"Heavily Processed" Rejection yet no processing done!
Earlier today I submitted an audition that was approved. Later I submitted an audition for another project and was told "Hi - your recording sounds heavily processed. If you used noise reduction software or EQ, please bypass this processing in future submissions because it’s degrading your deliverables."
I don't do any processing other than some amplification, exactly what I did for the earlier one (and all the other ones) that have been approved in the past.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RAZC7lSvHZsZAD7j4r948dAASES5g6P9/view?usp=sharing
Any thoughts or advice?
Thanks!
P.S. Project ID is 62EBB3553F8845A9C145 - Bound by Nothing
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Same exact thing just happened to me. I'm wondering if there could be a system bug, because I have no processing. All I have is a mic, preamp, and interface. The only thing that could have possibly been different from any of the other recordings I produced earlier that same day is that maybe my gain was up slightly higher, but not enough to cause distortion. I am thinking of resubmitting the same exact recording again and see if I get the same response again, or maybe get a manager to listen to a sample before I proceed to re-record the whole, entire script. We're talking about hours worth of work, so I'd like to make sure my settings are spot-on before proceeding. Let me know if you find out anything further, and I will do same.
By the way, I just listened to your recording. I think it sounds pretty good. If anything, maybe try turning the gain down a notch and see if that resolves it. Luckily for you, it is only a brief recording. Mine is 6 min 40 of finished recording. :'(
Here is a sample from my recording.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4m2lw4rvuav8r9r/April%201.wav?dl=0
Thanks for responding, Geena. No one else has done so yet - I was hoping a manager would review this and possibly accept it as the auditions were still open.
I have actually submitted the exact same recording in the past that was rejected and it passed with no issues! I don't know exactly how it works - perhaps when a person does the critique it's different than then computer doing it. In any case, I will surely let you know if I hear anything.
BTW, I listened to your sample - very nice intonation and very smooth delivery. I don't hear what's wrong with it at all...
~Carmen
Thanks so much, Carmen! And you have that deep, velvety tone I'm so envious of. The same thought occurred to me where I wondered if it could be a computer checking them at times. As much as I really love the Voicebunny system and have had mostly positive experiences, there are simply some things that an automated system just cannot do like a human can. Getting an automatic, form letter response is very disconcerting, and tells me almost nothing about what I actually need to change to avoid getting rejected again.
And, as you can see... the suggestion they provide in the form letter response where it says: "If you'd like to get a second opinion, additional feedback, or have questions about our review, please share your recording in our community space. Here, members of our team and community of Pros will be glad to review it and give more insights on the delivery. Please note these matters won't be attended via our support email." ... well... this s incredibly unhelpful. You and I have both followed that advice and come here to the "community space" and have not really gotten the kind of help we need from it, have we? What is really needed is that we need to hear from whoever it was that made the call to reject it, and hear from that person directly as to what their reasoning was. If it was a machine making the call, then there should be some kind of report generated from that to give us more information about what specifically went wrong.
I have gotten in touch with a voice manager now. No way am I going to redo hours-worth of labor until I have an approved sample. I hate to delay the process and keep a client waiting, but my time is valuable too. Keep up the great work! Things always seem to work out in the end, one way or another!
Hey Carmen. I have an update. I figured out what my problem was, and this doesn't necessarily explain anything about what your specific situation may be, but I've always found that the more information I have, the better. I never heard back from anyone at VB. I think they probably just don't like delving into tech issues because there is such a large volume of us VOs that it could get ridiculous if everyone started coming to them with every little issue (although all I really wanted was just a simple description of what it was that QC had noticed, because I wasn't sure if I could hear what they were identifying as problematic, and that little bit of information is sooo important.)
So, I had to listen on my studio headphones and listen very very closely, but finally, it occurred to me that there was, indeed, a very subtle slushiness to the signal. Then I started hearing the slushiness to an even greater degree in other recordings. When I hear that slushiness, I know from experience that that is a specific type of distortion that is not usually caused by compression (although it can be) or by EQ or by the gain being too hot. That particular slushiness is usually caused by the application of Noise Reduction being too heavy. Now, if one doesn't use Noise Reduction, one usually runs into another problem, which is rejection due to noise floor being too high. So, the only way to resolve the problem is to troubleshoot and find out what is going on that is introducing so much extra noise floor that it is causing the Noise Reduction software to work so hard that it is distorting the signal.
I tried a number of things and then finally figured it out. It was so simple I could have kicked myself. Well... there were a couple of things that helped, including switching one of my cables and checking the manual for my new preamp to learn the best way to power it up (and I knew it was definitely the preamp that was introducing the most noise) but the one thing that massively reduced my noise floor was figuring out that I needed to turn the gain on my interface all the way down to zero and use only the gain and level on my preamp. (FACEPALM!) So, this is the trials and tribulations of having new equipment.
