Welcome back to another episode of I Can Make That: Conversations with Creatives!

I don’t even know where to begin with today’s guest. All I can say is that if you’ve ever wanted to be surrounded by love, light, happiness and creativity…then go find Amber and immerse yourself in her world. Immediately.

She is an artist with no bounds. She is a non-native West Virginia gal like me. And she and I would be best friends if we ever decided to leave our creative spaces and families and spent more time in the outside world.

Meet: Amber Musser!

Please help me welcome to the show the one, the only, Amber Musser from Bluebird Media! She is a voice over artist, an actor, a musician, a potter, a mother, a wife, an orchid connoisseur….the list goes on forever and yet never fully captures just how incredible she is. The majority of her day is spent in a tiny, custom built, sound booth inside of her home, but she somehow still lives her life out loud in the biggest way possible. I’m excited to share her with you today! So let’s get to it.

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See you next time, Creatives!

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For those of you that are hearing impaired, I’ve been trying to find the best way to share our podcast with you as well!  It is transcribed using an Ai platform — with lots of imperfections. I’m hoping in the future we work on accuracy. Always learning and growing, aren’t we? 🙂

EPISODE 016: AMBER MUSSER TRANSCRIPT

00;00;57;16 – 00;01;19;13
Katy McKinley
Welcome back to I can make that conversations with creatives. I don’t even know where to begin with today’s guests. All that I can say is that if you’ve ever wanted to be surrounded by love, light, happiness and creativity, then go find Amber and immerse yourself in her world immediately. She is an artist with no bounds. She’s a non-native West Virginia Gal like

00;01;19;13 – 00;01;41;29
Katy McKinley
Me and she and I would be best friends if we ever decided to leave our creative spaces and families and actually spent more time in the outside world. Please help me. Welcome to the show. The one the only Amber massager from Bluebird Media. She is a voiceover actress, an actor, a musician, a potter, a mother, a wife, an orchid connoisseur.

00;01;41;29 – 00;02;00;10
Katy McKinley
The list goes on forever and yet never fully captures just how incredible she really is. The majority of her day is spent in a tiny, custom built sound booth inside of her home, but she somehow still lives her life out loud in the biggest way possible. I’m excited to share her with you, so let’s get to it. Welcome to.

00;02;00;11 – 00;02;01;11
Katy McKinley
I can make that Amber.

00;02;01;18 – 00;02;05;05
Amber Musser
Hi, Katy. I’m so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

00;02;05;14 – 00;02;09;09
Katy McKinley
I know it’s a long time coming, and I’ve only teased you with it for forever, so.

00;02;09;25 – 00;02;17;03
Amber Musser
I’m finally doing this. It’s amazing just to get to hang out and talk with you. But, like, I’m so honored to be on your podcast. Thank you.

00;02;17;12 – 00;02;31;00
Katy McKinley
Well, I’ve been incredibly intimidated because you are a sound artist in a way, so I’m doing audio related items with you has been terrifying to me, so I hope you’re gentle with me today.

00;02;32;17 – 00;02;47;01
Amber Musser
Of course, in every way. Because remember, I started as a complete like beginner myself and have just like built up to the point where I am now. So, yeah, absolutely no judgment. I’m sure it’s going to sound amazing and be incredible, just like everything else you produced. Katy Oh.

00;02;47;01 – 00;03;06;17
Katy McKinley
Gosh. Well, I have a first question ready for you and it is, Why are you so amazing? I just think I like to know maybe we can all find that one and start with this one. Tell me every where you’ve lived and how your journey brought you here to Wheeling, West Virginia with me.

00;03;06;25 – 00;03;27;19
Amber Musser
Okay, so I was born in the geographical center of the state of Tennessee, which is a town called Murfreesboro, which kind of, for reference, is about 30 miles away from Nashville. So I was raised there. And then when I was ready to go to college, my dad, who was a research scientist, happened to be working at the University of Pittsburgh.

00;03;28;13 – 00;03;50;21
Amber Musser
After years and years at Vanderbilt, his lab moved up to Pitt. So I left Murfreesboro to go and live in Pittsburgh and Squirrel Hill with my dad and to attend Pitt. But it was not a fit for me at that time. Like, I think that for some people you leave high school, you’re immediately ready for college. I was not that person.

00;03;51;00 – 00;04;18;11
Amber Musser
So I decided to leave college and go and pursue acting, which was definitely my drive and my passion at that time and still is obviously, but like in a big way, I noticed that everything that was being cast nationally was being cast fairly young. So I was like, This is a better time in my life for me to go pursue this as hard as I can and then maybe later come back to college and and kind of pursue that route.

00;04;18;11 – 00;04;47;16
Amber Musser
So left Pittsburgh, went back to Murfreesboro, then left and went to L.A. and I was there for about ten years, which is where I met Nathan Moss there, my husband, who was a Wheeling native. So he and I were in L.A. until 2011. At that time, my mom deployed. She’s military, obviously, so she was deployed to Kuwait and that was going to leave her house in Murfreesboro vacant for my grandparents to kind of take care of.

00;04;47;26 – 00;05;17;00
Amber Musser
So we decided that we were ready to start a family and we wanted to do that outside of Los Angeles. So we decided to move back to Murfreesboro. And we did. And we had our oldest daughter and Nate had been working as he had been working in audio for television. Right. So that type of work wasn’t really readily available in Nashville as entertainment focused as it is.

