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Post by benedict on Oct 1, 2017 23:15:44 GMT -8
Will do. I need to check, but I'm pretty sure the ENT appointment is on the 15th. Hoping for a clean bill! (I want to play!)
Thanks for everything.
Tom
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Post by benedict on Oct 1, 2017 11:43:57 GMT -8
Hahahaha! I studied TKD, too. I got the same lecture about the throat. We all wore gear when we sparred, and we all stayed away from the throat. (Though I did catch a 1-2-3 roundhouse-heel-roundhouse to the nose one time. Didn't break it, but WOOF! That was more excitement than I was after.) So far the doctorial results are: ENT visit #1 (prior to the throat injury) - Vocal cords look fine, mild irritation, see a gastroenterologist GE visit #1 (post throat injury) - Confirmed mild irritation, but no need for esophageal surgery (thank goodness!) ENT visit #2 is scheduled in two weeks. I'll ask him to take a look for any signs of throat trauma And you're right about the medication. I've been on meds for the TS for the last... oooh... five years, maybe? It's not enough to stop them but it takes some of the velocity out of them. I considered an increase, but there are complications with that as well. Meanwhile, on bad days I started pulling one of the cervical collars out of our trauma kit at work. It's not nearly as comfortable as the ones you found, Rebekah, but it works. (Though I feel a lot like Jayne from "The Train Job" in Firefly! ) Cheers! Tom
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Post by benedict on Sept 23, 2017 11:47:54 GMT -8
In the VA Pet Peeves thread I raised the topic of using Reaper to generate separate files for each line. Rather than clog that thread with a bunch of stuff on Reaper, I figured I'd start a new thread (this thread!) and put it all here. I started out using Audacity, and still use it. But about a year ago a friend told me to give Reaper a try. After "growing up" on Audacity I found the Reaper interface confusing and obstructionist, for want of a better word. I went looking for resources and came up with a bunch that I'll list below. In short, I'm sold on it now. These days I don't use Audacity for voice over, and now only use Reaper. The times I open Audacity, it's typically for field recording or for testing a microphone, not voice acting. Two huge reasons why: Edits in Reaper are non-destructive and are done live. You can listen to a track while tweaking the EQ, the noise gate, gain, etc. In Audacity each change has to be "cooked" into the track before you can really hear it. (Yes, I know there's a preview function, but I can't enable / disable / enable / disable an effect while listening the way I can on Reaper.) Backing out a change in Reaper is as simple as disabling an effect or tweaking its values. Reaper is a lot more flexible when it comes to rendering the final files. With Audacity the entire project is rendered. With Reaper you can render separate regions as separate files. These can be individual lines in the case of a voice acting role, chapters in the case of an audio book, or individual bird calls if you're taking a field recording track and are trying to pick out individual species. It's up to you. In case anyone else does photography, the best analogy I can come up with is that Audacity is like Photoshop and Reaper is like Lightroom. Both are powerful tools, and both are useful. But these days 99.5% of my photo editing is done in Lightroom because of the non-destructive editing and the ability to edit an entire shoot as one. I'm glad I have both Audacity and Reaper at my disposal, and there are some things I still turn to Audacity for. But the bulk of my editing is now done in Reaper. Before downloading Reaper for a trial period, or even before deciding if you want to, take a look at the following videos. They're all from another voice actor, Mike Delgaudio. He's a little rambly (like me!), but packs a lot of good information into his videos. His explanations are what finally sold me on Reaper, and are how I got my workflow going: The "getting started" videos, or how to take a tool that's set up for the music world and set it up for voice acting instead: Using Reaper for Voiceover (Intro): www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfZ6UxFujx4Reaper Presets 1: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiZhqbSAyzAReaper Presets 2: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooSmb4oboyQThe FX videos, or how to modify the sounds you're recording into Reaper. (I run an even lighter-weight chain than the one Mike Delgaudio describes in his videos, but it's worth watching to see how he sets them up): Adding a noise gate in Reaper: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVWoxC3m4ccAdding an equalizer in Reaper: www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6XtciKhgUYLike many DAWs, Reaper doesn't come out of the box with the ability to generate MP3 files. In this video, he describes how to set that up: Creating MP3s in Reaper: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVL1MvSd4-YThe cool stuff. One video on using regions and markers, which is how I learned how to generate individual files for each line / chapter / bird call / etc., and one on a neat way of editing that's faster than punch-and-roll: Regions and Markers in Reaper: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lw5JMPQ19AA really fast way to edit in Reaper: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn_chAP8814Mike Delgaudio has a bunch of other Reaper videos on Youtube. It's well worth scanning through his channel to see what else he's got. His videos on setting up recording spaces are also well worth watching.
