The Pro Audio Suite

The Pro Audio Suite is a podcast covering everything with Home Recording Studios and podcast setups. From room acoustics to microphones and everything in between, we cover it all. Your hosts have a combined experience of over 150 years in the studio working at the top of their chosen specialities. George "The Tech" Witham, Robert Marshall (Source Elements), International Voice Talent Andrew Peters, and Globe-Trotting Audio Engineer Darren "Robbo" Robertson all bring their unique perspective to every episode.

Austrian Audio - Mi Creator. Review... 12/04/2023

Austrian Audio - Mi Creator. Review... Last week AP unboxed the new Mi Creatore set from Austrian Audio, this week we are putting it through it's paces. While its name implies that it might not be up to the rigours of professional voice over work, our tests might convince you otherwise... 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” Hunter S Thompson Summary In this episode of Pro Audio Suite, we explore the audio capabilities of the Tributh vocal booth and Austrian audio equipment. On offer is a $200 discount code for listeners, invigorating discussions on the mastery of mic technique, a review of the sound quality of an Austrian Audio microphone, and the fantastic audio benefits of using a cardioid and hypercardioid pickup. Our panel pointed out the similar sound quality Austrian audio provides across varying price points, the possibilities of using the equipment in a stereo pair setting, and the pros of using a heavy-weighted stand. The episode concluded with an appreciation for the Pro Audio mic's simplicity, without any DSP, and its excellent headphone amplifier. This might just be an addition to your audio equipment wish list! #ProAudioInsights #MicTechniques #AustrianAudioReview Timestamps (00:00:00) Introduction to Tributh & Austrian Audio (00:01:01) Sample of Austrian Microphone (00:02:30) Cardioid Vs. Hypercardioid (00:04:46) User Feedback Request (00:08:31) Integrating Multiple USB Mics (00:11:53) Pro Audio Weight Material & Origin Transcript Speaker A: Y'all ready?,Speaker B: Be history.,Speaker C: Get started.,Speaker B: Welcome.,Speaker C: Hi. Hi. Hello, everyone, to the Pro Audio Suite.,Speaker A: These guys are professional, they're motivated.,Speaker B: Thanks to Tributh, the best vocal booth for home or on the road. Voice recording and Austrian audio making passion heard. Introducing Robert Marshall from source elements and someone audio post Chicago. Darren robert Robertson from Voodoo Radio Imaging. Sydney to the Vo stars. George the tech Wittam from La.,: And me.,Speaker B: Andrew Peters, voiceover talent and home, studio Guy.,Speaker C: Learn up, learner. Here we go.,: And don't forget the code trip a P 200. That will get you $200 off your purchase of the fabulous Triboof and Austrian Audio Making Passion Heard. And George.,Speaker A: GeorgeThe, tech TPAs for your discount codes and on over. If you need help.,: We all need help. I desperately need it, I'm told.,: Now, talking of Austrian audio, though, we did an unboxing on camera. That was last week. But anyway, this week we're giving you a sample of what it sounds like. And I keep popping. That's really naughty. This is the my creator. This is what the microphone sounds like. Any thoughts, chaps?,Speaker A: So this is just absolute, because right now mine's a bit hyped. I'm going through my 8118 and I'm definitely hyping it up quite a bit more than probably is necessary. So I'm going to flatten mine because I want to have a really good comparison. Okay. This is the eight one eight with no processing. Totally flat.,: Okay.,Speaker A: And let me hear you again.,: I'm on an unprocessed OC 16 then for a comparison, too.,: There you go.,Speaker A: Got it?,: Oh, yeah. And I've got a feeling I know it's like it's a bit of a weird test because different voices, but my feeling is listening in the headphones to both of you two. This one is closer to the OC 16 than the eight one eight.,: That was my first thought, the first time I heard you on it. Was it's very close to the 16?,: Yeah.,Speaker A: I'm looking to see what pattern I'm into because you guys would be on cardioid. I may not be. So I'm going to check mine.,: When you guys keep talking this one, because I'm pretty sure see, I keep popping.,: There's no professional on the other end of the microphone. That's the problem.,: Yeah, that's right.,: There's also no pop shield.,: If you've got shit mic technique, get a pop guard.,Speaker A: All right, well, now I'm on cardioid, which sounds a bit more natural. I was on a hyper before.,: It does, but it's not as hyped. It's not quite as 4160 sound.,Speaker A: Well, here's the thing. Like on the A one eight, when you're in cardioid, it's a true single capsule cardioid pickup. So you're actually only using the front capsule. So this would be more similar to you guys, because now I'm actually using a single capsule. When I go to hyper, the rear capsule comes into play and that's being mixed in out of phase to create that hypercardioid. So it definitely changes the way you sound on the mic.,: Did you flick it across it in.,: While I was talking, didn't you?,: Yes, it's the opposite to what you were telling. What I was hearing was the opposite to what you said, Robbo, because I think in hypercardioid there's more top end.,Speaker A: In static, it might be a more scooped sound, like more bass and more treble.,: Yeah, maybe that's.,: Yeah, could be.,: Maybe that's.,Speaker A: And this is more mid forward. Yeah, this sounds more mid forward to me.,: Yeah.,: But to me it's not as sort of hyped as this 16 or the creator that AP is on.,Speaker A: And we're hearing your mic, Robo, flat or are you still going through a change?,: No. I'm sending to you guys on source. Connect unprocessed. So I do have some processing in Pro Tools, but you guys aren't hearing that?,Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. It definitely sounds more hype.,: Let me turn it off. Hang on, maybe you are. Let me turn it off.,Speaker A: Hang on.,: Does that make a difference? Hello.,: Oh, yeah.,Speaker A: You sounded a bit like I was pretty hyped sounding earlier. When I turn this on, you get that extra sizzly top end. Yeah, I'll turn that off. And now I'm flat.,: Okay, so now we're all flat. Some kind of a noise gate going on there because all of a sudden I can hear.,: I did have a gate on.,Speaker A: Oh, yeah, me, too.,: Yes, I should have a gate on.,Speaker A: This will be an interesting post mix. You have to decide, Robbo, now, whether you process it in post or leave it. Totally.,: Well, that's the thing. I think I might just have to leave it.,Speaker A: Perhaps disclaimer this episode is raw.,: Is raw. Absolutely.,Speaker A: Just some limiting for the master.,: We're going bareback, but don't Google that.,: Isn't it interesting, though, that and we talked about this in the preview when AP was unboxing. It that Austrian audio have taken the time to make sure that all their products have a pretty similar sort of sound, regardless of price point, even, really, isn't it?,: Yeah.,Speaker A: The voicing of the capsules.,: Yeah.,: I mean, when you can say that an eight one eight, which is what, $1,500 or something, would that be right?,: I don't know. US?,Speaker A: About 1200.,: Yeah. So one $200 US. And you can say that it's reasonably close to the My creator, which is whatever we said that was 100 and something. Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it?,: I'd be curious how this would sound. As I mentioned, when we're doing the unboxing in not a perfect environment. I mean, I've got to say that I'm sitting right next to a laptop computer screens. There's nothing in here that's diffusing any sound whatsoever except my buff head. But apart from that, there's nothing else. So it's not ideal, but I'm kind of thinking of more of a tight sort of environment where you're trying to obviously control some kind of ambient noise in a room that's pretty lively if you're traveling. How this would take to that, that's what I'd be interested in. And the other thing is how it takes to EQ as well. Could be an interesting one.,: So the other thing, though, is that, I mean, this is effectively also a stereo pair, right?,: Yeah.,: Because it comes with the stereo pair.,: Yeah.,: So it'd be interesting to hear it with that open.,: Well, imagine if you were doing here's an example. If you were a voice that did animation.,: Yeah.,: You could space these two mics out by maybe 18 inches or something, and then you've got one capturing the loud source and one if you could actually split them because they can be stereo. So I guess you do, you just monitor left for the one and right track for the other one. And then if you did start overloading the mic that's closest to you, you've got the backup behind you.,: Yeah.,Speaker A: There's a lot of clever ways to use it when there's two separate mic capsules versus a mic that has a stereo mode. Like the ever popular The Yeti from Blue has that multi pattern switch where you can go from omni to cardioid to stereo to figure eight.,: Right.,Speaker A: Well, the mic like this, you have way more flexibility. You can make an XY pair, you can make a Blum line, I think, whatever it's called. You can adjust how you want to use those two mics. Like, you could literally put up a stereo XY pair in front of a string quartet or something and record that.,: But you could even fake it with if you had the two like, instead of doing XY, you just reverse one, stick it basically so the capsule is almost touching each other right. And get some kind of weird omni going. I don't know how that would work.,Speaker A: Yeah, that should work. It's two hemispherical patterns connected in the center. You might have some phasing issues at the center, but yeah, it's more flexible to have two separate microphones to manipulate and do. You can just do so much more.,: Yeah.,: I'm just curious how this microphone actually does sound to the people listening. I mean, if you're listening to it and you like it, just leave a comment down below the notes and stuff. But what I'm hearing is very pleasing, actually. And I'm quite surprised because I did think being a USB mic, that there was going to be inherent issues. The price point, I thought, was going to be an issue for it as well. But I can't really hear anything now.,Speaker A: Roblo, now, I'm not trying to make more work for you, but I'm going to propose something, is that we leave part of the show unprocessed and then you process the remainder of the show the way you normally would. So we can hear what it sounds like raw, and we can hear what we all sound like through your production.,: Through the magic of podcasting. Let's move to the processed show now.,Speaker A: Exactly.,: The point I was going to make was that as a podcaster, if you were a podcaster and you were on, I don't know, let's just pick out a yeti, or you had a chaonica eyeball or something that you were sort of using and you wanted to up your game audio wise.,: I mean, step one, tick hello for.,: 100 and whatever bucks we were just talking about, you've got a new mic.,: That'S automatically going to do that.,: Yeah.,: And it's got an interface built in, so you're set that's it exactly.,Speaker A: I like that. Oftentimes we'll kind of shy away from a USB mic for anybody that's producing content, because it's just a mic. So if you want to add a second person or you want to interview somebody else on site, in physical person, it's not as easy to integrate multiple USB mics, but here you just have that second mic and you've got a two mic system and away you go. It's a clever way, it's sort of an analog, old school way of doing it, but the simplicity of it, I think, is the key here.,: Well, the other thing, too, thinking about.,: That without thinking too deeply, but hearing.,: You say that, and it occurs to me that even if you had more than two people, with some clever placement of those two mics, you could almost.,: Mic up maybe three or four people.,Speaker A: Well, yeah, you could have two and two.,: Yeah, that's right, exactly.,: If you had three, you could have the host on his own and then with some clever mic placement, you could place the other one so that you.,: Were picking up two.,: Yeah.,Speaker A: It all comes down to the room. The room has to be good.,: Yeah, absolutely.,: If you were in a concert hall or something, you probably wouldn't want to yeah.,: But you can also get lav mics. I think they're doing a lav mic as well. That goes with know, that kind of podcasting and all that kind of it's. It's really clever. Here's a thing, I always watch Bandru do this.,Speaker A: Podcastage. Is it podcast age or podcastage?,: Podcastage. It sounds like sort of being tied up and pod hostage, kind of, yeah. I'm being held hostage, so I'm going to tap on the desk. He always does that. So tapping on the desk and this is not ideal, as I said.,Speaker A: No, I mean, I can hear that you're tapping on the desk, but there's absolutely no thumping or rumbling or anything.,: No, it's not actually in the mic stand.,: Oh, now you can hear it now on the stand.,Speaker A: I'm getting it.,: Yeah.,Speaker A: And what stand are you using? Are you using that?,: The gravity?,: Yeah.,Speaker A: So that thing actually is helping a lot to isolate the mic from your desk.,: Yeah.,Speaker A: See, what helps a lot is mass, right. Weight.,: Yes.,Speaker A: So if you have that mic on a very lightweight stand, like a little folding tripod, it probably wouldn't do as well. But putting on a very heavy weighted stand on rubber like that, that's a pretty good package.,: Yeah, yeah, I think it works.,: A I will. I'll stick the link to that mic.,: Stand you're talking about in the show notes.,: The gravity. Yeah, it's a German design. I don't know where it's made. Probably China, but it's certainly designed and engineered.,: It's made out of heavy steel.,Speaker A: Chances are it's coming out of China.,: Yeah.,: Where's the steel from? Oh, I'd say probably a hole in the ground in Australia. But anyway, that's another story.,Speaker A: Another story.,: Yeah. But the conclusion for me of this mic is just bloody good. It sounds fantastic.,: I have no issues with it.,: I like it.,: Absolutely.,: Yeah.,Speaker A: No issues at all. It sounds like you it sounds like you unmested with.,: Yeah.,Speaker A: Because we've all heard the USB mics. We've tried a lot of things, and some of the other companies are trying to be really clever with lots of onboard processing DSP, and sometimes those settings are on by default. You don't even know it. So now you're already mucking up the audio without even realizing it. And these guys are going on a more purest way, just like we're not going to muck with it. There's no DSP. It's just this is the way our mic sounds. This is the way it sounds. And that is a very familiar sound, which is a very good thing. That's what we want to hear.,: Yeah, great.,: And also, if anyone's interested, the headphone amplifier is extremely good, so that's a plus.,: Yeah, very nice.,Speaker A: So we figured out the knob is a multifunction knob that controls your headphone level and the monitor blend or mix or balance, as they call it.,: Okay.,: So the mix between you and me. Okay, very good.,: Well, there you go.,: Austrian audience, well done.,: Something else to add to the shopping list.,Speaker A: Christmas needing to just add it to their shipping list and send one to.,: The rest of us.,: Well, that was fun.,Speaker C: Is it over?,Speaker B: 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. The Pro Audio weight. /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28800223

