Black Day

Nothing good today. I just learned Don LaFontaine died yesterday.

Recording: Then and Now - Part V

Welcome back to our little trip through digital recording history. I really hope someone is finding this informative, entertaining, amusing, or otherwise distracting. I'm finding myself having to really think about specifics from 20+ years ago, and sometimes one memory triggers another, so it's a fun romp for me--probably less so for you, on the "you had to be there" factor.

Well, anyway, there we were in 1989/90, wanting to record audio for presentation on our Macintosh IIx. It seemed logical, since the Mac had great audio output capability. Recording should be a snap, we figured.

As it turned out, it was easier than it probably should have been, and resulted in an unintentional brush with greatness on my part.

In our search for a method to input audio to the Mac, we discovered a hardware/software combination called Sound Tools. It had a card for the Mac's NuBus, and software to manage recording and editing. Pretty advanced stuff, especially for the time. So we purchased the goods and started recording sound!

That was my first experience with recording outside a professional studio setting, and wow, was it an eye-opener! Suddenly being in the position of having to figure out where all those odd background noises, hums, and so forth came from--not a very pleasant experience. But, as we learn from our mistakes, I started to learn a little bit about the recording end of the process, which until then had been off my scope.

Well, priorities for organizations change, and, as happened with my similar effort in the Air Force, the decision was made that in-person explanation was the better approach for our purposes at the time, and we didn't pursue the project further. We still had Sound Tools, though, so I got to tinker a little here and there as time permitted over the next couple of years.

Little did I know then that "Sound Tools" would later be renamed "Pro Tools", and the company that invented it, Digidesign, would become a division of Avid and the leader in digital audio recording technology. That was my little brush with greatness at the time. My path, however, would take another turn and I'd be pulled away from the mic for several more years. By the time I got back to trying some digital recording, it would be with different hardware, different software, and a different organization...but lots of the same issues.

Next time: Windows, Cool Edit, and The Box.

Back to School Toys

Got all the back-to-school shopping done for my daughter, so now I can think about other things that can be had for a few shekels... ;)

When I mentioned USB mics the other day, I neglected to mention a cool gizmo from MXL called the MXL USB mic mate. It looks like an XLR cable connector, but instead of XLR connectors on both ends, it has a USB connector on one. You just plug your favorite mic into it, plug the other end into your computer's USB port, and you're ready to record. It even has phantom power--very nice for trimming down the road kit. CAVEAT: You're not going to get studio-quality sound out of this, or any USB solution for that matter, but you'll get better quality than you get from your laptop's sound card. If you already have a mic you like, this is a nice gadget.

Speaking of mics on the road, here's one of my favorite money-saving tips: hard cases can be very expensive, but you can get great cases complete with eggcrate foam in them from any gun/outdoor store. Just ask for Plano (formerly Dosko) cases designed for pistols--they're the perfect size for a mic or two (or more, depending on the case), and they're typically much cheaper than similar sized boxes from the local audio emporium. The one pictured usually goes for about 7 bucks.

Drool Factor Site:

On the other end of the financial spectrum: got that lust for the perfect recording space? This site won't help at all. Russ Berger Design Group does acoustically designed spaces for a wide variety of uses and customers. The spaces in their portfolio are absolutely jaw-dropping: http://www.rbdg.com/projects/

Sigh...

Recording: Then and Now - Part IV

So I'm in the U.S. Air Force, and suddenly discovering that the world of voiceover is literally everywhere, even in the military! I'm once again in a real studio, this time in the base "radio station"--not really broadcasting at that point in time, but still great for recording. The mics were Old Reliables--standard issue Shures--that had probably been in there since Elvis was in Germany. So we spent some time recording those narrations, planning ahead for the time when we'd have our digital solution figured out.

Sadly, I'd never get the chance to finish that particular project. As is the case with many things military, those plans changed. In fact, plans changed so much that I found myself having to make the decision to leave the Air Force and return to civilian life. I have no idea whether those briefings were ever automated, but somehow I doubt it--it was good training for junior officers to have to memorize all that info!

So I was then back in civilian life, and through an interesting set of circumstances I found myself working at The White House. Yes, that White House. The Executive Office of the President of the United States. Now, don't get too excited. You have to understand that there are many hundreds of people who work in support of the EOP, and the vast majority of them never get a chance to meet The Man Himself. I was working as an IT (although we called it IRM--Information Resources Management--then) support guy in the Financial Management Division. Yep, I was the beancounters' bit-pusher. Woohoo! Surely THIS place was as far from the world of VO as I was going to get.

