BS With Bob Schmidt

The BS with Bob podcast featuring entrepreneurs, business people and marketers this week talking with David, David is the CEO of voices.com and is a voiceover person myself is pretty cool to be able to talk to the guy that's in charge of probably the largest place to go to get that to get voices David, welcome to the program. Thanks much Bob thought glad to be here and tell some stories. So how did you get in that the whole voiceover Dick everyone finds her own path and my nose is pretty unique. Actually I see with sound go out and share about how Bob had an old record player and dad had a shortwave radio so I always could tinkered with you technology if you could call it that went to school and got a degree in in audio engineering that I opened up a small recording studio, so this was an opportunity for a reported music bands and so forth, but actually got my name in the newspaper on my birthday and I was actually that article brought in some local businesses that were looking to how the female voiceover reported done for phone system that actually met a young woman, just the day before, who was a classically trained singer and that that ladies and now Stephanie is now my wife and cofounder voices.call that time she was a classic between singer and I asked her to do these voiceovers and so she did a phone system and some local radio commercials and that was the problem referred to it as well. Instead of us doing the production. Why don't we become this. The connector between the voice actor in the client is looking to hire them and so we got out of the production ourselves and really reinvented ourselves as as this marketplace that connects the businesses with those voice actors and that's what we been doing for much the last decade and how did you score the name voices.com we actually didn't start as voices.com we we began as as interactive voices, which wasn't exactly the greatest website name the pigeons will listen to new media or interactive media. It was around the height of what was then the Web 2.0 movement when you know everything was big bright and bubbly on the web about flashy colors and and companies like twitter and Flickr were like dropping bowels from their name and as we want to be part of this movement so we were set on changing rebranding. In effect, so I did with many entrepreneurs do you pull up a browser you Google the domain name of your choosing of your desires and we had landed on a website called as a medical Journal club silencing the critical voices in your head is a medical journal that had been updated since about 2000. And so we reached out actually through a lawyer sent an email to this owner and asked what he saw the name and if so what price and he came back he said initially said that $50,000 and then know you know through some negotiation offered six payments of $5000 can of every quarter every three months with them another $5000, and for that he went to the deal. So we were able to almost like a lift and shift their business from the old servers to the new servers and redirect all that traffic that's been actually evolved one of the biggest turning points for us. It was a name that is short. It's memorable. It's easy to spell it, since what we do in a nutshell, so it's been the it's been really great for my from that standpoint. So how does something like voices.com work for the end user so it must have a business and I want to get a voice and looking for a male voice and female voice. Can I use voices.com to have auditions with different voices or how does that. How does even work. The process is very simple. You sign up for freeing you create an account and its most points will we call client feels people are looking to hire a talent have that project in their mind and so you after signing up you can do what we call posting a job was free to post the job and that is where you outline just as you said in looking for a male voice and a female voice I you know I might be enormously particular language so into this case English will allow you to pick the accent even consider certain regions that have many thicker, stronger accents than that others you can go through and then pick each range. This style of performance. Maybe that particular role. If you want a superhero or a sports announcer or a villain that corporate executives and this helps the actor ultimately deliver auditions for the persona that you want to have you to perform the voice and then of course you attach your script what you want. Auditions is a couple even a couple sentences is fine. You pick a budget which is somewhere between you know start to the hundred to $250 and goes up depending on the duration of the recording and the complexity is of the recording itself and then your deadline when you want your auditions back is something like the dating profile or dating service for voices audios a really challenging medium because there's often not the shared language or lexicon for how we describe what we want. We know it when we hear it, but what kind of words you know are people using we seen some really funny artistic will be called artistic direction or creative direction. Your client will say all he wants me to sound taller. What is that mean then you need you know from you know you have the you know the rate dating radio and and an invoice of yourself you get this knees or these conflicting messages of you know we want you to sound your professional but also sarcastic and humorous was like okay well where's that line of my