Austrian Audio Mi-Creator unboxing. 11/28/2023

Austrian Audio Mi-Creator unboxing. The Austrian Audio MiCreator is a new type of creative tool. Equal parts high-quality condenser microphone and simple audio interface with USB-C ® connectivity, MiCreator gives you the flexibility to create what you want—how you want. Just plug in and start recording in top-notch audio quality instantly. Or expand your setup using MiCreator’s additional input to achieve stereo recordings, record an additional sound source, and more. And whether you’re recording at home or on the go, you can create with confidence thanks to MiCreator’s ultra-durable metal housing. Catch the video version here: https://youtu.be/vJBR0tBBUaw AP got his hands on one and we figured we'd share his early Christmas day unboxing it as our first video episode... 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” Hunter S Thompson Summary In this episode of Pro Audio Suite, our hosts George Wittam, Robert Marshall, Darren Robert Robertson, and Andrew Peters unbox Austrian Audio's new Creator Studio. They humorously discuss their first impressions, visual appeal, and play around with its innovative features. The product, a comprehensive home recording solution, impresses them with its sleek design, changeable magnetic panels, dual microphone system for stereo recording, and high audio quality. Furthermore, they touch on Austrian Audio's partnership with Passport VR, presenting the Pro Audio Suite version of the headset that boasts stunning sound quality. The episode is packed with enjoyable conversation, honest opinions, and valuable insights into the latest in audio technology. Don't forget to subscribe and join their Facebook group. #AustrianAudioUnboxing #ProAudioSuitePodcast #HomeRecordingSetup Timestamps (00:00:00) Introduction (00:00:52) New Audio Tech from Austria (00:01:22) Austrian Audio's Home Recording Innovation (00:03:59) Microphone Customization (00:06:30) Mic Functionalities (00:10:25) Austrian Audio's High-Quality Mic (00:14:58) Passport Vo Mic Modes (00:19:24) Praise for Austrian Audio Transcript Speaker A: We have something special inside this box which we're about to reveal. Stick around, 54321.,Speaker B: Let's go.,Speaker A: Welcome.,Speaker C: Hi. Hi. Hello, everyone, to the Pro Audio Suite.,: These guys are professional.,Speaker B: They're motivated with tech. To the vo stars George Wittam, founder of Source Element Robert Marshall, international audio engineer Darren Robert Robertson and global voice Andrew Peters. Thanks to Tribooth, 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 theproaudiosuite.com line up, Leonard.,Speaker C: Here we go.,Speaker A: And welcome to another Pro Audio suite, this time on camera, thanks to Tributh. Don't forget the code. Trip a P 200, $200 off your tribooth and Austrian Audio making passion heard. Now we're about to divulge something new from Austria.,: Cracking into a box.,: It's not even Christmas yet.,Speaker A: I know. This is it.,: I can hear the bells.,Speaker A: Well, you see, I have my Santa beard on.,: He's got the ho ho ho beard. I'm not talking about the white beard.,Speaker A: At least he gets three hoes every year. I'm lucky to get one.,: What's in the box?,Speaker A: What's in the box?,: Come on, show us the box first. What's it say on the front, Mr. Peters?,Speaker A: It says my Creator Studio.,: Nice. This is the Austrian audio. This is the new now, I've actually.,Speaker A: Had a play with this. And you've actually heard this robber? You heard what it sounded like?,: I have.,Speaker A: And so did you guys hear did.,: You get a blind listen?,Speaker C: Yes.,: Like, you did have a blind listen.,: It was one of those conversations. What mic am I on?,: Oh, I love that.,: I love and Robert was on some crappy audio technical thing.,Speaker A: But then he says to me I said, what am I? And he goes, Is that a microtech Gaffel? I'm like, no, it's a USB mic.,: He's like, holy shit. Not yeah.,Speaker A: So, anyway, so it comes with USBC comes with the does it come with two cables? Yeah, it comes with the TRS and jack. And that's for what is that? Well, that's a di on the end of that cable. That's just an unbalanced jack and a TRRS. So if you want to di into the microphone, you can use that. So di your guitar.,: So, wait a minute.,: Is that an output cable or an input?,Speaker A: An input cable.,: An input cable, yeah. We should actually mention that this is sort of Austrian Audio's nod to home recording, sort of, isn't it, really?,Speaker A: Absolutely.,: So it's not just a microphone? No, it's a microphone and an audio interface.,Speaker C: Correct. Yeah.,Speaker A: So, anyway, so you got that so unbalanced into a TRRS, into the back of the mic.,: Your normal USB, that quarter inch unbalanced, would go into a guitar or a keyboard or some instrument. Got it.,Speaker A: It's really cool. They also chuck in this, which I thought was really good because when you look at the bottom of the mic, you know when they got the small I don't know what it is in Imperial, but when you got the smaller thread in the mic, I thought, oh, that's going to be great. Trying to get that onto a stand. Standard mic stand.,: Call it quarter 20. Is that the camera standard in the US? Yeah.,Speaker A: Well, it's not actually. Is it camera? I'm not sure. Anyway.,: Is it really small or like the middle?,Speaker A: No, it's kind of like yeah, that's quarter 20. But they chuck that in an adapter, which I thought was really cool, because.,: When I looked at it so it goes from quarter 20 to five eight, which is the US imperial, whatever you call it. Microphone stand.,Speaker A: We call it Imperial, but I don't know whether imperial. Imperial.,: Yeah. We are the Imperialists. I always forget that.,Speaker A: Exactly. Now, inside we're being reminded that more.,: But that's another story. Anyway. Yeah. So what else is in that?,Speaker A: Well, this is kind of cool. You get the two magnetic panels, so if you want to change it from black to red, you can.,: What do they do?,Speaker A: Sorry?,: What did they change?,Speaker A: I'll show you. I'll show you in a moment when I get the mic out. Also your standard, like that thing you.,: Never read, that thing you throw in the bin.,Speaker A: If all else goes wrong, then maybe you'll look at that at some point.,: I have a huge bin full. You know what I use those for? It's the archive of all the crap I have bought in the last ten years in one box.,Speaker A: Well, I can tell you what these would have been used for years ago. Would have been perfect filters, but business cards, not doing the good old days. Anyway, you can't put those in your pool filter.,: Don't be silly.,Speaker A: I wouldn't be surprised what's in there. So here it is. That's the Austrian audio. My creator. And I can tell you, you would say it has some heft nice. Okay, but if you don't like the.,: Black keeps it simple, doesn't it?,Speaker C: Yeah.,Speaker A: If you don't like the black, you just go, now it's red.,: Nice. You could do they think of everything, don't they?,Speaker A: Same on the back. Chuck that on there. That one doesn't want to go on. Oh, yeah, it's on.,: See, that would go well in your booth with the red lights.,Speaker C: AP.,Speaker A: It's just perfect. It's my colors in here. Red and black.,: That's pretty cute.,Speaker A: So that's cool. But this microphone now, I don't know technically how it all works, but it's got on the front, it's got high, low and mute. Now, I do know the mute is when you're either using the other microphone that you can attach to this, or if you're using a di oh, I see what I did wrong. You take those ones off.,: That's why I didn't oh, I see, the replaceable guy.,Speaker C: Yeah.,Speaker A: But I think that this mute is for if you're running a di. I think that's how it works.,: Okay, so that mutes the di.,Speaker A: Is that what you I think it allows you to monitor, like, if you use something in the back here, you've got the in out and you've got the out. Now the out from here would either be your headphones or you run this other lead. In fact, that's the point. Where is the other lead? I'm sure there's supposed to be another one that goes out of here and into the other microphone. If you have the two and speaking.,: That will be with the other microphone, I would presume.,Speaker A: I'm guessing it makes sense. I've not opened this box, so I don't know.,: So it's not one box, it's two.,Speaker A: Two boxes.,: It's a double unboxing.,Speaker A: Double unboxing. Top that. Oh, yeah.,: There you go.,: Unboxings for the price.,Speaker A: Yeah, the leads are in there. Okay, that makes sense. So let me just get this one out.,: So what's the idea here? Do we have a two mic system?,Speaker A: Yeah. So you can run it as a stereo mic. So you can say you want to do like an acoustic guitar or something and sing. You can actually one mic on or you could do two mics on the guitar. If you're just doing that, like, you've.,: Got a vocal ensemble that you need to record. You can do it in stereo. You can put one left and one.,Speaker A: Right, but also, like, even for what we mean if you're doing interviews yeah. So then you have the if I.,: Was doing, like once I recorded a podcast down at Bondi Beach, so I can imagine I would have lapel mics on the guests and then have one of those on a couple of stands just recording Ambience in the background, even.,Speaker C: Yeah.,Speaker A: So that's the second part of the.,: Stereo, which okay, so that's the primary and secondary.,Speaker A: Yeah.,: Mic. That's the secondary.,Speaker A: So it has a link and an out. So if you're connecting the first mic to this one, you go into the link with the TRRS, whatever it is in there, and then your out becomes your headphone out. So it actually bypasses the headphone out of the main mic and then takes it into this one.,: Whoa, that's pretty clever.,: That's cool.,Speaker A: Yes, that's the other one. This is if you get the studio set, you don't have to buy them both.,: Yeah. This is the full studio set. Or you can get just the main mic as a single.,Speaker A: But I can tell you the quality and for the money, I don't know what they retail it. I haven't looked.,: I shall check.,Speaker A: But the quality of them is like it's really weighty.,: Yeah.,Speaker A: Now I don't know whether they just.,: Yeah, well, what I heard of it, it sounds brilliant. I mean, we'll obviously do a test in another episode, but from what I heard of it for 30 seconds or so earlier today, it sounds awesome.,Speaker C: Yeah.,Speaker A: So you get another couple of cables in here. What are they? Okay. Oh, you got an adapter. Okay. So you can run that into maybe a mini jack into that, and then split that into the back of the other one.,: That could be a lavalier.,Speaker A: That could be for the lav.,Speaker C: Yeah.,: So the whole system set, which is what you have there, apparently, which has the master mic, the secondary mic, the color change panels, 1232 audio cables and a USB. And I'm seeing something else you didn't mention. It looks like there's a stereo bar. Did that come with your kit, too?,Speaker A: No, I haven't seen one.,: Okay. Because on the website, it actually also has a stereo bar. Hang up this whole thing on there, maybe because you have a preview package. Yeah, they didn't have the full retail kit, but the retail kit also has a nice zippered case. Everything goes into and a stereo bar, too.,Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense.,: And that whole thing is 299 us.,Speaker A: That's crazy.,: It's a good price, isn't it?,Speaker A: For what you get, honestly, and what it sounds like. I mean, look, I didn't listen to it until about half an hour ago when we set them up, and I just was talking to Robbo and Robert and to me, it sounded really good.,: Well, for me, the sound of it is on par with the 16 that I'm on, to be honest. It sounds brilliant.,Speaker A: Yeah, it does, actually, because I was thinking, like, even for what voiceover guys do when you're on the road, just chuck that in your bag. Yeah.,: Nothing in what you were doing when you were talking on that before when I was listening, there's nothing in there that you would make you go, there's no way I'm using that for a voiceover.,Speaker A: And it also doesn't need a shock mount because I don't know where you can see this, but it's actually suspended in rubber.,: Wow. Yeah. See, that's cool.,Speaker C: Yeah.,: They suspended the capsule. That's right.,Speaker A: And you can also it's really nice, swivel the capsule to whatever you want to do.,: I know they're a sponsor of the show and people are going to go, yeah, you're only saying that because but I'm sorry, I'd say this anyway. These Austrian audio guys, they're so on the ball with this stuff.,Speaker A: I agree.,: When companies that make high quality products step into this creator space, they are now competing on price. Right. So they have to cut corners. But the thing is that the miniaturization of electronics, the quality of the capsules and the electronics are so good that they can cut all those corners, add more features and still have sound quality that rivals their studio mic. And that's the craziest part of all, because I can't wait to actually hear it and test it out.,: Yeah, like I said, I was listening on Source Connect now when I was listening to Andrew, and he'd only just thrown it up. So it probably wasn't in perfect position either for him.,Speaker A: Terrible, actually.,: And it sounded brilliant. I mean, it sounded like this. Yeah.,: I decided, in solidarity, to throw I had my other mic up. Of course, I just brought up the Austrian audio. I felt left out, but yeah. So what do you perceive you might find this good for? Do you think you could do some take it on the road with you, or what do you think you might do with it?,Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean, that could be well, that's it.,: That fits in your Vespa, right?,Speaker A: Does fit in the vespa. You're reading my mind, George. You're reading my mind as you, um san Diego nice guys.,: You know, you've just come up with a new test for the show now, every time we test new gear, is it is it Vesper worthy?,Speaker A: It is vesper worthy. I mean, you think about, like, I chuck the road case on the Vespa when I go on these tours, and this would be perfect because I don't have to worry about an interface. There's your microphone, everything. Just one cable and a mic stand. Boom.,Speaker C: Yeah.,: So little nitpicky stuff. And maybe we won't know these answers until you've used it for a while. Does it have a no latency monitor? So for headphone use, you can hear yourself.,Speaker A: There was no latency when I was monitoring at the back. The other thing that was really interesting.,: You plug your headphones directly into the mic.,Speaker C: Yeah.,: And then to hear yourself, is that the knob? Is that what that big knob?,Speaker A: Two stage knob. I don't know what else it does, but when I had it and it.,: Was showing, you click on the knob and it changes modes.,Speaker C: Yeah.,: The other one might be gain from the other mic coming.,Speaker A: I think one is gain and one is monitoring.,: Is there a gain knob on that second mic?,Speaker A: No.,: So I wonder whether that's it coming in there.,Speaker C: Yeah.,Speaker A: So it would be this will be operating everything, I'm guessing.,: Yeah.,Speaker A: But the other thing I thought was really interesting, I don't know what the gain is on this microphone itself, but the headphone gain was really loud, right?,: Oh, really? Yeah. Did you get good levels in your can in your head?,Speaker A: I had to turn it down. It was too hot coming from you.,: Yeah.,Speaker A: But yeah, it was very loud.,: Wow. Cool.,Speaker A: Yeah.,: I'm really looking forward to you doing a test with that now. I really want to hear it, put it through its paces.,Speaker A: Well, it'd be interesting to see what it sounds like in a not so well, in fact, we heard it in a not great environment because I was sitting right in front of the computer screens. But, I mean, if you're on the road and you're doing the so called pillow fort or something, which is not ideal, particularly for a microphone like this, which is. Would that be a large diaphragm? I guess it is, yeah.,: I've been looking through the manual documents, and there's a document called my Creator Faceplate Customizing.,Speaker C: Yeah.,: Wow.,Speaker A: So that means you can have your own design. Yes.,: I saw that they give you EPS, Adobe Illustrator files, PDF, and so you can literally have your own Faceplate design to your spec.,: And they will make it for you, I guess.,: Yeah. They give you all the ability to customize.,Speaker A: You've given me an idea.,: I know what you're going to say. I'm with you.,Speaker A: What am I going to say? Vespa?,: You say, I can see us making.,Speaker A: Our own well, actually, I was thinking about me then, but yeah, you're right. Well, they're both thinking about us and me and whatever. That's not a bad idea, actually.,Speaker C: Yeah.,Speaker A: Maybe we should talk to Austrian Audio about the Pro Audio suite version of.,: The that's right, absolutely. To team up with the sentence Passport VR.,Speaker A: Well, you don't need it because it's got an interface in it.,: It is a two for one, isn't it? So that knobs functionality is twofold, as you discovered. One mode, it's gain for the mic, and the other mode it's headphone.,Speaker A: Yeah.,: So I wonder what controls the gain from the secondary mic then.,Speaker A: I wonder where that I think that probably does as well. Let me go back to the other mic.,: The switch on the front, if there is a three way switch for the microphone gain, if this is at the lowest mute position, the visible red marking on the switch signals that the mic is muted on the input side. This is a so called hardware mute. Regardless of any other mute in any other program, your mic is muted, which is very important. That's why in the Passport Vo, we have a hardware mute button.,: The swear button. That's right.,: Yes, exactly. So it has the swear button in the form of that little switch. However, this only applies to the signal from the internal microphone. Anything connected to the other input jack is not needed.,: From... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28821093

