Over prcoessed?
Hey there! I've recently been having many submissions rejected for sounding undesirably over-processed. I even received an email from Bunny Studio suggesting I come here to seek some help, so here I am!
Now, it's been frustrating as my submissions seem to be rejected randomly as others are accepted while to my ear, they sound the same quality. Another thing, I don't really process my audio files much, all I do is edit the audio and normalize it before submitting. I hope I can get some insight!
Thanks!
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Hey Devin, thanks for reaching out! You have indeed come to the right place.
👍
Firstly-
Hi! my name is Aaron, I am a fellow voice actor- it's great to "meet" you!
I thought I should mention that I also used to get this same feedback until I really honed all of my recording and editing techniques based on many of the Bunny Studio articles that I found online.
The first thing I would say is that I have not personally ever found a way to use normalizing effectively with recording high-quality voiceover. Also, even though it might seem to "bend the rules" I actually do use a handful of very subtle audio engineering processes, like EQ, compression, and even using a gate.
But before going any further with anything like that, I just wanted to ask if you wouldn't mind sharing a sample from one of your projects, perhaps even a rejected one? It's totally your call, but if I could take a listen to your specific situation I may have more personalized feedback for you that might help!
Either way, so stoked to see that you are reaching out to level up, it is a critical component of today's competitive VO industry!
Also, just for fun- here is a random recent project I made.
😊
Looking forward to chatting more, and until then, take care.
✌️
-Aaron M.
Hey, thanks for the reply! I've uploaded a sample that was rejected a couple days ago to google drive, here's the link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1urFBJD-nL3mm-b8kf0H49biG10pkNu7Y/view?usp=sharing Let me know if you can access it, as I haven't used google drive in quite a while.
Okay, I was able to listen to it, and let me first say- WOW!
What a powerful voice you have, Devin!
👏
I like your voice a lot, I think we even both kind of have similar styles, too! haha 😁👍
Okay, my next question I hope you don't mind my asking but- what mic are you using?
Sometimes I have seen instances where very powerful voices can be literally "too much" for certain mics, and I sort of almost think I am hearing that a little bit in your sample...
Or, it could also be other simple things like being a little too close to the mic, or perhaps the normalizing process just changes up certain sections to be a bit too harsh while other parts of the recording seem kind of distant, if that makes sense. Right now it pretty much sounds like it could be any one of these things to me!
I also have some more ideas but I wanted to ask this crucial question first!
And I honestly don't believe it's anything too bad- I think that with some more tweaking and fine adjustments, I imagine you will go very far with Bunny Studio, Devin!
Let me know what your thoughts are on that!
Thanks 🙏
-Aaron M.
Thanks, I appreciate that! I'm using an Audio-Technica AT2035, It's not the most high end mic but I've always liked it's sound and it's served me well. I'll hopefully be getting a new mic at some point in the near future so maybe that will help! As for being too close to the mic, I believe I have a good distance and I'm able to keep it consistent between recordings. It could be the normalizing, funnily enough I was told to start normalizing my audio by a bunny manager when one of my submissions was rejected a long while ago. I'll try and refrain from normalizing my audio and see if that helps out!
Hey Hiroshi, thanks for responding! The 80hz high-pass filter, which is just called low-cut on the actual microphone, has been turned off for all of my recordings. Same with the -10dB pad that is on the mic as well. So the sample I sent earlier is with the high-pass filter off.
Hi Devin!
This is Daniel from the Pro Management team and QC team!
I wanted to jump in since we saw an amazing improvement in quality when you sent the following project:
https://bunnystudio.com/voice/projects/60abe4e9ec5fc-843-0c3a1173-51d8-4b25-a248-07c64f832603
I personally enjoyed it a lot when I reviewed it since I was thinking "This is it! This Pro has reached an amazing sound with the tweaks suggested by Hiroshi", but after that, we have seen that some of your projects after to this one went back to the previous sound, is there a specific reason for it? I personally think that this one sounds great, it showcases your low end in a beautiful way and I think you would benefit greatly from keeping this sound!
Kind regards,
Daniel
Hey Daniel! That's actually a funny story that wraps up this whole thing, I think!
So, I believe that recording was done when I had to use a different computer than the one I usually record on. It turns out, I've had a software that has been processing my microphones audio since I got it! I was using a software called Voicemeeter before I got this microphone to easily use different playback devices and so I had setup my microphone to run through it as well thinking it would be easier to have everything in one place. In the process of doing this, I must have messed with the software's audio processing settings and never reset them. So without realizing it, I've been processing my audio this entire time!
I've since stopped using Voicemeeter altogether as it was giving me other issues and I noticed that my microphone sounded different once I did, and thus I finally came to this realization. Thanks for reading this and trying to help my previous ignorant self!
Hello Devin,
No worries, that stuff can happen to all of us! For example, I've been working with Pro Tools for almost 10 years, and still, from time to time I might export a bounce incorrectly while selecting only one region of the audio.
In any case, thanks for checking that out! Honestly, you have a great voice that just needed to shine with the correct settings.
Keep up the good work!
Kind regards,
Daniel