Movies You May Have Missed is now in the iTunes podcast catalog!
You can subscribe to either the audio or video version of MYMHM, and download them directly to your ipod/touch/iphone.
We also have links in place to subscribe to the show through RSS readers or email, and we're even doing the twitter thing.
We've been getting great feedback from people on the show, but we could always use more! Critiques, comments, movie suggestions, it's all good. This show is still brand-spankin new, and we want to make it the best we can.
Also if any of you are savvy to social media stuff (Digg, Stumble, Facebook sharing, etc), we'd really appreciate the shout outs and extra visibility. If we can get our numers up, our Amazon affiliation will allow us to set up some really cool movie contests (much sooner than I had expected we could too).
This show has been crazy fun to put together, and I hope we can continue it for some time to come!
Thanks so much,
Juan (SomeAudioGuy) from Movies You May Have Missed
Back in the day Odeo was the premier podcasting service.
Or at least it was MY favorite to use.
Well, Sonic Mountain is bringing it back from the depths of internet obscurity (a bit much?).
They invited me into the beta, and I've been playing around with podcasts, and so far I like it. It's simple and clean, and seems to be up and moving quick. I'm hoping to see some more social tools built in. I like being able to vote for good episodes, I'd like to see some more tagging for similar content, and right now there is no commenting on "pod shows".
All in all I like the new look, and I'd love to see this community back up and running. some audio guy someaudioguy odeo podcasting podcasts beta website community voice over voice acting
I at some point might just have to join Facebook. It seems to be blowing up right now, and I was WAY late to MySpace. I just find so little use for social networking outside of the occasional "catching up with a friend moment" that I can usually just accomplish through an email or something else. I will always appreciate MySpace for the simple fact that it did get me blogging, so that's ... uh ... neat ... ?
Anywho, what I think is the coolest part of Facebook, is all the development going on for Facebook apps/widgets/gadgets/geegaws/etc.
Splashcast has just released an NPR Podcast player for your Facebook page. If I used Facebook, I would use this app.
I do quite a bit of business teaching people how to record themselves. Working in voiceover, this is becoming more and more necessary. Not that VO artists need to be full on recording engineers, but having a basic understanding of how to make their voices sound presentable is becoming more important. At work we recently worked on a promo job where the budget was so low, that to pay for union talent they had to be able to record themselves, and send the audio back as quickly as possible. They didn't care about whisper rooms or ISDN, just a decent clean recording and a good performance. The job would've covered 30+ national promos.
Not a bad incentive to invest in some recording equipment!
My favorite setup to recommend is an external soundcard and condenser microphone. For newbies I tend to start low, say a USB MobilePre and MXL 770 (I can't say I'm a big fan of USB mics, as they don't give you anywhere to go, say you want to upgrade the mic or soundcard, you're starting from scratch all over again, not to mention adding a mixer, preamps, or monitors). Good flexibility, good sound, and all starting at under $300 (including stands and cables).
So, why not use a more expensive mic?
I get this question quite a bit. Every VO actor seems to have dreams of recording at home on a U87 or some vintage ribbon mic, and expensive mics are great, but an expensive mic wont make something sound "good-er". You get an expensive mic because it has a particular character that you are wanting to use. Personally I prefer the sound of an AKG 414 to the U87 FOR MOST PEOPLE. This is of course totally subjective as no one's really going to sound "bad" on either of these, but the Neumann will run you two to three times as much. Will you sound two to three times better?
It's all about bang for buck. For a newbie at recording, who wont understand about monitors, mixing, preamps (where mics really start to shine), and sound proofing/isolation it makes little sense to spend more than a couple hundred bucks to start experimenting. This kit can get really expensive really fast.
So all that being said, I've setup a little experiment. I've taken 3 of my favorite mics (and one beater) set them up under the same conditions, and two at a time, recorded the same piece of text (the first paragraph of 'Under Milk Wood' by Dylan Thomas, one of my favorite plays). All mics were connected directly to my Firewire 4-10, with gain set at half for each. Mic diaphragms were set approximately 10 inches from my face. After recording I punched each track through Sound Forge 9 and boosted the volume about 300% (exactly the same for each), then mixed each down to an mp3 @ 320kbps.
The mics we'll be hearing are:
*The M-Audio Aries @ $120 - Hand held condenser mic I got for free with my soundcard.
*The M-Audio Solaris @ $300 - This was the first multi-pattern condenser I've ever purchased, and it's served me very well for years.
*The Neumann KM184 @ $700 - I inherited this mic, before I was serious about recording, from an internet news "broadcast" station I worked at briefly in college. None of us knew about phantom power, so this mic "never worked". Years later I figured it out, and this has been a great utility and over head mic.
* The Sennheiser MKH 416 @ $1400 - This is THE L.A. mic. Originally used for outdoor broadcast, it also found a home in studios thanks in part to it's laser like focus.
With introductions out of the way, let's take a listen! While listening try to keep your headphones or speakers set to the same level. Each clip is about 40 seconds long.