The best way to use plugins on your Voice Over audio. Part 2 11/20/2023

The best way to use plugins on your Voice Over audio. Part 2 WAVES director of training and development Michael Pearson Adams (Gomez to his Aussie mates) joins us in part 2 of a chat about plugins for Voice Actors. 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” Hunter S Thompson In this episode of The Pro Audio Suite, we dive into part two of our discussion with Michael Pearson and Adams Gomez. We kick off by tackling the prevalent issue of hearing loss, exploring how it affects professional audio and the struggles people face in finding headphones that suit their hearing capabilities. Pearson expresses his ambition to build a chain for monitoring, specifically for those with hearing loss. We also delve into audio tools like the C Four Multiband Compressor and F Six Dynamic EQ, discussing their features, capabilities, and best applications. The conversation emphasizes the importance of tailoring preset tools to individual preferences, supporting efficiency in producing quality and personalized sound._QMARK #HearingLossSolutions #ProAudioSuite #TechForHearingLoss Timestamps (00:00:00) Intro: The Pro Audio Suite (00:00:39) Building Hearing Loss Monitor (00:07:36) Volume & Monitors in Mixing (00:11:29) Multiband Compressor vs. Dynamic EQ (00:12:12) Development of C Four Plugin (00:14:01) The F Six: Parametric EQ & Music Dynamics (00:17:16) Discussing Presets (00:22:10) Quality of Presets (00:28:24) Podcast Recording Technique: Source Connect & Voodoo Radio Imaging Transcript Speaker A: Y'all ready? Be history. Speaker B: Get started. Speaker C: Welcome. Speaker A: Hi. Speaker C: Hi. Speaker A: 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's international demo. To find out more about us, check ThePro Audiosuite.com line up. Speaker A: Learner. Here we go. : And don't forget the code. Speaker C: Trip a P 200. : That will get you $200 off your Tribooth. Now, this is part two of our conversation we had with Michael Pearson, Adams Gomez, if you like, from waves. This week's discussion kicks off in a different place. We're talking about hearing loss. Speaker B: I don't know. I don't want to take this off the rails too far, but something that's come up in the last couple of weeks, more than once. So it seems to be. Well, I wouldn't say maybe it's a coincidence, but maybe it's just the sign of the times and the fact that my clients are all getting older, but people are having a hard time finding headphones that work well for them anymore because of hearing loss. The topic came up. One person asked me about having their hearing aids tuned for professional audio. Another person asked me about just choosing headphones that are better for their hearing. And nothing that they tried worked well, probably because they have severe hearing loss. : I was going to say Friday, but normally ice cream, right? Speaker B: So what I'm getting at is I've been starting to want to build a chain for monitoring, specifically, especially for those with some hearing loss. And I'm wondering what other tool set you think might be useful. Like, if I was going to build a studio rack for a monitoring chain, is it just EQ or. I'm actually looking at compression and EQ together, because if you've lost some hearing in a certain band and you boost the bejesus out of that band, that could be bad too, right? Speaker A: Two syllables. F sIx. Speaker B: F six. Okay. Speaker A: F six. : Six. Speaker A: Floating bands of multiband equalizing compression gives you the ability to choose the threshold on each and every one of them, move them around, and actually decide how each of those bands is compressed or expanded based on the reaction of the voice coming into it. To me, that would be the best starting place for you to create a chain like that would be that plugin. Speaker B: Because it's obviously the only person that can decide if it sounds right is the listener. Like the person that has a lot. So the way I would have to do it would be to log in remote source, connect in remote into their screen, load the plugin, put it into a chain, and then just hide everything. Speaker A: And give them the macros and name the macros appropriately. Speaker B: Yeah, well, yeah, that would be the end result. Exactly. But to have that ability for them to sculpt the sound of their own headphones in a way they never could before, this sounds like the right tool to attack that. I want to start looking into building those chains for people because hearing loss is an issue. Speaker A: There is a risk there as well. And I talk about this in a completely different way for this than I would if this was music. So, for example, in the music world, we have the lowest latency, as in zero latency vocal tuning, plugin, wavestune, and Wavestune live. And there's always been a lot of stigma about, oh, you can't have tuning. It's like one of the best things a tuner can do, if it's used properly, is give the singer confidence. Not fix them, but give them confidence. So if it's on in the monsters, it gives them confidence to remember that they are good and they can do a great job. And that in itself, that confidence minimizes any sharp or flat notes because they're not nervous. Now, on the other end of that spectrum, George, is in a voiceover world, the first thing that comes to my mind as a concern by creating a chain that lets them hear it properly is making sure that they're not hearing. To use an analogy, to make sure that they don't think they're in a Porsche when they're in a VW, as far as other equipment, because audio processing can make you sound amazing, but it also could hide multiple issues with the track that you're recording if what they're monitoring isn't what's being sent to the client. Speaker B: I would never recommend someone who has loss of hearing loss unless they are an actual engineer with years of training. I would never suggest that they go into this thinking that they're going to fix their own monitoring themselves without the ears of another engineer or an engineer with good hearing or trusted hearing that can make a judgment, help judge them on where those settings should be. I know they could dig themselves into a heck of a big hole. It cannot be a replacement for everything else that we talk about. Proper acoustics, noise, floor mic technique, et cetera, et cetera, et know. : Well, usually with hearing loss, it's the upper frequencies that go first. So my idea would be to talk to Yamaha and get them to build headphones that sound like NS ten s. Speaker B: Well, the headphones that you have, you're still using the Austrian Audio 55s, right? The X 55s, yeah. Remember when I reviewed those with you and I thought they were too mid range forward? Right. I didn't like the way they sounded. Yeah, correct. But for you, they were a great match. Right? Yeah, that's the thing. And so headphones are, again, extremely subjective, but it can be a maddening process to try out a lot of different headphones. Like this client of mine. : What was the headphone that rang out your ear from the inside? And then I tried your curve. How did that work? Speaker B: They were really uncomfortable. Yeah, really? They had in ear plugs that plugged into the inside of your. Like, they literally went into your ears. And then they had a surround cup that went around the outside of the ear. : It was a little. Speaker A: That sounds horrible. : They sound like my in ear, like. Speaker B: The one they're called Noritones or Nora something. I can't remember what they were called. I returned them. But the idea there being that, yeah, you can make corrections to a point and then eventually your hearing loss is going to be too poor. : Well, also, you can't correct it when you can't hear at some point. Speaker B: Right. : So just cranking it up, you just end up with feedback through your hearing. Speaker B: That is true, yeah. Well, I mean, my friend is an optometrist or optimist. My friend is an audiologist. And they said the danger is if you do continue to boost, let's say four K, two K, whatever the frequency band, you're still subjecting that SPL on the eardrum or more, you're continuing to cause damage. So it's a tricky situation. But thanks for the F Six recommendation. I'll look at. Speaker A: So there's a couple of things about that while we're talking about it. I just want to mention briefly, for all you lovely people out there, quick analogy. On my phone, I have a setting on my phone, just in the basic phone settings that limits the loudness that is allowed in my headphones on my phone. And I can change it to whatever DB I want. And I have it set fairly conservatively because I value my tool. That makes me money, my ears. But then on top of that, I also have a pair of very large monitors here in the studio that I have a mark on the output knob on the audio interface that I do not go above because at that point I know that I'm damaging my hearing. So my advice is always get used to listening as low as possible, because you can, and this is something that Jeff Thomas told me Robbo, years ago when I was his student, was if you can hear everything at a low volume, then it'll sound great loud. If you hear everything when it's loud, you won't hear everything at a low volume. : You do have to stay at the right place when you're mixing within the Fletcher Munson curve to make sure that you're know if you're listening too low and you don't ever check it out up there for just a moment. And I'm not talking about hearing damage level, but you'll just lose the bass in the high end. It's just sort of the way the ear at lower levels loses the outer extremities first. : I think like anythinG, though, I think checking your mix on different monitors. I mean, I always check at different volume levels. I mean, different levels. Yeah. The dim button is regularly used for me. I'll listen to it in a pass and then I'll dim it and switch monitors and have a listen that way and just flick around. I mean, you could muck around with a mix forever, I guess. But I think they're the two essential things is volume and different monitors. : I'm constantly surprised when I think back when I was living in Sydney and in excess had Rhino Studios, rhinoceros, and I was there for. They were recording. I think I was there for Kick and X. I can't remember. No, it was definitely kick. Speaker A: It was kick, yeah. : So I was in there for Kick and I remember sitting there when they were recording and stuff and it was. Speaker A: Chris Thomas English showing our. : Know and then someone, oh, we're just doing a playback of one of the songs I think was going to be the single. I can't remember. Come and listen. So we're into another room to listen to the playback. It was so fucking loud. I don't even know what the song was. I have no idea. I don't know what they were hearing because I couldn't hear anything. : It's probably what you need. The first single was it? : Probably. : I hate it when people, when you're in a room and it's really loud and you're just like, I don't want to be in here and you got to get out. But not. You really shouldn't go above 80 or you should keep that at maybe the top average. Speaker B: Average. Yeah, maybe peaks of 90 to 100, maybe. It is amazing. The iPhone has the ability now to monitor your surroundings. And it will actually. Or the watch, I think, more so. And that's almost like a reason to get the watch. I keep trying to not buy the damn freaking Apple Watch. I'm like, I don't want another addictive gadget, but the fact that it does monitoring the noise levels around your environment and lets you know, yo, you were in an unsafe noise level environment, just so you very. Speaker A: That's cool. Speaker B: It's a really good idea. I mean, it's almost a reason to get one of those things. : Tipto can't hear what you're hearing in your headphones, unfortunately. Speaker B: No, it can't do anything for headphones. No, you're absolutely right. Absolutely right. : I wanted to ask a question a little bit more if Gomez is here. So I love the C Four, and I use it like an EQ, and I use it like a compressor, and it's my deesser, and it's just like, whatever the hell you want it to be. And the F Six is kind of a dynamic EQ. The C Four is a multiband compressor. You see how the different frequency bands work, essentially, like, you're able to tune the F six more precisely. That is very true. But what are the other kind of differences between, say, a multiband compressor and a dynamic EQ? Speaker B: Oh, boy. : What uses. : Wow, that's a can of worms. Speaker B: This I want to hear. Speaker A: Okay, so firstly, let's talk about the C Four, right. The C Four was a plugin that we developed, not for studios, but we developed it for live. And it kind of was a mixture of. Okay, so let's deal with something that gives you compression, expansion, bit of limiting dynamic EQ, normal EQ, and then has this one floating band, which we honestly didn't think anybody would use. And then everybody lost their shit over the floating band of the C Four. Sorry, not the C Four. So when we updated it, when we went to the C Six, we put the floating band in because people are. : Like, that's so funny. Do you know what? I lost my shit over in the C Six? What was the individual key per band? That's so awesome. It's like, automatically duck it. But you don't have to duck the whole music. You can just sort of carve out some frequencies for the voice, and it doesn't sunk the music, like, fell out of nowhere. Speaker A: Well, the beautiful thing about it is it lets you apply per band, compression, expansion, upward expansion, and to a point, dynamic EQ. This was a tool that, again, is still very much a broadcast person and live person tool. And we found a lot of studio people, not all studio people. I'm not going to generalize, but we found a lot of them were like, we just can'T work out the use case for this. : Deesser. Yeah. Why have a Deesser when you can just have a multiband compressor with little compression on the high end? Speaker A: Because it's not the way you're thinking with your broadcast and your post production hat on. Not your music production hat on. So now let's go to one of my favorite products, the F Six. The F Six is literally, okay, so everybody loved the floating bands in the C Six, so let's just give them six floating bands. What we did was we took our best code of parametric EQ and let you boost, cut, define change the thresholds, cues, everything on it, so that your EQ basically flows with the music dynamics. And it's not just a static boost or a static cut. One of the best things that you can do with the F Six is go, okay. Right. So use it as an EQ if you want, but then if you actually, then choose. Okay, cool. So on this one I'm going to make this a mid or a sides processing channel, and on this one I'm going to use this one with an external side chain. So you can have all of these things going on. And every single one can have a different side chain if you want to. : The F Six has a separate side chain for each band. Speaker A: Yes. : Very sick. I kind of think of one of the differences as being the multiband approach where you have the filters that are always going to trade off with the next frequency band. Sort of keeps you in line, keeps you more flat, and you're kind of doing more general sculpting. Whereas the F Six being you got bandwidth, you can overlap things, you can poke a hole in this and not in that. Speaker A: I use it for poking a hole in the mix all the time. : I'd say that it's much more possible to get lost in the F Six and it's possible to, obviously with the C four you can do crazy stuff as well, but just that nature where the bands don't overlap and you're always dealing with sort of an equal amount across the board. Speaker A: Having the crossovers and the visualization of the crossovers between these plugins has helped people a lot, but I actually find more people in user land for us get confused when they're talking to me about, okay, so talk me through the C Four. And this comes down to development and research and design as well. It's like C Four, I find, confuses people on getting the best out of it. Way more in 2023 than the F Six. The F Six, they look at and go, oh, okay, cool. All right. I understand it because we made it feel and look more like an EQ than compression, but it's both. Speaker B: Yeah. I really like the design of that. I'm going to start exploring it more. I've played around some others, and this one looks more powerful and more flexible. And to be able to set up a deesser that's really precision and de harsher and do all that dynamically, that's very compelling. I can set that up in a chain. Speaker A: Yeah. I love this plugin. I really do. : It's the go to plugin in my template, to be honest with you. Speaker A: Thank you. : Oh, really? Speaker A: Thank you. : Hey, I want to throw one at you, and you could maybe dispel a bit of an argument that I've had with a few people. I want to talk about presets for a minute, because the presets that come with wave stuff are usually very good. There's no arguing with that. But I come across two schools of thought. I come across the people who basically go, I love the such and such preset on this plugin. So I put the plugin on the track and I turn it on and now don't really play with it. My argument would be that, yes, it's a great preset and it sounds good, but it's designed around someone else's voice. A different instrument. A different sounding instrument. Whatever the case may be, it's always going to need some tweaking. Would you agree? Speaker A: Firstly, when we're talking about presets, I feel like this year, well, actually, in the last two or three years, we've kind of moved across a big bump of discussion, and we've gone from presets are bad, it's like it's cheating and all this kind of crap to presets are great. Thank God these software companies put so many of them in. Let me just take you through for a second. So everybody knows how these presets come about and how... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28574758