00;05;17;14 – 00;05;51;20
Amber Musser
It’s so music industry that there just wasn’t a lot of television work. So anyway, skip to Nate going out on the road as a sound tech, a keyboard tech for a Sugarland, which was a great gig. But we both knew, especially with starting a family, that having him out on the road was not ideal for us. So the catalyst in getting him off the road was the Indiana stage collapse, which was, you know, if you can look at it online, it was a pretty horrific event.

00;05;51;20 – 00;06;08;18
Amber Musser
So as soon as that happened, we were like, okay, so now is the time. So how do we get you off the road as soon as possible? So we started looking at our options. And when Nate initially went to college as a young person, he went for music and he went for science because he had an interest in both.

00;06;09;00 – 00;06;31;29
Amber Musser
So he decided to finish out all of his science undergrad credits at Middle Tennessee State University there in Murfreesboro. And then he was accepted into the physician assistant program at West Liberty University here just outside of Wheeling. And so we moved up, yeah, about eight years ago for him to go to school. And we have been here ever since.

00;06;33;03 – 00;06;57;21
Katy McKinley
Well, I’m so happy you’re back. And this might not be interesting to not willing people, but you and I have kind of a similar life where we married people who are of multiple generation wheeling families and being outsiders and coming into a small town with older roots can be challenging, to say the least. But at this point, do you call Wheeling Home or do you still feel a tug towards Tennessee or L.A. or somewhere else?

00;06;57;26 – 00;07;20;29
Amber Musser
I would say I definitely still feel connected to all of these communities that I’ve lived in, but I definitely have a huge place in my heart for Wheeling because, you know, we’ve watched our daughters kind of grow up here and being integrated through, you know, our school families and all of our creative families and our, you know, family families and all the awesome friends that we have here.

00;07;22;02 – 00;07;32;19
Amber Musser
I almost said that we’ve made it. You know, we’ve had friends here for so long. So I love wheeling, definitely, but I definitely still consider myself part Murfreesboro, part L.A. and part Wheeling.

00;07;33;21 – 00;07;45;28
Katy McKinley
You are the first real actor I think I’ve ever known, and I want to break down all the roles you play within Bluebird Media and the Daugherty Agency that you work for. But first, I want to know how you got into acting.

00;07;46;11 – 00;08;17;16
Amber Musser
Oh, okay. So the very first time I was ever on stage, I was seven years old and I had a a chorus director at school at Middle Tennessee Christian School, where I went for my entire elementary through high school education. And she just kind of noticed, I don’t know, comedic timing in me. So she started me in this play and that was kind of the beginning of everything, but it was really, I guess, like moving forward to when I was 14 and I auditioned for our local community theater there in Murfreesboro.

00;08;17;16 – 00;08;37;22
Amber Musser
But that was the first time that I was in like a non-school function play. And that sort of led to everything that came after, because then people in the local theater community kind of met me and they were like, Oh, hey, you should you know, you should be meeting these people and you should maybe go see this agency and you should maybe audition.

00;08;38;05 – 00;08;46;08
Amber Musser
But Nashville and, you know, kind of branch out a little bit. So yeah, so I would say technically, like my real start was probably when I was about 14.

00;08;46;16 – 00;08;58;10
Katy McKinley
I have a couple of friends whose children do a little bit of modeling and acting, and it seems like you have to be very coastal to be a part of that community for the most part, right? Like people are in L.A. or people are in New York City.

00;08;58;22 – 00;09;01;01
Amber Musser
Yeah, it is a little polarized that way, I suppose.

00;09;01;09 – 00;09;11;03
Katy McKinley
Yeah. Did you find is that kind of what brought you out to L.A.? A little. I mean, you you mentioned that, but is that what kept you in L.A. and was it the acting scene that that was really your draw there?

00;09;11;13 – 00;09;34;24
Amber Musser
Yeah, I would say definitely. And I always like just kind of instinctively knew that I had more of a draw to just like the feel, the geography, like everything in L.A. versus New York. I love New York City. It’s incredible. But I personally am like, you know, I was really just kind of as a country girl. So the open space and just the feel of Los Angeles appealed to me a lot more personally.

00;09;35;16 – 00;09;53;19
Katy McKinley
Well, I took a peek at your resumé on your website. Of course, I’ve actually looked at it like 100 times. Just because I like you, that I like you. It said that you and actually I saw a clip of this. You were in a Hilary Duff movie called The Cinderella Story, where I got to watch you as a background actress.

00;09;54;12 – 00;10;12;03
Katy McKinley
And I’m now going to use that as my claim of six degrees of separation. So basically all of Hollywood and thank you for that. So you a favor on set experience. I know that wasn’t your only movie. Do you do you have a big memory of doing one of these big movies, of being a background actors for that?

00;10;12;15 – 00;10;39;11
Amber Musser
Yeah. So actually, like one of my very favorite on set experiences was was not a big movie, but it was a music video. So I The Cure did the song called Taking Off, and it was from gosh, I’m not sure what year that album would have even been released, probably like like middle 2000, But that experience was so cool for me because it was my first total green screen experience.

00;10;39;11 – 00;11;00;27
Amber Musser
So even though when you watch the video, like I’m in a scene with two other people, they were not present with me for the filming. So basically in on the soundstage, there was this huge platform that was shot up and there were just wooden boxes everywhere and there were axes and things kind of denoting where certain pieces are.

