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Welcome to Mr. VO's Rants page! If you're not familiar with audio recording studios and the way they work, you may find some of this confusing, because it is intended for professionals in that field. But the stories are kind of fun, so you may enjoy it after all. And if you are a studio professional with little rants and horror stories of your own, Mr. VO is all ears! Actually, he's mostly stomach.. But that's another story. If you have a rant or tip to share about life in the studio, please drop a line to: Mr.VO .
Everyone involved in a production session has to be aware of the value of each other's time. It's a matter of professional courtesy and just plain good manners to budget studio time, and the time of all involved in the production, with common empathy. However, this is sometimes not the case.
Scenario #1: The client says that he has three industrial videos he wants recorded... actually, three versions of the same thing... and he wants to get an early start. So you go to work at 9 am, like a normal person. Then you discover that he only wants to record the first version and do all of the editing, music selection, assembly and final mix of that one before starting on the alternate versions. ...And would you mind waiting while that's done? Hell, yes you mind!!... 99.9% of the clients in this industry would record the voice-overs all at one sitting... about two hours work... and call you back if there were any changes or revisions. But you bite your tongue (carefully) and head for the magazine rack in the lobby. At about 4:30 pm the client announces that they're not going to be ready for the rest of the voice tracks until next day... 9 am. This procedure repeats for three or four days until you've finally read your two hours worth of work and the client releases you. Meanwhile you've missed three or four other jobs because you were "unavailable", and voice-over artists don't get paid by the hour. You start thinking that you just might refuse to work for this guy again... except you're afraid of getting a reputation for being "difficult to work with"! Scenario #2: The client books one hour of studio time for a job that should only take one hour. Then, in mid-session, has a flash of inspiration and decides he wants to take an entirely different approach to the job. But insists that it be completely produced both ways, so he can hear the difference. Does he get the talent to read it both ways first, and then go to work on music, sound effects, mix, etc.? Of course not! Just as in scenario #1, he wants to finish one before starting the other. Meanwhile, the clients booked to start at the end of this producer's scheduled hour wind up getting impatient in the lounge, and the entire day's schedule starts getting warped out of shape. The talent ends up being late for another session at a different studio. And everybody is inconvenienced because one producer couldn't make up his mind, and didn't care if it caused problems.
(NOTE: This was written when cassettes were the standard media for client approval. Dated material!) I
don't know about anyone else, but I can't wait for technology to get so good that
the cassette tape becomes as obsolete as 45 RPM vinyl records! How did we ever
wind up with such a standard? It's too unstable in it's tracking to handle binary
code in a digital format, and it's always come up short for analog applications.
A little, itty-bitty sliver of oxide on some kind of mylar backing is going to
creep past some magnetic-sensitive heads in such a way as to be translated into
audio wave forms and played back over big, full-fidelity speakers?!! Well, damned
if it didn't seem to work for quite a long time! But there have been two things really wrong with cassette tapes from the very beginning: First, they are noisy! That little bit of oxide can't carry all of the signal range easily, and, while straining to sort out audio frequencies in the music, we are treated to the familiar white noise of tape hiss... the sound of the recording media itself. Now there's something you don't get with digital, by golly! The second reason, however, is much more personal. It is the ubiquitous nature of the cassette recorder. Everybody has one! And they're not just players... they're recorders. That means they have record buttons. That means any brain-dead idiot can throw one of these machines into record mode while trying to listen to a tape they want to hear. Recording equals erasing, as far as the tape is concerned... so whatever was on the tape disappears with the touch of that record button.... Assuming that our idiot doesn't know the secret of the plastic tabs. Every time I get a call from a client saying; "Hey, this damn cassette you gave me is blank!", I know that I committed the ultimate studio error: I didn't snap the plastic tab. For some reason, most clients want a cassette copy of the finished production to play for their customers... the guys ultimately paying the bills for the production job. Why cassette? Dunno... must have something to do with dashboards and that "ubiquitous" thing. Anyway, every so often, I'll get a client who gets so excited during the presentation to their customer that they accidentally hit the record button instead of the play button . Result? A blank tape. So I learned about the plastic tabs: those little indentations on the edge of the cassette shell opposite the edge that exposes the tape to the record and playback heads. When the cassette is new, those indentations are covered with plastic tabs. But, when the plastic tab is broken off, exposing the indentation, the cassette machines will not be able to go into record mode! There is one tab on each end of the cassette... one for side A, one for side B. So, whenever I send a cassette reference tape or audition out of my studio, the tab is snapped off so the tape can't be accidentally erased. Oh, but I yearn for the day when we'll be able to send out a cheap audio copy for client approval without having to worry about whether some office hack is going to zap the recording by accident. And it'll probably be digital, which means I'll be able to say good-bye to the signature tape hiss of the cassette and actually hear what I'm supposed to hear! Then, I'll just have to make sure that I don't screw up. Because one more handy excuse will be gone.
