Submission rejected for being outside a client's age requirement.
My submission has been rejected for being outside a client's age requirement. The requirement is for Young Adult, which I am! I've also submitted over 65 jobs as a 'young adult' with no issue.
https://soundcloud.com/nazzar60/b18
B18 Intake Leads - Male(3819f3e4-d660-47f9-a3c9-4ec808cca0c7)
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Hi Nathan!
Angela from the VoiceBunny Team.
As per the accent, I do think it sounds a bit older than what the client is looking for for this specific project. It doesn't sound middle age, but it does sound a bit on the older side. For example, I'm 27 but my voice sounds nearer to the 20's instead of the 30's so I won't be able to participate on projects where a Young Adult from that range is required. It's nothing serious, as I do believe that it's a matter of determining which projects are for an older Young Adult if that makes sense!
What makes me more worried is the critical level of room echo and hiss noise that is present in your recording. I checked several of your previous submissions, and I see that the problem is persent in most of them. I see as well that we have asked you to make adjustments on this front before (21 revisions have been asked for this in the past year). This problem is 100% caused by the acoustic treatment of your space so we would need you to please take care of it as soon as possible.
If it's not take care of, we may need to place your account on hold as we're currently improving our quality standards and it may not be approvable in the long run.
I suggest you switch the positioning of your microphone in the space and record a bit off axis as the reflections are coming off very bright making your voice sound quite sibilant. You could also review which surfaces you have in the vicinity of your mic that could be causing the extra reflections and cover them with padding. I suggest you take a look as well into adding a layer of absorptive material that could help. It doesn't have to be expensive foam, you can initially try with some heavy blankets, clothing carpets and even egg boxes while you identify where are the reflections are coming from.
You can share more recordings with us when you've made some changes. We'll be glad to help you and guide you through the process so we can get rid of that echo soon!
Hi Angela,
If we're splitting hairs about what specific age my voice sounds, how about you let the client decide if the voice is right for them? You also didn't clarify how my submission was rejected and yet the submission that was accepted wasn't even an Australian accent!!!
I have nothing but 5 star reviews for all my work so clearly this "echo," "hiss" and the age or of my voice is only important to you, not the client.
NONE of the clients I've worked for have ANY issues with quality, so why are you being so pedantic? I record National commercials for 17 different agencies and no one else has ever had any issues with the quality of my recording.
So either.. all the clients on VB and all 17 of my agencies are wrong, or you guys are being ridiculously picky. Which is most likely?
Hi Nathan
Please keep in mind we didn't go over the submission of the other user because we don't consider it to be relevant. I mean, the circumstances of your rejection are there regardless of what could've happened with the other voices. Having said this, please note I have shared the case in regards to the accent of the other user with our QC manager. We will review it to make sure the project receives the recording that the client needs. I appreciate you letting us know about this possible mishap.
Now, about the quality, please keep in mind that at VoiceBunny, we are the resellers of your voice. We are the ones who approve and pay for the voiceover you submit based on your rates and will take the toll if the recording gets rejected by our clients. For this reason, we are the ones who will, in the end, decide whether your voice matches both the client's brief and our quality standards and send it to the client.
This policy was also mentioned at the moment you created your account, passed our application and signed our agreement. We trust our QC team 100% to determine what's best for our clients and define what we should send their way to ensure we're fulfilling our delivery promise. Each client has their own quality standards and while some may be OK with some problems, some may not be. For this reason, we try to ensure that the majority of the deliveries match the highest standards for delivery and, in return, be able to make all our clients happy.
We really are happy that you work with many agencies and that the majority of your clients are happy with that. We really appreciate seeing the voice actors who work with us being successful in their careers as that's one of our goals: help you be better, grow and take your career to the next level. In the same way, we would appreciate if you can also trust and respect us and our judgement.
Hi Angela,
I think it is relevant to look at the submission of the other user, because it shows a large level of inconsistency with your approval/rejection process.
I also appreciate that you want to minimise the risk of being left with the bill, but I fail to believe that the minute detail you go into on recording quality, would ever be noticeable to clients.
I feel your expectations are unrealistic, but i'm clearly not going to change that.
Nathan
Hi, Nathan.
Thank you for your post.
In regards to the rejection, I think your voice in that particular deliverable is a fine line case between young adult and middle age. Given it's a Speedy, the agent who reviewed the deliverable decided to give the opportunity to a younger sounding voice. We think your voice may sound closer to middle age, but the energy you added to the performance gives it a younger spirit. So, after discussing your case with the team, we've decided to remove the rejection from your stats. :)
Now, in order to offer a high-quality product to our clients, the QC team works really hard to identify any flaw with the quality in the deliverables. We make the effort to provide a short but clear explanation of the problem, and share a link to some of our material, that will help solve these issues. However, for this to work properly, we do need the Pros to be interested in improving and correcting the issues. Otherwise, it will be a frustrating experience for all.
I can hear undesired room echo in your recording, and I see we've asked you to correct this weakness multiple times. I invite you to create another thread in the Community with that purpose, so we can provide additional support if you are interested.
Likewise, although we do our best to identify native accents, you may understand that it's impossible to be right 100% of the time (considering we have Pros in almost every possible language!). So, we do expect the Pros to be honest and realistic with the attributes (language, age, gender, accent) they choose as *native or genuine* in their profile. Otherwise, at one point or another, it will be either QC or the client who points out the fake accent and we will have to step in. Eventually, this will affect negatively the Pro's stats. Unfortunately, this is the case for the deliverable we ended up approving, so we'll take action with the Pro.
So Nathan, thank you again for sharing your case in our community. I'm a great admirer of the work of all our Pros, and I'm always interested in hearing from you. The feedback we receive from all of you is of great value, and it help us to improve our processes, and to continue growing together.
Kind regards,
Juan.