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MacBook Air

Voice Over on the Road

April 19, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

So You’re Leaving the Booth

It happens, even in the time of covid, we leave our studios. As a professional voice talent, we have work we can predict, and the joy of work we cannot predict, that comes in at a moment’s notice and can have a pretty tight turn around time. As a working mom, whether I’m home or traveling I’m always juggling my responsibilities as a small business owner and my role of a mom, this year more than ever. This year, my high school juniors are looking at colleges. And as if looking at colleges for twins is not challenging enough, their interests do not overlap at all. Emma is targeting schools with Speech programs and STEM programs. Jack is looking for International Relations and Russian. So, we are doing two completely different college searches at once. What does this mean for me as a voice actor? It means I’m leaving the booth for the first time in a year and I need to be prepared. Voice over work should never prevent travel, it just means you need the right set up for your voice over travel rig and to take the necessary steps when planning.

What’s in The Travel Rig

Laura Schreiber Female Voice Over Talent Rush Jobs Pc ImgThe point of the travel rig is to sound like you sound in your home studio when you are on the road so that you can provide clients with a continuity of service. I have tweaked my rig quite a few times over the years, and finally invested in a quality set up that I am pleased with. I now bring:

  • A VoMo booth to go
  • A Sennheiser MKE 660 microphone
  • Sennheiser headphones
  • An AUD Appollo MK II Preamp
  • A MacBook Air with Twisted Wave

The reason this set up works, is that an  effects stack works was created that gives the same sound to the finished audio of that recorded in my booth. It is quite remarkable.

If you are still in the pillow fort phase, here is a video that might be helpful from when I was using pillow forts as well:

https://youtu.be/b2kGnHYRA_o

To Bring Or Not To Bring

Now that I have this amazing set up, does this mean that I never take off or that I bring the travel rig everywhere? No. For instance, this weekend I am away Friday night through Sunday. I left the rig at home. I did have one booking come in from an international client. I asked if they could please wait until Monday and that worked out, but if not I was willing to let the gig go. Sometimes you just need a break. Typically, I evaluate what I’ll be doing, how much free time I’ll have, and how much I typically earn that time of year. For example, the last four years in a row July has been my highest earning month of the year. If I go anywhere in July, the travel rig is coming with me. June, in contrast is a slower month. It might be safer to travel without it or to plan travel for that month. Tracking your trends in a CRM can be helpful for you to make such calls. Ultimately, we are all entitled to a break, but you have to weigh how disruptive it will be to your long term success. If your client hires another talents, and then that talents gets then ongoing work instead of you, can you live with that?

Professional Procedures to Take

Ultimately the point of the travel rig is to serve your clients well. If you know travel is coming up, and you are starting a project that might have pickups or script changes you should let the client know. You might also discuss with them the option of recording on your travel rig from home so that the audio matches. If you will have limits to your availability while on the road, it is great to give your regular clients a heads up. If they are used to a speedy turn around and you will have a delay, they’ll appreciate the notice. If you send out a newsletter, the newsletter is a great place to let clients know when you’ll be out of the studio. If you are on regular rosters that send you work, they appreciate the advance notice as well. Typically two weeks notice before travel is  standard, and that way clients have the chance to decide of they want to work around your dates and you can decide whether or not you need your rig!

Last Thoughts

Ultimately, there are a lot of ways to get great sound on the road, from pillow forts made out of comforters to tiny mics that plug into your phone. It makes sense to decide what your goals are: ranging from auditions to booked work to pickups, and then determine what gear best meets your needs.