Promo - Helping with your hearing loss 11/15/2023

The best way to use plugins on your Voice Over audio. 11/13/2023

The best way to use plugins on your Voice Over audio. WAVES director of training and develpment Michael Pearson Adams (Gomez to his Aussie mates) joins us in part 1 of a chat about plugins for Voice Actors. 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” Hunter S Thompson Summary In this episode of the Pro Audio Suite, we introduce our special guest MPA, also known as Gomez from Waves. We deep dive into the realm of audio plugins, focusing on user-friendly options for the less technically inclined. Gomez explains how these streamlined plugins can simplify tasks, such as noise reduction and reverb clean-up, in audio recordings. However, the debate ensues on the importance of pre-recording room preparations and the potential overuse of reduction plugins. The discussion also touches on the advancements in AI technology for handling audio issues, the concept of "best edit," and the niche specificities of various plugins like Clarity DXD Reverb and Dereverb Pro. Use code Trip200 to get $200 off your Tribooth. #AudioEngineeringSimplified #ProPluginInsights #KeepingItSimple Timestamps (00:00:00) Introduction with George Wittam and Robert Marshall (00:00:38) Discussing Noise Reduction Plugins with MPA Gomez (00:08:38) Mastering Extreme Editing (00:15:50) The Art of Invisible Editing (00:16:48) Exploring Plugin Niches 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.,: And don't forget the code. Trip 200 to get $200 off your Tribooth. Now, we have a special guest today, MPA, known to us as Gomez from waves, is here to talk about some simple, let's put it this way, plugins for people like myself. A simpleton when it comes to audio engine. Simple people. Exactly.,: Right brain, folks. Right brain. Not simple, just right brain.,: Yes, exactly.,Speaker A: And I guess that's where the premise for this episode came from, really, was about keeping it simple. Because I was reading a Facebook post from a guy who was proclaiming the fact that he'd sort of been doing a session in a hotel room and hadn't bothered to build the pillow fort or do anything to negate the sound of the room, and then recorded his session and then used some sort of noise reduction plugin, like clarity, like whatever, like RX, to clean it up. And my first thought was, well, you're making the plugin work harder than it needs to, and that means that you're going to end up with artifacts in the audio that you want to keep because you've got this thing working so hard. Whereas I would prefer to hear, as an engineer, I would prefer to hear that you've done what you can to negate the room and then used a noise reduction plugin. If you feel it is absolutely necessary to just clean up what little artifacts are left, because there's less chance of that doing any sort of damage to the audio that I want to use. But then also, for voiceover artists and people who aren't techie, the words ratio attack time release time threshold mean nothing. So how do you use these plugins? And I guess the reason for getting you on, Michael, was to sort of, you know, what can they do?,: The thing with Pillowforts, from a pro point of view, and an advisory point of view, is people can actually go way over the top with those to the point that it degrades the sound more is not better. And I say the same thing to somebody. It's like when I'm advising them. And they say, well, we've been recording the voiceovers in the clothes closet. And I'm like, okay. And the result, they're like, well, it sounds really muffled and horrible and dead. There's no higher or mid or high frequencies. And I'm like, okay, so the first thing I want you to tell me is, is that cupboard filled with coats? If it's filled with things like coats and nothing else, then you're basically killing your sound. If it's filled with things, that is a variety of different kinds of cloth and material, you've got a much better chance of it just stopping audio dead rather than absorbing it. You don't want everything absorbed. You want it not bouncing around the room. The other one that I always love is when somebody goes, yeah, well, I put pillows and stuff around me. And I said, well, where in the room are you? This is next to the window. I said, you mean that floor to ceiling window in most hotels? Yeah, that's the one. It's a beautiful view. I wanted to see the view. It's like, well, the view is killing.,: You right now, bouncing off the window.,: Yeah. So there are varying levels of problem that need to be looked at. And that's literally one of the first things that we do when we're helping somebody is go, not only tell me that, yes, you're doing a pillow for this, I want to know what kind of clothes are in those closet. Not in a creepy way, but are we talking heavy winter coats? Are we talking big felt coats? Are we talking dresses, jeans? What are we talking about? How high?,: But at some point, do you solve the problem acoustically so much that you don't need a waves product? Or at what point is it like, okay, well, I can't actually bring in, or maybe I don't even want to go through the extent of flipping the mattress up on its side to put it along a wall.,: Flipping a mattress, as far as I'm concerned, just says more like you're worried about an assassin. So nearly every single masterclass I do with my waves hat on, I spend as much time telling people about the fact that I want you to use as few plugins as you possibly can to making sure that you're just not overdoing things. And it's one of the biggest problems is that people throw plugins on with way too much kind of ease and breeze without actually really thinking about it sometimes. And that also degrades. So you have to really decide, is this plugin going to fix something? Or am I just putting it on because I've heard it helps.,: You don't hear it helps, but you heard it helps.,Speaker A: Yeah. But the other thing is, too, Gomez, is that you should exhaust all your options in terms of getting a clean recording before you even put a plug in.,Speaker B: Yeah.,: Right.,Speaker A: To just open up the mic in the middle of the room and then go, oh, well, I'll just chuck a plugin on. In some cases, you're going to have to work that plugin so hard to get it cleaned up that it's to the detriment of the audio. Whereas if you've done everything, you.,: Absolutely.,Speaker A: And then you only need a tiny bit of plugin to get that tiny last few artifacts out of there, then that's a much better way of approaching it.,Speaker B: Right.,: There's also the positioning in a locality, too, of your face and your mouth to the microphone, even when you're in a. You know, if you're. If you're in a room that's really kind of echoey, entirely like a normal hotel room or anything that's got wooden floors, like this room, for example. I have no plugins on this because I didn't have time to put any on. But the simple reality is the closer you get to the microphone, the more chance that you've got of mitigating some of those issues without putting anything on it at all, and then you've got more of a chance of, okay, so what do I need to put on here? Clarity VXD Reverb or clarity XVX D Reverb Pro are definitely plugins that I wave a flag for the amount of effort, the amount of years, and the amount of time that we put into them. And people shouldn't buy them or try them just because somebody said years. There's just as many things out there that sound amazing, that somebody created in a month. But we did that. There's so many samples that we fed into this AI, like hundreds of thousands. And because of that, the result is it really works. But again, like any plugin, you can't overdo it. So my best suggestion with a plugin like Clarity VX de Reverb in a hotel room or an office or somewhere where you are, that is not your ideal place, or the place that you know is take it all the way to the extreme and then pull it back.,: Just a quick question for you. So if I was in a position where I couldn't actually manage the room that well, I've done everything I possibly can to control whatever artifacts, particularly reverb in a hotel room or whatever. If I use clarity VX de Reverb, is it destructive? So when I'm sending the file off to an engineer, can they?,: That depends on your routing. What platform are you using it in? How would you be setting it up?,: Well, I'm just saying if I give it too much, is it going to.,Speaker A: Do damage to the audio? Yes, it will do damage to the audio. Like anything over compressed, over noise reduction, overuse of noise reduction. You can even over EQ. Really?,: Yeah, definitely.,Speaker A: Anything like that because you're fucking with the audio. So you're changing the audio. Yes. It's, as Gomez said, hundreds of thousands of samples. But if you make it work too hard, it's got no choice but to start eating into the audio you want to keep. I would presume Gomez is.,: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Which is why I say take it all the way to the extreme and then work your way back.,: Yeah.,: And by the way, I give that advice for pretty much every plugin. It's like if you really want to know how to use subtracted EQ, go to the extreme and then move your way back. Same with compression and everything else, but with something like an aipowered de rumor, which is effectively what clarity DXD Reverb is. It cleans up the noise and the reverb in the room. You are going to get to a point where you're basically saying, okay, I've taken it out of automatic mode and I'm just going to get what it gives me on extreme and it's going to kill your audio file. However, I will tell you that it's very hard to do that in clarity. Any of the clarity plugins, because way back when we released vocal rider. Remember vocal rider?,Speaker A: I use vocal rider all the time.,: Okay, so Vocal rider was one of the first plugins that we ever designed and developed that was focused specifically on identifying the frequency range and spectrum of a human voice. So if you put vocal rider on like a drum, it's not going to work as well as a human voice. It's not even going to know what to do with it. You put it on a guitar, same deal. It's not going to know what to do with it. This is also why we then released bass rider. And then we focused that on the spectrum and frequencies for bass. Now, going back to vocal rider, that was our first jump into that field of, okay, so we want this to only understand what's going on with the human voice. Now, let's move forward to 2021, 2022, when we released Clarity VX this is very much designed around the human voice, and we've actually created it in such a way that it's hard to really mess it up. But depending on how much noise you've got and how bad the room is, especially on the pro version of the plugin, where there's more to tweak. Yeah. You can over dig yourself into a hole with the simple one with just a big knob in the middle and a couple of small switches. It's really hard to mess it up.,: Can I ask you, when does it go from being reverb to being resonance? Or maybe early reflections? Right. Because there's a certain point where Reverb is the artifacts or the room itself. When it gets to a certain size, maybe less than, I don't know, six by 8ft or something, reverb no longer is the same problem anymore. Now you're dealing with, like, pressure zones and early reflections. Are we getting to the point yet with AI where we can start actually dealing with that stuff too? Because you sound like you're in a tube. You sound like you're in a box problem. Are we getting to the point where we can fix that too?,: I figured that's part of the room, part of the reverb.,: It is part of the room. And dereverb it totally is. We can fix that.,: That's awesome.,: Yeah.,: Because that's much more complex than just a reverb tail.,: Well, that's always been the problem. Most other, there's been various de reverb plugins out there. And to be honest, what I used to use before clarity came out with a dereverb is you just take a waves C four and you put it all the way on expand, and you can tweak each frequency band and you can kind of sit on the tail. And none of the other products out there could get rid of the early reflections, which were really the telltale sign of you being in a small space, right? Essentially, yeah.,: There's a lot you could do with clarity VX, just the noise fixing plugins. But with de Reverb, we went all the way. And it's down to the little nuances of reflections as well as the big tails and everything else. It's like we want to make you sound like you're in a room that has no reflections. And that's one of the reasons why one of the controls you have is basically controlling the presence of the plugin. And it kind of takes your voice and makes sure that you're telling the plugin. Okay. So now that we've cleaned up that noise. I want you to take my voice and focus more exactly on that. And then the plugin will go, okay, right, so now you're in a cleaner room and you've got the ability to take your voice and put it right out front. So the other thing that you can do is you can basically choose which neural network you want to use. So if you're doing spoken voice, pick one for spoken voice. If you're singing, then use that neural network. You can choose whether you want stereo or whether you want mono. So if it's just a voiceover and that's it, then you can actually tell it, okay, I'm just dealing with mono single here. And it's going to work in a different way, but it will clean it up really nicely for you.,: It's funny, though, because it is quite subjective. Because I do remember I was away in April, and I obviously had to work while I was away in some pretty weird environments. And I sent a file to Robert. And I sent the same file. In fact, I think I sent it to all three of you, George and Robbo. I got feedback from Robbo and I said, would you use that? He said, yeah, I'd use that. And I got one back from Robert saying I wouldn't be happy if I received that. So to me, that is a sign of the whole thing being a bit subjective as well. Some people have no problem with it, and some people have a major problem with.,Speaker A: Audio is subjective, I guess, in its own, in and of itself. Audio is subjective, I suppose.,: Yeah. But the question, of course, is. So if that's the case, would I use it for Robo? No. Would I use it for Robert? Probably.,: It also depends on your listening environment. I mean, I can tell you that if I'm listening to something in this room, in this home studio, through my speakers, then it's going to sound different to if I'm in British Columbia at EA Sports in their mastering studio, and the same voiceover would sound probably completely different because they're listening to. There I'd be listening through PMCs, and here I'm listening through Adams.,: They're in a very expensive room, I would guess.,: Yeah. EA Sports has, I think, about 28 rooms right now.,: I heard the video game industry is doing okay. Like there's a budget these days.,: Their audio rooms are insane. You know, when a company like EA Sports stops calling itself a headquarters and calls itself a campus.,Speaker A: Welcome to the Voodoo Sound campus. Can I just say too, by the.,: Way.,: Campus is a road.,Speaker A: Yeah, campus is a row of tense. Let's have a look at something else. Speaking of games, say I'm a voiceover artist and I've just finished recording an hour or so of gaming voiceover and I look at the file and I think, oh, shit, that's a little dynamic. And for whatever reason, God knows why, but I feel like I should put some compression on it. But the word ratio to mean means nothing and attack and release time. What's a good one for that?,: Something really transparent and relatively hard to screw it up too badly.,: Yeah, well, everything. You want everything to be the best edit that you never heard. If somebody is listening to something and going, oh, there's a plugin on that, then you failed. It's as simple as that. So the term the best edit I never heard is one of my favorites.,Speaker A: I use it all the time. I stole it off.,: You did, didn't you? Yeah, I did, yeah. So now that I've said that, I forgot what you asked Rob.,Speaker A: So something like, I mean, my thought would be Avox, but you guys also have all the one Knob series and all that sort of stuff for someone, a compressor in the hands of somebody who knows nothing about what they're doing but needs to put a tiny bit of compression on something.,: What's a good one in that case? Yes. Rvox. So in studio rack I have a chain that I save and it's just my voiceover chain for this specific microphone. And the first plugin on it is clarity VX de reverb. The second one is Avox and the third one is one knob brighter.,Speaker A: Such a good plugin.,: Which one, sorry, let me say it in another.,Speaker A: Move back to Australia.,: There you go, one knob brighter.,: Brighter.,Speaker A: One knob brighter is such a good plugin and I think we've talked about this before, but Slate digital do a similar one, fresh air, but they're both equally good and I guess, I suppose, like clarity and all the other noise reduction plugins, each seems to have their own sort of niche that they work best in, I suppose. I think one knob brighter on voice is awesome, but Fresh air on it across a mix for me, just gives it that little extra bit of sheen.,: Oh, absolutely. And fresh air is. I nearly look at fresh air as something that's more comparative to something from us that would not be anything to do with restoration or eqing of any kind. There's a plugin which I'm trying to remember the name of and good God, I can't remember it for my life now, but it lets you adjust the width of each of your frequency groups, like low, mid high, mid high, lets you monitor them or stereo them. And I embarrassed that the product name has gone out of my head. But... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28574558

