The Story of the Home Studio Masters “Tip of the Week”

Here each week, we will present one of The Home Studio Masters “Tip Of The Week.”  Each one covers a concept important to a voice actor with a home studio. They take the “geekyness” out of the discussion and make these vital skills, techniques and helpful hints understandable on a level most technophobes can understand, and, be entertained in the process.

My original concept was to create a series of these as a course on setting up a home studio. Then East West AUDIO Body Shop, our weekly Sunday night live webcast with co-Host and great friend George Whittam, suddenly was born. That took my creative attention away from it for about 8 or 9 months. At the beginning of 2012, we decided to add more pre-recorded “packages” to the show as a regular feature. George made the mistake of challenging me to create one of these “tips” each week. I never back down from a challenge and almost 40 installments later we now have a library of these “Tips Of The Week” gathering virtual dust on a virtual shelf in the cloud somewhere. If you don’t watch “EWABS,” as our fans affectionately call it, you now have a chance to catch these short video essays every week here at “Voice The Dream.”  But, you should watch our show and participate in the chatroom as we cover this stuff and talk to some of the biggest names in our business. We don’t speak geek. We just talk about it and have a ton of laughs.

As you’ll see, I rarely take things too seriously, as I think too many of you obsess over minor stuff in your home studio. As I say each week, and in my column here earlier 2012, “It ain’t rocket science.” Making the seemingly complex seem simple, is a challenge, as I know many of you new to voiceovers, and of course doing it at home, weren’t expecting to have to know this stuff. You just wanted to be a voice actor. Seems simple enough, right?

Having a career in broadcasting and commercial production, most these concepts  are somewhat second nature to me. But this is a different animal than broadcasting, and thankfully, not as complex. I also spent a few years teaching American history and the Constitution in our public schools. I love to teach!  I used self-made videos (at the dawn of computer, non-linear editing) to explain Shay’s Rebellion, The New Deal, McCarthyism and all those other history topics you forgot before 12th grade. “Tip Of The Week” is the evolution of those fun teaching tools I used before I left teaching for voice acting 10 years ago. Each “Tip” will cover a question or concept you had to think about as you set up your home studio.

• Where do I set up?
• What equipment do I need?
• How do I use my software?
• Whats the difference between “sound proofing”  and “sound dampening?”

All will be answered, here in glorious color and some seat of the pants production.

So without any further adieu. Here is the original pilot that started it all. “Where To Set Up Your Home Studio.”  A tour of my humble home and the intersection of work and family:

Be sure to tune into EWABS every Sunday night for great discussions on the voiceover industry!