the whole time, but what are you going to do? That's all you need. I don't know what they charge, but I have a feeling it's pretty affordable enough. Speaker B: They do what we call talent friendly rates, right? : And it's a great idea. So you get those auditions that are basically like, bring your own studio iOS. And then the next level is like, you know what, we're not even going to hire an engineer to record it like we just talked about, right? Speaker B: It's a weird position. I've always felt weird being in the position of enabling, essentially because I'm enabling the talent buyers to charge low rates for engineering or not budget for it. And I'm enabling the talent to meet that need. At the same time, there's the plus. : That you have your talent that can go live where they want to. And there's many talent that would if charging for their studio would be a deterrent to them having the lifestyle that they want. They want all their sessions to be in house. The reason to give it away is not just because they're trying to get an edge over some other talent, but also because they're trying to direct their life the way they want it to be. And being called into a freaking city every other day for an hour session and you got to drive 2 hours is crazy. And so it makes sense. Speaker B: And let's face it, as a voice actor, you can't live the lifestyle that you would like to live and be in. Those days are mostly gone. That you can live that lifestyle and have a nice home and have all this space and blah, blah, blah and live in the city, like live in Los Angeles or Lake. Like that's unbelievably expensive. : Right. And you don't have to anymore. Speaker C: Anyways, getting back to the rate thing, though, there is a way of doing it because on my invoices I show, studio and edit and then whatever the fee is and it's usually zero zero, but you can actually put in there. Voiceover blah, blah, blah. That rate goes in studio, edit X dollars and then you can give them a discount, which actually is equivalent to the studio rate. That way the client sees that there is a fee involved in that, but you've just done them a favor and not charged them for it. Speaker B: I think that's very smart. I will invoice people for a $0 item just so they know they're getting it. The problem with like a flat rate. : Or just write the real price down and say the discount that you're getting. Speaker B: Yeah. I'll say this is $100 thing, I'm throwing it in at $0. But you need to know that it has a value attached. Speaker A: Yeah, everything we do has a value attached because it's our time. Speaker B: Right? Yeah. But it needs to be literally spelled out for them on black and black and white, I think. Speaker A: Agreed. Speaker C: But the stupid thing is I was talking to in fact, Robbo and I were talking yesterday about equipment and stuff in the studio and believe that's the stupid thing. Well, it's the stupid thing in my case because it's ridiculous. I mean, I don't need any of this stuff, really. But I was sitting here the other day, like, adding up how much the dollar value of the stuff I've got in here in preamps compressors and microphones is just completely insane. : It's ridiculous. It is, yes. Speaker C: It's fun though. : Okay. It is. People putting wings on their back of their Honda Civic. Speaker C: Yeah, thanks. : I hate to say it, but it's like we are kind of doing some. Speaker B: Of that even does that you can buy a Civic with three exhaust type tips coming on the back. Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah. Get yourself the type r boom. Look out. : Yeah, but sometimes we're just like, OOH, that thing's going to make us faster and improve my zero to 60 time that neve preamp or whatever, and I think that we get caught up. I mean, God knows I've spent a lot of money on audio gear. Speaker C: Oh, you have? You're worse than me, actually. : I need, like, the nose spray that breaks the addiction, whatever. Speaker B: But Robert's business model is a different one. His service is his studio and his skill with his know. So I feel like a service provider that's providing that type of a studio service. There's an expectation of a certain investment in that equipment and keeping it up. Speaker A: To date and keeping it serviced and. Speaker C: Keeping it's funny, though, because I did send a file off to one of the audio production guys in one of the radio networks here because he was looking at buying Austrian audio microphones for their studios, which he did. Speaker A: Salesmen. Speaker C: But he said, oh, can you send me something? You got a sample of the eight one eight? And I went, yeah, sure. So I sent him just a cold read, eight one eight through the neve. He just come back going I said, what do you think? He goes, oh, my God, I'm buying one. Speaker A: Nice. : It's so funny. The subtle stuff is really there, but it's great when either someone is completely doing the same drugs that you're doing or actually is truly hearing the same thing that you're hearing. There is this like, wow, that really is better. And at the same time, someone walks in who doesn't understand much about audio and goes like, what's the difference? Speaker B: You really get me. You really see me. Speaker C: It was really funny. It's like a guy that both Robbo and I know is also an audio guy. This is years and years and years ago. He got a voice track sent. It was a cold read from a studio in Melbourne. And he called me up and he said, do you know what microphones or what microphone they use down at this studio? And I said, no, I don't, actually. He said, man, you got to find out. It sounds unbelievable. So I went down there and I was in there doing a job, and before I got in there, I said, what mics are you using, by the way? He goes, oh, what was the session? I told him, it's like, oh, yeah, we've just bought a new U 47, the Telefunkin U 47. When they first reissued the thing, I'm like, okay, so I think they were selling for close to 20,000 Australian dollars at the time. So 15 14,000 us. I'm guessing. Sounded very nice. Speaker A: You would want to I didn't know. Speaker B: They reissued that mic. Speaker C: Yeah, the telephone U 47. Speaker B: Yeah. I never knew there was a reissue of that mic. : Yeah, that thing's been, like, homages to. Speaker B: No, I know, but I mean, it's literally in Neumann. Like, they did just the U 67. : Like, five years ago. It's telefunken, but telefunken is not the Telefunkin that Telefunken was, right? Speaker C: Correct. Yeah. : Telefunkin is like some company in Connecticut. Telefunk is really a European funky funkin. Speaker C: It was kind of weird though, because a lot of the Neumans that were re badged for America, so like Frank Sinatra's U 47 was actually badged, I think, as a Telefunken. : Right. So they were really U 47s. They were really Neumanns. Right. And then they were rebadged as Telefunken. And then the same thing happens with the AKG C Twelve because Telefunken was an importing company. They would commission things to be made or they would just say, hey, I'll buy a bunch of those. Speaker C: And there were tons of companies doing that, particularly in America, where they rebadged microphones under different brands that were made primarily by AKG or Neumann. : It's kind of like rebadging Chinese stuff in a way, happens. It's like happening again. You see the same product and it's like, oh, they just put a different name on it and called it their amplifier. Speaker C: So you're going to white label Nexus and set it off under different brands. : There's all kinds of discussions and things that pop up and then sometimes just like fizzle out. But one thing for sure, I think, is that at least on some version of the Gateway, one of the talked about features is to customize it so you can make it like Andrew's Shopahor. Speaker A: Well, one thing I wanted to touch on and something that's not in the demo though, but something you were showing me after we finished recording a couple of weeks ago is the router. Can you tell us about that? Because that's a game changer, right? : It's not going to release on the first. It might actually I don't know, but right now it's a little bit behind. It would be one of those things that certainly would take. It would be one of the things that takes longer to get out, but it's pretty much done. And it's just a desktop router. So you can set up a lot of this stuff or the rest of the stuff that you want to customize on your desktop routing, for example, if you wanted just to have something that routed. One of the things that happens with Pro Tools in particular is once you close your session, you lose all your routing. So if you're not putting all your work into one session or working on one thing and you have to open up different files while you have a group of people online and connected, when you close Pro Tools, you lose communication and possibly even different parts of those connections, depending on what platforms are on. They might lose their connections too, because some of those connections go through you. So router gives you the opportunity to be able to set up sort of like a desktop route. Similar in a way, George, to what a lot of people that you have do with the Apollo Mixer. Speaker B: Yeah, I was going. To mention that. Right, exactly. But being on a not you're now hardware agnostic, you can be on anything. Speaker A: Because the killer for that, for me, is that is exactly what you're saying, is that whole thing of, like, you're halfway through a session and the creative goes, hey, last time we did this, we did blah, blah. Can you go to the old Pro Tools session? And you got to do that whole embarrassing listen, yeah, I can do that, but you're going to lose me for a second here, guys. Okay, I'll be back in a minute. And you hear the way you go. : That whole thing changed the way I work. I have Pro Tool sessions with hundreds and possibly, I don't know, thousands of spots. Whole years of campaigns, just boom, one after the you do them all on one timeline thing of like, oh yeah, one big ass timeline. Really? Speaker B: They're not just clips in the clip viewer? : No, it's basically what ProTools lacks is any sort of like have you ever worked in Media Composer? Speaker B: A little bit. : Okay, so Media Composer, you can have sessions well, you have a bin. Yeah. Pro Tools user have been wanting folders within their bin for the last 20 years, and they still have yet to get them. Different issue, but even more so, the edit and the mixer in Pro Tools are joined at the hip. But there's many aspects of your mixer that are not part of your edit. They're just part of your studio. Speaker B: Sort of like there's a utility mixer. : This is a utility, this is your external. What used to be in a lot of early setups were like people that would have like a Mackie mixer off to the side and then they'd add Pro Tools. And what was going in and out of the Mackie mixer was like microphones and headphone feeds and connection to the tape dock probably back. Um, and so the mixer still had routing capability and some of that's daunting. And really what you need is just like a couple straight ahead patches and maybe a volume control. And that's really what Nexus router lets you do. It has an advanced mode where you can just sort of draw whatever you want from A to B and then that way you can even have different setups that you can load and save and close and open up a different setup, or you can make one massive. Speaker B: Setup forward to it. Because I'm looking forward to being more hardware agnostic and less attached to something like the Apollo in general and kind of endorsing that kind of mentality of being a little bit less attached to that system. So this will be something that'll be nice to set up for more people who do want that extra level of sophistication absolutely. : Yeah, it'll make it like if they have little special things that they need to do, even something like a talkback mic when they're outside or playback from some other device if they want to plug their phone in or have some other app. Speaker B: Let me ask you this. This is definitely going down a rabit hole in terms of features, but can you imagine that ever being on a touch screen interface like an iPad or having a controller? : I could definitely imagine. We've already got other levels of control that we're planning on, which are, I think, pretty exciting. Speaker B: You guys were talking earlier about things are moving towards the actor having to have really a full production suite in their booth, right? Speaker C: Yeah. Speaker B: It sucks, though. I mean, people don't want the day. : That someone asks an actor to not only record for them, but can you please play back picture while you record? When that happens, then it's like you're really throwing a lot at Cipriano. Speaker B: I mean, he does stuff when he. : Has to, but some people can do that. It wouldn't be that hard. Speaker B: He paid me to set up Pro Tools to do it. : Right. Speaker B: Yeah. So it would be lovely for someone who really still wants to have a feeling of I have a mic, I have a headphone, I have my script. But not having to have keyboard, monitor, mouse, that whole rig in there too and just have somewhat innocuous iPad or even if you're reading off the iPad, you can just do the four finger swipe and switch over to the mix. : The hardest thing becomes, I still think the iPad is a tough environment. There's been a lot of actors have been like, can I just do this all on the iPad? Speaker B: Yeah. No, there's a bit of a stay in your lane. The iPad has a lane to stay in. To me, it still has no place in a Pro audio production workflow except as a controller or a script reader. : Yeah, it works well as a controller. Speaker B: I've got my V controller controller and a script reader. That's what it's for. To me. It's not a pro audio. Despite the power of the thing, the hardware, the fact that it's got Thunderbolt now in the Pro model, iPad Pro, it's still just not the tool for the job. So use it what it's for, and that's what it's good for. So I would endorse having that in there just to control the Nexus monitoring and the other stuff. : Do a lot of talent. Really avoid and not want some really. Speaker B: Do avoid it as long as they can. They really despise doing that. Speaker C: I'm one. Speaker B: Yeah. It's because of the distraction. Because this is the right brain, left brain, actor, engineer, conundrum. You can't do both at the same time. I don't care who the hell you are, you can't do them both equally well. One is always suffering at the hands of the other. So the actor that really but what. : Does an actor need in the booth? Truly? They need to be able to record takes, and they need to be able to play back. Speaker B: Mean, some people like, I'll call you out, Bo Weaver, I've known you so long. He hits record, he walks into the booth. He records all of his sessions. He walks out of the booth and he sits down and he edits all the sessions. Like done. That's his workflow. Now. How often is he directed? Very rarely. Record and send. But yeah, that's what he likes. He likes to have the two separate church and state. Speaker C: Well, I'm exactly the same. I have the same workflow as Bo because a lot of my stuff is not directed. So I do exactly the same thing. I go in there, record, come back and come out of here and edit and send. : Yeah, but how many times you go back and forth? Speaker C: I save each file separately. So if I'm doing like 430 2nd spots for somebody, then I'll record a couple of takes or two or three takes. : How do you know you're in time? Are you timing yourself? Speaker C: I do a timer first. I will sit there and I'll time one with the stopwatch first read. So I know ballpark where I'm at. By the time you deep breath, you lose a couple of seconds. So if I'm doing like one, that's got to be 27 seconds and I come in at 27, then I know I've got 2 seconds up my sleeve so I can take more time with it. Once you've been doing this for that's the thing. : You guys have like atomic clocks built in. I can't tell you how many times I've had a talent and I'm like, can you take half a second off that? And they take half a second off that. Speaker B: It's like, wow, bo had an iPad one for years. He may still have it just to run the timer period. He's like, It's a great timer. It doesn't make a click. : I have an iPad one that I use for my eight faders approach. Yeah. So there's some minimal amount of control that's necessary. They at least need a door handle, probably. Do they want a mic mute? Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure they would. Most people would like to have that, I would think. Yeah, it's pretty embarrassing when you got. Speaker C: A horrible client down the line and mic mute's. Very handy. Speaker B: Horrible client or bad cheese. Speaker C: Yeah. : How do you find the foot switches. Speaker C: For I reckon a foot switch would be great. Speaker A: You need one of those AP. You need a foot switch. Speaker C: Yes, I need a foot switch. Foot switch is great. I love it. Trouble is, I probably tread on it by accident. Speaker B: Well, the Whirlwind PPD or whatever, they have a foot switch on off switch. : The ones that don't break phantom power so that they don't pop, they just sort of short out. Speaker C: And it's also like I wouldn't want I mean, the idea is fantastic. I think it's fun, but I hate too much stuff between the microphone and the preamp. Speaker B: Yeah. Speaker C: Well, there's that one more thing that can go wobbly on you. Speaker B: Not to go completely off base here again, but I was talking earlier about what I saw podcast movement, and I saw the boss answer to the RODECaster pro because Roland's had and Roland too. Boss is like their musician wing of Roland or like the guitar pedal. : I don't know about that. Speaker B: Right. : So they had boss is the guitar wing and Roland and Roland is the keyboard wing, but they've crossed areas. Like mainly Roland has made guitar synths and the other view is that Roland is the high end and then Boss is the middle. Speaker B: Right? So I'm looking at their things and going, okay, here's another RODECaster. What's on the back? A foot pedals plug. I was like, Whoa, that's cool. What can you do with that? He's like, whatever you want. For the gamers, you can do anything you want. I was like, Well, I can see that being cool because the mixer is outside on your desk and you run a foot pedal in your booth and now you have a way to cut your mic, or it could be a way to hit record and then punch a marker when you click it again. There's a lot you could do with. : That, so whatever you want. The foot pedal can send like USB. Speaker B: Messages, as far as I can tell. I don't know how flexible it is, but it's pretty flexible. There's also air tools or AirTurn I think that's called AirTurn. And now other companies are getting into it where you can get Bluetooth pedals that go in your booth to control certain functions. So there's more you can do with foot pedals, which is kind of neat, but if I'm not wearing headphones and I don't know, my mic is truly off, I would never trust anything wireless. : So what about the preamp? I mean, the preamp should be in the booth or not, because even if you wanted to be really theoretical about it, your best signal would be by running the shortest mic line and getting it up to the preamp right line. Speaker B: If you're running, then sending it 20 foot runs, that's different, it's negligible. : But having the preamp in the booth to be able to set it is a different thing, right? Isn't that necessary? Speaker B: Yes and no. I mean, some people do. I'd say most people that have a booth that don't have the equipment in the booth don't have the preamp in the booth, but it's less convenient. : And so they're just recording conservatively and going like, I'll just hit minus twelve, I got plenty of bits, I put. Speaker B: Plenty of Avalon 737s in booth. And I just told people, like, this thing's a radiator, so it's going to get nice and toasty in here. If you really need to have this in here, I get it, but be my last choice. What, to put in the booth? Speaker C: Well, that's what I'm thinking. The more gear I was going to say about that exactly that most people's home studio booths are quite small, and you start piling gear in there, it's going to be like a furnace. Speaker B: Yeah. Gets hot in there quick. So the less the better. Even modern computer monitors are pretty low power, but they still make heat. They still radiate heat. Everything makes heat. So the less in there, the better. Yeah. It's going to be interesting when the passport Vo comes out, how people choose to use it. Whether they're going to have it in booth or outside of the booth, you can go either place. And the thing you're going to miss out on it not being in booth is that mic switch. Mic mute. That's why I think the majority are going to use it in the booth. So what we'll be testing I think so, too, how far we can run it on USB to the computer. So we'll be doing some testing around that whole workflow as well. Speaker C: Yeah, I can see the value in having the Passport Vo in the booth for sure. Maybe you're doing a zoom session or whatever. You can use that second interface to run either your phone or iPad or whatever, that you can run the zoom session. Speaker B: That's where I could see it being really useful, having the iPad in the booth for phone patch, zoom, blah, blah, blah, communications. Speaker C: Absolutely. Speaker B: And having that run into it and just that would be a really easy way to facilitate those sessions. Boy. : Well, in a way, you can have it. Sorry, you can cut all that out. Speaker B: We're really off topic now. Speaker C: This was about Nexus and I don't know where the hell we've gone. Speaker A: Oh, man, we've gone all over the place, let me tell you. This is tangent. Speaker C: I'm just waiting to see the Mad. Speaker A: Hatter pop out from behind the door somewhere. Editing nightmare. That is the Pro audio suite. Speaker B: Yeah. Wrap this one up. : I'll bring it together. What comes out first, the passport or Nexus? Speaker B: Nexus. Speaker C: Nexus. Speaker A: Nexus. : Probably. Speaker A: Right? Speaker B: Well, we'll see, because these are both but we don't know. Neither of them want to divulge a release date until it's certain because people don't. We've all learned that produced product to under Promise Over Deliver is really the best policy. : You can't give a product a C section. Speaker B: Right. Speaker A: What we can promise about the passport, though, is that when it does come out, it's going to be killer. Speaker B: It's going to be killer. We're going to make sure of it, because by the time anybody receives one in the mailbox, we have already hammered on it and proven without a shadow of a doubt that it will do what we said it's going to do. When you get one, it's going to be fully tested and vetted before that. : Yeah, I'm excited because I think you see all these USB interfaces coming out constantly and no one has one that does these. Speaker B: They're all playing out of a different playbook. Like, I got into a whole conversation on Facebook about this one person's. POV is clearly the future is firmware, software, everything. And I said, I don't think it's that clear. I said, Because we're developing the exact opposite. And his response was, I think that's not a good idea. And my response was, I think it's a very good idea because look at all the products that have come and gone and what products you can still plug into your Mac or your PC that still work 15 years later. And the Micport Pro First Gen is one of those products. You just plug it in and it works. So that's the philosophy. We're just carrying that forward. Speaker A: My old trusty two rack sitting here right next to me. How old is that now? Jesus. Speaker C: 15 years. Speaker A: Have to be something like that. Still keeps going. : A two, not even an three two rack. Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. : I have some ones in my garage. Speaker A: No, I don't need the double o one. Speaker C: What are they doing in the garage? Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Why are you using them, Robert? Speaker B: Unlike you, he's using his ramps to hold up his Porsche 920. Speaker C: The Pro audio suite with thanks to Tribut and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by Robo Got your own audio issues? Just askrobo.com 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, end, suggest a topic, or just say good day. Drop us a note at our website proaudiosuite.com
	Rodecaster Killer?	04 Sep 2023	00:27:24
The Mackie DLZ Creator is out, and after taking some cues from Rode, they have a pretty good piece of kit on their hands. George had a chance to catch up with its creator at "Podfest 23", so took the opportunity to record a chat about some of the more interesting features and some of the ideas that sparked its creation. See it here: https://mackie.com/intl/products/livestreaming-podcasting/dlz/dlz_creator.html 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson Summary In this episode of Pro Audio Suite, the team invites listeners to take advantage of a $200 off tribooth offer and encourages likes and ratings. Key part of the episode is George Wittam's experience at Podcast Movement in Denver, where he met Matthew Heron, the product manager and designer of the Mackie DLZ, a digital podcast mixer. Heron discusses the user-friendly and versatile features of the mixer, including three distinct user modes (beginner, intermediate, professional), auto mix functionality, full dynamic processing, and more. Despite its similarities with the RODECaster model, the Mackie DLZ showcases its unique design ideology. This episode also ponders on what additions Rode might introduce in their firmware updates. The mixer's integrability into an AV media production suite and its future updatable platform are other highlighted features. The team ends the podcast with anticipation of discovering the significance behind the three letters in 'DLZ'. #ProAudioSuite #PodcastTech #RoadcasterInsights Timestamps [00:00:00] Pro Audio Suite: Introductions and Special Offer Code [00:01:08] Exclusive Interview: Matthew Heron and Mackie's DLZ at the Denver Podcast Movement [00:02:58] Exploring the Multifunctional DLZ Digital Podcast Mixer [00:05:21] The DLZ Advantage: Auto Mix Features and User Guidance [00:08:52] DLZ's Promote Channel View and Dynamic Processing Capabilities [00:11:17] Comparing the DLZ with the RODECaster Model [00:12:22] The RODECaster Pro Two: Master Fader and Dedicated Automix [00:19:49] DLZ in Home Studio: Setting up a Monitor Mix [00:23:22] Exploring the DLZ's Specifications and Inclusions [00:25:15] The DLZ as a Future Updateable Device [00:26:36] Final Words and Outro: Stay Ahead of the Game [00:26:52] Closing Thanks and Provide Tech Support Invitation Transcript Speaker A: Y'all ready be history.,Speaker B: Get started.,Speaker C: Welcome.,Speaker B: Hi.,: Hi.,Speaker B: Hello, everyone, to the Pro Audio Suite. These guys are professional and 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.,: Learner.,Speaker B: Here we go.,Speaker C: Welcome to another Pro audio suite. Don't forget, if you want to get yourself a tribooth, use the code tripap 200 and you'll get $200 off your tribooth.,Speaker A: And don't forget, also yes, we need some likes and ratings and comments.,Speaker C: Yes, tell us how much you love us.,Speaker B: Give us where's the best place to do that?,Speaker A: Well, I'll tell you what, look in the show notes and I'll stick a link there. That's the best way.,Speaker B: Okay, got it.,Speaker C: Or just give us a comment on your favorite platform. Wherever you listen.,Speaker B: Exactly.,Speaker C: That'd be very handy. Now, George, a couple of weeks ago you were in Denver, colorado, I should say Nanu. Nanu. But that's boulder, very cryptic. Human this morning. And you were at the podcast movement.,Speaker B: Yes, I was.,Speaker C: And you bumped into someone over there. But before we get to the interview you did with the product manager of the new Mackie DLZ creator, you had a bit of a look at that and we're looking at it now. It looks very Roadcaster to me.,Speaker B: Yeah, well, everything that's followed since the roadcaster has looked very RODECaster because they literally invented a category.,Speaker A: Talk about setting a design standard. Good on your road there, you yeah.,Speaker B: Yeah, they're the big dogs still. I mean, for sure. I was at Podcast Movement in Denver, and I was there partially supported and sponsored by BSW, the dealer, Pro Audio dealer here in the US. And they brought along a rep from Road to be with the booth. So I was hanging out with Road and BSW, and of course, there were other vendors there as well, including Mackie. So I had a moment to sit down or stand and take a little interview in with Matthew Heron. He's actually the product manager. And what's really cool is he's not just a sales guy, he is the designer of the DLZ.,Speaker A: Oh, wow.,Speaker B: So you'll hear him explain when and why the thing came to be, and he gets into a bit of detail. He talks very fast because there's a lot to cover in the short amount of time. But, yeah, it's a very impressive piece of kit, as we like to say.,Speaker A: Well, let's have a listen.,: Hey, everybody. It's George, the tech at Podcast Movement. And I've made my way finally over to Mackie and we're getting an interview here with Matthew before it gets too noisy in here and he's going to show us his baby. What do we got?,: Matthew well, we're here today. We've got the brand new DLZ creator. We launched this back in May and we've been working on this thing for about two and a half years. So that's what I kind of a lot of people learned how to make sourdough over COVID and I decided to design a mixer. We're here with it and we're really excited about this. I think there's definitely some highlights. Obviously this is a digital podcast mixer. You can use it for live sound, but it's really designed for podcast use, case streamers folks that are creating content, right? Mackie's been behind the content creator since 1989 only it used to be grunge, long hair and flannel. But today it's podcasters, it's unboxing toys, right? It's things like that. That's what people want to do. And so what we're trying to do is democratize audio, make it easier no matter what your experience level. So how we've done that is we've put three distinct user modes in one product and what this effectively does is allows you to work however comfortable you are. If you're brand new, you've never done anything. We have an easy mode that hides almost every parameter from you and allows you to just kind of have a preset based workflow because it's very easy to load which microphone you're using right now. We also have an enhanced mode. This is very similar to other products you'll see in market. There's a lot of competitors out there, but it's going to be the feature set that a lot of folks are comfortable with. If you're coming from a RODECaster, for example, in pants, mode is going to be very comfortable for you. And then finally we have a Pro mode and what that does is that kind of goes back into Mackie's. Our back end Master Fader is a really good example of a pro product that we put out for many years. But we wanted to have all the features that you imagine. So just to jump into easy mode fairly quickly, I'll just kind of show you the channel view. We made it as easy as we possibly can. You're loading a preset for the channel. We've got our