00;11;00;27 – 00;11;19;24
Amber Musser
Props would have been like a fishbowl was a big prop for this, feel like all these different things. So I went up and was kind of given basic direction as to what was happening around me and then was told where my fellow actors would be standing and kind of given marks for their eye lines and then kind of move through the scene by myself.

00;11;19;26 – 00;11;28;22
Amber Musser
So that experience just blew me away. It was so fun, it was so incredible. So that was definitely like my favorite eye opening on set.

00;11;28;22 – 00;11;34;18
Katy McKinley
MOMENT You said it was The Cure, the Curia. You want music video? Was it for.

00;11;34;20 – 00;11;36;04
Amber Musser
It’s called Taking Off.

00;11;36;17 – 00;11;41;15
Katy McKinley
Taking off. I’m now going to go deep stalk you even checking out that video.

00;11;41;21 – 00;11;44;22
Amber Musser
And I’m probably in like like right around a minute, 30.

00;11;45;08 – 00;11;46;07
Katy McKinley
Of the minute 30.

00;11;46;08 – 00;11;48;22
Amber Musser
You have to kind of watch. Yeah. Into it just a little bit.

00;11;49;02 – 00;11;54;08
Katy McKinley
Or maybe I’ll see if I can cue it up for your blog post that goes along with this too, so we can have everybody.

00;11;54;19 – 00;11;55;15
Amber Musser
Got it. Yeah, that’d be.

00;11;55;15 – 00;11;56;17
Katy McKinley
I’m excited.

00;11;56;23 – 00;11;57;12
Amber Musser
Oh.

00;11;58;00 – 00;12;03;05
Katy McKinley
Class Glory to you today. How did you get involved with voice acting as a.

00;12;03;05 – 00;12;27;05
Amber Musser
Oh, wow. So I definitely took the long way to voice acting. Okay, so when my girls were born, I was a stay at home mom. It just kind of worked for our family. And when it was time for me to rejoin the workforce, it was like both of the girls were in school full time. And I was like, okay, now what am I going to do to help like, you know, contribute to our family financially?

00;12;27;13 – 00;12;44;17
Amber Musser
So I started looking around and I was like, okay, I need something that gives me the freedom to take my girls to school and pick them up to be there. If school calls and they need to be picked up early for any reason. I also need to be able to take care of like our house and like keep all the details of our life tidy.

00;12;44;25 – 00;13;09;02
Amber Musser
So how am I going to do this? So I remembered that my friend Amanda Stella’s, she and I were waitresses together at the Rainbow Bar and Grill on Sunset. I just remembered seeing on social media as she was posting about being a voice actor and her career has. She’s just done some incredible things, you know? So I reached out to her and I said, Hey, Amanda, like what?

00;13;09;02 – 00;13;29;18
Amber Musser
What I need to get started in voice acting because, you know, Nathan has always been a musician. So we had basically a studio already downstairs that was geared toward music and music recording, but we had a microphone, we had a computer with them, you know, software on it. And she was like, you know, that’s pretty much exactly what you need to get started.

00;13;29;27 – 00;13;49;24
Amber Musser
But serendipitously, her she and her then husband had just created a program called the VOICEOVER School, and she was like, if like, sign up with us, take. And I took their very first class. She was like, It will take you through every single step of every single thing that you will need to do to get started. So I took that.

00;13;50;19 – 00;14;07;01
Amber Musser
I started auditioning the next week and I booked my first job and then two weeks later I booked my first like four figure job and it just has sort of like climbed and build and just snowballed from there.

00;14;08;10 – 00;14;13;19
Katy McKinley
Is it mostly commercials that you’re doing work for, or what is it that you’re lending your voice to the most?

00;14;13;25 – 00;14;33;25
Amber Musser
Yeah, I would say in this part of the country, there’s not a lot of like video game and animation work. So I do a lot of corporate, I do a lot of commercials, I do a lot of like podcast intros and outros. I do a lot of explainers and e-learning. And that that pretty much fills out my my roster at this point.

00;14;33;25 – 00;14;47;06
Amber Musser
Like I’ve done some animation, but it was for the Dairy Council or dairy farm Workers of Canada. So it’s like just little bits of, you know, animated stuff here and there, but mainly corporate, e-learning, commercial, that kind of thing.

00;14;48;01 – 00;14;58;24
Katy McKinley
When you just recently had a booth installed in your basement studio. So you’ve really moved up in the world. I know you were so excited about it. I really need to come over and see it some time.

00;14;58;24 – 00;15;00;04
Amber Musser
Yes, definitely.

00;15;00;13 – 00;15;05;22
Katy McKinley
Can you explain what what it is? It’s I mean, it’s a sound booth, but I feel like it’s more than just a sound booth.

00;15;05;29 – 00;15;21;03
Amber Musser
Oh, yeah. It’s like a space capsule. It’s amazing. So, like, a for reference, when I started doing this, we were in the very corner of our basement area down here. I had a moving blanket hung behind me, and I had sound panels that a friend had given us when we still lived in L.A., kind of hung on the wall.

00;15;21;03 – 00;15;47;25
Amber Musser
So I started there. Then we built a booth out of pieces of deconstructed cubicles and it was awesome. Like our my vegetable levels were beautiful. Like it worked really well, but the time had come, like just to invest in an awesome booth because I really want to record other people as well. So the current booth is amazing. I’m like looking adoringly at the walls right now as I’m talking to you.

