News & Updates
Current Audiobook Work: Task Force Desperate
May 18, 2015
I’m currently narrating “Task Force Desperate” by Peter Nealen. This is the first volume in Peter’s popular American Praetorians series. Click here to learn about this title on Amazon!
Past Blog Posts
April 17, 2015
I’ve carried over the blog posts from my old website below.
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AudioTheater Services LLC is currently developing original episodic content for an audio work of offbeat folksy storytelling, rich in character voices, dramatic moment and, of course, comedy we hope will split your sides (so to speak) with laughter. Bill Reeves hired me to produce The Blonde with Half a Face. I’d voiced Professor Richie Bucceroni and sundry other characters for his Betrayal in Brooklyn as well as Manitoulin Memories. But BHF required a woman’s voice to play Candy Dyer as the intelligent blonde bombshell drug dealer who becomes a chemistry professor and falls in love with Bucceroni. I decided to hire Rachel Fulginiti to narrate and she did good work. I’d hire her again. Bill is very pleased with her reading and I think we’ve got something that is both worth listening to and that is marketable. And here is the link: The Blonde with Half a Face The Blonde with Half a Face
Studio build-out completed. Now with even better room tone! I am now recording in a room with a vaulted ceiling of 14′. Treated with Real Traps (R), which cut reflection better than competing acoustic paneling, and Auralex squares, this new room allows the voice to open up. The fine reference microphone I prefer (AKG414XLS) through the Millenia TD-1 preamp, the choice of many movie studios, can thus capture a wider range of tones than my previous set-up would permit, but which are natural to my live performance voice. The result is superior to the past studio space and to the boxy sound of a vocal booth, which I’ve never chosen to employ. Here, the ambient room noise is negligible and a recording needs little, if any, dynamic processing, unless the client so chooses. Samples to follow shortly.
Read the role of Narrator in this SAG-AFTRA Austin Conservatory Live Script 2 Screen presentation of Scott McGuire’s Rogue. As someone new to Texas, it was a pleasure meeting and working with many talented people from the Austin area.
RECENTLY WRAPPED Manitoulin Memories is now available for preview (see the bottom of this page) and purchase at Audible. This is the second book of fiction by WJ Reeves that I’ve had the pleasure to record, the first being the thriller, Betrayal in Brooklyn.
I’m very pleased to announce the audiobook release of Les Woodland’s Tour of Flanders (McGann Publishing) for cycling fans. The print edition of this audiobook is a Top 100 best seller in cycling books at Amazon UK. This is the third cycling book I have had the honor to record for McGann Publishing and the second of Mr. Woodland’s titles. Please visit Tour of Flanders.
I recently recorded a character voice for a delightful new children’s cartoon by a major studio. More to come on this development. RECENT REPRESENTATIVE WORK: Rawi Hage’s Carnival. It is lyrical, intense, expertly crafted, moving and very beautiful. I read Rawi’s “DeNiro’s Game” for Steerforth in 2012. Soundcloud sample at the bottom of this page. Les Woodland’s “Cycling’s 50 Craziest Stories” for McGann Publishing. (Paperback here.) This is the third book I’ve recorded for Carol and Bill McGann. Always delighted to work with them and for them.
Late last month, I wrapped on the recording of volume 2 of The Story of the Giro d’Italia: A Year-by-Year History of the Tour of Italy, by Bill and Carol McGann, which is this week headed to retail. I’ve had many very happy work relationships with publishers, but this was by far the most enjoyable. And most challenging! with thousands of instances of foreign words, perhaps a dozen on each page. Place names, cycling terminology and rider names in several languages, including Italian, French (which I’ve studied in depth), Spanish, Dutch, German, Lithuanian, Polish, etc., many of them obscure villages, ski stations in the Alps and mountain passes up and down Italy. Complexities abounded — the proper pronunciation of a village located in Italy near the Swiss border with a French name? And similarly with a plethora of rider names, like Kanstantsin Tsivtsov or Lech Piasecki or Franco Chioccioli or even Cadell Evans. And all had to be read in a fluid, upbeat, intelligent style with a bit of athletic announcer excitement thrown in. It stretched my skill set and I’m grateful to have worked on the project. Bill and Carol were marvelous to work with and full of information. I’d be eager to work with them again if a project presented it. I’ll post the link when available. Now, who out there has a title replete with Mandarin, in which I have native fluency, and/or Japanese, which I speak a great deal more fluently than Italian…
I’m happy to announce a major studio upgrade. After several weeks of research and testing, and with the help of Rob Zenn at Alto Music Pro Sound division, I’ve settled on this signal flow for voice work: AKG414xls condenser mic Millenia TD-1 Class A Recording Channel (the choice of most movie studios) MOTU Firewire 6×6 Audio Express interface Cooltech i5Tower Super Quiet DAW Audition CS6 Mogami cables DynaAudio MKII BM5A monitors The 414 is a fine reference mic, which sounds natural and resonant without any shading right out of the box. The TD-1 provides both Vacuum Tube and JFET circuitry as well as a superb parametric equalizer. In other words, I can go from flat response to EQ’d to the hilt (before the signal gets into the computer) and everything in between, and clean and clear as a bell. I’ll have samples up shortly. A marked increase in fine audio quality with which clients, I think, will be pleased.
Betrayal in Brooklyn by W J Reeves (Amazon Indie). The paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon here. _Fatal Dead Lines_ by John Luciew (Amazon Indie), the second Luciew thriller I’ve had the privilege to work on. The paperback on Amazon here. _The Story of the Giro d’Italia: A Year-by-Year History of the Tour of Italy, Volume 1: 1909-1970_ by Bill and Carol McGann (McGann Publishing LLC). The paperback on Amazon here. (An interview with author and racer Bill McGann here.) _Kill The Story_ by John Luciew (Amazon Indie). On sale at Audible here. _Neon Dragon_ by John Dobbyn for Oceanview, the third book in the Michael Knight legal thriller series I’ve been honored to perform. On sale at Audible here. _MIA Hunter: Cambodian Hellhole_ by Stephen Mertz for Crossroads Press. _The Paradiso Files: On the Trail of Boston’s Unknown Serial Killer_ by Timothy M. Burke (Steerforth)