S1 E4 All Things Audio
Episode Audio
Josh Risser is a Voice Over Artist who’s sharing all things audio.
Connect with Josh on LinkedIn.
Transcript:
The following transcript was auto-generated and may contain typos or spelling errors.
Amy Petricek
Welcome to the share what you learned podcast. I'm Amy Petricek, learning enthusiast and your host to share what you learned podcast is designed for learning professionals to share something they're learning in the field of instructional design. Today, I'm talking to Josh Risser about audio and voiceover work. Josh, hello.
Josh Risser
Thanks for having me, Amy.
Amy Petricek
I am so excited to have you on the show. You're someone I've got to have a couple of conversations with offline, and just ready to share our conversations with the masses. Because I get to learn so much from you every time.
Josh Risser
I have to say, first of all, congratulations on launching the podcast because there's so many times where people reach out for podcast stuff or voiceover stuff or whatever, they ask questions. And then they just disappear after they talked to me. And they just didn't maybe I filled them with too much info. I think we had that first the first conversation. I was like, I talked too much. I'm sorry. And I might give you too much info but don't get scared.
Amy Petricek
Well, this is one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show, maybe thinking of it like experts of the show. So I as a podcaster have been learning a lot about audio, have even called Josh here to get some tips and tricks going into podcasting. And Josh, I'd love for you to share a little bit about what you do for a living and kind of your story a little bit because that might help them understand why I wanted to talk to you.
Josh
Yeah, so I do voiceover work for a living. And a lot of people know what voiceover is. But some people are like voiceover. And it's basically anytime you hear a voice out there, be it on a radio ad or a TV ad or a YouTube video, or elearning, which is where your audience is going to be most familiar with elearning narrators that is a voice over talent. And that's what I do. And I just got into it. Because I've always been obsessed with recording stuff. In Video or Audio. I used to shoot commercials with a camcorder in the 90s with my sister and cousins. It's just it was just silly. And eventually I had a band and I was recording the band. And then I had a job where I was a trainer. And I was like we need narration on this elearning I have equipment. Let's try it. And it worked out. And people liked it. And I thought it was fun. And then I found out people do that for a living. Better. Yeah. So it took me like another six or eight years to get on the path. But that's basically the Genesis the origin story.
Amy
Just been a big fan of microphones and headphones.
Josh
Yeah. And music and like I've played guitar for like 26 or 27 years. And, and yeah, I just, I just like sound, which is really weird. But I do I just really like audio.
Amy
Well, we need people like you. That's why I did my little phone a friend I needed an audio expert to chat with. The other thing I'm going to give a shout out for you about is Josh has a podcast called the DIY narrator, which is specifically focused towards people doing audio for eLearning and the learning and development field. And so if you are new to the audio space or audio in elearning, that is an excellent resource that I'm happy to recommend. Awesome.
Josh
Yes, thank you for that shout out. It's a it's been a fun project, because I found no one was talking to instructional designers about how to do it themselves. Because it can't always hire a voice talent. Because sometimes there's no budget, there's no time. So there's no voice down and it falls on your shoulders.
Amy
One of the things I've learned from you are a couple of things I've learned from you is that there's some really simple things you can do to enhance your audio that don't take classes and and tons of tons of time and energy, I guess is what I'm getting at. But there are small things you can do that make a big difference in the audio.
Josh
Yeah, absolutely. Um, two of the big things where I always have people start is everyone jumps right to the mics. And you can get a really nice microphone and put it in a bad room. And it will sound bad. Like it just doesn't matter how great the mic is if the room is terrible. So taking some time to figure out where can I record that has minimal background audio, minimal noise, and also no echo in a room if you stand in a room and you clap, or if you can kind of hear your voice reverberating off the walls. That's a bad place to record. And so, like going to a place like a closet, or piling up some pillows in a box. Like I've literally recorded voice over work in Treasure Island in a hotel room, in like on top of the room safe in the closet with pillows packed around my microphone, and there's an episode of DIY narrated that where I've recorded the difference between recording in the middle of the room and then in that closet with the same mic and it's not awesome. But it's serviceable, you know, and you can edit out some of the background noise and stuff too. So it's good. And then the other thing, once you've got your environment straightened out, is just working on your performance and not doing a bad impression of what you think in E learning narration sounds like, everyone's always so precise with what they're saying. And so measured in their delivery. And that's, that's, that's not fun to listen to. And so trying to sound like you on a mic is really important.
