Little Epiphanies

Bonjour Mes Ami,

It’s been a tough week. A few hours ago I spoke to my Uncle in the UAE to give him my condolences on losing his wife. He’s my favorite uncle on my mother’s side… tough times.

I’ve been living alone for the past few weeks.. my wife is in Jordan with my daugher visiting her parents. Which is probably one of the reasons why I am so introspective these days. I miss them horribly but inshallah (God Willing) I’ll be joining my family in Jordan in a couple of weeks for a bit of vacation time… so my posts might become a little more sporadic. more »

Upgrading your iPhone to System 3.0

Good Morning,

Today’s post concerns one of the business tools that I use daily to run my voice over business… my iPhone. I wrote a blog post about it a while back … for those of you who would like to read it Click here.

As you might know I own a 2G (first generation) Apple iPhone. Late last week Apple released system 3.0 for the iPhone and they promised a whole lot of new features that didn’t exist before in the old systems.

• Cut and paste
• Spotlight search feature
• Sending Contacts
• Landscape typing for messages and emails
• New voice recording application
• MMS
• Internet tethering
• Improved Bluetooth
• Support for over 30 new languages
• Read about these new features here

more »

The Passing

After a long fight with cancer. My Paternal Aunt. My father’s baby sister. Mother of my Cousin passed away today June 27th at 3:27 pm.

Many thanks for those who contacted me… your kind words were and are water that smother the flames of sadness in my soul.

I accept my Aunt’s death as Allah’s will and hope that he rewards her for the suffering and pain she experienced before her passing.

May she be of the people of Paradise as I wish to be one myself.

إنا لله وإنا إليه راجعون

Fail To Plan… Plan To Fail

Apparently this is a New Business Mantra that is pretty popular… I only heard of it a few months ago when discussing one of my friend’s idea for a new business. My friend Izzy is a very ambitious kind of guy… He is one of the only people that I know that has been able to sustain a successful freelance business and remain self employed. Some Months are great and some months are lean… and in the lean months he tends to try to find some way to supplement the money and maximize his profit. more »

Death and Taxes

It’s kind of hard for me to feel  sorry for the passing of a Pop icon or a hollywood starlet when my own family is facing the pending demise of one of its members. It’s strange to think that I have lived with my Aunt’s illness for so long but never really pondered it. As I type this now she is in the Cancer hospital in Amman, Jordan. My mother and father flew over from Cairo to be with her. Not a month ago my Aunt’s husband died. We didnt know he was sick… or at least we didn’t know he was terminally ill… She never told us.

God has his wisdom and everyone has his preordained time… no one gets more than what is written for him and no one gets less… You get exactly what God has prescribed for you whether it be an allotment of wealth, children, happiness, sadness. Yet that doesn’t mean that I cannot be human and feel sad and weep for the fast coming loss of my Aunt… The cancer is everywhere… her liver has failed.. She is out of intensive care and the doctors say that there is nothing else we can do but make her feel comfortable.

I didn’t know what to say to my cousin over the telephone when her father passed away… I never saw it coming… I thought my aunt would be the first to go… Shows you how much I know. I am a firm believe in God’s wisdom… and I accept what fate must come to me and my family. That is not to say that I know what will happen to me and my family.. this is knowledge only my creator knows and I am here to be the best that I can possibly be.

Last week was strange… I felt so angry… all the time.. so tired. I didn’t feel anything when my father told me that my aunt collapsed and was taken to the hospital. I didn’t feel anything when the got on the plane and flew to Jordan. I didn’t feel anything until I told my friend that I can’t feel sad… because she’s been sick for so long. He looked at me and said… Mahmoud… you remember when my father died. I said yes. He said remember how I kept it all in… for over a month… and then I couldnt keep it in anymore… you were there right… I said yes… He said you remember what happened.

I said yes.

I wished he hadn’t told me what he did… we where walking into the mosque to pray the night prayers… I remembered how he finally let it all out… outside my parent’s house… maybe a little over 11 years ago.. I remember a friend of ours holding him while he cried… while he let it all out… And I watched my friend grieve for his father.