PROMO - PLUGINS FOR THE EVERYDAY VO 11/10/2023

Valve/Tube Mics and how to look after them 11/07/2023

Valve/Tube Mics and how to look after them They sound great, look incredible, and have a distinct sound that makes them unique. But how should you look after your Tube/Valve mic? From keeping dust out of the capsule to preventing it from overheating, what's the best way to care your your investment? 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” Hunter S Thompson Summary In this episode of the Pro Audio Suite, hosts Robert Marshall, Darren Robertson, George the tech Wittam and Andrew Peters dive into an intriguing discussion about unique microphone handling techniques and the associated benefits. They answer a listener's question on why some people hang their microphones upside down - a technique often linked to protecting the microphone from overheating and avoiding dust accumulation on the capsule. They also introduce a discount code "trip a P 200" to get $200 off your Tribooth, recommended as the best vocal booth for home or on the road. Additionally, the team humorously integrates tire chat, sponsored by Canadian Tire, into their discussion. Don't forget to join the conversation on their Facebook group. #ProAudioSuite #MicrophoneTips #TriboothDiscount Timestamps (00:00:00) Welcome to Pro Audio Suite (00:00:45) Hanging Microphones Upside Down (00:05:39) Trivia: The White Michelin Man Transcript Speaker A: Y'all ready be history.,Speaker B: Get started.,Speaker A: Welcome.,Speaker B: Hi. Hi. Hello, everyone, to the Pro Audio Suite. These guys are professional. They're motivated.,Speaker A: Thanks to Tributh, the best vocal booth for home or on the road. Voice recording and Austrian audio making passion heard. Introducing Robert Marshall from source elements and someone audio post Chicago. Darren robert Robertson from Voodoo Radio Imaging. Sydney to the Vo stars. George the tech Wittam from La. And me, Andrew Peters, voiceover talent and home studio guy learner.,Speaker B: Here we go.,Speaker C: Welcome to another Pro audio suite. Don't forget, if you would like to get $200 off your tribooth, use the code trip a P 200. We had a question sent to us about microphone position particularly. Why would you hang your microphone upside down?,Speaker B: The answer is pretty obvious, if you think about it.,: To get to run all the blood out of it.,Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.,Speaker C: Yeah.,: So you can record Pink, who's famous for singing on stage, hanging upside down.,Speaker B: There you go. There's another good answer to dry it out. Well, there's that as well. That's right. Yeah, exactly.,Speaker C: Or you could record like Brian Wilson in a beanbag.,: I think the new thing with microphone should kind of be like how gangsters will hold the gun sideways. I think we do the gangster style sideways microphone.,Speaker B: Right.,Speaker C: But here's another reason, a serious one. And this is a fine example of a microphone that should be hung upside down. This is the Microtech Gafel M 92.1s, featuring the original M seven capsule. And inside is a valve, or for our American friends, a tube, the EF 86 tube, which, of course, generates heat. And what does heat do? It rises. Rises, affecting the capsule. But if you hang it upside down, it goes out the bottom.,: The heat avoids the capsule.,Speaker B: And we have a wiener.,: And there's another reason. And also it gets it out of the way of the script and all that stuff.,Speaker B: Yeah. And it looks cooler, too, I reckon.,: Yeah. Those are the practical reasons for voice actors.,Speaker C: The other reason you hang your mic upside down is dust as well. So you don't get dust inside the.,Speaker B: That'S a good one. Keep the dust off the capsule, probably. Yeah, absolutely.,: And you should turn the phantom off because a polarized capsule will attract dust.,: Oh, see, I've been trying to think of good reasons to tell people to turn off phantom. I usually tell people, don't worry, just leave it on.,: I'm pretty sure a polarized capsule will attract polarized dust.,Speaker B: There's the two schools of camp. There's the school that says, Leave it on because turning on and off all the time is crap. And there's the school that says Turn it off. Because for all the reasons we've just mentioned yeah.,: I think you should therefore just turn it on to, like, 24 volts phantom when you're gone.,Speaker B: You think so? Half?,: No, you're taking me seriously.,Speaker B: Are you standing by that robert, are you going to pay all the police pay because you my mic claims? Because I want nothing to do with that.,Speaker C: No, not absolutely. But I always turn everything off anyway.,Speaker B: When I yeah, I turn off it. I put my computer to sleep, but I turn everything else off. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's the best way. I mean, God knows what's going to happen.,: Sometimes if you leave stuff turned on and the right thunderstorm comes by, kaboom. But if it's turned off, it might not quite get hit as hard.,Speaker C: That's one thing well, I bet people don't have because I've got the what do you call it, the CyberPower thing. So if we do get a major surge, it blocks it.,Speaker B: Yeah, I've got surge protection stuff on mine. But I always come back to my grandmother, because if I was talking to my grandmother when I was living in a state, when I was working in radio and there was a storm coming, she'd say, oh, I better get off the phone, there's a big storm coming. Okay, right on and see you later down the phone. She made me paranoid.,: Especially if it was like the cordless phones you had at your house back in the day when cordless phones first came out and they had the big antenna. And there used to be this guy that would walk around the block and he's like, this is so great. Because it was 900. Could go a good distance farther than WiFi. But yeah, if you're walking around with a big antenna coming off like.,Speaker C: The umbrella.,Speaker B: So if you hang your mobile phone upside down, do you still get struck by lightning?,Speaker C: No, and don't hold me to that.,: Yes. Are you sticking with that one, Rob?,Speaker B: I didn't know that. I want that court case either.,Speaker C: No way.,Speaker B: Right.,: How about we make a pair of headphones that are purely metal band made to wear in the rain?,Speaker B: There you go. Put them inside the voiceover bodysuit. Yeah.,Speaker C: With a large antenna. Like a lightning rod.,Speaker B: Yeah, lightning rod for the voiceover bodysuit. There we go.,: They can have little pokey things that get a really good contact on your temple so that when the lightning hits.,Speaker B: It just goes like, oh, look at George. There we go. George has got the metal band on his headphones. Look at that. They're cool.,: I like, George, that's too bad.,Speaker C: You know what you could do, though, just to if you wore the metal headphone and you put a lightning rod sticking out the top, then you run a wire from each side down your body and then connects to a metal plate on the bottom of your shoe. By right, you should be earthed and you should be okay in a lightning storm.,: Right. You're doing the same thing as you do to a whole house.,: Yeah.,: And we might need to do this for the voiceover bodysuit. What's it called? The lightning rod. Isn't that what you install?,Speaker B: You know what it's called, Robert? It's called the self charging device.,: The voiceover bodysuit is so goddamn soundproof that you can use it in a lightning storm.,Speaker B: There you go.,: But you need the additional add on option of these.,Speaker C: The optional lightning rollers.,Speaker B: Just gets sillier and sillier. We got to do it one day. We got to come up with a prototype.,: Didn't you send a picture the other.,Speaker B: Day, the Michelin Man? The original Michelin Man. Yeah.,: Do you know why the Michelin Man was white? Was wrapped in white tires?,Speaker B: I didn't know that either until I saw that. I know what you're going to say, so I'm not going to answer that.,: See if anyone natural rubber back in the day was white.,Speaker B: Yeah, they're white.,Speaker C: Of course they used to be white.,Speaker B: Natural rubber is white until they started dyeing it black. That's why the Michelin man's white. Always wondered that.,Speaker C: Now I know because my grandfather was a chauffeur back in the 1920s. And the car he used to drive, I can't even remember what make it was now because it was so long ago since I've seen any photographs. But that had white rubber tires, which, being a chauffeur would have been a bitch because he had to clean them all the time.,: Clean them all the time, absolutely. I'm sure that's why tires are black now.,Speaker C: Yeah.,Speaker B: Was that where white walls came from? Because the tires were white? But then we were driving on the black bitumen road, so the rubber became black on the bottom. The sides were still white, maybe.,: Yeah, probably.,Speaker C: I think when they make white walls, they actually take the black off and it's white underneath.,: I think that's how they do it.,Speaker B: There you go.,: Yeah, they wanted that white look. They wanted that classic, like a tuxedo for cars.,Speaker C: Imagine if you had white tires and you did a burnout. It confused the shit out of people behind you. They go, what the hell is a lane marking here? What am I supposed to do?,: Yeah, all of a sudden, people are like, driving in your direction. If you did a big spinning burnout, they're like, oh, over here.,Speaker A: Oh, shit.,: Check it out online. There are some red tires, some blue tires, just so that when you do burnouts, it leaves crazy colors on the street.,: Yeah, you could get like a red, white and blue tire and then you could be very patriotic about your burnouts.,Speaker C: Yes, you could. You could.,Speaker B: You have to change the name of the show now. The Pro Audio Suite and Tire Chat.,: Yeah, just general brain spillage sponsored by Canadian Tire.,Speaker B: Well, that was fun. Is it over?,Speaker A: 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 theproudiosuite.com. /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28482230