So, now that I've solved my issue, I would recommend trying a similar process with your recording. I'm listening again to yours through my studio headphones now, and although I still think it is a very high quality recording, there is something I can detect that if you could troubleshoot and solve it, I do think it would improve your sound, and it's certainly worth looking into because you have such a fantastic voice and natural ability, it would be a shame for you to not have the most optimal sound set-up possible to showcase it. Also, if you can pinpoint the cause, it will reduce the chances of your getting any further rejections. What I am noticing when I really listen close, is a slight distortion that is almost like that slushiness I had on mine, but more like the sound of being inside a tunnel. It is most noticeable at the part where you say, "supposed to act." I know you are not using any processing such as EQ, compression, and that sort of thing... and from the sound of it, I strongly doubt it is being caused by your acoustics (or recording environment) so I would look at things having to do with your equipment. In fact, hearing this reminded me of one time when (and I know this is going to sound really goofy but...) I once had a similar distortion, and after much hair pulling and beating my head against the wall... I took my windscreen off my mic and discovered that my mic was turned around backwards and I had been speaking into the wrong side of it, LOL! So, keep in mind it could be something really simple and just inspect everything about your set-up from top to bottom.
Best of luck and wishing you many future successes!
G
WOW! Thank you SOOOOOO much for all the detailed analysis! Indeed, I just got another rejection saying it had a " boxiness/boominess impacting your recording. This is usually caused by insufficient and/or incorrect acoustic isolation. Please ensure you record in a properly treated space or use a professional recording booth." OK - same booth as always - same settings as the one that was previously accepted. I almost want to give up and just go with all the other sites & clients I use that never complain about anything :)
Anyway, I'll check out what you noticed and commented on and see if I can hear what you hear and make any possible adjustments. I understand about the noise reduction and will want to investigate that more. I use a Focusrite pre-amp and Audacity for recording/editing. I'm not sure what you are referring to as the interface - something within Audacity? There;s a recording volume there I can adjust. I did muck around with it a bit but didn't see any noticeable difference. Anywhere else I might look?
And thanks for all the compliments - you made me blush :)
~Carmen
Yeah, no problem Carmen. It would really be a loss to VB if you walked away. I understand about feeling that way, totally. But, ya might as well finish following through with the process of elimination and experimenting with different things to fix the problem since it could really only be of benefit to you ultimately. We are always on a learning curve with the technology and that is especially frustrating because we are not really tech people or sound engineers... we're performers. So, I get fed up and hit the wall with tech issues pretty fast, but looking back at where I've been and all I know now, I'm glad I have been forced to acquire the tech skills I have now.
Anyway... yeah I would definitely look into mic placement... Focusrites are generally a pretty good brand, and that is your interface. Interfaces usually come with a mic preamp built-in, and it's usually perfectly sufficient for what you need for voice over work, but some folks like to get an additional separate preamp, which I have done, which is why I refer to my interface AND preamp as two distinct things. For years, though, I have done just fine with just the interface. Anyway... back to what I was going to say about mic placement... I'm wondering now what kind of mic you have. There are mics with different polar patterns which can accept signal coming from different directions, but most of your usual cardiod mics need to have the mic facing a certain way. Shotgun mics can be positioned in a way where you have the top of the mic pointing down towards the sound source, but sometimes you can even wind up with sound issues just from sitting too close (if the gain is too high) or too far away.
Oh and about Audacity. I use that as well for a lot of things, and for many years, it was my only audio editor. It's a great platform. Free! (which is my favorite price tag.) One of the great things about Audacity is that there is a wealth of information online about how to use it, how to achieve the best results, and how to troubleshoot problems with recording. I pulled up this page just earlier to refresh my memory about how to achieve optimal Noise Removal settings:
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/noise_reduction.html
Zoom down to the section titled "Tips," and it will have some info specific to distortion. To find the right levels to set your Reduction(db) and Sensitivity to in order to remove the ambient noise without getting distortion, what I do is leave about one or two seconds of room tone at the end of my recording track. First I Normalize the whole track, and then I listen to that little bit of room tone at the end. While it's playing, look at the monitor (or playback meter), which is usually in the upper right part of the upper toolbar dock. There should be a little green indicator light that bounces back and forth in response to the sound playback. If that indicator is visible when you play that little bit of room tone, your noise floor is too high. You can use the room tone then for your noise profile sample and use the Noise Removal effect like you normally would to reduce the ambient noise. If you get no indicator light when you play the room tone again, you have sufficiently reduced the noise floor, BUT even then there is a chance that you applied it too heavily, which results in that distortion. So you just have to keep playing with the numbers for Reduction and Sensitivity until you get it just right. I like to start at 12 for Reduction and 6 for Sensitivity and then go up by one each until I have no more playback meter indicator light activity on the room tone, and then I listen to my waveform to see how natural and unaffected my signal sounds. If you cannot get it to be totally free of both the noise and the distortion, then you probably have something introducing so much ambient background noise into your recording, that the Noise Reduction can't handle it properly. It could be your cables (maybe they could be too long or too old or just poor quality.) It could be a noisy computer fan. It could even just be a house noise such as your heating or cooling system. I know it seems daunting, but I always manage to figure it out eventually. This time for me, it was my gain, but I have had times when it was because of the heating... noisy computer... You name it, I've had just about everything that can possibly go wrong happen to me.