M-Audio Aries:
M-Audio Solaris:
Neumann KM184:
Sennheiser MKH 416:
Wow! The Aries sounds not great at all! To be fair it is meant to replace dynamic mics like the sm57 (which I originally planned on using but sounded even worse), and even though it's phantom powered, the Aries really is meant to be passed through a preamp just like the Dynamic mics it competes against.
The Senny 416 sounds great. This thing is meant to be attached to video equipment or thrown on a boom, run off batteries, and get ONE person's voice even in noisy environments. Little wonder it handily beats the living crap out of the budget "studio" mics, and at twice the price of the Neumann, it had better.
But here's where a little know-how comes in. What if we normalized the volume of the Neumann and the Solaris to match the volume of the 416? Would the Senny still sound that much better? Let's see! Solaris NORMALIZED:
Neumann NORMALIZED:
OK! That's much better. The Solaris comes in a little brighter. The Neumann made my voice a little muddy, but now we're much closer in terms of "quality".
Now can we really say the Senny is twice as good as the Neumann? FOUR times better than the Solaris? Or if you're just starting out do you just boost the volume after the fact with a budget mic?
Thin voice? Movie trailer voice? No one mic is going to be the best. Matching a mic to a voice is as personal as the right pair of shoes/jeans/etc. Dumping a ton of cash on a "good" mic is kind of useless unless you've got the time, money, know-how, and effort to put into the surrounding kit as well.
Let me know what you think! Comments always appreciated! Hopefully I'll be able to do more of these as time goes on.
Man I just can't find stable free hosting. I'm SO cheap...
So I started with Podomatic, and I'll probably keep them until I'm full there (that's the nifty player at the bottom of my page, but they wont do individual files just my ENTIRE podcast table of contents - ALL OF IT).
Then to get nifty players I started using Odeo, but they're sucking now, especially since being put up for sale ... kind of.
Now I'm trying out DivShare, and they promise to be stable. We'll see.
I've got a monster, four microphone shoot out coming up (everything is all recorded), and all I need is some place to actually PUT the mp3's.
A 20-year-old New Yorker just signed a revenue-sharing deal with YouTube. But it's a highly symbolic deal — both for 20-year-old Brandon Fletcher, and the future of YouTube. Be on the look out, we'll be seeing more of this...
What can I say? Some of my friends are really funny.
Take for instance Mr. Joe Smith. Yes, you're right, he DOES have the second most generic name ever given to a member of the male species (Can I get a "WHUT-WHUT" from all the John Smith's out there), but when it comes to funny, Joe brings TeH fUnnIe!
Take for instance Joe's podcast I.P.R. Short for Irrational Public Radio, this podcast (now on it's eighth episode) is a spot on parody of some of my favorite public programming. Perfectly aping the tone and demeanor of All Things Considered, it's the perfect platform for some wacky hilarity.
What a silly reactionary response to the popularity of podcasting...
I'll just let the "Radio Daddy" explain in his own words:
"For years the licensed broadcasters on RadioDaddy have complained about the kids and unprofessional people that run podcasts and internet stations. While there are many exceptions to this, for the most part they were right. So before a flame war begins, let me just say that I have a lot of internet stations on some podcasters whom are friends and they produce highly professional products and services. Unfortunatly with the ease of producing low quality podcasts and internet stations, children and the feable minded have become the majority operators of these. Thus, we have created VoiceDaddy.com as a haven for traditional broadcasters to come and hang out and share their work together."
I've left the misspellings in, "feable minded" indeed. See folks it's this kind of "you can't play on our playground" kind of mentality that really sparks content consumers up. Traditional media has been in such decline, why not alienate even MORE of the audience. Do they think they're eliminating competition maybe?
Also, such arrogance over a medium they didn't create.
You can read the rest here. someaudioguy some audio guy voice over business podcasting production audiobook announcer narration radio voice acting auditions
Man I LOVE Lifehacker. One of the best blogs on teh intarwebs.
I'm just going to link to their post here about find foreign language podcasts (through Open Culture). I've already put 2 gig worth of Spanish, German, and Italian on my Nano.
Though I have to admit that I'm more of a Joel fan...
I'm not sure how these guys get these interviews, but the cats at Geekza have scored some Awesome (!) interviews, most recently George Takei, and now Mike Nelson of MST3K.
The show goes live 7pm EST, so go check it out. Apparently there's a contest or some such nonsense as well... someaudioguy some audio guy voice over acting demo auditions parody comedy radio audiobooks
Are you signed up with Voices123? Then why aren't you taking advantage of their FREE career webinars? Your grandmother would be so upset with you if she knew. It's a good thing I just don't have the heart to tell her. I mean think of what it would do to her!
AND, why don't you call her more often? someaudioguy some audio guy voice over voice acting career business
They are in England! BBC News has a great article on actors getting:
"minimum session fees, rehearsals, overtime payments, holiday pay, assignment of rights and a royalty share on net revenues generated via podcast downloads, audio streaming via the internet and subsequent CD release."