00;15;48;02 – 00;16;18;24
Amber Musser
It’s made by a company called Studio Bricks and they are located in Spain. They also have a showroom there in New York, but unfortunately for the space that I’m in, I couldn’t fit like a standard sized booth. So this company is so incredible. I sent them the measurements for my room and they custom built a booth that can eventually, like when I move into a space with a higher ceiling, can be expanded all the way to the standard booth size.

00;16;19;04 – 00;16;44;22
Amber Musser
The booth is amazing because it’s made out of all recycled materials, but the sound quality is it’s it’s phenomenal. It’s completely dead. Trucks go down the street and I don’t hear a thing. The only thing and maybe the only thing on the planet that would but the only thing that comes through this booth is the bark of my miniature pinscher, because it occurs on decibel levels that are just out of this world.

00;16;44;22 – 00;17;00;25
Amber Musser
It has like a ventilation system. So in the summer when you’re working, you don’t just get really, really sweaty because clearly it’s such an airtight box, you know, it gets a little warm. But yeah, studio bricks for the When Forever. I love this booth so much. It’s incredible.

00;17;01;18 – 00;17;06;25
Katy McKinley
Is it just ideas for you or can you have someone in there with you? If you’re doing like a collaborative something?

00;17;07;01 – 00;17;13;19
Amber Musser
Yeah, I would say we could have two people in. No more than two people, though. It’s a pretty like it’s a pretty tight fit.

00;17;13;27 – 00;17;23;09
Katy McKinley
And I’ve seen two and I mean, it has big windows in it. So your girls will just be like playing outside of that space. So you’re like with there while you’re still working, it’s kind of cool.

00;17;23;10 – 00;17;42;19
Amber Musser
It’s unreal. It’s amazing. That was the biggest change from the last booth to this booth was this giant glass door. So I can literally see my family before I was just closed into a tiny, like tiny, dark little box. And I would have to be like, quiet on set, everybody. I’m getting ready to record. So they would have to be quiet.

00;17;42;19 – 00;17;56;00
Amber Musser
Now they can sit just outside of the booth. They can, you know, have the television going, they can talk to each other, they can play instruments or do whatever, and we can all exist in the same space. It’s been a real, real game changer for our family.

00;17;56;23 – 00;18;01;03
Katy McKinley
That’s amazing. Yeah, I’m definitely going to get off my back and come see it soon.

00;18;01;03 – 00;18;02;25
Amber Musser
So yes, come over any time.

00;18;03;21 – 00;18;11;16
Katy McKinley
How do you get hired for voice acting roles? You have an agency that you work for, but do you like? What’s the process of doing this?

00;18;11;28 – 00;18;36;03
Amber Musser
Yeah. So sort of with any creative work, there’s a lot of word of mouth and a lot of just networking and telling people what you do and seeing if there’s work available. I also use pay to play site. So voices and voice one, two, three. Basically you pay a yearly fee and they flood you with auditions. So I found a lot of like my regular clients through voices and voice 1 to 3.

00;18;36;09 – 00;18;42;22
Amber Musser
And then of course the Daugherty Agency love them and Pittsburgh. They they keep me really busy as well.

00;18;43;19 – 00;18;59;05
Katy McKinley
You do more than just voice acting, too. I know that you’ve done some commercial work and done commercials with your daughters, or at least one. How many different? I just want to list out the cool things that you’ve done even just in the last couple of months. I know you did something with Dick’s Sporting Goods.

00;18;59;28 – 00;19;00;18
Amber Musser
Yeah.

00;19;01;06 – 00;19;02;03
Katy McKinley
Vince, right?

00;19;02;22 – 00;19;27;25
Amber Musser
Yeah. Yeah. Dick’s Sporting Goods was such an amazing experience because it was the first job that I’ve ever done with my daughter. So. Alena Dolly, she’s amazing. And she and I were hired to do their holiday campaign this year. And so we went up to Pittsburgh and had this amazing day together where, you know, we just got to play and shoot and she got to eat cookies and we just had such a great time.

00;19;27;25 – 00;19;51;25
Amber Musser
So thanks, Daugherty, for that one. The Bob Evans commercial, the neatest part about that was I got to travel to the original Bob Evans, which is out. It’s really out there in Ohio, but is is attached to like the original, like Bob Evans, like the barn and all of all of the things like it was such a neat experience.

00;19;51;25 – 00;20;16;08
Amber Musser
I was what they call unrecognizable background for that one. And we filmed on my birthday so I’m kind of kind of a neat experience, definitely not something that I would be like, Mom, look, there I am, you know, in this commercial. But it was work nonetheless. And as as creatives know, sometimes you just, you know, you show up and enjoy the job for whatever exposure you get and just enjoy the experience and meeting people.

00;20;17;06 – 00;20;37;18
Katy McKinley
I find it really interesting when I think about how many of my favorite actors are actually big in the voice acting world. If you just think of a few of my favorites, I’m going to go ahead and do all the nerdy people that Mark Hamill is a huge Ben Schwartz, Kristen Schaal, H. John Macniven Who are your voiceover idols?

00;20;37;29 – 00;20;49;02
Amber Musser
Yeah, I know. So you called me out. So Kristen Schaal is also on my list. I is amazing. H Jon Benjamin Like, come on. And that voice is iconic. He’s amazing. Jenny Slate.