favorite all-time know is somebody want to sound more purple and I think that Mike is a more passionate is it you do fear liquid is purple sound like a Viking fan is that you so that's problem or or or Barney the dinosaur from the 1990s reference, but nonetheless that is why that job posting is such a critical part, because it provides a common understanding for what the client is looking for and then artistic direction for how the talent is supposed to interpret this and deliver initially a great audition in hopes of landing the job. But then it also serves as the basis for, you know, here's what we what we want you to sound like this is really CEO of voices.com, you know, one of the big questions I have is is a voiceover talent myself trying to break into the business is how I get my stuff out there. You know I've got a tape that I did while it's not tape anymore. It's digital, but I've got you know that I've got some projects that I've done I put them together a string them together like I used to back one is looking for a radio job but I do know how to go about taking what I have now and putting it out on something like voices.com so after that initial acting classes that you've taken you know often the deliverable at the end of that of the culminating event is recording a voiceover demo as you said sometimes is referred to as a demo reel are EDL, so however it seems it's an audio file, usually an MP3 that is a montage of a number of spots for ads that is was necessary because when someone searches on voices.com. They want to hear samples that are as close to their project that they have in mind. I mean a bit of a silly example, but you know someone producing a phone system and this set on you to update my phone system brings you not to send the monster truck rally commercial because it's it's good to miss the audience in the styles is is is all wrong. So you know you end up with this portfolio. If you will of a number of demos for each of those major categories and those can be uploaded onto voices.com again completely for free so we have a free account or you can upgrade to a premium membership but really treating a great profile and uploading those demos, which can all be done for free is the absolute best first step in terms of like practical. What can I do to help market myself on a platform like this today. Davis is really from voices.com joining us this week on the BS with Bob Schmidt podcast so the next question I have, I guess is is the talent, then in charge of doing the editing and breaking down the commercial and putting the music behind it, and all matters that go to somebody else for postproduction. Yeah, great, great question, so most of the reeds and the voiceovers that her daughter what's it's a bit of a bit of jargon here which was referred to as a dry read, meaning there's no additional processing or music that's being mixed in some clients may ask for that but usually in most cases, they just want the voiceover as a clean file with no extra attention done to it and that you know some some clients may ask for brass to be edited out some I mean that's that's can be a lot of extra work. Often times, so it's, it's, you know it is. I see it's a clean read where it sounds as natural as possible. The editing out of breath and we don't see is as much done anymore, but what is required is a is a clean recording with no kind of background noise and then he can produce or whether it's a curriculum designer at you know Microsoft putting together a series of corporate training videos or product demonstration videos there probably to have their own music selections on the backend, and so they would be making those making those choices. What about the different quality of voices I'm not voices, but the different quality of studios because I know that my studio sounds different than your studio sounds different than Johnny down the street studio how you go about matching or coming up with the right sound for the specific client. One of the memorable phrases was trust your ears and that's what we tend@voices.com [tend@voices.com] to encourage our clients whether there are creative producer that is hiring voice actors all the time, or perhaps a small business that's just getting a phone. Their phone system greetings done a voicemail and some on hold messaging to ultimately trust their ears know some of these projects, let's say meet much more high-stakes are going to air on radio and TV. Other

The BS with Bob podcast featuring entrepreneurs, business people and marketers this week talking with David, David is the CEO of voices.com and is a voiceover person myself is pretty cool to be able to talk to the guy that's in charge of probably the largest place to go to get that to get voices David, welcome to the program. Thanks much Bob thought glad to be here and tell some stories. So how did you get in that the whole voiceover Dick everyone finds her own path and my nose is pretty unique. Actually I see with sound go out and share about how Bob had an old record player and dad had a shortwave radio so I always could tinkered with you technology if you could call it that went to school and got a degree in in audio engineering that I opened up a small recording studio, so this was an opportunity for a reported music bands and so forth, but actually got my name in the newspaper on my birthday and I was actually that article brought in some local businesses that were looking to how the female voiceover reported done for phone system that actually met a