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The VO BOSS podcast blends solid, actionable business advice with a dose of inspiration for today’s voiceover talent. Each week, host Anne Ganguzza focuses on a specific topic to help you grow your #VO Business. Featuring guest interviews with industry movers & shakers, VO BOSS covers every facet of the voice landscape, from creating your business plan to choosing the best marketing tactics & tools. So tune in, listen up, and learn how to further your VO career!

Mar 21, 2023

Great sound is an important factor in booking voice over work. In this episode, Anne is joined by audio engineer & musician Gillian Pelkonen to discuss the basics of audio for voice. Sound engineers listen for clean, crisp vocal sound. This is the kind of sound that helps you book more jobs, and it's the kind of sound that makes you stand out from the crowd. In order to get great voice over work, it’s important that you have great sound. But what exactly is “great sound”? Is it the same as “high-quality audio”? The best way to solve audio issues is to address them before recording. Incorrect recording levels, too much room tone & improper mic technique are common audio issues. Feeling lost & overwhelmed with your sound? Anne & Gillian tell you all you need to know...
 
Transcript
 
It’s time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry’s top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let’s welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.
 
Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I am excited to bring a very special guest to the show today, Gillian Pelkonen. Gillian is an audio engineer, musician and creative freelancer living and working in upstate New York, which is where I am from. Woohoo.
 
Gillian: Woo.
 
Anne: Uh, Gillian received her masters in audio arts from Syracuse University and has been working in audio engineering ever since. Gillian, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to talk to you.
 
Gillian: Anne, thank you so much for having me. It is so exciting to be on the show. Obviously I've listened to it a lot in the past few years, so --
 
Anne: Well, thank you. Thank you
 
Gillian: -- definitely trippy to be on this side of it. But yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited to chat about audio.
 
Anne: Yeah, so I'm excited number one because you are from like practically my hometown. My family's still up there and I also love female engineers because that's kind of where I started as well. When I graduated from college, I went to school for engineering, not audio engineering, but engineering. And so I have uh, a soft spot in my heart for female engineers. So tell the BOSSes how you got started and what got you interested in audio engineering.
 
Gillian: Well, we are few and far between, unfortunately. I am a musician as well. I don't really say that, it's a weird word for me to say, but I've been playing guitar and singing and writing songs for as long as I could talk. It's been my outlet for everything. And I was working on a lot of my music in college and at recording studios on campus, and I couldn't find women to work with. I did have one female audio engineer that I worked with and that was the best experience I had, and I found her a bit later in the experience. But up until then I just didn't understand. And obviously gender is a construct. It's not really about that. But I found that I worked really well with women and people who were good listeners and who felt like they were as passionate about what I was trying to create as I was. And eventually I found that nobody was, so I just wanted to go learn it myself and just know how to do it and make music, and that's what got me into audio and now kind of in the voiceover AI sphere 'cause they're super connected.
 
Anne: Fantastic. So now you also sing as well?
 
Gillian: Yes. Yeah.
 
Anne: Oh wow. You are multifaceted. I love it. So let's talk a little bit about audio because for people just entering into the industry, it is I think one of the most scariest things because a lot of people are not necessarily technically adept at creating or editing audio. And so it really becomes a thing to enter in the voiceover industry. It's like, like not only do they have to learn how to perform and be authentic and real, and now all of a sudden they've gotta figure out, well, how am I going to prepare this audio to send to my client? And that just becomes a whole different thing, especially with technology.
 
And I've always said that to be successful in this industry, not only is it great to have that creative artistic talent in your performance, but you do have to be adept at technology because you're going to have to be able to handle that audio, edit that audio, deliver that audio to your client. And if that is not something that you're comfortable with, you need to actually get comfortable with it. So what would you say is the most important thing for people starting out in terms of their audio?
 
Gillian: That is a big question.
 
Anne: Yeah, I know, with probably an hour's worth of answers, I'm sure.
 