NEXUS 2 - The Professional way to record Web Based Sessions 10/30/2023

NEXUS 2 - The Professional way to record Web Based Sessions Source-Nexus I/O is a plugin and virtual driver system that upgrades your workstation with a versatile audio input-output routing solution, tailored and customizable for streaming audio seamlessly from both DAWs and Desktop applications. It Automatically connects to Source-Nexus Review for effortless streaming. This week's episode is the soundtrack to a walk-through of the new interface we recorded with Robert. It's an in-depth look at a game-changing software you can't afford to miss if remote sessions are a part of your day-to-day business... You can see the video on our YouTube channel. 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” Hunter S Thompson In this episode of Pro Audio Suite, the team introduces Robert Marshall from Source Elements and discusses the company's new communications platform for media professionals, Nexus. This platform enhances remote work by enabling content creators and voiceover artists to bring audio directly into a standalone app, and set up online review sessions with clients. Nexus also simplifies audio routing, making it easy to use, even for non-technical users. The platform, priced at $11.95 per month, promises a lot of value and utility for users. In future iterations, Nexus plans to provide more improvements and functionalities, making it an affordable, powerful tool for media professionals. #ProAudioSuite #SourceNexus #HomeStudioSolution Timestamps (00:00:00) Welcome & Sponsor Shoutout (00:00:53) Intro to Source Connect (00:07:56) Discussing Buffer Setting (00:14:41) Nexus Tech Support History (00:20:23) Source Connect for Video Editing (00:26:16) Pro Tools I o Routing Issues (00:28:41) Source Connect Pricing (00:30:59) Broadcast vs Communication Users Transcript Speaker A: Y'all ready to 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. Speaker C: Thanks to Tributh, the best vocal booth for home or on the road voice recording and Austrian audio making passion heard. Introducing Robert Marshall from source elements. And someone audio post chicago Darren, robert Robertson from Voodoo Radio Imaging, sydney to the Vo stars, george, the tech Wittam from La. And me, Andrew Peters, voiceover talent and home studio guy. Speaker A: Line up. Speaker B: Here we go. Speaker C: And welcome to another Pro Audio Suite. Don't forget the code trip a P 200 to get $200 off your tribooth. : And don't forget Georgeth tech TPAs for your deals. Speaker C: Man indeed, indeed, indeed. And don't forget demosthework.com. Anyway, that's enough plugs now we're talking. Speaker A: About Source elements.com today. Speaker C: This is a first for us, the first time we've been seen on camera, which sorry about that. It's the way it goes. Speaker A: No, scary. : Oh, crap, I forgot I should need to stop picking my nose now. Speaker C: As long as that's all you're picking. Speaker A: Yes, that's got your balls. Whatever you do. Speaker C: So this is the new source nexus. Speaker B: Robert yeah, we just released this and really something that I guess if a lot of our crowd are voice talent, at least initially here, this is kind of showing more of the client side or our new version of a client side application kind of shooting down the middle. We had originally made Source Live, which has a really high powered server assisted video streaming system and it can have a lot of, I think up to 20. We tested up to 26, 25 or 30 people. We just ran out of people to test with. But it shouldn't have any limits on the number of connections. So the idea here was to take Nexus, which has started to become sort of a slightly more commoditized concept. Nexus going way back how many years ago? I'm not sure, but it feels like probably at least ten, maybe a little bit more, maybe 13 years ago or so. Nexus comes out and really sets this genre for how to construct post sessions so that you can have your talent coming in on Source Connect. You can have your clients in on various meeting platforms, you can have a remote connection. Nexus was also used for bringing in sound effects, feeds and other monitorings of other types of things, things that you would normally patch into a patch bay in the hardware world. This is now all starting to happen application and Nexus is this patching center, as the name implies. But that capability has been slightly commoditized. You have all kinds of things like even UA and Apollo has our virtual drivers built into the interfaces and interfaces are coming out with loopback connections and blah, blah, blah. So here we are innovating and saying, what was Nexus originally used for? And a lot of it was used for integrating these communications platforms and we thought let's make a communications platform that's a little bit more built for media professionals. And on this side, the initial sort of intent is for review and approval. So you can imagine either you've got clients on the gateway here and they are meeting and then there's a talent connected and the engineer can patch all this together using Nexus actually. And they would have a session where talent's connected in on source connect and the clients are all here on a meeting platform. And so here's sort of a meeting platform that's more designed for media professionals and specifically like a review and approval workflow. Here's kind of what it looks like a little bit. One of the first things with Nexus is it has now a plugin dedicated for it that does a lot of this template setup. People used to have these crazy templates for Pro Tools and now if you oops, what I should do is share my screen. So here's Robert's Screen. So the first thing that Nexus has besides this meeting room looks pretty similar to a lot of things but here's one big difference. There's a plugin that's included with it. And the plugin has, as you can see, my talkback coming in here has the input from the mix. So I can hear the mix actually right here. The mix is also sent to the broadcast input, which we'll talk about in a split second. And then here's the chat return. So if someone says hello, we will see this meter bounce. Speaker A: Hello. Speaker B: There you go. So that's how I hear. And this takes care of all the mix minus and all the routing that people would have to do in one drop of a plugin on the master fader. Yeah, you don't have to change your session structure. You don't have to mix to a bus. So you can separate the people from what you're listening to and make them mix minus. Essentially, this does it for you. And so here's this broadcast input. But over here in the gateway, I've got this broadcast section. So now I can send my mix separate from my communications input, which is not something you get to do with zoom, et cetera, et cetera, all the other ones. So here's a high quality stereo communications feed without having to have problems with my talkback conflated within it and those kinds of things. So now you guys might notice that if I just literally go over here and this might be loud. Here's a rock tune in this session and then as easy as that is it's a good level right I put it down to -20 because we have to blend it with this stuff and. : Coming back to me in full stereo. Like high fidelity. Speaker B: Yeah, high fidelity, full stereo. Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Speaker B: That's the whole point. But really it's like I don't want you looking at my screen because there's too much stuff there. And whatnot what you really want to see is this. So if I jump back out and I share my window, you can't see what I'm doing because I'm not sharing it, but I'm basically sharing again. But this time, instead of doing entire screen, I'm picking window. I'm picking that Pro Tools video window. So now we can play this spot that we using as a little ADR demo. And right now that's more stuff to talk about later, the remote ADR workflows, but here's just a review and approval thing. And so a lot of voice sessions are not synced to picture. You're just, hey, read it three times. All right, I'll cut that in and you see it happening. And essentially, here's the core of that session. I can have a talent connected. I can bring the talent in through here, actually through a new plugin, but I can't really talk about that. But the classic connection where you have Source Connect and a plugin on an Aux track. So here you can see I'm receiving from source connect. This is the original Nexus plugin. And so there's from Source Connect, and that's popping over to my record track over here. And then an Aux send from receive of Nexus. And I can send the chat over to the talent. Speaker A: So you don't have your talent on Nexus then? Is that what you're saying? Speaker B: You don't want to? Because then you have all right, everyone mute their mics or you don't have separation, essentially. So what you have is you can have the talent join Nexus. And one of the first we plan on kind of rolling out updates rapidly. And one of the ones that's up on the dock is a no audio button, meaning not just mute your microphone, but mute the whole output. So then the talent can be here. The talent can look at the picture, see the clients and record. And within the realms of that latency, you can even record sort of with pictures as long as the engineer slides it back. And it happens a lot over these remote systems. You just kind of deal with the latency a little. : Can I ask you about the buffer setting? I now see in my window? It says off no buffer right now. Speaker B: Yeah, right. Another thing. So stuff you can't do in zoom oh, the broadcast, which is really high quality, is giving me a little bit of trouble. You can add some buffering on your side. So maybe that connection is going to be a little bit more latent, but it's going to have a stronger connection because as you know how it goes with all of these Chrome type things, it's all up to the way Chrome really decides to treat the audio. And Chrome loves to drive latencies as low as possible and just say, screw it, I'm going to stretch audio and mask all kinds of stuff and quite frankly, make up more audio than I'm actually broadcasting just to kind of make communications work. And if it is high quality, that's nice, but it's not my goal. My goal is just communications. Just by adding to that buffer, at least we can protect that audio stream a little bit and make sure that clients aren't hearing. So, for instance, the way I do it, when I send my talent to the clients, I'm sending them through the broadcast input so they hear that voice record from the talent in really high quality. Whereas we're over here the chat. Even though there is a broadcast option on the chat, you don't really need it. And that way you also have echo cancellation built into here and you're optimizing the way things are. You're not all eggs and all echo canceled. Good enough for a lawyer's meeting or the other side, something like Source Connect now was where it's just like wide open, pure audio, but then you have feedback issues. This is kind of trying to blend. You got clients who are used to the business meeting. You've got Vo talent and playback that needs to be high quality. Put all that together in the right. : Way, that's always challenging a lot of things. It's an all or nothing proposition. It's either Zoom equality or everybody's in a high quality and it's just you introduce new problems, especially the client is not prepared for that. Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of stuff that's like for people that aren't initiated in this stuff, it's easy for us to say stuff, but we do this day in and day out. At least I do. : Obviously, we always have headphones at the ready. Speaker B: Yeah, we're actually getting it pretty good on the iPhone and iOS devices, and those have their own challenges. We have a warning right away that says, like, if you're going to use this for communications, we can't really give you as high quality broadcast audio. So there's another thing that's unique to this is there's a mode to it where you can just join it for the broadcast audio, which is a case where maybe you do want to have a sidecar zoom meeting. Some of the issues with a sidecar zoom meeting with a high quality broadcast on the site is now Zoom is unaware of its echo cancellation. So the high quality audio broadcast echoes through everyone's connections because it doesn't think that that's part of its initial input output. It doesn't catch it in its algorithm as well as when it's all integrated into one platform. But yeah, you can join this and just use it for the broadcast, or you can use it for the meeting, but when you use it on the iPhone, if you just want to use it for the broadcast, you'll get high quality. But if you use it for communications and the broadcast, the broadcast unfortunately gets stepped on. And I'm sure you've seen some of that happen even when you just get a phone call. As soon as the iPhone thinks it's in a communications mode. It's like it's doing that good enough for communications, make it intelligible kind of thing. But still there's people that might be driving. You might have a producer who's just really they just want to make sure the session is flowing well. They're not listening to it in the same way that the writer and the art directors are, for example, worrying about what time is it and are we going to have to pay somebody overtime if this goes any longer? Yeah, but that's pretty much it. The idea is it's trying to be really simple about it as well. Speaker A: It's very cool. I mean, as you say, it takes zoom out of the equation, which is the best bit. Plus, as you say, we're listening to the talent in broadcast quality as well, which for me as an engineer is a big thing. I don't want to have to listen. Speaker B: And in any session you do, you can remote heise it in just like one drop of a plugin. You don't even have to think about it. So one of the unique things about the review plugin here is that you can bring your talk back in from any input in the whole computers. Right now I'm using same as system, which is picking up this road NTUSB actually. So same as the system setting or picking it up directly. And that can be my Talkback input, which is on a trigger with a slash key. Or if you're on a Pro Tools HDX or HD native system, when Pro Tools launches, your audio interface is exclusively owned by Pro Tools. And if your Talkback mic is going to that audio interface, how do you get it in there? Here you go. You pick it up on the side chain. Speaker A: Nice. That's clever. Speaker B: I like that you tell this thing. So say my input is I don't know, it wouldn't be one of these buses, but I don't even have a hardware input. Yeah, so in this case but then you just pick your input there and then here you'd say use key input. That covers all the HD native and anybody else with an exclusively run hardware audio system. There's a few others out there. I'm trying to think of what they are, but maybe like a Fairlight, for example, and that CC one card that they have and things like that can make use of that input. Actually, come to think of it, I'm not too sure Fairlight has gotten around to putting side chain inputs on their plugins yet. That's a different issue. They could sure use it. Because I remember I did a tech support thing the other day for a Fairlight person and what I ended up doing is making an Aux channel, dropping a Nexus plugin and picking up making the Aux channel the input for his talkback mic and then just sending it off to a virtual device like Nexus 23 24. So then over here on the review plugin. I just went over and picked up Nexus A 24 or whatever and got his talk back into the system, even. Speaker A: Though, yeah, that's clever. Speaker B: It took an extra channel. It'd be nice if fairly put in a side chain on their plugins. And I forget what other exclusive systems there are, but there are some plenty, I believe. Speaker A: Well, it's very cool, mate. You must be pleased with it. Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, it's funny how it's exactly a year. We went to AES last year and showed a prototype of this and we put the prototype together in like the month or two before AES, I think. And it was like that kind of thing where you make 80% of the progress. We had a review plugin that looked a lot like this stuff was functional. And then the whole last year has been spent like the details. Speaker A: So was the idea, I mean, Nexus One, shall we call it the original Nexus? For me, it's no secret I've talked about it on this show a million times. I love it. Looking at this and watching you use it now was the idea to take something that was really useful, but probably you needed to have a bit of a tech understanding and make it a bit more user friendly. Is that what you were trying to do? Speaker B: So we would find things like this. You'd get someone and they'd buy Nexus at that time. It's like 295 at the time. But they'd be on the phone with one of our tech support people for another 45 minutes an hour. We're building a template for them. It's kind of expensive, honestly. And this isn't everybody, but there's like a certain level of users I just need to do this thing and well, what you need to do is kind of complicated. That's fine. Can you show me? And then you show them and then next thing you know, when they get stuck or something, they're back at it. And originally Nexus didn't even include live tech support. Try to simplify because some of these people, george, I know you know this syndrome where people get set up with something that is barely at their capacity to remember, especially if you're setting it up for them. Because it's a different thing when you brew something up in your head. But if someone's just like, Here you go, whiz, bang, boom. And then you're like, oh, fuck, I got to get off the phone. See you later. Have a good day, sir. And it worked. I don't even want to close my computer. So the idea was this first one is just to take that whole kind of set up and distill it into here. I mean, here's your classic mix minus is what this is. : Just because someone's a talented engineer, mixer, whatever, it doesn't mean they necessarily are trained and know how to build some of the really routing and stuff. Speaker B: Those are... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28429445