Em 99 B microphones. So you can just pick the microphone you're using and load it right up. We also have the SM Seven B and many other a little bit more generic microphone as well. Right? Plenty of choices, right? The easy customer could then label the channel. Right, we want to change the color. Let's make it blue. Let's go ahead and put a little person in there, right? We can do that. That changes the color. Yeah, there's a Scribble strip as well, so we can label it as well. So we can call this one Joe, for example. This is Joe's Mic. I'm doing it upside down so I'm a little slower than I'd normally be, but it's Joe's Mic and it's a digital product and I'll be quite honest I've worked on analog consoles, and I love board tape. It's kind of a fun, tactile thing. But I'll be honest, if you have a digital console, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to label it digitally, right. Put in the name, color, icon, that sort of thing. And that's really been true for Mackie since the DL products.,: Tell us about Auto Mix, because that is something that really stands out.,: Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. So if you are brand new, right, we can help you set up the channel very easily. But we also have auto mix. What this really does is allows you to do it's kind of based on Dugan style gain sharing, right? So each microphone, if there's no signal present, it doesn't get any gain. But if there is signal present, it gets all the gain. And what this does is this helps it helps reduce feedback from other microphones because they're not live. It helps reduce noise because those other microphones aren't live at that point in time.,Speaker A: Right.,: So really, it just helps clean up the whole system. Another huge benefit is when people talk over one another. Now, you could ride the faders, and that's something that you can do, and a lot of people do do. But if you don't want to do that, this is a really great feature. You can just have everybody set to medium and you're all sharing gain. So if you talk over one another, it'll reduce the overall volume and you can hear everybody as opposed to everyone talking over one another.,: For me, that's important because I host a show and I'm the sound engineer. So riding the faders and being engaged in a conversation, you can't really do it well. The Auto Mix clears up cross talk between channels. We use condensers, so it really cleans up a mix. When you have Auto Mix set up.,: Yeah, it's really helpful. And we've actually gone one step further, and we actually added in these priorities. And what that does is it allows you to set priority. So you're talking about being the host. As the host, you could set your priority to high. And what that will do is that will allow you to be the loudest no matter what. So if you're running a political podcast and, you know, the people might talk over one another or they might get a little argumentative, you can always set yourself to just one level higher. And what that will do is that way you can come in and go, hey, guys, we got to take a commercial break, or what have you. You can kind of help control the conversation a little bit more easily, a.,: Little bit like ducking.,: Sort of similar to that framework. Yeah. But when you combine it with the Auto Mix yeah. It becomes very powerful. Like I said, that's our easy mode. And one step further on, the easy mode, which is kind of cool, is we have this setup assistant. This will literally walk the customer through everything you need to do to get the mixer set up. Tells you to push up the channel faders. We know that if you've been in the audio industry for a long time, you have to push up the channel faders to get audio to pass through the mixer. That's not in apparently obvious to a brand new user. Why do I have to push those up? Well, you need to and so we tell the user to do that. We have them plug in their headphones. We then pipe audio to the headphones and allow you to turn up each headphone to whatever level feels most comfortable. And I'll be honest, I got my start in tech support. So we built tech support in headphone help, right?,: We were saying before, the reason this product is so good is because you came from support. You understand we're all the issues are and you designed it right in, right.,: So we put in a lot of places where people do have pain points. We hope to eliminate those pain points. Same thing with the microphones. We help you set up the microphones, tell you where to plug in the microphones. We go ahead and say, hey, here's your microphone. One, you can kind of select the microphone by picture also, so if you know what your microphone looks like, you can kind of get going. Also, we have automatic gain setting. So for each one of the microphones you don't need to know how to set gain. You can press listen and set for me. And depending on how far you are from the microphone, how strong your voice is, how much gain your microphone really needs, we will go ahead and automatically set that on the back end. The mixer is smart enough to do that for you. Also, again, microphone help. Aren't you not hearing anything? Try some of these suggestions.,: That's great. They're going to learn a lot. I bet if they want to, they'll learn a lot about engineering from going through all that.,: Absolutely.,: Going to be familiar with all the functions and the inputs and they'll learn terminology and stuff.,: Yeah, awesome. Yeah. And then like I said, in Promote, we'll jump straight to promote. And obviously in Promote, I'm going to go ahead and turn off set up assistant right now. But in promote it's in the no holds barred, right? So we go into a channel view. You have full dynamic processing. You have access to 48 volts fan power, independent delay and reverb sends pan control. Also, we hide pan from our beginning users because they're only going to hurt themselves with it. And again, full EQ, full gate, full compressor, DeEsser, all the stuff that you would expect in a full dynamic digital mixer like this without any limitations. Now, the other really cool thing about it, we took a lot of time to figure this out, but all of this is nondestructive. So what's really cool is a pro. If you have this product, if you have multiple users that have different experience levels, everyone can benefit from the same product. A pro can jump in, set up all the channels, get it all absolutely dialed in with all of the processing, switch it over into easy mode, hand it off to their brand new user, and that brand new user will get access to all that cool processing, but it's been hidden from them so they don't get lost. And it's completely nondestructive.,: I can tell somebody to get this.,: Yes.,: I can set up all that stuff in pro mode. It's locked away in easy mode and they can't mess anything up.,: Exactly. And it hides it all from them. And the cool thing is, too, is you can load them a preset specifically for their voice and name it, and then they can just load that preset. So it's really, really flexible in those situations. And like I said, whether you're growing with a mixer, you're brand new and you want to grow to become a pro, or if you have a situation where this is going to be put in a studio and the studio is going to be used by both pros and people that have no idea, it's really a lot more flexible. And what it does is it helps avoid what I call smear. And so a lot of times you see consoles in this category, and what they'll do is they'll be kind of easy, sort of easy to use, but they're not quite easy enough for someone who has no idea what they're doing. And then a pro will get in there and they'll say, well, yeah, I have those controls, but they're kind of clunky or they're difficult to use. And so what we really try to do is make it happy for both users. And what that means is actually separating out those user modes into two distinct interfaces.,: Yeah, it's a beautiful product. I'm looking forward to banging on it a little bit and giving you some tests and trying it out in the real world. And congratulations on the launch. It's a beautiful product. Thanks so much. We'll talk again another time when we have less background noise. Maybe we can do sort of a from home zoom session together and really talk a little deeper about product design. I think that'd be a lot of fun.,: I think that'd be great.,Speaker B: All right.,: I really enjoy it.,: Thank you.,Speaker A: So, without knowing too much about this thing, George, as we mentioned before the interview there, it is very much a roadcaster I won't say ripoff, but very much based on the RODECaster model. Right?,Speaker B: Yeah. He was very clear that this was something that he had seen, they had seen, the whole industry saw. And so it was time that Mackie throw their hat in the ring and he spent the majority of the pandemic developing it. So when it came out it came out recently, I think it came out after the RODECaster Pro Two because it did just release like in the last couple of weeks. And so it feels even more like the RODECaster Pro Two, as you could imagine. But they still threw at it some of the Mackie kind of design ideology, which is, I mean, obviously the road is designed to be easy, but these guys took it to another level of being easy, I think. Well, the first thing that really wanted to be friendly yeah, well, the first.,Speaker A: Thing that strikes me and the first thing I said to you when we were talking about this before the show is it's got a master fader, which is interesting in and of itself.,Speaker B: I know it does.,Speaker A: Yeah.,Speaker B: Right. So whereas Rhode chose to condense the thing down a little bit smaller and lose things like a master fader, mackie, I think, wouldn't dare lose that fader. And I should have asked him about it, but I didn't think to. But he didn't dare lose it because it's an audio mixer in the world of Mackie, like, you always have a master fader.,Speaker A: Yeah, well, if you don't have one, you're going to create one anyway. You're going to dedicate one to being a master fader. It's somewhere along the way, surely.,Speaker B: Probably, yeah. That is one of the things that Rhode clearly chose to leave out because they felt like it's not needed for what people are using it for. But Mackie chose to leave in but what Mackie did, which she explained really know in the audio, was that it really is a tool that will suit total newbies and beginners to professionals. And the way they do it is by having three different types of user experiences beginner or easy, sort of a medium or moderate. And then the full on Pro. We didn't look at the moderate version. He kind of gave me a good overview of the beginner version and the pro version. But the beginner version, it literally has a wizard and it walks you through very much a step by step process of how to get your show set up on the mixer, even to the point of setting levels for you and all that stuff.,Speaker A: So these are just different softwares in the same box? Or are these completely different products, though, like the beginner, the intermediate and the professional?,Speaker B: In the world of firmware, it's all software, right? Basically whatever you want to show on that screen is what the experience is going to be. Right. So they have the easy mode and then I think when you first power the unit on default, it's going to start in easy mode. So it has a very simplified interface. It doesn't get into notch filters and thresholds. It's very simplified. It has a ton of presets for different microphones. It will set the gain for each of your microphone sources by listening to the source and then setting the gain for you. And then it gets you started very easily. And then it also has a dedicated automix, which he talked about. It's the Dugan Automix, which is very much a trademark kind of patented system. But they're not using in the branding and in the design. They're not infringing theoretically on any patents because it's their own algorithm that they're doing. But they've created an automix method where you can prioritize on three different levels, each of it the inputs. Right. So if you want to be priority, you make yourself high. You can make your guests medium priority and you could make like an audience mic or, I don't know, a sound effects channel or some other things be low. So it will keep things from stepping on each other and it'll keep your mix cleaner. And that is a function that the RODECaster Pro Two does not have, is the auto mix. So it doesn't mean they couldn't add it later because it is firmware.,Speaker A: They will now.,Speaker C: Absolutely.,Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I think what's going to be really interesting is watching what Rode adds to the RODECaster Pro Two's firmware to be on more of a parody with what the Mackie is doing, it's inevitable. Right. So it's going to be a very interesting thing to watch happen. But it was cool to talk to the real guy, the guy who worked on the design and maybe one day we'll get him on the show. He said I talked to him after, he said he would love to come on another interview and get more into the geeky nuts and bolts of the design.,Speaker C: Yeah, interesting.,Speaker A: Absolutely.,Speaker C: Because I'm kind of curious as to where they've come at this from, whether they came at it like road have where they've just gone, okay, straight into podcasting or has Mackie come going, okay, we can tap into podcasting, but we're also looking know the normal kind of audio studio kind of thing as yeah, yeah.,Speaker B: Well, Mackie, clearly they want to be in podcasting without abandoning. So yeah, it definitely has a feeling of you could pull this out and do a live show with it and you'd have mostly what you need to do that. It doesn't have nearly the number of outputs like a live mixer does. It doesn't have all the auctions.,Speaker A: So can I use those faders to control my door?,Speaker B: I don't know. I didn't get into that level. I literally had an eight minute presentation.,Speaker A: Yeah, right.,Speaker B: So I didn't have the time to dig deep into it. There was so much to see at the show for me that I would have sat there and played with it for an hour. I just had too much networking to do. I didn't want to squander that time, but I would have gotten more into it. But yeah, I hope to eventually get my hands on one and put it into its paces. And if I had had one for the studio I did most recently, I probably would have used it because the auto mix I think is a useful tool. Then again, I think automix is extremely important for live streaming, live mix, but not at all important for a podcast because in a podcast you want to capture everything flat and raw and then do all of that in post.,Speaker A: Unless you're not going to mix it in post. Then that auto mix thing would actually be completely would be very powerful, wouldn't it? If you were the type of person who just wanted to do a two track edit and didn't want to worry about having to balance a mix and all that sort of stuff.,Speaker B: That would be that's what we do. Yeah. On VOBs, that's what we do. We do a live to drive so it mixes baked and if I blow the mix, then it's know it sucks. In fact, we did an appearance, I did VOBs from the trade show Floor. So I was on the panel when we had on Elaine Clark and then we interviewed Ryan from Road on the show. And in post, Dan had kind of a mess on his hands because the noise floor was so high. It was so annoying for me that I was riding the Gain. I was riding the level going to Dan. So what he hears in the mix is kind of a mess because the room tone is changing constantly as I'm turning the mics up and down. Right. So he very cleverly took some room tone and laid that over the entire mix okay. To clean it up because he said it was really distracting. He