young woman, just the day before, who was a classically trained singer and that that ladies and now Stephanie is now my wife and cofounder voices.call that time she was a classic between singer and I asked her to do these voiceovers and so she did a phone system and some local radio commercials and that was the problem referred to it as well. Instead of us doing the production. Why don't we become this. The connector between the voice actor in the client is looking to hire them and so we got out of the production ourselves and really reinvented ourselves as as this marketplace that connects the businesses with those voice actors and that's what we been doing for much the last decade and how did you score the name voices.com we actually didn't start as voices.com we we began as as interactive voices, which wasn't exactly the greatest website name the pigeons will listen to new media or interactive media. It was around the height of what was then the Web 2.0 movement when you know everything was big bright and bubbly on the web about flashy colors and and companies like twitter and Flickr were like dropping bowels from their name and as we want to be part of this movement so we were set on changing rebranding. In effect, so I did with many entrepreneurs do you pull up a browser you Google the domain name of your choosing of your desires and we had landed on a website called as a medical Journal club silencing the critical voices in your head is a medical journal that had been updated since about 2000. And so we reached out actually through a lawyer sent an email to this owner and asked what he saw the name and if so what price and he came back he said initially said that $50,000 and then know you know through some negotiation offered six payments of $5000 can of every quarter every three months with them another $5000, and for that he went to the deal. So we were able to almost like a lift and shift their business from the old servers to the new servers and redirect all that traffic that's been actually evolved one of the biggest turning points for us. It was a name that is short. It's memorable. It's easy to spell it, since what we do in a nutshell, so it's been the it's been really great for my from that standpoint. So how does something like voices.com work for the end user so it must have a business and I want to get a voice and looking for a male voice and female voice. Can I use voices.com to have auditions with different voices or how does that. How does even work. The process is very simple. You sign up for freeing you create an account and its most points will we call client feels people are looking to hire a talent have that project in their mind and so you after signing up you can do what we call posting a job was free to post the job and that is where you outline just as you said in looking for a male voice and a female voice I you know I might be enormously...

The Steve Lynch podcast is a www.podcastforhire.com [http://www.podcastforhire.com] production. If you are looking for someone to tell your story, please contact Bob Schmidt from Podcast For Hire at 608-785-0555 if you are looking for Steve Lynch find him here https://www.facebook.com/stevenllynch [https://www.facebook.com/stevenllynch] or find Alena Rae find her at https://www.facebook.com/alena.nicholson.7 [https://www.facebook.com/alena.nicholson.7] Transcription for seo purposes only. Founding member of the band autograph Steve Lynch joining me. I had the opportunity to interview Steve a few times over the last handful years and always enjoy chatting with them always enjoy seeing you guys live and always enjoy just the person that you are Steve because a lot of times rock stars. A lot of times people in your position. Don't give time to be ordinary person and you know were friends on Facebook. I've tagged you in a couple things and you actually respond to your fans, which I think is is cool. Well I just look at myself as an ordinary person register your lab work hard to become our guitars and you know I appreciate all the parents out there so much I may not yield to be an honor to have people listen to me naturally like what I'm doing, you still get a kick out of. When people come up to and say are you Steve Lynch yeah absolutely no will of course you know it's it's one of those things where the recognition and respect that you received the excitement from that never goes away. A lot of people get a chance to do some really cool things over the years of me being in radio I had the chance actually broadcast from inside of a bridge over the Mississippi River walk while they were building this bridge. I'm guessing that you had the chance to do some cool things that the average ordinary Joe hadn't had the chance to do is just the traveling yell and just being on stage plates, such are numerous amount of people and it was only autograph I did a lot of traveling. My clinics was promoting my books. I have three books out cultlike touch looks one, two and three of us promoting those like Dr. travel to 20 different countries in Q3 25 cities felt that was great. It's a blessed life. You know it really is. That's where I feel about him very thankful. Steve a lot of times people think of rock 'n' roll they think of sex drugs and rock 'n' roll that can ask about the typical question to most people ask, but I do ask about you know seeing some year friends and some of that you know people that you that you played with over the years, you know, succumb to drug addictions and things like that. It