Voicebank Blog

Sound Expert Talks to Tracy Pattin (Part 1) – With written transcript

February 25th, 2010 Posted in Audio Podcast

For 16 years, Mark Holden has been immersed in the world of sound as a recording engineer for TV, radio and live radio plays for LA Theatre Works to producing for the music industry and now owns a recording studio in West Hollywood, The Invisible Studios. Mark is truly a sound expert. (So much so he can hear dogs barking in Eagle Rock when he�s at his studio in West Hollywood 10 miles away!)

Written Transcript

{Intro Music}

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Tracy: Hi Everyone I am Tracy Pattin and I am here at the Invisible Studios in West Hollywood and we are going talk everything studio, audio, sound with the wonderful Mark Holden audio engineer extraordinaire. (Laughs) I don’t know what do you call yourself?

Mark: (Laughs) Studio Owner

Tracy: Studio Owner (Laughs)

Mark: Studio Engineer

Tracy: You wouldn’t believe how gorgeous this studio is.

Mark: Thank You

Tracy: This is pretty fabulous. He does umm, I have written about the radio plays, I interviewed Michael York here recently and he does a lot of BBC projects so he I think you are the best person to ask about you know what do we as voice talent need to know. Let’s just talk generalities.

Mark: Okay. Sure.

Tracy: Like anything new we need to know.

Mark: Okay.

Tracy: In terms of let’s say in terms of equipment for our home studios.

Mark: Okay, Umm well there’s not, there’s nothing super new other than some new software from the old people pro tools eight is out now and it adds some nice functionalities some things for musicians and possibly some things for voice over talent.

Tracy: Okay and for those that you don’t know about Pro Tools that is the high end audio recording software. Because some of us work in Garage Band and the PC people as well.

Mark: It is the industry standard, it has been for years it has its own avid who have the industry standard video editing software. So its just most studios have Pro Tools.

Tracy: Is it necessary for us though for us to have Pro Tools.

Mark: Absolutely not Pro Tools is basically you know editing and recording software in the quality of the recording doesn’t have anything to do with pro tools it has to do with your microphone your room uh your analog to digital converters and your microphone pre amplifiers.

Tracy: So this uh recording audio to digital Mark what exactly is that for the people that don’t know what that means.

Mark: Right, analog to digital conversion basically your microphone is outputting a signal to a microphone amp and then in turn is outputting an analog signal which is not 1s and 0s it is an analog audio signal a line level signal. Basically the analogs digital converter, what it does is it converts your signal from your microphone or from whatever sound source into the digital domain that you are you know your computers can then deal with and read. So the way that that happens.

Tracy: Mhm

Mark: Is really important on uh in the audio quality.

Tracy: I mean and are you talking about even for auditions, for a lot of my listeners have their home studio most people have home studios but also need to record sometimes projects at home. That seems to be happening more and more.

Mark: Yeah

Tracy: So let’s talk about what we need for the home studio setup for auditions and what do we need for the home studio setup for actual recording.

Mark: Um I mean its kind of one in the same it just depends on if you are actually doing you know recordings that you are sending to clients that they are going to use. I mean I am sure that they would require a little bit more uh sound proofing a little bit deader space. Where as if you’re just doing and audition they are just basically wanting to hear your voice. Um you know you might have traffic going by and things like that and they probably won’t care too much but if you’re actually sending something to them then you need a lot more treatment.

Tracy: But what can you get away with though what can you actually get away with. Let’s say because of the internet and because of there are a lot of internet projects do you need to have the same kind of set up for those kind of projects versus a broadcast project.

Mark: No I mean if your doing internet podcasting things like that, I mean the internet is extremely forgiving for so many reasons because the quality because you are compressing the audio you know before your sending it up and people are listening on computer speakers and headphones and things like that and people on the internet are basically listening for content as opposed to quality most of the time.

Tray: Okay.Yeah. Good Point.

Mark: Yeah for that kind of stuff I mean if your doing you know voiceovers you know directly to internet, I would think that the requirements you know quite a bit less all though it is nice to have a nice quite room a nice quite dead room if you’re doing voice over type stuff.

Tracy: Yeah you want to sound as good as.

Mark: Yeah

Tracy: Um before we talk microphones.

Mark: Sure

Tracy: What about the recording the room can you do stuff (spooky voice) in the closet.

Mark: Yeah

Tracy: (Laughs)

Mark: Well here’s, well here’s the big

Tracy: Between clothes

Mark: Right, Right

Tracy: Not that I’ve ever done that (Laughs)

Mark: Right and then coming out of the closet and uh breathing

Tracy: So how uh so how so how do you uh

Mark: Basically I mean basically in order to get sound proofing a lot of people mix up sound proofing and acoustics um uh I shouldn’t say sound proofing, sound isolation and acoustics if, in order to get a quite space really the only thing you can do is density you have to have thick walls things that its just more sort of padding sheet rock and dry wall you have the more air space you have

Tracy: Or a cluttered closet like I have

Mark: Yeah. No well cluttered closets are great

Tracy: Cause I actually do admit

Mark: Right, Right

Tracy: Alright everybody I am admitting I have done auditions in the closet between my gazillion amounts of clothes that I need to give away and it sounds pretty darn good.

Mark: Right, but now uh

Tracy: (Laughs)

Mark: Now a cluttered closet is going to be great for sound absorption so its going to sound really nice and dead but your not you don’t have it still doesn’t keep the sound from coming in from trucks and things going by

Tracy: Yeah like if a helicopter comes over

Mark: Exactly a helicopter coming over a truck going by

Tracy: Paparazzi helicopter

Mark: So in the city you know a nice quite closet in a in a internal closet so uh a best thing is to find a closet in your house or apartment that doesn’t uh share a common wall with the exterior wall.

Tracy: Okay

Mark: The best uh isolation is still air, sound travels slower through than it does wood, metal, um your materials sound travels much slower through air. So if you have internal closet in your house or apartment and you can get some doors that seal you are probably going to be pretty good to do auditions and maybe even some performance stuff.

{Outro Music}

Tracy: This has been part one of my interview with sound expert Mark Holden join me next time for Part Two

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