Source Connect

For more than 10 years now, there has been a reliable way to get studio quality audio from one place in the world to another. If you’ve been involved in voiceover work for much time at all, you’ve probably heard of ISDN. And while, as my friend and mentor Philip Banks would be quick to point out, ISDN continues to be not just a viable, but the dominant way that much of the very high end voiceover work is recorded; it is an aging technology. So, the search has been on for some time now to find alternatives.

One that I’ve used with many of my clients is to record the audio in my studio with the client directing over the phone. I then post the voice tracks (or finished productions, depending on the client) to my server, from which they can download what they need within a matter of minutes after our “phone patched” session is done.

Another that is in development, but not released as of the moment I’m writing this is iSpeek.

The genesis of this blog post, though, was an email I received today from Pete Newman. He mentioned that he had paid a visit to the offices of Voices.com this past Saturday, and while he was there, Stephanie suggested that he get in touch with me about Source Connect as an alternative to ISDN that is already released and working and at very reasonable cost.

For example, Pete wanted to know who is using Source Connect (studios, production houses, etc.). I pointed him to this section of the Source Connect site, which lists all current users and can be searched a number of different ways.

Pete also asked about the price. Source Connect has a very handy comparison chart for the versions, including price and features.

Now, I need to finish up this post and publish it, because I’m about to help my friend Liz de Nesnera with her Source Connect set-up. Hopefully we’ll be chatting in studio quality audio in a few minutes.