Lance Blair Atlanta Voiceovers

Political Voiceovers

2008-09-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

Some voice over colleagues are asking themselves about the ethical ramifications of doing voiceovers for political spots with which they don't agree. Well, I don't think I would have done a Khan for a Greater Mongolia or Cromwell - Reform We Can Trust spot back in the day, but in general I'm one of those guys who thinks whomever you vote for the government gets in. I might as well do the gig because somebody else is going to do it, and do it well enough to make the cause look good.

Or are they?

I was surprised at how bland I thought the voiceovers were at the Republican Convention. In general they were fine, but at times the narrator completely lost focus. They weren't being casual, or conversational...they slipped completely out of the moment and disengaged: as if to say "And then McCain also did x and y, yadda yadda yadda." It can happen to the best of talents - but repeatedly in the same session? For such a big gig? My suspicion is that the blame needs to be laid more at the feet of the directors and not the talents. Especially since the narrator of the Cindy McCain tribute wasn't checked when he read the word liaison as "lay-ee-zhan".

Could I have done better? Yeah. Bring it on. I also know many, many other talents that would have knocked these relatively brief narrations out of the park and kept engaged throughout.

I'll leave you with a political voiceover.

political.mp3

What are conversational voiceovers?

2008-09-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, I haven't been posting much lately...there's this thing called summer...it cuts into my Online Life.

Anyhow, today I had a great back n' forth on a voiceover messageboard where we all posted "conversational" takes of a real commercial. There were many substantially different successful versions of what a "conversational" read was: just some food for thought.

My contribution was a parody of a conversational vo session...but there's a good conversational read snuck in there as well.

check%20md.mp3

Lance Blair Atlanta Voiceovers Goes Upmarket (Neumann TLM-103, Speck Electronics 5.0 Mic Pre)

2008-06-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, enough of the whining about things going downmarket with the bad economy. How about helping a fantastic American audio company like Speck Electronics by adding the Speck 5.0 Mic Pre to the Lance Blair Atlanta Voiceovers studio arsenal? Sounds good to me!

The Speck 5.0 has 70db of clean gain (great for my PR40 dynamic and my ribbon mics) and a lovely switchable output transformer that has a clean tone for character and narration voiceover without being overbearing. There's a -20db pad, phase reversal, and sweepable HPF, a whole "mix matrix" and a linkable option to their amazing EQ unit or additional 5.0 Mic Preamps. Ted Fletcher of Boston's Mercenary Audio has compared it favorably to Millennia's HV-3C...adding that the Speck's sound has an added "opulence" that the Millennia lacks. That's more than good enough for pro voiceover work...and now I'm proud to offer it as a part of my signal chain. I tried a Speck out a year ago with the fine folks at Atlanta Pro audio and I should have taken one home then. I wasn't going to make that same mistake again.

I've compared clips of the Speck 5.0 against two other vo preamp champs, the Great River and the John Hardy. I'll admit that the very low end on both are a bit better than the Speck...you know, the bit that gets taken out of the signal in post. However, the transistor in the Speck is much more tasteful for vo...if you want more grit and color leave it to the project's engineers. What really won me over, was the "opulence" that Ted Fletcher of Mercenary was referring to: this opulence comes from how the Speck creates a greater sense of three dimensional space than the John Hardy or the Great River. They might sound bigger or have more presence at times, but the Speck sounds naturally intimate - much better for voice acting and helping the voice connect to the audience. The sound seems to come from all around your ears more than just from a point in front of you; at least as much as a mono voice signal can without processing. Good stuff.

Yet what's a microphone preamp without a good microphone? Got it. Now I have the Neumann TLM-103. I've turned my nose up at this mic in the past because it sounds very harsh on more nasal and thin/cutting American voices. Thankfully, that doesn't apply to me. I borrowed one from my colleague Mike Filosa from Advanced Field Production to check my signal chain as a part of my continuous QC. My thinking was "I know how the 103 can be harsh, let's see how harsh it is in my studio". I was shocked. Even through my plain old Yamaha monitoring board I sounded great on it. No sibilance issues. No harshness. Plenty of low end. No muddied mids. What I liked best was the amazing focus and articulation which I've heard the 103 lend to quality voices. There's no second guessing if the verbs are past-tense or not (did he say "walked" or "walk"?) that you find with the woofy mics. There's no crazy shrillness that you find with dozens of other mics in that class range. Finally, I was surpised how the mic is focused on the voice. No excessive ambience or mouth mechanics. All this being very surprising to me because I've heard too many DYI voiceover talents suffer with the TLM 103 from a.) poor mic placement - you can't crowd this mic! and b.) simply not having the right voice for the mic. If you check out the mic test at transom.org, the guy with a rich low voice sounds like an ace on the 103 (better than on the U87ai, I might add) while his more nasally thin typical American guy partner sounds like an utter dork on it (and the 103 may be the worst mic of the lot on his voice).

