VC Radio
Voice Coaches Radio #676 – Trouble & Shoot
[00:00:00] Voice coaches radio, everything. Voiceover
Marissa: back at it here on a Friday. It is National Donut Day. Uh, I hope you've taken advantage of that. Anybody should go ahead and have a sweet treat. I, I don't even know what your favorite donut is. I don't even care. Honestly. I just want you to go and enjoy it. Uh, I love a good sweet treat.
My name is Marissa and uh, welcome to a brand new episode of Voice Coaches Radio. I know it seemed a little outta. Pocket there for a second. Well, that's only if you haven't tuned in, in the last, I don't know, two, two and a half years, those who have know that I am crazy. And, uh, it's not always gonna be voiceover 'cause we just like to have some fun.
At least I do. Uh, but you know, I'm in the midst right now of getting set for a vacation. I know. I, I like who takes vacation? I, I haven't had, like, I've taken time. Right. I've gone places. But I usually get ahead on stuff. I usually bring my work with me, which that is the [00:01:00] beauty of the way. A lot of what I do is, is, you know, done and the capabilities of it.
It's like I can just pack up my equipment, throw it on in a suitcase in some cases, which I have. And, uh. Just hope that they don't toss it around too much when I check that bag. Uh, you know, but it, it's one of those, uh, interesting times where, you know, I, I am able to like set up equipment in a hotel and be good to go.
I do that more so when I'm traveling by myself, but I'm gonna be traveling my fiance and if I bring that with me, oh boy, this is that moment where. You know, when, when straight couples are in this situation, it's usually the guy's gonna be in the doghouse. Well, when you got two ladies, like, like, I've got my situation here, um, I will be the one in the doghouse.
Uh, it's just how it will end up being, uh, because, well, I, I would put myself there too. I don't necessarily always wanna be working. Uh, and it would be kind of frustrating for me to, to deal with that as well. And you know, this is gonna be the first time though [00:02:00] that I actually. Don't have to worry about it.
I have coverage. I'm gonna lose a little bit of money. Big picture things. Not a ton to lose, to be honest. So, uh, looking forward to taking this trip, even though finally summer has kind of kicked in here in upstate New York and it has been brutally hot the last couple days. So incredibly humid in fact.
Right now, I mean, there's a storm, a Bruin, and uh, I've been hearing thunder on and off and we had quite the storm last night. I was surprised I woke up with power 'cause like earlier in the week, woke up and didn't have power. So, you know, and that was just, just 'cause uh, I dunno, like a transformer blue. Um, but you know, those are the little hiccups right.
That you have to work around. You know, you're, you're hearing a little bit of, uh, you know, what my days have been like and how things are. I just have to. You roll with the punches For me, since the pandemic, actually, even before it, it's a consistent, constant pivot. Like [00:03:00] the world is continuously changing this industry, no matter what part of it you're in, you consistently changing some areas of it quicker than others, you know?
And it's just, you have to kind of roll with it. And if you can't, then. Uh, oh. Like, I'll admit, I'm a person. I don't like change. I really don't like, um, you know, as a basketball fan, I just saw the other day they changed a logo for one of the teams, and I'm like, why would you do that? Uh, it also doesn't look all that great.
And it was getting a lot of flack on the internet, so it wasn't just me. But even if it looked good, I probably still would've been like, why? Um, you know? 'cause I, I just, I, I just love nostalgia and I, I don't like change. Um, but. And it's not even that I've liked the change that I've had to go through personally in the last few years with work.
But I mean, I, in some ways it's been a blessing. You know, in some ways I do miss certain things, but I come to realize that the things that I miss don't even [00:04:00] really exist in the industry itself anymore. So, you know, again, this is just me having a nostalgic moment. I, I think, but, um. You know what happens sometimes in in the position that I'm in is that you do have to troubleshoot and you do have to kind of work.
In the moments, um, you know, with what you've got. And, you know, the other day it was trying to work through a power outage. And I was just like, all right, who can I call where I can just pack up my equipment? I can go, oh, I was smart. I had my laptop closed downstairs. Battery's still good. I can record dry audio here if I need to for at least a little bit.
