43 audio files rejected
I have spent the last 5 days recording and editing 43 audio files for a client who's deadline is today. What I wake up to this morning another QC rejection. The client doesn't have another five days to wait for their project. This audio was much better than the sample that got me the job. I dont understand why the client is not the one who makes the decision. Just last week I had another project that was rejected and I resumitted and the client opted to recieve the rejected files because it was better than the second one.
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Hi Raymond
I checked the recording and I do feel the noise reduction is a bit too strong. Can you please lower the threshold as well while increasing the smoothing option of your plugin?
Please share one of the parts here once you've done that so we can check it.
I am not going to re-record 43 files on this project. The clients deadline was today. I don't have 5 more days to redo it. Neither dies the client. It's probably time for me to do what so many if my voice over friends on this platform has done. I believe I am leaving this platform there is just to much stress involved to hurry and get projects done you cant give the client what they are looking for. Your to tense to beat tgat clock thats ticking. McDonalds had no problem with the job I done for them two weeks ago.
your sample was set to MONO?
I have not heard the sample but in my opinion, I believe it should be the client (and I don't mean Voice Bunny) who decides whether to accept or reject your work. I assume the client selected you based on either an audition or a previous sample, so they would have been familiar with your studio setup and sound and clearly were happy with it. I concur with you, working with Voice Bunny can be disheartening and demoralising to the point that you question, what is the point. I sympathise with you and Voice Bunny should take not of your concern and those of others who go through a similar kind of rejection. Maybe you should change your voice box to a synthetic one, then there would be no cause for rejection owing to those pesky human qualities.
Raymond,
Had the same thing happen here. Complete horseshiat. I've been doing voice over for 25 plus years. No one... NO ONE doesn't accept mp3 files. This place does not. VB also said the "wav" file I sent was over processed or something and therefore rejected my attempt to join.. I added nothing to it. No issues with files for my clients, My agent, Voices.com, hell no problems anyplace else but here. I'm with you. Screw this place.
Hi, Tony
Above all things, the purpose of this Forum is to provide a courteous dialogue between the members of our Community. We respectfully ask you to please be mindful of your language and tone when expressing your opinions.
We only take WAV files because from that point, we can convert the lossless voiceover into other types of files, which are then made available for the client. Furthermore, if you have a file to be reviewed, please create a new topic on this "Get Feedback" section and our Quality Control agents will be happy to go over it for you.
All the best and we wish you a successful and productive 2020.
-Andrés
Bunny Pro Management Team
I agree with those who say let the client decide. VoiceBunny has a problem with me and I'm not sure what it is, but based on this discussion, they might have a blacklist.
I have 40+ years of experience, a professionally built, sound-conditioned studio with a noise floor of 17Db when I hold my breath, which means my microphones pick up the blood pumping through my veins.
This is the only place that rejects my work and I think it's because I've called them out publicly several times. Are they using amplitude statistics? A spectrometer? Phase analysis? Logarithmic frequency analysis? I seriously doubt it even though none of that is necessary. The ultimate measure is the satisfaction of the client. Get with it VoiceBunny. You're jumping over a dollar to grab a nickel. You need guys like me more than the other way around.
Sadly, I have to agree Phil and I have got to the point where I cannot deal with these kind of rejections based on very little. I am therefore being very selective about what I might do for VB. Incidentally, I asked someone from VB what they were monitoring on when they rejected something I had recorded and they said, "headphones". I still maintain, it should be the client that decides whether work should be rejected or not, not VB. I have a client, outside of VB, for example, who insists on taking an "as it comes" voice over, complete with breaths. As an ex sound engineer, I always preferred this. I wanted to be in control of what happened to the final voice if it came from the outside, so I would insist it was not treated in any way.
Headphones? How completely subjective! That method is only appropriate if the audio was intended to be played through studio headphones, more specifically, the exact brand/model of headphones used by the reviewer while said headphones are plugged into whatever output device is delivering the audio to the reviewer's ears. To reduce this down to the ridiculous, every piece of audio has a different destination and sounds vastly different through studio monitors, car stereo speakers, Bluetooth earbuds, P.A. systems, television speakers, telephone calls, (to name a few). AND, headphones have an artificial 180° stereo field with no cross-talk which can actually induce a reverb effect.
I'll tell you when this all started. April 2018. Somebody was hired and/or took over the review process at about that time. I lost several regular customers after VB started rejecting audio identical to what I had always delivered. Find and remove that person from the equation, and everyone wins.
Hi Phil and Rob,
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with our community.
First of all, we want you to know that there is no such thing as a blacklist.
