No post-processing allowed!
Ok, there has been a shift in VB over the last several months, where the rule is now, explicitly, "Apply NO post-processing, compression, equalization, etc. Only normalization to -3db is allowed".
I question this rule. For an experienced client, who plans to to do all their own mixing, processing, etc, YES! Give them raw audio, and they are thrilled. But I respectfully submit that many, or possibly most, VB clients aren't that savvy or interested in dinking with the audio. They actually want a processed, finished product, that they can post and be done with! Or load into their phone system, or attach to the video, and move on. In those cases, why can't we give them audio that is truly ready to go?
Mr. Bunny, please let the client choose "raw" or "finished" audio!! Our job is to give them what they want, so let's ask!!
- Cat
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Hi, Cat! That's a great topic. Thanks for bringing it up and sharing it in our community.
I totally agree with your perception and with the fact that most our clients would need a "plug and play" type of file. Which means it should ideally be mastered and everything, and ready to sound awesome in any medium... However, in real practice that hasn't worked that well for us. Why may you wonder? Well, because compressors are trickier than they seem and not all the VA out there know really how to use them. Choosing a preset rarely fits perfectly, so the extra tweaking is what's worth gold. You can't imagine how many files we receive that have a terrible quality loss only because people want them to sound loud and "in your face".
E.g. How much louder can it get?
That's not our deal. We struggle to offer our clients only great quality audio, and we have to do it as fast as possible. So the fastest and most objective way of doing so is asking our Bunny Pro's to submit to us their best well edited, unprocessed file sounding around -3dB Peak by normalizing or volume automation. That way we get to keep the transients, the dynamic range, to have the noise floor to the minimum level, avoid distortion, have a natural frequency response without all those noise removal plugins, overcompression... and still have a beautiful file loud enough for any application such as streaming.
Nevertheless, if the client specifically says "We want the file compressed and limited", then we would have that in mind when performing QC to guarantee they receive what they are expecting.
I hope this helps you understand our point of view and why we are relying on that approach for the moment.
Please keep up the ideas!
Kind regards,
Juan