Amy
I've heard it said almost like, encompassing a character, like kind of taking on that mindset of your voice as a character, and how can you portray that character through your voice?
Josh
Indeed, that's actually a good way to put it. Um, something I tried to say is to put yourself in a situation where you would be saying the things to someone who is needing to hear it, right, like, Are you having like a water cooler conversation? Or are you in a training room? You know, this is elearning. But you need to pretend that there's someone on the other end. And so if you're having that water, cooler conversation, maybe someone just pops up and says, Hey, you know, you, you're the trainer, because this happens. I used to be a trainer, you'd be at the watercooler getting something to drink, and someone's like, you're a trainer. You even know the answer to this. And then they ask you some off the wall question and you have an answer, because you are the trainer. And you do know the answer to that, because that's how it works. So putting yourself into that character, you know, the person at the watercooler who got the answer and be like, Oh, yeah, I got an answer for you. And then that's how you deliver the script. Or you're in the room with a group of trainees, being able to deliver your script in that result, or in that situation, through that character is a little bit different. So you know, you've got six or 10 or 20 people that are learning from you in that case.
Amy
That's a great idea. So for someone who's newer to audio, potentially, what are some things to listen for, to think about, in terms of differentiating what makes good audio good, and what makes bad audio bad? Like, what are some of those distinguishable things to be kind of thinking about?
Josh
Yeah, so the number one difference when it comes to good audio and bad audio is how much of the room you can hear. Like, right now I'm recording this voiceover booth. And I've got like four inch thick insulation on the walls that knocks down the echo. So if I clap, I could clap. It'd be really loud. I don't know if I want to, but you won't hear any like clap back or any reverberation. But if I went outside of my booth, I've got an untreated space out there where I do some editing, and you'll hear the echo. So if you're listening, and you can hear the echo of the room. And you can hear this in podcast sometimes too. If you can hear the echo of the room, that's the difference between, like how much of the echo you can hear is the difference between professional sounding audio, and audio that sounds like it was recorded in someone's bathroom. You know, if you go, that's why you sound so great singing in the shower, because your voice is just big and echoing off the walls. And you don't, you don't actually want that in a high quality professional recording. So that's the first thing to listen to. or listen for. The second thing would be background noise. If you can hear the air conditioner running, if you can hear like the garage door opening and closing, which was the thing I was afraid of when we were recording this because my wife was supposed to come home right about the same time we were supposed to start. If you can hear a dog barking conversations in the background because you're at work, maybe you've gotten back to work again, all of those things, if you can minimize that, that also is something that's just distracting to the listener.
Amy
I think it's it almost sounds like you're saying like, put on that user experience hat before you even hit the record button and kind of take inventory of the audio, whether it's loud or quiet and then trying to dress them before you ever hit record.
Josh
Absolutely. Yeah, every there's there's so much more to recording that goes into not that isn't even recording, you know, like, like you were saying, taking the time to go Okay, what will someone hear if they've put putting your buds in? You know, and what will they hear when I'm recording? Oh, the neighbors got the leaf blower going they're gonna hear the leaf blower that's gonna be weird. And there's some of that steady state that you can remove in post production with like noise reduction and stuff. audacity which is a free program comes with a great noise reduction tool, but you can't remove like dog barks if it's just a constant yappy dog or something like that or, or an underlying conversation in the next cubicle. So think about that before you hit record.
Amy
I love that. I think, you know before I set up to record here I realized like I had a window open and I also had like a fan. Going and Didn't seem like big sounds or distracting to me just living in being in my personal space. But that's part of the work of like creating good audio is like, maybe this might impact someone else.
