With thanks to my friend Dan Friedman for posting the link to this on Facebook, check out the excellent overview of portable USB audio interfaces posted by Matthew McGlynn at Recording Hacks. Good stuff.
USB Audio interfaces
General
Why I don’t watermark
The other day Seth Godin posted on his blog about Assuming goodwill. What he’s written explains precisely why I don’t watermark my auditions or require a contract from every new client. Begin with trust. Or begin with mistrust. It’s just about impossible to straddle that divide. I would rather assume trust. And in now, 28 years of doing voiceovers professionally, I can still count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve been burned by a client. With fingers to spare.
Text Analysis for Voice Actors
Of all the people who have appeared as special guests and speakers at the Dan O’Day Summit’s in the 14 years I have attended these wonderful events, one of my favorites is Christine Coyle, the long-time Creative Director at The Famous Radio Ranch of Dick Orkin and company. Chris has a remarkable ability to bring out the best performances from us standing behind the microphone. So, I’m delighted to let you know that Dan O’Day has released an MP3 audio seminar featuring Christine Coyle. Details are here. This audio seminar on text analysis comes with my warmest recommendation.
Roadblocks and directions, part 2
Several days ago I posted a link to an excellent article by my friend Maxine Dunn about dealing with roadblocks that keep you stuck. That article was part one of a two part series and I’m delighted today to post the link to the second and final part.
A new Axe Cop trailer
With thanks to my friend Rowell Gormon for blogging about this first and thus alerting me to it, there’s a new trailer out in the Axe Copy universe and once again I’m the narrator.
Quote for the day
With my thanks to my friend Bruce Miles for passing this one along:
“Being fair and reasonable will earn you respect and admiration, but being genuinely kind will make you a total love magnet.”
— Mike Dooley
Something fun I voiced
Two qualities I admire …
… are featured in the latest blog post from my friend Ralph Hass. Do take a moment to read. You’ll be glad you did, I think.
A view from inside
Mahmoud al Taji is a voiceover talent to lives and works in Cairo, Egypt. Wendy Edwards recently interviewed Taji (as he is mostly known in the voiceover world) about his observations on the revolution and has posted an hour long podcast of that interview.
Laughter and sunshine
That’s a mighty powerful combination. You should get plenty of both if you head to Pat Fraley and Rob Paulsen‘s Get Funny Fast Master’s Event in Los Angeles, Saturday March 19, 2011.
Added to the blogroll
If you don’t know Dan Friedman you should. He’s an all-around audio genius and a truly nice guy to boot. He has a blog he calls Sound Advice VO, which I’ve just added to my blogroll under Dan’s name.
While you’re on Dan’s site, take a long look at Dan’s book “Sound Advice — The Book“, which is worth it’s weight in gold, at least it is if you’re serious about doing voiceovers that sound like they’re coming from a professional’s studio.
And while I’m talking about Dan, he was one of the sponsors and attendees at Faffcon 2 in Atlanta this past weekend. He’s written some very cogent thoughts about the experience that are well worth a few minutes of your time.
John Florian’s thoughts about Faffcon 2
My friend John Florian, founder of VoiceOverXtra, provides a terrific overview of the Faffcon 2 experience this past weekend in Atlanta. By the way, John, the “avalanche” term came to me from Nancy Wolfson and David Cross.
Want to know how to do infomercial voiceovers?
If you do, you might want to consider taking Kevin Delaney’s Infomercial VO Workout. It’s coming up on Thursday of this week.
Spotlight on Doug
Faffcon 2 is solid gold
One of the key ideas who cherish at Faffcon is the idea of golden nuggets. Each of us has at least one golden nugget for someone else, some valuable bit of information or insight that someone else needs to hear or learn. Someone also has at least one golden nugget for each of us. Also, we don’t know who needs our nuggets and who has our nuggets, nor can we anticipate how or when the nugget sharing will happen. Our task at this working pro voiceover unconference is to chat with as many others as possible to be sure we give and receive as many golden nuggets as possible.
Five different people have all ready told me they received golden nuggets from me, none of which I realized were taking place at that moment. For myself, I continue to gain insights about how to more effectively communicate via social networking, among many other things. It’s because of all the gold floating around that I have committed myself to being at every Faffcon.
Sound Forge Advanced Lesson 1
My friend Michael Minetree has released a video on noise reduction in Sound Forge in honor of all of us who are on the road at Faffcon 2 in Atlanta.
Thank you, Michael. Good stuff.
Faffcon 2 is about to start
Friday afternoon is the first official Faffcon 2 event, when a number of us will take a tour of CNN and then gather for dinner at a restaurant near the Peachtree Westin in Atlanta. I’m all ready running into a number of friends here. I can hardly wait for the faffing to begin.
The first Faffcon was a great experience. We all left with our pockets full of golden nuggets of wisdom and insight. I have no doubt it will be even more excellent this time. More people. A different mix. I’ll bring you some thoughts and insights as they occur to me. I’ll also tweet and update on Facebook for those who are connected with me there.
How to be interesting
Copyblogger offers 21 cogent suggestions about how to Be Interesting. My thanks to my friend Larry White for emailing me the link to this article.
If you’re going to be at Faffcon in Atlanta
I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read over the excellent thoughts of my friend Doug Turkel as posted on the Faffcon blog.
Roadblocks and directions
My friend Maxine Dunn writes a weekly newsletter to which I subscribe and last week’s edition featured the first of a two part series on Roadblocks that are keeping you stuck. Excellent stuff and when Maxine makes the second part available publicly, I’ll link to that as well.
