Archives for November 2024

The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hello everybody and welcome to Episode 5 of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
I’m your host, Paul Stefano, and joining me is co-host, Sean Daeley. How are you today, Sean?
I’m good, how are you?
I am fantastic. So, we are here in Episode 5, and we are just humming along. Last I checked, we are over 200 downloads for all the episodes combined, so give yourself a little hand.
The focus of today’s episode is going to be on interfaces. Why you need them, what they do, and all the ones that you and I have run through.
Yeah, should be a lot of fun.
But first, we’re going to talk a little bit about what’s going on in our respective voiceover careers. So Sean, what’s going on in your little corner of the voiceover world?
Well, the last couple of weeks have been quiet. I’ve just been doing auditions. I was out of town for a week, house sitting and pet sitting for my brother.
So nothing really exciting there. But other than that, it’s like just my usual stable of clients and doing projects for them. What about you, Paul?
Same thing, some repeat clients. I did book an ACX book, not through ACX, which is kind of interesting.
Oh, cool.
I booked that on one of the freelance sites. Have you ever done that?
I haven’t had a lot of success with those. We’ve talked a little bit about these sites before. They’re better than Fiverr.
Somewhere between Fiverr and the Pay to Play websites. And I know that they have Elance and Upwork. And there’s a couple of more.
But I know that’s an area that you have a lot more experience in than I do.
Yeah, Elance and Upwork I think are one now. Upwork bought Elance and now it’s just one platform.
Oh, okay.
So that is actually where I booked this most recent book. It’s an ACX title that the author wants to take there himself. Basically I’m doing the audio, handing it off.
It’s a paid-per-finish-hour project. He just takes it to ACX himself, which in my opinion is a pretty good deal where I don’t actually have to produce the book. I’m just doing the audio and he’s uploading it and doing all the legwork, so to speak.
Oh, interesting. That sounds great.
So this is actually the third book I’ve done this way. Two different clients, three books, and it can be a decent way to get a client and have some decent projects.
Yeah, and I really like your initiative because a lot of people think they tend to go to the more obvious choices like the pay-to-play sites or ACX, but you’re looking outside of that and you found a lucrative opportunity, so good for you.
Yeah, it can work out. And then the only other thing going on in my world is I signed this week with a production studio in Singapore.
Oh, cool.
So I haven’t actually done any work for them yet, but I’m on their roster, so to speak. Making air quotes as I say that.
Whatever that means, right?
Yeah, it can mean various things to different people, but there’s a couple of different studios where I’m quote unquote on their roster and we’ll see if there’s any work that comes out of it.
It’s certainly the first step and the hardest, but I mean, it’s no guarantee of work, which is why we’re given a bit of the attitude right now.
Yeah, because especially when you’re new, you can get that email and say, Yes, I made it. I’m on their roster. And then you twiddle your thumbs, sometimes for days and sometimes for months.
So it’s a topic we actually want to talk about in a future episode, but we’ll save it for that.
But anyways, I understand you had a bit of a pretty cool VO related trip recently. Why don’t you tell us about that?
Yeah, over the weekend, I went up to New York City. New York City, across the Mason-Dixon line, way yonder up there in Manhattan for the VO Cafe Holiday Extravaganza. That is another podcast, which you obviously should listen to.
We’re big fans. At least I am.
Oh yeah.
How about you?
So I enjoy the VO Cafe. It’s head up by Terry Daniel, and he works closely with Trish Basanri and I hope I said that right.
Basani.
Basani, that’s right, Trish Basani, and Peter Bishop, who’s actually a New York based British talent and a great guy. He’s given us a lot of advice on gear and even on how to run a good podcast. So if you’re listening, Peter, thanks a lot.
Yeah, indeed. So I met Peter, affectionately known as Bish, and Trish, and Terry, and let’s see, Jordan Reynolds is another frequent contributor and host. Sean Caldwell and Matt Calrick is on there as well, but he was not at the party.
But I did get to meet all the other participants of the VO Cafe and that was pretty cool. And then a multitude of other VO friends as we call them. Let’s see, Peter O’Connell is there, Philip Banks, Lee Gordon, Will Watt, who was a blast to hang out with.
And yeah, just so many people, so much fun. But what we want to talk about is how to approach that sort of event where it wasn’t really a trade show, there wasn’t any classes going on. It was really just a party.
But even in that sort of event, you can still accomplish some things for your career, don’t you think?
Mm-hmm. And I went to a similar event in October. This famous audio engineer in the voiceover community named Roy Yockelson, or Uncle Roy.
Oh, Uncle Roy was there this weekend, too.
Oh, cool. Yeah, because he’s over in Jersey, so that wouldn’t be too far for him. But anyways, he’s got this annual voiceover barbecue.
And as Paul was saying, these things aren’t… They’re not a convention. They’re not a trade show.
They still fall under a networking event, but it’s far more relaxed. It’s far more laid back. People might actually frown on you if you try to be too salesy before they get to know you.
So, my advice would be to just be yourself. Don’t look to make clients. Look to make friends and make relationships that way.
Yeah, that’s great advice. I would add though that it’s still good to have a game plan. So I didn’t go there looking to sell anything.
I think I only handed out maybe two business cards the whole time, but I did have a definitive list of people that I wanted to meet. And because I wanted to get to know these people, and some I actually knew through Facebook or other social media, but hadn’t met in person. But I sort of went at it like a trade show, where I went down the list, a mental list.
I wasn’t carrying a legal pad or anything, but I said I wanted to meet Philip, I wanted to meet Lee, I wanted to meet Liz Dinesner. All these people that I knew I wanted to talk to, and I did. I made sure I talked to them before the night was through, with a few exceptions.
I kept staring at Rob Siganpaglia in the corner, and never actually got a chance to introduce myself. But I think I met probably 90% of the people who were in my sort of mental Rolodex. I think that could be beneficial.
Otherwise, you might just not meet the people that you want to talk to.
No, exactly. If you don’t have a goal, you risk not accomplishing anything meaningful from the event, aside from just having a good time. And you’re right.
You don’t need to go in here expecting to get clients. But I did have a happy incident come out of it. We were gathering for a photo.
And then someone asked this man named Hugh to take the picture. And I was like, wait, I recognize this guy. And his name is actually Hugh Klitsky.
He’s sort of a casting director and an agent in New York. And I had read a number of his articles on Voice Over Extra, because he’s also got a blog called Voice Acting for the Actor. So, he works with TV and stage actors and tries to coach them out of those habits and sort of pick up the skills necessary to do VO effectively, because it is a different skill set.
But anyways, we had a great conversation and he was really interested in my working in Japan both as an English teacher and a voice talent, and was really interested by the fact that I can speak Japanese, believably, and we exchanged contact information after that. And it was just great to meet him because I’ve definitely benefited from reading his articles. They’re short and to the point and they’re a great read.
Yeah, I’ve read several of those too. Speaking of VoiceOver Extra, John Florian was there over the weekend too and talked to him for a while. And I wanted to mention that he actually added the VO Meter to the VoiceOver Extra list of resources.
So I want to thank John for doing that. And if you’ve come to us from that link on VoiceOver Extra, be sure to thank John because that’s a really cool thing.
Yeah, he’s constantly looking for new resources to offer the VO community. I told him that it was very flattering and humbling, or flumbling, as I have just invented, to be included on that site because I’ve been referencing it for almost four years now and it has been a huge resource for me in my career. So thank you, John.
Thank you, VO Extra. Thank you, Hugh. And thank you to all the other contributors who have written articles for that website.
It’s an amazing resource and it’s free.
I agree. So, there’s a myriad of events out there, both actual organized trade shows and just social events. I recommend try as many as you can.
Definitely have a plan, but also have some fun because people know when you’re stiff and just out there to look for business. It’s a lot more fun when you can do it with a smile on your face.
Absolutely. And I believe voice over talent Rob Marley also has a series of articles. It’s more directed towards sort of conventions, but he’s got some great general advice on networking events in general and like having a plan, making sure you’re prepared.
Even things like making sure that your breath doesn’t smell bad and stuff like that. It’s a great article. You can check it out on his website at Rob Marley Voice Over.
And don’t eat any onions.
Don’t eat onions. But I love onions.
So Sean and I will get to our talk on interfaces, why you need them and what to do with them in just a second. But first, we’re going to go to this episode’s VO Meter Schtick featuring Pennsylvania Voice talent, Ken Foster.
Okay, everybody, it’s time for the VO Meter Schtick.
What did he say?
It’s time for the VO… Oh, nevermind. The VO Meter Schtick?
Oh, got it.
Thank you, Sean and Paul, and greetings, VO Meter podcast listeners. For most of us, the holidays in winter are about to descend upon us like a two-ton heavy thing. My VO setup is probably like a lot of you, home-based voice actors auditioning and recording from home-based studios.
We spend a lot of time locked in a small, dark room alone, basically talking to ourselves. This time of year, the holidays may be giving you feelings of stress, anxiety, guilt, even glee. Sometimes it’s hard to stay productive and focused.
You may begin to experience some cabin fever. I’m familiar with this. In a previous life, I was a software consultant, a business traveler, but mostly telecommuting from my home office.
I know that feeling, like you’re on an island all by yourself. Time management can be a struggle, trying to stay productive. With winter and the holidays, you want to avoid turning into Jack Torrance from The Shining, isolated in the Overlook Hotel with your family going nuts.
This can negatively impact your auditioning, your performance and your growth and success. It’s easy to get distracted, especially if business is slow. It can become a huge challenge not to get sidetracked by those voices in your head.
Ooh, did someone say they have some extra time? How shall we fill it? I really should get back to making those phone calls.
Do you need to dry homemade pasta before you freeze it? Not now, brain. I wonder if my third grade teacher is on Facebook.
Focus. Hey, how about that video of a cat that can walk upright on its back legs? Come on, Ken, stay on point here.
Ooh, remember that Chapelle Show sketch about the behind the scenes of the Nat King Cole Holiday TV show? That was really funny. Wouldn’t you love a cottage cheese right now and a tall glass of iced tea?
Actually, I’m feeling a bit peckish. Wait, no. Get out of your own head.
There’s plenty of things you can do to quell those distracting voices. Focus on marketing. Make some introduction calls or emails.
Check in with customers or touch base with your agents. Anything to advance the ball and keep your eyes on the prize. Find and join a VO Meetup or workout crew.
Start one if you can’t find one in your area. And area doesn’t matter nowadays. There’s plenty of online, peer-directed workouts you can join.
Or how about some additional coaching or training to improve your performance and your craft? Or drown out those distracting voices in your head by diving into some of the great voiceover podcasts. There are tons.
Hey, you’re listening to this one right now. Do whatever it takes to survive the holidays, the family, and a lack of focus. Turn that island of one into an army of one.
Don’t let cabin fever distract you from your prime directive, growing your voiceover business and being successful. This is Ken Foster wishing you all spectacular season’s greetings, tis the time of Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and Festivus. The nativity, if you’re a non-believer or atheist, the notivity, whatever you earthlings celebrate.
Celebrate it, enjoy it, and have a Happy New Year, everyone.
So once again, that was Ken Foster, our guest for this week’s VO Meter Schtick. Thank you very much, Ken. That was some great advice.
I know I have to pull myself away from the internet plenty of times when I’m trying to get to be more productive in my own business. Speaking of which, we’re going to go ahead and jump into this week’s topic, which is audio interfaces. So first…
Dun, dun, dun. I’ll admit, when I first got started with audio recording, this was sort of the first mystifying piece of equipment that I didn’t understand and I didn’t want to use. But they’re really not that complicated.
So going back to that, what is an audio interface? An audio interface is a box, a piece of equipment that allows your analog gear, and this could be a microphone or an instrument like an electric guitar or bass, to communicate and interact with your computer. Why is that good?
Because if they can’t talk to each other, then you can’t record. And if you can’t record, then you can’t be a voice talent. So, using an audio interface.
So once you have your studio space set up, what you will do is you will take your mic on its mic stand, you will insert an XLR cable into the back of your mic, you will insert the other end of that cable into the input of your audio interface, and then on the back of the interface, you will have either a USB, firewire, or now even Thunderbolt cable that you will connect into your computer. And then, once you have set up all of your audio routing preferences in your system preferences and in your recording software, then you are off to the races. So, if that sounded…
Which of those connections is the fastest, by the way? I really don’t know.
Well, the majority of the interfaces that are on the market today are actually USB 2, because it’s stable, it’s fast enough that you can have low enough latency. And honestly, latency isn’t something that we need to worry about too much because we’re not live monitoring our sound unless we’re doing a…
A podcast?
Unless we’re doing a podcast or unless you’re doing a live directed session. So certain terms like latency, they’re not that important for us yet.
You know, I’ll have you know, by the way, VO friends, I suffer for you so much that I’m hearing myself in a two second delay while we do the podcast and I’m going insane, but I do it all for you.
I know, I’m lucky. I don’t have that issue on this end. So, but thank you, Paul.
We appreciate it. We just need to figure out the best ways to do that.
We’re working on it.
We’re working on it. Every day is a journey. So going back to interfaces, before we had talked about USB microphones and why you might want to use them, why you might not.
So a USB microphone has three components in it. It has the microphone, the analog digital converter, and a preamp. While it’s convenient to have all of these things in the same device, because it’s pretty much just plug and play, where you suffer is in the digital conversion and in the sound quality.
That’s why it’s more beneficial to even have an inexpensive XLR microphone and an audio interface. And these boxes can be quite complex or very simplistic. Let’s talk about one of the more basic models, say the Focusrite Scarlett Solo.
Now you see a lot of these one channel interfaces out these days that have a one channel mic input. So you can plug one mic into them. They will have a phantom power option.
So you can send phantom power to your microphone, which you will need if you’re using a condenser mic. And then they have a USB out on the back and then maybe some speaker outs to plug in some additional monitoring speakers and the headphone jack. And that’s it.
And then maybe a couple of knobs for adjusting your volume for your headphones and for the mic. Now, when you get into some more expensive options, like say the Audient ID22 or the Apollo Twin Solo, these are about $600 units. What happens is you have better preamps, you have better conversion.
So you have a super clean signal, a very quiet signal, and you have additional features like different input and output capabilities. You might have more preamps, you might have two preamps, four preamps, six preamps, eight preamps. So you can hook up even more microphones.
Probably don’t need that. But you also have the ability to route your audio signal in and out of your computer. So you might be able to use an external preamp, you might be able to use a phone patch, if you have a phone patch device, or you might be able to use an ISDN box, which would allow you to be recorded by another studio in real time.