said, did you use a gate? I said, no, that's called human gate. Just riding my Gain because it got ungodly noisy in that space. And it was one of the most reverberant, horribly echoey convention experiences I've ever had. It was absolutely terrible.,Speaker C: I always find that really quite bizarre that you're actually selling basically audio stuff in this case and you're in an environment that just doesn't showcase it very well at all.,Speaker A: What are you going to do?,Speaker B: It just shows how much of a lack of understanding of what is needed for a good experience by the attendants or the customers from the owners of that building. And the owners of that building are Marriott, you may have heard of them.,Speaker C: Yeah.,Speaker A: Can I take you back a step? You said if you had have known about this you would have put this in a build that you did recently with the auto mix thing. Would you use that if you were setting this up for someone in a home studio? Would you use that to manage their feed from the client studio to sort of keep a decent mix in their headphones, to keep them down lower if that's what they wanted or up higher.,Speaker B: Or whatever you could yeah. It never would have occurred me to use it in that way. But you certainly could set up a monitor mix for your headphones using the auto mix so that you don't get blown out of your cans. Your voice is kind of over top of whatever's coming back at you.,: A lot of singers like to sing into a compressor, and sometimes you don't necessarily track it with that, you just have it there. It's kind of like singing into some reverb. It's the same thing as that guy that likes to sit there with the volume knob, David. He could just buy a compressor and maybe not get culpal tunnel syndrome.,Speaker B: One of these days. I'll set that up for him. He still has that Affliction muscle memory thing going.,Speaker A: Yeah.,Speaker B: But yeah, it's definitely a matter of changing the way you hear everything in the headphones and controlling the experience for the performer. And that would be a clever way to do it, actually. Yeah.,: Mackie's late to the game, but coming out with something pretty good.,Speaker B: Yeah. Waited and watched what Road did and then just like, all start. Let's start from scratch. Seeing the success of this thing and go all the way through the end and see what we build. And that's what they did. It's like an $800 retail unit, so it's a little bit more expensive. It's sort of like the RODECaster pro. Two baquito mach plus.,Speaker A: Let's see what the first thing Robert notices is when he looks at the picture. Let's see, what the first thing jumping.,Speaker C: Online to have a look at it.,Speaker A: See if he picks up one. I pick what's it called? The DLC creator. Tell me what the first thing is that pops in your head when you just look at it. There's something on there that made me go, Is that a blah?,Speaker C: And I'm only saying Z because I know it's American.,: It's the Deals.,Speaker A: Deals creator.,: So basically, Robo thought, is this an eight fader unit for my pro tool system with a touchscreen?,Speaker A: No, there's something on there that's not on the RODECaster.,: A master fader.,Speaker A: There you go. First cap off the rank.,: Just like me.,Speaker A: Rip off the master fader.,: But they did pretty much rip them off. Pretty much.,Speaker A: That's the second part of the conversation.,: Buttons on the bottom, buttons on the top, side by side. Colorful buttons on the right. OOH, you get two more faders. You get a master fader, you get some knobs that you don't have. Are those knobs digital encoder knobs.,Speaker B: Right. So, like, we're on the roadcaster. The knobs have really a one trick.,: And how much is a RODECaster, too?,Speaker B: Like 699. And here, I can buy this one for 679-0679.,: They're discounted it's retail 800.,Speaker B: So it's a very tough customer in terms of competition. It's physically bigger. It's not going to fit on. Everybody's workstation, that's for sure. But that touch screen is extremely compelling. It's the size of like an iPad mini.,Speaker A: Wow.,Speaker B: Very large, easy to use, and very good looking screen. The knobs on the side of the screen that are assignable make the knobs infinitely more flexible.,Speaker C: Out of interest, what preamps are they using there? Is it their onyx? Are they onyx?,: They're vlzs for the DLZ?,Speaker B: Yo, yo, yo. That's a darn good question. I don't recall him saying that they are onyx. I don't know, and I don't think that's probably even possible.,: Maybe they're the exerges or what the hell does Behringer call their onyxes? We took a few letters and rearranged them preamps.,Speaker B: I think it's kind of Mackie's turn to rip off or knock off another brand after being knocked off by Barranger for the last ten years.,Speaker A: Yeah, it says four onyx 80 microphone preamps. Yeah. Onyx 80s onyx eighty s. Okay.,: Does that mean 80 decibel? You'll use disabilities?,Speaker B: Close to it. I think, yeah, I think he said it's around 74, 75 DB of gain. Wow.,: For all your SM, seven b's.,Speaker B: It's another product out there in the midst and time will tell to see how it holds.,: Do you get the backpack with it? Does it come with the slick carrying case?,Speaker B: You doubt it?,: It looks like it does. I mean, maybe you have to pay extra for that, but it looks like it's got a nice little bag to it.,Speaker B: Yeah, it'd be a nice idea if it did. I'm sure they'll sell it to you, but yeah, I think that really stood out from the interview from Matthew was that he came from years in customer service. And I think when you have a product that was designed from somebody that comes from customer service, they understand what all the questions are going to be because they know the client, they know the user differently than somebody that just designs a product to meet a price point and have a certain fill a skew. We really got to make an X, right?,: I must ask, what is the ethernet for?,Speaker B: It is a future updatable platform feature device. I was told inside scoop of what it will do. I don't think I can tell you, but right now it's just firmware updates like the RODECaster Pro two. It's the ethernet only for software.,: Might it do anything that I'm thinking about?,Speaker B: If you can think of three letters that indicate sending information into another space or time, then yes. That's what you're thinking of? Yes. Anyway, yeah, it's a future I think they're going to release by the time you guys hear this. Maybe they've already released a firmware update for the ethernet port, but I know it's coming. And it will be infinitely more like integratable into a current three letters.,: Beginning with an A?,Speaker B: No, but it'll integrate into an AV media production suite or facility. More slickly seamlessly.,Speaker C: I'm still trying to think what the three letters are.,Speaker A: Well, I don't think we can say that, can we?,: Three?,Speaker C: Yeah, I'm wondering what they are.,Speaker B: Three letters.,Speaker C: Three letters.,Speaker B: Three letters.,Speaker C: This is like a cryptic quizzing on the weekend.,Speaker B: I know letters.,: I'm going to have to think about that one.,Speaker B: I'll tell you offline.,Speaker C: All right, let's finish this show because it's killing me already. Let's go. All right, we're out. See it. What are the three letters?,: Yeah, just end the show so we can find out and that's our out.,Speaker B: That's a good one.,Speaker C: I've had enough of this show. I just want to know what the three letters are.,: Well, that was fun. Is it over?,Speaker C: The Pro audio suite with thanks to Tribute and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by Robo Got your own audio issues? Just askrobo.com 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 theproudiosuite.com.
	Promo - Rodecaster Killer?	31 Aug 2023	00:00:56
The Mackie DLZ Creator is out, and after taking some cues from Rode, they have a pretty good piece of kit on their hands. George had a chance to catch up with its creator at "Podfest 23", so took the opportunity to record a chat about some of the more interesting features and some of the ideas that sparked its creation. 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson rode #rodemicrophones Summary In the upcoming episode of the Pro Audio Suite, the hosts reveal their game-changing automix method which allows priorities on three different levels. Depending on how you want your mix, you can set the priority higher for yourself, medium for your guests, and lower for sound effects or any other input. This method doesn't allow overstepping on each mix, ensuring a cleaner end product. The podcast also compares its functionality with RODECaster Pro Two, emphasizing the lack of such an automix function in the latter. However, optimism remains that it could be added later. The episode concludes with a heartfelt thanks to Triboos and Austrian audio, inviting listeners to tune in on their preferred podcast provider. #ProAudioSuite #AutomixMethod #CleanAudioMix Timestamps [00:00:00] Overview: Pro Audio Suite's Automix Method [00:00:41] Partnerships: Triboos & Austrian Audio Announcement Transcript Speaker A: Coming up. Coming up next, the.,: Pro Audio Suite sneak peek.,Speaker A: They've created an automix method where you can prioritize on three different levels. Each of it the inputs, right? So if you want to be priority, you make yourself high. You can make your guests medium priority, and you could make like an audience mic or, I don't know, a sound effect, x channel or some other things below. So it will keep things from stepping on each other and it'll keep your mix cleaner. And that is a function that the RODECaster Pro Two does not have, is the auto mix. So it doesn't mean they couldn't add it later, because it is they will now. Absolutely.,: The Pro audio suite.,Speaker A: Thanks to Triboos.,: And Austrian audio. Listen now on your.,Speaker A: Favorite podcast provider.
	Back to His Roots: George's One-Case Location VO Rig	02 Sep 2025	00:18:33
George heads out on a time-sensitive PSA to capture wild VO lines at an actor's house — and rebuilds a lean, one-case kit on the fly. We dig into what made the rig work, why he chose an onboard recorder for redundancy, mic choices (NTG-4 vs NTG-5), and a stack of road-tested tips from our early days hauling DA-88s, DATs and Franken-booms. What we cover: Packing everything into a Pelican 1510 (laptop, interface, mic, stand, boom) Primary vs backup: PortCaster with onboard record + laptop DAW Why the NTG-4 worked (once the low-cut was off) and when the NTG-5 is nicer Quiet-room scouting at talent's home (carpet, bookshelves, sofa placement) Redundancy paranoia that saves the day (and the gig) Old-school sync and remote workflows: clapper slates, Boom Recorder, Reaper, DA-88s, DAT, Ramza/Fostex rigs Gear & software mentioned: Pelican 1510, Sentrance MicPort Pro, PortCaster, RØDE NTG-4/NTG-5, Grace Lunatec V2, Sony & Tascam DAT, Boom Recorder, Reaper, DA-88, Fostex 9624, Ramza 8-bus. Sponsors: TRI-BOOTH — use code TRIPAP200 for $200 off your Tri-Booth. Austrian Audio — Making Passion Heard. Credits: Recorded via Source-Connect. Edited by Andrew Peters. Mixed by Robbo. Tech support from George "The Tech" Whittam. Got an audio issue? JustAskRobbo.com
	Whats your signature sound?	28 Aug 2023	00:19:54
Perhaps it's a quirk in your 416 that sits perfectly with your voice. Is it an anomaly in your room that adds that special something to your voice, or is it where you position the mic that just has you humming? A signature sound isn't essential, but most engineers have one (achieved through compression and eq admittedly). There's no reason your home studio can't have one too. "As long as it sounds good, it is good" as the saying goes... 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones Summary In this episode of Pro Audio Suite, industry professionals George Wittam, Robert Marshall, Andrew Peters, and Darren Robbo Robertson, discuss crucial aspects of audio engineering. The show offers valuable insights into microphone usage, including a unique story about an unusual microphone that became a signature sound for its user despite initial concerns over its broken state. The hosts stress the personal nature of microphone choice while exploring factors that affect sound quality, from room attributes to mic placement. They specifically mention the unique attributes of the U 87 cardioid and 818 microphones. They also promote a deal on Tribooth using the code PAP 200 and recommend their audio services. Geological technical support and ongoing discussions are available through a dedicated Facebook group. For more information about Pro Audio Suite's hosts and their services, listeners can visit theproaudiosuite.com. #ProAudioTips #UniqueMicrophoneSounds #TechTalkWithProAudioSuite Timestamps [00:00:00] Intro: Meet the Pro Audio Suite Team [00:00:30] Special Offer: Discounted Tribooth & Personalized Demo [00:01:11] Segment: George Talks About Unique Mic Problems [00:02:50] Tips: Importance of Room & Mic Placement [00:09:48] Mic Review: The Magic of U 87 Cardioid [00:14:50] Comparison: Eight One Eight vs Neumann TLM 170 R [00:19:22] Closing: Thanks and Invitation to Join our Community Transcript Speaker A: Y'all ready?,Speaker B: Be history.,Speaker C: Get started.,: Welcome.,Speaker C: Hi. Hi. Hello, everyone, to the Pro Audio Suite.,: 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's. International demo. To find out more about us, check thepro audiosuite.com.,Speaker C: Learn up. Learner. Here we go.,Speaker A: Here you go. Ready?,: Welcome to another Pro audio suite. We're your guests, Robo, Andrew and George. And I'm Robert. And you can get a good deal on a tribooth with PAP 200. And you should have Andrew and Robbo do your demo, by the way, and let's get on with it.,: Okay. It's actually trip 200, but yeah, nice work there, Robert. You missed your calling there.,Speaker B: I tell you what, jesus, you were.,: Looking so good there for a minute and you just fell at the bloody.,Speaker B: I think your job's safe, AP.,: Yeah, you call this a job? Really high binded. Now, George, you were telling us about an experience, once again at one voice with somebody who had a microphone that people were complaining about being broken, but it's kind of become his sound. What was the story?,Speaker A: Yeah, he told me that and again, I haven't heard this mic yet, so I would like to hear it at some point. I told him, hey, give me the audio and I should give him credit. I think maybe I shouldn't. Yeah, no, I should give him credit. It was Chad Fisher and he's worked with me in the past. I think he just finished building a studio, too, that looked pretty impressive. But he said that he's got a 416 or 41 six. That is sounding odd. According to folks that he has sent the audio to that know the mic. He has said that they were concerned that maybe something is up with that mic. And I said, did you buy it used? Was it damaged? Was it counterfeit? All those things could be true. He said, no, I bought it from one of the big companies. The big companies. And I said fascinating. Well, you could certainly reach out to them and ask them to give you another one and exchange it. Or you could look at this as a unique experience and realize that this is the mic that you're booking on and that people like the sound and you may not want to muck with it. So I said, literally, just engrave your initials in that thing. And this is your mic. It's your unique sound. And if you want to get another one because you want to have a proper one or whatever, a regular one, go for it. But this is a unique mic for you. Don't mess with it. Does anybody else have a mic with a quirk or character that they choose to keep using that you know?,: Yeah, well, I was