00;20;49;02 – 00;20;51;03
Katy McKinley
Love her. Oh yes. Jenny Slate’s cool.

00;20;51;03 – 00;21;12;29
Amber Musser
Too. Definitely, definitely. And they are all actors that, you know, like you just cross over into the film world as well. But for the strictly the voiceover idols. Mel Mel Blanc I have to call his name, of course, because he was the voice of all of the Looney Tunes. And if you ever see footage of him filming, it is mind blowing.

00;21;12;29 – 00;21;41;29
Amber Musser
It is absolutely incredible. He performs like a man possessed, and all these voices are just like coming out as he’s voicing entire cartoons solo, which is unreal. Nancy Cartwright, of course, the voice of Bart Simpson and several many other Simpsons characters, and Trish McNeill, she blows me away. She slays me. She’s incredible. The Animaniacs is a series that most people are familiar with, and she is the the sister a maniac there.

00;21;42;21 – 00;22;13;08
Katy McKinley
It’s so funny that you talked about Louie actually just started watching The Simpsons, which is hysterical that it’s maybe not hysterical. It’s amazing that that show has existed as long as it has. Definitely. And that, like, this generation is like jumping on board with it, too. But we are talking about the woman who does Bart, and he was just he’s all about like listening, watching these shows and like going and finding the people who do the voices because a lot of times they cross genders to like that.

00;22;13;13 – 00;22;19;13
Katy McKinley
Right. All right. Simpson is voiced by women. I mean, Bob’s Burgers, we watch a lot of that. And I think Linda is done by a man like.

00;22;19;18 – 00;22;22;21
Amber Musser
Oh, yeah, actually, Kristen is the only female voice artist.

00;22;22;27 – 00;22;24;13
Katy McKinley
Right? Yeah. So I’m.

00;22;24;13 – 00;22;45;13
Amber Musser
Leaving. Yeah, But yeah, speaking about Nancy Cartwright. So yeah, odd story. But the week I started auditioning for voiceover and I know it was a mistake, I know it was a fluke, but she followed me on Instagram for two days. Oh, she must have thought I was another Amber. I don’t know. But I took it as a sign from the universe.

00;22;45;13 – 00;22;49;11
Amber Musser
I was like, okay, I’m on the right track. Like, Let’s just keep going.

00;22;49;16 – 00;22;52;06
Katy McKinley
You’ve been kissed by the voiceover angels.

00;22;52;09 – 00;22;55;11
Amber Musser
Seriously? Yeah. She’s amazing. She’s incredible.

00;22;55;23 – 00;23;06;09
Katy McKinley
I have to say that I. I’m going to call you out on this a little bit. Ah, you need to indulge me a little bit. It says that your special talents include accents.

00;23;06;23 – 00;23;07;06
Amber Musser
And.

00;23;07;15 – 00;23;10;27
Katy McKinley
I need to know what kind of accents you do.

00;23;11;06 – 00;23;42;15
Amber Musser
Okay. All right. Well, yeah, When I was growing up, I was that kid who would, like, watch movies and stuff, and I would kind of absorb whatever accents were going on. Let’s see, the other day I had an audition that involved the transatlantic accent. So just this very, very, very proper sort of a cross between, you know, Oh, gosh, I just remember the word institute was in it and I was like, and here we are at the institute, you know, just this very British American cross course.

00;23;42;15 – 00;23;58;14
Amber Musser
I guess I could do a little bit of an Irish accent or a little bit of a Scottish accent. And then, of course, I love to do the Russian accents and I get really deep with it. And, you know, I mean, the list kind of goes on and on. And I love to audition for anything that comes along.

00;23;58;23 – 00;24;23;03
Amber Musser
But the band in the business is definitely toward authenticity these days. So I do kind of not that I’m afraid to do the accents, but I shy away from the work because I feel like people who are natives of that place should should have the opportunity to audition for it. And and get that work, you know? But I want to do like different ranges, like age ranges of voices and stuff.

00;24;23;03 – 00;24;43;14
Amber Musser
So like, I love to do like little kid voices and kind of push everything up really high. And then, you know, it’s also really fun to do like little old little old lady voices, kind of bring it down a little bit, you know? So it just I don’t know, it’s just all situational and just depends on what the casting director is looking for.

00;24;44;14 – 00;24;48;03
Katy McKinley
You’ve been doing voice acting for for how many years now?

00;24;48;20 – 00;24;51;10
Amber Musser
Let’s see. I started this business in 2019.

00;24;52;03 – 00;25;01;07
Katy McKinley
Do you feel like if you listen back to your first couple of tapes that you’ve changed a lot in just your performance quality?

00;25;01;17 – 00;25;24;19
Amber Musser
Yeah, I would say really, it’s in my production quality because when I started I was using a Yeti blue microphone, which is a USB mike. It plugged directly into my laptop and I use no plug ins. I didn’t have a board or anything that I used. So the evolution of that has come to now I use well, I just changed.

00;25;24;19 – 00;25;42;25
Amber Musser
So the Apollo twin is what I have been using, but we just moved that over to the music part of our studio because it has more ins and outs and it’s a little better. So I use an Apollo solo and then I run things through like different processors. I’ve just gotten better with like mixing and cueing and compressing and editing.

