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iMac

VO Booth Set Up Q and A

May 17, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

Q: What tweaks have you made to your set up that work well?

When I first built my professional home studio, I worked with my MacBook Air in the booth. For years I did this without issue. About two years in, I noticed that after very long recording sessions i had a lot of fan noise. I had gotten a great tip from Jack de Golia, a brilliant voice actor in Las Vegas, to always have ice packs handy, but after a while this became burdensome so I upgraded and put an iMac outside the booth and a monitor in the booth. This works MUCH butter. Here is a video made from a recent instagram story based on this very set-up question. If you can have this kind of set up, it’s great.

https://youtu.be/KGkESZa0X3o

Well Placed Hook with Head PhonesI also recommend having practical hooks in your book. I have a hook for my cans and a hook for my wires. It helps keep things neat and organized.

Q: What is your favorite way to connect for live sessions?

I have a new favorite way to connect: Zenncastr!! I have used this quite a few times recently, especially for long, guided eLearning sessions and it is great. There are no latency issues and it is very easy to connect, even easier than Source Connect. If only one person who is connecting has it, you can send them a link so it eases the financial burden as well. There are multiple price points, all of which are affordable. I love that when we speak during the session, all participants are recorded on separate tracks. So, if you are a coach recording a demo, or a voice over actor recording for a client, you never have to edit out any back and forth as you might on zoom. Then, at the end, you simply upload the audio.

Laura Schreiber Female Voice Over Talent In Her BoothI also do love having Source Connect. So many clients and agents require it. I occasionally need to have support sessions, and they do offer great support from Source Connect. Again, like with Zancastr, there are no latency issues. There are, though, sometimes quirks connecting. Sometimes people are confused with how to use it. If you are not both connecting with the same sample rate, for example, you won’t connect smoothly and it will be an issue, so that all needs to be decided ahead of time.

I also do still like to use zoom for the ease of use. Sometimes, even with the latency issues, it is great to just throw up a link and go! Especially this year, everyone knows how to use zoom, and it is nice to have a stress free connection for a live or guided session.

Q: If you could change anything about your studio, what would it be?

This might sound trivial, but it is not meant to. My booth is a rectangle and I have all this wasted space behind me. I could have saved a lot of money by making it a smaller square. The space behind me goes unused and is just a waste. I have to work with an acoustic board behind me, so I don’t even get to enjoy the roominess. 

I have blogged about this before, but I would also choose a different color foam if I had the option.  I hate that my white aurelex foam has turned yellow. I would either do panels or grew foam next time around.

Q: Can a voice over coach help with your studio set up?

A good voice over coach is still not an audio engineer. While I love to talk about gear with other voiceover actor and with students, it it is fun to talk about set up, I did not go to school for sound engineering. I do not have a degree in audio engineering. Everything I know about my studio, I know from having training with various audio engineers. As a voice over coach, I do work with students on microphone technique, but that is NOT the same thing is telling you how to set up your studio. Dave Scott, who  do demo production with, can give you expert advise on how to set up your booth and guide you about what to invest in and how to actually set it up.

Q: What do you wish you knew when you first started your voice over studio?

Travel Rig then and NowI wish I know how important a good travel rig is. It took me five years to get my travel rig to sound as good as my home set up. That is WAY too long. If you are just starting in voice over during the pandemic, I realize it is hard to imagine actually packing up and leaving home, but when we do, the rig matters.

I wish I know how important my website was. I spend so much time working on inbound marketing through my website now, but my business was going for several years before I figures that out.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: audio engineer, booth, Dave Scott, demo production, directed sessions, gear, iMac, Jack de Golia, live sessions, Mac Book Air, mic technique, monitor, professional voice actor, Source Connect, studio, studio set up, travel rig, VO, voice actor, voice over, voice over actor, voice over coach, voice over studio, voiceover, voiceover coach, Zencastr, Zoom

When You Mis-Quote a VO Client: A Case Study

November 8, 2020 by Laura Schreiber

How Did I Manage to Mis-Quote the Client

Einstein Quote About MistakesFor the first time in my five years as a full time voice over actor I mis-quoted a client. In truth, I was extremely tense about the election results so if I did not make a mistake here I could have made one some where else. A new client found me on LinkedIn for a toy project. I have a tight NDA, but I can say that it’s a toy and right away my voice seemed like the perfect fit for this project.