Gillian: Many hours worth of answers. I think for people starting out, the best thing you can do is, I hate to say work with a professional, but that might be a starting point just to understand what you might need because the hard part is not the audio. Everyone makes it like that's the daunting task because it's not what you're comfortable with, but I know that the acting is really difficult and the mic is just the thing that picks that up. And so if you're gonna go to a coach to work with your acting and develop that, why would you not go to an audio professional to get the right mic for you to get the right setup and get started with that? Because with audio, obviously the editing and that's a learning curve and process, which you will get comfortable with, the more you work on it, same way you get better at auditioning. But getting started with a professional will stop all those stumbles that you might find along the way with just trying to figure it out yourself. Because it's not complicated. But there's definitely a lot of ways to get lost on the path if you're not with the proper information.
 
Anne: Yeah. And I think too, the thing for me when I started it was all about the room, the studio. And I think you don't know what you don't know. And that's why I love that you said, you know, why wouldn't you work with a professional? Because we go to coaches for performance? Why wouldn't you go to an audio professional to get help with your studio? And I think that's fantastic advice. And it's something that I ended up doing because for me it was, oh my gosh, I have to say it was so frustrating. I remember at one point I didn't have it, and I sent some audio to a client, and they're like, Anne, it sounds like you're talking into a tube. And I was mortified, and I was like, oh my gosh, maybe I shouldn't be in this industry. And I was so frustrated, I remember like physically crying, and I don't like to admit that, but I was so frustrated.
 
And at the time it was hard to know because I started so long ago, the internet wasn't quite a thing where we were in community groups yet. And so I didn't even know how to reach out or who to reach out to. So I think it's wonderful now that there are lots of people that we can reach out to. And I, for one, when I have a new student, I always recommend that they talk to an audio engineer to get their environment set first, and then it becomes like, oh my, my gosh. Well, what mic? And I think you're probably gonna tell us that the environment might be a little more important than that. So let's talk about what's important in a good environment for us to record in?
 
Gillian: Well, there's so many things to say, and just going back one second, there is no shame in crying over figuring out audio issues.
 
Anne: Thank you. I feel better.
 
Gillian: I have to say that I have at some point because they're very frustrating. It's so easy to get your wires crossed, and I'm sure we'll have longer conversations about this, but it's definitely very frustrating 'cause your voice is coming out of your mouth. Like it's like I hear it, I hear it. Why is it not in my computer? So the frustration is real, I understand that. And the reason that I do say higher professionals is because so much of your valuable time will be wasted troubleshooting these things that someone like me or any of the other pros doing this will be able to diagnose and fix in a couple seconds.
 
Anne: Yeah. You have the ear. You have the ear for it, which I think most people starting out in voiceover, if you don't even know the industry, how can you expect to have an ear for it?
 
Gillian: Exactly. And it's funny, when I was in school, I felt that there was not a lot of sound representation. I was initially in school for TV and film. And one of the first sound classes I took, the professor on the syllabus said, sound is 50% of a picture and nobody cares about it. Like picture being a movie, and for voiceover it's a hundred percent. So it's even more essential to have it, you know, that's your introduction to a client. And like you were saying, if your audio comes in not sounding right, you don't sound as professional. Doesn't matter how your read is.
So that's something.
 
Anne: And especially since the pandemic, right? Because we can't go to professional studios anymore. So it's more important than ever that our home studios are set up properly. And even just like, again, starting out, you don't really know. And I will say that there's a ton of information on the internet. But again, there's a ton of information on the internet. So how do newcomers to the industry discern what's the good information and what's not good information? Because I certainly didn't go to school for audio engineering and I know that that's an entire field, obviously. So again, so for our environment then, what's important, what's important for us to set that up?
 
Gillian: Well, I think the most important thing is, within a voice, something that I listen for is crisp, clean, natural sound. I want it to sound like we're sitting together talking, but maybe a little bit better, because you know, with all the equipment you have the ability to boost some frequencies in your voice. We're basically, with audio, we're trying to mimic what our ear hears, but there's this whole other, I'm not going to get into it, but there's something called psychoacoustics, which is how panning works and stereo. And it's basically using the computer and things we can do with audio and stereo field to trick your ear into hearing things that are not exactly as they are. So we're using plugins, EQ, all of those things to make you sound your best. But some issues that I see happen a lot is, you know, incorrect recording levels, too much room tone, too much stuff going on in your environment, improper mic placement, just not speaking into the right part of the mic or having it placed the wrong way. And then there's just textural issues of needing plug-ins or other things to manipulate your voice to get it sounding its best.
 
