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VO Atlanta

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Greetings all,

It’s been a week since I’ve come back from my trip to VO Atlanta. Drove all the way there and back. Next time, a plane might be the way to go. We’ll see how airline prices are by this time next year.

 

What an amazing time. Going in, I knew that I was going to meet a lot of people, learn a lot…man, I did all that, but so much more than that.

Meeting People: This is the backbone of VO Atlanta. The people you will meet there will be so awesome, so willing to help, so darn cool, that you wish the day had an extra 12 hours just to sit and chat with everyone. The VO community is one of the most friendly and helpful that you will meet, and VO Atlanta draws a line under that. Heck, at one point, we had an airline pilot hang out with a bunch of us because he was so enthralled with what we do! (I did say to him, ‘you do know you’re an airline pilot, and this should be the other way around, right?)

Case in point about the community: I arrived and went down to the bar. I see Dave Fennoy. I figure, what the heck, I’ll say hi. I do, he comes over, and we BS for a little bit. The fanboy in me was trying real hard not to come out, but the point is, he was just Dave, and had plenty of time for me.

Learn a lot: I may have missed one morning class due to wanting to sleep in (cut me a break, it’s a 15 hr drive, and I was exhausted!), but for the most part, I saw everything I registered for. Learning from movie trailer maestro Jack Daniel and the head of the CNN promo department were major highlights. New goal: be a promo guy for CNN.

Another great part was meeting Matt Buckner from Sennheiser. I was checking out the mics they had on display (a TLM102 with my name on it, unfortunately, it must have fallen off) and the U87 (also with my name on it), and struck up a conversation. One failed sweepstakes attempt later, Matt tells me he’s sending some Sennheiser 400Pro headphones my way. I’ve been using them for a few days now, and MAN…Matt rocks. Thanks, Matt.

It all comes back to the people. Getting to meet Jessica Holtan and Ryan Derosiers in the flesh was a blast, as expected, getting to meet Joe Cipriano and J. Michael Collins and actually talk with them was incredible, and then finding new friends after the seminars were done…good times were had.

The cherry on top of it all was learning that Anna and J. Michael Collins were going to be taking over from the esteemed Gerald Griffith, and NOT ending. The crowd went wild, and Gerald, I hope, felt a great weight lifted from his shoulders. I hope his brother Jerome attends the parties thrown going forward.

We’ll call this part of a series. There’s still plenty more to talk about.

 

 

Adversity

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Greetings from Eau Claire, one day before we’re supposed to be socked with a snowstorm that could bring anywhere from 6 to 12 inches of snow. And, for good measure, my snowblower decided to die on me.

 

Unfortunately, these things happen. Snowblowers break, computers crash, mic inputs might not have been turned on, or you sent off a chapter for a completely different book. I’ve had them all happen. And you deal with them. I had to buy a new laptop after the old one died (learned to back up my work better), went talking through almost a whole chapter before realizing that I hadn’t turned the correct mic input on, and had to apologize to a more than understanding client that I sent them the wrong thing.

It happens.

Growing pains are part of life, and definitely part of building a voiceover career. I listen to some bits and pieces of my older audiobooks, just to hear the difference, and MAN. The first one I did sounds like I was speaking into a can of soda (this is proof that the mic is a MAJOR piece of hardware when getting into the business, and a Blue Snoball mic won’t get you professional level work), the next couple sounded less bad, then eventually, the sound was good, but the technique needed some work.

The technique will always need work.

My Achilles’ Heel is my reading speed. I started off reading like I needed to get it done ASAP. Enter Johnny Heller. First thing he told me to do was to SLOW DOWN, BUDDY. The point that I was getting paid by the hour and talking like a rabid jackrabbit made no sense, if I was looking to make money in the industry.

You can tell from the audiobooks I’ve worked on where it was before I trained with Johnny and after. It’s a pretty big difference. And my mistakes went down immensely.

The point of this blog is how you deal with the minor adversities that you have to go through. Sometimes you need to get creative, sometimes you need to get a kick in the pants letting you know that you’re doing it wrong. Us narrator types are fragile souls, so a kick in the pants is more like a light reprimand from a mentor.

Ok, signing off, and hopefully the neighbor kids have room on their schedule to snowblow my driveway.

 

L

Thanks

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Greetings on this Thanksgiving week. So much to be thankful for this year, basically, any year that I’m still able to do this for a living is reason to be thankful.

I’ve gone from an extremely dry month to an extremely busy stretch. Can’t say I’m complaining, though. And amazingly, the throat has somehow managed to hold up. Getting better at knowing how to take care of it. Starting out, it was basically just me talking as long as I could with the occasional sip of water. Now, knowing that throat coat tea is your friend, not yelling at sports events or anything else, keeping properly hydrated, and the benefit of having a stronger voice than when I started out…it makes a HUGE difference.