The first mistake that I made was that I opened the script on my phone. I was in my booth doing an eLearning job. I think we all feel that sense of urgency to reply promptly so that the client doesn’t go to another option, and I had so many screens open in my booth, that it seemed easier at the time to look at this on my phone. The client sent an excel spread sheet. At the top of the spread sheet were four highlighted very short sentences. I looked at the spreadsheet several times, did not see any other content, and each time I checked it was on my phone. It was my understanding that these highlighted lines were the entire script.

To be clear, I am often sent very small scripts in different genres, so this in no way seemed odd. I do a lot of commercial work, and there are a lot of short, 15 second, commercials. Even in eLearning, sometimes I am cast for one short role in a module, so this short script for the toy in no way seemed unusual. When I replied to the client, I was very clear to outline my standard toy rates, my toy revision rates, and what my quote would be for this job given how short the script was. I explained that I would provide two versions and the audio would be in what ever form they needed, fully edited, and ready for use. The client responded that they would be moving forward in the coming days.

How I Realized My Error

Bruce Lee Quote About MistakesWhen the client had their final script, they emailed me an NDA and a contract. Then they emailed me the finalized script which was again an excel spreadsheet. In the email they confirmed the initial rate. To my horror, I realized immediately that I had under-quoted the client significantly. The script was not 4 lines, It was 154 lines. Further, they needed the files split which was also not included in the initial bid. My heart sank. I never want to disappoint a client or to make their job harder. I genuinely thought the job was the first four lines. I am not clear whether or not the client was also questioning if the bid covered the full scope of the project by the way their email was written, but I still had to re-quote. With all the work I had, I would be spending a good deal of time on this and could not do the job for the rate I had initially quoted. I felt, though, like a buffoon.

How did I Decide How to Handle My Mistake

Maya Angelou Quote about MistakesImmediately I messaged my accountability group with whom I speak to all the time, every day. I trust these women more than anyone to lead me in the right direction. When they did not respond within minutes, I called them. Two of them were actually together at that moment, and they helped me draft a thoughtful and sincere email to address my error and revise the quote. It began with “I do apologize but…” I felt awful about doing it but I also could not live with myself if I did not. Interestingly, it was the opinion of two of the others in the group that the error was mine and I should do the job at the lower rate. They pointed out that I risked both losing the client and that if this client knows other clients I risked tarnishing my reputation. I weighed my options and sent the email with the revised quote.

What I would do Differently Next Time

  • I would open the email on my iMac.
  • I would not be in such a rush to reply. The few minutes could save a lot of aggravation later.
  • If I was unclear about the scope of work I would call the client.
  • I would ask more questions before doing the quote.
  • I would give a tiered quote (which I often due) that covers different lengths of work so that I am covered either way.

How it Worked Out

Make Mistakes and Move OnThe client was not pleased when she got the email with the revised quote she had to go back to both her team and to the clients for approval. The next day I heard that they were ready to move forward. I ended up having to call the client. When I downloaded the excel spreadsheet, I had some formatting issues as a Mac user. I called the client and they were extremely helpful. It was actually great to speak with them and have yet another opportunity to apologize and let them know that I genuinely did not intend to make things difficult for them. Our chat went very well and I am extremely thankful to have laid what I hope is the foundation of a good working relationship.

Filed Under: About Me, Client Relationships, Voiceover Tagged With: client, client relationship, commercial, elearning, iMac, iPhone, LinkedIn, mistake, NDA, new client, quote, quoting, rates, revised quote, toy, toys, VO, voice over, voiceover

VO Gear Upgrade: Apollo Twin

June 28, 2020 by Laura Schreiber

Why Switch from Avalon M5?

