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Rejected by HIROSHI...and only him. AGAIN.

  • Aaron Miller #370077092440
      2

    Hi Andrew- fellow voice actor here- do you possibly have a link to the recording you can share? 
    I know rejections suck man, for whatever reason...I feel you. 

    In my opinion, though, I just checked out your profile page, and you have some really awesome samples! 

    I could try to give you my feedback in this area if you are looking for it?
    I also have been rejected for this many times before, but I don't get these messages as often now! Maybe an extra set of ears would help clarify something?

    Here is my first question: 
    Do you feel that your delivery was a little "louder" than normal? 

    • I have found that whenever I am making a "louder" voice recording, I can sometimes over-project with my voice and get room reflections I wouldn't usually get. In these situations, I always make sure to highly edit my waveform and leave only the bare essentials for what is needed to create the voice in the listening device (zero room tone).


    This brings me to my second question: 
    Are you editing every section of the recording for room reflections?

    • I know it sounds a little crazy, but I have to scour every single second of my recordings to make sure that even the slightest bit of room reflections are not present. I also do this by making sure that the fades for the end of every section eat into the wave by a fair amount, making the reverberations nearly indetectable. I mainly mention this because I think if I turn the volume all the way up I can just barely hear a bit of room tone in your samples, which is actually great for a lot of recordings but might be contributing to room reflections in your "louder" recordings!


    And in regards to how the team monitors audio... I can tell you that unless things have very recently changed, they are mostly listening on closed-back headphones, and in this case, in particular, the Sony MDR7506. These are amazing closed-back headphones touted by many pros! 

    Personally, if you don't have a pair of these already lying around though, I find the closest next-best-thing would be almost any in-ear earbuds, (like a pair of cheap Skullcandy earbuds even) should be able to "reveal" these kinds of issues, especially ones with the little "angle" because they have an incredible ability to reject outside noise. (Lots of consumer-level earbuds boost certain frequencies, and are also where many of the end-users hear the audio anyway.)

    I could definitely provide more personalized feedback if you have a link to share, but no worries if you don't! I totally empathize with you on this. Maybe with just a tweak or two though, we can figure out how to solve this together! 

    Either way though- don't let this one get you down, as you have a powerful and unique voice the world needs to hear! 🙌

    Until next time, take care. ✌️
    -Aaron M.

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  • Andrew Jones #375428688139
      1

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/kxm4clotwq3tu37/GetYourGameOn.wav?dl=0

    And thank you for the amazing response

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  • Aaron Miller #370077092440
      1

    Wow, I really enjoyed this sample! A very believable delivery on a high-energy read... Not easy to do! 👏

    However, the volume does seem like it was "turned up" just a bit when you recorded this, at least to me!
     
    Specifically, I detected these details in certain sections:

    • the 4-second marker, the word "playing" seems a bit high-impact to me
    • the 7-second marker, the phrase "throw it" feels like maybe the angle of the audio coming into the mic slightly changed, resulting in some added reflections
    •  the 8-second marker, "play it with your pals" also has some slightly harsh plosives
    • the 14-second marker, the word "aim" has a very slight breath noise, what would this and the other sections sound like with the "room tone" sections edited out, and fades applied to the plosives, I wonder?

    Overall, this really is a great performance and good recording! I think just maybe tweaking some stuff around the room or testing out new configurations and angles of the microphone, as well as some added editing in post-production- then it would really be tough to beat! 

    For me personally, at one point I realized that the wall in my studio that my microphone happened to be pointing at didn't have the best acoustic treatments, even though I was surrounded by acoustic curtains. Once I then pointed my mic ever so slightly toward a more acoustically treated part of the room, in combination with my acoustic curtains, and also "muting" things in the room that could vibrate at all, I can now almost get "whisper room" quality - but that does get pushed to the limits whenever I have a "louder" delivery!

    • Something even like an acoustic guitar sitting on a stand across the room, or an air vent catching your voice in the wrong way can add reflections in the room and get captured in the recording- at least for me!

    Hopefully, I am explaining this clearly, but feel free to leave more samples here if you want more feedback, I am happy to help when and if I can.
    ✌️
    -Aaron M. 

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  • Andrew Jones #375428688139
      1

    Absolutely amazing feedback! Probably the best I have gotten on here. I very rarely have my stuff rejected unless my voice just doesnt fit the project. So thank you for taking the time to really dig in and help me out. I truly appreciate it!

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  • Dunia Piña #375903570740
      2

    Hello Andrew and Aaron!

     

    First of all, let me say that I LOVE Aaron's replies on posts, thank you so much for being so active and so detailed in your comments while helping other Pros as well! This is exactly why this space exists. It is wonderful to see conversations like this one.

    Regarding that specific project Andrew, I asked our QC team to review it again and after confirmation from Pro Management, we decided to ignore the rejection from your stats so it doesn't affect you.

    My personal take, which is very in-line with what Aaron said, is that there were some near-field reflections that were causing that faint "room echo" or boxiness, but it is not something that strong. The tips Aaron mentioned are amazing for this, especially regarding some surfaces that could be close to your mic and can cause that effect.

    That comment from Aaron regarding acoustic instruments is really nice too! Since we can have a perfectly dry acoustic environment, but a guitar on a stand can have enough resonance from its body to cause that feeling of some reverb in the space you are in, that is definitely a crazy but very interesting effect! 

    And just so you know, and because you asked, I use two pairs of headphones to check Quality, one pair of Beyers DT770 and another one from them, the 990 Pro (these last ones are open back), I love their sound signature, but a pair of Sony MDR7506 that Aaron mentioned are considered the industry standard, are not that expensive and can be very revealing! 

    Sorry for that experience, we will definitely include this case in our next QC meeting, but I am glad this turned out in a conversation like this one, again thank you to both of you, this is what we have the community forums for!

     

    Kind regards,

    Daniel

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