Transcription
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
My name is Joe J Thomas, and I started voice acting way back in the ’80s. Idid it for a very short period of time, and then picked it up again somewhere around 2006. I do games, animation, dubbing for live action movies and for anime, and if you’ve played a video game, you probably killed me.
What problem did you face before getting your Studiobricks?
We had a house with a pretty quiet room, so I treated the room. Then we moved to a smaller space, a loft. And fortunately we had a walk-in closet that we had treated and that did better but it wasn’t perfect. For example, the water heater couldn’t be running because it was next to the closet or the washing machine.I had to work around them instead.
We actually decided to move from LA to Barcelona, and that’s when I ended up getting the StudioBricks.
What made Studiobricks stand out from other options?
I’ve looked at some of the other pre-made ones, and they just didn’t seem to meet the specification, but then they were a lot heavier and harder to take apart, harder to put back together. Since I was considering moving and Studiobricks is in Barcelona, which is where I’m at now, that seemed like a more natural way to go. The home-built ones, the engineer-built ones were a little cheaper, but that’s because they were basically using soundproofing material and plywood to build the whole thing. It wasn’t quite as interesting or sound proof as I needed.
Where did you start your search?
I talked to several audio engineers and they all said, if you’re gonna go with the booth, you can afford it, Joe, so just go for the top of the line. Initially, I looked at just the StudioBricks One, which is the smaller model, and I said, “Okay, I do video games, I do animation, there’s a lot of movement with my hands.” So I went for the OnePlus, and then I talked to Guillermo at StudioBricks, and he gave me the options and I said, “Oh, you’ve got a VO edition with all this stuff,” and I said, “Okay, that’s exactly what I need. So let’s just go with that.” And I got everything I was looking for.
What surprised you the most or made you the happiest about buying your Studiobricks?
I was fortunate enough that since I’m in Barcelona, the guys came out and put it together for me, so I didn’t have to do it myself, but I did get to watch and it was a lot like watching Legos go together. It was really surprising how easily all the pieces fit together, and the door was probably the biggest thing that they had to bring up. We’re on the third floor, if you’re in the United States, it’s floor two. And it encouraged me because I could see that in the future, if we decide to move somewhere else, it would be easy to disassemble, even if I didn’t do it.
Guillermo showed up outside, just had his car with a small trailer and everything fit in there, and I went, “That’s perfect.”
What would you tell someone who’s considering buying a sound isolation booth?
I think StudioBricks represents a premium product. You get what you pay for. At some level, you look at it and you say, “Okay, I can’t afford it, or I can afford it, but I don’t want to,” or, “I’m gonna go a little cheap,” and my wife and I went back and forth on this, and when we had bought the place that we’re in in Barcelona, I told her, “Don’t hold back, get what you want, because otherwise it’s gonna bother you.” And then I’d give myself the same advice. I’m gonna use this every day, I work in this, I’m in here for hours. If it’s something that’s gonna bother me, it’s gonna bother me every day, so I wanted something that would support my career in the future and this is it.
Is there anything you would like to add or maybe share an exciting project you are working on?
Well, I normally can’t share anything that I’m doing because everything is secret. By the way, you can go to joeactor.com if you want to know more about me, but I will tell you that one of the funniest jobs I had as a voice actor is I won a yodelling contest on the internet, and the pay for the yodelling contest was 100 rubber chickens, and the Yodel is in a pickle about this big, and you press a button on the pickle and the pickle yodels.
So I am the voice of a yodelling pickle. And it’s been everywhere, it’s been on Good Morning America. It’s insane what that one bizarre job has led to, and it’s also left rubber chickens all over Los Angeles.
The company has been great. The guys who came out and built it, Guillermo dropping them off and all the correspondence back and forth. Even when I had a small issue with the mic arm, he put me in contact directly with the manufacturer of it and they sorted it out, so I have zero complaints at this point.
In this short video, Voice Actor Joe J Thomas shares his experience of getting his Studiobricks in Barcelona after moving from LA, and why he finally chose Studiobricks.