00;25;43;20 – 00;26;08;26
Amber Musser
Yeah, but I feel like as far as performance goes, I’ve been pretty steady in my delivery. Like, not a whole lot has changed because the business right now is so conversational. It’s just very conversational and very easy and straightforward. So yeah, I definitely feel like any change that’s occurred has been mostly in my production, but it has gotten a lot better.

00;26;09;06 – 00;26;18;09
Katy McKinley
Do you have a a list of like the the microphone or the set up that one day when you when you make it big, you’re going after.

00;26;18;09 – 00;26;19;05
Amber Musser
Yeah. Yeah.

00;26;19;05 – 00;26;20;13
Katy McKinley
Take your eye on a prize.

00;26;20;21 – 00;26;44;01
Amber Musser
Yeah, definitely. But actually this week it’s so funny that we’re talking about this right now. I just bought my first Neumann microphone and I am so excited. It’s like on its way here from Las Vegas right now. So I actually the other day I posted a photo of myself in the booth, and right now I’m using a clone of a Neumann U 87.

00;26;44;01 – 00;27;06;17
Amber Musser
So it’s made by warm audio. It’s called a W 87. I love this microphone. It’s awesome. But I had a friend who is just an incredible producer in Nashville, Bryan Carter, and he saw the photo and he was like, Great, shut up, but you’re using the wrong mike. And I was like, Oh yeah. So tell me more. So he suggested the Neumann film one or two.

00;27;06;29 – 00;27;29;01
Amber Musser
So I did some research and like immediately got one and so it’s on its way here now. But my dream shot up, I don’t know. We’re going to see how this one or two works out. Everybody wants a Neumann, either a you 67 or a you 87. And sure, those are like incredible microphones. But for my personal sound, because it all comes down to like, how much high end do you have in your voice?

00;27;29;01 – 00;27;48;16
Amber Musser
How much midrange do you want to like develop? Where do you want to? BLUM On the on the low end and all of that stuff. So I think that the one or two you may be actually like a match made in heaven with my personal sound and with the studio booth here. So we’ll see. Let me check back in with you in like a month and I’ll tell you the answer to that question.

00;27;49;21 – 00;28;03;06
Katy McKinley
Is there a pretty big like network of voiceover actors that you are involved in? I know social media makes it easy to connect to people, but is is do you have you found friends through this, this new work of yours?

00;28;03;19 – 00;28;39;27
Amber Musser
Yeah, definitely. And you’re right, social media has made all of the difference. You know, even, you know, quarantine, obviously changed everything for everybody. But for me, living in a small town, being able to connect to other voice actors through the Internet and through social media has always been kind of a big deal. So again, my friend Amanda and then the community that she created with the people who come through the voice of her school, I have found so many awesome friends there, like people of all different experience levels who are just fantastic and that’s a wonderful community.

00;28;40;04 – 00;29;10;00
Amber Musser
And then there’s the voiceover network. There’s women in video, there’s all these different groups that I’m a part of and just honored and so happy to be a part of because they are full of the coolest people and everybody is so supportive and everybody is, you know, willing to share knowledge And like you can post a question and say like, Hey, oh my gosh, I’m stuck at this point, or like, I need this to happen, or it’s my first source connect session or something like that.

00;29;10;00 – 00;29;13;17
Amber Musser
And lots of people just have great advice and they’re super supportive.

00;29;14;01 – 00;29;31;02
Katy McKinley
I mean, even though it’s technically a competitive market because a lot of you are probably going for the same type of jobs, but I bet it’s really collaborative or yeah, I could imagine that it’s pretty warm and fuzzy because you’re not really competing against each other like you are in other markets.

00;29;31;14 – 00;29;53;26
Amber Musser
Yeah, definitely, Definitely. And even if we are auditioning for the same job, I think everybody kind of realizes there’s enough to go around. You know, if you think about the amount of times a day you hear a voiceover artist like, I think most of us have kind of tuned it out because it’s mostly commercials or if you’re at Kroger, you hear somebody talking over the speaker, but it’s kind of background noise to our lives.

00;29;53;29 – 00;30;22;18
Amber Musser
Of course, I’m very tuned into it because it’s like the foreground of my life, but there is so much voiceover work every single day. Yeah, I think that we’re all supportive because we audition in different markets and also like having home studios. You can work around the world. You know, I’ve worked with several clients internationally, so it just it’s a huge, huge voiceover world out there and we’re all just kind of glad to be a part of it and working consistently.

00;30;23;28 – 00;30;42;14
Katy McKinley
Okay, well, let’s flip to some non acting related things. You and your husband have a musical duo together called Love and Data, and I feel like if I try to categorize this music, I’m going to completely botch it. So Ed Bennett would be like, Oh my God, that’s really uncool for doing this. So how about you excite?

00;30;42;15 – 00;30;44;01
Amber Musser
What type of music do you.

00;30;44;01 – 00;30;47;12
Katy McKinley
Create with me and tell me about love and data.

00;30;47;20 – 00;31;12;25
Amber Musser
Okay, first search. The love of data was born out of a time in our lives when we were so busy we really had trouble finding time to see each other and like going out of the house and going on a date was pretty much out of the question because our youngest daughter had just been born. Nate was in the absolute grind of medical school and everything was just so busy.

00;31;12;25 – 00;31;34;16
Amber Musser
So we found that what we did have was time to come downstairs. After the girls were in bed, we had time to come downstairs and kind of like be creative with each other and connect. So we I’ve always been a writer, like my entire life. I’ve always had a notebook. I’ve always had like, you know, as soon as I got cell phones that had a notepad option, they’ve been full of poetry and writings.