Also, getting work on a couple of larger books. Always been a dream of mine to work on some massive tome, something along the lines of 1000 pages. One day…

Going to keep it short this week. I’m thankful I can do this, thankful for the listeners, thankful for the authors, and the publishing companies, of course! Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

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It’s a soggy Thursday afternoon here in Eau Claire, and the temps are starting to drop even further. Going outside is about as enjoyable as having your gums tattooed.

 

I’ve been playing mad scientist again with the software I have, trying to see what boundaries I can push with it while still managing to sound good. It’s a fine line between making your voice sound smoother and thicker, or making it sound like Popeye.

There’s a set of guidelines when recording for Audible and other clients; there’s a certain noise floor, a certain level of normalization, so there’s not a ton you can do while messing with it all, but in the name of experimentation, it’s a lot of tinkering to see if you can get it to sound “perfect” or close to it.

I’ve managed to create a button on my StreamDeck (a touchpad where I can make buttons for shortcuts in the recording software) that does all the mastering work for me, and to anyone reading that’s starting out, I REALLY recommend getting one to help automate part of the post production process.

Been taking interest in seeing how music engineers work, as well. Always had an interest, but as I have little musical skill, other than listening to it, VO post-production always made more sense. But knowing how to mix, engineer, produce not just vocals, but the rest of the sound has always sounded intriguing. Time to binge some YouTube vids on the process.

Ok everyone, kind of a hodgepodge of a blog today, but alas, this is where my brain is at.

 

L

https://www.goettlvoices.com/305-2/

Hills, Valleys, and Mesas

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Hello everyone, it’s a wet evening here in Eau Claire, a very wet introduction to Friday, which is also supposed to be just as wet.

Just finished a book for a client in nearly record time, and was properly compensated for it. I haven’t recorded many audiobooks in the course of one week, but in this case, I have. Didn’t even have to work nights. Being able to work during the day has made an immense difference in my workload and how fast I can manage to get it done.

Speaking of workload, went through a spell that was drier than usual. Par for the course, these things happen when you’re freelancing it. This instance seemed longer, even though it was similar to a dry spell I had back in January of 2020. It’s nervewracking, the unknown; not knowing if/when the next book comes in…it can make you a bit on edge. It also lights a fire. I motivated myself to keep auditioning, audition more than I have, seek more opportunities, and diversify. It paid off. There’s something to be said about not taking your foot off of the gas, and now I’m busier than I’ve been in a while.

Part of what I’m working on is audio editing for other people, which is something I used to do, but up until recently, it’s been all my work. I like it, since it seems like it’s working on half a project, which essentially, it is. But I get to work on narrating the projects I choose, and have plenty of time to work on editing/production on the side.

Finally, training with Scott Brick next week. This has been a dream in waiting. Love the guy’s work, and if you’re not familiar, he’s one of the true artists when it comes to audiobooks. His voice can elevate a mediocre book into something special. Hopefully, I can handle what he throws at me.

Alright everyone, stay dry, and have a great weekend!

The Busy Times

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Hello everyone, hope it’s a great morning/day/night wherever you are.

 

It’s been a whirlwind of a week, plenty of things to report on. First, got to call my first soccer game–I caught wind of an app called ColorCast, and apparently, you can call the game of your choice from the comfort of your home on your Apple device. I have exactly 1 Apple product that I use, which is an Ipad, and that got me through it. Went well, and due to how well that went, I now have a show on the app on Monday afternoons at 1pmCST. It’s called “Kickin’ It”, and it’ll be about what happened over the weekend in the world of soccer. Looking forward to it! Show begins on October 25, then every following monday.  Follow the link (and currently, only available for Apple products)

https://app.colorca.st/bMSz/TSGen

 

Also have been working out my audio editing skills, there’s been a ton of opportunity out there for getting editing work, what with all the podcasts that are in need of someone qualified. Seeing as Izotope’s RX9 released this past week, it’s going to give me all sorts of fun things to try out and make better audio for anyone who needs it.  Really hoping I have time to work on some old cassettes of mine, there’s plenty of idiotic gold to be mined there.

Also, I’ve been saying for ages that I’m going to work on a podcast someday. Well, I’m currently working on it. Expect my take on Presidential history and why it matters, coming to your headphones soon. Or stereo. Or whatever. Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve had a borderline obsessive thing about Presidential history forever, so, hopefully, I can bring a touch of that passion to the podcast.

Finally starting to cool down in this neck of the woods, bringing me to my favorite time of the year, fall, or as I prefer to call it, Cardigan Season. Broke one out today, and promptly was rained on while walking my daughter to school. It’s all good, I have plenty of spares.

 

 

 

 

 

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