The MiCreator Range From Austrian Audio 10/23/2023

The MiCreator Range From Austrian Audio YES they are our sponsors, BUT they also make great gear. Point in case this week is their new MiCreator range for Content Creators. We take a look at what's on offer. 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” Hunter S Thompson In this episode of Pro Audio Suite, we discuss the latest products from Austrian Audio - the 'my creator studio', 'my creator satellite' and 'my creator Ylav'. We explore how these products are catering to the rapidly growing creator category that includes podcasting, vlogging, and songwriting, effectively replacing the conventional home studio. We noted Austrian Audio's strategic move into this space given their impressive engineering track record. Upcoming in the podcast, we will be testing an ISO booth to gauge its isolating efficiency. We also discuss the difficulty in finding unbiased reviews for new products and how important transparency is when recommending products. We mention our pleasant surprise at Austrian Audio's enthusiasm to join us as a sponsor, further expanding the opportunities for our listeners to gain insights into their products. Be sure to subscribe to our show and join the conversation on our Facebook group. #ProAudioSuite #AustrianAudio #CreatorRevolution Timestamps (00:00:00) Welcome & Introductions (00:00:40) Austrian Audio Studio Release (00:07:33) ISO Booth Arrival (00:09:32) Michael's Shipment Delay (00:13:45) Trustworthy Product Reviews (00:18:43) Sponsorship Discussion (00:23:55) Podcast Production Details Transcript Speaker A: Y'all ready be history. Speaker B: Get started. Speaker A: Welcome. Speaker B: Hi. Hi. Hello, everyone, to the Pro Audio Suite. Speaker A: 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 B: Learn up learner. Here we go. Speaker C: And don't forget the password. Trip a P 200 to get $200 off your Triboof. Now, talking of product, one of our sponsors, apart from Triboof is Austrian Audio. And Austrian Audio have been busy lately and just released some new product, which is my creator studio, my creator satellite and my creator Ylav, which is an interesting thing for Austrian Audio. I didn't think they would get into this or particularly the Mylav thing. I didn't see them going that way. But what do you think, just a first look at this product from Austrian Audio. Speaker B: Well, I would say they are reading the tea leaves, as you could say, and it's just they have to have a product in this category. The creator category is a massive category. It kind of encompasses podcasting, Vlogging, songwriting. If you make content, you're a creator. And so this is like we are creators today because we're making a podcast. So this is who they need to reach out to. It's no longer the home musician or the home studio. It's the creator. This is the category that's replacing the quote unquote home studio. And so they're entering that market. And if their engineering track record so far is any indication, because this is new and none of us have one, I think they'll nail it. They haven't really missed a beat on anything they released so far, and I think they need to be very careful to make sure that brand stays gold. It's really concerning when companies release something half baked or just not quite up to par, even though it's at a lower price point. So obviously it's not going to be made in Austria in the same lab as the OC eight one eight. Right. : It's interesting. It's got one knob. I wonder if it's like that one thing where we couldn't figure out how to use it because the interface was like two buttons and everything happened. Speaker B: Yeah, well, I'm looking at it closely on screen and I don't have the software again, but it's got a three position switch on the face of the body of the mic itself and it's got high low mute. So that leads me to believe that it's just a very simple two position gain switch. : Yeah, but it talks about low latency monitoring, so it's got some stuff going on as a creator. It talks about low latency monitoring without any trouble. Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's got a volume balance knob, which I would say probably is that. So it's a volume control and it's a blend control, assuming that's what Bal means. Speaker C: Unless it could actually be when you plug into the micreator studio, you plug in the micreator satellite to create a stereo mic. Maybe that switch actually doubles as that to get a blend between left and right. I don't know right. Speaker B: Don't know yet. Don't know yet. : I'm looking for a manual. Speaker B: It's got a nice engineering industrial design. Not sexy, just kind of utilitarian looking. A square ish rectangular body and then the microphone capsule on top, which kind of has that cool retro look where the capsule is suspended inside a rim. And it's a nice looking design if it holds up to the abuse of what creators do, which is, to be completely frank, not take care of their gear. In a lot of cases, you just chuck things in your bag. I'll talk about another one of our friends rode, right? Speaker C: Yes. Speaker B: One thing I love about my rode wireless mics, the little wireless mes I have the cheapy ones is they're so light and so basic that I can just kind of I mean, I stick them in a little bag. And throw them in my gear bag. And they're so inconspicuous and they're so simple to operate that when I do need to use them as long as the battery is charged. And that's important. But as long as they got a charge on them, they're just so easy to deploy. Like within 30 seconds, I had it plugged into my iPhone. I launched the Road, I think they call it Capture road capture app. And I'm capturing my mic on my camera, the mic on my talent, and both cameras, the front and the rear. And I'm automatically shooting video and audio. : Is that all down to three files? Does it give you them separately or how does it do it? Speaker B: Yeah. So what it's doing and I would like to control this, but I can't. So what it does is it makes two video files and then each video file has a two track audio to go with it. So each video has both the microphones on ISO tracks. So what I do is when I bring why does it make two videos. : Like front and back or what? Speaker B: I can set it up to do that. Yeah. So you'll see a video I'm going to release soon, which is the interview of the owner of Vocalbooth.com. And I use that feature. So you'll see a video of me and him talking to each other. I'm behind it, he's in front of it, and you'll see it's just switching between the two of us. I'm using software to do this switch back and forth. And all I had to do was actually isolate the two audio tracks so I could get a better mix because I ended up having both audio tracks on both shots. So I had to kind of isolate them so you didn't have doubles, right, if that makes any sense. But this reminds me of that kind of, like, creator's tool, simple USBC plug and go. Looking at the back of the microphone now, I'm actually finally saw the rear of it. There's a few more functions, a few more jacks. : Well, the plug in the satellite mic is one. Speaker C: Yeah, that'll be the out. And then you get to the satellite mic, and then it's got an input and an output. And I'm assuming that what you do there is you get the headphone monitoring will come from the out, from the satellite, I guess, yeah. Speaker B: I mean, I look at this as Austrian audio saying, those road systems are cute, but we make good mics. So let's do the same idea. Forget at the wireless mics. This is really more for musician creators. So let's be able to have two mics, but all plugged into one USB. : This is a little bit of a RODECaster, I think it does. Speaker B: It's a little bit of a road type. Yeah. : Because it's recording both the lavalier mic and the close up mic, I guess. Speaker B: The lav or the satellite mic, which. : Looks like I think it records both. Speaker B: Yeah. The satellite mic looks like just another of the same capsule, just without the rest of the brains. It's just a little it's got a TRRS microphone cable, and it goes to the slave. It's like a master slave. We don't use that anymore, do we, the terms anymore? But it's kind of like there's the primary secondary, or whatever you want to call it. Speaker C: That's really interesting. Interesting product. We'll try and get our hands on something, at least one or two of those, just to check them out. Also, in the next few weeks, someone is sending me an ISO booth. I think you've done a demo on. Speaker B: Those sending you an ISO booth. So if they're sending it to you and it's for isolation, that already makes me concerned that it's not going to be very good at Isolating. Speaker C: Well, you know the big thing, you stick your head inside the ISO booth. : Yeah. The gray one that makes you want to vomit once you're in there for. Speaker C: A while, probably we'll find out when I get it, but it's going to be shipped to me in the next week or so. : Brush your teeth. Speaker C: Yes. Speaker B: Are we divulging who this is yet? Are we going to wait until you've used it and then you're going to. Speaker C: Mention we'll wait till I've used it. I just want to check it out. : Isn't it Isovox? Speaker C: Isovox, yeah. : Yes. Speaker B: They're going to send you their new. Speaker C: Cheaper one, the Isovox Two, I think it's called. Speaker B: Oh, they're going to send you Isovox Two. Speaker C: Yeah. Speaker B: Okay. : Aren't those things like, $800? Speaker B: I did a video review of that. How long ago? Five years ago. They're going to send you one of those? Speaker C: Yeah, I think you did the Isovox one, is that correct? Speaker B: I did the isovox two. I have the video loaded right now on my screen. Speaker C: Wow. Yeah, because the distributor that brings in Austrian audio into Australia have got them. : Yeah. The isovox two is like $1,000. Speaker C: So it's just going to come down for a week. I'll play with it and then we'll use it on one of the upcoming episodes and see what we think. Also an update on the passport vo. I've seen a bit of correspondence flicking backwards and forwards, mainly to you, George. How's it? Speaker B: Well, you know, the bottom line being I think Mike is being very transparent, but this is the truth is that he had a backlog of product to ship because of a part supply issue. So that really took the energy away from our product for a few months that we thought he would have been working on our product. So that means that our product is still in essentially, it's in design phase. We were the Envisionaries Envisionaries the vision visionaries for what we wanted, but it comes down to actual circuit design, and that is what it takes to get this thing really built. And so Michael is in that stage. He's in the circuit design stage. We were hoping this would have happened three months ago. It didn't, because he's been trying to basically relaunch and redeliver or deliver a whole bunch of their products because of a USB chip problem. Speaker C: Yeah. Speaker B: And so they had to literally redesign the boards for four products, get them back into production, get them delivered and shipped. So they've done that. So now if you do want to go buy a micport pro Three, they're actually shipping. They're no longer on preorder, as they've been for quite a while, as well as the mixer face and the portcaster and things like that. Speaker C: And the English Channel, I think, is number one. Speaker B: Yeah. Well, there's another one that's the English Channel, which I hear a little birdie said that we might have something to test out at some point. Speaker C: I think one is being shipped to Robo. I know that. I'm pretty sure that's happening, so that could be interesting. Speaker B: The English Channel is a fully analog piece, right? : Is it a preamp and EQ or. Speaker C: Just a preamp and limiter compressor? Preamp, I think it's got everything. Basically, there's a channel strip I got. Speaker B: To double check because they also have this soapbox, and there's a little bit of an overlap in terms of what does what, so I'm double checking that right now. But the Channel well, the English Channel. : Is but he only sent one to Robbo, right? He didn't send them out all over the place. Speaker B: I don't know. I thought he asked for my address, but I could be wrong. Yeah, but the English Channel, he didn't. : Ask for mine, as far as I know. Speaker B: Okay. Speaker C: Oh, mine. Speaker B: Tim's fighting words. The English Channel includes a studio mic, pre dynamics processor with gate compressor and DeEsser and parametric EQ with sonic enhancer and a streaming USB audio interface with SD card recorder. So it's essentially it's a little mini rack of three products. That's the English Channel. Speaker C: Yeah. : I didn't realize English Channel had a recorder on it. Speaker B: Well, it's the soapbox, the black cab and the portcaster. Yeah. Speaker C: All in one or linked together? Speaker B: Well, yeah, all combined in a cool little rack that they all lock into and connect together to make it feel like one product. : I think it's all those together. Oh, is he sending you the whole string? Speaker C: Holy shit. Speaker B: I don't know, but that would be pretty slamming. I was the most interested in testing the soapbox because that's kind of like a DBX 286. : I think the Preamp is the most interesting one if it's a decent external preamp. Speaker C: Yeah. Speaker B: Well, the soapbox is the preamp. The Black Cab is a five band spectral processor. : It's an EQ five band. It's a three wait, hold on. Speaker B: Well, they call it a five band. : Black Cab is just a three. I'm looking at it right now. It's a three band parametric q gain. Speaker B: And it must have a high shelf and a low shelf. : Oh, yeah, it does. Speaker B: No, it's got HDF. Yeah, it's got a pad that makes it five bands. And then there's the podcaster, is the recorder side of the whole thing. Speaker C: Yeah. It's interesting with sentrance because I've sort of been scouting around as well because I got an email from Michael that sort of inspired me to go down a rabbit hole on the Google. And I found some really interesting reviews, particularly on MixerFace, that was written by Sound on Sound magazine. And anyone that knows Sound on Sound knows they're pretty an authority. And they're good. : Yeah. Speaker B: Beyond reproach, would you say? Speaker C: I would say pretty well beyond reproach. Yeah. And they rave about Sentrin's products, so that was quite nice to read. Speaker B: Good to see. Yeah, I know a lot of the reviews. I mean, it's probably more likely to find a pretty honest review in these traditional print magazines than I would say you're going to find on a YouTube channel these days. I know that YouTubers are being forced to divulge that the product was sent to them, but that is part of the whole. Those that want to give the most impartial reviews tend to be the ones that actually go buy the products. Right. And so it's getting increasingly difficult to find reviews of brand new products that were not gifted to the reviewers. : I can tell you that I bought the Mixer. Speaker C: Bo Weaver. He's got a mixer face from memory as well, isn't he? Did he get one? Speaker B: He may. I don't recall particularly, but I think so. I think he's always been an early adopter. Whenever something new came out that was portable, he was all over it. Speaker C: Yeah. Speaker B: So I'm sure he had one. Yeah. Speaker C: Well, if that's the case, then I should put my hand up and say, I bought my OC eight one eight. : Yes, you did. Speaker C: Yes. : That's what started the whole thing. Speaker C: It was because I just bought the thing and loved it. That was the beginning of getting into bed, so to speak, with them. Speaker B: I bought my Rode wireless. Mics. Speaker C: Good work. Speaker B: It's about the cheapest thing they make. : But I bought my Rode Wireless Mics, but I didn't buy this guy, which I do like. I have to be honest, I think the NTG Five has been quite a good mic. Speaker C: Yeah. Speaker B: Now, we're on a new topic, but when I recommend product, I do try to defulge that I know or I have some kind of a relationship with that vendor. I do try to say that if it makes sense in the context, but it's proving your integrity. If you're listening to us right now, honestly, and you don't know who we are, first of all, Google us, okay? And second of all, we all have worked in this industry a really long time. We have very large client bases of trusted people. And if we're going to shill a product that was given to us by these vendors, we're going to use them, you're going to hear them, and you're going to get our god's honest thought about those products, period. There is no reason we're not going to go out of business because we told you something didn't sound good. It ain't going to happen. Like, we're just going to keep right on chugging whether we like something or not. So we're always going to be very straightforward with what works and what doesn't, you know what I mean? Speaker C: But the thing is, if it's something good, you want to share that information with people. I mean, I know the Austrian audio, particularly the OC 8118. I know quite a few people have bought them on my recommendation and love them. So it's not they've bought them and just going on, great, thanks for that. I've just shelled out some cash and. : You haven't gotten any commission or anything for that? Speaker B: No, really? : In fact, we should talk about that. Speaker C: Yes, indeed. Speaker B: No, we don't. We get product, we get to use it. We get to use it in the real world. We get to do our shows with the products. You hear us using the products, we talk about them. That benefits them, the vendor or the manufacturer, that benefits us because we get to use the stuff and talk about it with authority. And it benefits hopefully, you guys, too, because you're going to hear us say what we like, what we don't like, and what works, what doesn't,... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28393088