Anne: Got it. So in terms of recording levels, right, I'm still thinking about the room and, and you said things are happening -- is there such a thing -- some students have mentioned this to me -- as being soundproof so that, oh gosh, I live next to an airport or the landscapers out there -- is there a way that you can create a studio that is soundproof that you won't hear those things?
 
Gillian: Yes. I think that it's going to be wildly out of a regular person's budget because like when you go into a recording studio, the way that they do that is they have floating floors, and basically you build a room inside of a room, and there's a bunch of ways to do it. But when you're in an isolation booth, you know there's the building and then there's the studio which is within it. So there's gonna be acoustic paneling and other things in there that help with the reflections of the sound. But realistically you'd need to build something. But that's not the only way to get really good isolated sound. You can do DIY things. I mean people go into closets to record for a reason. They're really good. I mean, I don't know if it's sustainable, you know; you need a booth if you're gonna be doing it full-time or something. But that tiny confined space that stops any reflections of sound, which would make echoes in the background, the padding of clothing that would kind of dampen everything, and that just makes it really clear for the mic to be picking up your voice.
 
Anne: Got it. So then if you've got a decent environment, right, that doesn't have a lot of hard surfaces and you've got the absorption so that you're not getting echo or reflection back, what then is the next thing that we wanna look at in terms of getting great sound from our studios?
 
Gillian: Well, I think a really important thing is recording level. I think making sure that you're coming in at the right volume, and it's kind of like, you know, Goldilocks situation. You don't wanna be too loud, you don't wanna be too quiet, you wanna kind of be just right. And a way that I gauge this, I don't really like giving numbers as like, if you are at this number, you're perfect. You're at the, you know, that's really hard. I want everyone to learn to trust your ears. But there are a few ways to measure it. So within your DAW, there's usually gonna be like a colorful meter that's going. And when you're checking that out, I like to say to be three quarters of the way up. So you don't wanna be lower than half, you don't wanna be towards the top. And I know I work primarily in Pro Tools. I know most people don't and most voice actors shouldn't. There's no need. But it's really green at the three quarters away mark, and then it starts to go orange and red and you never wanna be in the red. That audio will become unusable. But that's how I like to look at it. And I think it's simple enough for someone to look at within their DAW and see.
 
Anne: Now you mentioned something that, and I don't wanna get too off track 'cause I got a couple other questions I'd love for you to answer, but you mentioned that Pro Tools wasn't necessarily something that a voice actor needed. And I remember, oh gosh, back in the day, Pro Tools Lite used to come with the audio interface and so I started using Pro Tools Lite, and it was a bear. to learn. And I think that was also another thing that scared me in terms of how am I gonna be able to succeed in this industry if I cannot figure out how to use this audio editor? So if I can just kind of divert just for a minute, tell us what kind of an audio editor or your DAW, right, it's also known as a DAW, is good for today's voice talent when they first start out?
 
Gillian: Yeah. So DAW is, I just throw the terms around 'cause sometimes I forget like this is my language, but it's a digital audio workstation. So that's really anything you're gonna be working in. I use Pro Tools because it's a great multi-track recorder. A lot of times when I'm working in music, we usually sit around 50 to 100 tracks going on. Maybe not at at one time eventually, but you know when you're doing voiceover you have one, it's a mono recording for the most part. So I know a lot of people use Twisted Wave. I've used Twisted Wave. I think that it's great.
 
Anne: I love Twisted Wave.
 