Josh
Exactly. Because that's the thing you're used to your environment. So a car driving by or your neighbor walking their car and their car honking because your windows opening, or your windows open is just normal to you. You don't even hear it. But you won't hear it. But your listener will, your learner will, because it's not expected. And it's going to be jarring. And it's going to pull them out of the experience that can become very distracting very quickly. And we've all been like, we've all heard that podcast or whatever, where it's like the dog barking in the background, or someone's cell phone goes off. And it's that split audio bite that just pulls your attention elsewhere and keeps you away from the conversation or the audio that you're wanting the listener to hear. And I very seldom stop the podcast because the content wasn't exactly interesting. But there's many times where I've stopped a podcast episode because the audio was just bad. And you just can't focus on it at so insightful. So I'm thinking specifically in terms of instructional designers, and audio, and what are some of the maybe staple concepts or principles you'd recommend instructional designers be thinking about as they're designing courses? Yeah. So going back to what we were just talking about, like fixing your environment or thinking your environment has to be the number one thing when it comes to producing quality audio, we didn't actually discuss how to or what else you can do. I mean, everyone's got closets, you can put a microphone in a closet, with your laptop right outside or something, you can actually record right on your cell phone like this iPhones and, and higher end Android phones, have good quality mics, there's recorders right on them, you can record your stuff right in there, and then move the mp3 to your computer and edit and put them just hold it in the closet, stick your head in there, it's gonna be weird, but it's only for a minute. And it's okay to get weird, no one can see you. So that's number one, like just find somewhere where it's quiet, and you've got some blankets around you or hang up some moving blankets or whatever, fix your environment. And second, work on your performance. Like I mentioned, don't do your bad impression of an elearning voiceover. Do your impression of you. I always think of how would you talk to me, if you were just going to explain something? If I was to say, oh, how do I get to the gas station from your house, you'd say oh, you just back out of the driveway, you know, head west, take a left, go go through the roundabout, and then it'll be on your left side. That's the way you would give me directions to go to the gas station from your house that you always visit or Target or wherever you always drive to. That's how you should that's that's your baseline for narrating elearning. Because once you can do that, and you can incorporate just that sound into your baseline as E learning narrator, then you can change it up and be like, Oh, this is how I sound when I'm giving directions. And it's really serious. And it's important that they follow it, maybe it's a security guideline or fiduciary responsibility or so I don't know something weird. And this is how I do it, if it's something new, and I'm really excited about it. And this is how I do it. If it's important to our customers, and you need a little more empathy in it, you know, you have to start kind of thinking, Okay, where's my baseline? And then how do I bolt on emotion to that baseline, has just given me directions to the gas station has zero motion. But if you're giving me directions to the gas station, and it's also very important that I don't go this way right now, because you're gonna get stuck in traffic, and it's gonna take you an hour to get there. All of a sudden, there's a little bit of emotion. Yeah, being able to bolt that onto your baseline is really important.
Amy
I found for myself in that regard, as a as a newbie, like really trying to flex this muscle of audio is that practices really helpful. And sometimes even recording myself practicing. And so then I can listen to it back, even if it's just a couple lines of the narration. So I can get a feel for what, you know, sometimes our perception of our audio is different than what the audio actually is. And so kind of practicing it out and getting a sense of what are my conditions or environment today. And how is that impacting recording today has been really helpful to me. So I the very first, it's most painful for me to podcast when I'm just talking to myself, I much rather prefer interviewing in this format, which you do the self narration for the entirety, so hard, it like just being the solo person is tough, just because it's hard to come up with concepts and keep things rolling, but then you also are you just don't have anyone to play off of, you know, so it makes it a lot harder. The one time I tried that was the very first like, introductory trailer ish episode for this podcast. And it's only three minutes long, because it was so painful to talk to myself. But I recorded that multiple times because I was trying to get a feel of is, is my personality coming through? Or does this feel robotic?
