The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hello everybody, and welcome to Episode 6 of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Once again, I’m Paul Stefano, and joining me as always is co-host Sean Daeley. How you doing, Sean?
I’m doing great. How are you, Paul?
I am great. Just coming down from the holiday blissfulness of spending all the time with my family and friends and getting started with the new year.
Did you do anything special, or did you keep it pretty low-key this year?
We were lucky in that, well, when you’re parents and you don’t have to travel with kids, it’s always considered lucky to not have to travel. So we stayed home, my parents came to me, and we celebrated just at home and actually stayed home the whole week I was off and didn’t do any work the whole week.
That’s awesome.
Great time.
Yeah, I definitely put, like I didn’t do any work myself, I didn’t do any auditions or anything. I mean, it was an important time. My girlfriend came out from Hawaii.
She’s actually originally from Washington. Her job’s over there. So they were like, what do you mean she came from Hawaii to Washington?
It’s like a 50 degree difference in weather. It’s ridiculous. It’s like 75 over there and 25 over here.
But anyway, she came down and I got to meet her parents and she got to meet mine. And I think we both did a pretty good job of impressing them. It helps when you bring wine.
But yeah, it was a small investment for a big return, which is something we’re always talking about on the podcast, right?
Yeah, exactly. So we’re talking about the new year. What are some of your new year’s resolutions?
Well, I try not to have too many. I mean, they’ve got that one rule where it’s good to have between five to seven goals, whether it’s a resolution or you’re just trying to tackle some area of your life. You want to be realistic.
You want it to be attainable. So at least voiceover-related, I’m going to get into audiobooks this year. Excited about that.
It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, but since I didn’t really have the space for it, my last apartment was extremely loud, and the only good times to record were between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. Not very sustainable strategy, if you ask me.
You’ve never done any audiobooks?
I did do some volunteer projects for this one site called LibriVox or BookVoice. It’s all volunteer and public domain, and it’s a great way to test out if that’s something that you’re interested in because it’s all volunteer, and it’s a great way to practice editing and making sure that you sound decent enough to release your stuff out to the world.
Their service is actually for people who are site impaired, right?
Not necessarily. I mean, I know a number of students will use that because you might have certain works that are required reading in literature classes or history classes, but you’re right. People who do have visual impairments use it as well.
That’s because it’s all provided free of charge, right?
Yeah, it’s a free service. It’s all volunteer. They do take donations, but the only problem is that you’ll find people of all stripes there, like inability-wise and equipment-wise.
So sometimes you might not get the best reading that you’re looking for, but if you’re unhappy with it, you could re-record it yourself. They do allow multiple recordings of the same text.
Speaking as someone who has done quite a lot of audiobooks, it’s an entirely different beast. I hope you’re ready for it. I hope you know what you’re jumping into.
Talking with you, you’ve given me a much better idea, and I’m sure I’ll be begging you for help as I get my feet wet.
So any other resolutions?
Yes, I’m going to be doing another… or re-updating my commercial demo with the Global Voice Acting Academy. Very excited about that.
Oh, that’s big news.
Yeah, because the commercial demo is about three years old. It was good enough to get me some agents, but I’ve talked to a number of coaches and friends, and they’re like, yeah, maybe it doesn’t show off your range as well as it could. And I feel like I’ve grown as a voice actor in the last three years, so might as well create something that better reflects that ability.
What about your recording space?
Recording?
You mentioned you wanted to do something about that?
Yes, I did. I want a booth. To be a little bit more general, I want an official recording space.
Right now, we haven’t settled on exactly which room I’m going to use permanently in my current house. And I would just like to have a place that’s consistent and quiet and that I can use anytime I want, so without disturbing my family. And so that’s the big goal.
I know there’s a drum school in Seattle who’s offering basically a name your price for a vocal booth. So I’m going to talk to them. And it’s a four by six booth, which is a little bit larger than most people get.
So as long as we have a space for it, I might have a booth very soon. Who knows?
Oh, that’s cool. One thing I would caution is to make sure you can move the sucker, because some of those music schools or the booths that are used for hearing tests, like audiology booths, are insanely heavy and much more unwieldy than people think they are.
Because usually these structures are rectangular cubes, and I’ve heard that each side or each piece can be as much as 400 or 500 pounds.
Yeah, even a whisper room, each side is probably 120 to 150 pounds, and it’s a lot to lug around. That’s just on the smallest version.
Like Paul said, you might think that a booth will solve all of your problems, but you really have to put a lot of thought into this investment, because it is a lot of effort, it can be a lot of money to get one of these into your house. So that’s pretty much it for professional goals, is to get into audiobooks, redo that demo, and then get a booth or a better space. It might just be a matter of kind of finding the quietest room in the house and then treating the walls so it sounds good.
But that is the ultimate goal, is to have a dedicated space for my voice over endeavors. And other than that, it would be nice to lose 20 pounds, because I’ve been putting away the sweets and the ginger snaps and the pumpkin pie over the last couple of months.
Yeah, that does tend to happen.
Well, my girlfriend loves to eat too, and it’s nice to find someone that you don’t have to feel ashamed about that with. So, I mean, we like to eat good food.
I have some goals. I’m not big on resolutions, because like we’ve talked about, I tend to just sort of jump into things and go full speed. So when I get an idea in my head, I just go, whether it’s January 1st or June 1st.
So my immediate goals, though, are to try and get to more events. I made a point of really not going to any of the first year, because I didn’t think I was ready, either with physical materials, like I didn’t have any demos when I first started, and I didn’t think I was ready talent-wise to actually take on any clients. Should I actually get any referrals or clients at an event?