So I'm man enough to admit I was wrong about the TLM 103. It has its many uses, and fortunately a really good use for this mic is to capture my voice! Paired with the clean "opulence" of the Speck Electronics 5.0 mic pre, I've found myself really nice set of tools to make great recordings. That's what it's all about, really: I find myself much freer and more confident to make the right choices in the vocal delivery knowing that my chosen tools are up to the task. If I push them loudly, they respond without saturation. If I whisper, they don't let me fall away. If I make brash consonant sounds, nothing distorts. I can even physically act out my characters without worrying about going off axis. It's a beautiful thing.

PS: I still don't like the TLM 49 or 93. The 49 sounds a lot like my PR40 dynamic, which is just flat out wrong for a $1500 condenser.

Voice123 Goes Downmarket

2008-06-11T11:34:00.000-07:00

As far as pay-to-play internet voiceover sites go, Voice123 has been a pioneer and a standard in the industry. That's still true, but now the site forges ahead with new standards of going downmarket. Largely, it's been a victim of its own success. The number of talent subscriptions has at least doubled in the past few years, which has thoroughly diluted the talent pool. It's harder for good talents to be heard or found which is bad for both the quality talents and quality "voice seekers" from potential clients. I know many high quality talents (even some personally, not just on the internet) who left voice123 because they simply could not get gigs through all the rabble. As of today there are 3342 talents (not all have Premium Subscriptions whereby they can audition for leads) fighting for the handful of gigs which pop up each day. Most of these leads are for jobs under $250 (less than the subscription cost).

In my first two years on voice123 won a few auditions each year and received a handful of jobs through private leads. One of these leads became my best e-learning client for whom I continue to work, and I'm thankful to voice123 for these opportunities. Also, I received many direct calls for jobs by people who heard me on the site and decided to go right to the source and call me. So in the past, voice123 has been a great marketing tool for not a lot of money...especially since I spent very little time actually auditioning.

In the past year, I've auditioned nearly a hundred times. I won a decent job for the voice of a DVD manual and another for a podcast introduction, but received only four private leads. I intentionally market myself as an Atlanta Voiceover talent, but I'm buried in their search engine. A talent from Phoenix came up as their #8 Atlantan voiceover talent the last time I checked. Certainly nobody deserves gigs: you earn them, and luck has a bit to do with it too. However, I've heard from many other talents who are frustrated with the diminishing ROI that voice123 provides. Again, the source of this problem is their success in attracting more competetive talent, but also a sinking boat full of wannabees. I listened to 50 v123 talents at random yesterday and honestly, four were of a pro level and two of the four were nondescript (boring). When you're with an agency, you're not one of 3342 roster talents. Also, most of those 3342 aren't rank amateurs who don't know what a pop-filter is.

As a result of the dilution of the "talent" in the Voice123 talent base, it's clear that the quality voice seekers have been turned off by the service. There is an increasing number of revised auditions from seekers dissatisfied with all of the talents who initially replied. Most leads these days are cheap, paying less than going market rates; and cheaper than those of other pay-to-play sites who have also seen their service go slightly downmarket, it should be noted.
Too many of the jobs are for joke sites or animations of no real marketable purpose, un-ethical nutritional supplements and get-rich-quick tutorials, or vague international products written with even vaguer rules of grammar. Voice123 has become an excellent downmarket marketing tool for the bottom-feeding clients and voice-talkers to get together and share shoddy services in exchange for hissy unprofessional files and late low paychecks.

Has Voice123 become the Black Market of voiceovers? No, but as the economy sours and desperate amateurs flood the talent roster, this Market has a darkening shade of gray.

Voiceover Scripts Made Easy

2008-04-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

Hi. I didn't write what you're reading right now.
It's all a transcription of me talking into my
microphone in my recording booth.  I want to make
some points about writing scripts for voiceovers.
You'll notice, first of all, that  even though I'm
speaking very quickly for just one minute there
really aren't that many words. This goes to show
that there's only so much information a person can
say in a minute, never mind understand. The sentences
are very short, allowing for natural breathing.
Also, the verbs are largely active.