In addition to that, we also want you to know that we are very careful about evaluation because most of our client expect ready-to-use files, and while many sound engineers would prefer RAW recordings for their own processing, these clients won't end up doing that, that's why we have a Quality Control team that will ensure the audios are ready for the clients.
The members of our Quality Control team are experienced audio engineers, experts in their fields, and we also have professional voice-over artists here as well, that's why we believe and support our team's evaluations.
Nonetheless, we decided to manually look at your profiles, and more specifically, your latest samples to evaluate your quality, this is what we found:
Phil:
https://bunnystudio.com/voice/samples/127006/ - There is room echo on your recording
https://bunnystudio.com/voice/samples/122698 - There is room echo and sounds over-compressed
https://bunnystudio.com/voice/samples/122697 - There is room echo and sounds over-compressed
Also, your most recent sample was uploaded 2018-03-15, it seems like a good time to upload some new and better samples.
Rob:
https://bunnystudio.com/voice/samples/182933 - your sample is shorter than the suggested 10/15 seconds, there is boxiness on your recording, also, it is lacking information in the high spectrum, which makes it sound muffled
https://bunnystudio.com/voice/samples/139154 - same as the above
https://bunnystudio.com/voice/samples/135090 - boxiness as the above, however, there is more information on the high spectrum which makes it sound a bit better.
We understand you might have clients outside our platform and we're very happy for you, it means that you've been successful in creating a name for yourself out there, however, we want you to remember that we have different objectives and target clients here.
If you want, our team would be more than happy to provide you with suggestions to avoid these rejections in the future, just let us know and we'll arrange that for you.
Let us know what you think, this is what this space is for, having honest conversations with you,
Thanks for the reply. I am aware of the "room echo" assessment from 2018. That was the day VB decided to upend a regular, return client's project. It was also the day I decided to give VB a rest because there is no room echo. More likely headphone echo.
I came back recently and last week tried a contest. My audio was rejected without explanation. I can tell you I do not use compression for voice over. I do use it when mixing music or other types of full production.
One more shot at helping you make more money with the professionals who are willing to stick around. More than likely the "room echo" your reviewer is hearing is headphone echo. The low frequency of my voice, combined with the 180° artificial stereo field of the headphones can cause that effect. The headphones I use at my main desk do not create that effect. But, the headphones I give to singers who perform in my booth, do. (Singers tend to not care, or even hear, the effect when they are belting out a song).
Incidentally, the links you provide have diminished the bit rate of my files dramatically, so listening to them here is not a fair comparison.
A last thought: The theme of this conversation is about VB taking money out of people's hands and upending projects for clients who were already happy with the voice talent's work. The theme is not about VB's effort to uphold some standard it believes the client deserves. The client has a deadline. The chosen voice over talent has a business to operate. Why should either waste their time dealing with a platform that interrupts the flow of commerce? However successful you think your business is today, it is nowhere near where it could be if you tweaked your model slightly to allow the client to approve the finished audio.
Just in relation to my samples you pulled out. I note that all three were approved by the client and accepted. If you feel so strongly about them with regards to the quality, why have you not pulled them from my sample list? I will say, the last of those samples doesn't quite sound up to scratch as I was at the end of a rather heavy cold.
Just a quick note on Phil's samples. You claim that your clients prefer finished audio files so surely to add some compression to a final voice over, whether he did or didn't, is not a bad thing. As for echo on his voice, I'm buggered if I can hear that.
As a sound engineer, however, I prefer my files raw. I can then add my own degree of compression and eq and let's face it, we don't know how a particular voice will be ultimately used. It may, for example, be mixed with music and sound effects. The last thing you want in that case, is a finished voice over.
I give you my humble opinion as a sound engineer of some nearly 40 years standing but clearly, you believe you know best and I will, out of courtesy, allow you to continue to think along those lines, largely because life is too short.
Hi Rob and Phil,
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us, we appreciate the time you're taking in sharing them.
We'll make sure to share them with the team.
Also, we want you to know that we respect your position and years of experience, so we understand where you're coming from, however, we also want you to keep in mind that this is the way our team and clients have been working, we're constantly working on improvements on our end as well, we value our Pros' work and we want all of you to feel that way, yet, we do have certain standards that we've been using for a while and we believe in our processes.
Based on your experience, we think you could consider the following:
It takes some time and practice to understand how to use processes like compression, eq, and even gates; we've seen how a significant amount of rising talents try to improve their quality using this processes only to find that they are actually doing the opposite, that's why we suggest them to start using them lightly, that way they'll learn how to do it. That's why we invite our Pros not to do it unless they have some experience with them, as it seems you both have.
You're talking to a guy that has been a sound engineer for over 40 years, you cheeky bugger.
Too funny and over-the-top insulting.
Jonathan, you've just proved how out of touch you and your team are.