So I sort of put that off. But I’ve already been to MAVO at the end of last year, the Mid-Atlantic Voice Conference that we did the episode three from. And now I’ve committed to go to VoiceOver Atlanta, or VO Atlanta, which should be a great time.
Yeah, so it sounds like a great event. I’m really excited to go for the first time. I’m actually going to be volunteering there.
I talked to the organizer and founder, Gerald Griffith, and he agreed to have me come and work on the audiovisual services team led by Uncle Roy. So that should be a lot of fun. There’s a couple people that I know from different social media circles, and I’ve met in person.
Uncle Roy is going to be there. Ken Cornelius is going to be there. Scott Chambers and a few other people on the staff that I actually haven’t had a chance to meet yet, but I will once I’m there.
And that sounds like it’s going to be a great opportunity. So I want to thank Gerald for having me do that, and can’t wait to get there.
Yeah, it’s a fantastic conference. It was my first voiceover conference, and I feel you, because I remember they actually offer this wonderful scholarship every year. It just finished in the beginning of November, but they offer multiple scholarships for national, like within the US, voiceover artists, a children’s scholarship, and an international scholarship, which basically includes free registration to the event, and then a stipend for travel expenses.
And if I hadn’t had that at the time, I wouldn’t have been able to go. But once I went, it was such a life and career-changing experience that I have dedicated myself to going to at least VO Atlanta once a year as well, so in the future, because it’s a wonderful, wonderful conference.
So yeah, I’m really excited to go to VO Atlanta. Obviously, I’ll see you there. Sounds like some of us at least are going to eat a giant hamburger.
That’ll be a lot of fun.
I want to do that challenge. What is it called? They’ve got this eight-pound burger at a restaurant in Atlanta called The Grim Reaper, and it’s got all of my favorite things.
I mean, you’ve got Angus beef, you’ve got a whole bunch of cheese, bacon, like seven eggs, and a mountain of onion rings. I’m like, no lettuce, no vegetables, just what I love.
Our friend Lance Blair was saying it’s pretty far away from the airport, and the hotel is basically connected to the airport. I think it’s probably about a 40-minute train ride. But if there’s any way we can do it, I’m in.
I’m totally in. I’ve never done an eating challenge before, but anyone who’s watched me eat would probably think I could do it.
I don’t want to go off on too much of a tangent, but I actually have been in a few eating contests. Story for another day.
Very cool. Yeah, we’ll have to talk about tactics and stuff like that.
food. We’ll call that a tease. Maybe in a future episode, we’ll talk about food challenges.
Nice.
But right now, we’re going to introduce our new segment, Questionable Gear Purchase.
It’s a chance to talk about some of the things that we have purchased over the last couple of weeks and since our last episode, and why and how we think they might help our business.
Alright, I guess I’ll start because I did pick up a lot of stuff over the holidays. And my thing is, I don’t really ask people for gifts, especially nowadays, because some of the things I drool over are far too expensive for me to ask anyone to get. But I did find some great deals on some things I’ve been looking at for a while.
I got two big things recently, and that’s an interface called the SPL Creon. So SPL is short for Sound Pressure Labs. It’s a company out of Germany, and they’re famous for making very boutique, high-quality analog gear.
And they’ve recently made some new interfaces. They had this beastly desktop interface called the Crimson, which was a little bit overkill for me. It had some cool features, like two headphone outs and two instrument inputs and stuff like that.
But nothing people in our level of voiceover would really need. If you’re a music studio, yeah, it’d be great. But not what we need.
Anyways, recently they made sort of a slimmed-down version called the CREON, which still had a lot of the great features of the Crimson. And it’s kind of similar to, say, the Audient ID22, but it’s got a little bit different flavored preamps. I think it sounds quite nice.
And it’s got some additional features that I wanted, like a high-pass filter at a decent range. I believe it’s at 70 Hz, so I don’t have to worry about any of… any desirable frequencies in my voice being cut out by still being able to take out any rumble in my space or in my recordings.
So I’m really happy about that. And then I also got a new microphone, which is a Latvian mic called the JZJ1. It was actually recommended by our friend Lance Blair as sort of a CAD E100S killer.
And it’s a very light, very low-profile mic. It’s kind of like rectangular-shaped. Actually reminds me of like a foil razor or a stick of deodorant.
But it’s an attractive mic. I mean, you can tell it’s from a boutique retailer. And it’s got like a very, very low-profile shock mount that just kind of screws into the bottom of the mic It’s super low-profile, perfect for using in a closet booth setup.
And I would wholeheartedly recommend it to new talent. So Paul’s listened to some audio with it, too. And what do you think, Paul?
Yeah, it sounded great, especially in a well-treated space.
This is a sub-$300 mic, and I think it would be great for commercials or narration. So once again, that’s the JZ-J1. It’s about, like retail price is $400.
Occasionally, you’ll see it on Amazon for $279 if you’re a Prime member. But you will always find it at that price at B&H Photo Video. So if this is a mic you’re looking at, I would definitely recommend looking at it there.
And they’ve even got a few different colors. So they’ve got a gray version and a purple version. If you really care about color, you just might want to ask the manufacturer first to see what you’re getting.
What about you, Paul? Any questionable gear purchases?
Oh, boy, yeah. I had this idea that kind of came from you, actually. We were doing some recording, and you said something to the effect of, well, maybe that mic isn’t the most flattering on your voice, or that mic…
You could probably find a better mic. I think you might even have said the words, you deserve a better mic. I got that little sort of devil on my shoulder saying, You don’t need a new mic.