Gillan: I know people use Audition. Audition is great. I think that really, especially starting out, you don't need anything more than Twisted Wave. I think it's affordable, I think it's great. I spend most of my time in Pro Tools. I dabble in Logic and Audition and even Audition is a little bit complicated. I can imagine being overwhelmed by it for the functionality. I don't know if it's necessary really, but I don't wanna knock it. I know people love it.
Anne: Shh. Don't tell anybody, but I totally agree with you. And the reason why is because I think I started with Pro Tools Lite and I was like, oh my God, this is too much. I don't think I need it. And I think to reiterate what you're saying, we are voice actors. Unless we're producers or audio engineers, we don't need multi-tracks. I mean unless I'm putting sound effects or music under, I don't need that capacity.
 
Gillian: Which you can do in Twisted Wave.
 
Anne: And Twisted Wave for me is so simple in terms of, it's like Audacity on crack, I always say that , because Audacity is free. You get what you pay for and it's wonderful and I think a lot of people do that. But I think if you have a Mac, Twisted Wave is the way to go. What about a PC though for your DAW? What do you think? I mean 'causeTwisted Wave doesn't run natively on PC. They have an online version if I remember correctly. Or they're coming out with, I think.
 
Gillian: They do have an online version and from what I know they are working on it for PC. I have not had a PC since the early 2000s, my first computer. So really, I don't know, I think maybe trying the web browser version for that would work. And you know, I'd have to get a better answer for that 'cause honestly I live in the Mac universe. That's where I work.
 
Anne: Well, and if we wanted to get into arguments with people that listen to this about which is better Mac or PC for audio editing, I will say my own personal story is when I started outta college, I worked on systems that were Unix based. And so I was a Unix girl, and then Windows kind of came up the ranks. And when I was working in education we started using Windows servers, and so I became a PC girl. And then ultimately when I started to go into voiceover part-time and then full-time of course, I bought a really kicked up version of a Dell laptop with the most memory and everything that I thought was gonna be my computer for audio. And my audio didn't work; it wasn't compatible. And I was so upset 'cause I spent a lot of money upgrading the RAM and upgrading the space and doing everything to have a really great computer. And it didn't work.
 
And so for many years people said Mac, it just works for audio and creative endeavors. And I just said, well let me try it and I'll tell you what, I haven't looked back. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it. BOSSes out there, I'm not saying that one's better than the other. However, my personal experience is that the Mac just, things just work audio wise. You hook up any particular microphone or audio interface, boom. It recognizes it. I've not had issues.
 
Gillian: Yeah. I mean, I lived my entire life in the Mac ecosystem. Like that's how I organize my life. Obviously I've had friends and people I know -- my boyfriend has a PC, I don't know how to work it. . I mean I'm learning, but it's just, yeah. Apples and oranges, literally it is. But I think that there's a way to do it if you have a pc, don't go out and buy a Mac because we said we like them. There's a way to to work around it. But realistically, even going back to the Audition versus Twisted Wave, it's all about the interface. And really as a voice actor, from my understanding and as I work as an engineer, speed is so important. And so if you're gonna simplify your DAW for you to be able to work in it faster, like it's basically up to you where you're the most comfortable. So that's really the moral of the story.
 
Anne: That's a great point. It's a great point because, guys, unless you're outsourcing people to do your audio editing, you do spend a considerable amount of time, once you've recorded something, editing that. For me, I think I started off it was like a 1:5 ratio where if I did an hours worth of recording, it would take me five hours to edit it, and then as you get better -- you know, I'm about at a one to three ratio. I can't get any quicker than that. But if you're going to be spending a, a majority of your time editing, and again, like I said, unless you're outsourcing, I mean you might as well be comfortable and really consider the speed of which you can work and things that can help you to be more efficient. Let's talk a little bit about -- I see in the forums there's always, what's your noise floor? And so what's the importance of having a low noise floor?
 
Gillian: So noise floor is basically the sound that your gear makes because if you think about it, voice goes into a microphone, goes through an XLR cable or maybe directly into the computer, through the interface, back into the computer. That process makes a little bit of electronic noise.
 
Anne: And so I didn't know that actually.
 
