Change is Inevitable

The only constant is change. It used to be (for those of us who remember the days of black and white television) at a fairly slow pace. Adoption of new technologies was at a slower pace. You had time to adjust – albeit some were dragged along kicking and screaming about the old days.

But the speed of the changes started to pick up and today, you barely have time to buy a new technology before the newest and more advanced product is available. We face it daily, so why is it so hard to accept the inevitable.

I am still using Adobe Audition 1 on my editing computer. I like it. It still works – on my XP operating system. All my computers are XP. But, I know that will have to change the next time I have to upgrade the hardware. I will not like this change – at first. I’ll kick and scream and bitch and moan. But eventually, I’ll find the groove and ignore the steady stream of new changes until the inevitable happens again.

My Musicam Prima 120 ISDN codec is a dinosaur, but it still works. When that decides to die, I may not need to replace it, because the writing appears to be on the wall for the death of ISDN.

One major sports network that depends on ISDN for rock steady communication lines has been alerted by Verizon that they will be cutting off ISDN service in East Coast markets this coming May.

http://www.rwonline.com/article/alert-for-isdn-users/218605

This truly makes me sad. My best times, other than actually being in someone else’s studio face-to-face with a dedicated engineer and producer/director, is being in my booth using my ISDN lines with a dedicated engineer and producer/director.

It works. I’m happy. The producer is happy.

But, because of the early warning signs, I have already invested in Source-Connect and have used that effectively with a couple of regular clients. It isn’t quite the same. It is much more complicated to establish the connection. The connection isn’t as reliable. I have to do so much more “engineering.” All of these things detract (at least in my own mind) from my ability to just perform.

So, now, for the first time since the undercurrent of mutterings predicting the demise of ISDN began, it looks like it might actually be happening. It is ironic that my lines have been working more the past year or so. Some of those clients are on the East Coast, so perhaps the change will affect me sooner than later.

So, time to let my technology advancement radar system loose to be sure that I am ready for the inevitable.

We Want What We Cannot Have

Why is it that the faster technology advances the less it does what we want?

Oh, it does so much – and much much more – but the very fact that it does so much makes us want it to do more!

And some of stuff not doing what we want it to do is operator error. It does so much – how can anyone know the total scope of its capabilities…until you ask it to do something it simply can’t.

For example, my travel recording gear used to be a dbx mini-pre with my AKG 1000 mic and a Toshiba laptop. Worked great. Then I got a MicPortPro, which saved some weight and space.

But it didn’t work on my laptop, because I was using Adobe Audition 2 and it didn’t support USB mic connections. An upgrade to Audition 3 was needed to get the MicPortPro to work with the laptop. Fine, software upgrades are inevitable.

I got a little tablet recently, not really intending to use it to record, but it wouldn’t if I wanted to because it is a droid and the mini-USB port doesn’t work that way – yet.

And I saw this cute little mic that plugs into the headphone jack on a smart phone and records pretty decent sound (audition quality), but only if you have an iPhone can you do anything with it. Again, droid isn’t supporting that stuff – yet.

Despite these droid failings, I am not ready to get an i-Anything. If I need to record while traveling, I have a system that works well. Can’t pack it in my purse, but if I could, I’d be tempted to never stop working.

An extended vacation is something I would also like to have. Taking two weeks off (in a row) is the extent of my time away from my “job” since – well. I’ve never taken more than two weeks off – ever.

But, that is something I imagine I could have – if I really wanted – or needed it. (Don’t say it…)

Now, if I could hook up a mic to that little Xoom and pack it away in my purse – then I could take a long “vacation” and – oh , wait, then it wouldn’t be a vacation.

Well, I just need to wait a couple of months and the next generation of hardware, firmware and software will be waiting for me to upgrade and without a doubt, within two days, I will want it to do something that it just can’t do – yet.

Does This Mic Make Me Sound Fat?

There is no one size fits all when it comes to microphones. No one price range that will guarantee that a mic will sound wonderful with your voice. It all “depends.” It depends on your own particular physical characteristics. It depends on the room that you are recording in.

But it is always SUCH a huge topic of discussion with passionate opinions on what mics are BEST. It gets as bad as the PC vs. MAC debate.