So then I had a meeting with George Widom about an unrelated issue, and he had a similar comment where we were talking about noise getting in the recordings, and he said, I think a lot of that is your mic because it kind of has a lot of self-noise. This is when I was using the AT875R, and I said, well, George says I need a new mic, so obviously I need a new mic. And I went insane and bought three.
Now, the way that happened was I was bidding on something on eBay and wasn’t really expecting it to go through. And it did, so I ended up with a Blue Baby Bottle and a Blue Reactor because both my bids went through at the same time. These are both mics by the company Blue.
It used to be a Latvian company. Now they’re… I think they’re made in the US now.
So yeah, they’re in the US, but a lot of their manufacturing is in China, I believe.
Okay. So anyway, I got this idea that… I always like to have two mics, and I got this idea that I wanted to have all the same mics because if you’re a golf fan of professional golf, you may know that Tiger Woods uses all Nike gloves.
Well, they pay him to do it.
Right. Or Michael Jordan wore all Nike equipment, had the Nike shoes. So I thought maybe that would be the same with mics.
I have actually heard of this happening where Pat Fraley, for instance, uses all Audio-Technica mics. So I thought, may I all be the blue mic guy? So I ended up with these two mics.
And I actually bought a third, which is the Blue Raspberry. And this was because I thought I needed something portable. So again, going crazy at once, I had the blue baby bottle, the blue reactor, and the Blue Raspberry.
And the Raspberry was pretty interesting because it’s a portable mic. It’s a little USB mic about the size of the Apogee mic that a lot of people think it compares favorably to. And if you’re interested in hearing a sample, I was featured along with the mic on the last VOBS show with Dan and George, where they played a sample of me doing a read on that mic because they wanted to review it.
And they said, well, send us a sample, and we’ll talk about it. So they did. So anyway, I bought all three of those.
Definitely questionable gear purchases because it turns out that they all kind of suck in my space on my voice.
Well, I mean, I was really hopeful about the Blue Raspberry because I mean, Blue, they made the Yeti, which even though it’s not like… My problems with the Yeti are all structural. It’s just a very large, ungainly mic.
You would never want to use it on like a boom arm or anything like that. It’s very heavy. It’s like two pounds.
And it’s just large. But it sounds wonderful. I used it for two years.
Or the pro version, the one that was USB and analog. I never actually hooked it up to analog because by that time I had a better XLR mic, but whatever, live and learn. And I never really liked the Apogee because yeah, it’s probably the most portable on the market.
But for 200 to 250 dollars, if you get the whole accessory kit, I just didn’t think it was worth the sound, especially if you went with something like the AT875R and a one channel interface like the Scarlett Solo or the Shure XTU or something like that. You’re going to get better quality and spend about the same amount.
And the Raspberry, it does sound good, and I wasn’t able to get some good results out of it with a lot of tweaking. The problem I had with actually all the Blue mics was that they all sounded pretty bad raw. I had to do a lot of processing and EQing to make them sound decent.
And when I did, they sounded great, but my goal really is to have something that sounds good right out of the box because I have a really decently treated space and it sounds good.
So that is what you want. I mean, it’s less work for you later. And Blue’s got a habit of sort of having a signature sound for all of their mics, because they intend them for different uses.
They have some more general all-purpose ones like the Bluebird or the Baby Bottle, but other than that, they really try to sort of cater it to specific uses. And with Voice Over, we don’t necessarily want that. We want something that is as true to source as possible.
Yeah. So in the end, I punted on all three of those mics. And this is why I came up with the name Questionable Gear Purchases for this segment, because in my case, it always is.
And what I decided to do is go back to basics and stick with what works. So the 875R sounded good in my space on my voice. It was lacking a little bit of low end.
So I picked up an 897, also an Audio Technica, an 8897, which is a longer barreled shotgun. Some people compare it favorably to the 416. I won’t go that far, but I’ve heard some talent even say that they use it in place of the 416 on the road for pickups.
And in my case, for whatever reason, the Audio Technica products sound really good. So maybe like Pat, I’ll be the Audio Technica guy. And that’s what I’m going with for now.
I’m using it right now on this podcast, actually.
Yeah, and I actually encourage our listeners to go to this episode and to listen back on our previous ones, where Paul was using his other mic, the 875R, and try and listen to the differences yourself. I personally like the change. I think it’s a definite upgrade.
It had the clarity and the accuracy of the 875, but it’s got a little bit more low end, and overall, it just sounds much smoother to me and really pleasant. So, congratulations, Paul.
Yeah, that’s exactly what I was looking for, so I guess mission accomplished.
Yeah, good for you.
Maybe I’ll stop buying things this week.
This week, yes. If you didn’t, then we wouldn’t have a segment.
Yeah, it’s all for the show. It’s all for you people.
Thank you. We appreciate it. And I love Paul’s attitude of never being…
I wouldn’t say never being satisfied, but always being willing to experiment. Me, I tend to buy mics and hold on to them. I don’t know why it’s so much harder for me to sell them than it is for him.
But different strokes to rule the world and all that.
There we go.
Speaking of questionable gear purchases, I’m sure we had a lot as we kind of went through our own personal and professional journeys with today’s topic, and that is studio acoustics, acoustics, acoustics.
Oh yeah.
So I figured Paul and I would just kind of go back and forth and talk about our own studio evolutions in regards to acoustics. So for our listeners who don’t know, acoustics is merely the science of sound. Voice over artists have a very specific need when it comes to acoustics.
We need a quiet space, and we need a non-reverberant space. Or dead space. A dead space, you know, like that sci-fi arcade game with the…
Anyways, we need a dead space that does not have echo. Otherwise, you get… It sounds bad.