Wrong again, kemo sabe.

One of the jobs of the Financial Management Division was to prepare briefings on the status of various organizations' budgets and financial management (surprise, surprise!). Now keep in mind that this was a world without PowerPoint, or even Windows (which was still in the non-usable version 2.something-or-other). So we had a Macintosh IIx as our desktop publishing system.

Naturally, with its superior "multi-media" capabilities, the Mac became the target of our presentation desires. It had 8-BIT STEREO audio output!! Unbelievable!!! Well, OK, we were easily impressed back then. But a little program called HyperCard was rocking the world in those days, and it allowed such amazing things as - gasp - playing SOUNDS while displaying IMAGES!! We were ready to head down the path of digital information presentation.

Sort of.

The problem with the Mac II was that, despite its wonderful (!) 8-bit stereo sound output capability, it had NO sound input capability. That's right. No mic. No line in. No nothing.
What were we supposed to do? Well, the big feature of the Mac II series was its modular architecture. It actually had an expansion bus that would allow the installation of circuit cards to add new capabilities to the machine. So that was our plan--find a sound card for the Mac.

How did we do? Stay tuned...

So You Wanna Be a VO...

I think probably everyone who has ever worked in the VO industry has been asked, "How do you get into that kind of work?" My guess is that everyone in the industry has a different answer, too. The biggest thing, I think, is actually getting jobs. But that's not where you start. (Well, OK, truth be told, I actually landed my first paid job before I even knew what a studio looked like, but don't take that as "the way it works".)

I guess what I'm trying to get at isn't so much the way to get started as the way to actually improve and succeed at this sort of work. That way is just to record and listen to yourself. Compare what you hear to what's on the radio, TV, movies, trailers--whatever medium you're trying to perfect. Keep working on it, even if you're not working on a paying job.

Now don't get me wrong--I can hardly be held up as a VO who has "made it" in terms of financial success, fame, or even general reputation. But I can definitely say I'm a more capable voice actor now than I was last year, or the year before that--you get the picture. And everyone I know who is successful in this business is, first, just plain in love with what they do; and second, working on their abilities at every opportunity.

So if you're one of those people who wants to know how to get started, I can't tell you. But I can tell you how to work on your voice. Talk. Record. Listen to EVERYTHING. Take acting classes, or get a voice coach--anything to get feedback on how you sound and what kind of reaction other people have to your delivery.

Sometimes, the question comes in the context of equipment; as in, "What kind of equipment will make me a professional voice actor?" The answer to that is, "None." There isn't a microphone, preamp, mixer, EQ, effects deck, sound card, or software that will turn you into a pro. Yes, all these things become important at one point or another, but none of them are the key to success. When you start auditioning for jobs, if you want to submit auditions you've recorded yourself, you'll need to have equipment good enough to put together clean tracks. But you can also get work in a variety of markets where you won't do any of the recording at all. So the voice is the thing.

To get started recording yourself on a computer, so you can listen to yourself and get better, you don't need much. I typically recommend a USB microphone and the audio recording/editing software Audacity. The nice thing about USB mics is they bypass the sound card in the computer, so you can even use them with laptops, which typically have notoriously low-quality sound capabilities. I've heard some pretty good results from the Samson C01U, and Blue also has a USB mic called the Snowball that sounds very nice. They can both be had for $100 or less.

Speaking of price, be careful when looking for equipment. The temptation is to buy the least expensive thing you can find that looks semi-pro. Don't do it. You'll end up spending a lot more in the long run when you realize the cheap item doesn't give you what you want and you have to buy something with a bigger price tag. I'm NOT saying you get what you pay for, necessarily, because you can seriously overspend as well, but you should always try out equipment you're considering if at all possible. At least seek out some feedback from pros you trust who have used the equipment.

Then there's the software end of things. Yes, you can record with the Sound Recorder mini-app in Windows, but don't. Trust me on this. You want an application that allows you to record, edit, and produce. This is where Audacity comes in. It's open source software, so it won't cost you anything to download and use. It's also very powerful software, so it will give you the opportunity to explore many of the issues involved in producing audio as well as just recording. "But I'm not an audio engineer; I'm just a voice actor," you say. That's fine, but in today's world, the more you know the better your chances become. You can download Audacity from audacity.sourceforge.net.