When everything is working perfectly in your booth, your bookings are solid, and you are happy with your sound, why shake things up with a gear upgrade? Well, life is not always so cut and dry in the voice over world. While I was really proud when I upgraded to the Avalon M5 preamp, and loved the way it sounds with my Neumann TLM 103 microphone, it is not portable. I’m at a point in my career where if I travel, which happens when there is not a pandemic, I need to sound the way I sound in my booth when in my travel rig. With an Avalon preamp and a Neumann mic, I sound pretty awesome. Even with a VOMO, it is hard to emulate that sound without bringing the Avalon, and if you have ever been in the presence of an Avalon then you know it is not portable. Thus, my journey began.

Working with Tim

One of my VO besties, and all around favorite people on the planet, the amazing Kim Handysides, suggested that I work with the VO Tech Guru Tim Tippets. Kim said Tim does amazing stacks and would set up my travel rig. Initially I had not planned to change my in studio set up with the Avalon M5, just the rig. I reached out to Tim. Tim is amazing because he could just set you up and give you the answer, but instead he spends the time to educate you so that you understand the rationale behind his suggestions and why he is guiding you down a certain path.

 

 

 

The Journey- and Boy Was It One

To Start, I was limited because I was working on a 2015 MacBook Air. Even though my MacBook Air is running really well (knock wood), it only has one Thunderbolt 2 connection and the rest are USB ports. This posed some logistical challenges in terms of suggestions Tim wanted to make. Further, at the time, I was set up to mirror in studio on a monitor. So my MacBook Air stays in an office space outside the studio and I have a great monitor in my booth.

Tim suggested I part ways with my M5, as much as I have loved it, and move on to the Apollo Twin MKII Thunderbolt. He explained the advantages of the Apollo were amazing and that I would sound the same if not better in both my home studio AND I could use it in my travel rig. So, I made the switch.

Tim set up an amazing stack for me on the Apollo and my booth in the house is up and running, almost.

Problem Solving and the Challenges

While I am delighted with the sound of the Apollo and immediately booked a pretty big job in the first round of auditions after being up and running, the big hiccup is that I cannot hookup my monitor in the studio and now my MacBook Air is in the booth, very temporarily. Before an onslaught of well-intentioned notes comes my way, I have purchased and returned multiple adaptors to try to hook up an HDMI to a USB, but to no avail, none will convert a video signal readable by Catalina. And because my MacBookAir is from Early 2015, I do not have a Thunderbolt C port and cannot use an adaptor because my computer could not process the speed. So… I am upgrading and an iMac desktop is on the way! This MacBook Air will be used for my travel rig and for marketing and correspondence, which is fine and I am thrilled with the solution.

The Travel Rig….

So this brings us back to the travel rig set up, which is also pretty exciting. After all, this entire journey started because of the travel rig, right? So, what is my travel rig set up now:

  • VoMo Booth
  • Sennheiser 660 Microphone
  • Apollo Twin MK II Thunderbolt
  • MacBook Air with Twisted Wav

And the great thing about working with Tim is that he set up the presets in the Apollo for this as well. Now when I go away, I can plug this in and go!

The One Note:

When I first started working with Tim to set up the Apollo, the process was not seamless, not because of Tim- sometimes life is just like that. It seemed that everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Tim was a patient as can be as he has seen it all, but I felt terrible and was quite frustrated. In the middle of attempting to set up the Apollo, I had to do a long overdue Time Machine backup and then upgrade to Catalina, so had I done those things prior to our chat that would have helped. The last thing was that my MacBook Air was not recognizing the device after all of that. I watched multiple youtube videos as I could not bare the thought of texting Tim and telling him something else was wrong. One video made me wonder if something was wrong with my thunderbolt cable. When I looked at it, I realized the lighting bolt was only on one side. If you have an old model and your are using this kind of cable, even though you can plug it in with either side up, make sure that the end with the lighting bolt is face up. Once I did that, everything worked like magic and Tim could do his thing, but it took about 8 hours in my booth to figure that out!

https://youtu.be/AygH6XSXIns

Filed Under: Studio/booth, Voiceover Tagged With: apollo Twin MK II Thunderbolt, Avalon M5, Home Studio, iMac, MacBook Air, Neumann TLM 103, Ninja clamp, Senheisser Shotgun Mic, Tim Pippet VO Guru, travel rig, VO, voice over, voiceover, Vomo

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