I want to drive the point home that while some say
that voiceovers are just "voice talking" or reading,
that it's somehow simple, that view is dead wrong.
It's trying to take a script, breathe life into it,
be a character even if it's the spokesman of a product,
and make a connection with just one person. That's a
difficult thing to do.

I'll leave you with this thought raised by my Professor
of English, Stephen Boyd, from the University of
St. Andrews from years back. He asked us why George Orwell
was the best selling author on the Penguin Classics
roster. Lots of people brought up his politics,
but I got the answer right. I said it's because
he's the easiest to read.

ART MPA Gold Microphone Preamp

2008-04-16T20:01:00.001-07:00

The first preamp I ever bought was an ART Tube MP. It was noisy and picked up WBOS, but when I could get it to settle I could get an okay sound out of it for $30. Lately, I've seen a few threads about people putting good tubes into low end microphone preamps with pleasant results. One preamp with which people had varied but interesting results was the ART MPA Gold. Unlike many of ART's other products, the MPA isn't a starved-plate low voltage device. Well, let's just say that it has a high plate voltage setting which is noticeable in its effect on the sound. This reminds me of the recent Joemeeks: they're okay as is, but when you employ the "Iron" button, you've got yourself a pretty good piece of gear for not a lot of money.

The tubes with which the ART MPA comes with are terrible. They only say "China 12AX7B" on them. 'Nuff said. You can do better with almost any old $8 replacement tube. I went with a $19 JJ/Tesla 12AX7 (or "ECC83S") for one channel of the MPA, and with a $29 Tung Sol 12AX7 for the other (each with gold tips). Both are newly made tubes and sound decent: they certainly make the MPA a workable preamp with some good tone. The Tung Sol really works well with my Heil PR40 microphone, but I will probably upgrade the JJ to a GE NOS tube in the near future.

What I really like about the MPA is that for $300 you get two channels with plenty of clean gain and each has their own sweepable high pass filter and their own sweepable input impedance (up to 3k). The Heil PR40 is a really bright mic, and sometimes it needs to be slowed down a touch to a 2k impedance even though that's against the recommended ratios. With condensers, the sweepable impedance isn't as important as it is with dynamic microphones that I like to use.

My True Systems P-Solo has been replaced. While that unit is fantastic for guitars (both as a DI and for micing acoustic guitar) the ART MPA Gold is working for me, and I'm getting comments on my sound and more importantly my voice that I wasn't ever getting with the P-Solo. It feels funny going back to a brand that I started out with, but it's kind of fun having a piece of gear and tricking it out - customizing it for your own needs, and making it your own.

Next I guess I should get some cheesy stickers and rhinestones to put on it. Someone might mistake it for an Avalon then.

Echo AudioFire Soundcard

2008-04-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

In another nice upgrade for the voiceover studio, I now have an Echo Audio AudioFire soundcard/interface in the signal path. This is a substantial improvement over the Presonus interface I was previously using and was never happy with. It took some time to research and choose the right replacement soundcard for my studio. I wanted something simple, since I usually only record two channels at a time at most. I also wanted something reliable that was rock-solid for recording and provided quality audio and would work with my computers. E-MU was a contender as they make very good products, but they are going out of business. The Apogee Duet was also intriguing. Echo Audio's AudioFire was the winner, as they have a great reputation and will be around to provide support and driver upgrades (they upgrade their drivers very frequently). I also like that my AudioFire is small and runs without generating much heat (the Presonus was like a toaster). Thanks to technical gear maven and voiceover pro Gregory Houser for his opinions on the Echo.

The Presonus was rock-solid for playback, very flexible for routing, but was not rock-solid for recording and did not provide the level of quality audio that I wanted to provide to my clients. The Presonus, in the end, was a fradulent device incapable of providing the 96kHz recordings it claimed that it could. A long-delayed replacement driver from Presonus may have solved the issue (some people claim that it's still not a 96kHz device even after the upgrade), but it introduced an unreasonable amount of noise. I'm glad that the Presonus experiment is over and that I can move on to a much better device with Echo Audio. The improvement in sound is obvious: the Echo is much more present, detailed, and rich while the Presonus relied on the crutch of smeared hyped frequencies at the low and high ends to mask the fact that it lacks midrange detail.

If you're more concerned about playback and signal routing, by all means buy a Presonus product, they're great in that regard. If you want better recordings for the same money go with Echo Audio.

