- Author's - Learn How To Turn Your Book Into An Audio Book Starring Your Voice

If you are an author and have always wanted to turn your work into an audio book and don't want someone else to narrate it, come to my masteringvoiceover.com studio. I'll teach you the vocal skills you need and then help you record your audio book. Then you can keep your percentage of sales not just as the author but also the narration percentage fees. On audible.com, this means that you will keep 40% of total sales instead of just 20% of sales. Come to one of the Saturday free Workshop/Seminars or one free voiceover class on Wednesday nights to find out how you can develop your voiceover skills and turn your book into an audio book starring you.

Rehearse Before Recording To Reduce # of Takes and Editing Time

People ask me all the time how I can produce so much finished audio in one day. It varies of course depending on how the copy is written. The real secret is to rehearse a lot before you step into the booth. I had done over 50 plays by the time I was in my mid thirties so I had a habit of rehearsal. I treat my recording sessions as if they are readers theater where everything is "live." Everyone is different of course. There is no right way or wrong way. It just depends on how you prefer to work
I like having my approach all worked out so the number of retakes are reduced and consequently the editing time is a lot less.

These are Great - The 50 Most Essential Pro Tools Key Commands

Shortcut Bible: The 50 Most Essential Pro Tools Key Commands http://www.sonicscoop.com/2016/05/26/big-list-pro-tools-key-commands-shortcut-bible/ … via @SonicScoop

- How To Start Your Voiceover Career

There are so many ways to give advice about how to start. There are many ways to look at how one begins. A lot of it depends on your personality and how one deals with the unknown. Having said that, here are some thoughts to encourage and support you in this wonderful world of voiceovers. Do not over estimate everyone else's intelligence. I tweeted last week that an old time voiceover guy told me when I was 22 years old and nervous about trying to get into voiceovers, " People dumber than you are making a fortune, just get out there and do it."
Never worry about what everyone else is doing or what "the odds are" it's completely besides the point. The question is do you love it enough to develop a great set of reading skills and start doing it. Training is the first and most important place to start. No one on a job is there to run a trade school. You have to know what you're doing. It's been my experience that a lot of people seem more interested in how to network than they are in developing the skills necessary to be hired and then re hired because they've done a good job. Learn the trade and whats required. Develop your skills so you know what you're doing. Be good company on the job and always, always be on time/ deliver on time and a voiceover career will treat you very well.

- ProTools 11 and How To Escape iTunes Insanity For Your Production Music

Ok, I've wrestled with all the variations of iTunes and watched it's inability to import folders. I've watched it scatter collections of production music for no reason throughout the library and had to track it down. I've seen how Add To Library is it's own form of nonsense and tried all the recommended settings so it would behave.
Then this morning I realized that all I have to do is copy my BACKGROUND MUSIC folder to my Audio Thunderbolt Hard drive and arrange everything the way I want.
When importing a music file to go with our voiceovers we just search in the BACKGROUND MUSIC folder in the audio drive and skip iTunes all together. Yes, it's very obvious and I wish I'd of thought of it sooner:)

- Reducing the Amount of Editing Time by Rehearsing Before Recording

I've had a number of inquiries from VO Artists regarding how to reduce the amount of editing time on long voiceover projects. This was interesting to me because it has a direct relationship to how much money can be made. If it takes a person 6 hours of work to deliver one hour of finished narration/voiceover, that isn't as good as spending, say 3 or four hours, to get one finished hour of narration. Now of course, everyone has their own way of working and there are a million ways to prepare and finish a project.
Here is my process that I use to minimize editing time and get the best reads from myself.
When the script comes in, lets assume its a 20 minute read ( approx 2800 to 3000 words), I lay on my office couch with a large glass of juice and cold read it out loud. I circle the spots where the cadence isn't right and/or I have handled the phrasing incorrectly. When I have finished the first read, I then go back to those trouble spots and work out the phrasing issues. Then I go for a walk on the property and read it out loud while I'm walking to make sure I have the phrasing, cadence and tone of voice the way I want it. Then and only then, I go into my booth and record. I do this with the intention of taking the time I need to try and read it perfectly the first time. I don't start recording while I'm figuring out what I want and how I want to read. In other words, I don't do my rehearsing while I'm recording. I figure out what I want first and then record. This really minimizes the amount of editing time I spend and maximizes how much I can make an hour. Have fun out there folks.

- How To Get Rid of Mouth Clicks/Noise Before or After

This happens to all of us at some point. There are mouth clicks that we notice when we play back our recordings. Sometimes they're are none and sometimes we wonder what the heck is wrong with our mouth. Lets start with minimizing them to start with. Generally the clicks start appearing if our mouth is too dry. When you are speaking, you are loosing over a liter of water an hour because the humidity in the lungs is close to 100%. Keep taking sips of water while you're reading. By the time you feel dry it's too late for that moment because it takes time to re hydrate. The next issue is how to minimize the noise on the spot. Every body chemistry is different so you have to experiment with what works for you. Having said that. Apple juice is an amazing moisturizer for the mouth. Mixing some honey with water works for many. Some people I know swear that some molasses in water is a great cure.
If none of this helps then the post production fix that I love is made by iZotope. It is their RX4. It has a DeClick filter that is just magic. Scroll down to Declick and you'll see how specific it is.
iZotope RX 4: Features | Audio Enhancement & Repair Tool

You can by either the $349. version or the advanced $1199. version.

iZotope RX 4: Complete Audio Enhancement & Repair Toolkit

Om shorter pieces you can of course just do surgery and cut the clicks out, like we've all done but iZotope is magic.

- The Amazing Zoom H6 Portable Recorder

This recorder is not only great for recording each student on an SD card in class, it's fabulous recorder for our video shoots as well. Capable of 6 channel recording and with various accessories from a very good shotgun mic to 2 extra XLR inputs. The new LED color meters on the front and separate gain control dials by each iput makes this one of my favorites.
Here's a review from Sound on Sound audio guy Tom Flint
Zoom H6

- PreSonus AudioBox i Series Recording Hardware/Software- Nice Solution

Here is a nice alternative to the ProTools MBox series. Check it out.
Excellent choices for mobile musicians, sound designers, and podcasters, the USB 2.0 bus-powered AudioBox iOne and iTwo provide high-quality audio I/O for Mac®, PC, and Apple iPad®. These compact, ruggedly built interfaces offer high-performance Class A mic preamplifiers, record 24-bit audio at up to 96 kHz, and include powerful, easy-to-use Studio One® Artist DAW for Mac and Windows and Capture™ Duo recording software for iPad.
PreSonus | AudioBox i Series

- Better Cables Will Actually Give You Better Audio

Sure the sound comes through no matter what you've paid for your XLR cables, but paying more will deliver much better audio. When you think of all the time we spend trying to generate good reads and well done narratives/voiceovers, it's amazing. Honor your good work by making sure you have good audio cables.