Confused about rejection again within minutes of approval of another project
For reference I am including the projects I have done today- They were done in exactly the same space, with the exact same mouth distance, position, etc. They were recorded within minutes of each other with 0 compression used and 0 effects. I really do want to learn and understand how the same space can be fine in one recording and “Boxy” in another. It appears the perhaps bunny managers are using the term boxy to cover a myriad of issues and I would like to know what my actual issue is- since CLEARLY my space is not the problem. I have had this same issue in the past, and I’m frustrated that this is going to affect my stats when I have literally changed nothing. Is the issue perhaps that one bunny manager doesn’t mind the sound and another is more particular? Or is this a computer analyzing the sound and looking for something specific. The term boxy is not enough to help me understand what I need to fix.
I’m not going to say which was rejected- can you tell the difference???
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Hi Aleesha,
I'm very sorry we're causing you this confusion. Thank you for reaching out and letting us know about this.
Let me start by assuring you there's no computer analyzing the recordings, we have a whole team of Quality Control Agents working for our Pros, making sure of the quality and need requested by our clients, and also looking out for you guys to be better at that amazing job that you do, as a matter of fact, I'm one of those QC Agents.
Now, your audio does have boxiness, but that's something you can work on, it's not really that bad, the thing is, some clients may accept that audio as it is, and some others are a little bit pickier, so this is more of a borderline for us.
If I may, can you try and improve that aspect on your end, while we make sure to be more consistent with this kind of feedback?
You have a lot of help and information here to address acoustics, so feel free to check all that information, and come back to us if there's anything else we can help you with.
Hope this helps
I think if I knew what sound I needed to correct I would be better able to fix it. Do both audio clips have boxiness, and one just happened to pass because that client is less picky? If so then that would tell me I just need to fix the space more.
Does only one clip sound boxy? And what does boxy really mean anyway??? This is a difficult thing to correct when you don’t really understand it. Is this something I can see in the audio, or something you are just trained to hear.
And it says it sounds like I’m recording in a small room (which I am- since that is what is recommended) Wouldn’t adding more “padding” like accostic foam just make the space sound smaller? It just seems like you are telling us 2 totally different things. "Cover all the spaces with fabric, and record in a small room to avoid too much reverberation and reflection..."
but then you say “your room sounds too small- look at our acoustic information to fix this”-- Do you see the contradiction?
Should I actually be doing the opposite? And removing some fabric? Is the issue more in the way I speak into my mic? Or could the issue be in my editing? I tend to be a bit over paranoid and edit over almost every space and mouth noise- maybe this could be the issue” Would that make my audio sound boxy?
Thank you so much for being so helpful in answering my questions. I really want to fix this problem, and learn and grow!
Hi, I think the easiest way for you to notice the boxiness could be doing a comparison, that's why this is my proposal:
This is your recording: https://soundcloud.com/user-375739838/point-bank
This is one without boxiness: https://voicebunny.com/samples/156225
Can you spot the difference?
If you don't here's another one: https://voicebunny.com/samples/131664
Now, can you hear it?
Now, regarding our recommendations, you are right, that's something we do say, but there are too many variables when it comes to recording, that we can't provide a simple guide to the perfect recording space. Every room is different and has special requirements to sound good.
So how about you let me know about your recording setup, equipment and recording space, what's more, if you can send pictures of your recording space I can try and help you to get the most of that space.
Thank you so much for your willingness to improve what is already an amazing work.
Thanks for your help. When turning up the volume the whole way I can see a huge difference in the sound. I don’t think it’s my space- I think its an editing issue. Is the worse offense in between “Point Bank” “Point Bank.com” Proudly? I am a little over-ambitious in editing my P’s because I had a rejection awhile back for plosives. I’m not sure exactly how much P is allowed before it becomes a “Plosive” and so I find myself softening all of them...probably unnecessarily. I did these WAY too much and it makes that whole section sound awful! I’m not sure how I missed that.
Can you tell me if you hear boxiness in the second file that was approved as well? This would tell me whether its truly my editing on that first piece or whether I need to work on the acoustics in my space.
https://soundcloud.com/user-375739838/path-post
In this case- I believe boxiness might be a term that you use to describe too many different types of things. Is it like a dropdown menu and you only have so many options? In this particular file I would say the room tone is too loud on most of it, and then the section that is so bad is more “Choppy” than “Boxy” and clearly doesn’t come from too small of a space.
Happy to help!
Plosives are a whole other issue, there are a couple of things we suggest in order to address that issue:
Now, yeah, I can still hear some boxiness in the second file.
One way to listen to boxiness in a non-recording environment would be taking a cardboard box the size that your head fits into, then bring your head in and speak, that should give a clear sound of what boxiness is. It's like recording inside of a shoebox, where the mic is capturing all of those reflections in a way that is not helping your voice.
I know this can be a hard concept to understand or listen to, but I really hope the examples are giving you a more clear idea of what it is.