Gillian: The term noise floor describes that noise. And usually they're related to room tone because, the sound around you, those are just things that end up needing to be taken out and they're kind of like white noisy or they're not, you know, the sound of a door slamming, but they are noise that end up on your audio file. So it's really important to make sure that your gain is set properly on your interface because if my gain is really quiet and I do a recording, and I need it to be loud enough to listen to, then you're gonna be stuck boosting your clip gain. And then the noise floor, everything, like all the sound that your electronics make, are gonna be super loud and proportion to the recorded sound. So that's where it all gets related. Same with room tone. Like if there's too much going on in your room, and it's picking that up more than your voice, then there's gonna be a lot more of it to take out, if that makes sense.
 
Anne: And I can always tell like a beginner, because they don't have their levels set. And so what'll happen is they'll set their gain like really low and then they can play their recording and they won't hear any noise. But yet when you, let's say, normalize it or you bring the the levels up, then all of a sudden it's like got some sort of shh sound and, and then that's when people are like, well no, I didn't normalize it because it makes this noise. And I'm like, well that's the stuff that you have to get rid of. So how do you get rid of the noise? I mean, what's the effective way of getting rid of that?
 
Gillian: Well, there's two ways to get rid of noise. There's before, you know, fixing the problems before you hit record, which is the best way to do it. And then there's post-production stuff that you can do later. And I've had people come to me with audio issues, and sometimes they are unfixable. We are not magicians. There are some things that are just, if you record so quiet and your noise floor is so loud, there's no way to take that off and have your voice not sound distorted or wrong. So the best way is isolate yourself, make sure you're in a good environment, make sure you sound okay in your booth, your DIY booth, and make sure that your gain is set properly so you're not set up for failure later. And then in post-production, there are plug-ins that you can use to kind of remove those frequencies.
 
So if you're getting rid of room tone, something that I use is Spectral DeNoise by Izotope RX. I think I have 8 or 9, I'm not sure what number they're up to, but really the one that I have is great. And that just you take a little, it takes like a little audio picture of the room tone and then goes throughout the audio file and just removes that frequency and tone, which is great. That's incredible. The only thing you need to have with that is a little bit of room tone noise with no speaking before or after the clips so that you know, the generator can grab it. But that's my favorite thing to use. And it works really well for slight room tone or little wind in the background if you're outside, whatever it might be. But that's like the pro plugin.
 
Anne: So then there's the DAW, right? And that is really based on what you're comfortable with. And depending on your platform, you can have various DAWs. We've already established that we like Twisted Wave. You use Pro Tools because of course you're an audio engineer and, and then that makes sense. You need to have that functionality. Now we've added into the mix something called Izotope to help remove certain noises. And so is that typically what most voice actors will have to buy, Izotope? Will it work within their DAW or is that when it becomes complicated?
 
Gillian: It's a whole thing. We could do a whole episode about plug-ins and all of that. But for the simple answer is that Izotope, they have a bunch of plug-ins, all voice related. The two that I use the most -- I have the whole suite because, you know, I work with voices all the time, and realistically you can meet with an audio engineer like me and I would say, hey, you probably need this and you need this. You don't need to buy all of them. But I use spectral de-noise the most that gets rid of the noise. And then there's also mouth de-click, which gets rid of all the little clicky -- those noises. I use that often, but I use that for music, for everything for my singing voice. I hate hearing those, um, myself. So those are the two that I use. But you can get any variation. I haven't used them within Twisted Wave just because I haven't, but I think that you can, because --
 
Anne: I have.
 
Gillian: Oh. Yes, you can integrate them into DAWs. I've used them in Pro Tools, I've used them in Logic, I've used them in Audition, and Izotope as well has its own little audio editor. So you can import a file, render it with the effect, and then import it into your DAW if you like to work that way.
 
Anne: So then let's talk about, okay, if you're new to the industry and you're kind of overwhelmed with all of this, you are available. Like an audio engineer can be available to help you with all of those choices. Right? You can help in terms of, let's say, somebody doesn't know what to do to make their sound better in their booth. So they can consult with you, maybe send you a sound file, and you can evaluate and then offer suggestions on how they might be able to improve their sound, right, and get rid of some of the noise. And so that also includes, right, what microphone should I get? I mean that's the other thing, right? So we've talked about how important the environment is. We've talked about DAWs and how we can do things after, you know, we record to get rid of noise. Now, how important is a microphone in terms of the quality of your sound?
 