But it is still interesting to listen to the differences (or lack thereof) between the various mics and their price points – and that is why I am forwarding these links.

Poke around on the net and you can probably find more mic shootouts. I am pretty sure there was another comprehensive blind shootout, but I must not be using the right key words. If you know of others, please post a comment and the link.

http://www.vocalimpactmedia.com/SoundStorage.html

http://transom.org/?p=7517

http://recordinghacks.com/2011/02/26/vo-shootout-u87-l36b-cm87-at4047mp/

Are You Hopping Mad about Auto Hop?

So the latest invention in the quest by people to skip the very thing that keeps their TV programs on the air is an ad eraser embedded in new digital video recorders sold by Dish Network. Just turn on Auto Hop and ads automatically vanish. TiVo on steroids.

Here’s an article in the New York Times that goes into more detail.

So, how do I feel about that – as a voice talent whose income includes payment for doing announcing for TV Commercials? In some ways, a lot like the chief executive of CBS who wonders how he will produce shows like “CSI” without the support of the advertisers running the commercials. Or maybe a bit like News Corporation who has decided not to run Dish’s DVR ads.

Everyone in the chain is trying to figure out how to snag the eyeballs (and dollars) of the consumers. Consumers who seem to be starting to turn away from paying for cable or satellite and are looking to the Internet. My niece watches TV shows on her laptop whenever and wherever she feels like it. When I do watch TV, it is still from my easy chair in the living room without a DVR, so I tend to see mostly reruns of Bones, Law & Order and NCIS.

I would miss commercials, not only because I get paid to record them, but also because for me they are a source of education and sometimes inspiration. Not that I am a TV junkie, but part of the whole TV watching experience is studying the spots. I realize that the vast majority of the TV watching public probably doesn’t really care for commercials (except during the Super Bowl), but maybe they haven’t really thought about how their TV shows are currently being funded.

The operative word in that last sentence? “Currently.” Everything changes. Eventually.

I wish I had a crystal ball. It would be nice to see what the new business model(s) might be. I’d like to be prepared for when the current one goes away, and with it part of my income.

Popping Problem? Probably Positional Placement.

Every once in a while I’ll pop a “p” and have to do some editing to fix it, or even a redo, but plosives have not been a real problem for me. It is the sharp “s” that seems to be my biggest issue.

I have learned to hear the worst of my sibilance issues as they come out of my mouth and do a quick adjustment to my articulators (usually tongue placement more than anything else) and the next pass is usually sans-sibilance.

But the popping “p” doesn’t present itself until I listen to the recording. So preventing them from happening in the first place is the best plan of attack.

Dan Friedman, working voice talent and author of the book “Sound Advice,” is a frequent contributor to Procomm’s Voiceover Industry Articles. This one is all about that popping problem that plagues many voice actors.

Microphone Technique for Voice Over Talent

It includes a few pictures too – to help you find the “sweet spot” on your mic. Here’s one of them.

If you have a popping problem, read this article and experiment with your mic placement.

Talk about your work around!

Well, as I posted last week, stuff happens.

This week I started hearing a little BobCat driving up and down my alley. And when I poked my head out to see what was going on, I saw the tell-tale signs of upcoming concrete demolition. The road was covered with colorful spray painted arrows and initials detailing the underground path of gas pipes, water and sewer lines.

And a day later the truly irritating sound of a concrete cutter combined with a jack hammer – followed by large back hoes and dump trucks. Even when the concrete cutter wasn’t actually cutting, the generator truck was constantly running in the background.

I trudged down the alley yesterday to find the foreman to ask him what the “schedule” might be. Along the way, I navigated around and over large piles of dirt and was careful not to step in the new trough being gouged out along my side of the alley.

Well, like with so many things in life – there was only the barest suggestion of a schedule. “It depends.” If they run into a problem, they could shut down immediately until someone is able to figure out what to do next. If they don’t run into a problem, then they could just continue to power through from 8:30 to around 5. Lunch break? Again, that depends.

What he did tell me was that it would take 3-4 weeks! And after they are finished laying the new gas lines, the Water Department is going to follow and replace the sewer pipes in a completely different trough requiring another few weeks of concrete cutting and jack-hammering.

Hard to schedule a session in my studio around that.