So when you’re just starting out, you probably don’t need those more sophisticated, more expensive units. There’s a lot that you can do with one of these more basic one or two channel interfaces.
Yeah, so let’s talk about some of the simpler ones that are out there. You mentioned the Scarlett Solo. I personally started with the Scarlett 2i2, which I know is a really popular model.
It’s made by the company Focusrite. And what I liked about that was the simplicity, like you said. It did have two XLR inputs and they were both able to be phantom powered, but it really only had four knobs on it.
Two gain knobs, a headphone, and an output for speakers, like you said. So that was a good one. Another simple one that I also tried out is the Shure X2U.
It’s a inline device that sort of looks like a XLR plug. You can plug the mic right into it, and it’s only about, what, three and a half inches long.
It’s one of the smallest interfaces you can find, really. And you just hook it up, like Paul said, at the back of your microphone. It’s about the size of a pack of gum.
It’s not very big at all, and you can usually find it for less than $100. So it’s a popular option for people who just want something that just works. And it’s also very portable for travel, too.
Yeah, that’s the reason I bought it, was to use traveling to do auditions on the road, possibly even in the car. I did use it a few times for that, because it’s so small, it can fit in your pocket, like you said. It’s more, it’s round, so it’s more like a roll of lifesavers, really.
But the issue I had with it was… Yeah, Mentos, the fresh maker. But the issue I had was, the dials were really difficult to control.
Yeah, they were…
They were thumb switches.
They’re really small and…
And really hard to roll back and forth.
They have like sort of an infinity scrolling feature, so you can’t really record individual settings for later. So you kind of just have to adjust it each time to make sure it’s where you’re at. They have a similar, more expensive model as well called the Micport Pro.
It’s been out for a while now, at least six years, I think. About as long as I’ve been studying voiceover and stuff like that. A lot of people use it.
People tend to either like the Shure X2U or the Micport Pro. They both do the same thing. They’re a one channel interface, very small footprint.
And you can either hook it up directly to the XL hour out on your microphone, or you can hook it up to the cable as well. Whatever works best for you. And so those ones are really convenient.
Like we were talking about, we had the Focusrite Scarlett Solo, where you have these sort of like little rectangular boxes with the one channel, usually a one mic input and a one instrument input. And now you see these guys everywhere. Like they’re sort of, I like to call them the singer-songwriter interfaces.
Cause they’re a newer product for sure. Cause what you see is that these interface companies will go from these larger units. And once they’ve worked out all the kinks, they just keep reducing features and inputs until you’re left with this small box that amateurs or people who just want to like plug and play can use.
So hooray for exponential technology increases.
So we talked about some of those one channel or even the 2i2 was a two channel interface.
Yeah.
Let’s talk about some of the other ones that you and I have personally used.
So like I said, my very first one was the Focusrite iTrack Solo. And I got that for a couple of reasons. One, it was on sale.
It was less than $100. And it is iOS compatible. It actually had a little jokingly small device link cable.
So this was one that connects directly to an iPad or an iPhone and it was just this…
The original, like the 30-pin connector?
Yeah, it was the 30-pin connector and it had this, it was like super small and it had this ridiculous right angle. So it was just bad. I don’t know, they had to, Focusrite had to meet Apple’s very strict cable requirements.
So that’s why they had such an odd shaped one. Nowadays, when you have iOS or Android compatible interfaces, they usually are fine with the cable that comes with your device or they come with it. So like I said before, the technology is constantly improving to make this stuff usable with a variety of devices.
But anyways, use the iTrack Solo, sounded great, very quiet preamps, very accurate preamps. But the one thing I didn’t like about it was the durability. Cause I mean, you’ve got this hollow metal chassis, like this folded aluminum, and then like a plastic faceplate and rear plate.
And after using the interface a couple of times, the faceplate was coming forward. Like I felt like I could just yank it out, you know? And so I just gave that to a music friend as like a birthday gift.
And then I got the Steinberg UR12, which is almost the same device, very similar, similar sounding preamps, maybe a little bit louder, but they have a nice musicality to them, for lack of a better word. They’re pleasant to listen to. And they’re very stable, they have stable drivers, and it’s built like a tank.
It’s seated very well in the chassis. It’s got a lot of the same features. It’s got one mic input, one instrument input, works with Macs, PCs, iOS devices.
It was a cool little device. But then after that, I decided to make a major upgrade in sound, and then I went all the way up to the Audient ID22.
Yeah. That’s a big jump.
That was a big jump.
You mind sharing the difference in price between those two?
So a lot of the ones that we have been talking about before are in the $100 to $150 range. So with the exception of some newer devices like the Audient ID4, which is another one channel interface, which comes in right at $200, most of these things are $100, sometimes even less, to $150. I mean, voiceover is filled with expenses, but these ones are pretty minimal comparing to how expensive a microphone or like a whisper room or some other piece of equipment can be.
But the Audient ID22, at least at the time, was, because it’s gone down a little bit, was $600. Oh! So that’s a big leap in price.
Yeah, honestly, that’s really not that, like you said, voiceover is expensive and that’s really not even that huge of a leap.
Yeah, it’s not. Like I said before, why would I go up? Why would I make this jump?
And the reasons is the additional features. So I think the most important question that you need to ask yourself when you’re looking at an interface is, what are your needs? What features do you actually need?
Do you have one mic? Then you just need one channel interface. Do you have two mics or do you plan on getting two?
You should use a two channel interface.
And the reason you might use two mics, not just to have one because you feel like having two mics, but you may use different mics for different styles of VO. I use my AT875R. It’s a shotgun primarily for commercials, e-learning, basically anything that takes me less than 10 minutes of constant narration.
But I have an Electro Voice RE320 for long form when I do longer e-learning pieces or audio books.
Absolutely. Your mics might have certain characteristics that you like. For example, a lot of people use the Sennheiser 416, which is a shotgun mic for promo, some commercial work, and even some documentary I’ve heard in Los Angeles.
But some people think that it’s far too aggressive for longer reads and can cause listener fatigue. So a lot of people will use a different mic, like a large diaphragm condenser, like say the Neumann TLM 103 or the CAD E100S or the Rode NT1, which is what I use, for longer, more straight passages. And I understand Paul likes his 320 because it’s got a little bit warmer sound to it.
It’s pleasant. It’s a little less sensitive to ambient noise, things like that.
That’s the key for me. But yeah, like you said, you have to make sure you know your needs and having more than one mic might be one of those.
And for some people, it’s not even that difficult just to swap mics and swap cables, but some people, they just want to be as efficient as possible and have access to both mics, depending on the project. And then going back to that Audient ID 22, why the difference in cost is the features. So it had a lot of desirable input and output routing features that I was interested in.
One of the things that sets this interface apart is it has something that’s called an insert send. So what that is, is that allows you to hook up an external piece of analog gear like a preamp or a compressor or an equalizer or some other analog device like that. The difference is, is that this will go into the device, it will not go through, it will bypass the audience internal preamps.
One of the confusing things about talking about audio interfaces and talking about analog gear is that you’ll hear people say interface and preamp almost interchangeably, and it can be confusing. The reason is, most interfaces have their own preamp inside of it, because these companies that make audio interfaces were making analog gear beforehand. So that’s the technology grew out of the analog gear.
So usually your interface will come with its own set of preamps. Some people might be happy with those preamps. Some people might not.
So they might want a different character preamp. Now the problem is, with a lot of those less expensive interfaces, there is no way to bypass the internal preamps. So that signal will be affected by the audio interface.
That could be a pleasing effect, or it might be an unpleasant one. That’s the issue. You would want to find something that you could plug into your device and have sort of an unfiltered signal.
Yeah, but again, that might be something you need, but maybe not.
I think we can safely say it’s not something you need at the beginning of your career.
Probably not, yeah. But there’s a lot of established voice over talent that have an interface with a built-in preamp and are perfectly happy with it. Mm-hmm.
And this may be something you need, it might not be, because I feel like there are two schools of thought. There are people who have been doing voice over for a very long time. They’re seeking a very specific sound.
They may or may not be audio engineers as well. And they’re looking for a specific sound. There are a number of preamps that are often recommended for voice over, like the Avalon 737 or the Avalon M5, the Martin Sound MS-10, the Universal Audio Twinfinity 710.
Preamps like this are often mentioned with the same mics over and over again. Problem is, a lot of these things cost $1,500, $2,000, $2,700, and that’s just one link in your chain. And then they’re hooking that up to a $600, $700 audio interface, and they’re using a $1,000 to $3,200 mic.
So as you can see, the cost can go up exponentially. And you have to ask yourself, is that additional cost a worthy return on your investment? Are you getting that much of an edge with this particular equipment, or can you sort of strip down and have a perfectly usable, perfectly competitive sound without all that extra gear?
I would say for most of our audience, the answer is probably no. Absolutely. We’re probably looking for a, what we call a prosumer grade device, where it has great built-in preamps as well as the interface.
And that’s all you’re going to have. You’re going to plug your mic into that, plug the interface in the computer, and you’ll be done.
Absolutely. And funny story about that. So I had, I did have the Audient ID22 for a while.
It was like my first big step up in quality. And I did, I did notice a big difference. It was great.
And it’s very encouraging when that happens, when you do have a noticeable upgrade. But unfortunately, after a few months, I had a bit of a funny story. The unit got wet because there was a storm at my house and the ceiling leaked and the unit got wet and it went kerfluffle.
Yeah, it was an unhappy time. But so I didn’t want any downtime, but I couldn’t afford to replace it. So I got the Audient at that time had just come out with a stripped down version, the Audient ID 14.
It had the great preamps and conversion of the ID 22, but it didn’t have some of the additional routing features. And then I was like, you know, I wasn’t using any of those. So it was like, because I didn’t, I wasn’t using any external gear and I didn’t have an ISDN box.
So I was like, wow, I, maybe I should have just waited for this to come out. So that was, that was a little expensive mistake, but I mean, it was a happy one. Cause you’re, you’re like, wow, I really didn’t need it.
And it has such a smaller footprint and it’s portable. You can use it as a travel solution and it just sounds great. I’ve never had any complaints.
And just sort of as an experiment, Audient came out with an even smaller one, their version of the one channel interface called the ID4. And honestly, I haven’t noticed a difference in quality. Between those three units, which go from $200 with the ID4, $300 for the ID14.
Although I’ve been really impressed with some of the great deals I saw during cyber week. Some people were selling theirs for 200 or 250. And if you can find it for that price, get it.
And then the ID22, which is gone from about $600 to $500. Sometimes you can find them for $450 or so on eBay. But honestly, I was like, yeah, I don’t need any of these additional features.
I just need a good preamp and good conversion.
Yeah, for our longtime fans, of which I know there are many, we recorded the whole Mavo episode, episode three on the ID4 live at the trade show floor.
Yeah, and I also used it for my little review of the Carry On Vocal Booth. And I thought it sounded great. It’s really nice.
So other than that, figure out what your budget is. If you can’t spend $600 on an interface, then don’t. There are definitely less expensive alternatives.
So once I found my interface, I got the ID and ID14. I used that for a while. I’m really happy.
And then I saw the video for the Yamaha AGO3. This one’s an interesting device. What is it?
About $125. It’s a one channel interface slash USB mixer. And what’s attractive about this unit is it has a lot of what’s called DSP, or Digital Signal Processing.
So if you’re an audio engineer or if you like to produce your own stuff, you can play with equalization and compression and some other settings, and then you can actually save those into that device for later. So for its price, between the $100 to $150, it sounds just as good as the competition as like the Focus Ride or the Steinberg stuff, actually Yamaha and Steinberg work together. They use the same preamps.
So you know you’re getting good quality with that. And then it had all that additional routing features. We’re using it for the podcast right now for its loopback feature, which allows me to record Paul remotely.
And it’s super simple. You just switch a button and then you can record someone from anywhere else in the world. Although we still haven’t figured out how to turn off that whole headphone feedback for Paul.
Right, and the reason you would want that feature, aside from doing a podcast, is if you’re being remotely directed by a client or a production house, where with some other interfaces, you may have to run another chord or use another interface to get that magic to happen. This creates basically a mix minus out of the box with just a flip of a switch where you can play back for the client what you just recorded and they won’t hear themselves looping back behind it. It’s really a great feature to have for those who are just starting out and may not understand the routing.
Or honestly, for those who have been doing this for a while, like me, and still don’t understand the routing.
Yeah, it’s a really elegant solution to a very specific problem. One that you might not even have, it allows you to actually record both ends of the conversation and play back. That’s the unique aspect of it, is actually being able to go to an earlier place on the track and then play it back for someone on the other end.
Because occasionally during a Skype or a phone patch, they will ask to hear a track played back. And you can do this with other software, with other solutions like IPDTL or Source Connect, or it’s essentially what an ISDN box does as well. But at a much lower price point and with far fewer cables and headaches.
Yeah, there’s actually another model, the big brother, so to speak, of that series. It’s called the Yamaha AGO6. So the AGO3 is a single channel.
The AGO6 is virtually the same, except it has another mic input. It doesn’t have phantom power to that second mic input. But if you’re using, say, a dynamic mic, or the inputs are actually combo inputs, both XLR and quarter inch jacks.
So you could plug a guitar into it, or another piece of music equipment, like a keyboard, and play that through the mixer at the same time. Now again, voiceover artists would necessarily use this. But I’m using the AGO6 right now on my end of the podcast, again, because I have those two mics.
My second mic is a dynamic mic that doesn’t need phantom power. So that’s why I’m able to get away with having the two inputs with only one phantom power.
Really, it doesn’t work, it doesn’t turn it on for both channels?
No, it does not. I found out the hard way, actually.
Oh, no.
I didn’t know that at first. I was trying to power a condenser with the second channel and didn’t know why it wasn’t working. So that’s one of the primary reasons I use a dynamic now for that second mic.
Okay, no thine device.
Yeah, again, it goes back to knowing what features you need and which features you’re going to use, or at least what you think you might use in the future.
And you know your preferences. So we’ve talked to some of our friends and some people, for example, me, Paul, our friend Mike, who’s been on the VO Meter Schtick. We’re gear heads, unabashedly so.
We like experimenting and trying out new gear that we can afford, hopefully. But then another friend of ours, lovely lady named Heather, she just wants to know that her equipment is going to work. So she bought the best that she could afford, and then she was done.