Josh
Yeah, you totally will never get out of your recording what you think you put into it, which is something I've learned many times, you, no matter how energetic you think you we're, and you're just over the top and you're so excited, you're going to hit play, and you're going to play back and be like, Oh, I don't, I don't sound nearly as excited as I thought I did. So you just don't get that back. So yeah, being able to record, listen back, and critically and also compassionately, because everyone starts from terrible, right? Like, it just takes some time. And in, the more you record, the more comfortable you get. I remember the first time I booked a 32nd spot. And it was a local ad, which kind of made it harder because I knew my family was going to hear it on the radio, it took me three hours to record a 32nd spot. And I don't know how many takes I probably did and walked away frustrated, and the imposter syndrome sneaks in. And it's it's all just right there because the microphone doesn't lie about what you actually put into it. It's, it's stressful. It's really, even to this day, I book a spot and I get, I get excited and giddy and I have to just walk away from my computer. It happens daily. But I still get excited. And I have to walk away because the imposter syndrome will get me and I record dozens of hours a week. Like, it's just not knowing when to stop is important. Like you definitely there are things you can do and you can edit it. But also, at the end of the day, you are way more in the weeds with this audio than probably anyone else who's listening to oh, totally, that's, that's the other thing you're going to hear. Especially in elearning, you're going to hear everything that you did wrong. In your mind. Anyway, he probably didn't actually do that much wrong. But you're gonna hear all the bad stuff, quote unquote, bad stuff, more than a elearning person or more than the learner is. And they're actually going to be pretty compassionate and pretty forgiving in a lot of situations. So do your best. And just try to do a little better next time. Right, like, incrementally get better.
Amy
I love that. That's my belief of the learning process. So I'm excited to hear you sharing that even in the audio world. So if someone wants to dig in further to audio beyond just step one or step two, like I don't I bought a mic. I downloaded Audacity. Where would you direct them?
Josh
Oh, man. Well, DIY narrator i think is becoming a better and better resource constantly. I've got 30 some episodes just mostly focused on performance, because I feel like that's the one thing no one's talking about. I agree. That's a great resource. Well, thank you. That's, that's a good place to start. There are actually a ton of great voiceover resources out there to just because you can learn so much from someone who's trying to go so much further than, than you are right I could. I don't when I when I was learning how to take play guitar. I was learning the lines and the riffs from the greats, right? I'm listening to like Eddie Van Halen, and Steve Vai and Dave Mustaine and the guys at Metallica. That's what I'm trying to learn how to play, even though I'm not at that level. So being able to kind of compare it and work your way up to that is really important. So like listening to audio books, is a great place to start because audio books, I would say are pretty close to where e learning is. If you're listening to nonfiction, especially trying to figure out Oh, how did they make that say that in the say that thing in a way that sounds like they're just talking to me, that's that's a good place to go. To think podcasts are always great. But number one is just keep recording. The more you do, the more comfortable you get. And you'll get better just trying to get better. Really, practice is the name of the game like that's the learning processes. Just keep putting yourself out there and try again and learn from what you did. And then try it differently next time and learn from what you did and try it again. You don't have to release it. Just record it. record a podcast that's a solo podcast, record yourself reading a book record that e learning module you did six months ago, re record it. Just you don't have to release it just record and compare and see if you're moving forward and and be critical, critical and compassionate, right? be critical of what you're doing and compassionate knowing that You're not as great as you're going to be.
Amy
We all need some more Josh Risser in our lives. That's just like, yeah, I can do anything. You can. Yeah, it's really empowering though. And I appreciate that voice in this space. We'd love to continue on towards our rapid round questions. Josh, these are the questions I get to ask everyone who comes on my show, I'm going to start with the first ones to fill in the blank learning is
Josh
voluntary, not mandatory. I am stealing that in the best way from Seth Godin who is like guru. And I think I failed to realize that when I was a trainer, is that people? We were always going, why aren't these people doing things the way we told them to do? And the real question was, Why don't they want to do things the way we're asking them? Right? Like, it's because they're not they're not voluntarily they're not committed. So we're not voluntarily learning. We're trying to educate them. mandatory. Not they're not learning, which is voluntary.
Amy
I love that answer. I haven't heard that yet. And 100% agree.
Josh
Yeah. And I totally can't take credit. I'm such a huge Seth Godin fan. And of all of his work, and that's, that's a big part. That's something I don't know if he's expanded on that much, but it's something I heard him say, and it just stuck with me.
Amy
And nugget worth repeating. When you're mustering up the courage to learn something new. What song do you put on Josh? I'm very excited to hear your answer.
Josh
I like I said, I'm a musician. And like, I listened to everything. If I really need to focus I like I actually like Tyco. I don't know if you've ever heard Tyco he's electronic music. I'm not really into electronic music. But what I really need to focus Tyco is where I go, if I don't need to focus, and I just need to work. Slightly stupid, is the band that I really like to listen to. And they just got some, they got some deep grooves are kind of in the realm of like sublime, like the reggae, ska kind of world. Man, those guys, they've got some amazing grooves.
