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Attention all voice artists, singers, and anyone who speaks into a mic for a living: I have a very serious question for you all...


terrygrantvo

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2 hours ago, mandyzines said:

I'd be happy with a de-breather that just takes out breaths, honestly. It's staggering...how many of those happen.

Technically, that's a thing already, but it's still far better to just do it manually. And yeah - you never realize just how much 'junk' there is in normal speech until you have to take it all out.

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Hello world! My name is Kyle Shive. I've been running a voice over gig on Fiverr for over 6 months now, and I wanted to share some audio blunders that hindered me that I hope can help you!

 

First off, make sure you have a good mic, that uses an XLR cable and plugs into an audio interface. If you are trying to be a professional voice over artist, you can't do it with a USB mic!

 

Secondly, ensure you have studio quality headphones! AKG has some amazing affordable ones here. I recently got a Scarlett Focusrite Solo audio interface, and my old headphones were plugged in and I couldn't hear any sound! It was very muffled. It turns out, my old cheap headphones did not have a builtin AMP! It turns out, due to the power of an audio interface, you MUST use studio quality headphones with a built in AMP to boost the signal coming from the interface. After getting the right headphones, I can actually direct-monitor my voice, I can hear all of my mouth noise, and I have no more problems!

 

Another blunder, to prevent static and distortion, ensure you're midi controller for your interface, or the app that controls the input and output for your interface, matches the same hz that you are recording in your DAW! For example, ensure your interface input and output is 48hz, and that the input/output for your computer is the same number, and your DAW is set to record in the same frequency as well!

Lastly... a MAJOR annoyance I recently fixed.... I was getting static intermittently while recording. I have a pro mic, a brand new XLR cable, a brand new interface, and up-to-date drivers.... I did everything right, it was driving me crazy.... then I got a text, when the text came in, the electromagnetic waves being emitted from my phone were causing my mic to have static! Since moving my phone out of my booth, I have no more interference!

 

I hope these tips helped you and can save you some time! Good day, and good recording! May you all be well, happy, and peaceful!

 

- Kyle M. Shive

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Hi @kyleshive13

Interesting post, thank you! 

23 hours ago, kyleshive13 said:

First off, make sure you have a good mic, that uses an XLR cable and plugs into an audio interface. If you are trying to be a professional voice over artist, you can't do it with a USB mic!

Yup, agree. But it's not the biggest priority. 

Not a USB mic, no, not even what people perceive to be good one, no self respecting producer is going to hire anyone with one of those; or anyone who records on their computer's inbuilt mic, or worse still, their phone. Caveat: Morgan Freeman on a phone, is better than no Morgan Freeman, but an artist would need credentials like his to get away with it.

23 hours ago, kyleshive13 said:

Secondly, ensure you have studio quality headphones!

Agree again. Monitoring headphones, not earbuds, not domestic listening cans either as they add or subtract when we need to be working with as pure a signal as possible.

I don't get what you're saying about headphones having amps in though, it makes no sense to me. 

Deffo not noise cancelling headphones, they butcher things, same with bluetooth as the latency is an issue when we need real time monitoring, though not all artists wear them when recording, I find one ear on, one ear off works best for me as that way I hear it naturally, and can pick up on those dreaded mouth clicks: too much milky coffee makes me clicky but I'm not giving up coffee for anything! 

Mouth clicks were never a problem in radio as we always used to "hide behind" the music, or a bed, and they tend to use less sensitive mics in radio studios, than we do in VO ones. 

It's not the headphones job to amp up a signal, it's the interface's job, unless you've got a dedicated headphone amp, though with that said, one of the best headphone amps I've come across was actually in the Rode NT-USB microphone, it's a better headphone amp than it is a microphone! It's banging and loud as hell, better than the headphone amp on my Universal Audio Apollo Solo interface, and I mean by a long shot, the price difference is about five hundred quid, but this is coming from someone who likes music so loud it makes my teeth wobble, and the UA Solo combined with 250 ohm DT700 pros just doesn't have the same punch in my ears as a pair of cheap ass Sony cans with the Rode.

I think the NT-USB is a bit dark sounding, well, not think, I've done side by side comparisons, I know it is. 

What's the difference between the Scarlett Solo and an Apollo Solo? Scarlett was a Captain, Apollo is a God! 