going to say I won't mention the name because I don't want us to get sued or anything. But we've talked about this off air quite a lot. But a very famous American record producer has an AKG C Twelve an original C Twelve which was sent to AKG for testing when they were building the capsule which has now become the Austrian Audio Capsule, the CKR Twelve. Anyway, this famous record producer's C Twelve, which he absolutely loved, he loved used it on everything, was actually broken, but he had no idea that it was broken. He just loved the sound of this broken microphone.,Speaker B: That's the beauty of audio, though, isn't it, is that beauty is in the ear of the beholder. And if he loved the sound that that mic made, it doesn't make him any less or anything else. Just a sound he liked. And that was his sound. So good on him.,: I reckon if it sounds good, it is good, right?,: It is, exactly. Because nothing sounds the same and it's funny. People go, oh well, I've got a U 67 and blah, blah, blah. It's like does it sound like any other U 67? Probably not. I doubt it very much.,Speaker B: I don't know whether George has any experience with this, but I've had sessions with people who've said, pick your amazing multi thousand dollar mic, it could be any of them. They go, I've got a such and such, and you hear them in the room that they're in or where they've got it placed or whatever, and it sounds like shit. Well, I'd rather, to be quite honest have you got a four one six.,: That we can just thing is the room yeah, exactly. That's classic.,: Yeah, the room is key, but also it's like what complements your voice?,Speaker B: What defines your sound.,: And if you're.,: Working it's true, a mic is a very personal choice.,Speaker A: The room is key, but the mic placement is key. And it depends a lot on the kind of mic. I do find that the shotgun mic, 40 116 especially, is tricky to get the placement really awesome and the mic will change its sound quite a lot based on placement. Whereas a large diaphragm condenser cardioid mic will not change nearly as drastically based on the placement. It will certainly increase proximity effect if you get too close, but you can move quite a bit, side to side, up and down without a huge change.,: In the sound, without falling in different places of the pickup pattern. Absolutely. I mean, that's one of the things about a 41 six is you have to stay consistently in front of it because it drops I mean, that's the whole point is it drops off significantly as you get to the side. But the problem is that that's not linear, it's colored, it's different when you get it doesn't drop off evenly.,Speaker A: Yeah. And it has this weird pickup nodes on the sides of the mic. If you look at the pickup pattern.,: Or in the back, if you look.,Speaker A: At the pickup pattern, polar pattern, I should say diagram, you'll see it looks almost like a sword because it's long in the top, short has a tail on the bottom and these little things that stick out on the side. So it's definitely an OD pickup pattern.,: Out of interest. So if you're setting up a 41 six, if you imagine the talent standing in front of the microphone, where do you actually place the mic and what area of the person do you point the mic at?,: The nose, just above the plosive line.,Speaker A: I mean, the tip of the mic is right above the plosive line, but where is it aiming?,: Yeah, at the mouth, basically. But just keep the diaphragm away from the gush of air from the plosives.,: Because I've been to so many different studios where the 41 six is pretty well everywhere anyway in this business and there is no consistency with the way the engineers set up the mic.,Speaker B: Well, see, every engineer's got his own sound, too. Every engineer's got his own preference for where the MIC's aiming and all that sort of stuff.,: It kind of depends on where you are. If you're in a horrible sounding booth, then just get into it and try to nullify the booth compared to the ratio of your voice. And then you can just EQ out the proximity effect because the 40 116, being a shotgun, has quite a big proximity effect to it.,Speaker A: It's still a different it's still not quite the big proximity effect, though you're going to get from a large diaphragm cardioid because you can get so much closer to the capsule.,: Well, because the capsule is way up the microphone in the 416 yeah.,Speaker A: It's not near the tip. It's up halfway up the tube of the mic.,: Right. If you were able to virtually get your mouth there, then the proximity effect would probably be insane.,Speaker A: Oh, for sure. Well, if you use a Harvard cardioid or cardioid version of that mic, which would be the I guess they didn't make one, but the newer series, the MKH no, the is it called the MKH 80 series 80208 030-804-0805.,: It's probably like MKH 20. Maybe one of those might be similar to the yeah.,Speaker A: Or Neumann 184 or any one of those pencil mics. The proximity effect is massive, but you just have to be really careful not to pop the mic because the capsule is right there, really easy to pop.,: There is no filter. There's nothing there at all.,: Sounds a bit like you and I, Robert. No filter.,: Tourette's. Tourette's, Mike.,: Yeah, but it's funny, the 41 six, I've had them directly in front of me pointing, as you said, above the sort of forehead kind of thing, pointing to the mouth. I've had them pointing to the chest, I've had them coming in from the side, all sorts of different pointing to the chest.,: Chest, yeah.,Speaker B: Wow.,: I've seen people who do the side thing and the sort of nose thing. If you want to thin it out, you just kind of get it away from the mouth and a little bit more on the head and they'll get a little bit brighter for you. But I've not seen the chest.,: Yeah, that was years ago. I remember someone pointing and they had it set up in front of me and it was like basically probably about almost a foot away from my head and pointing down past my face.,: Excuse me, pointing at your chest?,: Yeah, my laundry is done. Yeah, pointing at my chest must have been so woofy. It was certainly bassy, that's for sure.,: I mean, that's the problem that you have when you have, like, a lavalier mic that's too far under the chin and you lose all the top, all the high end. You have to kind of clip a lavalier mic a little bit lower down, so you get some because if not, the chin creates an acoustic shadow of the s's. And the other detail.,Speaker A: I was in a booth today, one of my clients whose studio designed, and he has a 41 six and a U 87. And he says sometimes I'll go to the U 87 because I just kind of get mic fatigue working on a 41 six all the time because of its tiny sweet spot and all this stuff. And I said, hey, by the way, he's like, but sometimes I use that mic and I hear a little bit too much reflection off the console below and display next to the mic, et cetera, et cetera. And I said, well, do you know about the secret microphone that's inside of U 87? He's like and I said, Flick the little switch on the front to figure eight. And he tried it and he was.,: Like, Whoa, drop everything from the holy cow, that's crazy.,Speaker A: I said, now stand on the side and talk into it. And it was like he was blown away. I said, yeah, this is an entirely different mic and a different sound from the U 87 cardioid or the 41 six. Really, it's a third mic you already had, you just didn't know and try it out and experiment.,: It's a much softer sound with a bigger proximity.,Speaker A: It's more ribbon like, dare I say.,: I mean, the ribbon mics really cancel out the side because the problem with what do you call it, the figure eight on the U 87 is it's two capsules and they are a little bit apart, right? So they don't cancel out at all frequencies. But you get a ribbon mic, that thing is infinitely thin and it really does just vanish to the side.,Speaker A: But I'll tell you, you don't need it to fully vanish to be an advantage. If you have anything reflective below or to the side, it will pretty well kill that. It's great. It just focuses the sound. I was like, Check this out. And he was like, Whoa, that's really cool.,: You've seen those diagrams where they go through the polar patterns and you can see them continuous because people think of polar patterns as being discreet. But really polar patterns are a continuum from omni to cardioid. And then it goes to figure eight. And in there like your hypercardioid is kind of between a figure eight and a cardioid, for example, I think. And that's why the hypercardioid's got the node in the back. And so it's not like a good tube mic. If you've played with a good tube mic, the polar pattern is a continuous knob.,Speaker A: That's right, yeah.,: And some of the better pencil mics are offered in what they call the wide cardioid.,Speaker A: Oh, yeah.,: And those are very natural sounding. They kind of have the naturalness of more close to the naturalness of an omni with still some focus, some proximity effect. A little bit. Yeah. You can't avoid it, but yeah, it's like polar patterns are not one, two, three, there's an infinite number between the.,: Omni and but the thing I actually talk about polar patterns and stuff like that. If you have the OC eight, one eight and you get the dongle that patches into the back, even better. Yeah.,: You can play with the polar patterns on a frequency basis with that polar pattern.,: Well, you're talking about pretty cool. The other part when you've used the two XLRs but this is if you.,: Use the two capsules.,: Yeah, but if you use the dongle, the bluetooth dongle and use the app on your phone, it's not just like clicking from one pattern to another, you're just sliding from one pattern to another.,: Right.,: So you can do a mix of so I'm talking about yeah, which is.,: What I'm talking about. But even better, you can record both of them and then in your daw after the fact, you can play with the polar pattern after you record yeah.,: But that's if you're using the two USBs not USBs, yes, the two XLRs.,: And then you have to use the plugin afterwards.,: But the plugin different plugin. If you get the bluetooth dongle that goes in the back of the mic, then you get a plugin that goes on your phone and it just gives you the polar pattern.,: That's what it is.,: The idea is that if the MIC's up on a boom pole, instead of bringing the thing backwards and forwards, you can do it from your phone.,: So the advantage of that multi frequency polar pattern designer is you could have a booth with a problematic low end, and especially in a corner. Maybe it's the only corner that you can put the mic where you have enough space, but you can treat the low frequency with, say, a figure eight. Get the mic so it rejects the weird bounce back to the side. And then in the upper frequencies, you can open them up to a cardioid or a wide cardioid where it sounds more natural, gives you a little bit more space to move about without having such a critical sweet spot on the microphone. And you can kind of have the benefits of a figure eight where you need it, have the benefits of a cardioid and a wide cardioid where you need them, and really play around with the polar pattern to fit your exact need, instead of just having one polar pattern across the whole spectrum. And then you have to deal with the nonlinearities where you don't want them to be.,: It'd be good if you could actually use that thing post or pre print, so you could actually set and forget if you got a trouble. Oh, you can do it. I've never tried it.,: Well, you can just record both capsules and then you can put the plugin on there and design it away. So if you're always recording both, in fact, you could even do it where you could automate the plugin. So on certain words, if you go really low, you could even change the where were we parameters if you were really going crazy. But yeah, you can definitely put that plugin on a post process. But to do that and make use of it, you have to record both capsules separately.,: Correct.,: You have to use the two XLRs. But that's the whole point of that Mike, is that it is literally that flexible.,: Yeah. I still like the app, though, that I find really handy. Instead of clicking from one pattern to another, you can actually just slide across an infinite amount of mixtures of everything.,: Like the old classic tube mics.,: Exactly. Yeah, exactly.,: You say it's a great mic when you look at the price point.,Speaker B: Well, absolutely. And also we're talking about your distinctive sound. That polar pattern thing sort of gives you the chance to make as well, doesn't it?,Speaker A: Really?,: That's right, indeed.,Speaker A: If you use the Polar designer Bluetooth tool, then it's locked into that fifth setting. It has a magic fifth setting that becomes your pattern.,: You can set it yeah, it's in.,Speaker A: The firmware, which is great.,: Does it do it by the frequencies, too, or is it just by the so you have to use the plugin to get the frequency per frequency. That'd be amazing if you could bake it in there. And then you just have your own microphone, your sound, but still like what I was going to say, the price point of the eight one eight. And you look at it compared to like a U 87.,Speaker A: Actually, a better mic to compare it to is actually the Neumann TLM 170 R. And I mentioned that one because that one's come up a little bit more often. One of my clients bought one a while ago and she hasn't used it yet. And she said, I bought it because Disney uses it and she does a lot of Disney. So I said I was wondering why. So I looked at the frequency response of the 170 R and I saw it was definitely a lot more of a flat response. It's much flatter. And so they want that really just uncolored sound. But that's a multi pattern with more choices. The U 87 just has the classic figure eight omni and card. This one's got more inter, it's got hyper cardioid and a few other things. And it's not a bargain mic.,: 123456 no use. That thing is $2,000. It's more money used than the eight one eight.,Speaker A: It's still quite spendy on the Neumann in the Neumann lineup. And the only thing that competes from Neumann on price would be the 107, I think is what it's called TLM 107.,: But that's a single pattern.,Speaker A: I think that's the multi pattern one. They have a TLM series or is it a 104?,: The 107 is around at least used. It's around 1300 or $1,200.,Speaker A: That's a multi pattern, though, right? I don't see yeah, that's the multi pattern. It's got a funky little digital control joystick on it. It's really OD on the back of the mic.,: Is that how it does its it's.,Speaker A: Actually a multifunction joystick and that controls the pad high pass and polar pattern by flicking the stick around. And I'd say in terms of quality, it's somewhere in the 103 to 100 and it actually might be more like the 102 in terms of what capsule it uses and stuff. So, yeah, that's the only thing that's in any way similar to the 12345 pattern.,: It's about the same price point as an eight one eight, but a little more.,Speaker A: It's a bit more.,: Yeah, it's $200 more or so.,: Yeah.,Speaker A: So bang for the buck. That eight one eight is still it's outstanding. Outstanding.,: Yeah. It really is a killer mic.,Speaker B: I'm just looking at the Ma one. I don't know if you guys have ever seen that. It looks like a butt plug.,: Have you been using those again?,: Yeah, sorry. We can stop him talking out of his eyes.,: Sorry.,Speaker B: It was the first thing that came into my mind.,: There's the out.,: Yeah.,Speaker C: Well, that was fun. Is it over?,: The Pro audio suite with thanks to Tribut and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by Robo Got your own audio issues? Just ask robo.com with tech support from.,Speaker C: 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, theproudiosuite.com.