So, back up plans are in effect. My portable recording gear is set up in an acoustically treated space in the main house (that sounds fancier than it is – trust me). And I have a couple of friends with studios on alert in case a client wants to direct and the construction is simply too crazy.

But for right now, during the daytime while the crews are working, I will be able to use the “inside” location. Everything is networked, so I can save to my regular recording tower, so that works. And I can always start work at around 4 PM when they usually are gone.

Sounds like everything is fine…yeah, right. Either my technical skills are deteriorating, or my stress level has started to affect my brain. I could NOT connect the dots yesterday while scrambling to get a phone patch session ready in my regular studio, and at the same time trying to get the back up system up and running in case there was too much noise.

The MicPort Pro is a very simple device and I have used it many times while traveling. I couldn’t find the cable – and to make matters worse, I was looking for the wrong cable – actually I was trying to use the headphone out jack instead of the mini USB jack and it wasn’t until I was wandering around Frye’s asking someone for a mini-plug to USB cable and finally LOOKING at the MicPort Pro that I realized I was a complete idiot. Left Frye’s with some M&M’s to cover my embarrassment. I was going to resort to using my dbx mini-pre, but somehow the power supply has disappeared.

I was actually able to use the regular studio for an emergency session yesterday around 4PM, but somehow a “pad” button on my new mixer (don’t quiz me on what that is) was depressed when it should not have been and the phone patch was distorted. Why I could hear playback of a QuickTime movie and not of my recording is still a mystery. And then, after I finished the session, why was I unable to record an audition 10 minutes later? Apparently the software had decided to revert back to the computer’s sound card instead of my Gina.

But today, everything seems to finally be working – with a quick troubeshooting trip from the engineer, my regular studio has all it’s ducks in a row again. The back up studio has new foam pads for the Sennheiser 414 – new bungee cables for the Hamburg’s shock mount - and a selection of pre-amps – a Mackie mixer, the MicPort Pro, a Mobile Pre USB (thanks to a fellow VO friend!) and the dbx (if I can find the power supply).

So, I SHOULD be all set for the chaos of the next couple of months. Cross your fingers that I don’t lose any more brain cells, or that the stress level goes down a notch or two.

Time for a Studio Tune Up

I upgraded to Adobe Audition 3 recently on my recording tower and started to notice a difference in my noise floor. A visual difference apparently - certainly nothing that my ears picked up, but a distinct difference in the way the single pixel line that denotes silence looked. It didn’t “look” quiet anymore.

My mics were changed out a little while before the software change – picked up a couple of ADK Hamburgs (after my AKG capsule blew and the new capsule sounded too bright). I also had my recording area acoustically “re-treated” after experimenting with locations. I also had the whole area upholstered.

I have never had any complaints or even a conversation about the “sound” of my space, but it just “looked” noisey.

Other factors that contributed to my ultimate seeking of expert advice…

• An aging analog Mackie Mixer
• A Gentner phone patch that was sort of patched through the Mackie and worked well enough, but not the way it really should work
• Speakers that had to manually be turned off while recording
• This new visual “noise” which made me crazy

The good news – the noise floor is fine (or pretty darned good) – it just looks different than it used to with the new software.

In effect, since I started using noise reduction after being sure that my tracks were noisey, my files are cleaner than they ever have been. No harm, no foul.

But, the bottom line is that my studio needs a tweak. A new mixer – new cables – new patching to do all the things I need to do without a work around. The goal is to provide the best possible results in the least amount of time – so that it is a win win for everyone.

Now, I am not an audio engineer – I rely on my ears and my eyes and customer feedback to determine if I am providing a quality product. So getting someone in here with actual engineering experience is probably a good thing.

The goal is to reduce the noise floor a few more db’s with these tweaks. More as it develops!

When Software Burps

Workflow is a time sensitive thing. We have delivery dates for the work we do and part of our job is to anticipate potential time-sucking issues that may impact a timely delivery.

I am getting pretty good at balancing my daily forays into Social Media, but we all have other areas that need attention.