Gillian: I think having a good quality microphone is very important. I personally don't think that there is a, a voiceover microphone. I think that, I know a lot of people use 416s. Those are tricky in a lot of ways. I think any large diaphragm condenser mic works really well because it's very sensitive and it picks up your voice. I have on my website a list of gear recommendations at three different price points, low to high that I recommend. But really more important than having the most expensive mic is knowing how to use that mic. And so that has to do with placement, understanding --
 
Anne: What do you mean by placement?
 
Gillian: So for mic placement, it's really about where you're positioning yourself with the mic, and knowing a mic is circular, you gotta make sure that you're singing or talking into the right part of it.
 
Anne: That's what I was just gonna say. Yeah. I remember once I had purchased my TLM 103 and I had it installed backwards, and so I was not speaking into the right part of the mic and I couldn't figure out why it didn't sound awesome like everybody else. And literally I had just put it upside down in my mount and then didn't realize that I was speaking into the back of it. And so that is a very important thing. Again, that's something that you can help as well with talent. So I don't want, BOSSes, if you're just new to this, I don't want you to feel overwhelmed because an audio engineer can do amazing things from remote. They don't have to be in your studio. They can really help you to set up a great environment. They can help you with selection or I guess I would say recommendations on a mic that might be good for your voice, right? Also placement, right? And where you should be speaking into that mic. And also maybe with your editing or creating what I like to call -- I have a stack that is basically something that I apply to all of my audio after I record. And that takes out the highs, the lows, does a little bit of compression. Let's talk a little bit about stacks and how they can help in the editing process.
 
Gillian: Can we go back to microphones for one second?
 
Anne: Oh yes, I'm sorry. Yeah.
 
Gillian: No, it's okay. Just, it's so hysterical that you say that about the microphone because --
 
Anne: Being backwards?
 
Gillian: I mean it's hard to know. It's hard to know. And something when I was in school that I was taught very early on and I never forget, and it -- I was in school, you know, for music recording, but they're all the same. So my professor would always say sing to the bling. And that means basically when you have a microphone, wherever the logo is, that's where you should be facing. A lot of people, you know, make the mistake of going, oh, I want my Telefunken logo facing out. You would think maybe that's the way it goes. And that's how it ends up backwards. But really, and it doesn't work a 100% of the time 'cause there are a few mics that the capsule doesn't work that way. But most of the time if you see a logo, talk towards that logo. And another thing for just very simple, little explanation for voice actors, if you have an option to pick a polar pattern on your mic, which will come in the instructions, it'll be on the front. You wanna do cardioid, 'cause kind of what you were talking about. Your TLM 103 was set in cardioid and you were facing the back. So all the sound was being rejected, but I know some mics come set in omni, which will increase your room noise because that means that everything around the mic is getting picked up instead of sense, just your voice. So if there's an option for cardioid, just pick cardioid. We can talk about it later, but just pick it.
 
Anne: Fantastic. So then let's talk again about how we can make our editing a little bit easier on us by using what -- I call them stacks. I don't know if you call them something different, but these are processes that can be applied to your audio to help take out noises. And I would say when I first got my stack, it saved me like 50% of my editing time. Otherwise I kept going in and out of my waves and removing noise, and it just was so tedious.
 
Gillian: Yeah. So stacks, whatever you wanna call them, it's really just a plug-in sequence, and it's stuff that every time you open it up, you have these settings, and they will save you time. And I think that everyone should have a light one that's just, you know, fixing up a few things, and then obviously the audition one because you send an audition, you wanna sound like the final job that should be a bit more processed. But that usually comes with EQ, compression, and all of those things. You know, if, if your mouth clicks are very present with your mic or with your voice, that would be on there, which would help with removing all those noises, and yeah, those things, having them set ahead of time, those can be issues that people have with audio that are just taken care of right away. But I do think that if you feel comfortable doing them yourself and you think that you can EQ yourself, then good luck, go at it . But I do think that maybe, you know, working with someone who can help you would be helpful.
 
