Over the next three months, I'll be sharing material that was supplemental to my June keynote at Voice 2010 in Los Angeles. The presentation was divided into three important skill sets that envelop all professional voice talents: business skills, technical skills and session skills.
The session was very well-received and I've had several requests from non-attendees to publish the material.
Here's installment two of three.
Technical Skills - What follows, are two brief exchanges between me and a couple of different folks during different sessions.
Tim: "Great take! Listen, it sounds like you're drifting a bit off-axis...can you get a little closer to the mike?”
Talent: "Off-axis? What's that?"
Tim: "You're going off to the side of the mike and missing the sweet spot making the audio a bit muddy...okay...here we go...rolling on take seven."
(This second scenario absolutely stunned me. Not the talent's fault on this one, though worthy of a few computer keystrokes to tell you the story. Similar situations have happened with talents engineering their own sessions, though this is the most egregious example with a dedicated engineer and absolutely inexcusable. This took place during an ISDN session from my studio to one of the Northwest's premier production houses.)
Tim: "I'm getting a nasty rumble at about 100-125 hertz...you guys hearing that?"
Other Engineer: "This is the one studio in the building without AC...we've got a fan in the booth so (the talent) doesn't burn up.
Tim: "Can we turn it off and then on again for a few minutes after every three or so takes?"
Other Engineer: "It’s a sweatbox in here. You can filter it in post."
The other engineer was partly correct. While I could certainly filter most of it in post, cutting down the fan’s rumble frequency was also going to take that same frequency out of the talent's voice, resulting in a thin-sounding read. Had there not been music throughout the spot to mask the remaining rumble and add some low-end, the tracks would've been unusable.
I incurred an extra 15 minutes of work because of this engineer. Since I refuse to pass charges like this onto my clients (not their fault), I ate the time.
Not only have I never used this studio again, I later learned they removed their ISDN box because it wasn't generating enough revenue.
Gee...wonder why?
Throughout the years, I've connected to home studios and during sessions heard babies crying, dogs barking, The 405, weed whackers and a host of other unwelcome audio intrusions.
I've also had talents who've unplugged live mikes (never, ever do this), not understood rudimentary technical terms and who've struggled with ISDN settings to the point where we had to abandon the connection and switch to a phone patch. More non-billable time for me and (of course) my client had to witness the entire cluster.
Recommendations:
Engineers/producers shouldn't expect talents to be experts with standing wave ratios and comb filtering, no more than voice talents should expect engineers/producers to possess the pitch-intonation and improvisation skills they have.
What we do expect is a clean audio chain, noise-free booth and that you have a handle on how to use the basic functions of your equipment.
I realize that living situations will dictate how much noise isolation is possible and that moving to a quiet farm in Vermont or telling your neighbors to quit mowing their lawn are options most of you don't have.
The options you do have are purchasing a vocal booth from a company such as VocalBooth™ (located in Bend, Oregon and here at VOICE 2010!), moving your operation to your basement or quieting the room you do have with sound reinforcement.
Optimize your studio and your knowledge thereof. Passing along pristine audio to the folks down the line will go a long way towards optimizing your value as a Go-To Voice Talent!
Hi Tim, I'm just checking out your blog here. You're an excellent writer, a skill that is sadly harder to find these days.
ReplyDeleteTim, are you familiar with SaVoa (the Society of Accredited Voice-over Artists)? SaVoa is a "professional not-for-profit organization of voice over artists which establishes equitable vocal delivery and technical delivery criteria for the individual accreditation of voice artists." See here: http://savoa.org/faq/
My hope is that eventually SaVoa will become accepted industry-wide as a way to ensure the talent you may want to cast meets professional standards both as a performer and as the operator of their own studio. There are so many VO talent out there who simply do not appreciate the importance of their recording environment, or even how to safely operate their own gear. I have George Whittam of ElDoradro Audio Consulting on retainer to help me with my own studio issues. (I've never gotten formal training as an audio engineer, and have never worked in radio, so I recognize that I needed help to make sure I put my best foot forward).
So someday, hopefully you will notice the SaVoa logo more and more often on a talent website, so you can be sure you won't run into the sorts of problems you've mentioned here.
Best regards,
Tom Test
Hi Tom-
ReplyDeleteAppreciate the kind words and need to give credit to Ms. Dunsing, my second grade teacher, who sparked my interest in both writing and reading.
Your diligence in fine-tuning your room doesn't go unnoticed. You do it right, sound great and there's nary an issue when I hire you.
I'll keep an eye out (and the later an "ear" out!) for those talents proudly flying SaVoa colors - thanks for the heads-up!