You are amazing, young lady! You should be writing help manuals in addition to your voice career. I can't thank you enough for all the assistance and detailed instructions! I will definitely try to see how I can improve my recordings (tho all the other clients I have never seem to complain at all :) Anyway, I use a AKG Perception 220 condenser with my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. This set up was recommended by my coach Marc Cashman and his favorite sound guy Dan Lenard as my startup equipment (which was convenient as I won exactly enough money to purchase this setup at a casino in Atlantic City....but that's another story!)
OK, off to the studio to work on this stuff...just kidding, I don't have to go anywhere - I'm already at the computer I use and my soundbooth is 3 feet away :)
Have a great day!!
~Carmen
Hahaha! Same! I am also a closet dweller. That is a nice set-up. 2i2 that's the Scarlett. I was considering getting that one, but then realized that it is not really that much different from the Avid that I already have. My Avid has a blown channel, though, so maybe I will get a Focusrite eventually. And AKGs are fantastic. (I also use AKG currently, but a different model.) So... positioning of an AKG 220 is pretty straight-forward, and the polar pattern is cardiod. You do have some switches on it, but they are just for bass roll--off and preattenuation. Hmmm...
I'd say that, if you continue getting "hit and miss" (intermittent) results, where sometimes the recording comes out fine and other times it's rejected, then it may be something is intermittently causing the noise floor to go up. I have had to become very aware of all the noises in the house that most people generally never notice. Anytime a faucet is running, I stop recording. Anytime anything is running... if it is unavoidable because it is running continuously without stop, then I just make sure to get a room tone sample with that specific noise in it, and I copy/paste that room tone together with any other room tone samples at the end so that, when I go to do Noise Removal on Audacity (and, yes, I do still always use Audacity for that), it will be part of the "Noise Profile Sample." Keep in mind, though, that even if you get rid of the ambient noise, you can still wind up with distortion on that part of the recording, and even a little distortion on a small portion of a track can cause the whole submission to be rejected. So my best advice at the moment is to just start becoming very aware of all those subtle ambient noises that come and go as you record. Find out what's causing them. I have become increasingly more hyper-sensitive to them over the years.
And here's where the Voicebunny quality control process comes in really handy. You can use it to get information about how your recording quality holds up to scrutiny and also (when there's a problem) to rule things out by process of elimination. So, what you can discover by continuing to submit auditions is whether your submissions are consistently getting rejected, or intermittently. If they are consistently getting rejected, then that tells you something really important about the nature of the problem. If it's intermittent, then it is more likely, ambient house noises that come and go. If it's consistent, then that tells you it is more likely either something about your acoustic environment, or it is mechanical and internal to your computer or equipment.
side note - I see the 'rejection emails' are part of a pre-formatted script and not individual. So the person who rejected it probably clicked down a menu or something to fill out the email. All these rejections notices are exactly the same, despite which 'manager' they come from. Don't think about it too much.
Thanks again, Geena - you've been a wealth of information and inspiration! I'll keep plugging along and not let rejections get the best of me (since they are a main part of this business anyway! :)
BTW, I found a new way to get rejected yesterday - but this one was definitely on me! I was working on a timed audition (had to be exactly 30 seconds) and just didn't like the way it was coming out so I keep re-recording it. I finally had a take I liked but noticed I only had a minute or two to submit it. So, I hurriedly created the .wav file, went to the page and submitted it...without realizing I hadn't cut off the excess space at the end...so it got rejected for being too long! Arrrrrrrrghhhhhh!! I felt like such a bonehead as I had worked really hard on getting it just right. Guess there's no substitution for doing that last minute check!
Anyway, thanks again for all the great info! It's been great chatting with you!!
~Carmen
Hey Liam - thanks for chiming in! I did notice those rejections are just pre-formatted emails. What bothers me is that there is really no recourse to have the manager explain exactly what the issue was. I thought that was what this forum was about, but apparently not. And you can't use the Support group for this either. Feels like they're saying, "I didn't like it so just shut up and take it" :)
Anyway, I'll get over it - I can afford to not get paid the $2.14 :) Thanks again!