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Post by benedict on Aug 28, 2017 17:45:11 GMT -8
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Post by benedict on Aug 17, 2017 8:49:56 GMT -8
To echo what Razzle said in the Shoutbox, Soundcloud and Youtube are good hosting sites that are typically easy to link in forum postings and emails alike. I use Dropbox for all kinds of things that I want available online, but don't want hanging out in the public wind. (Razzle really did hit the good ones.) As far as saving your work, yes yes yes. Save all your work! A couple of days ago Duffy wrote about off-site backups, urging people to save their work because you never know when some client will say, "I want you to use that voice you used in that ACME commercial you did." You really are your own reference materials. The one snafu with all this is that audition lines are copyrighted works. Lady Stardust wrote a really good article on creating demo reels that touches on the use of audition lines: voiceacting.boards.net/thread/7/creating-demo-online-voice-actingAnother good article she wrote on NDAs touches on some of the reasons why the creators of a project may not want you to use your audition outside of the scope of their project: voiceacting.boards.net/thread/1004/ndas-why-importantTo go back to your question, though, there's one other good place to post samples: Right here. Check out the "Your Work" section of the forums. There's a spot for your demo reel and a place for samples so you can get critiques.
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Post by benedict on Aug 15, 2017 9:39:53 GMT -8
One of the easiest ways I've found for dealing with plosives is to move the mic off-axis, but still point it at your mouth. The easiest direction is to move the mic to one side or the other, which doesn't tend to color the sound all that much. (It also gives you better line of sight on your copy.) But if you go off-axis by moving up or down, you can tune your sound, which is cool.
Placing the mic high and pointing it down at your mouth (we're talking inches, not feet... small moves) picks up more chest resonance and can bring in lower tones that might otherwise be missing. Placing the mic low and pointing it up at your mouth picks up more nasal tones. I haven't developed a wide enough repertoire of characters to make full use of it, but it's neat to play with. (Sneery characters sound good with an up-pointing mic.)
To play with it, though, remove all your pop filters and wind screens and use the mic bare. Go off-axis by fractions of an inch until the plosives disappear. Mark where that is in your mind and put the pop filter back on. You should be plosive-free at that point.
Another technique I've been working on is to do plosive tongue-twisters (Peter Piper is a good one) with a bare mic and no pop filter. At first it was plosive city, then my Ps and Ts sounded like someone was choking me, but with time and practice I'm getting better.
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Post by benedict on Aug 11, 2017 9:36:34 GMT -8
At the risk of writing a "me, too!" post, a lot of my answers line up with Razzle's. I look at it this way: By associating your name with the thing, you're adding your weight behind it. Fake science? Absolutely not. I work in a scientific field, so that would simultaneously erode my own credibility while lending credibility to a false idea. Commercials for scams? Same thing. Wil Wheaton wrote a nice piece years ago about doing ads for products he wouldn't use. (He doesn't.)
Stereotypes? I'd have to see it. If the stereotype is being used as a gag or for slapstick, I'd have a hard time with it. If the stereotype winds up being deconstructed as part of the plot, that would be a lot more interesting. Unfortunately I get the feeling that not enough screen writers are aware they're writing stereotypes to really do anything about it. But that's a whole 'nuther topic.
Offensive characters? Yes, I would, for the reasons Razzle mentioned. (Though I have yet to be cast in a fiction piece. >sigh<) The whole job of fiction is to convince the reader or viewer to become emotionally invested in a character and then proceed to torture the character as much as possible while we explore their journey, watch them change, and watch them effect change around them. This requires antagonists. Sometimes it's inhuman (Old Man and the Sea), sometimes it's other people. Sometimes the people in question aren't what we think they are (Blade Runner), and sometimes they're just plain nasty human beings (Django Unchained).
Speaking of which, I read that Leonardo DiCaprio had a really hard time playing Calvin Candie in Django Unchained, and that at one point he just plain couldn't deliver his lines. Samuel L. Jackson took him aside and reminded him it's just a character, just a role. (And yes, I'm paraphrasing a great deal.)
