Our Clubhouse Panel
Every Friday at 2 PM Diana Birdsall and I co-host a Clubhouse in our room “Ask the VO Coaches.” I am always excited about our awesome panels, and every week I might say it’s “the best one ever,” but holy smokes was this an awesome panel! This week, just in time for your summer get-away, we talked about travel rigs and what gear you need and what you don’t need to bring with you on that much needed trip. Whether you’re going to the beach, to the mountains, or just to see family you missed during covid, we talked about it all, and we talked about it with some of the best in the field! We had George- the-tech Whittam, Dan Leonard, Dave Scott, and Rick Wasserman. So, here’s a review of some of what we chatted about in case you missed our beyond awesome chat!
What’s the Point
The point of a travel rig is to be able to provide continual service to your clients. If you are booking work daily and earn your income from VO, you likely have or need a travel rig. If you are earning your income from voice over, odds are you provide your clients with good quality audio. The goal is to continue to do that on the road. Can you match your home studio? The consensus was probably not, but you can do your best. Dave Scott, video producer with All Systems Go AV, explained that when they cast a voice talent, they need good quality audio. If they are doing an explainer, and there is likely minimal music behind it, there is not a lof of wiggle room to mask reflections. If they are doing a commercial, at least there is a music bed behind it that gives some additional flexibility. It is always important to be transparent with the client and let them know you’ll be out of the studio, and work from there.
The Gear
So you’re probably wondering what mic and what pre-amp you need? You’ll hate me for saying this, but it depends. It depends on how much you travel and what your budget is. Rick Wasserman also brought up the important distinction between what sounds the best and the “in a pinch or in a pickle” scenario. Ideally, you have time to test your gear and determine what compliments your voice, and you are not recording in a pinch, but rather in a planned and controlled scenario.
There are some great travel mics for your travel rig, including but not limited to:
- Apogee 96K
- Apogee Mic Plus
- Apogee Hype
- Sure MV51 USB
- Rode NTUSB
For travel Preamps, Dan and George were clear to point out that all tested well in their shoot outs, but that they like the:
- Steinberg UR12
- Scarlett Focusrite Solo
- Mixerface
- Rode Ai1
Portable Booth Vs. Pillow Fort
Most traveling voice actors start with the pillow fort. At conferences, we typically all post photos of our pillow forts on social media. So, how do you know if it’s time to make the investment in a portable booth like George and Rick’s Tri Booth or the Vocal Booth to Go? Again, the answer is it depends on how much you plan to work while you travel, how much you travel, and how much you book. If you are just doing it to audition, you would not want to spend the money. If you are, however, booking substantial work daily, one of these booths will come in very handy.
https://youtu.be/lvdIGgVXb9Y tri booth video
During our panel professional voice actor Dave Braxton also joined to talk about recording in a car. He explained that it not only provided the ideal sound proofing, but also offered an escape from his family. While chatting about this, George shared this video from Rode which talks about how to do just that.
https://youtu.be/C6gE2_VdImU
My Rig
My own rig has evolved a lot over the years. I know use:
- a Vocal Booth to Go
- a Sennheiser MKE 660 Microphone
- a UAD Apollo MK II Thunderbolt Preamp
- a Ninja clamp (essential to good positioning of the mic)
My thoughts as a Coach
We talked a lot about on the panel how having good mic technique matters. You have to set yourself up for success and going out and buying expensive gear doesn’t not mean that you will start booking. Once you are booking, then upgrade. Once you have steady clients, give them the curtesy of letting them know when you’ll be our of the studio. Don’t start new projects on home gear before a trip. Always let them know, and plan ahead,
If you’re in voice over, and you’re on Facebook, then you know how many groups there are for voice actors. There are so many. Why do I think voice actors spend time posting, commenting, and chatting on Facebook? Well, when you work alone in a padded foam booth, it’s really nice to have people. There is a really amazing, close knit voiceover industry, and even during covid, we all stayed close by continuing to chat on places like Facebook. In the past two weeks, I had to Facebook anniversary reminders of 
friendiversaries with close friends. Seeing these video reels flash in my feed brought me profound joy. It reminded me of how much I have built. If you have the privilege of working in voiceover, and you are successful, you know that it takes a lot more that years of long days of hard work. Success in voice over also takes the support of awesome industry friends who are there to support you on good days and bad.
