Would love some feedback - Rejected application for over-processing?
Hey there VoiceBunny Community and Staff,
I'm an existing VoiceBunny Pro (English) and have submitted many samples without any issues. Yesterday, however, I started a new account for French VO (my mother tongue) -- and my application was rejected, saying it was over-processed, noise gate, etc.
I'd love to fix this and get it 100%. And I'd love to learn what I can improve.
I listened to my sample again (with studio-quality headphones) --and I can't hear the issue so I'd love some help.
Generally, I like to clean-up my audio, edit out breaths, etc -- Did I inadvertently clip somewhere too tight?
I did have a slight noise gate on -- Is that against the protocol? I was under the impression it was ok to use if used rightly. Any guidance on acceptable noise gate levels?
Did my audio sample auto-normalise to too loud when I exported?
Thanks heaps! R.
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Interesting.. Listening to the file on dropbox, it sounded like dropbox might have clipped off the first .5 sec of audio silence -- but then I went back to my original export and it seems to be missing even though it was in my project file. hmmm, is that possibly why my application sample was rejected?
Hello Robert,
Actually, as you mentioned, the reason behind the rejection was that "Your recording sounds undesirably over-processed". Notice that we are looking for raw recordings when it comes to processing, so it is much better to not apply any type of noise reduction, noise gate or similar, as it will likely harm the audio rather than help it. Normally, Pros are used to delivering a final product -including all types of plugins- but in VoiceBunny we want the best possible recording caught straight from the source, so no signal processing is needed, apart from removing breaths, mouth clicks and cleaning up the audio in general.
Could you please remove the noise gate and share the new file with us again?
Best,
Hi Robert
Thanks for sharing!
I personally don't feel the processing to be too strong, however, the recording is undesirably loud and there's some hiss noise in some areas. You can clearly listen to it at 0:18 - 0:20 when you're speaking. I believe you're recording too near to the mic's capsule as well as with too much gain on your preamplifier.
I suggest you record again a bit farther from the mic and with a bit less gain. Also, let's remove the noise gate to see how it sounds. As Oscar mentions, we do prefer unprocessed recordings.
Also, would you mind letting us know how you're recording in terms of equipment?
Many thanks Angela and Oscar - that's good feedback and much appreciated!
Angela, you're right, I can hear the clipping at that spot(!)
I'm running out the door this morning but will re-send with no noise gate -- and remove the normalisation on the export.
I'll send my gear list / studio set-up too. Cheers!
Hi Angela, Oscar,
Below is the same recording with noise gate removed and with 'auto normalise' unselected during exporting process.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qvfzp62m2r3kixo/Application%20Project%20Voice%20Sample%20-%20French%20v2c.wav?dl=0
But Angela, I can still hear that distortion clipping in a few places - and you're right, I think the gain on my pre-amp was slightly too high.
I'm recording with an Audio-Technica AT3035 Cardioid Capacitor Microphone on a shock mount with a pop filter through a 2nd Generation Scarlet Focusrite pre-amp and listening through Sony MDR-7506 Studio Headphones.
I would love the opportunity to re-apply for my French Voice Bunny account. Please let me know how best to go about that.
And many thanks for your support.
Hi Robert
Thanks for sharing! I do agree with you that the distortions are still present. You can totally request a reconsideration! To do so, just go to the account and click where it says "You started an application project, click here to continue it" This will add you to the queue and send you a new application from 7 to 31 days.
Thank you so much Angela -- I've done that now.