Personally, my list of priorities are:

  1. Silence, a voice talent ain't worth sh*t without a professional level of silence
  2. Acoustics, I recently reviewed 100 new VO gigs on Fiverr, 12 had echoes that were an insult to anyone who isn't deaf
  3. Skills: if you can't pick up a script and bring it to life, or as we used to say in radio "lift it from the page", it doesn't matter what kit you've got, or your noise floor.... Most of it is instinct, that can not be taught, not even by the likes of Nancy Wolfson or Tanya Rich - big respects to both though, I'd hire them, but only to offset taxes lol 
  4. Mic: something that makes people know you know your tools, and are not scared to invest to get the best sound: mine is the 103 and I'll probably get a 416 at some point as it's good to have great weapons behind you when going into battle
  5. Cables, shielded so they don't pick up your cellphone, or crackle if they get moved
  6. Interface, it has to have clean pre-amps and not bring anything else to the party
  7. Monitoring headphones: the more honest and unaltered the better
  8. DAW but they all do the same thing really as a wave is a wave is a wave...

Chain: Neumann TLM 103, K&M cabled arm, Universal Audio Apollo Solo, Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro 250 OHM, TwistedWave, used to use Cool Edit Pro back in the day but I'd rather use Audacity than pay adobe a dime. 

Environment: the quietest place in the flat, -75 to -85 dBFS, 5 inch deep acoustic panels, no crappy tiles, with an RT60 of 0.17 seconds the last time I tested. It's all about the noise floor and RT60. That's what pro-engineers will elude to but rarely say as it'd stop people from paying them if that got out the bag...  

Processing: no noise reduction, no EQ, only click removal with iZotope RX8, and maybe a touch of compression, but only a little bit as less is better!

I'm a big fan of purer being better, the cleaner the input is, the less messing around needs to be done in post.

Checked your gig, a bit of feedback if I may? I don't know why I ask, I'm giving it anyway lol

Nobody outside the industry knows, nor cares, who George "The Tech" Whittam is, he's an alright bloke, I respect his ears, he agrees with me on floor and RT60, but your average buyer on Fiverr isn't going to know who he is, so maybe that prose would be better off on a personal website, giving more characters on your gig to speak the language of your buyers.

Still, thank you for an interesting post, makes a change from "why me no get buyer request" and "how get me first fiber gig sell" argh lol - oh how I sympathise with the moderators here! Bless 'em, they've the patience of bloody saints! 

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Hey there @andy I hope you're doing well! Thanks for the awesome feedback.

Regarding the headphones, my apologies for the confusion. Basically, my old cheap headphones weren't powerful enough to work with my interface. For example, a headphone can have an amp which is rated for 10 ohms etc.. my old ones weren't up to snuff. The new headphones I got have a lower impedance, 55-ohm which provides a remarkably higher volume level. I found some forum on reddit explaining it and that's how I knew I needed to headphones, and it worked. Basically something with AMP, ohms, and how the headphones interact with the interface. Sorry for my ignorance.

I agree with you on your list of priorities!

I still use the NSM noise reduction tool from Waves. For me, I notice no difference in my audio quality, and it helps get rid of that slight, tiny digital floor I seem to hear. As I mentioned, my floor is below -74db so there really isn't a reason for me to use it? I just like to, I dunno, I like it, haha.

Yeah, mouth clicks, I use adobe's build in declicker, I've been wanting to get the izotope pack (is this the one? https://www.izotope.com/en/shop/rx-10-standard.html)

but just haven't had the cash to shell out for it yet. I wonder if there will be a black Friday sale? Mouth noise for me is the most annoying for sure.

You have a great chain! Nice work. Yeah I know the Apollo is a god, haha. When my VO business finally starts making money maybe I'll shell out for it someday.

Thanks for checking out my gig! I took out the part about George The Tech, good thinking. Out of curiosity, how do you like my demo on there? I'm not getting traffic like I would imagine I should get. All I get is people asking me to read massive scripts for 5$, has that been your experience too?

Thanks for the convo! Nice to meet a fellow voice actor.

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Totally get where you're coming from regarding the cans now, mine are the 250 Ohm version and whilst they're lovely, so comfortable and sound great, they really do lack the 'balls' of those with lesser Ohms, used to use DT100s years back, like virtually every radio station I've ever been at had them, they're solid, like solid enough to beat someone half to death with them, and if they do break people like Canford Audio always have the spare parts to make them immaculate again, I just ended up hating their sound, in the end I threw mine out as the ear bits had gone a bit urgh over time and had become sticky, it was their dark sound that made me not want to get replacement parts.

I kinda regret not getting the 80 Ohm versions, I like it when my teeth wobble with high volume, but then that probably accounts for those really high pitched noises I hear late at night when trying to sleep sometimes, if only I could sue every station for not having headphone amps with limiters as they're responsible for my hearing damage, I'd have a Studio Bricks and U67 lol, I'm responsible really, it was my choice to have them that loud...

I managed to get RX8 on a discount some time back, not sure what difference there is between that and 10, but someone like George would know much more than myself on the matter. But if what you have ain't broken, why fix it?

