Back on Track
Friday, November 19th, 2010It’s been an interesting few days. With the recent power outage and 3 (!) earthquakes in my area, none of which caused any damage but were still disconcerting, I’ve been a bit… distracted? Yes, that’s a very diplomatic word.
At any rate, I’ve got another voice blog which I’ll be recording in a bit and posting later tonight. Got some friends watching TV in the next room, so I’m gonna wait until the background noise is gone.
Background noise and condenser mics- not good
A few tidbits
So what’s new in the world? Well, a few things that I thought were worth mentioning.
Polished?
First, I met an old friend for lunch today and got told that I sound “more polished” in terms of general conversation than I did the last time we spoke, which was a few years ago. That was highly gratifying, as it came on the heels of a conversation where I was discussing how much effort I had been putting into what is essentially a self-training regimen. We discussed some of the things I mentioned in my most recent voice blog, essentially the difficulty of being taken seriously. The field of voice work is littered with “wannabes”, and it’s very difficult to position oneself against that backdrop. What felt good about being told that I sound different is that it means that all the work I’ve been putting into my voice is having real-world impact on how I sound.
Books
Read 'em and weep
Among a few book recommendations is one I found on my Nook today: VO, by Harlan Hogan. By the way, if you’re an author, make your books available in digital format. I don’t want to hear excuses, just bloody do it. I buy 10 e-books for every paper one and reference/nonfiction books are almost always better in digital format because I can carry an entire shelf with me in a package that weighs less than 6 ounces. It’s the 21st century, get with the program and make your books available electronically.
As to this book, I’m not terrifically far into it, but it’s a good read thus far. I was pleased to no end to discover that Hogan’s recommended approaches to things mirrors many of the things I’ve been trying to work on myself and have even mentioned in this blog, including stressing things like continuous improvement, focusing on small things, checking your ego at the door and learning by doing. I recommend it as a good place to begin if you’re considering working in the voice field. It does a good job of setting expectations which is important in this field, I believe.
Classes?
Carrie over at Vox in Transition wrote about a class she’s attending this weekend with Pat Fraley about audiobook reading. I’m insanely jealous- the teacher of our recent VO class recommended it and I really wanted to go but scheduling and budget simply didn’t pan out. You can bet I’ll be picking her brain about how the class went, though!
Infrastructure
Tomorrow I’m taking delivery of some 2×4 panels of acoustic foam for my studio. It’s essentially a basement room with hard plaster walls, so it’s got a lot of reflections and sounds really bright. I’m looking forward to taking the edge off of that and will be making adjustments over time to make it as good a recording environment as I can manage in the space I have.I assume that this will only be a first step, as I’m learning quite a bit about how sound actually works in a studio and how it is managed.