My New Girlfriend! Gasp!

As I was packing the garage to move a couple months ago, I found a list of goals from 1998.  One of my goals was to have a Frisbee dog.  All three of the dogs we've had since then have been rescues, with their built in issues.  They've been awesome, and we've loved them to death, but I haven't been able to turn any of them into frisbee dogs.   Speaking of death, we lost one (Toni) last year and another (Riley) this year.  Toni lived to nearly 16, and Riley to 14.  Nothing can replace them.  My daughter Kalin was crying, missing Toni, just yesterday.  : (

Jonesie - my wife's dog -is our most recent rescue and  we're working hard with him to help him get over the insecurity and aggression issues he came with.  He's in obedience classes right now, and he's come a long way.

I'll be 50 next year.  Mid life crisis time, right?  A little anxious, and in need of something exciting, something new, something different.  OK, I'd really like a 2013 BMW M5, but that like $100 grand.  I'd love a 6 month hiatus to Italy, but that's not practical just yet.

So what to do... Well, I've been obsessing about Border Collies for some time now.  And it was time.  I ultimately found my dream dog - a purebred female Border Collie with high toy drive - from Heather Hutchings of Power House Border Collies.

My new baby's name is Saphira Marie.  Saphira after the dragon in the Eragon book series (not the movie, the movie sucked) and Marie is my daughter Kalin's middle name.

She is literally the most beautiful dog I've ever seen.  Sure, I'm slightly biased, since I'm in love and all, but if you can find a better looking dog, send me a picture!  And she is freaking perfect - fun, playful, affectionate, afraid of nothing - human or animal, and has an off switch so she can be mellow.

She goes with me everywhere I can take her, and some places I can't.  She's eaten at lots of restaurants - they just give her a pass since she's so freaking adorable.

Oh, and she's already great at fetching a Frisbee!

Here are some pics my awesome photographer wife Leila took of us tonight:

True Love

Yes, her eyes really are that blue.

Vocal warm ups

I'm Afraid. Will Apple Become Dead To Me?

I guess you could say I'm sort of an Apple fan boy.  I've had Mac's since the days of the LC.  Right now in my home we've got 4 Macs, 4 iPhones, maybe 3 iPod touches, an AirPort Extreme, an Apple TV and who knows how many other iPods. 

I've been editing on Macs using Final Cut Pro since version 1.   I record voice over using Soundtrack Pro.  I'm addicted to all things Mac.

But that could be changing. 

Apple abandoned Final Cut Pro in favor of iMovie Pro.  When I first read about Final Cut Pro X I was giddy, and planned on buying it the day it came out.  Then the reviews started coming in.  Uh oh.  I went to the Apple store and tried it out.  Horrific. Unprofessional.  Unusable. Don't get me wrong - I'm all about new stuff, changing the paradigm, going tapeless and such.  But are you kidding me?  Basic functionality available in the first version of FCP isn't even there in FCP X.

And over the last few months we've heard rumors that they might discontinue the Mac Pro.  No. Way.  My Mac Pro has 4 massive internal hard drives and three video cards.  I'm sure thunderbolt is amazing, but I really don't want more cables and hard drive enclosures cluttering my studio, attached to some high powered iMac. 

I get it.  From the narrow view of a business exec, the real Final Cut Pro has a very small market base.  Laptops are 70% of computer sales. The pro market is a tiny fraction of the consumer market.  But why in the heck do you think the consumer market does so well?  One reason is because the pros tell the world how amazing Macs are.  Why has my immediate and extended family embraced Apple and spent 10's of thousands of dollars on Apple products over the years?   It has a lot to do with the fact that big brother and daddy (me) has worked in the entertainment industry for a dozen years on a mac, and sings its praises.

Please Apple.  Don't make me get a Droid.

www.trevorjonesvo.com

Purple Cow

My wife has been pushing Seth Godin on me for awhile.  I finally caved and started watching his YouTube videos.  Really good stuff.  I wanted more.  So I purchased his audio book, Purple Cow. Audio book you say?  Heck yes!  I LOVE audio books.  I read while I run.  I read while I drive.  I read myself to sleep.  But that's off topic.