With regards to the Apollo Solo, I wish I'd put a little more budget aside and got the Twin instead, that way when I get the 416 which is an inevitability, I'd be able to hook up the 103 on one channel, and the 416 on another: each time I get closer to the budget to get the 416 something comes along and does my bank balance in, like today, a trip to the vet cost me £300+ which is a kick in the teeth, but it could have been much worse, and when I say worse, our beloved Maine Coon (a former stray) had to be tested for feline leukaemia, and had she tested positive would have had to be put to sleep. Thankfully she's home with us now, she's still a poorly pussy, but alive and that's what's important. 

Spent half the afternoon with tears running down my face at the vets if I'm totally honest, the thought of losing her kicked my head in, hard. Really hard. She's family.

I thought your demo was sound, it's nice and clean, let me grab another listen...

The plugin charge of 25 miles alone made the think "hell, that's lousy", that's the vehicle spec though and in no way reflects the read which is good. People want 250 miles, not 25 so if there's something you can switch that bit out with it might make a more positive mental impact on potential buyers. Repeat, it's the copy that lets that down, not the delivery. 

I like the contrast between clip one and clip two, shows you have range, a better range than the electric vehicle, and far better range than many demos you'll hear here if you search for male voice overs, then set a low budget, and sort by newest first. I listened to 100 demos recently, and mentioned some of my findings in this post, it was shocking! 

[Mod note: Link removed per request]

America runs on Dunkin, not sure about that bit, I like the emphasis in there, but something isn't quite right about it in my mind, but I can't put my finger on it as I'm not American, nor Nancy Wolfson or Tanya Rich! 

Nancy would tell you to lay on your back and read it, then stand up and record it, something to do with muscle memory, she's good but if I had to pay any one coach right now it would be Philip Banks, thing is, you can't give him money, I've offered, tried to buy him a bottle of something nice, or a treat for his dog a couple of years back, as just his tweets / vimeo videos / vo-bb posts all contain pure gold, albeit a lot of English humour and sarcasm, VO-BB is certainly worth a read, even if it is a bit old-school "Fiverr is the race to the bottom" if you know what I mean.... Tell that to the Fiverr VOs who eat steak whilst the SAG-AFTRA and Equity lot moan about not having a gig or square meal in two years lol they really do act like the stereotypical out of work actors in many cases. 

Philip is happy billing a fortune to huge networks and simply refuses to accept money from fellow voices. He offers free s***e sessions, something I will take him up on one day. He's one of three talents I have HUGE respect for, the other two being Jenny Dunbar, a Scottish lady who voiced a legendary Marks and Spencer campaign over here, and Mitch Johnson who does radio branding sessions like no other I've heard. Jenny is smoother than a bag of eels in lube, and Mitch has more balls than a sports store!

I've had raw sessions from both in the past, and wow, they taught me so much just from listening to how a proper voice does it, it was worth the session fee times ten. Hired Jenny for an IVR and video project years back, and had Mitch as the station voice at a former workplace, plus hired him for some bits myself when dabbling with streaming radio, I'm not kidding when I say his outtakes are pure gold. Nearly got sacked from playing one on air once..... Don't ask, it was rude, it was 00:45 on a Sunday morning and I thought I could get away with it, shame the chairman was tuned in! Oh boy, did I walk into the office the next day to get a b*llocking as we call 'em over here!

The Bombay Sapphire bit is quieter than anything else. 

The CSU global clp is very similar in delivery to the bits before it, is there something you can put between them to highlight your range? I know you've got the range people need to hear. Let them hear it! 

Good to hear a fully dry demo, so many hide behind music!

The WOW is the peak in the waveform though, and stands out, especially when you can see it like this:

image.thumb.png.4f977bd147bd8346fc8f6454cfa2f7e5.png

Technically, the only thing I'd suggest is some compression to bring that wow down, and make everything else a little louder, other than that I hear no faults, no hiss, no plosives, no problems: that is a huge achievement, getting that right is hard, and you've certainly got it right in my ears, hopefully in the ears of buyers too. 

Just having a good noise floor is more than half the battle, the rest of the battle is with our mouths and those dreaded clicks!!!

My experience here? I've been stalking the forums, learning as much as I can from those who are far more experienced on Fiverr, I'm yet to launch my gig, but please feel free to rip holes in it the best you can, there's no audio up there yet, just a room tone sample as a placeholder as I'm getting some hefting huge acoustic panels turn up on Tuesday so I too can have stunning acoustics! 