Finally, get involved with other people who do this as well. RadioDaddy.com, which I mentioned previously, is a great site to do this. There are also pay-for-play job boards and sites, but don't worry about those until you get lots of information about the industry and what direction you think you want to go.

Whew. That's enough for now, I think. I'm going to listen to myself talk now... ;)

Recording: Then and Now - Part III

Right. Previously on "Then and Now": Show business (including VO) is a thing of the past, as I move on to "more reliable" work. Turn forward a handful of years, and I've been a cable TV installer (no, nothing like Jim Carrey at all), a pizza driver (now there's a big-time career!), and I'm now a staff support specialist in the U.S. Air Force. For those old enough, think "Radar" on M*A*S*H, except in a blue suit, not in Korea, and not under fire.

But remember I said things turn unexpectedly, right? So the unit where I happen to get assigned is at a headquarters base and does regular briefings for general staff, members of Congress, and so on. We have this briefing room with a rear-projection screen to show slides. The latest technology is a projector that is purpose-built to show slides created with a vector graphics package called Lotus Freelance. It was all extremely high-tech--much faster turnaround than sending orders to the base graphics shop to be turned into 35mm slides.

Anyway, the M.O. then was to have a briefer (usually a junior officer) memorize the briefing and present it to its intended audience. At one point, we decided to see if we could completely "can" a briefing, with the narrative recorded and somehow played in sync with the slides. The idea came up that, since we doing the slides in-house with a computer, maybe we could do the narration in similar fashion. And thus it fell to me to figure out how to record sound on a computer.

Sounds easy, right? As Bill Cosby famously said, "Riiiight." I started looking into sound cards--PCs then didn't just have sound built in. They had speakers, but those were pretty much good for a few R2-D2-esque bleeps and twitters--definitely not up to the task of handling actual recorded audio. So if you wanted to have sound, you had to go buy a sound card. And if you wanted to record sound, you had to make sure the card had the ability. After all, most of them just played sound for a particular purpose, such as speech synthesis and such--nobody really wanted to record and play back sound on a computer, did they? There was already professional equipment for that--no need to duplicate it on a computer.

Well, that was the wall we came up against in 1987-88. There wasn't a good solution available to record and play back sound on the PC. We had no way to know that 1988 would be the year that brought gaming into the computer sound world, and computer-based audio would begin to take off. And how!

Sounds like not much recording going on, but while we were hunting for sound solutions on the PC, we were also working on recording the briefings to tape, so we'd have the material when were ready for it--and that's how I wound up in front of the mic again. This was actually a big revelation for me, because it showed that there was a need for VO work outside of "show business". All of my voice work for many years would subsequently tap this market--corporate narrations, presentation VOs, and so on.

Oops--gotta get to Saturday chores. Part IV coming soon.

Cool Sites for VO-heads

OK--forgot to get an entry in last night. This is the tendency that may end up being the downfall of this blog, but I'll try not to let that happen.

Today I thought I'd take a break from the "Then and Now" stuff. Don't worry--we'll get back to that thread soon enough. But there's a much more interesting topic up right now: cool sites for VO-heads.

As with most any topic, there are a ton of resources on the net for those of us who like to make noise and try to sell it to other people. There are forums, sound resources, job boards, etc. So here are a few I like to tinker with.

First, one of my favorite online hangouts: RadioDaddy.com. RadioDaddy is one of those places that ought to be too good to be true. It's a message board, but it's a whole lot more than that. RD's primary purpose is to provide custom voiceovers to low-budget concerns like internet radio, college stations, LPFM, and so on. It works like this: you join the board, post a request, and wait for someone to voice it for you. The best part is that the voiceover costs you NOTHING! There are some truly great talents over there, too. You might get your request voiced by a national radio personality, or the kid next door, or a voice you heard on MTV. That's the fun of it--you never know what you're going to get, but you get it for free! The only thing you have to do is click a little "Thank This Member" button after you download their work. How cool is that?

Another site I like a lot is FindSounds.com. This site is basically a search engine for sound files. It's very useful for finding little incidentals, Foley tidbits, etc. It's essentially a draw for selling their desktop sound searcing and manipulation software, but whether to buy is entirely up to you.

Finally, I'll mention a site that is designed for film buffs, but has great resources for audiophiles, too. It's the Moving Image Archive, part of the Internet Archive project. This site has thousands of clips of footage from various eras and types of film. It's a great place to go if you're trying to get the feel for a particular style or period of audio production in film.

