The internet is full of complainers about bad customer service (I am occasionally guilty of complaining) which really doesn’t mean a thing to most businesses unless something goes viral and who has time for that?

Yet in addition to the occasional complaint, I also am of the school of “don’t recognize a problem without offering a solution” as well as “be as effusive in your praise as you are in your condemnation”. (OK on that last one, I’m not sure there’s an actual school).

So as you may recall from a Facebook post this summer (because where else was I going to share such useless information) I got a new suitcase. I know, the shock of that news probably still makes you woozy but stay with me here.

The brand of suitcase I bought was Delsay and I bought it not because of the brand (which sorry to say I didn’t know – not a student of luggage, just a very big user of it) but because of all the suitcases at the Marshall’s store I was in, it looked the best (believe me, I was in there for an hour checking every darn thing out).

So using the suitcase for about 3 months, the retractable metal handle was giving me problems. Sometimes it would open and sometimes not. Sometimes it would close and sometimes not. Both at completely inopportune times, like when a line of people behind me on the airplane are trying to get to their seats and I could not get my suitcase in the overhead bin cause the damn handle won’t CLOSE!!!!!’

Well one day on a trip (again after only about 3 months of use) the handle just plain broke. I wasn’t even angry. Not surprised but maybe a little disappointed.

I went on line to the customer service page of Delsay and saw there was a repair center in Buffalo at a very well respected luggage store. So I went over there to see how much the repair would cost. The gentleman at Militello’s Luggage was very nice and said before he quoted it, he wanted to call Delsay because it might be under warranty.

A bit embarrassed, I advised the owner I bought the luggage at Marshall’s – a discount store. None the less, he said he would let me know what he heard and then call me back.

Not only was it covered, but Delsay said forget the repair, we’re sending you a brand new suitcase. And not the same one, but, like a much nicer one than I bought. I had to pay $10 or something for handling.

Done! Done with joy. Done with a happy dance — that might have kinda creeped out the guy from the luggage store.

So in return, I must advise you, nay order you to only buy your travel luggage from Delsay. Period. No one else ever again – Delsay is the brand to buy for your luggage. Cause mistake can happen occasionally and Delsay professionally fixes the mistakes.

And I have not had a stich of problem with my new bag. Thank you Delsay.

Tags: commentary, travel // 3 Comments »

As voice-over talents, we specialize in “theatre of the mind”. Our job is to create an image, a presence, a brand in the mind of the listener. We get paid to pretend and it’s pretty great.

Within our own work space, voice talents do some great pretending too. Some VO’s like Joe Cipriano build wonderful voice-over studios within their property that are visually and audibly amazing. Some have pre-fabricated studios like Whisper Rooms to record in. Other voice talents work in their closets, surrounded by heavy winter coats or movers blankets.

I hesitated to write this post about my new voice-over booth for fear it would come across as boastful in someway. That’s not the intent; rather I hope this gives you helpful ideas if you are thinking about changing your voice-over recording space.

There are a thousand variations of voice-over recording booths, all simply want to ensure the best possible audio fidelity even if most of our studios will never make it to the pages of Architectural Digest (well, Joe’s might). Anyway, the beauty of the studio is in the eye of the beholder as, individually, we’re usually the only ones who see it.

For years I’ve been cranking out tons of national, regional and local voice-over projects from a little sound box I made from old shutters and some foam. It has worked wonderfully and clients have been well pleased.

I wasn’t concerned that it was short on looks. But in the past few years, I have been concerned that it was not conducive to one important area of voice-over performance…I could not stand and record in my old set up. I was limited in the physicality of my performance.

With certain voice-over scripts, the physicality of the performance can really come through. I needed to change my voice acting set-up.

I’d been thinking about it, talking about it but for a myriad of reasons, I didn’t just get it done. Until now.

My goal was to create a great sounding space (quiet but not dead sounding), that gave me the physical space to perform sitting or standing, that worked within the dimensions of the room (a kind of reading room off the living room where I keep my office) that would be somewhat attractive (cause it would be in the space off the living room).