Anne: I agree. I agree. And, and I will say that just because again, I did not go to school for audio engineering, so I always highly recommend working with a professional. What is it like to work with you in terms of -- let's say, a student wanted to hire you to help them with their sound. What do you do? How do you assess that?
 
Gillian: So my current offering that I have, which is kind of just starting point and sort of a pipeline into us working together further is I offer an audio assessment. Because there are a lot of people that are selling and selling and selling, and sometimes they sell things that people don't really need. So the audio assessment is sort of a checkpoint. We meet, it's not together, but this is, you know, our interaction. I have some pre-written copy that you'll get. You send me an audio sample, I listen, and I either say, hey, you know, you're really set, you're great, you actually don't need anything. You sound like a pro. Or hey, here are a few things that I would fix, and I address all the things that we talked about today. You know, I think that maybe your mic placement is a little bit off. I think that maybe your gain, you know , all the things I'm hearing. I would EQ it this way. I think maybe a little compression would help your voice. Just the things that I'm hearing to kind of get an engineer's ear on what you're sending to clients and how you sound. And from there we can go on and potentially, you know, build a stack together, and I'm working on building out some courses for people to learn a bit more. But that's what I have kind of right now going.
 
Anne: Fantastic. So now did you say is there a cost associated with the audio assessment or?
 
Gillian: Yes.
 
Anne: Okay. Yes. Okay. So BOSSes, I do believe that we have a special offering from Gillian.
 
Gillian: We do, we do.
 
Anne: Yeah. For her to assess your audio. Tell us about that.
 
Gillian: So for BOSSes and everyone getting involved for the next month or so, I'm gonna be running, you know, $20 off my audio assessments. For the early bird BOSSes, we are going to, for the first five people to get on my site and purchase an audio assessment using the promo code BOSSTOP5, you'll get a free audio assessment. I will kind of go over it, and Anne and I will actually be going over them on our next episode together. So you know, proceed with caution. If you don't wanna be on the show, don't do it. But the first five people will get a free audio assessment and anonymous we will go through and just kind of talk about the issues so that you can hear what I would do, what I'm hearing, just to have it as a further explanation for educational purposes, and for anyone who's not in the first five $20 off for that.
 
Anne: Well fantastic. I love, love, love that because first of all, as you know, I am all about education, and so I love that we're gonna actually do this stuff in our next episodes. So yeah, bosses, the first five to purchase an audio assessment using the word BOSS Top 5, BOSSTOP5 are going to get a free audio assessment, and we're gonna be on the show. So you're gonna hear Gillian live, assessing your audio, making the suggestions, and we're gonna just be learning as we go. And I love that. So Gillian, thank you so much for that. I think that's a wonderful offer, and thanks so much for being on the show. I feel like we just --
 
Gillian: Just scratched surface, I know.
 
Anne: Yes. We have so much more to come, and so BOSSes, I'm proud to announce that Gillian and I are gonna be getting together for more episodes so that we can have an entire audio themed series. And so I'm really excited. Gillian, thank you so much for today's episode and for the BOSS top five, guys, we're gonna be sending out an email. It's also gonna be on our show notes page, so make sure that you check out our VO BOSS show notes page for that offer. And wow, Gillian, thanks so much.
 
Gillian: Thank you so much for having me, and everybody who's listening, if you have audio questions, get in contact, reach out via Instagram, whatever you do to get a hold of BOSS Queen, Ms. Anne, and let her know 'cause we will cover everything that you wanna know. And I'm just really excited to also, you know, educate people and teach them what they need to know, what they should be hiring people for, and just get everybody sounding their best.
 
Anne: Okay. And that website is?
 
Gillian: For me, it's gillwitheg.com. Gill with the G.com. It'll, I'll be linked in the show notes. And same with social media, that's, that's where I am everywhere.
 
Anne: Fantastic. All right, guys, I'd like to give a great big shout-out to our sponsor, ipDTL. You too can network and connect like BOSSes. Find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Bye.
 
Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host Anne Ganguzza. And take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at voBOSS.com and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies, and new ways to rock your business like a BOSS. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via ipDTL.