The audio sounds bad, and we want something that sounds natural. It doesn’t sound like it was recorded in a kitchen or a bathroom. So acoustics, the room acoustics, are probably the most important aspect of your recording chain next to the mic and then the interface or preamp.
But it’s also the least understood and potentially the most expensive. So I feel like it’s one that a lot of beginning voice over artists shy away from. What do you think, Paul?
Yeah, I agree. And it’s sort of a misnomer because… Not misnomer, but…
Most talent go about it backwards, like you said. People look for the shiny new things. They want the mic.
But in actuality, if you have a great space, you almost need nothing else. I’ve actually done stuff in here with the iPhone, where in my now really great acoustic space, and it sounds better than probably a lot of people do with a professional microphone in a crappy room.
I know voice talent Mike Delgadio. He has a great… He goes by Booth Junkie on YouTube.
He’s got a great video comparing a $50 mic. I think it’s the AKG Perception. It’s no longer made with the Neumann TLM 103, which is like a $1000 mic.
But the whole point of that video was not a mic comparison, because he’s taking these mics into different spaces and proving that the space is more important than the mic itself.
It really is a way to make your life easier. Like you were talking about how it’s easier if you have a mic that sounds great raw. The same is true for your space.
The more you treat your space in the beginning, the less you have to do on the back end in processing or editing, because you won’t have to worry about making it sound better. It will already sound great if you have a good space.
Alright, so without further ado, let’s talk about the different incarnations of our studio space. And I actually want to start with what I’m currently using, because it’s most beneficial to you, our viewers. And what I’m in right now, I think I’ve mentioned this before, is a walking closet, which is honestly the best, least expensive way to get started with your first voiceover booth or voiceover space.
Can I just add that it’s your mom’s walking closet? I just love that.
I know. So now I have to deal with coming out of the closet jokes and your mama jokes. So thank you, Paul, for that.
But hey, I’ve got a supportive family, so I guess that’s what matters. But going back into the benefits of a walking closet, a closet is a good start because you’ve got… Chances are you’ve got a lot of clothing, you’ve got a lot of absorbent material to prevent your voice from bouncing on all the walls.
And a regular closet works well, too, if it’s deep enough or if it’s filled with enough clothing. Walking closet is even better because you have a little bit more space to move around. Gesturing is very important for authentic voiceover.
And you’re surrounded by absorbent materials.
You’re usually surrounded by drywall and probably some insulation behind that drywall.
Yeah, exactly. You have a little bit of isolation from the rest of the house, from the outside of the house as well. So your noise problems are reduced.
Because I’ve been using pretty directional microphones in here, like the 416 or the JZJ1, which is a medium, like a smaller diaphragm condenser. But honestly, it works with my large diaphragm condensers as well. I don’t even hear people outside or downstairs when I’m recording, so it’s great.
But I didn’t always have a closet, a good enough closet that I could use. When I was living in Japan, I had a… the closet was pitifully small.
It was like… I couldn’t take a shower in it. It was that small, you know?
It was so… I couldn’t fit in it. I couldn’t fit a mic stand or anything else in it, in my clothing.
So it just… it wasn’t a viable option. And it was just too close to the walls and the doors.
It just wouldn’t work. So at that time, there weren’t a whole lot of prefabricated portable acoustic solutions for talent. I knew I wanted something portable because I knew I wasn’t going to be in Japan forever.
So I wanted something that I could take with me to and from that country. And so at that time, Harlan Hogan had come out with a couple of different products called the Porterbooth. And this thing has gone through a couple of incarnations.
It used to be like a little folding laundry cube that he lined with acoustic foam. And then he actually patented it, and he made a larger version called the Porterbooth Pro, which is quite large and can fit a decent mic in your script in there as well. And then it’s even got a little blanket in it that comes out behind your head to improve the dampening effect.
But at the time, that was a little bit too expensive for me, so I went for the Porterbooth Plus, which is a nice rectangular shape. It was a little bit more portable. I could fit it in a suitcase or take it on carry-on.
Still a little ungainly for that. They recommend a lot of these products as carry-on, and honestly, I wouldn’t do that with a lot of them, just because they’re large and they’re pushing the boundaries of a lot of flights with that marketing misnomer. But anyways, so I used that for two years, and it worked out well.
I got paid with it. I used it for plenty of paid work. Before I got it properly set up, I submitted some files to Dan Leonard over from, at the time, EastWest Audio Body Shop, which is now VOBS, or Voice Over Body Shop.
Because he and George both have this sort of this place on their websites where you can send them audio samples and get a free consult if you’re willing to wait. And so I did. And then about a day later, Dan’s like, I can hear your computer fan.
I can hear your refrigerator. It sounds terrible. You’re too far from the mic.
At that time, I knew nothing about recording myself, and I was just happy to hear that I was able to push record and actually get a signal into the dang computer. So I took Dan’s advice. I moved the computer.
I would turn off the refrigerator while I record, and I can’t tell you how much food I’ve wasted because I forgot to turn that back on. It was just one of the sacrifices I was willing to make for my craft. So anyways, I used that for two years, and then finally we started getting some new products that became available, namely the Chaotica Eyeball from Canadian company Chaotica.
I was about to come home to the States, and I decided to pick up some new equipment. So I picked up some new mics, and I picked up the Chaotica Eyeball. And I thought it sounded a little bit more natural, a little less boxy than the Porta Booth Plus, but still a little reflective.
So what I did after that was I set up some baffling. By baffling, I mean laundry racks with futon mattresses folded over them. So I had these sort of three Gobos that I put on either side and behind me.