You know? And, and then if I, if I have to find someplace with internet. I, I have multiple like X, Y, and Z that I can go to. Um, you know, it's, it's keeping certain things like that in mind. Um, really weird. I have actually recorded by candlelight, like the power has been out before and I've found myself here in my little nook of a fort in the basement.
And, uh, yeah, I, [00:05:00] I mean, hey, if the battery in my laptop has power, might as well, right? Like, I'm not gonna bother anybody else. Unless I have to. Um, you know, and, uh, in some cases I have had to, there's been instances too where I've lost power, but my parents have had it and it's like the middle of summer and I have to bring all my equipment into their garage and I mean, sweating my ever love and butt off trying to get.
Some recording done as quickly as possible too, so I can get out of the heat. It's like I, it felt like I was in a sauna trying to get work done. I'm like, I'm burning a lot of calories. This is great, except I'm probably gonna feel like death when I'm done. So, uh, again, troubleshooting. Um, you know, one issue that I've noticed that I've had in the last week, and I love how this pops up right before I'm about to go on vacation because I literally can't do anything about it right now.
Um, but. My, my one. My one, uh, piece of equipment, which is my DBX [00:06:00] compressor. This is not necessarily something that everybody needs to have. Like I, I got it specifically, so I would, wouldn't have to like, mess with a bunch of settings in my recording program itself. And, um, it does allow for like better fullness of the voice.
And depending on what I'm recording, I can, I can, you know, tweak the settings that are on it to, um, to fit what I'm doing. But like. I'll walk away from my stuff for a bit and I'll come back to record and I press record and all of a sudden the audio is coming through, but not nearly the power that it should be.
Like I can see the, the wave file, but compared to what I'm recording in this moment right now, it's like not even a quarter of the size. And I'm like, what in the ever loving heck? And uh, what I've realized is I think the, where you plug it in, um, so it's like the actual like. Where you, the, the power charge like that goes through [00:07:00] that, uh, that section's a little loose and I don't think there's even screws with it.
So I don't know how to even tighten that. Do I have to take it all apart maybe and figure that out? Should I be the one to do that? You know, you, you're gonna have similar. Things that come across your, your table, and you're not gonna know a hundred percent what is right and what is wrong and how to handle, and again, troubleshooting.
I mean, you just kinda learn as you go and it's, it's scary. I will say that like the last thing I wanna do is open this thing up and ruin like a $200 piece of equipment, but. I also don't necessarily wanna have to bring it somewhere and have them charge me another $200 to fix something so stupid. Um, you know, and it could be really, really simple and it might be a Google search, it might be a YouTube video to watch.
It might be a matter of contacting my friend Dave that I can think of off the top of my head, who literally can fix anything. Like he is a man who is. [00:08:00] Uh, like created his own plumbing in his yard to like go out to his recording studio. And, uh, he built the studio like from the ground up. Like, I mean, this is a man that will pull apart a record player.
Or a guitar and have it go from like not working to sounding brand new again. And I don't know how he does it. Like his brain just works differently. I think I would say it's Adderall, uh, you know, but I'm on that. So that does help me think clearer. But I'm no genius. Uh, I will admit that, uh, he feels like a genius to me.
'cause sometimes I see what he does and I'm just like, man, how, uh, but. You know, it's probably instances like this, you know, he's worked, uh, on his own for a long time as well as a, a studio producer and a musician and, um, just, you know, overall amazing engineer and, and he's had to go through and just trial and error, [00:09:00] you know, it's.
It sounds frightening, and I know that it can be time consuming depending on, on how your brain works. Um, but you know, very rewarding in the end when you're the one who's able to kind of figure things out. And, uh, it's, you know, even. More rewarding when you realize how much you can save. And you know, it's like, what could have cost you a couple hundred bucks?
Bring it somewhere else. Maybe it was a $15 fix or less, you know, so those kind of things. It's, it's definitely, you know, worth the, the learning curve. But I don't know what to do about this compressor. I've gotta kind of look at it closer and, and see is it even easy for me to open it up? Yeah, I, I mean, these are the things that happen.
Uh, I told you before, like I was using a recording program that I, I had forever on my laptop. It just made my life so easy because I knew all the ins and outs of it. I had been working with it for like a good 15, 16, maybe more years, and, and then all of a sudden one day [00:10:00] it just completely crapped the bet on me.
