Cable cars and more (plus a handy tip)

 If you're visiting San Francisco, Powell and Market Streets is a good location to drop by. It's a beehive of activity. Our rapid transit service (BART) is centrally located here. 

Here you have a  very popular cable car turnaround, some places to grab a quick bite, a major shopping mall (with public restrooms= hard to find in SF), hotels, and lots of  tourist activity. Often you'll see a street musician playing here or a highly energized, toe-tapping dancer entertaining the crowds waiting to hop on a cable car. It's a great place to people watch. There's usually a sidewalk hot dog vendor here. Don't know what it is, but hot dogs, to me, always taste better eaten outdoors. "I'll have a kraut dog to go! Thank you very much sir!"

The lines at Powell and Market at the cable car turnaround can be very l-o-n-g. Tourists come to San Francisco and their vacation is not complete unless they ride on a cable car. Here's a tip: If you walk up Powell a bit, you'll see some cable car street signs up the line where you can hop on. The operators of the cable car usually leave a little space for a few pickups along the way. It'll save you a very long wait in line back at Powell and Market streets. Not guaranteed, but worth the try. And if you're traveling with a group of five or ten, there's not going to be enough room to hop on. This is for one to two folks max.

A little bit further up Powell is Union Square. Almost always there's something going on at the plaza. In winter, an ice skating rink! For folks who live in the snowy areas, an ice skating rink is no big deal. But here in the Bay Area, it's a fun experience for many, especially around Christmas time.

The city has installed some very contemporary benches along part of the Powell sidewalk where you can take a break and watch the cable cars come and go.

On a visit to have breakfast and walk through Chinatown on a Saturday, I spotted this new piece of artwork on Powell.

                                                                       

    

The importance of having a good recording space

For many voice-over artists, especially new ones, dealing with unwanted sound reflections off of walls and surfaces, as well as outside noise, is a common challenge. You can have an expensive microphone, but if you're not in a good recording environment, your voice-overs are going to suffer. It's sad to see so many new/unaware voice-over folks having their auditions or work rejected not necessarily because of how they voiced the copy, but because of negative sound related issues. You don't have to build an exceptional recording studio, but get into a space where you're not going to have your voice-overs sound like they were recorded in an echoing cave or tiled bathroom floor.  You Tube videos are full of awful audio; hum, hiss, a way off mike voice, distorted audio, "cheap microphone sound" with lots of sibilance-you name it. 

Foam, sound blankets, and baffles are just some things that can be used to improve the sound quality of your  voice-overs. Do some research on Google about this or go to You Tube and do a search about setting up a solid recording space before going out and spending a lot of money. And don't forget that large walk in closet that you might have could be a very good option to record in! You'd be amazed at some of the adequate, but not eye appealing recording spaces, voice actors use at home. Remember, the people who are hiring you to record don't see your recording space. They just want good, clean audio that adds value to their production. And check with headphones on to make sure your computer fan isn't heard in the background of your recording. If it IS, create some space between your laptop and the microphone.