Over at hardware store, they sell White Thermally-Fused Melamine board in sheets of 4’w x 7′ h and about 3/4″ thick. They are sturdy and attractive. With those boards, I had a carpenter friend of mine build a 3 walled box with a roof (cause handy I am not…my wife is though) and put it in the corner of the office. Inside the booth, there was installed a counter. Then, based on a video recommendation from George Whittman and some insight from Dan Friedman, I ordered custom built acoustical panels for the interior and put some sound foam on the ceiling. On the fourth wall (which I didn’t want to enclose at this time) hangs a very heavy curtain (wife’s idea). Simple.

I had the sound tested by a long haired audio recording expert in North Carolina who said the recorded sound quality was excellent. I’m happy, the wife is happy and clients didn’t even notice a change.

But I do. Not just in the physical space but the ability I have now to vary my performance. I move completely differently within this space and I think you can hear it in the performance. We’ll see what happens from here.

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover // 7 Comments »

This will surprise you: I was on a plane on Thursday.

And when I landed in Chicago on my way to Green Bay, WI, (with no weather related travel hassles mind you…zoinks!) I got an email from my voice-over agent Erik Shepard from Voice Talent Productions.

It seems a client I’d done work for recently changed a couple of sentences in their script and needed some pick-ups done. I’d advised Erik that I could do it once I landed in GRB. He wondered why I always traveled so much…did they not feed me at home? Was I trying to join a commune? I told him I eat too much, I’d get the lines done and that he was going to make someone a wonderful wife someday. 😉

Recording new projects on the road is not a problem with my laptop and my Sennheiser 416. But this instance was unique because I had recorded the bulk of this project in my acoustically studio with a Neumann TLM-103. Now the client would have to prospectively match that studio audio with new pick-up audio recorded in a hotel room (pillows and blankets and noise floors, oh my) on my 416. It had the potential to be an awkward audio match and an inconvenience for the client.

So I made a call.

You see, whenever I travel, I make it a point to know where any local recording studios are. I believe it’s just smart to have a back-up plan and sometimes you get to make new friends. I’ve been amazed to find some cities (towns, hovels) don’t have ANY recording facilities (- try the AM radio station…they have 60 year old egg cartons on the wall for sound absorption’) so if you want to be audio king pin in Ottumwa – email me and I’ll get you directions.

But in Green Bay some years ago, I was introduced to Carl Romey by my friend, fellow voice talent and FaffCon Stand-up group member Kelly Klemolin. Carl runs The Bridge Recording Studios in Titletown. While Kelly has her own ISDN and ipDTL equipped studio, she often records at Carl’s studio; Kelly is a very in-demand voice talent (and a whiz on QuickBooks).

Carl’s studio is terrific and he’s a prince of a guy (hence the blog post title). So I called him Thursday when I landed and told him what I was trying to accomplish. He told me to stop by early Friday morning (today) and he’d fit me in. His studio is always busy – Carl is a very popular producer.

So up to his 4th Floor studio I flew and banged out those pick-ups in nothing flat. As you might expect, he couldn’t have been more gracious or accommodating. I was happy, Erik was happy (or as happy as he gets 😉 and I believe the client was happy.

Thanks Carl. And thanks Kelly. Green Bay is full of good people. And good football.

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups // 2 Comments »

Friday night the weather was not frightful but the traffic was (hey, it’s Toronto, there’s always traffic) — none the less it was a great night for my awesome Canadian voice-over agents at Ta-Da Voiceworks to host their Christmas party.

I love the idea of hosting a holiday party in January because December is so socially nuts for everyone. Further, few other months really need a party as much as January, especially in the northeast and especially THIS winter.

So in addition to seeing voice-over friends like Bill Hunt, Graeme Spicer and Debra Scott (all of whom I know through Ta-Da Voiceworks, FaffCon and the terrific VO in TO meet-up ((which is hosted by the super duo of Patrick Sweeney and Jodi Krangle – who in spite of her tasty marketing never actually has anycake with her, like ever)))- I got to see the new, bigger Ta-Da offices that opened in November.