Mr Banks is far better positioned to offer input, he's easy to find (he's thevoiceoverist everywhere) and always offers free coaching, another voice I respect, but mainly from the realm of SAG-AFTRA and character voices is Bob "Porky Pig" Bergen, such a lovely fella, always has the time to reply to emails, so I'd suggest picking their brains, and staying the hell away from the likes of Bill "Buy my Course and a sh*t USB microphone" Dewees, Antony "join my circle jerk group on Facebook" Pica, and Earl "grind and don't quit, but quit his own grind" Hall as they're the YouTube gurus who I feel are contributing to bringing down the standards in the game somewhat, I'm sure they all mean well, but I suppose the same could be said for Stalin.... An unfair comparison, but you know what I mean....

Oh how those YouTube gurus do my head in!

Break a leg with it, as they say in "actor luvvy" circles, feel free to critique the hell out of my gig and audio when it goes up, would value your input. 

Thanks again for the most interesting conversation I've taken part in here!

Best wishes

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On 9/9/2022 at 3:24 PM, terrygrantvo said:

How many (on average) bodily noises do you find yourself having to remove from a recording? How much time would it save us all, if someone would just invent a 'burp plugin'?

 

Maybe we can pool resources and hire a coder here to get this taken care of.

 

😉

Not one noise on my recordings other than the actual instrument or vocal

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On 9/9/2022 at 7:24 PM, terrygrantvo said:

How many (on average) bodily noises do you find yourself having to remove from a recording? How much time would it save us all, if someone would just invent a 'burp plugin'?

 

Maybe we can pool resources and hire a coder here to get this taken care of.

 

😉

AI doesn’t burp. Just saying 😜

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On 9/10/2022 at 9:22 AM, terrygrantvo said:

Technically, that's a thing already, but it's still far better to just do it manually. And yeah - you never realize just how much 'junk' there is in normal speech until you have to take it all out.

I'll add to this, a year later, how interesting it is that your mouth and the sounds that come out of it can change. Now, a lot of my s's look like a barbell or a pollywog on the waveform. I think the gap in my front teeth has widened, somehow, and accounts for it. Also, there's a new cluster of mouth crackles in between s's and vowels that RX can't handle. My obsession with s's thickens. 

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On 02.11.2022 at 20:49, kyleshive13 said:

Привет, мир! Меня зовут Кайл Шив. Я провожу озвучку на Fiverr уже более 6 месяцев, и мне хотелось поделиться некоторыми ошибками в работе со звуком, которые мне мешали и которые, я надеюсь, помогут вам!

 

Прежде всего убедитесь, что у вас есть хороший микрофон, который использует кабель XLR и подключается к аудиоинтерфейсу. Если вы пытаетесь стать профессиональным озвучщиком, вам не удастся сделать это с помощью USB-микрофона!

 

Во-вторых, убедитесь, что у вас есть наушники студийного качества! У AKG есть несколько замечательных моделей по доступной цене . Недавно я приобрел аудиоинтерфейс Scarlett Focusrite Solo, и мои старые наушники были подключены, и я не слышал ни звука! Это было очень приглушенно. Оказывается, в моих старых дешевых наушниках не было встроенного усилителя! Оказывается, из-за мощности аудиоинтерфейса вы ДОЛЖНЫ использовать наушники студийного качества со встроенным усилителем для усиления сигнала, поступающего от интерфейса. Получив подходящие наушники, я действительно могу напрямую контролировать свой голос, слышать весь шум своего рта, и у меня больше нет проблем!

 

Еще одна ошибка: во избежание статики и искажений убедитесь, что вы используете миди-контроллер для вашего интерфейса или приложение, которое управляет вводом и выводом для вашего интерфейса, соответствует той же частоте, которую вы записываете в своей DAW! Например, убедитесь, что вход и выход вашего интерфейса имеют частоту 48 Гц, а вход/выход вашего компьютера имеет тот же номер, а ваша DAW также настроена на запись на той же частоте!

Наконец... СЕРЬЕЗНУЮ неприятность, которую я недавно исправил... Во время записи у меня периодически появлялись помехи. У меня есть профессиональный микрофон, новый кабель XLR, новый интерфейс и последние версии драйверов.... Я все сделал правильно, это сводило меня с ума.... потом я получил сообщение, когда пришло сообщение, электромагнитные волны, излучаемые моим телефоном, вызывали помехи в моем микрофоне! С тех пор, как я вынес телефон из будки, у меня больше нет помех!

 

Надеюсь, эти советы помогли вам и сэкономят вам время! Добрый день и хорошей записи! Пусть у вас все будет хорошо, счастливо и мирно!

 

- Кайл М. Шайв

Before investing in professional equipment, you must have at least some income from work. I used to spend a lot of money and get nothing, now until I earn normal money on Fever I won’t buy anything at all.
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