She was done looking. So you know yourself best if you just want a good sounding preamp, one or two channels, something from Focusrite, Steinberg, or Audient in the one channel or two channel category, you’ll be fine.
Yeah, I can’t stress enough, know your needs, because you may buy something you may not end up using, like Sean was saying, or in my case, I actually just recently bought an ID14, and was completely overwhelmed by all the features. In addition, one of the reasons I bought it was because I was having a technical difficulty with my Yamaha EGO3, and it turned out it was just a user error on my end. So, I bought the ID14.
Yes, it did sound great, but like Sean was saying, I wasn’t using any of the features in that at all. And in fact, it was confusing me so much that it was getting in the way of the work. So you want to make sure you have equipment that actually helps you do the work.
If you’re spending all your time adjusting features and turning knobs, and troubleshooting, it’s going to screw with your performance.
That’s why we’re at this beautiful time where the technology has really caught up, and you can get by with less. With spending less, with less inputs, with all of it. So it’s really a good time to get into voiceover.
Indeed.
So we were talking about that. Figure out what features you need, and honestly, you can get by with one of these one or two channel interfaces, maybe for your entire career. You might never need to upgrade.
But if you’re like me, you might get frustrated after a while, and you might try to fool around with something and hope that the next piece of gear will improve your sound. You might ask yourself when to upgrade. Well, like we said before, if your equipment is not meeting your needs, for example, if you need to be able to communicate with clients via Skype or Phone Patch, and your interface doesn’t allow you to do that, you might need something with more IO.,
with more input-output capabilities. If you’re not happy with how it sounds, you might want to try the preamps from a different company. I’m currently looking at this one interface from SPL, which is a German company called the Creon, which is supposed to have very neat…
Of course you are.
Of course I am. I don’t… Keep in mind, I don’t need it, and I probably won’t buy it, but I am looking…
Because you never know when you’re going to find a good deal on eBay, right?
Yeah, I’m still keeping my eyes open for an Apogee Duet.
Well, I think that’s old technology, honestly. And I know people have used it for a long time, and they’ve been happy with them. But recently, with some of the Mac OS upgrades…
Because keep in mind, Apogee’s only work with Macs.
Well, actually, the Duet 2, I believe that works with both platforms.
Ah, they might have changed it. But for a while, Apogee was only Mac, and the recent OS upgrades weren’t compatible. So here you have a product that is incompatible with the one product it’s supposed to be compatible with.
Yeah, I could be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure the Duet 2 is compatible all the way up to El Capitan, last I checked, and also Windows.
So what is it about that unit that’s interesting to you?
Well, I’m constantly chasing an easier way to route audio back to clients and or my podcast host. So that was the initial reason I got the HD03, so I could play the loop back to clients. And actually, the way I first used it was with my coach.
So if you’re in a coaching session and you’re doing it remotely and you want your coach to hear your performance, it’s a great feature for that too.
Yeah, or if you want to listen back on your own coaching sessions, I’ve done that as well.
Yeah, that’s true. But the feature about the Apogee Duet is it has an internal loop back feature as well. There’s really only a few prosumer-grade interfaces that have that feature.
The Audient is one, not the four, but the 14, the 22, the HD03. There’s three or four focus rights that do that feature. And the Apogee Duet is one of the only other ones I’m aware of.
I believe you can do it with…
I’m talking about under the $400, $500 range.
Because there’s this big gap. It’s like most of those things are in that $100 to $200 category, and then you have some in the $250 to $500, but mostly it’s just additional inputs. I mean, you’re just kind of tacking on IO.,
and then it’s not until you get to the $500, $600, $700 category that you really get those additional routing features, and then you have a step up in preamps and digital conversion and stuff like that. And I believe you can do the SPL that’s got, it’s a monitor controller, so you can route a lot of stuff like that too, similar to the ID22. But since I’m such an Audient fanboy, I just wanted a different flavor and try something new.
And it had certain things like, for example, a high pass filter at 70 hertz. So a high pass filter is something that takes out all of the low frequencies in a recording that are far outside the scope of the human voice. So like rumbling from equipment or things outside that you don’t want that muddy up a track.
Well, that’s a good point. A lot of these companies we’re talking about do have a built-in high pass filter. You do have to be careful because in some cases, it’s a little high.
I think the audience are actually 80, aren’t they?
No, those are at 100 Hz.
100.
So a lot of audio users, that’s one of their big tips, is that it’s not at a desirable frequency. It’s a little bit too low.
Too high, don’t you think?
Or I’m saying it’s affecting things that’s beyond what they want.
Right, because certain voices, mine included, when they’re deep, will have voice power between 50 and 100. Definitely 100. And in some cases, mine is actually one where I have some power in my voice around 50.
And a high-pass filter at 70 will cut out some of those frequencies that are actually desirable for my voice.
Yeah, so you’ll get a thinner sound. It’ll lose richness or fullness. So that’s why I was looking at the Creon, is that it had a desirable 70 hertz high-pass filter.
And then it was just laid out very logistically, or very logically, and it’s got all these cool buttons, of course, because who doesn’t like buttons? But it just seemed like a great step up, and it did have some useful features that could help me out. But at the moment, I don’t really need it.
I’ve got an interface, I’ve got a backup, and I’ve got a backup for a backup, so I think I’m okay.
Yeah, exactly.
All right, so I think you guys have been inundated with enough information about audio interfaces. So just to sort of wrap up, an audio interface is something that allows your microphone to communicate and be recorded by your computer. They can be incredibly simple or very complex, and when you’re looking for one, just keep in mind what is your budget.
Buy the best one that you can afford. And keep in mind, the $100 to $200 interfaces can go a long way. You can use these with $500 to $1,000 microphones with some of the industry standards, like the Neumann 103 or the Sennheiser 416, and get a competitive sound.
You don’t need to spend $500, $800 on an interface right off the bat, especially if you’re just getting started and you’re not sure if this is going to pan out. So, if you take anything away from this, know your budget and know your needs, and then try to stay within those. If you want a backup or an upgrade, then it’s fine to buy additional pieces of gear.
But other than that, don’t go too hog wild, unless you like gear, and that’s your reason right there.
It’s not a bad idea to plan ahead a little bit. Like you said, don’t break the bank. But early on, I knew I was probably going to use two mics because I wanted to make sure I could stand for certain styles and sit for certain styles.
So I really needed an interface that could take two mic inputs. So that was my only criteria for buying an interface. But I did plan ahead and buy one that was probably a little more than I needed because I was trying to future-proof.
And then I sold it anyway and bought three more. But that’s beside the point.
Having room to grow is definitely important. But as you might notice, even though we’re trying out different units, we have very specific reasons for doing that. It’s not just like, oh, this is cool.
Even if it’s just trying something out to be able to recommend it to other talent. Like, that’s the whole reason why I bought that Audient ID4 is because I was a big fan of Audient and I was able to get a discounted demo version. And I can wholeheartedly recommend it to talent because it’s super easy to use, looks cool, and sounds great.
I think we have beaten the digital converter box debate to death. Hopefully, we have been able to give you guys some good information and some recommendations if you’re in the market for a new interface. So, I’m Sean Daeley with The VO Meter Podcast with my co-host Paul Stefano.
Come check us out over at vometer.com to subscribe.
And if you’d like to be featured on The VO Meter Schtick or have any other comments, please let us know in the comments box. We’ll see you next time.
Thanks again for listening and happy interfacing. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter. Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.

The VO Meter… Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to a very special episode of the VO Meter podcast, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. It’s leading into the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US., and Sean and I thought we’d take some time to talk about the things for which we are thankful in the world of VO.
But first, as always, we’ll talk a little bit about what’s going on in our careers and our lives, and then we’ll get into what we’re thankful for. So Sean, how have you been, buddy?
Good. I just got back from the East Coast. We were at MAVO in Virginia, or the Mid-Atlantic Voice Over Conference, and then I got to visit my brother and his fiance over in Boston.
And that was a lot of fun. I haven’t been to the East Coast in a long time. It’s definitely different for a Seattleite like myself.
And work-wise, things have been kind of quiet. I’ve just been finishing up on some narration projects. I’m actually looking to get some more coaching with, particularly, an audiobook coach so I can sort of fill my extra hours with nonfiction, or recording nonfiction.
So I’m excited about that.
So you have somebody in mind when you mention the word nonfiction? Somebody I know?
Yeah, someone you know.
Good luck with that.
Well, thank you very much.
So in my VO world, I’m pretty heavily into the audiobooks right now, as I usually am. I usually have at least one or two going, but the moment I have four going, I just picked up another one this afternoon, actually. One is complete and waiting for ACX to approve it, so that one at least is off my to-do list.
But the other three are still pending and working on them every couple of days. But other than that, I was recently upgraded to a professional member of the World Voices Organization. So I was pretty excited about that.
Very cool. And for people who don’t know, WOVO, or World Voices Organization, it’s a trade association. It’s sort of like…
It’s not quite a union, but the whole point is it’s voice over artists volunteering to try and set some sort of standards of quality for everyone, regardless of levels of experience. So it’s some of the best in the business trying to uphold the integrity of said business. So it’s definitely something you should look into becoming a part of if you want to be a voice talent and proud of the work you do in support of the community that you’re a part of.
Yeah, I think the technical term would be an advocacy group.
Yes.
They basically don’t set policy and no rules or regulations that people need to follow. It’s not a union, like you said, but it’s an advocacy group to give people the best practices for how they should conduct themselves in their career. And I found it really beneficial.
It’s one of the things I’m going to get to in my list, so let’s not spoil the surprise. Is there anything else going on in the VO world that we need to talk about?
Well right now, I’m just waiting. I submitted to a couple of agencies. Some are local, out of Seattle, and then some are a little bit further out in Oregon.
But still waiting to hear back on… But honestly, it can be weeks or even months before you hear from an agency. So you just have to keep reaching out to other contacts and try not to go crazy waiting for that phone call.
Yeah, definitely. And along those lines, I’ll throw out another tip that I came across this week, speaking of agents. And it goes back to a blog post I made a few months ago about talking to your agents.
Once you secure that agent and you’re listed and you have representation, that’s great. But you have to make sure you maintain that relationship. So I reached out to all of my agents and sent them a note talking about this upgrade to professional membership for Volvo and got a couple of congratulatory emails.
And one of my agents said, that’s great, but I’m still not seeing you in my casting network’s feed. So it’s a database of actors, I think primarily for on-camera work. But there’s also jobs for voiceover artists.
So my agent in Philadelphia told me, I have not seen you there. So I went back and looked at my profile and realized that I had missed a step in the registration where they had asked for sizes for clothing. So when you’re looking for an actor of a certain build or you need to know what sort of wardrobe you need to have for them for on-camera again, you need to list your coat size and your shoe size and your inseam.
And I just skipped over that because I figured I’m a voice actor. They don’t need to know this. Apparently they did need to know this in order to complete the profile.
Whap, whap.
So all this time, my agent had not been seeing me come up in her feed and consequently wasn’t sending me anything.
And that’s why it’s good to communicate to your agents.
Exactly, communicate to your agent. So since then I’ve had four auditions over the last couple of days.
Oh, nice.
And I think in total, prior to that, I had gotten four the entire year. They were the first agency I signed with. So it pays to talk to your agents, keep up that relationship.
So before we get into the list of the things for which we are thankful, it’s time for this episode’s VO Meter Schtick. This episode featuring Mike Norgaard with some things he’s thankful for and some gear he’s thankful for.
Okay, everybody, it’s time for the VO Meter Schtick.
What did he say?
It’s time for the VO… Oh, nevermind. The VO Meter Schtick?
Oh, got it.
Hey, Paul. Hey, everybody in the VO Meter listening community. Happy Thanksgiving to you.
And we’re talking about, I guess, what we’re thankful for in the VO industry. And first and foremost, I’m gonna say it’s the people and the comradery and the support that this industry offers people, especially people who are new to the industry and trying to sort of get an idea of the landscape and how to get started and break into the business. Seems to be a very welcoming business in that sense.
But the other thing I want to talk about is gear, and in particular, used pro audio gear and where to get it and where to find some great deals on it. One of the secrets that I found is local pawn shops. Pawn shops can be a great place to pick up used pro audio gear, some of it pretty high end.
And I’ll share a little story with you. I’ve gotten a couple of pieces of gear that way. First of all, my JBL 305 Near Field Studio Monitors.
Great little set of monitors. And I got them for about 70% off retail used at a local pawn shop. Just wandered in and kind of looking around at what they had, and lo and behold, there they were.
Secondly, I’ve been auditioning a number of different microphones over probably the last six months or so, trying to find something that I feel is a really good fit for my voice, my recording space, my environment and my sound chain. And I’d always heard, of course, of the venerable MKH 416 by Sennheiser. It really is the industry standard, and something that you’re going to hear everybody talking about in terms of shotgun microphones.
And it does a great job. It’s earned its reputation, but it’s also expensive. New retail, it’s about $1,000 if you buy it right now from Sweetwater, amazon.com, B&H Photo, or wherever your preferred retailer of choice is.
However, you can find them used on the secondary market. Usually they’re between $600 and $700, somewhere in that range. Well, I had seen a 416 come online in inventory at one of the local pawn shop chains that I will drop into from time to time.
And they have an online search feature where you can actually look at their inventory online. This thing was actually listed under camera accessories and not microphones, which may be the reason that it stayed on the shelf as long as it did. After about two weeks of looking at this thing, listed at $599.99, I decided to drop in and have a look at it in person.
Well, I did so, and luckily, the store was already running a Black Friday special and had it marked down to $425. So I’m looking at this 416 for $425, which is just an unheard of price. And you do have to be careful, by the way, because there are some counterfeit 416s floating around out there, and you can read stories about them online.
So I thought, well, at $425, it may be worth a shot. I know that the store has a seven-day return policy, and I bought an audio interface there once in the past. It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, and did take it back, and they honored the return policy.
So it’s pretty comfortable with the fact that if it didn’t work out, I could take it back. So I decided to give it a try, brought it home, plugged it into my interface, and lo and behold, it’s the real McCoy. And I ended up paying $360 after a little bit of negotiation, so out the door for exactly $400 cash with an MKH 416.
So keep that in mind, and consider visiting your local pawn shop if you want to find some great deals on pro audio equipment. But again, word of caution, always check the return policy before buying anything used. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
Thank you, Mike. Great story. Let’s move into the meat…
Ha ha, see what I did there? Of this…
You are correct, sir….