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Post by benedict on Aug 10, 2017 18:31:10 GMT -8
Cool! Thanks! I'm going to have to poke around to find one that'll ship out here. The one supplier I've found for that model insists on UPS shipping. It's about twice the cost of the throat guard.
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Post by benedict on Aug 9, 2017 23:46:22 GMT -8
I've been thinking about the throat guard. I wound up hitting myself again tonight, though not nearly as hard. I'd love it if this one faded out, but I've had some version of it for a couple of years. Something like a c-collar would be awkward, but might not be a bad idea for a while.
The pain is starting to subside. I read to my kids tonight. Quiet, and I kept things pretty monotone (aka BORING), but I was able to read without too much discomfort.
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Post by benedict on Aug 9, 2017 18:38:17 GMT -8
How long after a throat injury would you wait before getting back in the booth?
Unfortunately I've got two things on my plate. One is a potential esophageal surgery, depending on how a doctor's visit goes next month. Really not looking forward to that. (If I wind up needing the surgery I'll be sure to discuss recovery with the surgeon before making any assumptions. Meanwhile I'm looking for ballpark figures if anyone knows. I'm guessing it'll be a while.)
The other is more likely to give me grief long-term. I've got Tourette's Syndrome. Most of the time it's not a problem, and when I'm recording I tend not to tic much, if at all. (Dash Mihok experiences the same thing when he's acting.) Unfortunately one of my current tics is self-injurious: I hit myself in the chest and chin in quick succession with my fist. Earlier today I missed and punched myself straight in the throat. It's not the first time this has happened, but this is the worst it's been. It happened about four hours ago and it's still hurting.
Right now I'm going by the "if it hurts don't do it" rule. I can talk quietly without making things feel worse but that's about it. Any other pointers?
Thanks,
Tom
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Post by benedict on Aug 8, 2017 10:12:23 GMT -8
The AT2020 is a little confusing to use as an example because there are two versions of it. One, the AT2020, is an XLR mic. The other, the AT2020 USB is a USB mic. Same form factor, similar electronics, except one has a preamp, A/D converter, and USB interface in the mic body as well. If you decided to go this route, be sure of which one you're ordering.
Something that hasn't come up yet bears mentioning: Interfaces offer flexibility. The range of microphones available in USB format is limited compared to the range of microphones available with an XLR plug. The reason is simple: XLR microphones have been around longer than personal computers, much less the USB standard, so there are more of them out there. Using an interface allows you to tap into the entire range of microphones available in the XLR format.
Which can be a strength and a weakness. cbdroege already pointed out one of the issues with going this route: Your RF rejection depends entirely on the quality of the components you put in your signal chain. One bad cable is enough to ruin the ride. The other weakness is that once you have this box plugged into your computer that can talk to practically ANY microphone out there, it's very very easy to fall into the trap of becoming a microphone hoarder. (See? You're already wishing you could get your old mic back! Here there be dragons!)
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Post by benedict on Jul 30, 2017 11:58:44 GMT -8
Rather than starting with the mic, take a good look (and listen!) to your space. Even if you use the best mic in the world, if your room hasn't been treated it'll sound echoy, harsh, and lack a lot of the bass you're after. Here's a good thread that discusses room treatment in some depth: voiceacting.boards.net/thread/94/recording-environment-tin-whyMike Delgaudio took a particularly entertaining look at this in this video, in which he turns his shower (one of the worst recording environments on earth) into a temporary sound booth: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wjc_Hv5xAQ(I really like Mike's videos. They range over a whole slew of VA related topics, from gear reviews and comparisons, to building and treating a Whisper Room, to setting up shop in a closet or a car.) On to your mic question! (There are more experienced heads on this site, so I hope they'll chime in, too.) There are a couple of routes to go on microphones. One is to get a USB mic. It'll plug into your computer and work with most (if not all) the digital audio workstation software out there. The other is to get an XLR mic and an interface. Same thing: it'll plug into your computer and work with most (if not all) the digital audio workstation software out there. The advantage to going the second route is that once you have an interface you can plug ANY XLR mic into it, even classics that were made back in the 60s and 70s. It offers flexibility. And, of course, there's a good thread here on this topic as well: voiceacting.boards.net/thread/694/advice-setting-studio-homeThat thread also touches on acoustic room treatment, so it's worth reading the whole thing. The rest of this you can dig into if you like or skip it if you don't: One microphone can't work for all situations. I'm relatively new to voice acting, but I've been doing field recording for a while: going out and recording nature