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Sure can't! I don't think its better, just what all the studios I've worked with use. I think studios are the ones that lead the way on software usage. We voice actors just need to follow their lead. There is a new upgrade to SC 4.0 coming, and for people who have purchased SC outright (the $500-$600 lifetime licensing fee we paid), it is not yet clear whether that upgrade will be included or if those who purchased the software outright will have to pay an additional monthly subscription cost. I think that may be the deciding factor for a lot of studios to look at other free/cheap/great remote recording alternatives. But it really does depend on what SC expects people to pay (when it was sold as "free lifetime upgrades" for purchasing the software outright) and it depends on what the studios do.

he IS a gem of a man!!

For rates, definitely get familiar with the GVAA rate guide for industry standard rates when you work in Canada and the US. For international rates, you can check out the Gravy for the Brain rate guide. For receiving payments from US and overseas people, you could try Wise (formerly Transferwise), look into RBC's US Bank option to receive ACH transfers, PayPal, and I've also used VEEM, Melio, and Bill.com with clients before. VEEM is the easiest though. Good luck!! :D

@@KatelynDawnVoiceover Cool - thanks. I'll research those avenues!

That is so great thanks so much for the comment! I've been a bit MIA lately... I'm moving soon and building a house and also a full time VO so apologies on not posting more! But I'm glad this video was helpful for you!!

Thank you so much for the positive feedback! :)

😂🤣 It was fun

You are so welcome!

Awe how sweet! Thank you! :)

Hey there! Good question! This is a really important topic actually. If you have to run your audio through processing/plugins to sound good, just know that when you do connect with clients for a live recorded session through Source Connect, you will have to turn all that processing off. They will want your RAW audio. The recording studio on the other end will be receiving what you have, and they will process the audio as that is their job. If your audio signal is particularly noisy it will reflect poorly on you, I don't want to lie. Now, I'm not an audio engineer and I don't know where the point is where they would be turned off from working with someone. I'm not sure what your audio sounds like RAW. If its just that last few dB I'm sure its fine (like if you're noise floor is hitting -55dB and not -60dB for example). But if you've got consistent noise, they may not want to work with you again, but I can't say one way or the other. You could always connect with "Uncle Roy" he is a sound engineer who does studio assessments. Or Larry Hudson who also does assessments on audio. I would say if you don't have Source Connect, don't audition for jobs that require you to have it. If they are open to SC or Zoom, then you could say you only have Zoom and will record locally on your computer. If you are at a point where you are booking work and making money, I think it would make sense to purchase Source Connect if it is holding you back to not have it. You should at least create an account with SC because it is free to do this, and then you can have a username. Then you can say you have SC. You can also get a 2-day pass. Then if a recording studio books you and they want to do a SC test, as is often the case, you can say that you can do a SC test the day before your session, and get the 2-day pass at that point. Know that schedules change and they may reschedule you, and you'll have to get another pass. You could also purchase a month pass if you book a job, and just have it for the month your session is booked for. SC requires you to do some "routeing for your ports" or something to do with your network and ports.. and routing... ???? (not my area of expertise, but someone helped me with that so my settings say port: open). So there are some settings you need in place when you install SC. Don't leave it to the last minute. Connect with their customer support and/or get help from fellow VOs who have SC that can help you. Best of luck!! :) Getting an audio consult will help tremendously more than my comment.

Thank you so much!

You are great teacher

You are great teacher

You are great teacher

Hi Leah, I made a blanket statement to never use noise reduction as a lot of people new to audio editing treat it as a bandaid quick fix when there are many other things you can do first. If you listen to my interview I did with Larry Hudson he chats a bit about noise reduction and you can check that out as Larry is a proponent of noise reduction - with the caveat that you need to get your noise floor low enough that when you apply your noise reduction it is barely noticeable. If it is just taking your noise floor from -55dB to -60dB that is when you want to use it. I recommend shooting Larry Hudson a message, or "Uncle Roy". These are 2 great resources in the VO industry who can do a studio consult with you. My long answer to your question is this: Follow all the steps I provided in the video to make your audio as clean as possible. Try to mitigate noise in your room. Create some kind of booth for yourself. Add as much noise absorbing materials as you can. Then I would use a high pass filter (accidentally called it a low pass filter in the video). This is a setting in your EQ settings. You want to do what is called a "roll off" for your very low frequencies. These are those annoying rumbles when a car drives down your street, or your air conditioner and fridge are on. These low frequencies (from 0kHz to about 75 kHz or 100 kHz if female) are not in the spectrum of where your voice lies. So we just get rid of those completely. This can sometimes be that last final trick to get you to -60dB WITHOUT impacting the frequencies that your voice lies within. There is also the factor of "self-noise" in your microphone. My Neumann TLM 103 has self noise of 7dB. The Rode NT1 is 4.5. These are usually so minimal that it doesn't matter. But mic quality plays a role in giving you clean audio. Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk haha! I also love using IZotope RX to do some final polishing, but Audacity should give you all the tools I mentioned in the video

Hey! I will continue to post content but its been a bit of a busy year :) Thanks so much for watching!