That's enough for now. I'm sure we'll visit more sites in future posts. After all, if I told you about them all now, you'd spend all your time on those sites, and miss all the fun here! Drop me a comment and tell me about your favorite sound-related sites.

'Til next time...

Recording: Then and Now - Part II

I started out in the previous post talking about comparing recording methods, and it seems I immediately wandered off into an historical jaunt. You'll find as you get to know me that this will probably happen more often than either of us would like. It's just my nature. I hope you don't mind too much.

Anyway, let's go back to the early '80s and look at how it was. I mentioned we were recording to tape. The mic chain in that first studio I recorded in looked something like this:

mic -> preamp -> mixer -> tape deck

Today's mic chains look almost the same, with just a change at the end:

mic -> preamp -> mixer -> analog/digital converter -> digital storage

The last two pieces in the chain are usually combined as something like a CD-R deck or a computer. That last little piece of equipment is the one thing that has made the most difference in how things are done, in my opinion, but I'll come back to that another day.

The biggest thing I've noticed over the years is how little the hardware has really changed. Don't get me wrong--there have been major changes in quality and selection of mics, brands, sizes, and quality of preamps and mixers, and so forth. But the basic devices have remained very similar to what they were back then. And yet, the whole recording industry has changed vastly due to the change in that last link of the chain--the digital part. So how did I get from doing work in a completely analog studio to doing work on my own digitally-based equipment? Therein lies the real history.

I left off last time having decided to leave behind the idea of a career in show business in favor of something a little more stable. That decision took me through working in cable TV, a warehouse, delivering pizza, and the U.S. Air Force before I found myself--seemingly inexorably--in front of a microphone again. We'll get there next time.

Recording: Then and Now - Part I

I thought I'd keep the ball rolling by talking a bit about how things have changed since I did my first VO job in 1982. I'm relying on memory here, so details may be a bit lacking--what can you do?

Back then, of course, recording was essentially all on tape. There were a (very) few folks who saw the digital future and were experimenting with recording audio on computers, but professional audio studios were all about the analog waveform, baby. In large part this is still true--only the final recording medium has changed.

So, on that first job, I remember going to the studio, meeting the producer and the engineer, and being shown to the booth. In that particular studio, the booth wasn't much bigger than a phone booth. There was a tall stool on which to sit (if so desired), a music--er--copy stand, and a small window through which to see there was still a world outside. (!)

That session was a real education. Through the course of the next few hours (the job was a corporate narration), I learned a lot about how sessions work, why there's an engineer in the studio all the time (now there's a whole "nother" story...), and just how warm those little booths can get. I was fortunate to have a producer/director who was very good about letting me hear my own sound, how various mic chain mods affected the sound, and so on. I was hooked.

At that time, though, I had been involved in acting for about 10 years, and was considering the Hollywood/New York decision. I did some more VO work in the following months, adding to my list of contacts. Through a series of (I don't think unfortunate, but who knows) events, I had opportunity to see some of the less attractive sides of "show biz", and turned my attention toward a more reliable career. Sadly, I threw VO in with that decision, and so figured that side of life was done. Little did I know...

Old Beginnings

Greetings, and welcome. By way of introduction, my name is Jeff, and over the last year or so I've been working on developing a second career, in the field of voiceover/voice acting. This blog is intended to be an outlet for my thoughts on all things related to this venture, and hopefully a source of some amusement, sympathy, and (maybe) reassurance to others with similar inclinations.

How did I get here? I did my first voiceover job 26 years ago, and have had opportunity to do similar things at various times in the intervening years. But I've never made my living entirely from my voice. My primary career has been in software and system development, so it's natural that I'd tinker with digital sound recording and reproduction over the years. However, it's only been in the last year that I've been working toward a standard of audio engineering and production that I'd call professional.

I've also been exploring the whole idea of using the Internet as a means to find voice work--a totally new and foreign concept to me. It seems there are lots of tools available, but their comparative value is still mostly a mystery to me. Much more on this later.

So that's where I am--the coming days and weeks will include much more about what I've encountered so far. I intend to talk about whatever hits me that day regarding audio, VO work, technical stuff, and so forth. Feel free to drop me a line--I have no idea if any of this ramble will be value to anyone, but I guess that's sort of the nature of the blog. Onward.