Every little piece of it. All the ins and outs, all of the effects, everything just stopped working. And I was like, okay, cool, but I need to send this off to somebody in the next 30 minutes. What do I do? And you know, the beauty of of the trouble and shoot, it's literally me going downloading a new program, which happened to be audacity that you can too get for free.
And that's, I, I'm using it literally right now. And, uh, it, it does exactly what you need it to. You know, if you're gonna be doing some. Pretty basic recording, like, why are you spending a ton of money? You know, you don't really need to. You can go ahead, get a free program. You know, and, and learn where the bells and whistles are of it and, and, and see how it can really be useful for you.
And you know what, a lot of these programs, they work in the same ways. You just have to figure out where everything is. And for me, that's exactly what I had to do. And, uh, you know, [00:11:00] within probably a good 10, 15 minutes, definitely by the deadline, I had everything situated and sent on off and it was all good.
And, uh, you know, those troubleshoot moments. Can feel very heightened stress in the moment itself. You, you know, but. Again, it's, it's super rewarding when you figure it out. 'cause it's like, Hey, look at me, look what I did. Uh, you know, uh, but listen, I hope that you're enjoying yourself as you're going through the process.
Maybe you just started setting up a studio and you've got some questions about it. Maybe, uh, you wanna know like, how mine is set up? I know I've talked about it before, but you know, it might be. Like God a year ago at this point. And I don't know where to find that episode and you won't necessarily either.
So feel free to hit me up [email protected], M-A-R-I-S-S [email protected]. You can send different questions there as well, and uh, I'll gladly answer whether it's on the pod or just directly. But feel free to, uh, always reach out and we've got a brand new episode that will be coming your way [00:12:00] coming up next Friday, and you can go back and listen to.
All of what you maybe have missed over the last however many years we've been doing this. It's been a long time. Uh, don't go back too far. 'cause you, you might be like listening to it going, what? I, I shouldn't put anything on a cd. What is he talking about? Uh, it was, it was okay then. It's not now. But, uh, consider that nostalgic.
But, uh, enjoy your weekends and I'll talk to you soon. Stay safe everybody.
Visit voice coaches.com for more voiceover news and information.
Marissa: back at it here on a Friday. It is National Donut Day. Uh, I hope you've taken advantage of that. Anybody should go ahead and have a sweet treat. I, I don't even know what your favorite donut is. I don't even care. Honestly. I just want you to go and enjoy it. Uh, I love a good sweet treat.
My name is Marissa and uh, welcome to a brand new episode of Voice Coaches Radio. I know it seemed a little outta. Pocket there for a second. Well, that's only if you haven't tuned in, in the last, I don't know, two, two and a half years, those who have know that I am crazy. And, uh, it's not always gonna be voiceover 'cause we just like to have some fun.
At least I do. Uh, but you know, I'm in the midst right now of getting set for a vacation. I know. I, I like who takes vacation? I, I haven't had, like, I've taken time. Right. I've gone places. But I usually get ahead on stuff. I usually bring my work with me, which that is the [00:01:00] beauty of the way. A lot of what I do is, is, you know, done and the capabilities of it.
It's like I can just pack up my equipment, throw it on in a suitcase in some cases, which I have. And, uh. Just hope that they don't toss it around too much when I check that bag. Uh, you know, but it, it's one of those, uh, interesting times where, you know, I, I am able to like set up equipment in a hotel and be good to go.
I do that more so when I'm traveling by myself, but I'm gonna be traveling my fiance and if I bring that with me, oh boy, this is that moment where. You know, when, when straight couples are in this situation, it's usually the guy's gonna be in the doghouse. Well, when you got two ladies, like, like, I've got my situation here, um, I will be the one in the doghouse.
Uh, it's just how it will end up being, uh, because, well, I, I would put myself there too. I don't necessarily always wanna be working. Uh, and it would be kind of frustrating for me to, to deal with that as well. And you know, this is gonna be the first time though [00:02:00] that I actually. Don't have to worry about it.
I have coverage. I'm gonna lose a little bit of money. Big picture things. Not a ton to lose, to be honest. So, uh, looking forward to taking this trip, even though finally summer has kind of kicked in here in upstate New York and it has been brutally hot the last couple days. So incredibly humid in fact.