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Studio/booth, Voiceover Tagged With: booth, college visits. professional voice talent, gear, good service, headphones, MacBook Air, mic, microphone, mics, preamp, quality audio, response time, RUSH Jobs, sennheiser 416, sennheiser MKE 660, set up, studio, travel, travel rig, VO, voice actor, voice over, voiceover, working mom

A New Computer for My Studio: My iMac DeskTop

July 5, 2020 by Laura Schreiber

Why The Change was Necessary

I will start by saying that the past five years have flown by and while I have had to seek help with my studio gear, my MacBook Air has been dependable in every way since its purchase. I have not had issues with my computer. I have been extremely happy since switching from a PC to a Mac, and have been extremely happy with the MacBook Air specifically. So, why switch? Well, as per my blog last week, I made a lot of gear upgrades in my studio recently. The early 2015 MacBook Air I have only has one Thunderbolt B port and NO, as an not a single one, Thunderbolt C ports, and it was not possible to have both my pre-amp and my studio monitor hooked up simultaneously, while both are essential. So, I made the choice to upgrade.

Why Did I Pick the iMac?

To be clear, my MacBook Air is still running fine. It completely functions and has not changed in any way, it is just missing some essential ports. This is sad. So, when looking at apple offerings, I decided that since I have a working laptop, I could focus on a great desktop. In truth, I have always wanted one. In the pre-pandemic world, when I could actually enter a store and look around, I always thought it would be great to work at a desk top. I decided this time the desktop made sense. The iMac had the right requirements in terms of storage and speed. I got a track pad and the 21.5 inch screen. All I had to do was wait about 10 days for the iMac to ship from Shanghai to New Jersey!

The SetUp-How did it Go?

The set up went well. It took me most of the day. It arrived around 10:30 am and by dinner I was up and running, and the timing was pretty good. Coming the Friday of a holiday weekend is ideal as the bookings I have for live sessions will not be until next week anyway. I had heard some horror stories of industry friends recently setting up new computers, so I was not optimistic or overly enthusiastic and I expected it to take a while. The initial backup from iCloud went ok. Then I had to install my UAD software. Since I had just done this with Tim last week on the laptop, I still remembered how and it was not fast but I was able to do it. I was worried about getting my settings onto the iMac, but I was actually able to use airdrop to move them from one computer to the other. Twisted Wave setup was a little tricker for me. I spent a while putting in my many keyboard shortcuts. I could not figure out why my effects stack would not open in its entirety. I realized I had to find my initial izotope purchase, download that, enter the ilok, and then open the effects stack. I was getting a little nervous that I would need a session with Tim, but to my own surprise I was able to get it going! I am happy to report that the monitor in my booth connected with ease and I am so thankful to have my booth in working order. I am still making tweaks like syncing my drop box and connecting my pay to plays in my chrome short cuts, but for the most part it is set up how I want it!

What Is Still Missing- Source Connect

I was successfully able to download and install the software for Source Connect. I use the Pro version 3.9 and thankfully I pay for support, so there is no crisis, I just wish I had it up and running. The hiccup for me is repointing the location from the MacBook Air to the iMac. I am also curious if I can run Source Connect on both computers or not. I set up the soonest support session I could, which will be this coming Tuesday at 5:30, and all my questions will be answered. This also made me realize that I had to get zoom up and running, so thankfully that is now set up on my iMac as well.

Thoughts and Plan- Upstairs/Downstairs

Rome was not built in a day, and I am sure that in the coming days and weeks I will realize other applications that need to be installed on the iMac. I am thankful, though, that I accomplished as mush as I did at the start. My plan is that the desktop will live in my office space and my MacBook Air will now reside upstairs and will also be dedicated to my travel rig. It has only been since Friday, 48 hours, but so far this seems like a really wonderful upgrade. Ultimately, this isn’t about just changing computers, right. I had a setup that was working until it wasn’t. I made a change. I used to really fear change, but I know know (more than understand, actually know) that change makes me better and presents opportunity.

