Another late-night issue
So I posted a speedy last night (fe379f76-981d-4ca3-9302-73af4af78fc9).
I was asked for a revision due to 'boxiness,' so I revised it.
The second email I got was a rejection due to said 'boxiness,' along with 'volume.'
I take issue with both of these notes, and the bummer is that this subjectivity negatively affects my meager stats, on top of being off. I work in a Whisper Room. I am a professional. My space is acoustically treated, well enough to be featured without complaint on national TV programs, radio, and advertising. I'm not mistaken in saying that there is nothing wrong with the treatment of my Whisper Room. Secondly, there is the note about 'volume,' in this case QC saying that it was too loud. I checked. It's supposed to fall under -3dBFS. I checked. It peaks at -3.1.
This is teaching me that it's not safe to work with the QC 'experts' at night. Maybe at all, for the meager twelve dollars for which I'm fighting. It's incredibly frustrating, as well as a waste of everyone's time.
I suspect that the night shift simply didn't like my performance, which is... fine. As I said, I'm a professional and don't take those things personally. But the stats are built on technical delivery and time, not performance. I'm calling out the Bunny team here. If that is the case, and rejections are happening due to performance issues, then don't waste our time with subjective interpretations of 'boxiness,' and patently false 'volume' assertions. Please.
Maybe there should be a way for your team to reject submissions based on performance without affecting our stats? Seems like that would make sense, we're all (I think) grownups here.
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Howdy Jack!
Fellow voice actor here, great to "meet" ya!
I am sorry about your rejection, I know exactly how those can feel- no fun.
Are you willing to share a link to this so I can tell you if I am hearing anything weird?
I have been working closely with the QC team for months and this "boxiness" is a common issue that many others have, and I may have a few tips that can help.
The common theme that I see, is that even with a "whisper room" it could be something weird like a screen from your recording device giving off funky near-field reflections that needs some extra de-verb treatments.
I am only saying this because from my experience, the "night crew" typically are extremely accurate with their analysis! (I mean, isn't that how one gets on any night crew in the first place? ✌️😉)
I have also been rejected many times because of my performances- for being "flat or monotone" and although it is more difficult to stomach if I am being honest, I usually eventually agree with them (especially if I hear it back sometime later!)
I believe this kind of feedback from the Bunny QC team has ultimately helped me grow as a voice actor, to where now I have much more confidence and dynamic range with my voice acting!
And to your point, I also have had many rejections removed from my stats for the exact reasons you speculated about! It is all about how you approach it.
For instance, a lot of the QC team actually does monitor this forum, and you may get a response directly from the agent who rejected your work if you ask nicely! 😊
Who knows, maybe the agent actually was having an "off" night, so just politely asking for clarification will definitely not harm anything, as I am fairly certain that they are all human! (Except for the actual Mr. Bunny- probably an AI sent from the future, right?)
haha ok- but in all seriousness... drop a link! (If you are open to it, no worries if not.)
Happy to give more feedback as soon as I can!
-Aaron M.
P.S. Just for fun, here is a random project I made a few days ago. ✌️
Hi Aaron! I have seen your recent engagement with the community and applaud your passion. Thanks for reaching out.
I'm happy to share the sample to which I'm referring, I'm just not seeing it in the timeline (did that change? I feel like I used to be able to listen to even the rejected audio files...?). Of course, I have it, I'm just not sure how I would post it for you to listen.
I uploaded to SoundCloud for sharing:
https://soundcloud.com/user-319000499-381848073/robin-trower-marathon-music-works-2/s-OMcVgr0jllz
So I keep listening back to this and don't hear boxiness. The volume does not exceed 3.1. It would be great if one of the crew could engage with me on this? Pretty please?
Hey Jack!
First off, I just wanted to apologize for my delayed engagement-
I am right in the middle of a huge move and I haven't been able to get online like usual!
That said, I am here now and have just listened to your sample!
Personally, I really liked your delivery, I enjoy the dynamic punchiness of it!
However, the audio quality sounded like there was something a little weird going on, and I don't know if I would call it the typical "boxiness" that I usually hear when this is the suspect.
To me, it mainly sounds kind of like too much compression being used or being too close to the mic, but then backing off too much at odd times, or something like that, but not exactly sure yet.
I don't think Soundcloud does any changing of the audio in this regard, either. (Great choice by the way, or also Google Drive or Dropbox also seem to work well. 👍)
Here is a play by play of what I am hearing:
It sounds like you are super close to fixing whatever this might be, and it isn't really much of an issue- I have definitely made dozens of audiobooks on other sites with way worse audio quality than this, and no one ever said anything! I bet you can relate?
But anyway, I also wanted to mention something kind of weird, actually...
Turns out, I was actually the VA who came in after you and made this project, and the client did approve my work, so I can actually share it with you here if you didn't check it out already in the timeline.
I will have to ponder on what else this could be, unless anyone else chimes in with other ideas, but I will keep you posted as soon as I can if I think of anything else!
You truly have an awesome voice, Jack! Maybe it just needs a little tweaking, and perhaps you will get the premium results required for the Bunny! You got this man!
🙌
Until next time, take care!
-Aaron M.
Thank you for your thoughts and positivity, Aaron. Unfortunately, none of the things to which you point are the elements that were communicated to me. If they were, I would have had an opportunity to correct them. To your points, thought, the 'G' in 'Guitar' would be a performance issue, there is no gap between 'Robin' and 'Trower,' just the vocalized 'n' sound of Robin, there may be a small mouth pop at 7 seconds, 'tickets on sale' would be another performance issue (no real compression there), 10 am is another mouth sound which could easily be removed or re-recorded to avoid, and overall there is very, very, very little compression on the file. I learned a long time ago to use a light hand with compression.
Again, if these are in fact the things with which the QC team took issue that should have been communicated. At this rate, we may never know.
Thanks again.
Hello Jack and Aaron!
First of all, thank you, Aaron! You are wonderful in the community and we value your engagement SO SO MUCH!!
Thanks, Jack for giving credit when credit is due as well :)
I checked the file you shared and I agree with Aaron that Boxiness per se is not fully present, but the issue might be related to an excess of compression that sheds light on some frequencies that are not necessary, for example, you can hear the makeup gain bringing the voice tail and the low end up at the end of the phrases, maybe you could lower the compression a bit and use a longer release? That could help with that feeling of over-compression. The comment on boxiness could be related to slight reflections being increased with the compressor, but I don't think those are a problem, I'm sure everything should be ok if you lower the compression.
Let me know your thoughts on this!
Kind regards,
Daniel