And with those improvements, I was able to get a better sound out of the Eyeball and the Porta Booth Plus when I used that. Because funny story, even though my new mic and the Eyeball and interface set up sounded better to me, when I sent some comparison files to one of my primary clients, he was like, I like the old one. Stay with that.
So even though you make incremental upgrades, your client’s opinion is the one that matters most, right?
Yeah, definitely. They’re the ones that are paying you. It’s funny you mentioned the baffling.
That can be a quick fix. Our friend Mike Norgard did the exact same thing recently with some plywood where he set it up behind his space because he doesn’t record in a booth. He records in a room in his house that he set up as a studio.
And while it sounded pretty good, he was having some reflection problems. So he put up some plywood and draped at first all of his old shirts over the back so you could see all the old flannel shirts that he probably wore when he was listening to Pearl Jam and Nirvana. And that did a great job of changing the sound completely, completely eliminating the echoing.
And I think since he’s upgraded to some foam. But just putting that wood behind him made a huge difference.
And that’s probably the biggest issue with these portable solutions, is that they don’t offer any dampening behind you, which makes a big impact on the final sound. So those were some of my earlier incarnations of my booth, if you can call it that. What about you, Paul?
What did you start with?
Well, I started pretty basic as well. Although I did have some knowledge of acoustics because I went to school for my undergrad degree in broadcasting, so I was on the radio station there and knew about studio setups, and I had a lot of classes about acoustics, both for radio and television, how to set up sound properly. So I had an idea, and what I basically did was go around my house and look for places that were the quietest.
And I also did a fair amount of research, watching online. I watched a lot of East West Audio Body Shop and a lot of Wittem’s Worlds and figured out all the information that George and Dan were putting out about how to find a good space to begin with. And I thought I had done that in my basement.
So I set up basically tent frame with PVC pipe. I went to the hardware store and bought enough PVC pipe to make a rectangle that was about 5 by 6. It was actually pretty big for the time.
And draped some regular old moving blankets around it that I got from Home Depot and Harbor Freight. And that sounded okay. I definitely got a decent sound.
But like you, I sent it away to Dan Leonard, and he said, it sounds not bad, but I can hear that car that drove by. And I was like, what car? I had no idea you could even hear that.
And I was in a basement below ground surrounded by concrete, so I thought I was pretty safe. But it turns out it wasn’t doing anything for sound blocking, which is what we were talking about. There’s a big difference between acoustics and soundproofing.
So I had done pretty well with the acoustics. Sounded pretty good, but nothing at all for soundproofing.
And that can be a big marketing misnomer because you’ll see it everywhere, even for non-audio gear, like soundproofed windows or soundproof doors or things like that. The truth is that it’s usually a much more… The best deterrent for sound is mass.
And we mean drywall, insulation, more drywall. Steel. Steel, rock, concrete, that kind of mass.
A blanket is not going to get rid of the traffic noise outside of your house. It might reduce it a little bit, but chances are it’s not going to be a significant thing. And it can be frustrating because people who don’t have the experience don’t know, don’t realize, that this soundproof blanket isn’t in fact going to create a silent space.
Well, I can say that it’s easy to fall into the marketing hype, because even someone who had a lot of experience, my next step was to get soundproofing blankets. So I was lucky that I acquired them for free, because the company vocalbooth2go.com that makes the producers’ choice acoustic blankets, they do call them acoustic blankets, but they do kind of pitch them as being soundproofing too. So they had an unfortunate event where their warehouse flooded, and it’s a local company to me.
So they’re giving away thousands of these damaged blankets that were soaked in this pond that overflowed and flooded into their warehouse. So I was able to pick up 18 of them for absolutely free. And I lugged them back to my house and washed them, and they came out pretty well.
I actually still use them now to line the inside of my whisper room.
I think they’re great. I love Vocalboot2go’s little story because this was some… Paul had mentioned that he had picked up moving blankets from other companies before, and that’s where Vocalboot2go got their start, was this warehouse of moving blankets.
And then he noticed the owner, I believe his name is Ajil Adelev. Apologies, Ajil, if I mispronounce that. But he noticed that a lot of musicians and producers and videographers were purchasing his blankets.
And so he’s like, what are you guys using these for? And they’re like, oh, they’re very absorbent material that’s perfect for movie sets or for Vocalboots or musicians or whatever to help them from disturbing their neighbors and improve their acoustics. So he’s like, oh, OK, well, how can I improve it for that?
And so he took their notes. He made them easier to hang by adding grommets in them. He doubled the material that’s used in the blankets so they’re even more absorbent.
And eventually he started making prefabricated booths so that were sort of already in a rectangular shape so that you could put it onto a frame that you made yourself or one that he sells. I thought that was a really creative business model, and I admire him a lot for it.
Yeah, so to get those blankets was my next step, and I put them on my existing PVC frame, and I thought that would help with some of the sound blocking. And it didn’t. Not that it should be a surprise to anyone by now, but it didn’t block any more of the sound.
And I have a big problem with sound blocking because I have a huge four-lane highway behind my house. The big retaining wall actually runs through my backyard. So it’s great for privacy.
I don’t have to worry about any new development behind my house, but it can be a little cumbersome for recording. So I set up this booth, and it actually improved the sound to where I was… I was getting a lot of work and doing pretty well, but I had the issue where I could only record at a certain time, similar to what you were talking about.
In addition to the sound outside, I have a lot of sound at least in my recordings inside because I have a family with three kids and a dog. As I mentioned, I was in the basement, so every time I was recording, I would hear this. The little pitter-patter of little feet all over the ceiling.
And my family really quickly got sick of me yelling from below them in the basement, hey, I’m trying to record, keep it down up there. In addition to that, I had all the other household things like the refrigerator and the air conditioning. There were several times where I had to turn off the air conditioning or the heat because I live on the East Coast, and I would come upstairs from bed and I couldn’t either be freezing or dying of heat because I forgot to turn the HVAC unit back on.