Filed Under: About Me, Studio/booth Tagged With: Apollo Twin, apple, effects stack, gear, ilok, iMac desktop, izotope, live sessions, MacBook Air, rx, Source Connect, studio, travel rig, twisted Wave, upgrade, voice over, voiceover, Zoom

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

Why I Chose a Notebook Over a Desktop for My Voice Over Needs

May 5, 2019 by Laura Schreiber

https://youtu.be/hTvzT_v_ub0

Consult an Expert

When I started my business years ago I had so much to learn abut every single aspect of voice over. In addition to all of my vocal coaches for each genre of voiceover, and hiring a contractor to build my custom booth, I need serious advice about which computer to use and why I should make those choices. To understand how I came to a laptop, I also need to explain how I became a Mac user after a lifetime on PCs.

I so identified as a PC user that I could not possibly imagine life any other way!

I had actually started my business with a Dell Laptop. My cousin David who is an audio engineer in Philly had advised me that the software I needed to edit my work would not run sufficiently on that computer. David described a scenario where I was working and everything crashed. I assumed David was speaking in hyperbole just because he, like so many younger people I know, prefer Macs. One humiliating day early on, I had paid a fortune to work with a coach in Los Angeles and everything that David predicted come to fruition! My computer crashed. I could not sign in to ipDTL. I could not get Audacity or Adobe audition to work. Nothing worked. I was in a total crash. I had a session and I was mortified and I was ready to work and knew at that moment that I needed to make a major change.

It was time to consult an expert. I had already been working with a local sound engineer known affectionately by industry insiders as “Uncle” Roy, aka Roy Yokelson of Antland Productions. Uncle Roy is a PC guy and he was teaching me how to do the sound editing I would need when I launched my business. Switching to a Mac meant I would no longer be able to solely rely on Uncle Roy for tech support. I was told to consult with George Whittam and that he would guide me in the right direction on what my next step would be. I scheduled a call with George right away. Even though this was years ago it feels like yesterday and I am still profoundly thankful for his help and support, which is costly but well-worth every penny.

Studio Set up

I had a list of questions for George. If I was making the leap from PC to Mac, did I want a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or Desk Top? George encouraged me to get a souped up MacBook Air for my needs. Again, this is personal and it depends on your needs. For me, I needed a computer that would support all the audio software, have a large memory, and would be quiet. George explained that with enough RAM, the MacBook Air would meet my needs swimmingly. I also bought a hard drive to back it up so that if I had an unfortunate incident I would be covered!

George did not just make suggestions about the MacBook Air. He also guided me about other specs for the booth I was building to make sure that my audio would be pristine. As my goal was to get WoVo approval, which I did, this was also immensely helpful.

On the Go

I am ultimately very pleased with my purchase of the MacBook Air. I have been using it for almost five years now. I travel for work several times a year and it is light and not bulky. It works well as part of my travel rig set up too.

There is another element to my specific business needs. I am a working mom. I often have to leave my studio in the late afternoon and drive my twins to after school activities or sports events. The MacBook Air is extremely portable and great for the mom-on-the go. I bought a Tumi work bag on The Real Real that matches my suit case and I feel very organized when I travel. I am really thankful that I did not purchase the slightly heavier MacBook Pro, which my son has, because I have back and neck issues and for me every pound makes a difference.

Concluding Thoughts

Laura Schreiber Female Voice Over Talent MermaidAs with so many other changes I have faced in life, the anticipation of the change is worse than the change itself! I am thankful every day for the guidance that I got from my cousin and from George that pushed me in the right direction. I am thankful that the fan on my computer is so quiet. I am thankful that there is an apple store at my mall so I could get started so easily. I also LOVE using Twisted Wave. For me, the shift from Audacity and Audition to Twisted Wave was a huge productivity improvement. It is both my hope and intention that through conferences I will continue my tech education and will stay current with all of the new tech trends in voiceover so that I can best serve my clients.

Filed Under: Studio/booth, Voiceover Tagged With: adobe audition, Antland Productions, audacity, audio, David Scott Audio, fan, George the Tech Guy, George Whittam, MacBook Air, studio, tech, training, twisted Wave, Uncle Roy, VO, voice over, voiceover, working mom, WOVO

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