Recent Work & Going Tubular

2008-04-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

I've had some nice work recently for some excellent people. I just finished up a piece about Cellular Biology for Genzyme with Blue Wave and also a website voiceover for Nortel with Mars Productions. Both production companies are Boston-based: I suppose you can take the lad out of Boston but you can't take the Boston out of the lad. I do quite a bit of work with Boston clients still, which is one of the joys of phone patch voiceover sessions.

The Nortel piece was interesting because I did it with my transatlantic pan-British accent which was my main speaking voice for a long time. I developed it while living in Scotland for five years and didn't let it go for ages; only in the past four years have I made a concerted effort to re-Americanize my voice. Being a voice talent, i can pretty much turn it on and off like a spigot (or spicket...see?). The fine folks at Mars and Nortel didn't realiz(s)e that they were choosing a Yank. I'm rather pleased about this because they were trying to find a voice to match spots done with born and bred English talent.

The Genzyme voiceover "Cell and Organelle" was a hoot because of the oral acrobatics which the copy required. "MPS, glycoproteinoses, glycogen storage lysosomal diseases (i.e Pompe), and other LSD's" was my favourite list in the copy.

Today I ordered a twin-channel tube mic preamp with sweepable input impedance and HPF. I also made sure to order two nice tubes to go with the unit: one for the Violet Designs condenser channel, and one for the Heil PR40 channel. Yet another weapon in the arsenal.

Atlanta Tornado Disaster Relief

2008-03-15T14:12:00.000-07:00

Over March 14 -15 2008 much of Northern Georgia was pounded with numerous tornadoes and hailstorms, the most notable being the F2 tornado that ripped through Downtown, Old Fourth Ward, and Cabbagetown in Atlanta.

While the affected areas are too dangerous for the general public to enter at this time, once the damage is properly assessed and contained, there are many ways that people can help.

One good way to help is to register as a volunteer at HandsOnAtlanta.org and they will contact you with information about volunteer disaster relief projects that you can work on.

Studio Cables Matter (Now 100% Mogami)

2008-01-03T18:29:00.000-08:00

I was using ProCo Quad XLR cables with gold Neutrik connectors from my mic to my preamp (and then a short TRS 1/4" to the interface). They are very good cables, but they were a bit old and had been used (but not harshly) before I put them in my studio.

Out of curiosity, I subbed them out with an old used Audio Technica cable which are made in the Mogami factory to Mogami specs. It sounded better: as if I had a noticeable preamp upgrade. Sure enough, on the analyzer there was more low and high end as I was hearing.

So I put two and two together and purchased all new Mogami cable with gold Neutriks for my studio. I'm very happy with the results. I've dropped my noise floor by about 3db and it just plain sounds better!

Meaning and Technique

2007-12-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

I spent part of this afternoon with my family at the Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, GA. It's a children's bookstore which comes as close to fitting the description of a 'magical place' as much as a contemporary establishment of commerce can. It is an island unto itself. They have a small but well selected big-person-book section (I wouldn't call it 'Adult Fiction' since that sounds naughty) which could keep the avid reader nicely well-read for some time. I picked up Colin McGinn's Shakespeare's Philosophy: Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays because frankly, it's so well written that it's an easy read. It has that Orwellian quality: you will breeze through it and actually learn more than you would from erudite stodge. In his examination of how The Tempest is occupied with the magical influences of language and silence, he brings up the important point which I've seen written many times yet always rings true: the meaning behind the sounds/words we speak are more important than their technical quality.

In voiceover, or any type of performance, being preoccupied with how one appears to others may be the worst thing one can do. Prepare and train physically and mentally so that you avoid bad technique, but after that preoccupations should be firmly affixed to the meaning, even if that meaning is "Come to our store this Labor Day and buy our stuff".

Lance Blair Voiceovers for The American Cancer Society

2007-11-09T16:22:00.001-08:00

I've started a new working relationship providing voiceovers for The American Cancer Society. I write "working relationship" but I actually mean to write "a labor of love". Today I went (taking MARTA, of course) to the ACS's new headquarters in the massive former INFORUM complex in downtown Atlanta across from Centennial Olympic park. They have a brand new multi-camera studio and control room with a link to Crawford for satellite feeds.

The first session was hosting a podcast interview with ACS Global VP Dan Smith, and the second session was a witty, high-energy, Dave Letterman-esque "Top Ten List of Reasons to Quit Smoking" for the upcoming Great American Smokeout. So put away those Winston Lights!

Recent E-Learning Voiceovers

2007-10-26T21:30:00.001-07:00

I've just completed the last of three e-learning voiceovers for online2learn.com from Point Productions. In the past month we've done three projects together with a combined 85 pages of script. One project was a highly technical piece on Fiber Optics, the second was a fun virtual game show about HR policies inspired by the classic To Tell the Truth, and the third was for encouraging the development of Corporate Performance Management Goals.