Inside the AI Debate - Tim Friedlander 10/16/2023

Inside the AI Debate - Tim Friedlander 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? is an award-winning, voice actor, studio owner, advocate, and educator. Tim is also the Founder and President of , 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 likes of voices.com and the AI seeding debate. We have him on the show this 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 troublingly 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” Hunter S Thompson Summary In this episode of Pro Audio Suite, we explore the controversial topic of AI voices with special guest Tim Friedlander. Voices.com has reportedly promised not to use people's voices from their database without permission, but the potential misuse of audition files by clients remains a concern. We discuss the fairness of voice synthesis, highlighting Nava's call for consent and compensation for voice actors. Listeners will gain insight into the problematic quality of AI voice samples and the potential threat to new voice actors as AI begins to replace human voices in certain sectors. We also delve into the future role of agents as potential AI voice libraries, and the necessity for clear licensing fee structures and strong protections before the end of the year to prevent misuse. #VoiceAIControversy #FairVoicesCampaign #FutureOfVoiceActing Timestamps (00:00:00) Introduction (00:00:43) Voices.com's Promise (00:03:31) Copyright Laws and AI Voices (00:11:50) Review of AI Voice Samples (00:12:59) Risks of Recorded Audio (00:14:25) Dangers of AI (00:19:57) AI Replacing Human Voices (00:23:26) AI's Impact on Visual Artists Transcript Speaker A: Y'all ready be history.,Speaker B: Get started.,Speaker A: Welcome.,Speaker B: Hi. Hi. Hello, everyone, to the Pro Audio Suite.,Speaker A: 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 B: Learn up learner. Here we go.,Speaker C: And welcome. And don't forget, if you want to get a discount of $200 off your Tribooth trip, 200 is the code you need now, this week. Very topical. Of course, this AI thing will just not go away. And I know that there was a conversation about that place. I don't even like saying it. Anyway, I will say it. Voices.com supposedly have promised not to farm out people's voices from their database. Tim Friedlander has been involved in this and has written an article, which is what I saw. And Tim is joining us. G'day Tim.,: Hello. Hello. I'm here.,Speaker C: So what's the backstory to this and how did you get involved?,: The backstory to the AI voices.com thing goes back to about May when Davidcirellianvoices.com announced that they were releasing Voices AI and for the voice acting community, that was a huge concern, basically for the main part being that many people have been uploading audio to their website through their website for 20 years. So theoretically, Voices.com or either of these sites has 20 years of very high quality data and audio that they could use to synthesize our voices. So through Nava, which is association that I run along with Karen Guilfrey and a board of directors, we reached out to David and Stephanie and had a week of conversations with them to get the assurance that they had never been uploading or using or doing anything with auditions or files that have been uploaded through their website. And out of that came our Fair Voices campaign or the Fair Voices pledge that we launched. And we reached out to the other online casting sites, six other sites, to get the same assurances from them and also to make sure that they had changed their terms of service. So Voices.com at the time changed their terms of service to very explicitly say they would not be using any audio files uploaded through their site for machine learning or synthesized or synthesizing voices.,Speaker C: Was that backdated or is that from that point onward?,: The terms of service were from that point onward, but they publicly at the time and in various blog posts and other written areas have said that they have never used audio files for that. The caveat being is that once the audio files are uploaded and sent to a client, it's possible that the client then could take those audition files and use them. We don't know and haven't seen any companies per se who we know are doing that but over the last ten or so years, a lot of these companies have been working in the AI TTS sphere and very potentially could have been using that audio for training. We haven't seen it yet explicitly that we know of, but the inability to track our audio files and to know where the audio goes once we've emailed it out or uploaded through a website makes that a real possibility.,: 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?,: That's a great question. Short answer is no. We've been working with the Copyright 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 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. We're currently looking at the possibility that since most voice actors record from home, if from like a music perspective, we could theoretically be the owners of the master files, because a lot of times there's no contracts that are signed. But that's an early we're in the early stages of of exploring that. But there are copyright law does not currently protect the voice actor. It protects the copyright holder, which 99% of the time is the company who hired us. Wow. The only other thing we could fall back on is right, right of publicity. But those laws are only really in California and New York, where the strongest laws and then there's possibly biometric and privacy laws, but those really are only strongest in Illinois and Texas of all places, privacy rights.,Speaker C: So is there a way of know? We've talked about this before having some kind of fingerprint of, your know, if anybody uses your voice, it's quite obvious it's yours because it shows some kind of a fingerprint in the waveform, potentially. I don't know how that would work, but there must be someone who's got.,: Something nobody does currently that we know of. I've spoken with people at DARPA and at NASA. We are currently working. We've gone very deep in this conversation to try and figure out a way to do this, what we can do. And actually, I'm working on this with another company that I started about three years ago to create voice prints that we can then use to match a human voice to a synthetic voice and also to match a human voice to a human voice to say that they're the same person. You could theoretically, if we can get that software in place lock down a voice. So if somebody tries to upload it to a synthetic voice site, it would be locked and would be flagged as basically essentially DRM for voice is what we're trying to do. But the only thing really that you could do that might stay is some kind of spread spectrum watermarking that you could do within that. But it'd have to be embedded so deeply in there that you could rip this into Pro Tools or rip it into something else right. And transfer it between audio files or different Daws and strip out. If it's frequency, then it's very easy to pull out frequencies. Most of the stuff that's out there watermarking is pretty easy to bypass currently.,Speaker C: Well, you just have to get clarity or something and it's gone.,: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.,: So what's the compromise future from your perspective then? Would it be a point where Darren Robertson is selling his voice sample disc to AI people? Or would you rather not see AI at all?,: I'm a musician primarily. I was in Seattle in the was on the cusp of playing live and really exploring music when napster and everything hit. And from a consumer perspective, that was one of the most eye opening things that I'd ever seen. The ability to now have access to a massive amount of audio that I'd never heard before. Not anti technology by any means and definitely not anti AI. I've worked with a synthetic voice company. I have know people who are working with synthetic voice companies. The issue right now is that a lot of the foundational models, a lot of the foundations of these AI generative engines, synthetic voice engines are built on somebody's data and more than likely they are being built on the literal voices of voice actors. So we become the foundation of a lot of these models. What Nava has been asking for is consent, control and compensation. And it's the same thing that all artists are asking for, musicians are asking for, models are asking for, is if you're going to take my data and what makes the essence of me. My voice or my image, or the way I walk or the way that I speak, the cadence that I have, the way that I stand. All of those things are very personal to all of us individually. And that data is basically being turned into data, right. What makes us is being turned into data and put into these synthetic voice engines or these synthetic generative engines or generative AI to produce images and videos and photos and voices that are based on real humans and sound like and look like real humans. So we try to find consent, control and compensation for those and really consent to say yes or no. You can make a synthesized version of my voice.,Speaker C: So if we're talking about AI voices, we're not going to stop. It's already out. I mean, the thing's going to happen.,: They're out there. Yes, correct.,Speaker C: How do you perceive we control. It?,: The only thing that we can currently do right now. And this is part of what this discussion at the FTC came up with last week, is really, I think, from a consumer perspective, a consumer safety perspective, I think that there is so much danger in disinformation and false. Information and just absolute lies that are out there that can now be easily replicated and put into a video or an audio or something that is not very easily detectable. It's almost impossible to tell a synthetic voice from a human voice that are done well. It's hard to tell a synthetic image from a factual image. The laws and regulations currently our laws and legislation, I think, is currently the only thing that we can really do on a broad scale to help stem the tide of the damage that's been done already. And going forward, we have to have very clear contracts and agreements in place that either do or do not allow for the use of somebody's voice to be used in a synthetic voice or generative. AI. That's partially what the WGA and SAG afterstrikes are about. AI is the top of that list of things that are concerns, and it's a top concern for anybody who is in the arts right now that creates anything that any of that could be put into a synthetic engine of some kind and have a new creation made out of that. We just came out of a pandemic where we relied on artists, on musicians and filmmakers and actors and voice artists. And the first thing we do out of that pandemic is try and replace those people. That's really essentially what's happening. There is some accessibility. There are places that there is an argument to be made for doing things that a human couldn't generate. But when it's done to replace somebody, when it's done just to save money, that's where the concern comes in. And we know that money, those savings, are not going to be passed along to the consumer. A video game is not going to be cheaper for somebody to buy because it has synthetic voices. A movie is not going to be cheaper at the movie theater because it's synthetically generated. So they cut out the people. They cut out the people who actually make this work, and then that money just goes to the company that gets to save that money at the expense of everybody.,: Why would voices.com say the quiet part out loud? They're a bit like Uber basically going like, hi, please work for us. Make us money, and then we're going to put all of our money into figuring out how to make driverless cars so we don't need you see bitches.,Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.,: They did. I don't know if anybody saw the news last week, but David Cicearelli is out and Morgan Stanley is it morgan Stanley who was the venture capital whoever gave them the money, they replaced him at the top. My guess is that they either went all in on AI and it's not paying off, or they weren't seeing this is all purely speculation. This is just what we can have for conjecture in this place. So I know nothing for fact, but they invested a massive amount of money in them, what, $18,000,015 to $18,000,000.07 years ago. And if they went all in on AI, I don't know if anybody's heard.,: They lost all of it.,: Yeah, they lost all of it. Has anybody actually have you guys heard their AI? The voices AI their samples. They're terrible.,: Never heard it.,: They're terrible. They are terrible. But they were done with consent, control and compensation.,: Is it better or worse than voicealo?,: I haven't heard that one. But most of what I deal with, I deal with Eleven Labs and Play HT are the two that I use most often, for example, for samples in that. And both of those are phenomenal. They are really good. And voices. AI is nowhere. It sounds about ten years old, the technology, from what I heard, and some of the voice actors who had their voices synthesized, who participated in this are not happy with how that voice sounds.,Speaker C: Yeah, I was going to say, just to lighten up a bit, there's an old gag that could actually be modernized and you can ask the question, how many voiceover artists does it take to change a light bulb? And the answer is none. You get an AI to do it.,: That was a drummer joke.,Speaker C: I know we can update it.,: It.,: Just hasn't happened quite yet.,: I was going to say. Yeah, exactly. I've heard that one before somewhere. So the thing that occurs to me though, Tim, is it's great that we're protecting voice actors and all that sort of stuff, but obviously there's a crapload more voice samples out there. I mean, how many podcasts are there out there? And YouTube content creators and all the rest of it? All these places they could go mining for voices.,: How do we protect know? Currently we can't currently there is no protection for Know. This goes into Know, we talk about this being more it's with anybody who has recorded audio is at risk. And that voice actors just happen to be the ones who make a living off of our recorded voice most of the time, but doesn't mean that others aren't making a living off of what they have on the podcast and YouTube. And even those who are just hobbyists at this, who just have a little bit of recorded audio, some twitch stream. I can currently record all the audio off this and make a synthetic voice of anybody on this conversation right now, as can anybody who's listening to it.,Speaker B: Right.,: And it's easy.,: What work does it really kill, truly kill? Like in the short term? I can see it taking out a crapload of elearning and other things like that.,: It takes that out that's any of the stuff that is purely factual, a lot of times talk about factual stuff where I just need information read. A lot of that stuff gets taken out right away, which if you can license your voice to that, then you can still have a career as a voice actor. One of the things that I think is the dangerous part of this, and this goes for any of the arts, is that a lot of these places that are going to be replaced first are where a lot of voice actors, a lot of artists learn. This is how you cut your teeth and you come up through the industry. You do the free jobs, you do the cheap jobs, you do the entry level jobs. Those entry level jobs go away right away because it's cheaper. But a lot of the times it's better. Unfortunately, it is better. The audio quality of a voice actor who's just starting out, who is using a USB mic in their living room with hardwood floors and the refrigerator running and the AC is going to be at risk for sure, and I think rightfully so.,: I'll give you another one, is the company that doesn't hire anybody, right. And they just see the AI voices as it's better than having Mary Jo read it because it's going to take her a long time and whatever. And so just type it into the system. And there's our video. It's our instruction video on how to use our garden hose absolutely or something. And yeah, it's going to take out I don't see it initially taking out real voice acting, but I agree, just like conveying voice, it's just going to plenty of AI voices I'd rather hear.,: Instead of the president of the auto.,: Workers union, for example. One of the things that we've seen, I think, that's been most hopeful in this is that those who work with voice actors already or don't want to replace voice actors, those people who are already working in the creative sphere, who are the producers, who are the directors, they're the people they say, I would never replace a voice actor. But it's all of those people who don't who have just need a voice actor for this one time, need a voice actor for this one training video, this one thing here that they would go to a friend or a referral or... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28285193

Promo - Inside the AI Debate - Tim Frielander 10/12/2023

Promo - Inside the AI Debate - Tim Frielander 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? is an award winning, voice actor, studio owner, advocate, and educator. Tim is also the Founder and President of , 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “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. /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28285148

What gives a mic its "sound"? 10/09/2023

What gives a mic its "sound"? 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “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. /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28250510

Tweaking an already great product - Vocalbooth.com 10/02/2023

Tweaking an already great product - Vocalbooth.com 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “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 [email protected] 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 [email protected], 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... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28188935

The 416 an Industry standard... 09/25/2023

The 416 an Industry standard... 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “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... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28077327

PROMO - The 416 an Industry standard... 09/20/2023

PROMO - The 416 an Industry standard... 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “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. /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28074753

Marketing Your Home Studio Business with Marc Scott 09/18/2023

Marketing Your Home Studio Business with Marc Scott 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “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,... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28050996

PROMO - Marc Scott - Marketing 101 09/16/2023

PROMO - Marc Scott - Marketing 101 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... 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.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “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. /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/28008876

The Home Studio Of The Future 09/11/2023

The Home Studio Of The Future 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... 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.. 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.. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “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... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/27944253

Rodecaster Killer? 09/04/2023

Rodecaster Killer? 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... 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.. 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.. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “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... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/27890748

Promo - Rodecaster Killer? 08/31/2023

Promo - Rodecaster Killer? 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... 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.. 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.. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “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. /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/27890061

Whats your signature sound? 08/28/2023

Whats your signature sound? 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... 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.. 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.. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “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... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/27847617

Promo - Whats your signature Sound? 08/25/2023

Software licensing structures... The good the bad the ugly 08/21/2023

Software licensing structures... The good the bad the ugly 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... 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.. 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.. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “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... /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/27786117

Promo - The Plugin Dilema 08/17/2023

Promo - The Plugin Dilema 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... 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.. 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.. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/27780507

The Trick To Creating The Perfect Mix Minus 08/14/2023

The Secrets behind a demo that works... 08/08/2023

Review - the Konos 80-element, high fidelity microphone 07/31/2023

Review - the Konos 80-element, high fidelity microphone 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... 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.. 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.. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” Hunter S Thompson #rode #rodemicrophones /episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/27577908

PROMO - Konos... A new class of microphone? 07/26/2023

Old Gear - Whats the go? 07/23/2023

PROMO - Old Gear 07/21/2023

The Pro Audio Suite

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