Let’s talk about some of the things for which we are thankful in our VO careers. Do you want me to start, Sean, or would you like to start?
Well, I’ll start. I mean, I already love Thanksgiving as a given just because of how… I love food.
I love the food that is involved. I love… I have many, many happy memories of being with friends and family for Thanksgiving and, actually, my friends’ family sort of adopting my family into their Thanksgiving celebrations and those are always lots of fun and just more pumpkin pie as far as the eye can see and just…
I mean, it’s a great foodie holiday, you know?
Yeah, indeed. It’s one of my favorite things, too. I do love to eat.
What’s your favorite Thanksgiving dish?
I just like the turkey, honestly.
The turkey? Yeah.
I’m one of the guys that loves to grab the whole turkey leg and just go to town on it in front of everybody and just drool on the table.
I just like the whole set, you know? It’s like, I mean, you have to have the… Usually, I’ll have turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing all on one plate and then that’s just like one single food, you know?
That is Thanksgiving dinner.
Yeah, things that you would never actually eat together normally.
Yeah. Which is really, really interesting.
Sweet and salty and sour is mixed together, but it all seems to work.
But anyways, thankful. So, I mean, Thanksgiving is a family holiday and that’s something that I’m very grateful for is a supportive family and like a very strong support group because it did take a while to convince everybody that, hey, this was a viable career choice. But once it did, everyone was nothing but support.
Parents are trying to help me build a studio space in our house and all of my friends are incredibly supportive and are very happy for me. And you need that sometimes because we face rejection every day. So yeah, you have to have a thick skin, but it’s a lot easier if you have a support group to help you.
And I would say the first people I need to thank are my supportive family as well, my parents who have been very supportive, my wife who is a saint because of all the purchases that I’ve made and has tolerated that for the rest of her life. Yeah, we’ve had that conversation pretty much weekly for the last nine to 12 months.
Oh man.
But I understood because it can be a leap. And like you said, it takes a while to gain some ground and actually see some results. And at first, it can seem like a giant waste of time and or money.
And I can see objectively how that appears to the outside world and especially your family who’s sharing your finances and sharing your living space. When I dropped the booth in the middle of the spare bedroom, everybody said, what did you just do up there? How are we supposed to get to the bed or the desk to do our homework?
And, you know, they have to be supportive, otherwise, it’s not going to work. So I’m incredibly thankful to my wife, my three kids, and as I said, my parents who don’t live with me, but have been extremely supportive as well.
That’s wonderful. Very happy about that. Let’s see.
Other things to be thankful for, VO Mentors. And, this could be a coach that you pay to work with, or it could be a talent that is more experienced than you and takes you under their wing, or the community as a whole. Because, and granted, when you ask a question on the internet, it is wisdom of the crowd, but still, everyone is very, very generous with their insights and with their knowledge of audio recording and tech…
Most of the time, yes.
Most of the time, yes. But the VO community is probably the most supportive in the entertainment industry, without a doubt. So, it’s one that I’m very grateful to be a part of and very happy that I’m included.
Anybody specific that you want to mention? I have a few names I’m going to throw out, but I’ll give you the chance first.
Yeah, a lot of people at the Global Voice Acting Academy, Christina Melizia and David Rosenthal and Ann Gangusa and Mario Navall and David Tobak and Terry Daniel and Sean Allen Pratt and Deb Monroe, whole bunch of different coaches and… or Chrisman Freeman, lots and lots of people who have helped me out in different ways throughout the years.
Yeah, so I have a few names as well, but they all started from an organization or I guess an entity online. That’s the VO’s BB or the Voice Over Bulletin Board, and that was a… or still is, an online collection of information and profiles for VO talent and one of the greatest repositories I found for backlogs of information on everything from gear to coaching to the best way to market your business and some of the greatest talent in the world are on there.
And they have helped me tremendously in getting started. It’s the first place I went and found really any information, and that’s because the depth and breadth of the information is such that if you do a Google search on anything voice over related, it will probably come up. Yeah, exactly.
And that’s the thing is it’s not that difficult to find. I just feel like if a bunch of new people, if they looked there, if they looked at voice over extra, if they read some of the better voice over blogs like Paul Strakwerd is or Dave Kervasi is, then so many of their questions would be answered.
Yeah, it’s true.
I mean, granted, the VO BB has been around for a while, almost two decades. So some of that content is a little dated, like only the technological stuff, because this is back when people were using sound cards and FireWire and stuff like that. Everything else is golden.
And it’s one of the few places that you can go where you can get honest feedback on your demo, or a lot of people will have it produced, but then they might not like the order of a demo. And then you can get feedback on that, or people are willing to criticize your website and give you ideas to make it more mobile friendly, or just brainstorm and help improve your business.
Yeah, exactly. You mentioned VO Mentors. I have quite a few that I met virtually through the VOBB that maybe they don’t consider me a protege, but I certainly consider them mentors because of all the private conversations we have.
And Bob Bergen comes to mind, Philip Banks, another great talent from the UK, Peter Bishop, UK talent living in the US, and Doug Turkel all have been so giving of their time when I was badgering them with stupid questions early on and never complained, just gave me reams of information where to go and basically helped me grow up in the business. And I know I’ve only been doing it for a year and a half to two years now, but I feel like I would have stagnated much worse if I didn’t have those people in my life to help me along the way.
But yeah, I mean, it’s absolutely. And I mean, you sound quite grateful and I’m sure you are. And it makes you want to give back too.
I mean, that’s the whole reason we’re doing this podcast is because we want to offer what we can. And as our own knowledge and experience grows in the voiceover business, we’ll have more that we’ll be able to offer to the community behind us, you know? So.
Yeah, it might be a good time to say again that Sean and I are not putting ourselves out there as experts in any way, shape or form. We’re just trying to share some of the knowledge we’ve gained along the way and hopefully help people that may be in a situation we were in not so long ago. So along those lines, another great online resource and folks that have helped me professionally again are the VOBS folks.
That stands for Voice Over Body Shop. It’s a web show that’s airing right now, actually. So if you’re listening to this on a Monday night, you’re probably multitasking, listening to George and Dan.
So George Widom, Dan Leonard, the guys that host that show. So much information that they put out there just out of the goodness of their hearts on that show and in the backlogs of their past episodes. Again, that’s basically where I grew up in the business was learning that information from them.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I went, they taught me everything I know about audio recording basically and making my workflow easier for me. I know it’s intimidating for a lot of people or some people who are apathetic towards having to do the audio engineering stuff, but they make it so accessible and it’s downright entertaining to watch and they get some amazing guests on there.
So Dan and George, thank you guys so much. And they’ve both helped me out with improving my studio sound via some of their services. So, I mean, they’re great and they’re great to work with.
Yeah, if you’re old enough to remember the old Hair Club for Men commercials, I’m not just a member, I’m also a client. George and Dan have services for hire and I’ve hired them both at different times to help me out. So if you’re looking to pay a professional to help get your sound right, probably can’t find a better place.
And then there are other great people too. I mean, there’s Uncle Roy and Dan Friedman, or I should say Uncle Roy Yokelson, or Cliff Zellman, or Jordan Reynolds. So if you ask any of those guys, you’ll be set with your voice over technological problems.
Indeed. So talking about additional free information, a person who also helped me with their backlog of free information was Bill Dewey’s very successful voice talent who also has a coaching business, but has available lots of free information on his website.
He probably has the most ubiquitous YouTube channel regarding to voice over technique and technology and providing voice over services.
Yeah, that’s probably true.
He recently came under some fire from the voice over industry because he was essentially endorsing Fiverr or trying to release a secret to unlocking the true earning potential of being a Fiverr talent. But I don’t know, I’m conflicted about it. Like, I love his free resources, but in the same vein.
So, I mean, it’s really up to you. I just want to provide the information so you can make an unbiased choice.
Yeah, of course. Like anything, you should make your own decisions. But I respect the man for his information, at least at the outset.
Absolutely. I mean, he is a businessman at heart. He came into it through marketing, and so he knows what he’s doing.
All right, well, you’re going to like this one. You ready?
Yay.
So I need to thank the former New Guy Group, or New Person Group. And that is a group of people that I basically pulled together about a year ago to do workouts every week. We met virtually over Google Hangouts mostly.
I think we did Skype once. But we got people from around the globe together to just talk about the trials and tribulations that they were having the past week, and the sort of wins they had in their career, and then actually do workouts, read scripts, get critiques, and hopefully get better. So those people in no specific order are Mike Norgaard, who is a voice talent out of Texas, John Rorda, works out of Indiana, Heather Masters, who is in Alaska, Marisha Toppera, who is kind of near me in Silver Spring.
Oh, I’m going to botch it. I believe it’s Silver Spring, if not, Rockville. Sorry, Marisha.
And finally, our own Sean Daeley. So we met on the VOBB and had that idea to get that group together. And the rest was history, as they say.
No, and I’m really grateful to Paul for starting that group, because it’s like we were talking about having a support group. If you don’t have friends or family who know or support what you’re trying to do, VO-related, then you got to find your tribe. And Paul certainly went out of his way to find people who were at where he was at or just ahead of him, so they could challenge him to go to do better.
Like I’ve said before, we all offer our own unique experiences and our own niches that we can offer advice on. And of course, it’s really fun to vent and talk shop and to share experiences. It’s very fun.
And I’ve done online workout groups. I’ve done in-person ones, and they both have their benefits, so see what you can find. They’re definitely worth your time.
Yeah, there was actually a discussion on this this afternoon in one of the Facebook groups where Bish, Peter Bishop, who we mentioned earlier, was talking about how important he thinks, what do you call them, affinity groups or stand-up groups are to progress your career. And I mentioned this little…
Having accountability buddies.
So, I mentioned this little group we have and how beneficial it was to us. And I would highly recommend anyone out there who’s sort of feeling lost to seek out people. Because everyone that I pulled into this group, the first response was, oh, I’ve been looking for something exactly like that.
I wish I had something like that. And my advice would be if there isn’t in your area, start it yourself. Start a local meetup group or start one online with people that you know from social media.
It can really be helpful to not only your career, but your sanity. Like Sean was saying, just being able to talk shop with someone else who understands what you’re going through is so helpful.
And sometimes you can work out solutions to problems or making yourself more efficient at editing or marketing or what have you. But sometimes it’s just nice to vent.
Indeed. So another organization I want to thank is the World Voices Organization. We mentioned them earlier, but they have been tremendously helpful to me with not only their information, but again, having sort of a group of like-minded people that I know I can go to if I have a question or a concern and always get an answer or an opinion.
And Dave Gavache, in particular, who’s the current president, has been extremely helpful to me. He’s allowed me on the roundtable where I was able to talk with other pros on their live meeting. And again, it’s been great for me.
It’s a fantastic group. And like I said, it’s really one all about integrity. Some of the issues that they are constantly working on are maintaining and even increasing compensation for talent, constantly making the discussion about rates and how to improve that situation, as well as how to protect new talent from predatory coaching services.
We call them demo mills or demo factories, which is, regardless of how well you’re progressing through a VO curriculum, by the time you’ve taken four, six, eight classes, then you have a demo, whether or not you’re ready for it, whether or not you’re competitive. So you could be wasting a whole lot of time, energy, and money on something that’s not going to further your career at all.
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Now, one of the things I wanted to talk about, another group I need to thank, are basically where I got my start, and that’s Edge Studio. I went to them for my initial coaching because I was worried about going to someone who was a demo male and might not have my best interest at heart.
What I liked about them the most was they had an introductory class where I was able to get together for an hour and they called it Trying On Voice Over.
Investigate Voice Over?
That’s it, Investigate Voice Over. So I tried that out, and they never called me again. And I said, that’s the kind of group I like because they’re not pressuring me.
I did investigate another coach that I don’t want to name, but they’d call me like every day and said, are you ready to sign up yet? Are you ready to sign up yet? And that was really off-putting.
So you want to look for a coach who definitely has your best interest at heart.
That’s interesting to hear about Edge because I had a little bit of a different experience. I did that as well. And they called me and were like, Yeah, you’re great for voiceover.
Now let us try and hook you with our $1,700 coaching and demo production package. So they were a little bit salesy for me. Oh really?
Yeah, that was my experience. And I feel like any business will probably try and encourage their staff to use that kind of script. So I don’t blame them that much.
I will say I didn’t wait very long to make my decision. Like anything, I was champing at the bit, so I waited two weeks. So maybe if I had waited longer, they would have called me, but after two weeks, I was ready to make my decision.
No, I think that was timely. It shouldn’t have taken that long. But yeah, I’m glad you had a great experience with them.
They did my first demo, and it landed me with my first couple of agents. Well, all my agents, honestly, and that’s where I want to take this next. I want to thank all of my wonderful agents.
Thank your agents. Tip your agents.
Starting with Pat Yorks.
Edible arrangements.
Exactly. So starting with Pat Yorks at Agency Connects in Philadelphia, Susie de Santiago in Chicago, Sheila Erickson in Utah, Salt Lake City, the fine folks at IBG, the International Voice Group in London, and EDM Worldwide.
Very cool.
Oh, sorry, I forgot. Refinery Artist Management in Vancouver, Canada, and Rebecca Strom in particular was my agent up there.
Very nice.
Thank you, agents.
Just remember, like you were saying before, two-way streak. Follow up and maintain good relationships with your agents.
Indeed. And thank them. It’s Thanksgiving.
Send them a turkey or something. Or some cranberry sauce.
You know, the shipping costs alone.
Yeah. Well, they could fly there, right?
Yeah.
As God is my witness. So Sean, anyone else you want to thank?
What we were talking about before, because we had such an amazing experience at MAVO, people like Val Kelly or Anne Gangusa and Gerald Griffith, people who go out of their way, who build funds for voice over conferences, because they’re trying to make an amazing event for voice over talent all over the world now. I mean, when we went to VO Atlanta, I came from Japan. We had people coming from South America.
These events truly have reached a global international scale. A lot of people wonder what’s the benefit? Is this going to have a direct impact on my bookings?
It might, but they’re wonderful experiences. They’re very validating, invigorating experiences. So, if you can go to a local one, or you can afford to go to one of the larger ones that they have each year, then by all means, you should work it into your budget.
At least once. Give it a try. See if it’s something you like.
But anyways, these people always work so hard and pour so much blood, sweat and tears into these events. And they really do deserve our thanks and praise, I think.
And we really appreciate it.