If I had to go back to the very beginning, and try to unravel this thread, I’m not really sure how my multitude of VO friendships and connections started. It may have begun with Anne Ganguzza and VO Peeps. I certainly “met” other voice talents that way. It may have begun with taking zoom classes through GVAA and keeping in touch with my classmates. It may also have begun with attending Uncle Roy’s famous BBQ. As a newbie, all of these made me feel part of a community and helped me see where I fit in. When you are just starting out, it is sometimes hard to push yourself to go. You might worry that no one will talk to you. It is so, so important to go and meet people face to face.
Conferences are an AMAZING place to bond. It literally does not matter which conference you pick, they are incredible. Yes, there is lots of learning and sharing of knowledge. But, in truth, as we all learned from doing everything remotely this year, the educational aspect alone is not what gets us to leave our families and hope on a plane. It is for sure the social aspect of the conferences that is worth more than gold. It feeds your soul and builds you up. The interactions are genuine and you will make friendships that endure. The women that I speak to daily I “knew” before I met them in person, but seeing them at WoVo Con and seeing them at VO Atlanta was our time to connect and really get to know each other. We lift each other up in every way possible.
week I co-host a panel with one of my VO besties and fellow VO Coach Diana Birdsall. Our club is called “Ask the VO Coaches” and recent panelists have including Dave Scott from All Systems Go AV, Randy Thomas, George-the-Tech Whittam, Dan Leonard, Shelley Avellino, Bev Standing and more! Lot’s of voice actors come into the room and we chat about topics that matter to us. Clubhouse has given us a space to support each other and have an active and on going dialogue that raises the level of performance of the industry. 
The job of a 
There are talent agents who cast voice actors all over the counts, and they, too, are outstanding for career and rates advice in voice over. A good agent not only secures industry leading rates, they also direct you reads and let you know when you are on the mark and when you need improvement. An agent has both business savvy and a good ear, so if you are lucky enough to be on their roster, work with them! Seek their guidance and build a rapport. You can learn so much for a good agent. Both you and the agent benefit from you learning as much as possible, so they would likely want to help as much as they can.
I have blogged before about my accountability group, but I cannot stress enough how much this group has helped me daily to grow my business and make better choices. They have pushed me beyond boundaries I would have never thought to challenge, and they have made me look beyond. I am so much better because I am in the company of these women.
from the US and Canada. Our focus was on marketing, and even as a panel member, it really got my wheels turning. I could not help but think of the specificity of my recent outreach, especially in eLearning. I have worked so hard to build my business as an eLearning narrator, and I think in order to really reach prospects, you need to think about who you are working with. From the very beginning of the process through the completion of the booked work, understanding your audience is essential to success as a working female narrator in eLearning.
Social media content, across platforms, needs to have the target audience in mind as well. This can be a bit trickier, as it is harder to control who sees your posts. You can, however, try to catch the eye of a specific group of clients or prospects by being clever about your target audience. If, for example, you are posing on Instagram and you want to reach out to instructional designers, both the content you use and the tags that you include in your post matters. Another way to grab your audience is to tag influencers and professionals in that field. Quote them. Have a conversation about them. If you want to work in eLearning, you need to be part of the dialogue.
When you book an eLearning job, understanding the audience or the enduser is so important. For example, I was recently cast in a training for a local hospital: RWJ St. Barnabas, right here in NJ. It was a caller training. When I first read through the script, in my practice read, I sounded warm, gracious, and welcoming. I then re-read my roll: “Bad Caller.” I was the example of what not to do. Everything I just rehearsed had to be thrown out the window and the opposite read was needed. I was talking to the same people, but I was the example of what not to do, and I had to be the best “Bad Caller” they ever heard. Your job as an eLearning narrator is to make it obvious. They should not have had to figure out what was wrong with my phone skills, so I had to make every effort to clearly connect with the listener. Keeping the audience in mind should inform and transform every eLearning performance.