• Family (my increased time with my mom needs to be figured into the equation)
• Exercise (oh, brother, this is high on my list of things I don’t get around to – do my weekly tap classes count?)
• Home and Garden (my yard is a MESS - my counters are getting mightly cluttered – and there is a leak in the big bathroom that needs to be attended to – not to mention I am stripping an old door for a remodel project)
• Volunteering (my work with MCA-I has increased recently due to some major changes in the association requiring more time as webmaster, singing in the church choir is fun and challenging – and there is a play I’d like to audition for next month)
• Personal Business (refinancing too a huge toll on my time this fall)
• Marketing (just started up my quarterly enewsletter again after more than a year in hiatus)
• Bookkeeping
• General attention to email (how is it possible that there are still 200 emails in my In Box with all the sorting and filing I did this morning?)
• Actual Work

These are all things that we can generally anticipate. The things we can’t plan for are the little burps when your software (and/or hardware) doesn’t work the way it should.

Suddenly your delivery schedule looms when you can’t get your software to do what it is supposed to do. Is it the software? Is it your computer? Is it a networking thing? With each question comes more questions – more time spent – more time passing as the deadlines grow closer.

Somehow it manages to work itself out in most cases – especially if you have a backup plan – which is something that probably  needs to be on that first list of things to do!

I have multiple recording options if one fails, and have rarely, if ever actually missed a deadline, but it sure does put a kink in the workflow when something isn’t working the way you expected it to work.

What the heck just happened?

Excuse me, did I miss something? Like the whole 2nd half of the year maybe? What is this pile of paperwork sitting here? Wait, what I meant to say was what are all these piles of paperwork sitting here? Why is that list of things to do getting longer instead of shorter?

Part of it is personal obligations – that has increased over the past year and a half or so – since my mom moved out here from across the country. Part of it is that my ability to be superwoman is diminishing due to hot flashes.

Part of it is a slight increase in the amount of time I am spending chasing down money from people I didn’t expect to have to chase down for money.

But a big part of it is the time suckers – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, other social media message boards, my volunteer time for MCA-I, this blog, the other blog, YouTube, Wimp and my new “droid.”

I love the phone – a Samsum Fascinate, but HATE the time it takes to delete email. I am assuming that eventually the phone will get “full” and slow down everything. If I am wrong about that – will someone let me know!

You actually have to delete the mail twice – unless I have missed something (see I would need to find the time to figure it out!). Delete it from the In Box and it goes to the Trash. You can select to delete all from the Trash, but that locks up the phone for minutes while it trys to accomplish this. That really needs to be addressed.

If it has been – again – will someone please let me know. I have a lot of work to do in the next few days and it would be nice not to have to worry about the phone slowing down due to lack of memory. God forbid that my life slows down at all.

Wait – maybe that would be GOOD thing!

Car Noise Reduction

Controlling random noise in a studio is a constant challenge if you don’t have a heavy duty floating walled recording space. Even if your space is treated acoustically and your tracks end up clean and noise free, sometimes there is a lot that ends up on the cutting room floor to achieve that result.

While it may sound a bit odd, I have two recording spaces. One inside a small closet in the main house is primarily for my ISDN projects. The other – the spot where I do most of my work – is out in the back yard in a separate structure. There is a small recording space and another larger area for the rest of the work we need to do when we are not recording.

I’ll tell the story of the two spaces sometime, but right now a growing noise issue is on my mind.

The bulk of my work is short form spots, short marketing pieces, IVR prompts and eLearning projects with lots of individual files. I have been able to work around the “noise” that passes by in the alley behind my studio – not completely frustration free, but successfully.

Lately though, the noise has been increasing. New neighbors? Different work schedules? Am I recording at a different time of the day? Don’t know, but I have noticed more cars passing – which takes just a second or two, but it does interrupt a take.

And now, on those occasions when I am recording a longer form project – when I want to record as many paragraphs as possible in one take – the noise from the alley is starting to be a bit more obtrusive. Recording an audiobook in this studio would require much more work and perhaps not as spontaneous a storytelling result.

The solution is probably relatively simple and not very expensive. Add a PC to the inside studio so that I can record. This would also be a value added service to my ISDN work.

 I don’t want to be in the main house all the time – I need a place to “go” when I go to work in the morning. I know myself well enough to know that the 25 foot walk from the back door to my outside office is enough to help me focus on my job.

The walk also reminds me to water the garden.