North Carolina Voice Actors Event, Screaming Bee’s MorphVOX Voice Changer Pro Upgrade, New Feedback System at Voices.com, Betty in Boca Finds a New Use for the Movers & Shakers list, Colin Campbell and Analog VS Digital, and Dr. Seuss in the VOX Box.
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North Carolina, Voice Actors, Bob Souer, Donovan Corneetz, Screaming Bee, Mark Ramirez, MorphVOX Voice Changer Pro, Voices.com, Betty in Boca, Movers & Shakers, Colin Campbell, Dr. Seuss.
Transcript of Vox Talk #29
Matt Williams: Episode 29
You’re listening to VOX Talk, the voiceover industries number one podcast brought to you by Voices.com. It’s about voice acting, growing your business and sharing your knowledge. VOX Talk is a show that you can be a part of, getting involved is both fund and rewarding. It’s time for this week’s episode of VOX Talk. With you host Stephanie Ciccarelli.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Hi there, my name is Stephanie. Welcome to VOX Talk! I’m pleased to announce that Betty in Boca and Colin Campbell are in the house. Let’s get this show on the road!
Matt Williams: The Loop, informing you of news and current voiceover events.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: In voice over news, voice actors in North Carolina are invited to attend a first-ever get together of voice actors in the Tar Heel State on Saturday June 23rd, 2007 in Winston-Salem. The plan is to gather around 11:00 AM at the Village Tavern Restaurant for lunch and then make your way over to the AMF Bowling alley. You can RSVP to Donovan Corneetz.
For more details and Donovan’s email address, check out Bob Souer’s blog at bobsouer.com/blog.
In our second story, Screaming Bee’s MorphVox Voice Changing Software has recently been improved to enhance audio quality. The new algorithm can shift a voice’s pitch more than two octaves with excellent quality, while using minimal computer resources. As a result, the audio output of MorphVOX Pro is touted as crystal clear and vibrant. I heard this straight from Screaming Bee CEO Mark Ramirez himself, so go check it out.
Read the press release by clicking through the VOX Talk show notes or by visiting ScreamingBee.com.

In closing, we’ve heard you loud and clear! Voices.com will be revamping our Feedback system to move toward a transactional rating and reviews system, dropping the Top Rated column on the Movers & Shakers list! For more details, visit VOX Daily. For a direct link, go to the VOX Talk show notes.
Matt Williams: The Biz, helping you grow your voiceover business.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Today in The Biz, Betty in Boca finds a unique way to warm up your voice using the Voices.com website?
Betty Coppleman: This is Betty in Boca. Has this even happen to you? You get up in the morning or whenever and you think, “I can’t wait to do my vocal exercises”, me neither. They’re boring. Does anyone actually do that stuff or is it something to fill space in a book or coaching session? Well, I have a secret for you, Voices.com being humble and modest about the services provided, doesn’t have this list of new top rated and favorites for any other reason than to give us some more interesting and down write fun way to warm up our voices. If you’re not high on that list or never on it at all, don’t worry. It really doesn’t matter. It is just one more way for Voices.com to be creative and edgy, I mean have you actually read through some of those names? Here are a few done with my best attempted pronunciation, Lakshmi Manchu, Lakshmi. Lakshmi, Lakshmi, (Brett Brezzi), Juliet Siegfried, Ed Gentzler, Gentzler, Gentzler, Connie Terwilliger, Terwilliger, Terwilliger “Yikes! That one even warms up my nose” Martin Papinchak, Drew Hedwal, Kelly Klemolin, Klemolin, Klemolin and Ricardo Rivadeneira. Oh, I feel so warmed up.
My own name Betty Coppleman is hard to say fast even for me and I’ve been saying it for a really long time. If I say it too fast it comes out Coppleman, Coppleman, Coppleman, Coppleman. Anyway, I’d love to know how this lists work for you. Write me at [email protected], Oh I missed a really good one, Ciccarelli, Ciccarelli, Ciccarelli. Sorry, Stephanie. I couldn’t resist. I got to go.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Interesting idea Betty and quite humorously done, I must say. If you liked Betty’sss segment, write to her at [email protected]
Matt Williams: Tech Talk, walking you through the technological landscape.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: This week in Tech Talk, Colin Campbell pits analog audio against digital audio. Who’s going to win this cage match? Find out!