Whoops. So I got tired of that stuff real quick, and that’s when I started doing some more shopping. So I’ll get to what I did next after you tell us what you did next.
Okay, so at this point, like I said, I’ve been using a lot of the portable solutions because that’s all I could really do at the time. But I was always like Paul, I was always on the lookout for a better solution. So I got this great booth from this great guy named Tim Page.
He’s a voice over talent in New York. You can find him at timthepage.com. He’s also got two really nice podcasts going.
He’s got Conversion Cast, which is sort of a marketing podcast. And then he’s got my favorite one, Getting Into Comics. So he and I are both big Marvel Comics fans.
And he wanted to create a podcast that was accessible, not, I like to call it snobnoxious when it comes to comics. And just to make the whole thing really less intimidating for people who might get interested because of all of the movies that we have come, or in media we have coming out now, but don’t really know where to get started with a character that they’re interested in. So once again, that’s Getting Into Comics.
And if you want to hire Tim, you can find him over at timthepage.com So thanks a lot, Tim. You really, you made a big impact on my VO career. And I wish you nothing but the best in your voice over endeavors, too.
While I had entertained ideas of just getting a booth in Japan, I just knew I wasn’t, the expense wasn’t worth it, and I knew I wasn’t going to be there forever. So I got this great booth from this great guy named Tim Page, and he was selling it for a great price. And even with shipping, I still, or keep in mind, shipping from America to Japan, I still saved a great deal, and probably better than if I had gone new from the company.
But anyways, about six weeks later, I get this huge duffel bag in the mail, and then this is what’s called the hanging acoustic booth. So you’ve got this prefabricated rectangular shape of blankets, and then sort of like a half frame, because this thing is originally meant to be suspended from either a ceiling or just a height. So in the marketing materials, they have it in a warehouse suspended between two industrial ladders and a plank.
Not the most realistic setup, but I guess whatever you have available. But anyways, I found out very quickly that that wouldn’t work out for me, and so I went to the hardware store and then bought some. They didn’t have PVC there for some reason, so I got these stainless steel pipes, which I thought were actually pretty nice.
I mean, they’re a little bit narrower than the PVC pipes were, and I’m sure they’re much stronger. So I made sort of a shower frame, a tall rectangular frame out of that, threw the booth on top, hooked up my mic and interface, and then listened to the angels sing, because it was literally one of those hallelujah kind of moments.
That was a clever setup, too. I actually talked to Adele from vocalbooth2go.com, and he liked your setup because he saw it in one of your reviews, and he said, oh, it’s really clever what he did.
Yeah, you can find that over on YouTube. Listening back now, it sounds fine on computer speakers, but I was using the Apogee mic, and it doesn’t quite sound as great as I’d like looking back, but too late now. But yeah, I mean, that boot did not come with its own frame.
It had sort of a half frame just to help it maintain its shape when it’s suspended. But other than that, yeah, and it wasn’t too difficult to make. So I mean, that’s a popular solution for a lot of talent of all levels and experience who’ve got a quiet enough space but just have reflection issues.
So they’ll just make those little shower booths with a PVC frame pipe, or excuse me, a PVC frame, and then moving blankets, either something prefabricated or just individual blankets made or thrown over the frame.
Yeah, they can work great if you have one, limited recording to do, and two, no other issues to contend with that are going to interfere with your sound. If you live alone in an apartment like you were at the time, probably a great solution. So in my case, I knew really quickly that I wasn’t going to be able to get much done if I didn’t do something about sound blocking or sound isolation, as we call it.
So my next jump was to a booth almost right away. I started shopping around. I knew I didn’t have a lot of capital spent on a new booth.
Something like a whisper room new can cost minimum $5,000. That wasn’t happening right away, so I looked on Craigslist and eBay, and I found pretty quickly a drum shield locally on Craigslist. And that is something they use for live performances to encapsulate a drummer from the rest of the band.
So the drummer doesn’t make the guitarist’s ears bleed while they’re playing on stage. It’s used a lot in churches and other small venues where there’s live performances going on every day or every week. So when they typically come, they have a plexiglass front and then these large sound-absorbing baffles in the back.
So what I did was I got one of the large ones. It was a six by seven or six by eight feet. But knowing that the plexiglass would still have some sound leaking through, I decided to just not use that at all, or at least not in the inside of the booth.
And I took just the absorbing panels and made them into a smaller space. So you can imagine I had one of the side pieces as a floor, two more as a roof, and then the rest surrounding me in a sort of hexagon frame. And then I took the existing blankets I had from vocalbooth2go.com and wrapped those around the plexiglass and put that around for extra absorption.
And it sounded pretty darn good. I sent that to George Whitham to review, and he said it sounds great, like the best sound you’ve ever had. So stick with that, which of course did not happen.
But what did you call that?
It sounded great.
I really liked your little playful name for that.
Oh, right. I called it Frankenbooth because I was using it not for its intended purpose. And as I mentioned, normally it’s a 6×8 booth.
I had it collapse to a 3×3.2. I measured it one time just to laugh with some fellow talent about basically how I was working in a coffin. And it also was only six maybe feet, two inches high, and I’m six feet even.
So if I stood up straight, my head would hit the roof. So it wasn’t an ideal space for a lot of reasons. And on the outside, it looked like something out of a horror movie.
That’s why I call it a Frankenbooth.
It was made from the parts of deceased booths.
Right. But I tell you what, it sounded fantastic.
It did.