sounds as cleanly and clearly as I can. At one point I got a highly rated mic, took it out in the field, and got awful recordings with it. Turns out it was a mic designed specifically for vocals. Problem was, it had a "presence peak" (a high frequency peak in the microphone's response) that coincided with the sound of wind in the treetops. So all my nice, clean recordings were suddenly contaminated by this high frequency hiss that sounded like microphone self-noise. I learned a lesson: Use voice mics for vocals and ambient or foley mics for field recording. Since trying to get into voice acting I learned another lesson: One microphone can't work for all situations. It sounds like a repeat, but it's not. What it means is that no one mic will work great with everyone's voice. Each voice has its own quirks that are best picked up with particular mics. A mic that works great with female vocals, especially singing, may not work with a male voice. If I remember right this comes up more than once on this thread: voiceacting.boards.net/thread/185/mic-geeks-favorite-mics-whyAn easy pit to fall into is to say that a mic tailored for female vocals doesn't need a lot of low-end, and a mic tailored for male vocals won't need a lot of high-end. But I think that thread also touches on the fact that both types of voices have resonant frequencies that stretch well above and below what's considered the "range" of each voice. Finding a mic that captures not just your primary frequencies, but the resonances as well, really helps fill in the tonal character of a voice. When it comes to buying a microphone, I've been told that you shouldn't buy anything you can't try out for yourself first. Which would be great advice, especially considering everything I just wrote, except I live on an island. Unless I fly somewhere else, I can't try out anything first-hand. I don't know how it is for anyone else, but that's just how it is for me. So as much as people say you can't trust manufacturer's spec sheets, often that's all I have to go on. When you're looking at spec sheets, take a look at the frequency response curve. Ideally you want to see it stretch well into the low-end and not be too wiggly in the high end. A mic that's relatively flat out to 50Hz will pick up lots of the bass you're looking for. One that starts to roll off around 300Hz will sound a lot less "full". Likewise, a mic that has a pronounced peak up around 9-10kHz will sound very bright, whereas one with a shallow peak, say 3-6dB, will pick up the higher registers without overpowering the recording. Even so, you won't really know what a mic sounds like until you hear a recording made from it. Which is where a whole slew of threads on this site come up. It'll involve a lot of research, but it's good research: Go through the demo reels and clips, and find voices close to yours with recordings you particularly like. See if you can find out what mic they're using. It may not necessarily lead you to a particular mic you can buy (hey, I'd LOVE to post a clip of my voice recorded on a U87... doesn't mean I can afford one). But it'll give you an idea of where to start looking. Thanks for bearing with my long-winded reply. I ramble. Tom P.S. I'm envious of your ability to do female and child voices! I'm thoroughly into gravel-drag territory at this point.
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Post by benedict on Jul 27, 2017 11:14:17 GMT -8
If the day ever comes, I'll have to think seriously about this. Keeping in mind I've been an author on something like 40 papers and spent years as a photographer, if you search on my name all you get is pages and pages of photos and articles about Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Tom Benedict Knight. Such is life.
You could do a lot worse than BrittanyPhillipsVA.
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Post by benedict on Jul 15, 2017 23:19:09 GMT -8
I haven't made an issue of it with the client. I haven't told them of my concerns. They're happy, that's what matters. But I do want to identify and address the issues I don't like in my performance, as you said. I want to get better.
Razzle, you're right. I know this is no different than any other creative endeavor. Our director at work has a saying: Perfect is the enemy of good enough. And the customer made clear it's good enough for them. But you're also right that we're our own worst critics.
Ok, off to find something else to audition for.
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Post by benedict on Jul 15, 2017 10:44:29 GMT -8
So I got my first gig (YAY!) Two minutes of narration in the same voice, but two different tones. I'm still trying to work out my recording environment, but the customer was happy so all's good.
Then they sent me a test mix.
THEIR end is fine. But listening to my voice I can't help thinking, "You're too close to the mic. Enunciate more clearly. Stay in the emotion," etc.
There's a possibility of further work with them on the same project. I'd like to address all the issues I heard, but I'm afraid it'll come across as too different to mix in seamlessly. I realize I'm new to this, so I should expect not to be happy with my earlier efforts as I get better. But how do you keep from being disappointed in stuff you just sent out?
And how do you keep that disappointment from stopping you from taking jobs? I got on CCC and there's all sorts of stuff I'd like to audition for. But nagging at the back of my mind are all the problems I saw with that first gig.
Tom
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