was, it isn't hard to be on you know be on stage and BN on the road and and and Kelly keep a clean and free life. Like the I was just you as I drink too much, but that you know that I was looking thought that I just didn't like okay so so that was that was easy for me to not but I didn't try but it was easy for me to share with you. I was just going through focusing on playing guitar and and just putting on a good performance and I've always just got My mindset that links it was difficult to also see all the people go through the hardships that you know what drugs you will because of our lives and see people go don't go very fast when they do try to come… Same as they were previously so that is. His music business different now than it was in the 80s. Europe your gambling into all these different aspects of the music business and trying to be a musician and songwriter. All the same time. Like with autograph. I was basically the general manager the tour manager and the business manager on the night on the one that was leaked the liaison in between, you know, all different aspects. The endorsements the booking agent. I did most most all the interviews and then I took care of all the banking eye to eye pain. Everybody I get all the business taxes and everything so you know those there is a big burden what I limit SSN because I think that the that the big thing now is that you have quit the band autograph. Steve stepped off from you know from from performing. Are you still a part of the band even though you're not playing with them or if you basically cut ties altogether. Well, I basically cut ties altogether. You know I wanted to move on to something different. And one thing my fiancé later told Ms. that I thought was a really good analogy of you know after your if you have a CD in your car and you play it over and over again for 35 years. Eventually you want to change that CD in your car and go on to different things you want your listener difference because you just got tired of playing the same songs doing the autograph that you know I look at myself like I have a lot more to offer the what I was contributing to autograph and point out is the last job we did get off your ass. That was mainly all written by sign that my writing was going in a completely different direction. Attached as it is now so it just didn't sound like autograph at all. I need not at all. It was a completely different thing. It was his guitar playing audit. A lot of people say that's like my guitar playing and all will. That's because it's not that silent playing guitar on that. I just by the time I got in there into the studio. I only had room to do my guitar solos are a couple little parts and that was it was very disappointed. On the whole outcome like I wanted to hear. Going to a completely different direction. Like, I became very disheartened at that time. That was a couple years ago my fiancé and I talked about working together you know last several months and she's got an incredible voice. I wanted to just do something so different it would be open to whatever we felt like writing the way the directional going in a small cutting edge music using different beats and everything and not really being influenced by one genre or another just doing whatever we feel like it – what I feel but music should really be when somebody because of the natural particular genre, then pigeonholed into that and then there know that so hard for you as an 80s rocker, you know, long hair, guitar playing master to kinda change that view window and a look at Nicole big genre. I have a salon that I did not look 23 if you type in which network 23. The numbers 22 and three. Then you can listen to the whole album is a complete departure from the autograph. I love my God Bill calls Peter Gabriel and the Moody blues. I love the Pink Floyd Formica dances, porcupine tree in all of these bands of always been really experimental and I just love that about them asking about your most commercial song turn up the radio. What was the inspiration of that was it to get radio play know you know actually that was just something that will in reverse obituary will rehearsal studios in North Hollywood that I just had this riff like that don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't read. He got up and started planning to get her Bassler and then came up with that dude knew that little part in it. The next thing you know the other guys were sitting out there actually was about the whole lineup sounds cool Otto. Just jamming you know and then everybody stayed with us for all of it, we we got the whole song together really quick I need is just like all of a sudden. So you know that we start thinking about it was not all that's left the work and then we started everybody was chiming in on the lyrics of working harder working to redo it every day. You know, and then send us to send would use that. And so it was a song that was written by all five of Jeff's right on right on the cup like that. And sometimes those of the best sponsors. What is your spontaneous like that. Just everybody's in that creative mode and we just did it and of course after the general realize you know what we should probably change. It's just radio because recommend radial mother. You know you don't wriggle scissors a while back we want will you put pushing it from a commercial standpoint, we just thought it was a cool sounding song. Then we went in and we could all the different call letters all the young woman WK Z you know you know out on