Amy
I'm excited to check both of these out, you are educating me, and I am so excited.
Josh
I mean, I could go on for days about what I listen to. But those are probably my top two, when it comes to like focus and getting work done.
Amy
you're asked to do a brand new task with a skill set you do not yet have where do you turn YouTube?
Josh
Like who doesn't go to YouTube? It's just that is the place to go?
Amy
Do you have like, like, are you at the point where you have particular channels that you go to? Like, once you hit YouTube, it's like, well, then I go to this channel. And maybe I mean, that's probably more.
Josh
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's very context oriented. Like when I was working on my house, this is this, do you remember what his what his channel is, but there's this Canadian dude who has like a contractor company, and he has a video for everything. And they're fantastic. And they're long and thorough, but they are, they're nice and deep. And if I need guitar stuff, there's like two or three channels I go to. So yeah, it's contextual, but I do have definitely have some of my favorites.
Amy
Alright, last one, without learning, fill in the rest.
Josh
Here miserable. Really, I mean, most of the people I know who are unhappy, mostly professional, are professionally, are stagnated. They just they just stopped learning whether they fell into a job and they aren't committed to getting better at it, or they don't actually like it. They're just not, they're not learning in it. And also, I found that those people don't have hobbies. And you got to have some hobbies you got to learn, personally and professionally.
Amy
I like to think of it too is like, things that are easy for your brain to learn and things that are harder for your brain to learn. Because if you're just learning hard things, it's it's really easy to get discouraged and not want to continue on. But there's some really simple tasks out there. Like tonight, I'm learning how to make a new kind of elite to go with our dinner, you know, and that's something that's an easy target. I will probably learn it tonight and nail it and beyond and
Josh
moving forward. And you'll probably be able to improvise on that. Right away, you'll be able to go Oh, you know what, I think a little more lemon juice would have been good in this or something like that. You know, I think that same way, going back to music because it's probably one of my favorite skills that I've ever picked up. I'm learning piano now. I've been for like three or four months. And thankfully 25 plus years of guitar transferred fairly well to like finger independence and stuff, but I find like, okay, I want to learn this Warren Zevon song. So I'm learning werewolves of London. And I want to Miss Jackson Browne song. So I'm learning the pretenders or the pretender and then I'm following the dumb book because I've got to learn how to sight read too. And that's the hard and that's the exciting part and then maybe the easy answers to some of like learning twinkle twinkle is not hard. But it's important, you know, to have some success and also have to fight it.
Amy
If people are enjoying this conversation as much as I have been Josh, what's the best way for them to get in contact with you? And also, do you have anything you're working on that you'd love to do shameless plug for?
Josh
Obviously, DIY narrator is a kind of a shameless plug, just because it's a nice, nice project. It's a little creative for me because I try to I have to kind of flex my brain to figure out how do I teach people the stuff that I just do naturally nowadays? So yeah, you can hit me up a DIY narrator.com. LinkedIn, you can find me Josh Risser, ri s s, er, I guess I don't really have anything else to really plug apart from that. If you do need voiceover work. This is totally a shameless plug Josh. Calm is where you can find me and shoot me an email happy to quote and talking and send auditions. I, my job is to audition. So if you just want to hear what I might sound like on your project, send me a sample script. And I'll send you a sample voice back.
Amy
That's fantastic. I would highly recommend if you haven't been listening to his voice, this whole show and been thinking Wow, that is such a like magical voice I'm hearing. That's that's maybe a sample and if you're wanting more, and then he'll get he'll give you another one.
Josh
Yeah, and I hope I hope I'm not putting anyone to sleep. Sometimes I feel like I'm too soft. Oh, I was not experiencing that at all. I mean, you're still open. I can see no one else. Yeah, that's good. Well,
Amy
I am so grateful to have you come on the show today Josh and helping us learn all things audio, be sure to check out his website, Josh rester.com or the DIY narrator.com. I also would like to give a shout out to you my listeners for learning with us today. Until next time, stay open, receptive and kindness