Right now, I mean, there's a storm, a Bruin, and uh, I've been hearing thunder on and off and we had quite the storm last night. I was surprised I woke up with power 'cause like earlier in the week, woke up and didn't have power. So, you know, and that was just, just 'cause uh, I dunno, like a transformer blue. Um, but you know, those are the little hiccups right.
That you have to work around. You know, you're, you're hearing a little bit of, uh, you know, what my days have been like and how things are. I just have to. You roll with the punches For me, since the pandemic, actually, even before it, it's a consistent, constant pivot. Like [00:03:00] the world is continuously changing this industry, no matter what part of it you're in, you consistently changing some areas of it quicker than others, you know?
And it's just, you have to kind of roll with it. And if you can't, then. Uh, oh. Like, I'll admit, I'm a person. I don't like change. I really don't like, um, you know, as a basketball fan, I just saw the other day they changed a logo for one of the teams, and I'm like, why would you do that? Uh, it also doesn't look all that great.
And it was getting a lot of flack on the internet, so it wasn't just me. But even if it looked good, I probably still would've been like, why? Um, you know? 'cause I, I just, I, I just love nostalgia and I, I don't like change. Um, but. And it's not even that I've liked the change that I've had to go through personally in the last few years with work.
But I mean, I, in some ways it's been a blessing. You know, in some ways I do miss certain things, but I come to realize that the things that I miss don't even [00:04:00] really exist in the industry itself anymore. So, you know, again, this is just me having a nostalgic moment. I, I think, but, um. You know what happens sometimes in in the position that I'm in is that you do have to troubleshoot and you do have to kind of work.
In the moments, um, you know, with what you've got. And, you know, the other day it was trying to work through a power outage. And I was just like, all right, who can I call where I can just pack up my equipment? I can go, oh, I was smart. I had my laptop closed downstairs. Battery's still good. I can record dry audio here if I need to for at least a little bit.
You know? And, and then if I, if I have to find someplace with internet. I, I have multiple like X, Y, and Z that I can go to. Um, you know, it's, it's keeping certain things like that in mind. Um, really weird. I have actually recorded by candlelight, like the power has been out before and I've found myself here in my little nook of a fort in the basement.
And, uh, yeah, I, [00:05:00] I mean, hey, if the battery in my laptop has power, might as well, right? Like, I'm not gonna bother anybody else. Unless I have to. Um, you know, and, uh, in some cases I have had to, there's been instances too where I've lost power, but my parents have had it and it's like the middle of summer and I have to bring all my equipment into their garage and I mean, sweating my ever love and butt off trying to get.
Some recording done as quickly as possible too, so I can get out of the heat. It's like I, it felt like I was in a sauna trying to get work done. I'm like, I'm burning a lot of calories. This is great, except I'm probably gonna feel like death when I'm done. So, uh, again, troubleshooting. Um, you know, one issue that I've noticed that I've had in the last week, and I love how this pops up right before I'm about to go on vacation because I literally can't do anything about it right now.
Um, but. My, my one. My one, uh, piece of equipment, which is my DBX [00:06:00] compressor. This is not necessarily something that everybody needs to have. Like I, I got it specifically, so I would, wouldn't have to like, mess with a bunch of settings in my recording program itself. And, um, it does allow for like better fullness of the voice.
And depending on what I'm recording, I can, I can, you know, tweak the settings that are on it to, um, to fit what I'm doing. But like. I'll walk away from my stuff for a bit and I'll come back to record and I press record and all of a sudden the audio is coming through, but not nearly the power that it should be.
Like I can see the, the wave file, but compared to what I'm recording in this moment right now, it's like not even a quarter of the size. And I'm like, what in the ever loving heck? And uh, what I've realized is I think the, where you plug it in, um, so it's like the actual like. Where you, the, the power charge like that goes through [00:07:00] that, uh, that section's a little loose and I don't think there's even screws with it.
So I don't know how to even tighten that. Do I have to take it all apart maybe and figure that out? Should I be the one to do that? You know, you, you're gonna have similar. Things that come across your, your table, and you're not gonna know a hundred percent what is right and what is wrong and how to handle, and again, troubleshooting.