the West Coast. It was all KTLA or whatever you know and we went in and we spent 28 hour days saying turn it up KTLA or whatever we sent all the colors we did over 800 really yeah so that you because when they could play that like before this all and then all of a sudden the phone just blew up in it and of the radio play was just incredible. So you can number 93 on the top 100 of mostly songs ever on radio portraits still have that opportunity to at least have a really big song. Let's focus on a new project at 222. So after I after I contact you about doing this in this interview. For some reason the number two kept popping up between the last 48 hours have seen the number two like 100 times is so bizarre what what everybody said that that that was they see the 222 may start seeing 222 on the clock and start seeing it everywhere, and since just like everywhere in what happened was my fiancé she was seeing it everywhere. She had been for years and just before we had met like a couple years before we had actually met. I started seeing a lot as well that and 1111 those two sets of numbers and so should you know she started listening still seems to 22 everywhere and I said so my you know I see it every day, sometimes five times a day and so it must mean something significant. We googled it would look it up in it. So that means it's it's it's a new change in your life that your angels are guiding you to a different place to hire well and I thought that is so cool like your spirituality is going into another place and that's with both of us felt up at the time as well. She came up with the idea of what's called the project 222

The Steve Lynch podcast is a www.podcastforhire.com production. If you are looking for someone to tell your story, please contact Bob Schmidt from Podcast For Hire at 608-785-0555 if you are looking for Steve Lynch find him here https://www.facebook.com/stevenllynch or find Alena Rae find her at https://www.facebook.com/alena.nicholson.7 Transcription for seo purposes only. Founding member of the band autograph Steve Lynch joining me. I had the opportunity to interview Steve a few times over the last handful years and always enjoy chatting with them always enjoy seeing you guys live and always enjoy just the person that you are Steve because a lot of times rock stars. A lot of times people in your position. Don't give time to be ordinary person and you know were friends on Facebook. I've tagged you in a couple things and you actually respond to your fans, which I think is is cool. Well I just look at myself as an ordinary person register your lab work hard to become our guitars and you know I appreciate all the parents out there so much I may not yield to be an honor to have people listen to me naturally like what I'm doing, you still get a kick out of. When people come up to and say are you Steve Lynch yeah absolutely no will of course you know it's it's one of those things where the recognition and respect that you received the excitement from that never goes away. A lot of people get a chance to do some really cool things over the years of me being in radio I had the chance actually broadcast from inside of a bridge over the Mississippi River walk while they were building this bridge. I'm guessing that you had the chance to do some cool things that the average ordinary Joe hadn't had the chance to do is just the traveling yell and just being on stage plates, such are numerous amount of people and it was only autograph I did a lot of traveling. My clinics was promoting my books. I have three books out cultlike touch looks one, two and three of us promoting those like Dr. travel to 20 different countries in Q3 25 cities felt that was great. It's a blessed life. You know it really is. That's where I feel about him very thankful. Steve a lot of times people think of rock 'n' roll they think of sex drugs and rock 'n' roll that can ask about the typical question to most people ask, but I do ask about you know seeing some year friends and some of that you know people that you that you played with over the years, you know, succumb to drug addictions and things like that. It was, it isn't hard to be on you know be on stage and BN on the road and and and Kelly keep a clean and free life. Like the I was just you as I drink too much, but that you know that I was looking thought that I just didn't like okay so so that was that was easy for me to not but I didn't try but it was easy for me to share with you. I was just going through focusing on playing guitar and and just putting on a good performance and I've always just got My mindset that links it was difficult to also see all the people go through the hardships that you know what drugs you will because of our lives and see people go don't go very fast when they do try to come… Same as they were previously so that is. His music business different now than it was in the 80s. Europe your gambling into all these different aspects of the music business and trying to be a musician and songwriter. All the same time. Like with autograph. I was basically the general manager the tour manager and the business manager on the night on the one that was leaked the liaison in between, you know, all different aspects. The endorsements the booking agent. I did most most all the interviews and then I took care of all the banking eye to eye pain. Everybody I get all the business taxes and everything so you know those there is a big burden what I...

I had fun having conversation with Carnival Cruise director Deon.