In the Voiceover Studio: A Few More Computer Thoughts – Tuesday VO Tech Tip

When replacing a studio computer we tend to focus on the hardware specs. How fast? What’s the RAM? How much storage? There are a few other considerations which aren’t strictly related to the computer itself. These are topics which often come up when evaluating what to do about that aging bit of tech which is central to our voiceover studio.

The “Other” Subject – Which Operating System?

I should probably talk about the elephant in the room – “Which is better? MacOS or Windows?”

ideological differences aside, it’s important to understand what we mean by “better”. 

When we are considering which computer operating system records “better”… there’s simply no measurable difference. You won’t get better audio results because you used a Mac or a Windows machine. Since the development of low cost, high quality audio interfaces, no one is using the internal “sound card” hardware of a computer to do the actual recording these days. The audio comes into the computer already digitized and the recording software is simply capturing that data from the interface and storing it.

Using a Windows Computer In Your Voiceover Studio

Plenty of VO’s use Windows based studios and get work out the door every day. However, when I’m working with clients on WinOS, there are a few things which tend to regularly crop up.

The first is “Forced Updates” for Windows Home users. When there is a system update from Microsoft, those are non-optional unless you’ve upgraded to Windows Pro and changed your preferences. Most of the time, this is not an issue. Occasionally however, that update will break functionality with hardware (like audio interfaces) or software (such as the app you use to record, or the Effect that lives in your processing stack). At that point, the manufacturer will likely need to update their code to fix that issue. There is the possibility of being unable to work while that “Fix” is getting fixed.

The second area of odd behavior is in the realm of audio drivers. This is the system level software which controls how the computer deals with audio. Windows uses a few different methods of handling audio data. On WinOS, you will likely encounter a herd of acronyms – ASIO, WASAPI, MME, for example – which are different protocols for wrangling audio. This is what the recording and editing applications use to make sense of the audio data you have captured. In some cases, specific software won’t recognize certain audio drivers, or won’t share the driver between multiple applications. Occasionally, drivers get changed or reset in the course of the forced updates.

Certain hardware can also be problematic. There have been some ongoing issues with Apollo series interfaces and Windows for some time. Preferred or required software is not always available or as fully developed. Here I think about Twisted Wave (though there is now a beta for Windows) and Source-Connect (which has remained in version 3.8.x for some time while MacOS is at 3.9). 

The more comfortable you are with Windows, the less any of the above will bother you. Often it just adds a few items to check during those times when things suddenly stop working.

Using a MacOS Computer In Your Voiceover Studio

MacOS is of course not without its quirks. However, though it will nag you relentlessly to update to the newest version of the operating system, you can keep telling it “NO!”  As I’ve mentioned before, when you are running a production studio – which we are all doing as voice actors – it’s always better to have a reliably working system that is slightly out of date. If you have other Apple products you will find that the integration between those devices is generally pretty seamless.

Since Apple runs all audio processes through the MacOS “Core Audio” – many hardware devices do not even need separate drivers. They run as “class compliant” devices that are essentially plug-and-play. (I will say that Windows has gotten much better at this in the past years). Stuff generally just works. Mac models sometimes have the reputation of being more expensive, but often that comparison is between wildly different levels of processing power. If you keep an eye on the used machines which show up through the Apple Refurbished store (or through sellers such as OWC), you’ll find high value machines with full warranties (and new batteries on laptop models). 

Any reliable, studio-grade machine will cost a little more than the cheapest laptop down at the local electronics warehouse. It will also tend to last longer, so any initial investment should be considered over the life of use you will get. On an annual basis, a good computer will likely cost less than a mid-tier annual subscription to one of the major online voiceover marketplaces.

(Just as a reminder – If you do choose to switch, it will likely be uncomfortable at first. There are a lot of ingrained habits from using any system for a length of time, and those will need to be retrained. Hang in there while you retrain your brain.)

Back Up There, Pardner! Where’s Your Data?

Backing up data is a bit like doing crunches – we all know it would be good for us, but how many of us actually do them… ?

There are two things to keep in mind with your important data: 

• If you have to remember to back it up, you likely will not do so.
• If your data isn’t in three places (one of which is offsite), it really doesn’t safely exist.

Think about the last large project you worked on. How many hours of work does that represent? What would happen if you had to do that all over again? 

Now consider your phone – it happily backs up every night. You don’t often worry about whether that once-in-a-lifetime photo is going to be there. Even if you aren’t going to update your main computer, perhaps this is a good time to set up a strong data storage system which works more like your phone.=

To start, I like to use redundant local backups – making iterative saves of any project (quick and easy with this undocumented trick in Twisted Wave), or using a process to maintain specific versions as I outline on my Voiceover Answerbase resource). That means that even before I begin backing up, more than one copy exists on my main drive. 

As the first backup, I use Time Machine  (or the Windows Back Up & Restore function) to schedule a nightly backup of my data drive. This gets written to a separate attached drive, scheduled to run when I’m sleeping. 

Finally, one of the cloud-based systems such as Backblaze or Carbonite stores a secure and encrypted copy offsite, and Dropbox has now added a specific backup feature to compliment their shared cloud drive. The best solution will depend upon how many computers you might need to back up, as well as catastrophic recovery options. Some services will expedite a drive with your data rather than have you download the backup through the internet. 

These considerations boil down to creating a reliable and familiar working environment which will let us continue to focus on what we need to do behind the mic. I’ll readily invest in any tools which support that workflow.

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