00;31;34;16 – 00;31;56;23
Amber Musser
And, you know, I’ve always been a writer and Nate has always been a musician. So he started sending me beats that he would write and I would categorize us. I guess, as electronic music. I’m going to put like a broad blanket over it because sometimes it’s poppy, sometimes it’s reminiscent of like Portishead and kind of mellow and melancholy.

00;31;57;08 – 00;32;26;04
Amber Musser
So yeah, electronic. But he would send me beats and I would write for those beats specifically. So this is the first time I’d ever actually, like, gotten into songwriting. And the first one we ever recorded is called Windmills and the Sea, and it was the first time I had ever sung on a microphone and funny story and totally true story about me and testament to the fact that you can do things that you are very afraid of doing.

00;32;26;04 – 00;32;49;24
Amber Musser
And sometimes if you do, you get great results. I am terrified. Had been, had been. I have to separate myself from that because I’m no longer afraid to do it. But had been terrified of the judgment that came with like hitting a wrong note or singing something incorrectly. Right. Like even though I did tons of theater, I would be like, reduced to tears when auditioning for musical theater.

00;32;49;24 – 00;33;15;16
Amber Musser
I’m serious. It was crazy. So anyway, we recorded that song. It sounded awesome. And so we moved forward and recorded two more songs together. And I absolutely personally love everything we’ve ever made as love and data, and I hope someday that we can get back out and play out again. But in the meantime, we’re just happy, you know, being a studio band and creating things at home, it’s pretty awesome.

00;33;16;16 – 00;33;19;22
Katy McKinley
Dear Girls ever join in on you with creating music.

00;33;20;08 – 00;33;35;28
Amber Musser
Like sometimes, but I find it. So when I was a kid, my dad had a karate studio and he was a ninth degree black belt and like, that was his life and his world. And I was put into that world so often that I was I kind of rebelled from it. I was like, I don’t want to do this.

00;33;36;04 – 00;34;05;17
Amber Musser
And I think that everything here is so readily available that our girls don’t realize it’s unusual to have a full on music studio in your house. So they’re just kind of like all boring, whatever, you know, like it’s it’s blasé to them and sometimes they will come down and they’ll play the guzheng like it’s this Asian harp that we have that makes a beautiful sound or the drum kit or, you know, sometimes they’ll grab a bass or a guitar, but it’s really not that often.

00;34;05;17 – 00;34;14;28
Amber Musser
So I’m curious to see as they get a little bit older, if they’re more into it, they do love to come in the booth and audition for voiceover roles, though, so that’s really fun.

00;34;15;12 – 00;34;29;02
Katy McKinley
Yeah, it’s going to stay there. Obviously showing signs already of taking both you and your husband’s creativity. I mean, even if it’s on their own path use, you think they’ll have an acting career, a music career and their futures? Yeah.

00;34;29;02 – 00;34;48;26
Amber Musser
I’m really curious to see how that develops for them. It may just be a component of their lives, like a creative outlet. It may take over and maybe that is what they want to do. I’m not really sure. Lexie, our oldest daughter, who is about to be ten now, oh my goodness, she said she wants to be a scientist, which I am 100% behind.

00;34;48;26 – 00;35;13;02
Amber Musser
I think she would be an incredible scientist, engineer something down that road. Elena I’m not really sure. She’s said before that she wants to be a teacher, but she has a really strong creative drive. So does Lexie. But Lexie creates, like, graphic novels and she creates. She writes. And I personally, as her mom, I think she would make the best producer that has, like, ever been born.

00;35;13;02 – 00;35;25;05
Amber Musser
I see them as like a Coen brothers pair, you know, like there’s so they create so well together. But we’ll see. And whatever they want to do. Nate and I are 100% behind them. I’m kind of.

00;35;25;05 – 00;35;49;10
Katy McKinley
Jealous of this generation, actually, because when we were growing up, I don’t know if it was you were in more of a an art culture, I guess, in Tennessee, but I feel like we were never told that you can take your hobbies or your art and turn it into a career. And like now here we are like, you know, this is decades after Etsy has been around or not decades, maybe one decade.

00;35;50;07 – 00;36;07;24
Katy McKinley
But you know, everyone’s creating these online businesses. And I don’t know, it’s just it’s so different and feel I feel like our children will have a better opportunity to like, really dive into these paths that weren’t necessarily available when we were kids.

00;36;08;01 – 00;36;30;22
Amber Musser
Yeah, definitely. I think just the total connectivity of the world and like the ability to display anything that you’ve made online, plus the software, Oh my goodness. All of these developments in software have made creating so much more fluid and user friendly. You know, I my first computer was it was like dos, you know, which I was just terrified I was going to break it all the time.

00;36;31;27 – 00;36;51;01
Amber Musser
But yeah, and I could totally see how that would have. Jeez, Katy, if all of this have been around when you were young. Holy moly. I just can’t imagine, like, what a different. I don’t know. I can’t imagine what a difference it would have made in your life because you are so very intensely creative on so many different levels, maker levels.

00;36;51;01 – 00;36;51;22
Amber Musser
It’s amazing.

00;36;52;09 – 00;36;58;01
Katy McKinley
Well, yeah, I think about when I was a cheerleader in high school and we would make like signs for the boys.