DOG AND BUSH SYNDROME Anyone who has ever been involved in PRODUCTION-BY-COMMITTEE has run into the "Dog and Bush Syndrome". A piece of production, whether it's a broadcast commercial, industrial video, original music track, or whatever else, is like an audio landscape, with elements designed to function together to create a desired overall impression. A well manicured script or score, a carefully arranged combination of sounds, the growth of an expert mix, the selection of talent... each is a "bush" in the producer's "garden". And each member of a client committee is a new dog, let into the yard to leave his or her mark! The messiest dog in the pack is the "Legal Hound". When the script nails down a traditional commercial observation such as: "Your kids will love it!", the Legal Hound hikes it's leg and sprays your lean and lovely script with a gush of disclaimers, leaving you with no time left in the spot to actually sell the product! But, at least, you'll probably not get sued if some kid doesn't actually "love it". Or how about the Jr. Executive, who is just starting in his position with your client's company? He's not sure what Shinola is, and doesn't know much of anything else, either. But, to cover up, he opens his mouth instead of his ears: "Y'know, I think it would be better if the talent put a little giggle in the voice while saying this!" Right. The old dogs start worrying that the new pup might start to look better than them, so they all start pissing around with talent direction. And another bush bites the dust. There's not enough room in cyberspace to document all of the classic examples of "Dog and Bush Syndrome", but if you've got a particularly outrageous one, please submit it to MrVO, using the button on the left. We'll share the best with everyone who visits here.
We finally get into the business of recording the voice-over, and he lets you know that he really wanted someone else: "Give it more excitement.... I want it to sound like that guy who did the Alamo spots, Hal What's-His-Face... You know, make it sound really peppy!" Huh? Look, if you want Hal "What's-His-Face", or Mason Adams, or Gary Owens, or Peter Thomas, or someone else, then go pay for them! And if they're not available, or you can't afford them, move on and use someone you CAN get. But don't tell 'em to sound like someone else! Each voice talent brings something unique to the session, something that no one else on earth has: Their own natural "sound" and style. Find the one that's right for your script, and use them... don't tell them to imitate something else. You dishonor the talent, and you wind up getting a second-rate sound... an imitation of something real, rather than something real. Meanwhile, Mr. Bigtime has decided that we should send out for lunch and has gotten someone to run a small stack of restaurant menus over to the studio. Another half hour is shot putting the order together, and you start to wonder if the session is ever going to end. It would be nice if all this display of importance led up to a really wonderful finished product that you would be delighted to add to your demo (or "show reel", as they say on the other side of the pond)... but, sadly, Mr. Bigtime is usually all facade and no substance. He is just a caricature of "the successful producer"... someone else named "What's-His-Face". So, what puts your knickers in a twist? Got a studio situation to bitch about? Get it off your chest ... Tell MrVO. And I'll tell the world!
THEY DON'T MAKE 'EM LIKE THEY USED TO....