Hey! You can check out my VO website here: voiceoverbrandsites.com It goes over all those details :) I'd love to chat with you about it.

Well there are no silly questions! And you're right, it does kind of start at 0. On computers we use a different scale with 0 being the clipping point of audio. Everything below 0 (in the minus scale) allows audio not to clip. -5dB has 5dB "head room" until you get to 0. In the real world an acoustic dB of "0" is the quietest that sound can be. But we have a different scale in digital audio. So really, the dB scale could be defined as the scale downward from clipping, or, 0dB. The answer is very technical and I'm not an audio engineer, and there are actually many answers. dB is also a reference to how you are measuring audio. There are many, like: dB, SPL, dBfs, dBm, dBu, dBV, and they all have their own unique ways of measuring audio. Anyway. if anyone is an audio engineer feel free to rip this apart and explain it in a different way LOL Here's a link to a reddit post to learn some more: www.reddit.com/r/audioengineering/comments/dkourt/why_do_we_measure_db_in_negatives/

@@KatelynDawnVoiceover Interesting, thank you for taking the time to explain! Trying to wrap my head around it still but will take a read of the link too. :)

Hey there! Yes, I do have a professional VoiceOver booth. It is a double-walled vocal booth that I designed and built myself. I started as a single "wall" (the wall was mostly 2x4 frame with roxul safe and sound insulation inside), and then I added a layer of Sonopan, resilient channel and drywall. My noise floor is usually between -60 dB and -75 dB. Thanks for the question! I will do a video on this! You can definitely start with something simple and home made, and add onto it over the years. If you follow me on instagram @katelyndawnvo there are videos of this in my reels showing some of my booth I think!

Yup I know a VO who was told that in a directed session!

I'm so glad it was helpful!!

Oh I'm so glad that this video helped!! Maybe I should do a video about voiceover rates. When you hire a plumber or electrician, there are standard rates. We don't haggle with them, we pay it. Those are the rates, take it or leave it. We need to set a rate minimum for voiceover work, and don't accept lower than that. With broadcast there are additional considerations as well with usage. Here is a great round table about rates: th-cam.com/video/72YWvHGkFeM/w-d-xo.html

Yay!! Me too! 😀 thanks so much for being a part of the VO community and sharing your pearls of wisdom.

Sounds like you're working it out! You'll figure it out :) It is a process. I am thinking about getting an external monitor in my booth also. Right now I just have a tablet in there so I can go paperless. I upload my scripts to google docs and it syncs with my tablet. It's so nice going paperless! But an additional monitor that mirrors my desktop would be sweet! Then I could do ADR or audio description :) Yes, by all means I'm here when you need a site! VoiceoverBrandSites.com ;)

Thank you so much Tim - your encouragement is so awesome to hear!! I hope I can be a help to you along your journey :) I'll be posting more content about websites on this channel and on social media.

Fantastic! Thanks, Tim! Cool thing is I can apply this same model to different niches too! It's a TON of work upfront because of the theme creation, but its so nice for people to be able to see and interact with a theme before they purchase. They know exactly what they will get and the thing that will really make it stand out is the customization and branding part. SO excited!!

@@KatelynDawnVoiceover that’s fantastic! Congratulations!! I’ll take a deeper dive and see if there are other people that I can throw your direction.

A combination of working with my uncle who is an audio engineer and my training through Edge Studio! :) Happy to help!

Ah I also trained with Edge! They are great. Lovely video.

Totally up to you! I didn't mention it on my first live direct and just mustered up as much confidence as I could and it went really well. If you saying that you are new will put you on edge or make you feel uneasy that they know you are new, I'd say don't. If it will increase your confidence then go for it. Whatever will help you perform your best.

@@KatelynDawnVoiceover Many thanks!

Yes!! The multimeter is so helpful in logic! If you want to get forensic about it, Waveform stats in Izotope RX is even better!

@@KatelynDawnVoiceover perfect!