That’s pretty much everything I’m thankful for this year. So I guess that brings us to the end of our little Thanksgiving special. And what I’m noticing here is we have this theme of being grateful for people, whether they be your friends, your family, your mentors, the people who come to you for help, and the very amazingly supportive community that we call Voice Over.
Yeah, I agree. At the end of the day, the business really is just about relationships and how you deal with people, and that’s what makes it so much fun and such a great place to be.
Well said. So I don’t know about you, but I’m going to curl up with a turkey sandwich and beer and enjoy this wet Washington evening.
Oh, you got some rain up there?
Always.
Yeah, thankfully we’re dry here, but extremely cold. Winter came in extremely fast. It was 60 degrees on Saturday, and now it’s 30.
So maybe we’ll have a white Thanksgiving. My kids would love that. So happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, Sean.
Thank you very much. You have a great Thanksgiving, Paul.
And everybody out there in VO land, happy Thanksgiving.
On three. One, two, three.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
Happy Thanksgiving, guys. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.

The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hello everybody, and welcome to the second episode of The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. Joining me as always is Sean Daeley. How you doing, Sean?
I’m doing well, I’m looking forward to this episode.
Yeah, as am I. It’s been a while since the last one.
Oh, about a week, if you’re paying attention.
Well, we didn’t have to put that out there. We don’t know when we’re gonna release it.
I don’t know, well, we’re still trying to work on that. I mean, I know plenty of people who do like quarterly podcasts or, I mean, it’s as often as we… No, I know, we want regularity.
Our fans demand it.
Right, all of our fans are clamoring for another episode already.
So, in the last, since we had our last episode, let’s talk about some of the things that have happened to us, either good or bad in the career path. You can start.
All right, well, I’m really excited because I found the best place to record in my house. And I’m actually back at home visiting family for a while. And my mom’s walk-in closet is the best sound booth ever.
I love it. I’m literally just, I’m just using a Sennheiser 416 into a small preamp slash interface into my MacBook. And this is some of the best sound I’ve had.
I’ve had in my entire career. It’s amazing, really. And we’ll talk more about that.
So what about you, Paul?
Yeah, I’d have to agree, first of all, knowing the different permutations you’ve gone through with your setup, it’s by far the best sound you’ve ever had. And it’s so simple that it amazes me. So from my end, I released a new demo this week.
And I was pretty excited about that.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you signed with another e-learning company?
Yeah, I mean, signed is a relative term. As is with most Asians or rosters, it’s a non-exclusive thing. But yeah, I had the demo produced by the incomparable Terry Daniel, who I believe you’ve worked with as well.
Yeah, he’s a great coach.
Yeah, great coach. And the demo came out fantastic. So never wanted to sit on my laurels.
I started submitting it immediately and contacted a bunch of e-learning companies. I went to elearningindustry.com, if anyone knows that website. I saw the top 10 lists of companies there and of course contacted them all.
And somebody got back to me right away and said, yeah, we’d love to have you and we’ll send you something soon. So I guess proof is in the pudding. The demo came out pretty well.
I think so. And like you said, never sitting on your laurels. You already had a couple of clients and a couple of demos out there, but you felt the need to make another one.
So, and it already seems to be returning on that investment.
Yeah, well, I was looking for a genre specific demo for narration and e-learning. I had a pretty decent commercial demo, but the ones I had out there for e-learning and explainer videos were done by me. And we talked in the last episode about how that can be a pitfall to potentially overcome.
So now they have one that’s professionally produced. I feel pretty good about the way that sounds as compared to my commercial demo.
And then there is a ton of work to get. I mean, majority of the work I do is corporate or educational narration. And I feel like it’s one that your voice is suited for too.
Yeah, hopefully we’ll see how that goes. So on a related note, I just finished up a couple of jobs with some clients, also e-learning. I was doing the English voice dubbing for a yoga instructor.
That was kind of fun. And also some guided meditation sessions. I think we talked about this last episode too.
But I just finished up that project. So I’m looking pretty hard at some new projects coming up and we’ll see what happens with this new demo. Hopefully that can help.
Very cool. I recently reached out to some local production houses and studios and talent agencies in Washington and still waiting. The waiting is kind of killer, but I’m very happy with how my cover letter turned out.
I didn’t be like, hire me please. But you just tell them your qualifications and then show them the best way to get ahold of you and try not to pander them and have them a little bit more individualized cover letter. And most people will get back to you.
And so far the response has been positive. I did hear back from a couple of studios, they’re like, hey, great demos. If we need you, we’ll hire you.
So there you go.
Yeah, that’s something I want to talk about actually. And to your point, my cover letter is pretty simple as well. It really has about three sentences about where I’m from and how I’m looking to help them.
And then my demo, and that’s really it. I think simple is best in that case. Somebody recently asked me that, another voice talent about what my cover letter looks like.
And I tried to explain how to keep it simple, I think helps. I know as a hiring manager in other walks of life, I hated long cover letters and really convoluted resumes. All I wanted to see was the qualifications and get to the point basically.
Absolutely. So think of it like a good essay, you know? Intro, body, closing.
And that’s about, I mean, you can do that in three paragraphs. I mean, this can be as short or as long as you want it. But if you want some good templates, actually the online voice acting school I work for, the Global Voice Acting Academy, we have a great video on our YouTube channel called Success With Agency Submissions.
So if you want to pop over to our YouTube channel, you can find that video. It is a free video. And you can get ideas on what you should do when you’re demo ready and how to reach out to talent agencies or production houses with your materials.
Yeah, that’s great. Definitely check that out. So there was something I wanted to bring up about reaching out to people.
And it’s a question that I had in my mind. I don’t think I’ve asked anybody else yet, but it’s a burning question that I wanted to talk about. When you send out your information, is there a good response that’s still saying no?
So if an agent gets back to you and says, thanks for your submission, it’s not a good time, or thanks for your submission, we have a lot of voices that are already similar to yours. Does that mean they’re just being kind? Or does it mean that getting an answer is a good response as opposed to being completely ignored?
I’d say it’s a good response because most agents are incredibly busy and the fact that they respected you enough to get back to you is, I think it speaks volumes. And you can always resubmit. I mean, usually, if you get something specific like, oh, we already have someone of your type, just wait like six months, that might be different.
People move, people change agencies. You just have to keep a note in whatever record-keeping software you use. It could just be an Excel file and you just have notes about the people that you’ve contacted and just be like, oh, they got back to me.
They have someone like me already. Try again in six months and then follow up on it. So don’t get too discouraged.
I mean, rejection is probably the largest part or the largest hurdle and a giant part of this industry. Someone who’s, I think, is a quite talented voice actor just wrote a whole blog article about… You mean me?
How… Well, you as well. And another British voice talent named Jay Britton just wrote a blog article about…
Yeah, I love him too. He’s really like, he’s a real mensch. But wrote a great blog article about facing rejection.
And it honestly doesn’t matter how talented you are. The world is filled with a lot of talented people and you will not be selected for plenty, for more gigs than you will be selected for no matter what. So build that thick skin as early as you can.
Which is why we sort of talked about the importance of being receptive to feedback in our last episode. Because if you… I don’t want to, like bullheadedness could be a good thing if it pushes you forward, but you need to be open to feedback and you need to not take it so personally that you won’t try to implement it.
You need to not be annoying too.
And not be annoying too.
Another talent was discussing with me today about when’s too soon to follow up. And again, referencing my years as a hiring manager, I was saying what I always liked was a quick follow up once or maybe twice, but then to stop. The person that emails every week or every day or every couple of days is really pushing the envelope.
So you have to have that fine balance between following up and being forward thinking and then also just being annoying. But I’m glad to hear you say that about the response because that was kind of the way I took it too. This happened to me obviously a couple of times in the past few months where I got that response from an agent and I thought, well, at least they responded to me.
So that must be a good sign.
And it definitely helps to have a positive outlook and like a glass half full mentality.
Yeah, definitely. And bulletproof skin. But that comes over time.
Probably more so than me. I mean, we were talking about before, you just keep throwing tactics at the wall and seeing what sticks. And like there’s a lot of bravery in that and I admire it.
Yeah, and that comes with time. For me, it’s not necessarily in the voiceover business, but I spent a lot of time in different careers. And one of them was a financial advisor where I was cold calling people.
This is when you were actually allowed to cold call people back in the early part of the century. And it would be nothing to make 100, 200 phone calls a day and just hear the word no, no, no every single time. Ironically, the shooting percentage of getting a client was probably about the same, but you’d have a lot more quantity of rejection.
So that’s how I developed my thick skin. But if you’re just starting out in the voiceover career, you will build that up over time. Or you can sort of fall back on other experiences you’ve had that are similar and use that to push you forward.
And cold calling is, it’s not dead. I mean, there are plenty of people who don’t like it either receiving it or doing it as a marketing strategy. But if it’s something that you’re comfortable with or want to try, you should just be prepared, have a nice little script, don’t waste people’s time.
And like you were saying with those follow-up emails, keep it short and sweet, because people are busy and they will call you back when they’re ready.
Yeah, and be respectful of people’s time. Do the call, do a second call, and then wait, like at least a month, or what a lot of people say is to have a tickler file of three months. So you put that person’s name in either a revolving, what we used to call a Rolodex, or this day and age you use a contact management system.
And then remind yourself in three months to call them back, and sometimes that works. So that’s a little bit about what Sean and I have been up to since the last episode. We’re gonna move into our Tech Talk segment, talking about microphones specifically.
But first, we’re gonna introduce a new segment we have called The VO Meter Schtick. It’s gonna be a small little anecdote or a comical story that we have from one of our VO friends this week featuring John Roorda.
Okay, everybody, it’s time for The VO Meter Schtick.
What did he say?
It’s time for The VO… Oh, never mind.
The VO Meter Schtick?
Oh, got it.
Hi, VO friends, John Roorda here, with an interesting little story about how small the world can be. So, my name is not very common, and when you do a Google search on my name, you’ll start seeing very quickly, perhaps even on the first page, hits for a Jeff Roorda, a no relation, a St. Louis County law enforcement official. It’s been pretty active in the media lately.
So, I’m signed up with a production house that sends me bookings based on my demo with no auditions. And to the client, this is completely blind. They see me as a number, not a name.
So, I was quite surprised a couple of weeks ago when I actually received a booking for the promo for Jeff Roorda’s new upcoming book. So, strictly by coincidence, he had no idea who he was booking, or if he thought I was a relative, he just saw a number, not a name. So, small world after all, right?
Just an interesting little coincidence that I thought I’d share. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter Schtick.
Once again, that was John Roorda, another great voice talent, and listen to that bass. Thanks a lot, John, that was a lot of fun to listen to, and we’d love to have you back again. So right now, we’re gonna talk about microphones.
Dun, dun, dun.
Because I feel like this, we both feel that this is a topic where a lot of people have those pitfalls, and we certainly had a few of them ourselves. So Paul, do you wanna start or should I?
Yeah, well, I have a litany of microphones I’ve used as I mentioned in the first episode, but I’ll talk about what I started with, and maybe that can give somebody some insight into what might be a good starter set. So I started with the Scarlett Studio, which is a package by Focusrite that comes with a USB interface and a microphone. It actually comes with a stand too, that you can, a tripod stand that you can put the mic on.
And I used that for a couple of days, typical to how I’ve done everything with the career, but I only used it for a couple of days where I thought the microphone was just picking up too much mouth noise, too much sibilance specifically, and sounded a little tinny to my ears. Of course, this was back when I first started, literally the first week, and I probably had no idea what I was talking about, but it sounded bad to me. So what I did was I kept the interface and swapped out the microphone.
The microphone, by the way, is called the Scarlett CM25. I was trying to look up some information on it, but they don’t make the microphone by itself, so it was a little hard to figure out. But I did pull up the information from our friend’s guitar center.
And from what I can tell, the microphone’s frequency response was 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz, which is pretty common, a common range. So the frequency response should have been fine for my voice. I have found that my voice has a lot of energy down in the even 40 to 50 hertz range, which is kind of uncommon, but you can probably hear that it’s pretty bassy.
But it seemed like this microphone was not picking it up.
The frequency range, Paul is just saying he’s got a very low voice. And the smaller the number, say like the, if you have a two-digit number, like 40 or 50 hertz, that’s much lower on the frequency scale. And most microphones will have a 2000 to 20,000 kilohertz rating.
So Paul’s is definitely is on the lower end of that spectrum.
Yeah, so you want to find a microphone that fits in that spectrum. And there’s different ways to find out where your voice energy is. But that’s a little bit more in depth than where we want to get in this conversation.
But make sure…
The episode requires. I said it’s a little deeper than the episode requires.
Yeah, exactly. But just make sure when you’re looking at microphones, you read those tech specs to make sure it’s something that fits. And what you can do is compare the different specs from each microphone.
And that’s what I ended up doing when I was purchasing other microphones. So anyway, Scarlett Studio CM-25, it’s a great starter set. I think the price at the time was under 200 bucks.
And it served me well for a couple of days.
Well, I mean, I love that story because for two things, I mean, you weren’t afraid to send it back and you got a kit, which is a great way to save money, because especially now, firstly, I wouldn’t recommend having sort of a branded item, like Focusrite did, but you can find a lot of inexpensive condenser microphones bundled with an interface and some other mic accessories, like a stand or cables, and they’re not always poor quality stuff either. So definitely do your research, and if you’re trying to save 50 or $100 here and there, a recording bundle is a great way to do it.
Yeah, I should say, I actually still use the headphones. Those are, in my opinion, fantastic. So the headphones that came with the Scarlett Studio, I still use to this day.
Very cool.
So you want to talk about one of the mics you started with or…
So yeah, I think if you don’t mind, I’ll just give you a short history because my list is a little bit shorter than yours. So my little personal pitfall was starting with the USB mic. I know we kind of shot that down last episode, but hey, I was young, I didn’t know any better.
But, and you’re gonna hate me for this, but it was actually the Blue Snowball, which is like a $60 mic. It’s great for web conferencing or Skype and stuff like that. And it’s actually really good at not hearing the ambient noise of a room for just focusing on…
Of course I’ve tried it, by the way.
Oh, of course you have. And at that price, it’s definitely lucrative, but I didn’t know any better. And I was a broke college student, so I got it.
And then that’s all I had for a very long time. And before I moved to Japan, because I was getting a new teaching job and I wanted to start recording in my new apartment when I got there, I got two things. One of them was the Porterbooth Plus by Harlan Hogan.
At the time, it was about $180. And that was before he made his sort of travel-friendly bag, which is like another $80. But sometimes you can find them for cheaper in a bundle.
