I was confident, but maybe I still need help understanding this rejection. Let me know if you can give some help and insight.
Hi everyone.
I just got rejected for a Spanish voice over that i thought was good, but they told me that it was rejected because of white noise and hissing. I use audacity and an Electro-Voice RE20. I've been slowly learning about eq and use a bit past the 4000k mark, no more than 1dB and a tad in the lows, not really the mids, im afraid of going there haha. normalize at -3.2, compress with a noise floor of -30 dB, -36 threshold, dont knowwhat that means, 2:1 ratio, 5 sec or attack time, and little release time. then i add a high pass filter at around 125 hz. before i do all this i use noise reduction on the hiss in the room. I want to learn more about a quality production, even if my voice is not the greatest.. yet.
https://soundcloud.com/user-902506978/joven-sergio-leal
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Hi Sergio!
Sorry for taking some time to get back to you here.
The audio indeed has a lot of hiss noise. The noise reduction plugin is certainly not working as expected and we totally recommend you not to use it. These type of processes usually degrade a lot the quality of the recording so we prefer to avoid it's use. It's much better for you to point where the source of the problem is and fix it from its root.
I also pick up some room echo. It's not that much, but it's there so maybe the issue is coming from the acoustic treatment from your room. I would recommend you to check which surfaces you have around you that may be creating extra reflections.
About the hiss, can you please let me know which preamplifier and interface you're using? I understand you have a RE-20, but how are you connecting it? The hiss could be coming from a piece of your equipment that is not the best quality and could be degrading the whole chain
Hope this helps!
Hi Sergio!
Your audio indeed has loud hiss. As Angela mentions, it may come from the amplification stage. Have in mind that the RE20 mic is a terrific dynamic mic. For this type of mic, you'll need a good quality preamp to achieve proper amplification levels while keeping the noise floor down. I suspect that at the moment, you may have to add a lot of gain to your pre in order to record at a decent level, and that's where the noise is coming from.
Additionally I suggest you avoid using a compressor until you understand how it works. Truth is that compressors seem very simple and easy to use, but they are really complex. All the parameters like attack, release, threshold, input, output will determine how the compressor is going to behave, so even with the help of a preset, you must adjust the parameters to your recording. It could be that the compressor is working to hard and it's raising the noise floor. So it's not helping, but degrading the quality of your recording.
It's be great if you shared a raw take, just normalize to -3db peak and we'll be able to hear your setup better.
Best,
Juan.
I forgot to mention! If you're only using your interface's preamp, you may want to add a signal lifter!
We tried the SS-1 from SimplySound and it is awesome! Has a super low noise floor and lifts the signal so well with just a tiny bit of amplification from your interface. It's almost half the price than it's equivalent the CL-1 and does an amazing job. Check it out here https://simplysound.co/product/ss-1-microphone-preamp/
They have free shipping which is awesome!