I mean, you just kinda learn as you go and it's, it's scary. I will say that like the last thing I wanna do is open this thing up and ruin like a $200 piece of equipment, but. I also don't necessarily wanna have to bring it somewhere and have them charge me another $200 to fix something so stupid. Um, you know, and it could be really, really simple and it might be a Google search, it might be a YouTube video to watch.
It might be a matter of contacting my friend Dave that I can think of off the top of my head, who literally can fix anything. Like he is a man who is. [00:08:00] Uh, like created his own plumbing in his yard to like go out to his recording studio. And, uh, he built the studio like from the ground up. Like, I mean, this is a man that will pull apart a record player.
Or a guitar and have it go from like not working to sounding brand new again. And I don't know how he does it. Like his brain just works differently. I think I would say it's Adderall, uh, you know, but I'm on that. So that does help me think clearer. But I'm no genius. Uh, I will admit that, uh, he feels like a genius to me.
'cause sometimes I see what he does and I'm just like, man, how, uh, but. You know, it's probably instances like this, you know, he's worked, uh, on his own for a long time as well as a, a studio producer and a musician and, um, just, you know, overall amazing engineer and, and he's had to go through and just trial and error, [00:09:00] you know, it's.
It sounds frightening, and I know that it can be time consuming depending on, on how your brain works. Um, but you know, very rewarding in the end when you're the one who's able to kind of figure things out. And, uh, it's, you know, even. More rewarding when you realize how much you can save. And you know, it's like, what could have cost you a couple hundred bucks?
Bring it somewhere else. Maybe it was a $15 fix or less, you know, so those kind of things. It's, it's definitely, you know, worth the, the learning curve. But I don't know what to do about this compressor. I've gotta kind of look at it closer and, and see is it even easy for me to open it up? Yeah, I, I mean, these are the things that happen.
Uh, I told you before, like I was using a recording program that I, I had forever on my laptop. It just made my life so easy because I knew all the ins and outs of it. I had been working with it for like a good 15, 16, maybe more years, and, and then all of a sudden one day [00:10:00] it just completely crapped the bet on me.
Every little piece of it. All the ins and outs, all of the effects, everything just stopped working. And I was like, okay, cool, but I need to send this off to somebody in the next 30 minutes. What do I do? And you know, the beauty of of the trouble and shoot, it's literally me going downloading a new program, which happened to be audacity that you can too get for free.
And that's, I, I'm using it literally right now. And, uh, it, it does exactly what you need it to. You know, if you're gonna be doing some. Pretty basic recording, like, why are you spending a ton of money? You know, you don't really need to. You can go ahead, get a free program. You know, and, and learn where the bells and whistles are of it and, and, and see how it can really be useful for you.
And you know what, a lot of these programs, they work in the same ways. You just have to figure out where everything is. And for me, that's exactly what I had to do. And, uh, you know, [00:11:00] within probably a good 10, 15 minutes, definitely by the deadline, I had everything situated and sent on off and it was all good.
And, uh, you know, those troubleshoot moments. Can feel very heightened stress in the moment itself. You, you know, but. Again, it's, it's super rewarding when you figure it out. 'cause it's like, Hey, look at me, look what I did. Uh, you know, uh, but listen, I hope that you're enjoying yourself as you're going through the process.
Maybe you just started setting up a studio and you've got some questions about it. Maybe, uh, you wanna know like, how mine is set up? I know I've talked about it before, but you know, it might be. Like God a year ago at this point. And I don't know where to find that episode and you won't necessarily either.
So feel free to hit me up [email protected], M-A-R-I-S-S [email protected]. You can send different questions there as well, and uh, I'll gladly answer whether it's on the pod or just directly. But feel free to, uh, always reach out and we've got a brand new episode that will be coming your way [00:12:00] coming up next Friday, and you can go back and listen to.
All of what you maybe have missed over the last however many years we've been doing this. It's been a long time. Uh, don't go back too far. 'cause you, you might be like listening to it going, what? I, I shouldn't put anything on a cd. What is he talking about? Uh, it was, it was okay then. It's not now. But, uh, consider that nostalgic.
But, uh, enjoy your weekends and I'll talk to you soon. Stay safe everybody.
Visit voice coaches.com for more voiceover news and information.
This week on Voice Coaches Radio, Marissa talks about the pivots of working from home and how rewarding it can be to let yourself explore the trouble and shoot.