And then I got the Blue Yeti Pro. Now, a lot of people use the Blue Yeti, which is about $150, maybe $100 new now. It has gone down a little bit.
It sounds great.
Yeah, I still love that mic.
Yeah. At the time, I mean, it’s still one of the best sounding USB mics out there, but it’s like five pounds. It’s huge.
And it’s really meant to stay on a desktop. And you can put it on a stand if you want, but it’s massive and it’s got a giant shock mount if you want to get that with it too. But even still, the reason I got it is because I did my research, I listened to reviews, and I made sure they were from audio specialists working with voice actors.
One of the review videos was by some audio guy, or Juan Carlos Bagnell, who is a audio aficionado and a voice caster, a voice director. And he said, I wholeheartedly recommend this mic. And so I did, I got it.
Even with my inexperience and lack of audio knowledge, I was able to get some great sounding material out of that for two years before I upgraded. And then what I did is it was around Christmas, and I knew I was going back home, so I wanted to take advantage of eBay. So I was perusing for microphones.
And when I was interested in was the Sennheiser MK4. And that’s mainly because it looks cool. It’s got this champagne body, but the mic grill is black.
So it’s a very unique looking microphone, very attractive one. And it’s made by Sennheiser Neumann, who Neumann make industry standard, whatever that means, microphones for voiceover and vocalists, such as the $1,000 Neumann TLM 103, and the $3,600 Neumann U87. But it’s made in the same factory.
And there are people who actually like the MK4 better than say the Neumann TLM 102 or the 103, because it’s got a flatter, more accurate, more honest, more transparent frequency response. And this is a microphone that costs two or three times less than these higher models and works with a larger variety of voices. So once I figured that out, this is a $300 microphone, by the way, I was just looking on eBay for deals and I found one for $200.
There was nothing wrong with it at all. It was new. Maybe the box was a little bent, I think, but the mic was fine.
And around that time, I was also an avid follower of the Voice Over Bulletin Board and somebody was selling another industry standard microphone, the Sennheiser 416. And this is another $1,000 microphone, but they were selling it for half that, for 500. So, yeah, I mean, at the time, like nowadays you’ll find more, there’s even a sale right now at BSW, Broadcasters Supply Worldwide, where they’re selling it for $700, which is 200 off, which is great.
It’s the microphone I’m using right now and in a well-treated space, you can tell it sounds pretty dang good. But anyways, this person was selling theirs and so I picked it up. And then after that, I used both of those back and forth.
I actually preferred the MK4 for a while because a lot of the work I do is narration. And I just want what you put out is what you get back. You just want to hear it as is.
I hadn’t known how to properly work the 416 because it’s got a narrow pattern. It’s got a bit of a sweet spot. You don’t want to overcrowd it or you can sound a little distorted.
Just let it breathe like most microphones and you’ll get a decent take that way. But anyways, so I wasn’t happy with it for a long time. And then my MK4 actually got wet from a ceiling leak in my studio.
So I had to replace that. And I was originally hoping to get this one mic that was really famous at this point because a number of voiceover artists had started using it and started blogging about it called the CAD E100S.
Ooh, tried it. Yeah.
Oh, would you like to talk about the CAD?
No, you can go ahead. Finish your story.
All right, so this is an interesting mic because it’s supposed to have a very similar sound to the 416, but it’s a large diaphragm condenser, so it’s got a slightly larger pattern. It’s been favorably compared to mics that are three, four, five times more expensive. And a lot of people…
Do you have the 100S?
Yes.
One of the things I like best about that is it’s also made in America. Woohoo! Woohoo!
Made in America. All right, well, don’t… There is a sad part of this story too.
But anyways, at the time, I was registered for this online company called Massdrop, which is a really cool community. It’s like a lot of people passionate about sort of niche collector items. This could be like audio files or people who like collector’s watches or pen sets or crafts and stuff like that.
And what happens is that they… People put in a vote for an item that they would like to purchase. And if there is a large enough following for that vote, Massdrop will contact a distributor and get a reduced price.
So this could be $50 off, $100 off, $150 off, and you get a really unique price. And anyway, so I was really excited, found a great price for that, less than $300, about more than $100 off. So I jumped on it and I was like, all right, new microphone, woo-hoo!
And then I finally get it like six weeks later, and it’s noisy, like shh, noisy. And this is terrible because this thing is supposed to have one of the lowest self-noise. Self-noise is the electrical noise that a microphone has.
It’s inherent noise because it’s part of the microphone. And you want something that has a very low noise because we’re just recording voice. I mean, if you have a music bed, you can hide those imperfections, but if you’re just doing straight narration, you can hear it.
So you want as quiet a setup as possible. And so I knew something immediately was wrong with this device, and then I emailed them and I sent it back. And then they’re like, all right, we’ll send you a new one.
And then a few weeks went by and I was like, hey, where did it sit? And they’re like, oh, we lost it. We don’t know where the heck it is, yeah.
Testament to American shipping. And they just lost on a boat somewhere. And so they’re like, all right, we’re gonna put in an order for another one.
And then another month goes by, I’m like, all right, just wanted to check on the progress. And they’re like, oh, we’re just gonna give you your money back. I’m like, what?
I wanted a fricking microphone.
Oh, it’s terrible.
But the funny thing is, is since I was waiting for that mic, I bought a less expensive alternative. And that one is called the RODE NT1. So I will say that one more time.
NT1, not NT1A. They are similar microphones, but one is black and one is champagne colored. And the reason I make this difference is because no matter how many times I point it out, I’m always asked, did you mean the NT1 or the NT1A?
I’m like… How many times do I have to say? I even have a review video for it on my YouTube channel.
You just type in Sean Daeley wrote NT1 voice over review.
They all help themselves with all the different naming conventions. They make it hard on consumers because they’re all iterations of the same nomenclature. So there’s the NT1, the NT1A, the NT2, the NT2A, then the Rode NTG1, NTG2, NTG3, NTG4.
It goes crazy!
And I don’t even know if NT stands for anything or if they just want it to be rodent.
Good point.
And, right? Because I think it’s AKG does the same thing too with their 414, which is like it’s a multi-pattern mic. It’s about a thousand dollars and they’ve had iterations of it since the 60s.
But they have so many and they don’t sound the same. So you’ve got like the 14 XL2, the 14 XLS, the 14 XL2B, the EB, the BULS, the ULS. And I’m like, what are the differences?
Are they even worth… I mean, some of the rare ones can be quite expensive and if you can find it, then hold on to it. But that’s outside of my pay grade.
But anyways, going back to the NT1, this is a great sounding mic and it’s got a higher output than the CAD and almost the same self-noise. So that actually balances out better because you would have to crank up your preamp or interface using the CAD as opposed to using less gain with the Rode. And on top of that, it’s got an incredibly ruler-straight frequency response, which means it’s flat.
It doesn’t boost or dip. It doesn’t increase or decrease frequencies in any given range. So it’ll be about as accurate as you can get for that price.
And I loved it. I loved it more than the MK4. I liked it more than the 416 before I knew how to use it better.
And I sent comparative files to audio engineers that I trusted. And they’re like, that mic does not sound $800 less than that mic. So there you go.
I mean, nowadays, that’s kind of the end of my little history. So just wrapping up, we’ve got some amazing equipment right now. And it used to be that you had to spend $1000 on a mic to get professional sound.
But then a few years ago, it was $500. And then a couple years after that, it was $300. And now, if you spend $200 or more on a mic, you’re probably set for a good while.
Yeah, and that’s new. You can even do better than that if you find a mic that retails for $200 or $250. You buy used or refurbished, you can do even better than that.
Absolutely, yeah.
So wow, that’s a lot of research you put into all of your mic purchases. I tend to have gone the other way, where I see it. I’m like a five-year-old kid in the candy store.
I see it, and I think, I want to try it. So I usually just go buy it. Or, that rhymed, actually.
I see it, I want to try it, I go buy it. Or, like I mentioned in the last episode, sometimes I have borrowed some. So I’ll just quickly run over the giant list of the ones I remembered.
I was putting together a list before we started. Yeah. So I’m sure I’ve left some out.
So we talked about the Scarlett Studio. I then went to the Audio Technica AT2020, the XLR version. There is a USB version, which I’ve also tried.
But both of them sound fantastic.
Just out of curiosity, did they sound different, the USB versus the XLR?
I didn’t do any scientific testing, but to me the USB sounded a little bit brighter, which is kind of what I was looking for. I’d have to look and see if they were any different on the inside. I don’t think they are.
But in either case, I’m not using either of them anymore. The AT2020 did serve me well for a while. I did several of my first audiobooks with it and a lot of my first auditions, and it did sound really good.
That’s wonderful. I mean, the XLR version is about $80, right? And then if you get the USB one, that’s all…
Right now on Sweetwater, it is $99 new. But as I mentioned, you can probably find it cheaper for other places to refurbish or use, for sure. So that one worked pretty well.
And then I got this bug in my head that I needed a dynamic for narration because some reviews or people I talked to said, well, I use a dynamic for narration because it’s less sensitive. And there is some truth to that. And it can be a good tool to have in your toolbox.
So I tried the Shure SM7B. That was on borrow from a friend. And it didn’t work for my voice.
It was way too muddy. I don’t know if the frequency response was less, but it definitely did not pick up what I wanted out of my voice. Oh, it actually is much less.
I have it up here. Its lower end is 50 hertz. So as we were talking about, you want to have something that you know fits your voice.
And I think I mentioned that my voice does have some energy in the 40 and 50 hertz range. So now I see right now by looking back at these specs, it wasn’t picking up those frequencies, and that’s why it sounded so muddy.
So if you don’t mind me stomping you right here, I just want to kind of clear up some of the terms that we’ve been using. Earlier, Paul mentioned bright, and that means a mic that tends to emphasize the upper frequencies. So for someone like Paul or myself, who have a little bit lower voices, that could be good.
I mean, you can use your voice to help you figure out the kind of mic that you might want. You got a deeper voice? Balance it out with a brighter mic.
Got a higher voice? Balance it out with a darker mic.
No, indeed. But make sure that the mic you’re using can actually do that for you. So in my case, I needed one that actually had a lower frequency response that was a little bit darker.
And the Shure just was not doing that because of the way it was set up. So along the dynamic trail, I tried the Rode Procaster and the Rode Podcaster. The difference between those is one is USB and one is XLR.
And they worked pretty well, but I found they had really low output. And it just wasn’t working in my setup with the output I needed from the mic. So I abandoned both of those.
Tried the RE320. That is another dynamic mic. And that one I initially kind of loved.
It sounded great. It did exactly what I wanted it to do, where it limited some of the mouth noise that I heard during long-form narration. And I used it for quite a while.
But the only reason I abandoned it is because I was using an interface that had two inputs. And I went to one that only had one input. And I didn’t want to use two mics anymore.
So now I basically just stick to the AT875R that I talked about last week. But the RE320 is a great dynamic microphone if you want to use it for narration or if you have a less than ideal space. It does work well for that.
It was great at keeping the sounds from the lawnmowers and the landscaping outside my house, out of the recordings, because I use it almost all summer.
Good to know. And it’s a broadcast podcast mic too, if that’s something you’d like to use it for.
Yes, indeed. So, moving on. I did try the NT2A, the Rode NT2A.
That was borrowed from a friend, and that was way too sibilant. Going back to explain terminology, sibilance is when you have a unpleasant sound when someone says, s’s. And I have a problem with that anyway.
You probably can hear it even in this mic, but with the NT2A, I sounded like a snake. It was basically like the Jungle Book.
It was sssssslowly…
Exactly. So another mic I tried was the Blue Yeti we talked about. And I still like that mic a lot.
If I was going to use a USB mic on the road, I’d probably still keep that with me. I decided that it wasn’t something I really was interested in pursuing, is doing auditions on the road. Once upon a time, I thought that would be a good idea, but the Yeti, as Sean mentioned, can be a fantastic starter mic.
Like I said, if I can caution you, though, I hate the design of it. I hate the size. It’s just awkward.
I mean, it worked for me, but we have better stuff available now. And honestly, I won’t go into too much detail because I’d like to save this for next episode, but USB mics, you can use them. I’ve heard of talent who use the Yeti, who views the AT2020 USB version for either auditions or audiobooks or e-learning or even the Snowball.
Or I’ve heard talent recording audiobooks on an Apogee mic, which is a mic that I personally hate and don’t get the hype of.
I’m actually using a Shure MV51, which is another USB mic. It’s a little bit newer. I think it’s only been out for a few months.
And I use that for narration now. And the only real reason is that I mentioned my interface only has one XLR input. So I use the USB mic for the narration so I can not have to switch them back and forth.
It’s really that simple.
And have you gotten any good feedback on that one?
I have a couple audiobooks that have been released on ACX using it. So it’s passed the muster for that with no problem. And I think it sounds pretty good.
Very cool. I haven’t used it myself, but I know that voice actor Crispin Freeman recommends it now as a great mobile solution. It’s sturdy.
It works with just about any device. iOS devices, Android devices, and of course, Mac and PC. And it’s just really compact.
I mean, you could fit it in… Well, maybe not in a pocket, but you could easily fit it in your hand.
But it does look really cool, which is what I like about it.
It’s got kind of that like Elvis Mike look to it.
Yeah, exactly. Like I actually toured around with doing a YouTube video when I first got it, because I had it on the tripod stand. And I was doing a little Brian Setzer and the Stray Cats in the booth to warm up.
I toyed with putting that video on YouTube, but in the end, I just got a little lazy.
Don’t want to make a bad impression.
Yeah, it could be that. So ultimately, what I decided I needed was something for my space, because I have a whisper room, and it sounds pretty good, but it doesn’t keep out everything. And mostly it’s what’s inside the house I have problems with.
Having a couple of kids that are under 10, they like to wrestle and jump around and throw stuff on the walls. So that will get into my recordings when I have a mic that’s too sensitive. So I ultimately decided I wanted to use a shotgun to try and reject some of that backside noise that otherwise we picked up.
So for those of you that don’t know, a shotgun is, as Sean was talking about with the 416, it will have a very focused pattern. And that means that it will only focus on what’s right in front of it. And also, it will reject things from the back.
So I faced the shotgun now, the AT875R, away from the rest of the house, and it helps tremendously in keeping out that background noise. Now, I will say I did try an NTG-2 and a RODE NTG-3, the reason being people describe the RODE NTG-3 as sort of a clone of the 416.