I think what ever equipment your team adopted or whoever started managing your standards in the first quarter of 2018 is the problem.
Based on your latest comment you probably couldn't hear the difference between a Blue Yeti and a U87. Are your headphones plugged directly into your PC?
In attempting to help you pull your head out of the 200 hz, we were not only trying to remedy our situations, we were offering a pathway for VoiceBunny to be taken seriously. Sadly, I suspect you'll need to clean house before that happens.
All the best. And keep approving those folks whose mics are plugged into their computer soundcards. They can use the work.
Hi Rob and Phil,
We definitely don't want to disrespect or offend, and I personally apologize if it seemed that way.
It seems best to leave this conversation as it is since it looks like we're not making progress in understanding each other.
Again, we appreciate your feedback and thoughts.
We wish you a fantastic weekend!
Proof!
Voice Bunny DOES have a blacklist. The techs there have been routinely rejecting my recordings and so I devised a plan to trick them.
I am often in a radio station studio when overnight opportunities are posted. I responded to a Speedy today and recorded it at the radio station. A completely different studio than mine. Wouldn't you know? I got the same rejection notice that there is room echo in my recording. I doubt they even listened to my submission.
It's time the voice-over world blacklisted Voicebunny.
I look forward to VB's creative response. I wonder what they will come up with to answer this one?
Hi Phil and Rob,
First and foremost, we do not have such a blacklist.
Now, I'd love to take a closer look at the recording and provide further feedback about the process and rejection.
Can you please send me the link to said project?
I could give you a link to the project, but I cannot find my audio anywhere within. I found some other guy's audio, which was apparently rejected by the client (I should be so lucky to have my audio get that far), and with all due respect to my colleague, I would have rejected it as well.
Maybe you can find my audio in there, somewhere, but I'm not looking for your assessment of my work. (Black Friday - Tucson v3 673a4a64-7fce-48ad-9e9a-9dfd914f0f0b (Speedy). Keep in mind, that recording wasn't even done at my studio. I did it at a major-market radio station just to prove your guys aren't even listening to my work.
That said, what I would like to offer you, after multiple "room echo" rejections from your staff, is the professionally measured, acoustic reverb delay calculations for my studio.
As I am sure you know, anywhere between 0.1 and 0.6 seconds is ideal.
125 hz = 0.2349
250 hz = 0.3483
500 hz = 0.4374
1000 hz = 0.4131
2000 hz = 0.3726
4000 hz = 0.3645
Pretty damn awesome, if you don't mind me saying. Clearly, there is no "room echo" in my recordings. Maybe your guys are SO good, they are picking up the resonance of my chest as I speak? I think blacklist is a much more plausible conclusion. But I'll take your word for it that there is no blacklist. The only other road to travel is the one on which you agree with me, and others, that the qualifications of your staff to judge the work of professional artists must be called into question. At the very least, consider replacing the equipment and the environment used for reviewing recordings at Voice Bunny.
Thank you for that, we understand you don't want an assessment, however, we've seen that's the best way for our team to keep improving.
We're very open to feedback and we're always aiming to improve our work.
Based on all of this, we'll have a conversation with the team about these rejections. However, and we can not stress this enough, we do not have a blacklist. We have a large number of active Pros in our platform, it is not possible, nor practical, to have such thing as a blacklist, it'll just harm our speed and processes.
We appreciate your feedback, and we'll definitely keep improving. After all, our QC agents are allowed to some room for improvement, as we all are.
Hey Johnathon, and Angela, if you are reading this, how do I completely delete my association with Voice Bunny?
This is absolutely pointless. I auditioned for a speedy this morning and was rejected for three reasons, two were completely acceptable, as my sound and delivery were not what the client was looking for. But the third reason is the same old, tired, and unfounded reason:
3.) Room echo- There is audible room echo (reverberation) impacting your recording. Please ensure you record in an acoustically treated space. If you already have acoustic treatment, it may not be adequate. You'll find tips on acoustic treatment on our community page: https://bit.ly/2MrNsSV.
Angela, among the recommendations you offer for "acoustic treatment" include talking into a mud flap. That's fine, but come on! I have a professionally sound-conditioned. There is no reverb to speak of (see the results of my professional room echo calculations above in this thread).
There is no point working with the rank amateurs at Voice Bunny. Close my account and delete any files associated with my name. I don't want to be known to have ever been here.
Phil Hulett
Hi Phil,
We're sorry to see you go!
As per your request, we will delete your account permanently, right away. If you're ever interested in becoming part of our team again, feel free to come back anytime! Our doors are always open for you.
Thank you, we wish you the best in your future projects!
Happy holidays ahead and a wonderful new year!