	Promo - Whats your signature Sound?	25 Aug 2023	00:00:56
Perhaps it's a quirk in your 416 that sits perfectly with your voice. Is it an anomaly in your room that adds that special something to your voice, or is it where you position the mic that just has you humming? A signature sound isn't essential, but most engineers have one (achieved through compression and eq admittedly). There's no reason your home studio can't have one too. "As long as it sounds good, it is good" as the saying goes...
	Software licensing structures... The good the bad the ugly	21 Aug 2023	00:23:02
Waves have just announced some big changes to its licencing structure. What does it mean for you and how does it compare to other software that might be in your studio? https://www.waves.com/support/using-waves-plugins-on-multiple-computers PLUS, Robbo reviews the SSL bundle. Try it free for a month and see for yourself... https://www.solidstatelogic.com/products/ssl-complete-bundle-subscription 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones Summary In this episode of the Pro Audio Suite, hosts George Wittam, Robert Marshall, Darren Robbo Robertson, and Andrew Peters discuss the latest events and updates in professional audio technology. A significant highlight of the episode is Source Elements' win at the One Voice Service Provider award for the second time. This is followed by discussions on software licensing structures, especially about plugins by Waves and Twisted Wave. George Wittam offers insights into ethical business strategies and effective marketing. Further, Robbo shares his intriguing experience with the SSL bundle and emphasizes its unique features. Finally, the episode reflects on the importance of imperfections in audio production for an authentic sound output. The Pro Audio Suite also acknowledges its sponsors, Tri-Booth and Austrian audio, and tech support from George Wittam. Enjoy and engage in further discussions on their Facebook group. Don't forget to subscribe! #ProAudioSuite #TechPodcast #OneVoiceAward Timestamps [00:00:00] Intro: Meet the Talent & Special Offers [00:01:01] One Voice Service Provider Award: Personal Insight [00:03:04] Waves Announcement: New Subscription System [00:05:25] Twisted Wave's Policy: More Freedom for Users [00:11:02] Excellent Marketing?: A Case Study on George [00:13:22] Robbo's Experience: Navigating the SSL Bundle [00:20:11] SSL Plugins' Uniqueness: The Beauty of Imperfection [00:22:29] Ends Credits: Thanks & Reminders 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 and motivated. 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 Tri-Booth 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 the pro audiosuite.com. Speaker B: Line Up Ladies. Here we go., Speaker C: And welcome to another Pro Audio Suite. Don't forget, if you do want to buy a Triboof, use the code trip a P 200 to get $200 off your Triboof. Also Rombo and AP's international demos. We are offering a 30% discount. Just go to thepro audiosuite.com, and have a look at the link, which is up in the top, which says Robo and AP's International Demos. Click on that and drop us a line if you're interested. Also, while we're recording, you, George, are in Dallas at One Voice, and somebody won an award that you saw. Who would that have been?,: Well, not only did I see I was another candidate for the award. Another nominee., Speaker A: Oh, were you really? We're surrounded by brilliance.,: I'm sorry, man., Speaker C: And the nominations are there's two One.,: Voice nominees right here in the room. One of them won. Yeah. So there was a category called they did it Last Year as well, called Service Provider. And they make it very clear it's voted on by the public. And nominations are, I think, nominated also by the public, or at least the judges. So, yeah, I got nominated and my friend Uncle Roy did, and a whole bunch of other people that I know were nominated and Source Elements. So last year Source Elements took it, and this year they did, too, because they do good service.,Speaker C: There you go.,: They do good service and they do it all around the world.,: Thank you.,: Which is a lot of people.,Speaker C: Indeed. Yes, indeed. Indeed. Well, congratulations, Robert.,: In a way, I'd like to fuse the discomfort of me or Uncle Roy winning it's because we're buddies.,: You guys would have to sit at the same table.,: It's awkward. We're buddies and we do the same business. It just feels weird. It just feels weird. So anyway, congrats Source Elements, and maybe we'll see you next year.,Speaker B: Cool.,: Well, awesome.,Speaker C: I think the key actually, George the key is just don't turn up and you'll win an award.,: Yeah, well, it didn't work last year.,: Let me see. Do I have it here?,: The best speech, actually, was a woman who said, I thank myself.,Speaker A: Oh, really?,: Because it was a self submitted it was a self book on the gig. It was not through an agent. So she said, I thank myself.,Speaker A: There you go.,Speaker C: Well, that was a good nice.,Speaker B: Absolutely.,Speaker A: Yeah.,Speaker C: Now, we should be thanking Waves, actually, because Waves have just announced that you can use their plugins if you pay your subscription, I guess it is, on.,: Two computers without having to beg them for it because you could do it before by begging them and they would let you use it on two computers. But now it's official.,: Yeah, they would always let you do it on two computers if you maintained your whoop. Actually, that was one of the benefits of maintaining the whoop. But it is interesting. In the email, it very explicitly says this is for the same operator.,Speaker C: Here comes your takeaway.,: They're using the same exact business model as Adobe does, where the activation is good on two machines. If you log into a third machine on Adobe, it will tell you you're on a third machine and you must disable another machine and or it disables all of them and then you just start reactivating again. I can't remember which one it is.,Speaker A: But it tells you. Yeah, it tells me anyway.,: Yeah.,Speaker C: Which is really handy because as I've said many times before, I don't know anybody that actually works on one computer. We all have at least two devices that we work on. So it makes perfect sense to be able to do that. And it's funny because I don't know whether Twisted Wave you can use at one license on two computers. I'm pretty sure. Steinberg you can't.,: So, Twisted Wave, before the new subscription plan, it was unlimited. And I know that because I've used it on unlimited computers, technically. I mean, every computer I've ever owned has had a license.,: Just drop your license.,: I don't remember or recall reading any stipulation on the site about numbers of computers per user. So they may still be holding on to that same policy. I don't know. I would have to look that up.,Speaker C: Yeah, because it is very handy.,: I mean, it's interesting because it is like a potential leak of licenses for them. But at the same time, to police it, you have to make that into the licensing structure. Especially for Twisted Wave. They are doing their own. We're basically licensing through Ilock so we don't have to build it and we just live within the structure that they provide.,Speaker C: Which leads me to the next bit, because when you jumped online, George, we were having quite a deep discussion about the pros and cons of the eye lock.,: I was literally saying I was looking forward to the day where I could open my house, start my car, like you name it, with my eye lock.,: Well, once you're in an ecosystem, you want everything to be in that ecosystem.,: Whatever that yeah, my keychain would be so simplified.,Speaker C: It would be just one it would.,: Be nice if it was also a pass key as well. So it had the password manager for all of your stuff.,Speaker A: That would be nice.,: Yeah, it's really interesting. If I lock was supposed to get into that and then you could have a hardware dongle for your pass parents. My parents would actually relate to that. That's funny.,: Yeah. It's so much easier than saying, okay, use this authenticator app on your phone that you installed just to use this one thing and open that app up and then authenticate off of that. It's a lot for the user.,: The two factor authentication sometimes is annoying, and I'm trying to get all my two factor over to Google Off, but I have some that's through my text, some that's through the email, some that's through Google Off.,: I mean, it's difficult for us. I mean, imagine what it's like for know the know the regular user. Or Andrew.,: Or Andrew.,: It's very challenging. Well, I just checked on Twisted Wave FAQ. Can I install Twisted Wave on more than one Mac? Yes. According to Twistwave's license, you're allowed to install Twist Wave Mac on as many computers as you want, as long as you are the main user. It says the main user of the license. So that would mean to me that you could have an assistant or an editor or an engineer working with you sharing that license. That's what I interpret that as to say.,Speaker A: But anyway, okay, so Voodoo Sound bought Twisted Wave, and Mrs. Voodoo Sound was using Twisted Wave upstairs in the voice booth for her own voiceover company. Even though you could technically say that Voodoo Sound is at this premises, is that this is where it gets interesting, doesn't it? And you can get yourself in trouble.,: It's two simultaneous uses for it's, like being, very strictly speaking, even though it's one household, it is two uses on two jobs. And I think the intention is that you as a person cannot be duplicated, and so you should be using your license once, regardless of where you are. Here's the way Waves phrase it. Starting November 1, we will add a second license to all active creative Access subscriptions, allowing subscribers to use their plugins on separate computers without having to move licenses between devices. The second license is for use by the owner of the main product license only.,: Yeah, I think that's what Thomas's and.,: They do state it. And it's an honor system is what it is.,: He's just not getting as quite as a fine tooth. He didn't have an attorney rewrite it for him. It's just him trying and I'll speak for Thomas when I say this, so you have to verify with him is really he's going again by a bit of an honor system, which he's known for that anyway, like for many, many years. He didn't enforce really anything with the license.,: Did he do anything else or did he only do Twisted Wave?,: I only know him as doing Twisted Wave, period. And then he branched out to the iOS version and then the online version, and then the Windows version.,: His whole living. He feeds all twelve of his kids through Twisted Wave?,Speaker A: Yes.,: Well, he's got four platforms he's supporting now. So it's a lot to support and keep running and debugging.,: I mean, it's impressive because he had a pretty permissive licensing thing and he's a one man show. It's amazing actually, assuming he does not have some other second gig and that this isn't just like a side hustle, it's actually impressive.,: My understanding is he doesn't have a side hustle.,Speaker C: No, it's definitely not taking up enough.,: Time that he just can't do other things. Maybe he got the Mac version to a point where it was running so well that he thought, well, it's time, let's get the Windows version built. So the Windows version is fully released and it supports stacks just like the Mac version. You got to bring BYO plugins because there's not a single free plugin on a Windows machine. So you start right out of the gate by having to get plugins. Right? That's a big difference right there. But I have a few plugins of my own that I prefer to use that are totally free for those who really need to set it all up. And one of them is because of Robo himself, said have you ever used Melda Productions plugins? And I was like, Nope. And I have installed and used them and for the free bundle that they have is pretty darn feature rich.,Speaker A: There's some kick ass stuff in there, isn't there?,: Pretty darn good. Yeah, exactly. So I have used the melba. EQ. I haven't used much else from them, but it did a fine job for some folks. But I've really been enjoying being able to support that cross platform at last without having to run an actual Windows PC to make a stack. As long as I build that stack using VST plugins on my Mac, it will load those plugins and everything on the PC, which is nice.,Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool.,: Yeah.,Speaker C: Back to Thomas though. If you meet the guy, which I'm sure one day he will jump on a silver bird and head to North America at some point depending how much money he makes out of Twisted Wave. But you can tell like you meet the guy, you know, when you meet someone, you know they're just a really honest character and incredibly intelligent, obviously. And that's thomas. That's the guy.,: If he starts showing up at conferences and sponsoring, we'll know.,Speaker C: Exactly.,: As far as I can tell, he has spent absolutely $0 on marketing.,Speaker A: But it's a good product and good products market themselves sometimes, don't they? Let's be honest.,: That's what I'm saying. Can you please tell that to our department of marketing?,: Well, I mean, honestly, I never had a marketing budget until the last year or so. And now that George the tech is a team of people, marketing is becoming much more of a real thing. Like I really need to get the marketing machine running. So when you start hearing George LATEC on different places and different platforms and you start getting tired of hearing that name then it means I'm doing the right thing. So that means my marketing is working.,Speaker C: There was a thing that we used to talk about in radio and when you're at the point of hearing a song, if you work in a radio station that is driving you insane because you're just overloading on that song, you usually find that it's just starting to get some traction with the listener.,: The regular listener. Yeah, the listener in the real world.,: So as soon as we're sick of George, that's when George really hit it. That's when George changes his name to Uncle George.,Speaker C: No.,: Can't be.,Speaker A: Uncle George.,: My dad's Uncle George, Uncle George.,Speaker C: But the