I started crying in prayer… maybe its premature to cry for someone who has not left you… maybe the hardest part of death is knowing before hand when this might happen to a loved one.

My Aunt is my father’s baby sister… I can’t fathom what he might be going through… I have a baby sister of my own… I don’t know what I would do if I lost her. That’s a lie… I know what I would do… I would cry.

I don’t have anything smart or witty to say. I am stuck in egypt … I feel helpless … not being able to help my Aunt, My Cousin, My parents… Our family. What can I say? It’s ironic when you are a voice over artist… to be at a loss for words.  So I pray.. I pray that she may be at peace.. I pray that the pain is less. That my cousin be strong. That my father be strong. That my family be strong.

That I be strong.

I never really understood some of the descriptions from some of the Stories of the companions of the Prophet Mohammed Peace Be Upon Him. How on the day he died pandemonium struck. That the Mighty Omar (who will later become the second Caliph) was rendered senseless… denying the truth that he sees before him. That the men sat in the streets… weeping until their beards were wet.

Until Their beards where wet?

Omar had become so enraged at the loss of the final connection between heaven and earth that he unsheathed his sword and said … it is a lie… he is not dead… he is only communing with God like Moses did on the Mountain.

Abu Bakr… the Prophet’s Best Friend and the best of the companions (and the first caliph) was out of town when the Prophet died. And when he heard of the news he hurried to the Prophet’s house.. The prophet was married to his (Abu Bakr’s) daughter Aisha… and had died in her house. Abu Bakr seeing Omar waving his sword raised his voice and said..

Be Silent Son of Khataab… And to all of you… be still. If you Worship Mohammed… Mohammed is dead. But if You Worship God Almighty… Then he is Alive, Ever Living.

My beard is wet. The tears come sometimes… and I no longer wish to stop them… In my culture you only see men crying in disasters. When they lose their children… when something dramatic happens. What can possibly be worse than losing a loved one?

If you love money then loss of money can be a calamity. If you love fame… loss of recognition might be disasterous. If you love yourself… then what does it matter what happens to the world around you as long as you’re A-OK.

Money comes and Goes. You can always make a come back (just look at travolta) … and as for the one who puts themselves before their family. Well there really isn’t much I’d care to tell them… except that you’re missing so much.

Call you parents, call your aunts, call your sisters and brothers. Tell them that you love them.

Before it’s too late… before you never hear their voice again.

Taji

Fast Talking – Reeeecording

Bongiorno, Today I’m just gonna showcase a new advert I recorded for Egyptian FM. Its in English so don’t worry and its for a company promoting NGVs (Natural Gas Vehicles).

I wrote the copy and the client liked it.

This has not been sped up… I only removed the breaths out of the mix. And replaced one part of the take with a clearer part from another take.

Tell me what you think.

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Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Adobe Audition – Envelope Plugin

Today’s post is a tutorial on how to use the Envelope plugin in Adobe Audition CS3.

I reacently learned about this feature and it tackled a problem I had been having with my voice over files since I started using my home studio to send out work.

Often times when you are working on a long project and especially if you are doing the sound engineering yourself  … you will tend to take breaks in the middle and to go check on the levels ( I work in a booth to keep the computer fan noise as well as any other ambient noises to a minimum). So every time I leave the booth and come back in… I sit in a slightly different position than the time before… its not intentional and I try to keep the position displacement to a minimum. But its there.

So what that translates to is for some slightly irregular volume in the audio wave file. Correcting this irregularity has been a quest of mine until I stumbled on the Envelope plugin in Adobe Audition. more »

A Little Bird Told me

Kind of a waste using that title for a short post like this.

But I got a message over twitter yesterday ( I think it was yesterday) from username Travsonic … who are actually TravSonic Studios… this is what they sent me:

We are updating our voice-over talent directory. If you are a pro talent and would like to be added, please send us a message with info.

Their website is http://www.travsoniconline.com/ and you can contact them and add yourself asap.