A poor man’s 416.
So I decided I wanted to at least give it a try in the space. I found one from another VO talent actually locally who was selling it. If you’re not familiar, there’s a Facebook group called the VO Gear Exchange.
I think it was started by Stephen J. Cohen. You might have mentioned it last episode, Sean, but that’s a great place to look for used gear.
It’s other talent that are looking to get rid of stuff either because they don’t use it anymore or they have gas. Exactly. So I picked one up locally off the exchange and tried it out, and it was just way too sensitive.
It was actually exactly opposite of what I wanted. It was picking up every sound from inside the house and outside, and I couldn’t use it in this space. So ultimately, I went back to the 875R.
I’m trying to think if there’s any other ones that I want to mention. Probably not. There are a few others in there.
I had an Octava for a while, an MXL 990. I did try the Blue Snowball. But ultimately, I’m now settled on, at least for this week, on the AT875R and the Shure MV51.
Like I said, these be great times to be living in. We’ve got so many affordable options right now. Like we were saying, you can spend $150, less than $200, and get a great mic.
I know you’re happy with the AT875R, which is from Audio Technica, a Japanese audio company. Stephen, we were just talking about, is now using… so he’s using that.
And another one from Audio Technica called the AT2035, which is popular with voice talent and in audiobook narrators, because it’s got a very honest, flat response. And those are great.
Oh yeah, I did want an AT35 for a while. That’s the precursor to 2035. And I actually used that for most of the audiobooks I have released.
And it did sound really good.
And I liked it. I kind of like the silver better than the black, but they both look good. And it’s really compact too.
So if you have that in maybe one of the portable travel solutions or just a couple, like a duvet or whatever, it’d probably be a very good travel option. But yeah, these are less than $200 mics. If you go up a little bit higher, like I said, I use the RODE NT1.
If you want to hear how that sounds, you can see my review on it. I don’t process my videos at all. I like a clean signal when I make them.
And then that one is about $220 by itself. It also comes in a great recording bundle with a custom shock mount and pop filter for about an extra $40. It’s not much.
And it’s a great way to get started. And then some other mics that I’m kind of excited about but don’t really need for about $250. You get the Aston Origin.
Aston is a new UK-based company who… Everything is designed and built in the UK, which is kind of new. It hasn’t been that case in a while.
And they made these two very affordable mics called The Spirit and The Origin. And they wanted to make a mic that sounded as cool as possible without the price tag. And voice actor James Arnold Taylor bought two on the recommendation of a rep from Sweetwater and is now using them for a show that he’s making about voice acting.
And he was really impressed with it. And this guy can afford whatever mic he wants. So to get that kind of testimonial from him, definitely speaks volumes.
And it looks really cool, too. It’s got this like industrial steampunk kind of look with a purple badge and this really nice like tumbled steel look to it, which means it will not break. It cannot break.
And like we said, there’s all these great USB options, although we’ll talk about this more next episode. But I would really recommend saving… If you’re going to spend $200, $300 on a setup, get a less expensive condenser and a USB interface with a good preamp.
We’ll make some recommendations on interfaces and accessories next episode, but I would highly recommend that because if this thing sticks, if you build momentum with your career, you will upgrade at some point, and that’s okay. But if you have a USB mic, which is a device that has a microphone, a digital analog converter, and a preamp all integrated into one unit, there is no chain. That is a one link chain.
No part of it can be upgraded.
We’re talking about things like the Yeti or the AT2020 USB version or the Blue Spark Digital. Those are all the kinds of models you’re talking about.
Yes, absolutely. And these are great starter units. These are great alternatives or audition mics.
But if you want something that can stay as your primary recording rig for a while, then that’s what I would recommend. That was a mistake that I wish I had avoided back because I kind of feared the technology. But it’s just…
I mean, the simpler interfaces, the one channel mic interfaces, is just a little box with a couple of knobs. It’s very easy to use. It’s very easy to navigate.
And a lot of them sound great.
Yeah. So to wrap up the discussion about mics, I want to talk about the genesis of why people start looking for mics and whether that’s someone who’s new or someone who has been in the business for a while, I think the mentality sort of stays the same. And I’ll talk about where mine is.
For whatever reason, I’ve always had this sort of MacGyver mentality when it comes to buying mics. I know that the industry standard, so to speak, is the Neumann TLM 103 or the Sennheiser 416. But for some reason, I’m eternally trying to find that sound on the cheap.
And although I probably spent the price of a TLM 103 several times over in this quest, I keep doing it. And I’m wondering how many of you out there have the same sort of attitude where you’re thinking, if I could just get close to that sound but spend $100 less, I’ll just be gold. What are your thoughts on that, Sean?
Well, I still left lust after those mics myself. I mean, I was lucky enough to have… So funny thing about my 416, I didn’t like it for a long time, but then I actually won another one in a contest.
So not only did I get one at half price, but I won a new one.
That’s great.
And I’m like, all right, I think the powers that be are telling me something and I need to use this mic. And I think it’s really found a place in my current setup right now. I’m really happy with how it sounds.
But anyways, like absolutely, I’m trying to save money and I understand people who are, because budget is an issue for all of us. But figure out what you can afford. If you spend $300 on, or between $300 and $500 on a mic and interface, that’s a great start.
If you can spend more and you have an environment that is quiet enough and sounds good enough with whatever treatment you’re using, then why not? Go hog wild. But don’t go broke.
I know plenty of people who have used the industry standards and sold them because they weren’t the best mic. They’re great mics, but they’re not the best one for everyone. And some people who buy them just because they’re industry standards and they just want to be done with it.
So, this is your journey, but do your research. And if you can find ways to cut costs, there’s lots of ways to do it. Like I said…
I would say don’t try to force a square peg into a round hole either. Like I said, I had that NTG-3, which is about as close as you can get to the 416 without actually spending the extra 200 bucks. And it was a disaster for me.
So there was no point even trying to chase the 416.
And like I said, right now, a new 416 can be yours for the price of an NTG-3 thanks to that BSW thing. I don’t know how long it’s going on for, but check it out. But the point we’re trying to make is now there are very affordable ways to get started.
And you might never even need to improve. Or you might never need to upgrade.
Your equipment, yeah.
Yeah. So, I mean, that’s what you want, really, is the lowest, or excuse me, the longest time between upgrades. So, ideally, you would never upgrade.
But if you’re like me, eventually you fall in love and get addicted to gear and just like trying stuff out.
Yeah, that’s okay, too, as long as you don’t bank up yourself while you’re doing it.
Absolutely. And that’s what we want to emphasize first. Start a budget.
Okay, so you can use some of our recommendations. There are other websites that you can use. Like I mentioned, the Global Voice Acting Academy actually has a whole page of home studio equipment of varying prices.
So you can see some of those industry standards and you can see the less expensive alternatives. So make a list of what’s in your budget. If you can try out different equipment, that is the best solution because you can figure out exactly how it sounds on your voice in your environment and return what doesn’t work.
So you might have to pay a restocking fee. You might not, or you certainly have to pay a reshipping fee. But in the long run, you will be better off because you will have this sort of individualized equipment.
So…
Yeah, and have fun doing it.
Yeah, it can be fun. It can be intimidating, but look for the characteristics in a mic that you want. Look at reviews.
Watch videos. Look for a flat or accurate frequency response. And you have to be really careful with some of the descriptions that you read because if you read enough microphone descriptions, they all sound like the same damn mic.
Yeah.
Sounds good on everything. A workhouse of a microphone, or a workhorse of a microphone.
If you do have questions, feel free to hit us up in the comments section. We’d love to help out with any of your microphone or other equipment questions or anything at all about the voiceover career.
Absolutely. If you have questions, ask us. We can either direct you on where you can go or make our own recommendations.
And honestly, do your research. It’s fun. Enjoy it.
Don’t be intimidated. Technology is our friend. Well, that’s it for another episode of The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
I’d like to thank my host, Paul Stefano, and I am Sean Daeley of dailyvo.com. If you like the podcast, if we’re doing a great job, please like and subscribe. Add a comment if you would like to do a guest spot like our friend John earlier in the episode.
Just let us know. If you like the podcast, be sure to download us at vometer.com. Once again, that is vometer.com.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks, everybody. We’ll see you next time.
Thanks for listening to The VO Meter, measuring your voice over progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.

Trying to connect my 2 voice over endeavors, I’m going to post summaries of The VO Meter podcast that I co-host with Sean Daeley. Here is the first…

The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Okay, everybody, welcome to the inaugural edition of the VO Meter podcast, Measuring Your Voice Over Career Progress. I’m your host, Paul Stefano, and joining me is co-host, Sean Daeley.
Hey, everybody, how are you doing? Oh, wait, that’s right, they can’t respond back.
So, this is the inaugural version. Inaugural, inaugural, inaugural.
I usually say inaugural personally, but like…
I like to go with inaugural.
Inaugural.
Inaugural.
Maybe it’s an East Coast thing.
Maybe. Capital is here on the East Coast, so that’s what I’m going with. So, in this inaugural edition of the podcast, I should explain a little bit about the motivation.
So, when I started out, I received a lot of help from the great industry pros all around the country and even the world. And though that period of time was only about one year ago, I feel like I have progressed greatly, and I wanted to do something to give back, to give the community that has helped me so much in getting started. So, I thought, why not start a podcast and get out the information about the pitfalls and things you want to try to avoid when you’re first getting started as a, quote-unquote, newbie.
I hate that word, and I promise, it’s the last time I’ll use it. But it does get the point across pretty nicely. How do you feel about that word?
Well, I mean, yeah, it’s got all sorts of preconceptions coming with it. It’s, I mean, like, you hear amateur or novice, and you have to start somewhere. I mean, people have, like, we…
Voice Over is really interesting in that we’re all really varied in where we’re coming from. Like, literally every occupation, depending on if you’re doing part-time or full-time, people come from all around. So, you might be a doctor and doing voice over part-time, or a teacher is a really popular job to be moving from.
But it’s, depending on what your prior experience is, they’re, for example, say, an audio engineer or even a talent agent, you might have a lot more applicable knowledge when you come into this field. So, you’re absolutely right. In newbie, even though it does have all of this negative preconceptions with it, it’s not always an accurate descriptor of where you’re really at when you get started.
So, this brings up a good point. When do you feel comfortable sort of giving advice to those that may be just starting out and don’t have really any experience in a related field?
Oh, you’re asking me now. So, okay, well, that’s the thing is that… And I’ll say right now, Paul and I are…
We’re kind of in the trenches, voice actors. We don’t have as much experience as people who have been doing it for decades. I’ve been doing it for about three years now.
Paul’s been doing it for a little over one. But everyone goes through this sort of initial… I almost want to call it a hazing phase.
Yeah, you can describe it.
Absolutely. Because everyone comes in because they’re passionate about VO. Hopefully, you’re not just like, I just want to make some quick bucks doing something easy, because it’s not.
And it’s not quick, and it’s not easy at all. I actually had a great conversation with this one girl who is a talented actress, and she’s like, I’d really like to start doing voice work. Could you give me some advice?
And I did. I was like, well, I’ve been doing this for about three years, and I’m definitely more successful now than any time previous. And she’s like, oh, that’s really quick.
And I loved that she said that, because most people are like, three years? That’s so long. And she had a very realistic expectation about how long it would take to get a foothold and start making a return on your investment.
And that’s another thing, is it’s almost quarterly, if not more often. I see it like, if you spend enough time on Facebook in the different voiceover groups, you’ll see just like, all right, I put together a demo, can I get some feedback on it? And then it’ll just get torn apart because people are recording it on their phone or on a USB mic, and they don’t have a treated space, and they don’t have a realistic idea of what it takes.
And I’ll admit, it’s discouraging to hear like, oh, you’re not ready, you need training, you need to invest in yourself, especially if you’re coming from a place of no money. But that is the reality of it. But the truth is there are ways to make incremental progress.
So you might have to, well, obviously you have to learn to budget, and there are plenty of affordable… there’s affordable recording solutions. You might even be able to work out an agreement with a coach where you’re doing a payment plan, as opposed to everything up front.
There are ways around these issues. If you want to do this, you will find a way instead of finding excuses.
Yeah, that’s a great point. And most importantly, there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it, or at least righter ways to do it.
Absolutely.
I know that’s not important, but it sounds funny. And that’s why we’re here, basically, to try and help people avoid those huge pitfalls that are there in front of every new person so they can avoid those mistakes.
Absolutely, because you see the same questions being asked over and over and over again. And everyone is going to have the same questions. But the problem is, what will really separate you from the start is if you realize that it’s been asked and the answer is out there if you look for it.
Yeah, I think that’s a lot of times where the frustration comes from from people who have been in the business for a long time. Absolutely. They’ve seen that question so many times that they just can’t stomach answering it again in the same way.
Absolutely. I mean, I’ve made templates for people who ask these questions, and then I’m like, all right, you’re set for a year, okay? Don’t ask anything else.
I have just given you this boatload of resources that I spent the time finding myself for free. I mean, you’ll find… I mean, everyone I talk to, because now I’m back with my family and my friends, and for them, I’m their window into this crazy VO world, and they’re like…
I mean, I went to school with a lot of actors and stuff like that, and they’re like, wow, this community is so much more supportive and less cutthroat than the stage or theater… I mean, the stage or on-camera acting communities that I’ve… the sort of stereotypes that we think of when we think like the entertainment industry.
And they are. I mean, VO people are incredibly generous to a fault. And the thing is, is we run out of patience with people who aren’t willing to do the work, because most of us have put a lot of work into this, a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of money, and we feel a little shortchanged by someone who’s trying to shortcut.
And that’s definitely part of it, but I don’t necessarily think everyone is trying to shortcut. Certainly there are people that do that. But it’s just…
It’s heartbreaking, really, is the word I would use when you see somebody put out a demo that you know they recorded in their bedroom with an untreated space, and they just get blasted by everybody who they put it out to.
Absolutely.
And you just think, if only they had asked me first, I would have helped them.
No, no, that’s a great point. And when I say… That’s a big point, too, is it’s usually innocuous.
It’s not like they are… I mean, they’re not trying to hurt anyone. Like, they’re just trying to realize a dream, for the most part.
And you’re right. They will get blown apart. And this is…
Not everyone is willing to kind of give them that compliment sandwich, you know? Yeah. Because, I mean, you’re right, because some people have just lost the patience for it completely, and others are just jaded because they see it over and over and over again.