In the dark ages before the interwebs, marketing went like this:  Huge companies spent millions of dollars on national TV campaigns, sold a ton of product, and reinvested the money in, yep, more TV time.  They forced ads down our throats, we watched, and bought.  This worked fabulously.  Then.  But this was before TiVo, Hulu, Netfix and an epidemic of ADD.  


Now, if we don't want to watch an ad, we don't, so more effective marketing has evolved.  Certainly, some companies have not evolved and they're still using the 1970 model.  It doesn't work anymore.


Now, you've got to do things differently.  You've got to target your marketing - get your product or service in front of people who WANT to see it.  That's the genius of a Google search - you type "widget", and you see ads for just what you're looking for.


The main point of the book however, is that marketing should start with the creation of the product.  You need to create a product that will market itself.  You can no longer create something, and then think, "hmm, how will I market this?"  The product or service has to be the marketing.  And how will it do that?  It must be a purple cow.  It's gotta stand out.  Be different.  Make people take notice.


If your product IS the purple cow, you'll have the early adapters (sneezers) gobble it up.  It will be so cool, that they'll "sneeze" it out into the world, and then the rest of the world will start to adopt it.


So here's the question:  How are you going to make YOUR voice over business, your widget or other product stand out?


Check out Seth's book and get the full scoop.

My New Video Series! Take 63 - Breaking Into Voice Over

I love voice over.  I love doing auditions, being chosen, and recording the finished audio.  I love some other stuff too, so I thought I'd put together a video series where I talk about voiceover, and, well, "other stuff" - which leaves me open to talk about whatever I'm excited about at the moment.


Here's episode 1:

http://www.trevorjonesvo.com

Cars 2!

Here's some CARS 2 action for you!

 

www.trevorjonesvo.com

Top 10 Most Popular Voice Over Mics

The first question any aspiring voiceover artist might ask is "Which mic should I get?"

As a tech nerd myself, I know when I decided to get into voice over, I was pretty excited at the prospect of a trip to Guitar Center.  But which mic?  There are SOOO many really good options. There's one thing most voice over professionals will likely agree on:  Get a large diaphragm condenser mic with a cardioid pattern for your primary voice over mic.  Yes, there are a few exceptions, but a condenser mic is what you want.

As soon as you start digging around online, you'll find that some of the standards the pro's use are:

Neumann 103

Sennheiser MKH-416  (An exception!  This is a shotgun mic.)

Neumann U-87

You might think:  "I'll just get one of those!  Ben Patrick Johnson uses the Sennheiser, and if I do, I'll sound just like him!"

Well, maybe, but not likely.

There are several things you need to consider when buying a new mic.

USE

First of all, what are you using it for?  If it's just for general auditions from your home studio, and you never plan on submitting finished audio with it, a less expensive mic might do just fine. What about for that real "conversational" sound that pretty much every commercial audition is asking for these days?  How about narration?  If someone has to listen to your voice for an 8 hour audio book, which mic will make that the most pleasant experience?  Would that be the same mic you'd use for, say, a trailer for a horror movie?  There are mics with properties that make them more suited for different uses. 

However, the reality is, if you're just starting out, you'll likely just get one mic to do everything for you.  Down the road, you might get another mic or two for different kinds of jobs.


COST

This will be the limiting factor initially for most of us - how much mic can you afford at this stage of your voice over career? If you're just starting out, other equipment costs may include a D/A converter, a mic pre amp, recording software, and possibly a computer upgrade - so a mic isn't the only thing you need to think about.

Here's the good news: a really GREAT sounding mic is not that expensive.  Here at my day job as an editor, we finish audio every week for national TV spots and theaters with narration recorded on a Marshall MXL V69.  In fact, here's a spot I finished on that very mic - I just read the open, you can skip the rest: 

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Sneak Peek

You can get one for like $300, complete with shock mount, power supply and even a boom stand.  Now I don't love this mic - a lot of the stuff we do here is at high volume levels, and this mic doesn't hold up well for that.  But speaking at conversational levels, it sounds fantastic.