Darryl has built a really nice voice-over booth right in the middle of the office so talent can do auditions there or clients can host auditions. He did a really nice job on it.

Folks at the party make too big a deal of me being willing to drive 2 hours from Buffalo to come to this very nice party in Toronto. I don’t see it as a long drive but rather as an opportunity to support my team.

My agents are part of my sales and marketing team and I am a part of theirs. Whenever possible, if they host events, I want to support them just like they support me out in the marketplace on a daily basis. That’s what business teams do.

So thanks to Tanya and Darryl for inviting me. I think a spring/summer open house would be great too!! 🙂

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups // 1 Comment »

When I left the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio in April, 1986 with my Bachelor of Arts degree in Radio and Television, I was just about as clueless as I am now. The only difference being that now I realize how much I don’t know.

Back then, like almost everybody else who graduates at any time in history, you just don’t know. All I knew was that I wanted to make a career for myself in radio. That was not what life had in store for me. So much for plans.

I hadn’t been back to Dayton and UD specifically in at least 20 years, so when I had the opportunity to go back this fall on business, I of course took a few minutes to go back to U.D. Rather than talk about all the amazing things I saw, I will say only this: the school would never accept me as a student today. No way.

Of course, my professional broadcasting career started at the University of Dayton – it’s where I first got a paycheck for talking into a microphone. I started at a little carrier-current radio station (technically it was one step above tying two strings together with tin cans at either end) called WDCR.

It was, as the above picture might indicate, a roomy closet of a radio station but for me it was home. And I thought I was in hog heaven. I was working with people like Tracy Hurd, Scott Rolle, Jim Secunde, Dan Suffoletto, Joe Lombardi, Ginny Judge, Lisa Curie, Liz Benz and Mark Kraus (as well as others I am ignorantly and regretfully omitting). I was extremely fortunate to have joined on with that station when I did…wonderful people.

But then in late fall of ’82, I got called up to “the big show”. WVUD-FM Kettering/Dayton was a 50,000 watt hot AC formatted radio station covering 3 states and they needed an afternoon news announcer. With my extensive news background (uh, none) I was brought on to bring the days news to the Miami Valley. To say I sucked at it was an understatement but I was happy —at least when I forgot to be scared to death about the fraud I was committing daily (pretending to know what I was doing on-air).

Sometime after that I was given a regular disc jockey shift (weeknights from 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.), then moved into the production manager job (after something blew-up in the production department while I was away on vacation). My passion for voice-over kicked around this time too. Then I was made host of the all-request oldies show on Saturday nights (which was the #1 show in the market and the only decent ratings the station got – just the facts, folks). So by the time I left in ’86, I’d had quite a run. I knew I was happy doing all that but I didn’t realize just how happy….like probably one of the best times of my entire life happy, looking back.

Not too long after I graduated, the University decided to get out of the broadcasting business and sold WVUD to Clear Channel. The station was an AC leader in the market for a lot of years as WLQT (Lite 99.9). But evidently fortunes changed and it switched to country this summer (and a new frequency) as B-94.5 (with one of the crappiest logos in all of radio and that’s saying something).

So going back to U.D. on this trip, I knew I was not going to find a radio station there (the WVUD calls are now owned by the University of Delaware). But I did find the echos of a special time for those of us who worked there. It’s both cool and sad to see it now.

For example, when WVUD left, the school crafted a bigger, better school station named WUDR that they took to the off campus housing area known as “The Ghetto”. U.D. has tried to rename it as something like “The Village” but it’s still The Ghetto – only with nicer houses. I’ll talk about WUDR in a moment.

So for folks who worked at WVUD, these next photos will bring back some memories….

This, for example, is where WDCR once stood (as well as an ATM). But not any more. And just to the left of this is a Kinkos kind of copy store, right in the union.

This will be a familiar sight for many…this is the window in Kennedy Union that looked into the on-air studio. I remember taking a tour as a high school student and looking through this window and thinking “OK, I think I need to go to school here.” I believe my tour guide was Libbi Richmond (now Keating).