And it’s like nobody… Like, I don’t know. People will jump on to a Facebook group, and like I said, they’ll put that demo out right after that.
And it was like, Facebook archives everything. If you have a question, or if you have a situation, before you post. That’s the thing, is that nobody looks these things up before they post.
Yeah, internet research is, ironically, is a lost art. It’s easier than ever with the technology we have, but actually doing research is a completely lost art on the youth of today.
Absolutely, and it’s not… I mean, there are more resources available now than ever before. And I’m just, like, I’m flabbergasted that people can’t find them on their own.
So this brings up a good segue. I wanted to talk about some of the pitfalls that you and I have experienced. Although I’m here, you know, preaching, you do your research and ask for help, I’ve definitely done some of the stupid things myself.
Oh, me too.
So you can start or I’ll start, but I definitely have a few I’d like to go over.
Okay, so I think my biggest problem so far has been when you start getting clients and your workload starts to increase, you may not… Like since a lot of this is new, you’re unprepared in certain regards. So like for example, you might have a project that you’ve never done before and you don’t know what rate to give.
Or what’s happened to me is that I’ve underbid myself before I had a true understanding of how much work was involved. I remember they said before they sent me a script, they’re like, alright, this is for an audio textbook. It should be about 30, 40 minutes of audio.
And then so I gave them like an hourly rate for an audio book and I was like, alright, this is great. And then that was before I realized that they wanted multiple actors and sound effects and music and all of these other things. And I’m like, alright, there goes your entire budget.
I lost money on that book and I wasn’t able to complete it in a timely manner because I had no experience doing a lot of that stuff. And we had that sort of back and forth where I’m like, alright, how’s this? Like, oh, we want more differentiation between the characters and we don’t just want you to do a different voice, we want another actor.
Oh boy.
So that was a big learning experience. And it’s funny, there’s some things you’ll handle better than others, but the truth is, if you make these mistakes, it’s not life or death. You might have lost a client, but you’ve learned a whole new skill set and you just have to keep going and charge accordingly, outsource when possible, charge for that, and just ask all of these things ahead of time.
So recently, I do this every couple of months, so there’s a wonderful book called Making Money in Your.
He lives right around the corner from the house my dad grew up in. I recently found out.
Oh, wow. And I actually had a chance to talk to him at a recent networking event. Very nice guy.
He made fun of my beer, because I like Belgians, and I was drinking a Blue Moon.
Wait, are you talking about beer still?
Yes. I’ve never… So, um, I studied abroad or two, but anyways…
Very nice.
Anyways, yes, we’re talking like Belgian white beers and stuff like that. So, I love Blue Moon, and it’s an American beer, but he’s like, Oh, yes, the poor man’s Holgerden, because he’s from the Netherlands, so he would, of course, prefer the European beers.
That is a good one, by the way. I’m a big fan of that one.
I love Holgerden. It’s so refreshing. But anyways, so I was like, Oh, and this is being embarrassed by one of your VO idols, by the way.
I’ve been following him for four years, and then the first thing he says to me is like, I hate your beer. By the way, can we still do an interview later, Paul? I’m sorry.
But I just joked back. I was like, well, Holgerden doesn’t come in cans. And he’s fine.
He’s just breaking the ice. But anyways, I’m rereading this book, and he’s all about providing an excellent service and being prepared by asking those questions ahead of time. And I’m just like, oh, God, I’ve made this mistake and that mistake, and la, but I mean, it’s still…
I feel like there are some mistakes you have to make. You can only experience it only goes so far.
Yeah, so those are all good ones.
Talk about some of your challenges, Paul.
So one that we talked about already was the self-produced demo, and I was totally guilty of this. I started, I think, looking for voiceover work on a Monday, when I finally decided to put myself out there. So I decided I’m going to do it all at once.
I created a website, I created some self-produced demos, and I think that Tuesday night, a full 24 hours later, I decided to put myself out to the world. Published my website, sent my self-produced demos to a bunch of voiceover communities, and guess what happened? Absolutely destroyed.
The sound is terrible. Have you ever been in front of a microphone before? Do you have teeth?
Every possible insult and criticism, in no way constructive for the most part. And I thought, wow, what have I gotten myself into? So luckily, I had some guidance and took a step back and followed that guidance to immediately get V2 a coach.
And that’s when I decided that I needed to pull down those demos, which I did, also advice from some other industry pros. And I pulled down those demos, got some coaching and didn’t put out anything at all until I had finished at least the introductory program with the fine folks at Edge Studio. So once they produced my demo and gave me their Edge Studio approved badge, meaning that I had completed at least enough introductory training to produce a halfway decent demo, then I put it out there and started sending it to people.
So that was a big one.
And it’s a tough spoon to swallow, absolutely. I mean, some people are just like, what do you mean I’m not good enough? And it’s…
I mean, I deal with this all the time. Like I recently… One of my main gigs is sort of this English education website where you do these monthly narrations.
And one of our students was like… Now keep in mind, they’ve actually seen me do interviews with the owner of the site, so they know what I really sound like. But when I talk, at least it’s still…
I don’t know. Sometimes I like to get a little sing-songy. I like to excite and spice up the words, add a little secret sauce.
And they’re like, why doesn’t he sound normal when he narrates? I’m like, oh no! I’ve been doing this for three years now, and I’ve just dug myself into this habit hole.
And so yesterday I was working on that. I’m like, all right, I’m forcing myself to relax, as contradictory as that sounds. But it created something that was a lot more like what I’m talking to right now.
Granted, there are times when you will have a script, and they will straight up tell you, all right, make this boring script sing. When you have that kind of permission, you can just go balls to the wall and have fun with it. But the thing is, is that in every area of VO, nobody wants you to sound like you’re reading.
You’re just talking. And we forget how hard that is. I mean, right now, I’m in a closet, staring at a microphone, pretending that I’m talking to Paul and talking to you.
But this is how I sound. This is pretty much how I talk to anyone. So one of the reasons I love podcasts is because you have that assumption of an audience, and it’s that much easier to talk to people.
Well, hopefully there’s an audience. That remains to be seen.
That remains to be seen. Remains to be heard. But absolutely.
That’s the thing. Even from us, take what we have with a grain of salt, because we’re still learning, and we’re only trying to provide advice to help you.
Yeah, indeed. So another pitfall that I came across was microphone choice. More accurately, microphone envy, or the acronym GAS that we like to use, which stands for gear acquisition syndrome.
It never goes away.
It doesn’t, unfortunately, but it’s especially bad when you’re first starting, because you’re looking at all these stores and advice from people that tell you this is the best microphone you need to use, this one’s good for voiceover, this one’s good for podcasts. And I’m here to tell you that, for the most part, it doesn’t matter. I’ve purchased and sold no less than 22 mics in a one-year period.
Oh, my God.
And the one that I’m using now is, I think, the third mic I purchased. Thankfully, I held on to one that works. And it’s always worked.
And it didn’t really make any sense to look for anything else. And this mic, by the way, was less than $200 new. So the key is to find something that sounds good and, more importantly, sounds good in your space.
And sometimes the only way to do that is to test it. So what I like to recommend is look for places that either have a good return policy, like Guitar Center will let you return most of their products locally. Sweetwater has a decent return policy.
Or, if you can, borrow. And that’s a good way to find out as well. So look for places nearby, or friends that are either in the business or maybe are podcasters themselves, or even in the music business.
They may have a mic collection. Try and borrow from them. Get it in your space and see how it sounds before you decide that’s something you want to use forever.
Absolutely. And so kind of going on a different tangent right now. One of the reasons I love Paul is that he is not afraid to try everything and seeing what sticks.
Absolutely. And I mean, that’s something that I struggle with. And like we’ve both been doing our separate paths for like him for about one year, me for three.
And when Paul and I became friends, my own progress skyrocketed because he pushed me to market myself to agencies more. I didn’t do that too much before because I didn’t have a very reliable recording environment. I could record when I absolutely needed to, but I was like, if I can’t do 24-hour turnaround, I didn’t want to shoot myself in the foot because you only get one good impression.
But thanks to encouragement from him and a few other people, they’re like, why aren’t you working more?
This is a great thing to hear, by the way. I wish I knew. Maybe you could tell me.
Absolutely. But that’s why it’s so important to really look at your progress again, or like I said, have that ritual where you have this litmus test of where you want to be at, and you’re like, all right, what mistakes am I making? How can I improve?
Because that’s the thing. It’s like people, going back to that newbie mentality, you have this idea that you either, like you do or you don’t, and once you’re at a certain level, you stop improving. No.
You hear from some of the most successful people in the business. One of my favorite voice actors is this guy who transitioned from anime into American animation named Steve Bloom. One, he didn’t start until he was 40, so don’t let age be a detractor.
Hey, I started when I was 42.
Exactly. And if it’s something you’re passionate about, by all means, give it a try. And then he didn’t have formal acting training when he started, but he certainly does it now.
He works with dialect coaches and acting coaches regularly, and I know plenty of people who do. So there’s no need to plateau ever, really. And there are constant ways to improve.
And everyone I talk to who I’m like, yeah, you’ve made it, they’re like, how do I get better? They don’t sit on their laurels.
Yeah, and the opposite of that is there is a point where, and I know you experience this, where there is a phrase I like to use, paralysis by analysis, where you’re constantly looking at your career and saying, if only I had more training, if only I had a better microphone, if only I had a better space. There’s a point where you have to get off your duff and get out there and market yourself. Now, the caveat being, you have to be ready.
And the way to do that is to get feedback from respected peers, coaches, and industry pros that can tell you, one, if your space is ready and your recording environment is ready. And there’s the engineers out there, like George Widom or Cliff Zellman and Dan Leonard, that can give you that sort of seal of approval that, yes, your recording space is ready. But then you have to have honest feedback from people that you know, but will be honest with you.
So not your mom, for instance.
Oh, you sound great, honey.
Exactly.
That’s a great point. And sometimes if you’ve built up a relationship with these people, it will be free. But if you’re just really new to the business, you might have to pay for that feedback.
And that’s okay. That’s another thing is like, why do I have to pay for somebody’s opinion? I was like, well, it’s a small investment now, which could have a large return later.
And could determine the course of your career. And like we were saying before, we’re such bad judges of our own… Or like we’re our own worst critics.
Because… Or best, depending on… I just made this demo.
But the point is, we are not the best… We are not the best critics of our progress and our talent.
No, both positively and negatively. I personally thought my demo sucked when it was produced. I heard it for the first time on my iPhone.
I was playing it for my family. And my wife looked at me and said, you don’t like it, do you? I can see it in your face.
And I said, no, I don’t. But I persevered. I sent it out to several people, and within two months of it being out, I landed with four regional agents.
So it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was, for sure.
And it’s funny that you mentioned that, because I had had my demos for about two years, which some people recommend, that you might want to update them for various reasons. One, your talent has improved. Two, your spots might not be as relevant or up to date.
You’re advertising Etzel? Probably two for a refresh?
Yeah, absolutely. So I was looking into getting a new one, and then that’s when we became friends, and you started pushing me to market it to talent agencies. First couple of agencies I sent it to were like, all right, you’re on our roster.
We love it. And I’m like, whaa?
Yeah, it was a very similar experience to what I had.
And so, like you said, we’re our own best and worst judges of our own character. But that’s another… Going back to what you were talking about, I love, like I said, you tried it with a whole bunch of gear.
Some people might be scared because you can spend a lot of money. But I mean, you were really smart about it. Like you didn’t…
Like, I don’t feel like you bought any extremely expensive microphones. The fact that you were able to turn them around so quickly, you didn’t take that much of a hit to your wallet, right?
No, sometimes I even made money on transactions. My latest fiasco with the upgrading of my space actually turned a nice profit on that.
Yeah, that’s one… And like I said, that’s not… It’s not just pertaining to your gear, but it’s like your whole approach to your VO career.
I’ve seen you do it with your marketing efforts, reaching out to… This guy will reach out to anyone and everyone who he thinks might be interested in his services, which is what you should do. Because you don’t…
You’re only going to get, if you’re lucky, a 10% return on your output. If you reach out to 100 people, you might hear back from 10, and you might get one job from five, and you might get…
And that’s if you’re talented.
Yeah, and that’s if you’re talented.
Some of the best voices in the business, that’s still their booking rate.
Yeah, 15% to 20%.
That’s a good point, actually. If you’re just starting out and you’re auditioning, auditioning, and not getting any response, I would not necessarily give up. Maybe.
But find out some feedback first.
Absolutely. That’s the thing. At some point, it’s always great to check in and figure out why you’re not booking.
This may be a good time to throw out our contact information. If anybody wants to ask for help, I know I’m willing to help out as long as people are respectful of time and effort.
So for me, I’m on Facebook, just Sean Daeley, S-E-A-N-D-A-E-L-E-Y. And if you want to friend me, just be like, Hey Sean, I heard your podcast, liked what you had to say. I had a few questions if you don’t mind.
And I won’t, like especially if you’re so polite and use my script. So write that down.
Any other information you want to give out?
You can find my website at dailyvo.com. So that’s Daeley as in every day, because nobody spells my name right. And then we can talk about branding and stuff like that another time.
But yeah, so my website’s up at dailyvo.com. It’s also got ways to get a hold of me via email or Skype. And you can hear my demos and hire me if you wish.
There you go. And my website is www.paulstefano.com Since you’re probably only listening to this, I’ll spell it P-A-U-L-S-T-E-F like Fred, A-N like Nancy, o.com. And you can follow me at Paul Stefano on Twitter.
My Twitter is linked to everything, so that’s probably the easiest way to find me. So that’s it everybody for the inaugural. Sean, you want to say it your way?
For the inaugural?
Version of The VO Meter podcast. And thanks for joining us. We hope to do this as often as possible.
Leave us a comment if you have any that you want to talk about, either positive or negative, and listen up for the next one.
And so, yeah, we really invite you guys to listen in, and if you have questions, if you want to talk about gear, if you want to talk about self-marketing efforts, anything like that, we are a very fledgling podcast, and we would love your feedback, and we’re looking for ideas for more content. So go ahead and write us at the contact information that we gave you before, and we would be happy to answer your questions and maybe even have you on if that’s a thing that we can figure out the technical requirements for. So thanks a lot for listening to us, everybody.
This was a lot of fun, and I hope to be doing a lot more soon.
Thanks for listening to The VO Meter. Measuring Your VO Progress. To follow along, visit hgtp://vometer.podbean.com/feed.
We’ll see you next time on The VO Meter.