The Fiber Optics piece was the longest, which made it the most challenging in so far as making sure that I maintained consistent tone and energy throughout while still keeping it interesting. Dr. Sally Ride was the other voice in this program, offering expert opinion at the head of each module. While I didn't record with her (all my parts were done in my home studio) it was an honor to be giving the complementary voiceover.

To Tell the Truth was enjoyable, because I had to give it an engaging game-show voice that wasn't over-the-top as well as the hushed, monotone "golf announcer" voice when the supposed identities of the contestants were being introduced.

The Performance Management Goals may have seemed like a straightforward corporate piece, but bringing subtle characteristics to a voice can be one of the hardest tasks. I was given very good direction from Michael Henry of Point Productions to be professional and enthusiastic: to imagine that I am a co-worker mentoring others. I really envisioned while I was recording that I was in a small conference room going over policies with three colleagues, at times pointing to imaginary charts and powerpoint slides for references. This was also the first longer piece that I've recorded with the Heil PR40, and the the client and I were both very satisfied with the results.

While I've done numerous longer narration voiceovers, this is the most I've done in one month (especially for the same client). Today on one of the voiceover talent message boards, a European talent I respect asked if he should accept a lower than normal per-word rate for a 7,000 word voiceover (he had never done a piece that long before). I'm normally very much against talent low-balling themselves, but the experience of completing these longer script voiceover marathons are very rewarding. It definitely makes you a better talent, and if you complete the task with open and efficient communication with your clients it makes you a better professional as well. posted by Lance Blair @ 7:20 PM 0 Comments

Heil PR40 Dynamic Microphone for Fully Portable Remote Voiceover Recording Setup

2007-10-24T06:45:00.000-07:00

I just bought the new Heil Sound PR40 Dynamic microphone, and I'm glad I did. I sounds far richer than my old Sennheiser MD421 mkII and I might prefer it when compared to RE20s (plenty of resonance, but not enough sizzle) and SM7bs (a little too flat - perfect if you've got a world-beating studio behind it though).

Since I do plenty of remote voiceovers on location, at clients' offices, or VOG reads at trade shows and corporate events, a dynamic microphone makes far more sense than a condenser microphone which captures too much of the ambient noise in a non-acoustically-treated environment. I now have a completely portable VO rig thanks to the small size of my True Systems P-Solo preamp. I can now record anywhere, and everything fits into a single briefcase.

The great thing about the Heil PR40, is that it has the character of a good condenser microphone, and sounds better than a lot of so-so condensers. When I take the Heil PR40 and run it through some tube emulation, flattering compression, and a little creative EQ (mostly softening things around 3kHz), the Heil PR40 sounds fantastic.

Scott Pollack on WABE; SAVOA.org

2007-10-01T16:04:00.001-07:00

Congratulations to Atlanta voiceover talent Scott Pollack: he will be voicing the liners for sponsors and underwriters of Atlanta's NPR affiliate WABE 90.1 (the home of Atlanta's 'Classic Rock' featuring Haydn, Debussy, and Bach)

In a world where the shoddy ethics of the internet and the noble profession of voiceovers collide, one brave band of brothers stands tall against the forces of cheap clients and those disreputable announcer wannabees who would enable them. That brotherhood is known as... http://www.savoa.org .

Thank You Todd Grant

2007-09-26T12:47:00.001-07:00

I received yesterday a very gracious and complimentary email from Todd Grant, a veteran in the radio markets of Boston and Providence, asking if I would record some bits for his personal IPOD; and I was more than happy to do that for him. Again, I'd just like to thank Todd for the very nice things he said about my work, and I appreciate the feedback from a colleague. I wish him the best of luck.

For those of you that may raise an eyebrow at Todd's request, I did a quick search to find that "Todd's IPOD" is a show of Todd Nuke 'Em on X96 in Utah. Todd Grant isn't Todd Nuke 'Em, so everything is on the up-and-up. If Todd Nuke 'Em had asked me for freebies for his show, that wouldn't have happened: unless he was really really really gracious and complimentary to me and threw in good tickets to an Atlanta Thrashers' game.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing my work for a 20,000 word e-learning narration about Fiber Optics for Michael Henry of Point Productions' online2learn.com.

Welcome

2007-09-25T14:49:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the blog of Atlanta voiceover talent Lance Blair. Oodles of content are in the pipeline, so be sure to check back often.