Studio equipment was, once upon a time, really exquisite electronic art. Those huge old 24-track tape decks were built like giant Swiss watches... everything perfectly, precisely machined to incredibly fine tolerances. You could just "feel" the quality as the RPMs torqued-up, rewinding 3600 feet of 2" mylar onto a 10" metal reel. Even in the early digital days, you could pull the top off a DAT recorder to retrieve a snaggled tape from the transport and appreciate the intricate metalwork on the inside. Yes, I said "metalwork". They really did that, once upon a time. Now it seems that plastic is good enough for even the delicate mechanisms inside a DAT recorder. And how in the world did we wind up with DAT as a professional audio medium?!! It is the scariest, buggiest format of them all! You spend a small fortune researching what brands of tape cartridges will work in what brands of DAT machines, and hope that whoever you're sending a master to will have a compatible unit to play it on. I know there are supposed to be universal standards here, but the fact is that some tapes and some DAT machines just don't like each other! The tape shells jam in the transports, or the tape doesn't seat cleanly against the heads unless you fast-forward and rewind before playing or recording each tape, etc. Let's face it... this should have been a consumer product... NOT a professional standard! But, we're stuck with it now... until CDRWs get a little cheaper, anyway. (NOTE: This rant dates back to the late 90's when CDRWs were breaking technology and prices were sky-high. Needless to say, CDs have now replaced DATs in most studios. And delivery via FTP through the internet is rapidly replacing CDs!) Got some gear you'd like to rant about? Plug it into MrVO's e-mail, and get some sympathy!
PLAY THAT FIDDLE, MR. STRADIVARIUS! I am a voice talent, but I also am often called upon to direct other voice talent in a session. And I never cease to marvel at the extremes some talent will go to impress everyone with the rare quality of their talent. So many of us fall into the trap of believing that it is the actual sound of our voice that makes us good at what we do, rather than an ability to speak words with a sense of conviction and integrity that makes what we say sound more believable than most. As soon as talent starts to believe that their fortune is tied up in the sound of their voice they begin to worry about it to the point of distraction. They must have fresh orange juice available for the citric acids benefit to the limber quality of the vocal chords! Or they go through a long series of warm-up exercises and comment on the unusually high level of humidity in the air. If a smoker has been in the room any time within the previous 24 hours, fumigation is required immediately! They consult the horoscope and indulge in Tarot readings daily to be sure that the stars are still in favor of speech! OK. C'mon now. Let's face it... nearly everybody with a voice gets up and goes through their entire day talking! They talk to their kids, to their coworkers, on the telephone, in a crowd, across large spaces as well as up close and personal. They holler and scream, whisper and growl, and generally do amazing sounds with their voices all day long with hardly any effort or apparent vocal distress. They just don't get paid for it. We do. But we don't need all the bull about hot and cold liquid's effects on the voice, or whether we should drink milk or lemonade before talking. We just have to open our mouths and do what everybody else does... talk. It's no big deal. So what bugs you in the studio? Get it of your chest... tell Mr. VO all about it. And we'll tell the world! | |
Newsletter
Those
of us who perform as voice artists are especially sensitive to this, because
we may go for long periods of time with very little work, and then suddenly
have several jobs all come up at once. We have to have realistic ideas
of how long jobs will take so that we may schedule our time accordingly.
This "rant" is devoted to the producer who doesn't care who he inconveniences,
and gives little or no thought to how much time he really needs. He or
she is the one who throws a monkey wrench in the works, every time!
Here's
one of my favorite people in the studio, Mr. Bigtime. The session shouldn't take
more than one hour; plenty of time to knock out the voice-over for one radio commercial.
Except that Mr. Bigtime seems to slow everything to a crawl with countless interruptions.
It takes two cups of coffee and a lengthy anecdote about servicing his Porsche
just to get from the lobby to the control room. Along the way he tries to get
the phone number of every secretary and office staffer he sees, dropping hints
about season tickets to polo matches. He has two cell phones and a pager, all
of which seem perfectly synchronized to "go off" in rotation at five
minute intervals. If his hair stylist doesn't call to confirm an appointment in
the afternoon, it's the jewelry store letting him know that his Rolex has been
cleaned and can be picked up right after his weekly visit to the home for unwed
mothers (he's on the group plan).