00;36;58;01 – 00;36;58;24
Amber Musser
Locker room.

00;36;59;01 – 00;37;10;28
Katy McKinley
Where I’d make a different shirt and I’d use, like, puff paints and I’d take pencils and draw out and stuff. And it’s like if I, if I had access to heat transfer, vinyl and sublimation.

00;37;11;07 – 00;37;11;28
Amber Musser
Totally. Yeah.

00;37;11;28 – 00;37;17;12
Katy McKinley
It’s actually my whole career. But I don’t know, I just it’s, it’s funny to think about it.

00;37;17;21 – 00;37;33;14
Amber Musser
Yeah, definitely. It really is. I’m so glad it’s moved this way, though. And like, if it couldn’t be there for us, at least it’s there for them. And, like, it’ll be so interesting to see how that sort of accesses those creative impulses that they have. Yeah, And this.

00;37;33;14 – 00;37;38;20
Katy McKinley
Kind of molds the world and the future of like what career paths actually look like for that.

00;37;38;20 – 00;37;41;05
Amber Musser
Absolutely, Definitely. For sure.

00;37;42;05 – 00;37;55;22
Katy McKinley
Well, I’m not going to keep you too much longer, but I do really like to ask all of my guests this. I like spreading the love to fellow creatives every episode. And I need to ask, do you have a favorite creative person that you follow on social media?

00;37;56;04 – 00;38;33;03
Amber Musser
Yeah, I do. Definitely. I follow her on Instagram, but I’m pretty sure she’s on every social social media platform. Queen, Herbie, Queen, Herbie. Oh my goodness. She is first and foremost like a songwriter singer herself and produces albums. But she is just an incredible creative force and she’s such a force for positivity. She literally on her Instagram, you will see sometimes you’ll be going through and she’ll just say, Stop scrolling and she’ll do like an energy cleanse and like give you like just like a positive affirmation to move through your day.

00;38;33;05 – 00;38;54;08
Amber Musser
She’s incredible. She has a podcast called The House of Herbie, where she and her boyfriend just chat about different facets of life and like manifesting positive things in your life. She blows me away. She also, I think, owns a cosmetic company. She’s just a she knocks it out of the park on every single level. She’s amazing.

00;38;55;00 – 00;39;10;16
Katy McKinley
I think she does a lot of. I know she you said she creates music, but I feel like she does little like almost ticktock specific songs does that she sometimes where she’ll just do like little, little clips that become really, really viral. Really? Yeah.

00;39;10;16 – 00;39;29;14
Amber Musser
Yeah. I think that’s a strategy a lot of, you know, musicians kind of employ these days. So she’ll take yeah, just quick clips of songs that she has recorded at full length and then released on an album or an EP. And then just like sitting in her living room with different setups, sourcing three parts of those. And yeah, there, they’re awesome.

00;39;30;06 – 00;39;32;20
Katy McKinley
And her style is super quirky and fun too.

00;39;32;28 – 00;39;46;19
Amber Musser
Oh definitely. Yeah. Her style is amazing. She’s I find her to be unique in in a world where, you know, there’s a lot of like I would see people sampling her as opposed to her like sampling other people. She is pretty remarkable.

00;39;47;26 – 00;39;50;15
Katy McKinley
Well, I think some of us would say that you’re pretty remarkable.

00;39;51;04 – 00;39;56;00
Amber Musser
Katy. Oh, my God. Back at you. Absolutely. Thank you. I’m so glad to be here.

00;39;56;22 – 00;40;09;13
Katy McKinley
We are coming to a close, but I would love it to have you take us out by using this moment to tell us how to find you online so we could support you and your family and your endless number of talents.

00;40;09;14 – 00;40;32;14
Amber Musser
Oh, my goodness. Thank you for the opportunity. You’re so awesome. So I am on both Instagram and Facebook as Amber Musser V in Victory. Oh, and Amber Monster.com. But if you want to see more clips of things that I’ve actually done, YouTube is the best place because that’s where I will, like cobbled together all of the like recent jobs that I’ve done.

00;40;32;14 – 00;40;52;13
Amber Musser
And so there’s video clips, video video that I just made Video. Where are we right now? AM I? Oh, my guys. Anyway, that’s right. You’ll find all of those video clips. So yeah, Amber Monster on YouTube. And then if you want to hear anything that love and Data has done, that would be on SoundCloud, but it’s Love Ampersand data.

00;40;52;15 – 00;40;56;13
Amber Musser
So the symbol for ends and then we’re also on Instagram is love and data.

00;40;57;02 – 00;41;01;19
Katy McKinley
And I will collect all of those links from you and share them in your blog post too.

00;41;01;25 – 00;41;06;02
Amber Musser
Oh my goodness. Katy Like rock Harder, Why don’t you? You’re amazing. Thank you so.

00;41;06;02 – 00;41;09;21
Katy McKinley
Much. No, thank you. I’m excited to share you with the world.

00;41;09;29 – 00;41;21;02
Amber Musser
Yay! I’m just so happy to be here and chat with you. And thanks so much for including me in this awesome group of people that you have interviewed because what amazing company to be in.

00;41;26;20 – 00;41;42;13
Katy McKinley
Thank you for tuning in to. I can make that conversations with creative transcripts from this along with links and more information about today’s guests can be found at WW w dot wild and wonderful dotcom. See you next time.