The interesting thing about this area (and maybe logically so) is that it’s all about TV production with the old radio production classroom next to the TV studio…

(this room) the only audio thing left in the area.

So now back to WVUD-FM and the studio entrance or more accurately, TV Production storage area #1 which looks like this…

In this area, the some of the transmitter equipment, processors and satellite receivers and recorders were located…along with the last of its kind teletype from either UPI or AP….I can’t remember. The engineer’s office was out there, the guys who kept us on the air like Bob White. From here it was on to the studio….

What is now home to more storage (including a large purple exercise ball…as TV people – unlike radio people – evidently like to stay in shape) used to be what you saw as you came into the main air studio. That window you see in the back corner is the same one featured in that black and white picture above of me on the air at WVUD. I don’t recall that white post being in the studio but to the right of it would have been the main announcer console and to the left of it was the news announcing locations (with two mics, for that brief time WVUD had Rod Sommer doing morning news and John Condit doing morning sports with Mike McMurray as the morning host).

And when you were sitting at the main announcer console, this was the view you had looking out into the entry way. It was at this console where talented on-air people worked including John Luttrell (who I know gave me my first shift at WDCR and who I think helped get me my job at WVUD), Sandy Huff, Ron Alexander, Jeff Wagner, Clare Bracken, Luanne Seethaler, Pat Haverland, Mary Haines, Gordon Smith, Troy Christopher and many others (who I am irresponsibly forgetting) broadcast the sounds of FM-100, Hitradio 100, Today’s Music 99.9 FM and probably a few other monikers I am forgetting.

We can’t go back in time and we shouldn’t but for a little while on this trip, I did anyway.

Would that I had the opportunity, I would tell my 1982-self to just focus on everything that I was experiencing and enjoy it a little more, listen a little more because it certainly was a gift, getting to learn from all those people. As a recipient, I was not nearly humble enough.

But the story doesn’t end here. Remember I mentioned the University does have a radio station, WUDR.

The studio is off campus in a cool area called Artstreet, right in the middle of the UD Ghetto. Compared to WDCR’s studio, their studios are like penthouse suites! The general manager of the station is a student named Carson Smith, a very nice guy who had the misfortune to be in the station when I dropped by asking all kinds of questions. He was very patient. I kept saying weird stuff like “you have no idea how nice the station’s equipment is!” And, “you have computers here?!” It was very nice in there, considering what student radio used to be like at UD. Oy!

Like I said, he was very patient, having no idea who I was and whether or not he should call campus security (he didn’t cause he couldn’t find his cell phone).

It was nice to see that, in spite of its challenges, there are still people at UD who care about radio, even though students today don’t know very much at all about the University’s impressive radio history (and that’s the Communication Department’s fault – whom I’m guessing really don’t care if said blame lands at their feet).

One final note though, in spite of appearances, money is extremely tight for WUDR and they could use all the financial support they can get. There are alot of places at UD asking for money BUT, if you could funnel your regular UD donations directly to WUDR, a little would go a LONG way for them. And this is me making the ask on their behalf, I was not put up to this by Carson or anyone at UD.

Anyway, that was my trip to Dayton and down memory lane. Sometimes you’ve got to remember where you’ve been to know where you still want to go…even at this age! 🙂

Tags: commentary, radio, university of dayton, WVUD // 4 Comments »

EDITOR’S NOTE: This has become an annual New Year’s Day post. Happy New Year!

January 1st is not my birthday. Never has been.

But for those social media outlets that demand a birth date in a profile I decided to make January 1st my Social Media birthday.

I’m not big on putting a lot of vital personal information out on the web, a birthday being just one example of a person’s personal identity puzzle that those with ill intent could use in a nefarious way.

So thanks for your thoughts and wishes. I accept them in the spirit of kindness and friendship that they are offered.

I hope your new year is blessed, happy and safe.

Tags: silliness, social media // 1 Comment »