Hahahaha! Yeah.... the many ways to fail... I have experienced many of them. And it's true that coping with rejection is really a big part of the performance business. There is an art, even to the skill of handling rejection. And you do become really adept at the auditions over time, as you just get a better feel for how long you can spend on each part of the process without getting into trouble right at the end. Although, even for me... I've been with Voicebunny for about 3 and a half years now, and just yesterday, I turned one in right under the nose with less than 30 seconds left on the clock! The worst is when you start having computer or internet issues right in the middle of it. Looking at the bigger picture, though, I am really very thankful that Voicebunny is here. It's the best job I've ever had if I'm being honest. Over time, I think we all grow together, and it really is a unique company.
@Liam and Carmen, re: the form email for rejections... Yes, they do have a lot of things that are automated here, and I can sort of see both sides to it. There is no way for us to know what VB QC staff are really dealing with in terms of numbers of auditions vs. number of QC staff, although I do know one thing... that one way or another, the CEOs have to find a way to make the numbers work out in such a way as to keep the company in business.
In fairness, I have seen efforts by management to be less "impersonal," and on many many occasions they have provided individualized support when I really needed it, so, based on my experiences, I do have the impression that they do what they can, and all of the managers I have communicated with were amazingly kind and good-natured, as well as super professional (just on an individual basis.) So, although I have experienced a lot of the same skepticism that ya'll are expressing, I have- none-the-less- developed a sense of trust over time. There is a "method to the madness." And in my experiences so far... every time they have said there was a problem with my recording (although I haven't always been able to hear it at first, and although I have said it would be helpful if they could just describe what was the problem for my specific sample) they have turned out to be correct in their assessment, and as a result, my recordings have improved over time, which is a good thing.
The positive side of that is that I now have a very valuable service to offer which is a sought-after commodity. It's true that you could just choose to only deal with clients who are perfectly happy with your recordings (and everybody needs some love sometimes) but those clients will never be able to provide you with the honest critical assessment by finely-tuned, trained ears that Bunny has. So, although the rejections are annoying, I find them very valuable ultimately. And I do wish they would give me just a little more specific info, but.... the more I've thought about it, the more I do understand the reluctance to go there. These technical issues can be very complicated, and every VO has a very different set-up and environment, so there really is not much they can tell us about how to solve it. They can narrow the problem down to what is in the form letter, and maybe even provide an additional clue or two but at some point, I do imagine they have to draw the line to avoid going too far down a rabbit hole (pardon the expression.) I'm sure they must go through hundreds of samples every day.
Hey Geena - I will agree that many, if not most, of the interactions I've had with VB managers has been very caring and helpful. It's getting their attention nowadays that's the issue. Seems like "back in the old days" (I've been on Bunny about 2 1/2 years) it was easier to have someone contact you about matters other than technical site issues. But, sometimes I'm in a whiny mood too and it just seems like no one wants to help :D I am glad I accepted their invite and have done some very cool projects here.
And now that I've finished complaining, the last two auditions I submitted were accepted!!! One involved a using a Boston accent and the other a very senior man. Apparently I do much better when I'm not being me! I actually love doing characters and have had a lot of success here doing them (my "urban biker" voice has gotten me a number of gigs both here and elsewhere, but it started on Bunny). BTW, if you also enjoy doing characters, I found a great site I've been using recently. I can let you know about it if you want.
OK, it's off to the Baseball Hall of Fame for me now - catch ya later!
~Carmen
Yeah, I do a lot of characters. I love love love character work. So glad to hear you've had some more recent successes. Sounds like whatever the problem was, maybe it was just something that came and went. There's all kinds of weird things you might not even detect during the recording process that can interfere with the quality of the final product. I was reading just this morning about how infrared can cause low rumble?! Heavens sake! Ah, well... I had a read get pulled out for revision for low rumble this morning, and I just popped on my head phones, listened really closely to the whole track, and was able to just do spot touch-ups, re-recording the parts that had the rumble. I still have no idea what caused it. C'est La Vie!
It's a strange and wonderful world, this VO thing :) I'm just glad I'm getting stuff through now - and you too! I don't have any infrared around - but there is the occasional gas-powered landscaping tool out there! Once I build my awesome new studio, I won't have to worry about any of this - just waiting on that winning lottery ticket!!!
Hi Michele,
Thanks for joining in the conversation! I have not tried HPF, but thanks for the suggestion. There are a lot of options in Audacity I have not explored, but perhaps this experience will be enough to encourage me :)
And yes, there does not seem to be a consistency and probably varies based on if an actual person does the review or their automated system. But just keep trying and eventually you'll get through! Best of luck!
~Carmen