I actually got the hint from fellow talent Mike Breton because he had the same booth or the same company and used it to great effect. And I knew that it sounded good, but there were some other issues that maybe keep looking eventually.
So what issues are we talking about here? Is it still an isolation problem?
Partially isolation, but more actually just physical space. I couldn’t take being in such a confined space anymore. So I started to look for something that was more traditional square or rectangle.
Most people tell you that a square shape is bad for resonant waves bouncing back and forth, but there are a number of booths that are set up in a 4×4 fashion. So they also tend to be the cheapest. So I started to look around a little bit more and found a great deal on a vocal booth to go.
At this point, we sound like shills for this company, but I do like their products. I found a great deal on their Sound Proofer booth, which is similar to what you use, the acoustic booth, but an outside layer of mass-loaded vinyl, which helps us to block sound. And Sound Proofer was a bit of a misnomer.
It didn’t block everything. I got it here, and there was a really funny story around how that happened. I actually found it on Craigslist and contacted the seller.
We agreed to buy it. And while I was looking to sell Frankenbooth, because I didn’t need it anymore, somebody contacted me off of Craigslist and said that he thought the booth I was selling was one that he had previously owned. He said, basically, I sold this booth about a year ago, and now I need to get it back.
I think it’s mine that you’re selling. I thought, this is really weird.
What are the chances?
At first, I thought the guy was just a sociopath. You hear horrible stories about Craigslist.
Well, you’re still alive.
So he asked me for my phone number, and he called me, and he started telling me about his family and how it was the only way he could keep his wife happy, because he’s a foster parent of disabled children. And I was like, oh my God, he’s laying on her so thick, it’s gotta be a scam. But I decided I was gonna at least listen to him.
And when he described it, he said that he was in the military, or still is in the military, career military guy, and he was supposed to be shipped out to Texas. And that’s when he sold the booth because he was gonna clear all the stuff out of the house, and he was starting to put stuff in boxes, and then his orders were canceled. So he was still stationed here in Maryland.
And then he said, well, I need my booth back because he’s a drummer. So he was actually using the drum shield for drumming. And he basically said, I need my booth back to keep my Saturday when I’m trying to practice and also keep the family happy.
And I felt bad for him. We talked a little bit more. And while I was trying to sell Frankenbooth and also purchasing the Soundproofer booth, I found a whisper room also on Craigslist in New York, New York City.
So I bought that too, or at least committed to buy it. So now I had, all in the same week, I had Frankenbooth in the house. I committed to buy the Soundproofer booth and the whisper room at the same time.
So I came up with this crazy idea to talk to the gentleman that was buying Frankenbooth back. I said, look, I’ve got myself into a real pickle. I’m on the hook for these two booths now.
And I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll sell you Frankenbooth back if you drive to New York and get the Soundproofer booth for me and bring it back here. So he did.
One Sunday, he drove to New York City, came to my house, I gave him the old Drumperfect booth back, he gave me the Soundproofer booth, and everybody was happy. And then that same week, I went back to New York City myself and picked up the whisper room out of a New York City apartment, which is really interesting.
And it’s crazy because I happened to be at New York at the time. One of my voice over clients happens to be in a wheelchair. He actually asked me to wheel him around the city because it can be quite exhausting for someone to try and navigate all of those, like the pockmarked streets in a wheelchair.
So I was happy to help out. And Paul mentioned that he was going to be there, so we actually got to meet in person for the first time.
Yeah, for a very short time. I was double parked on a city street in Chelsea with a giant moving van and only had time for coffee, and not even entire coffee.
You look so exhausted. The man was just covered in sweat. He’s just like, oh, God, thank you.
I’m so glad that’s done with.
That brings me back to a point we were talking about before. If you’re going to get a booth, make sure you know what the heck you’re getting into, because they are behemoths. So I’m a reasonably in shape young man, well, middle-aged man at this point.
And the guy I bought the booth from was thankfully slightly younger and probably in better shape. And it still was hard to move the sucker. We had to get down the hall out of the third-story apartment.
And because there’s only one elevator in the apartment, we took each piece and basically stacked against the wall by the elevator, hoping nobody would steal it in the meantime. Then we’d run back to the room, bring the other piece out, then we stuck all the pieces in the elevator, and then held the elevator door open while we stuck all these pieces. So a whisper room has four sides, a roof, this one has a caster piece, so seven pieces all together.
And each one weighs probably 150 pounds, and they’re also seven and a half feet high. So it was a real bear to get in this elevator. When we got to the bottom, let me tell you, all the rest of his neighbors were pissed.
They were all waiting on the street in a line just glaring at us. So again, make sure you know what you’re getting into when you’re moving these things, because they can be a bear.
Yeah. How much did you… You said it was like over 100 pounds for each piece?
I’m estimating each one is about 150.
Good Lord.
At least the sides. Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.
Yeah, you’re buying a small room, folks.
What’s that?
I said, you’re buying a small room.
More or less. That brings me back to my whole reason for looking. Now that I have it here, I set it up and it’s like a whole new world.
Basically, I have room above my head. I have room to wave my arms around. I’m able to stand up and talk while…
Keep talking.
What was that?
That was a whole new world.
Oh, sorry. I didn’t get the joke. I was just in my own world, my whole new world.
Anyway, it’s glorious to be able to stand and move around without hitting my shoulders or head on the sides of the booth. So it does help a lot. And once I traded it right, it does sound great.
And I just wanted to talk a little bit now. I don’t want anyone to think that that has to be… that a whisper room or a room within a room has to be your first solution.
I mean, if you can afford it, and you’ve already proved that you’ve got the talent, by all means. But try the closet first. See if you can save five grand, you know?