Colin Campbell: Well, it’s been a while. It’s Colin Campbell from Affordableannouncer.com with video tips number 10. This is analog versus digital audio, what is the difference? Analog audio, the term analog is the root word of analogy and there’s a reason for that. Analog audio whether it be say, a final record or magnetic audio tape of the old days, creates and analog, an analogy of the original signal. As your voice fluctuates the magnetic diaphragm in the microphone that influences those magnetic pulses on audio tape or the grouse, the waves in the grouse of a final record that match or analogy of that original signal. Work great for many, many decades. Problem is it’s very, very easy for that kind of a system to pick up any noise whether it would dirt in the grove of the final record or the inherent hiss that is available from magnetic audio tape as part of the system, it all becomes part of the final output and you hear that noise. So they came up with the digital over the years.
Digital audio attempts to take the sound that’s coming into the recording system or mechanism and describe it with numbers. Now, imagine that, it’s really very interesting, take the sound of the human voice or music and describe it with numbers. That’s exactly what’s happening of course it has to be a lot of numbers. Typically you’ll record at 44,100 samples per second that means every 44,100th time per second a snapshot of what the system is hearing is taken. In that little slaver, that little spectrum a 44,1000th – hard to say 1000th of a second it then only has 16 different values it can apply in a typical 44,116 bit system.
The magic of that it’s much like the way Motion Picture Work, a Motion Picture might have 30 frames per second or 30 individual photographs per second but when strong together they form a movie and because you’re eyes fooled you, you can’t really perceive that those are 30 individual frame or photographs, it just looks like motion same thing with digital audio. I have 44,100 samples per each second, so I can’t tell that each one of those is an individual blipped. If you want to see how this works, take your audio recording software, say you use all the Adobe Audition, zoom in to the sample level. You can do that, you can zoom all the way down or you can see one sample, one 44,100th of a second and where that sample lays in the amplitude of that signal. It’s really very fascinating.
Now, when you get down to that sample level you have 16 what they called bits to describe that one sample. Basically meaning you have 16 difference values that can be applied to that sample, it is one, two, three, four up to 16. Now, while that certainly seems like it’s plenty of samples and plenty of ways to describe one 44,1000 100th of a second, it’s still has a resolution to it, a finite description of that particular point in time in the audio and a lot of people will tell you that go back, like I do. Back to the old analog days, that well yes digital is quieter. It’s still has harshness about it and the reason it has a harshness is because it is being define with a resolution, a certainly finite description of the audio and not fluid like analog audio.
It really is very a kin to the difference between film and digital photography, I don’t know if you’ve ever notice. If you really study a very well taken film photograph versus a well taken digital photograph. Yes, the digital photograph looks great but it has sort of two dimensional flat look about it, it you really study it and you compare it with a film photograph that’s because when you take a picture with film you have an infinite amount of color and light. It can be anywhere in the spectrum of complete black to complete white in the terms of how bright or dark it is and in term of color again an infinite, literally infinite amount of color can be recorded on that film.
In digital, well it might be 16 million colors but it’s still 16 million not infinite, there is a difference and if you really study a digital photograph and a film photograph, you will see that a digital photograph still has a flat look about it because there is an inherit resolution to it. It is not infinite, it is finite.
Wow, well I think that’s enough for now, I’ll think of more stuff to say next time. Session three video tips Colin Campbell from Affordableannouncer.com. Thanks for listening.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: What do you think? Do you prefer analog or digital audio? Let Colin know by visiting him at affordableannouncer.com.
Matt Williams: VOX Box, cheering your audio feedback.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Today in the VOX Box, I’d like to draw your attention to a special
someone, who has given you incredible tools to improve, exercise and challenge your vocal and voice acting skills. His name? Dr. Seuss of course, try reading one of Dr. Seuss’ books and you’ll see what I mean. On Wednesday, I wrote an article on the subject, complete with benefits and suggested books to check out at your local library.
So far, we have comments on the blog from Jerome Santucci and Ed Gentzler – wow, Ed’s been mentioned twice now in this episode – good on you, Ed. Again go to blogs.voices.com/voxdaily to get your dose of Dr. Seuss.
Thank you for listening! We love hearing from you and thank you for staying subscribed. If you haven’t yet subscribed to VOX Talk, you can do so through the iTunes Podcast Directory or subscribe to the RSS feed by e-mail on the VOX Talk blog at blogs.voices.com/voxtalk. I’m your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli. Take care and see you next Thursday!
Links from today’s show:
North Carolina VO Get Together
Screaming Bee’s New Release
New Feedback System to Go Live
Bob Souer’s Blog
Betty in Boca
Colin Campbell
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