whole uncle thing. Yeah. All I can think of when you say uncle anyone is some old bloke in a pair of shorts that are too tight with one knacker hanging out the side. That's what it sounds.,: You got to work on that for your Uncle Roy.,: I'm just not letting my daughter call.,Speaker A: Yeah.,Speaker C: Now speaking plugins robbo, you've been mucking around with the SSL bundle?,Speaker A: Yeah, I downloaded it because I'd had the Slate Digital bundle and I sort of got to the point where there was only a couple of things that I really sort of liked and continued using being a couple of compressors, the gray compressor, fresh air, which is free anyway, and a couple of other things. So I actually let that go. And talking of budgets, I sort of realized, hey, I've got X amount of dollars a month free. What other bundles are out there to sort of rent and have a play with? And so I downloaded the SSL one which I've been playing with for a couple of months now. And can I just say, there's not a dog in there. It's so good. There's so much stuff that's sort of really nice to play with. I mean, compressors and EQS go without saying. There's some other stuff like they've they've done some instrument specific stuff. They've done, like a drum strip and a guitar strip. The vocal strip I kind of like, I guess. I mean, it's not a dog, but I don't really use it a lot. The drum strip I use all the time. The guitar strip, I don't really do a lot with guitars, so I don't have much to do with that. But the other stuff that's really good is they call it the flex verb, which is their reverb and the X delay, which is also really cool. So, yeah, there's a bunch of stuff in there that's really worth playing around with. And I guess when the time comes and I sort of get sick of it, what will I keep? I would definitely keep the reverb. The DSR is very nice. Their limiter, which they call X limit, has been the final plugin on my mastering chain now since I downloaded it because it's particularly sweet is it like a brick wall? Yeah, it's a brick wall.,: Brick wall limiter?,Speaker A: Brick wall limiter, yes. And it's just seamless, though. You get it set up right, you just don't hear it working at all. And it gives everything that sort of nice punch, obviously, that you look for from a limiter I'm really enjoying based.,: On some other model or something from their own.,Speaker A: There's a whole bunch of models of stuff. There's two bus compressors, a couple of channel strips, bus Compressor Six, I think they call it, and the Bus Compressor.,Speaker B: Two.,Speaker A: Channel Strip Two. But look, they've got a 30 day free trial, so you can have your first month on them. So definitely worth downloading and having a play with.,: You have to give them the credit card.,Speaker A: Give them the credit card. So you got to put a date in your diary if you want to cancel it. I think I'll probably have it for another couple of months. Well, until something else pops up, probably, I'll just hang on to it because, as I say, I do set aside some money to play around with new plugins each month, and that's what I've landed on at the moment. So until something else crops up that I want to try, that's where it will stay.,Speaker C: It's funny with the SSL plugins, though, because when I bought the SSL Two, it came with these plugins. I thought it was in perpetuity, but of course it was not. So there was a whole bunch of stuff like a channel strip and a flex verb and vocal strip xCOMP, there was an EQ, XEQ, X phase, et cetera, and X valve comp.,Speaker A: Sounds like you've got the same bundle.,Speaker C: Yeah, but the thing is, I can't use any of them.,: Why not?,Speaker A: You can't physically use them or they won't work on your machine.,Speaker C: I don't think I can use them because I think from memory, it was like it was just a trial.,Speaker A: Yeah, well, you would have got the 30 day free trial of this.,Speaker C: Possibly, yeah. In fact, I just clicked on it, it says all visible licenses expired.,Speaker A: There you go. Yeah.,: I've been also using the Plugin Alliance stuff, and the main reason why I got Plugin Alliance was because having a HDX card and Waves stopped doing HDX plugins, which are the DSP chip on the Pro Tools cards. So the only ones that you could really get the low latency on was Plugin Alliance. And I have to say, they have a lot of really good stuff, especially their channel strip emulations of various consoles. They have like an API and a Neve and an SSL, and like every generation of SSL and every generation of or a few generations of Neves and the Focus, right, and the AMIC 90, 98, they have a pretty broad range of plugins and they're all easily the same similar quality as the Wave stuff. I have to say, some people I think actually think better, but it's really hard to know when, like, oh, this emulation is better than that emulation. And you're sitting there going like, I've never touched the real thing.,Speaker C: Yes, exactly.,: I have no idea. Really? They sound good.,Speaker C: Well, that's true, though, because everyone that's got these buying plugins guarantee that 95%, if not more, have never actually used the real thing.,Speaker A: Oh, sure, yeah, totally.,Speaker C: So it's like you could basically sell them anything.,: You just use the same EQ algorithm in all of them. Yeah, exactly.,Speaker A: But you would have had to work in a lot of rooms for anyone to have done that. Or be a Chris Lord Algie or someone like that who mixes in different rooms. The average schlopp like you and me, who works in a studio for a few years and then moves to a different job. You certainly wouldn't have played with all of them.,Speaker C: And then half the gear that you were probably using, that was actually the original piece of equipment that they were emulating was probably broken anyway or just getting tired.,Speaker A: Well, that was part of the charm, though.,: That's my good friend Jim Reeves, who mixed a lot of stuff I mean, like, free ride and all kinds of stuff back in the day. And he was joking, but I don't think so much. He was basically saying, like, all these kids, they love the sound of analog. They're in love with the sound of a tape deck that hasn't been aligned in three weeks and its heads are worn out. That's what they think of analog, because that's what we were working on in the studios. There were cranking sessions out left and right. The decks were not necessarily aligned every single time. There was a lot of yeah.,: What people miss is the imperfections of analog. Yeah. They don't miss improperly recorded audio. They just miss the imperfections and the distortion. I mean, the thing that makes a neve preamp sound like a neve or whatever is not that's right. It's accurate. It's that it's not accurate.,: You can say the same thing for a 416.,Speaker C: Yeah, sorry.,: 41 six. That's the distortion that makes it that edge.,: It's the color, it's the EQ curve, it's the way it sounds compressed. All those things is what makes the mic work.,Speaker C: It's funny. I'm sure that we've all been down this track before, but when it's your turn to clean the heads on the reel to reel and you realize that no one has cleaned them for so long, you got the cotton bud, and it's like it's black. You go like what?,: You go through, like, ten swabs. You're like, really?,Speaker A: What do you mean, your turn? It was my job every friggin morning.,: That's exactly what Jim was saying.,Speaker C: Yeah, well, I tell you what. In the studios, the on air studios, no one did it.,Speaker A: I can imagine. Too busy smoking a joint to clean the heads.,Speaker C: Yeah, that's right.,: Blowing the smoke right onto the head.,Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.,Speaker C: And through the mic capsules and everything.,Speaker A: Sitting there smoking a siggy while you got the razor blade and the splicing block out. Yeah, totally.,Speaker C: Exactly. But that's true, though. It's the imperfection that everyone tries to emulate. But the thing is, the imperfection was different on every single unit.,: Well, that's where it's funny, because literally one of the patented things, or whatever that plugin alliance has is this thing called I can't remember it, but basically, when you throw down the plugins, if you throw down 20 SSL plugins on your daw, all 20 will be different.,Speaker C: Oh, really?,: Because no channel in real life, no channel on that board is identical.,Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.,: You all knew that there's like some channels that had the red tape on it and some had the they have the same thing where they vary the performance of the plugins themselves so that you get that same chaotic variation across your daw.,Speaker C: Yeah, because I mean, if you're looking at a huge console, there's all sorts of things coming to play. One of the main things probably is heat.,: Well, like, the channel is closer to the power supply on. Correct. Like, I have a four channel mic preamp and the channel closest to the power supply is a little bit noisier than the other two.,Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Well, there you go. Plugins.,Speaker A: Hey, plug in, baby.,: Yeah, plugins.,: Plug me in, baby.,Speaker B: Well, that was fun. Is it over?,: The Pro audio suite with thanks to Tribut and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by Robo 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 g'day. Drop us a note at our website.,Speaker B: The Pro audio suite.com.
	Promo - The Plugin Dilema	17 Aug 2023	00:00:37
Summary In this week's Pro Audio Suite podcast edition, we explore the concept of maintaining your "WUP" and its benefits. We then take a deep dive into the details, such as the explicit operator restrictions outlined in the emails. Tune in today on your favourite podcast provider. #ProAudioSuite #TriboosTech #AustrianAudio Timestamps [00:00:00] Maintaining Two Computers: WUP Insights [00:00:20] The Intriguing Pro Audio Suite: A Must-Listen To Transcript Speaker C: Coming up., Speaker B: Coming up., Speaker C: Next, the Pro Audio Suite.,: Sneak peek., Speaker A: They would always let you do it.,Speaker B: On two computers if you maintained your whoop. Actually, that was one of the benefits of maintaining the whoop. But it is interesting. In the email, it very explicitly says this is for the same operator. Here comes your takeaway., Speaker C: Now. My the., Speaker B: Pro audio suite., Speaker C: Thanks to Triboos., Speaker B: And Austrian audio. Listen now on your.,: Favorite podcast provider. 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	The Trick To Creating The Perfect Mix Minus	14 Aug 2023	00:34:57

	The Secrets behind a demo that works...	08 Aug 2023	00:36:24
Memo Sauceda was the winner of our Centrance PASport VO competition winner. He picked up a free Demo created by Robbo and AP. This week we reveal the audio, and discuss the process that has Memo shouting Robbo and AP' praises... Find out more about Memo here.. https://memo-rable.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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Review - the Konos 80-element, high fidelity microphone	31 Jul 2023	00:26:51
Konos (no we'd never heard of the either) have released a compact 80-element high-fidelity, high sensitivity microphone. It promises adjustable directivity and optional real-time noise filtering to capture the clearest sound at a distance, even in the most challenging sonic conditions. At US$5000 we were never going to get our hands on one, but we've been through the website to give you an insight into what is an intriguing development in microphones. https://www.konos-sound.com/product 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	PROMO - Konos... A new class of microphone?	26 Jul 2023	00:01:36
With 80 elements, Konos promises a high-fidelity, high-sensitivity array with adjustable directivity and optional real-time noise filtering to capture the clearest sound at a distance, even in the most challenging sonic conditions. At $5000 we don't have our hands on one, but we read between the lines to see if this mic has anything up its sleeve... 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Old Gear - Whats the go?	23 Jul 2023	00:21:32
George, Robbo and Andrew discuss the gear that once was a "must have"but these days is on the scrap heap. What do you do with them? And what about that old Mac? Does it have any value? 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	PROMO - Old Gear	21 Jul 2023	00:01:23
Next week on the show, George, Robbo and Andrew discuss the gear that once was a "must have"but these days is on the scrap heap. What do you do with them? And what about that old Mac? Does it have any value? 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Source-Connect Bridge Explained	27 Aug 2025	00:17:06
Ever been caught in a panic when Source-Connect 3 won't talk to Source-Connect 4? You're not alone. In this week's Pro Audio Suite, the team dives into the Source-Connect Bridge—what it is, why it exists, and how it can save your session. Robbo shares a real-world case of a talent stuck between versions, Robert explains how the Bridge works behind the scenes, and George breaks down when it's the best option (hint: travelling VO talent on Windows, we're looking at you). We also get sidetracked on long VO sessions, Apple's memo banning typewriters in 1980, and why agencies sometimes make a 10-second tag take two and a half hours. Whether you're a studio, talent, or just someone who's had "version hell" ruin your morning, this episode is a must-listen. 🔗 Find out more at www.proaudiosuite.com Sponsors: 🎙️ Tri-Booth – Get $200 off with code TRIPAP200 at tribooth.com 🎤 Austrian Audio – Making passion heard
	DAWs - Which one is best for Voice Actors	17 Jul 2023	00:42:16
Reaper, Twisted Wave, AUdition, Audacity, Pro Tools.... The list is endless, and there are many reasons you may prefer any one (or all) of them. But if you simply want to record and edit your voice overs, which one rules the roost and why. As usual, we deep dive into each one, and leave you with a bunch of tips and tricks that you may or may not know about,, that can help your work flow... 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	PROMO - DAWS, Which one?	13 Jul 2023	00:00:46
What DAW is the right DAW?