Yeah, it’s all about your needs, though. In my case, I needed it to block out the kids, because my kids do not leave me alone if I’m not locked in this booth. They’re always asking me for snacks and always asking me to help them with homework or play video games.
So I needed the isolation, but you may not.
And when you get started, necessity is the mother of invention. You take whatever materials you have available and you make the best sounds you can. But if VO works out for you, then you can look into upgrades and then figure and eventually stop when you find the ideal solution for you.
Yeah, and try and reuse materials. I’m obviously not big on keeping old mics, but I do keep everything else. The booth I have now, I treated it with the blankets that I got for free.
I don’t have any foam on the walls, except for the one piece that came with the whisper room. I cut it in half and stuck it on the roof and on the door. But instead of buying thousands of dollars worth of foam for the walls, I just took the Producers Choice blankets and hung them by the grommets on some 3M command strip hooks.
And they stay up there, and almost by themselves, they make it sound great. I did have to add some bass traps, but other than that, the blankets do all the trick and stuff I already had.
And just backing up a little bit, for people who don’t know what bass traps are, so when you have a small enclosed space like a booth or a closet, you can get a buildup of bass frequencies because they’re actually larger and there’s more space in between the individual wavelengths than in higher frequencies. So it can take a lot more mass and a lot more material to really knock out those frequencies and prevent them from being recorded. Because if they are recorded, what you’ll get is sort of an unnatural boominess or some unpleasant frequencies to your voice.
Right now I’m getting really close to the mic to try and simulate that. But the point is you get a less natural sound and a less pleasant one because you’ve got some extra boom in the recording. And so what exactly did you use for your bass traps, Paul?
I thought you had a pretty ingenious solution for that.
Right, yeah. Early on in Frankenbooth, I got a tip that was from Ethan Weiner, or Weiner, I’m not sure how to pronounce his name. He’s on Recording Hacks, one of the moderators there, and he suggested using recycled denim insulation.
It’s called Ultratouch, at least it’s the only brand I’m aware of. And he suggested just using it the way it is, wrapped up in a shrink wrap. The ones I have are in rolls that I believe are 48 inches long when you stretch them out.
But rolled up, they’re just like a giant bath towel, and they come in a pack of six. At least I bought a case that was a pack of six. I think it cost me 60 bucks for the whole thing.
It wasn’t in stock. I had to order it to the Home Depot store, but they did deliver it there, and I was able to pick it up. And all I did was put some Velcro on the outside of the shrink wrapped rolls and pluck them up on the roof of the booth.
And in the Frankie booth, I had four all the way around the roof, and that was all I needed. It sounded great. In the whisper room, I reused those, and I put two on the roof, two in each corner.
So six total again, two on the roof, two in each corner. And they do a great job almost by themselves.
That’s great. And they’re lightweight, and it’s easy to install. And you said you spent 60 bucks on six?
Yeah.
Wow. Because some of these purpose built bass traps, which are usually made out of acoustic foam or some kind of recycled denim material placed in a wooden frame, they can be $40, $50 and up for one. So I thought that was a great solution.
Another popular bass trap is the Leonard corner bass traps.
Oh, the Leonard bass traps from Oralex. That’s right.
Yeah, and I think each of those is $60 apiece.
Wow.
So I did buy some knockoffs of those. I don’t remember the company. They were from Amazon.
I used the Whistram. I bought four of those to assist with the Ultratouch. But that’s really it in the boot along with the blankets.
Very cool.
Again, use the materials you already have on hand if possible. If you have some quilts you’re not using, those would probably do great to absorb sound.
Big coats, sweaters. The more material, the better, really. As far as closets go, I don’t know anyone who had too much clothing that had a detrimental effect on their sound.
Yeah, I’ve read people talking about just having the clothes draped around them while they’re speaking, and it does work. I personally, on the road, have taken one of the extra producer’s choice blankets and just put it over my head like a teepee, and it does a good enough job to absorb the sound with a portable mic.
And personally, I really like… I just like the effect that blankets have over foam for acoustic treatment, because it’s sort of like a unitasker, sometimes some of these products are treated with chemicals that can actually have off-gassing in a small space, so that could be unhealthy for you. And I just think you get a much more natural sound that’s easier to install with either some blankets from Vocalboot to go.
I know Audimute is another popular one. James Arnold Taylor sings their praises all the time. And there’s definitely a lot of solutions that you can look at before you kind of…
before you jump on the big names and the big brands. Okay, I think that wraps up Paul and my personal journeys with acoustics. But before we go today, I wanted to sweeten the deal by offering you, our listeners, a potential giveaway.
So I am giving away my Harlan Hogan Porter Booth Plus. It is… I will say it is slightly used.
There’s a little tear in one of the acoustic foams, but it works quite well. And this thing new would have been $260 for the carrying case and the booth itself. So you can either use it as a beginner booth, as a travel setup, or as additional acoustic treatment in what you’re already using.
So this is my gift to you, our listeners. And if you are interested in this Porter Booth Plus, all you have to do is to like our Facebook page, that is The VO Meter Facebook page. And then just a short story establishing your need.
How would this be helpful to you? Or a funny acoustic story of your own?
Yeah, you can do that either on the Facebook page, or leave us a comment on the VO Meter Podbean website itself under the comments section. Either way is fine. We’ll see it, and thanks for listening.
Thank you very much. Yeah, I’m excited to see some of your entries. So I’m Sean Daeley for The VO Meter with co-host Paul Stefano.
Thank you very much for listening, and good luck on winning that Porter Booth Plus.
Bye everybody. See you next time.
Thanks for listening to The VO Meter. Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow alon