More good news:  A $3000 Neumann U-87 isn't going to sound 10 times better than a quality $300 mic, like the Audio Technica AT 4040 I have in my home studio. Once you have a mic at a certain level, it takes a lot of money to make a small difference.  Don't believe me?  I came across a mic shoot out of sorts done about 5 years ago.  Not exactly a perfect scientific test, but 18 mics, priced from $79 to $2,600 are compared.  You can listen to the mics blind - and try to figure out which ones are the pricier ones:

The Transom Mic Shootout: Blindfold Test

I'm sure some über sound geek can tell you which mic is which just by listening - but I'm no audiophile, and I sure couldn't.  I was able to identify a couple of the low end dynamic mics as sounding not so great, and some mics as better than others.  However, I couldn't blindly pic out the most expensive mic of the lot, the Neumann U87, as sounding the "best".  The other mics I preferred weren't necessarily the most costly either.  One I really liked the sound of was the Shure KSM44 - about $700.  You try the test and see if you can pick out the, um, "better" mics.

YOU

The biggest factor by far is YOU.  What mic do you sound good on?  Your voice is different than everyone else's on earth.  Sure, more expensive is generally better, but you may not sound your best on the most expensive mic.  You need to find the mic that fits your voice.

How do you do that?  First, identify some of the mics you'd like to try.  I'll give you a list of some of the Top Ten Most Popular Voice Over Mics at the end of this article for starters.  You can do some research online. 

Once you've got a list of several mics, and a couple scripts, do what I did:  Head on over to Guitar Center, or some place like it, and try the mics out.  Hopefully, they'll give you a quiet room and headphones, but don't hold your breath.  I stood at a noisy counter with a mic pre and headphones, and had the sales guy bring me mics to try.  For my first mic,  I ended up with the Sterling Audio ST55, a Guitar Center knock off of a Groove Tubes mic.  The mic was OK, but I later found that my voice didn't really cut well with it - the highs didn't seem high enough.  That all ended when I knocked my mic stand over.

Fun fact:  Condenser mics aren't durable.  Don't knock yours over unless you need to come up with an excuse to justify to your wife that you need a new toy, er, mic.

For round two, I didn't really follow my own advice.  I DID do a bunch of research online, and found a mic with very favorable reviews in my price range, but I didn't try it out first.  I just ordered it online.  Luckily, it works pretty well with my voice.  I love my AT4040.

Finally, an amazing mic isn't going to cure cancer. It won't fix lack of training, mouth noise, the neighbors dog barking or your kids flushing Barbie dolls down the toilet in the background.  All of THAT, is a topic for another post.

So what's my next toy, er, mic?  Well, I'll have to run over to guitar center to try em out, but my next mic is likely to be either the  Sennheiser MKH-416 - reportedly great for promos/commercials/trailers  or the  Neumann TLM-103 - one of the quietest mics out there.  But first, I'm looking into building a VO booth...  I'll let you know how that goes.

Now here are some of the Top Ten Most Popular Voice Over Mics I've found, priced from low to high. Remember, this is a starting place. Find the mic that fits your use, your budget and your voice.

Top Ten Most Popular Voice Over Mics

$99   Audio-Technica AT2020 USB

$229 Rode NT1-A

$285  MXL USB 009  

$301  AT 4040 (Audio Technica)

$529  Rode NTK

$699  Neumann TLM-102 

$999  AKG C 414XLII  

$1099  Neumann TLM-103 

$1199  Sennheiser MKH-416 

$3199  Neumann U-87AI 

You can buy all of these mics here the the Trev's Top Pics Store.

To hear and see more examples of my work, check out my website:

TrevorJonesVO.com

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

I was fortunate enough to be able to narrate the open for three spots that aired on Disney Channel, including this sneak peek at a scene from the movie.  Piratesfans won't be disappointed!