I’ll be adding their URL to the VO directory for reference.

Taji

Peter O’Connell’s VO Business Card Gallery

Here is an interesting post from Peter O’Connell’s blog voxmarketising… I thought you guys would find it interesting:

voice talents – show us your business cards

OK gang, fun idea time!

As this blog is about voice over (vox), marketing (market) and advertising (tising) I thought we should have some summer fun here and combine all three into a voice talent business card gallery.

Simply email me a decent quality jpeg picture of your business card (front and back if you print on both sides) and we’ll show them here. Email peter (insert the at sign) audio’connell dot com and I’ll post all entries. Maybe we’ll have a card beauty contest and pick a winner….we’ll see first what kinda legs this idea has.

By the way, I’m not a pro at sizing these cards and images to fit the blog so some cards will be bigger and some will be smaller but size does not equal talent…at least in this effort.

Here’s mine to kick things off:

Peter K. O’Connell – audio’connell voice over talent (Card front)

Peter K. O’Connell – audio’connell voice over talent (Card back)

I actually don’t have a business card for my voice over services… mainly because I don’t like working for local Egyptian sound production houses… but I’m considering making one just to post up there.

Bettye Zoller’s New Audiobook Workshop

Morning Peoples,

Just a quick note for those interested in developing and improving their Audiobook Skillz!

The Great Bettye Zoller emailed me a few days back and asked me to inform you folks of a new course she’ll be giving in the Dallas Area.  Here are the deets:

DALLAS AUDIOBOOK INTENSIVE WORKSHOP WEEKEND:
JULY 11-12

By popular demand: AUDIO BOOK INTENSIVE WEEKEND July 11-12 Improve your narration skills and learn where the publisher jobs are for readers today. What should your audio book demo be? What are those who hire looking for in a reader? How can you prepare for “long form audio” (audio books) because it requires stamina and special voiceover techniques. Two big days. Special guests. Includes all meals and all handouts. Enroll in store at www.voicesvoices.com or phone/email us for information. A recent AFTRA study found that the most jobs today are in the field of narration. Voice Talents Take Notice! Get into this enjoyable and lucrative field. If you’re traveling here, ask our advice for saving dollars and we provide free ground transport! And a two-pay plan is still available.  Six open places at this writing. HURRY!

Further details at www.voicesvoices.com

She’s also going to be giving a few of her other Popular courses during her visit to Dallas…

BRAND NEW!!!  IN DALLAS AUGUST 1-2, BUSINESS OF VOICEOVERS AND VOICE ACTING TECHNIQUES.

These are our most popular seminars so we’re again offering them in Dallas by your request. Enroll early. These always sell out.

Thank you for accepting and reading our emails and please share with others. Our seminars in Dallas are partial fundraisers for our favorite charity, READING RADIO RESOURCE of DALLAS, the organization that provides audio and radio shows for the sight- and learning-impaired of all ages. Visit www.readingresource.org and become a volunteer worker or reader today.

In Dallas on August 1-2 Bettye Zoller presents by popular demand Business of Voiceovers and Voice Acting Techniques. Today’s voiceover industry is new, changed, worldwide, and voice talents must know how to market, how to help their agent help them most. We’ll discuss what your voiceover demo should be, where the jobs are, how to improve your voice skills, the secrets of pleasing producers and winning auditions and getting your career going. Enroll at www.voicesvoices.comin the online store or phone Bettye Zoller at 214-638-TALK (8255)or contact her by email at btzol@aol.com.

Bettye Zoller Seitz
btzol@aol.com

Consider yourselves informed!

Also on a similar note… I got this by mail as well:

David Goldberg’s recent teleseminar,

“Advanced Telephony and GPS Voice Narration”

is now available for you to hear!

Go to www.voiceoverdirectory.com/David_Goldberg_Teleseminar_Telephony_GPS.mp3
to GET YOUR FREE COPY and start learning about whether or not telephony and voice narration is for you (It’s not for everyone and this will help you to find out)!

David Golberg, Director or Edge Studio