	What Can't you do without?	10 Jul 2023	00:36:14
Robert asked, "what are the 3 essential things you need to do your job?". We thought it was a great question, and when you put your mind to it, the reasons we spend thousands of dollars on large amounts of gear seemed a little less clear... 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	PROMO-Three Things...	06 Jul 2023	00:01:31
What's up this week on the Pro Audio Suite
	We cloned AP..	26 Jun 2023	00:17:07
OK, so we've been on about it for a while now, but it is a big issue facing our industry. In fact, a radio station in Melbourne Australia has just announced that its new Afternoon (Drive) News reader will be an AI voice... So, how good is it, and will it pass listener scrutiny? We cloned AP's voice to find out... 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Waves Director of Training and Development MPA	19 Jun 2023	00:47:11
MPA joins us for a general chat and some big news.. 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Self Noise - The what, why and how to understand it	12 Jun 2023	00:19:21
Self-noise is the signal the microphone produces of itself, even when no sound source is present, and it's a topic we've never really gotten into on the show. So this week, we held our breath (to reduce noise) and took a deep dive into the subject. 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Rode's NT1 Gen 5 - We've got two of em....	05 Jun 2023	00:22:46
We put the new USB/XLR dual output mic from Rode through its paces... 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Renters/Low Damage Sound Absorbtiton	29 May 2023	00:17:54
Building/Buying sound absorption panels is all well and good (as well as important) but what about the damage caused by hanging them? Screws in the wall, adhesive that tears the plaster when you pull it down, and the hassle of having to paint walls and fill holes when you move. Robbo is a renter and recently had to move, leaving him considering how he could avoid a couple of days of handyman work to bring the studio walls back to their original condition, and adding a new coat of paint. After some investigation, he found a solution, and this week, the team discuss its merits. 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	AI - A look at how far its come	22 May 2023	00:15:42
A few weeks ago we broke the news that AP was being replaced by one of his clients by an AI voice. It seems something we have fobbed off as "yeah some time in the future it will be a thing", but it seems it's already here. Robbo came across a piece of AI on youtube that will have you questioning how long it will be before the "underdog" becomes the norm... 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Favourite Plug-Ins: Free Gems, Old Friends, and AI Tools	19 Aug 2025	00:20:40
This week on The Pro Audio Suite, the team open up their plug-in folders and share their favourites — from free finds to trusty old processors and some surprising new AI tools. Robbo kicks things off with TDR Nova, a free dynamic EQ/multiband compressor that's perfect for VO artists working in home studios. Robert digs back into his bag of tricks with Waves C4/C6, still unbeatable for multiband control after all these years. George brings Acon Extract Dialog to the table, showing how modern AI can pull voices cleanly from noisy recordings. Along the way, we debate noise reduction chains, "less is more" processing, and why not every AI fix is the magic bullet people think it is. If you're looking for plug-ins that actually help (without emptying your wallet), this one's for you. 🏷 Hashtags / Tags voiceover, plugins, audio plugins, vst plugins, audio production, pro tools, audition, twisted wave, waves audio, izotope, acon digital, tokyo dawn records, tdr nova, waves c4, multiband compressor, de esser, noise reduction, clarity vx, source connect, home studio, podcast editing, pro audio suite 🙌 Credits The Pro Audio Suite is proudly sponsored by TriBooth (use code TRIPAP200 for $200 off) and Austrian Audio — Making Passion Heard. Recorded via Source Connect. Edited by Andrew Peters. Mixed by Robbo. Tech support from George the Tech Whittam. Got your own audio issues? 👉 JustAskRobbo.com
	On the Road....	15 May 2023	00:14:34
AP recently did a lap of Europe with the family and was (predictably) working his but off while on the road. We thought it might be interesting to compare his reads recorded whist away and compare them to the results he gets from his home studio, and then pull apart his sound! 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	The winners of our PASPort VO comp...	09 May 2023	00:10:57
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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	PASport VO - An Update	03 May 2023	00:12:44
For the past few weeks we've been tellin you about the new, made for VO, mic interface we have designed with the great people at Centrance. Conceived during the recording of an episode of the Pro Audio Suite, inspired by your feedback, and argued about, sweated over, and tinkered with by 4 VO industry vets and one Studio gear creator, the PASport VO is now a reality! And you can order yours NOW! We have a limited run of 100 that we can sell, and we're almost there, so we're looking for your help to get us over the line. Jump on and grand yours now, OR share the love, and let others in our industry know about this game-changing piece of kit. https://centrance.com/store/PASportVO-p543860783 or on the Pro Audio Suite website theproaudiosuite.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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	AI Takeover - The first casualties!	24 Apr 2023	00:20:12
The war has officially begun. The first casualties of the VO AI war have occurred, and it's not Audio Books... Keep an ear out, as we will be launching it shortly with a limited run of 100, and a fairly juicy prize for one lucky VO artist who opts in! 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Is it REAL Loopback? The New SSL Firmware upgrade	17 Apr 2023	00:26:15
SSL has released a firmware upgrade for the popular SSL 2 & 2+ interfaces, but as George is installing the upgrade on AP's machine we make a discovery that is worth sharing. We've created a survey so you can leave your mark on what will be a one-of-a-kind mic interface designed specifically for Voice Artists. We're hoping to release it later this year, and would love your thoughts on what you like and don't like about your current rig, so we can ensure the design has as wide appeal as possible. Follow the link and let us know your thoughts now. Find it on our website... https://www.theproaudiosuite.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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	The PASport VO. It's live... get it now!	10 Apr 2023	00:37:07
OK, it's here... Go get it! Conceived during the recording of an episode of the Pro Audio Suite, inspired by your feedback, and argued about, sweated over, and tinkered with by 4 VO industry vets and one Studio gear creator, the PASport VO is now a reality! And you can order yours NOW! We have a limited run of 100 that we can sell, and if you order yours in the first 14 days, you'll be in the running to win a bunch of the good stuff! The first 20 orders receive a FREE travel case, while ALL orders between now and April 25 will also go into the draw to win one of These three great prizes... 1/2 an hour with George to tweak or perfect your setup, presets custom-made for you and your setup, and access to 3 of his exclusive webinars.. 1/2 with Robert to set up your Source Connect, get help on your workflow of any other tech issues you might want to talk about. A brand new Voice Over Demo, Written, Recorded, and produced with Robbo and AP... And remember, the sooner you buy your PASport VO the more entries you get! So go grab yours NOW https://centrance.com/store/PASportVO-p543860783 or on the Pro Audio Suite website theproaudiosuite.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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	NEW PASport VO launch at VO Atlanta	03 Apr 2023	00:33:36
VO Atlanta has wrapped up again for another year, and George was there wearing THREE hats, representing George the Tech, Tri Booth, AND The Pro Audio Suites' new interface, the PASport VO. Built by Centrance, but conceptualized by The Pro Audio Suite and YOU. It's the first-ever interface designed exclusively for Voice Artists... Keep an ear out, as we will be launching it shortly with a limited run of 100, and a fairly juicy prize for one lucky VO artist who opts in! 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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	The ultimate Interface for Voice Actors is on its way...	28 Mar 2023	00:13:18
The Pro Audio Suite is putting our reputations where our mouths are and creating (in conjunction with one of the great Interface manufacturers) a brand-new interface designed specifically for Voice Actors. Simple, easy to use with all the features you would expect and need. We've created a survey so you can leave your mark on what will be a one-of-a-kind mic interface designed specifically for Voice Artists. We're hoping to release it later this year, and would love your thoughts on what you like and don't like about your current rig, so we can ensure the design has as wide appeal as possible. Follow the link and let us know your thoughts now. Find it on our website... https://www.theproaudiosuite.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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Deliverables - You won't believe what they want from you...	20 Mar 2023	00:15:05
They're the list of expectations if you want to work with a specific company. Usually quoting certain types of mics and file parameters for your audio. Recently George came across the Netflix deliverables list, and we're scratching our heads!! We've also created a survey so you can leave your mark on what will be a one-of-a-kind mic interface designed specifically for Voice Artists. We're hoping to release it later this year, and would love your thoughts on what you like and don't like about your current rig, so we can ensure the design has as wide appeal as possible. Follow the link and let us know your thoughts now. Find it on our website... https://www.theproaudiosuite.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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Headset Mics For Longform Voice Recording...	13 Mar 2023	00:13:48
Can you use a headset to record long form Voice Over work? The advantages are numerous, but there are also a few traps... We discuss them both. We've also created a survey so you can leave your mark on what will be a one-of-a-kind mic interface designed specifically for Voice Artists. We're hoping to release it later this year, and would love your thoughts on what you like and don't like about your current rig, so we can ensure the design has as wide appeal as possible. Follow the link and let us know your thoughts now. Find it on our website... https://www.theproaudiosuite.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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Latency: The Invisible Killer of Your Audio Flow	12 Aug 2025	00:40:09
Latency, it's that tiny, annoying delay between what you say and what you hear back. In the studio, online, or even in your own headphones, it can trip you up, wreck your timing, and make you feel like you're talking to yourself in slow motion. In this episode of The Pro Audio Suite, Robbo, AP, George, and Robert dig into: What latency really is (and why it's not just a tech buzzword) How it sneaks into your recording chain The difference between "good" latency and "bad" latency Fixes you can do right now without buying a new rig When hardware or interface upgrades actually make sense Whether you're a VO artist fighting through a remote session, a podcaster dealing with talkback lag, or a studio pro chasing perfect sync, this is your guide to killing the delay and getting back in the groove. Proudly supported by Tri-Booth and Austrian Audio, we only partner with brands we believe in, and these two deliver the goods for pro audio pros like you. 🎙 Listen now and get ahead of the delay. Proudly supported by our mates at Tri-Booth and Austrian Audio. Tri-Booth gives you a world-class recording space that fits in your spare room (or your suitcase), while Austrian Audio mics deliver the clarity and detail that make every take shine. We use them, we trust them, and we think you'll love them too.
	Rode's New NT1 5th Generation XLR & USB Microphone...	07 Mar 2023	00:17:59
RODE has just released the NT1 5th Generation Large-Diaphragm Cardioid Condenser XLR/USB Microphone. It fuses the classic sound signature of the legendary RODE NT1 with cutting-edge, next-generation technology. It features RODE's groundbreaking Dual Connect output, offering both XLR and USB connectivity for connecting to an audio interface, mixer or console, and other audio equipment, or directly to a computer for plug-and-play recording. It features a professional-grade audio interface built in, with RODE's ultra-low-noise, high-gain Revolution Preamp, high-resolution (up to 192kHz) A/D conversion, and advanced digital signal processing for recording pristine, studio-quality audio. It also features a 32-bit float digital output for recording everything from a whisper to the loudest drummer with no chance of clipping* and no need to set complex gain controls. These revolutionary features complement the warm silky character, extended frequency response, extremely low self-noise, and high SPL handling that the NT1 is renowned for, making the NT1 5th Generation the ultimate studio microphone for a wide variety of recording applications. Whilst we wait to get our hands on one to test, we discuss its possible uses, strengths and weaknesses. We've also created a survey so you can leave your mark on what will be a one-of-a-kind mic interface designed specifically for Voice Artists. We're hoping to release it later this year, and would love your thoughts on what you like and don't like about your current rig, so we can ensure the design has as wide appeal as possible. Follow the link and let us know your thoughts now. Find it on our website... https://www.theproaudiosuite.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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	Broadcast testing the Rode NT-USB+...	20 Feb 2023	00:28:25
A few weeks ago we did a review of the Rode NT-USB+, a very impressive USB mic from Rode. During the conversation, the guys wondered how it might hold up to the processing required to get a voice track to "cut" in a broadcast mix, and then the inevitable "on-air processing" at the transmitter. Well whilst we can't simulate a transmitter we CAN do a broadcast mix... The results?? Well, you'll have to listen for those... We're working on building the perfect interface exclusively for VO artists, we're fairly certain we have it nailed, but we also want to hear from you, the "working everyday" voice actors who are cursing your current interface whilst wishing for something better. SO... we've created a survey so you can leave your mark on what will be a one-of-a-kind product that we're hoping to release late this year. Follow the link and let us know your thoughts now. Find it on our website... https://www.theproaudiosuite.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... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones
	An Interface Exclusively for Voice Actors	16 Feb 2023	00:15:22
We're working on building the perfect interface exclusively for VO artists, we're fairly certain we have it nailed, but we also want to hear from you, the "working everyday" voice actors who are cursing your current interface whilst wishing for something better. SO... we've created a survey so you can leave your mark on what will be a one-of-a-kind product that we're hoping to release late this year. Follow the link and let us know your thoughts now.. Click Here to go to survey 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 PAP200. So get onto their website now and secure your new booth... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ 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 If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional." Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones

About us Privacy Policy