QC Assigning
Would it be possible to associate the initials or code to the person who is approving and rejecting projects? The criteria for what gets accepted and rejected is wildly inconsistent. I'll have audio accepted 4 times and on the 5th? Surprise! It's no good.
I do voice work all day for radio, TV... never once has it been sent back. You people are the only ones that do that. And you do it randomly 1 out of every 5 submissions. This is me being nice and saying... it might not be me, it might be you.
This is simple to fix - associate the QC reviewer with each piece of audio. My suspicion is that there is one person who hears something a particular way and rejects it. Another QC person would likely accept it.
I have been asking for years for some quality control for quality control. When you have this inconstancy - it means you have some QC people who know what they are doing, and those who don't know what they are doing. It might be time to figure out who those people are.
Anyhow - I'm getting ready for the next Bunny mission - the next few will likely be accepted without having to renovate the studio as the random QC person suggested.
Matt
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Hello, Matt - Thank you very much for participating in this Community! :-)
I am sorry that our rigid QC standard frustrates you sometimes :-(((
We in fact are making continuous effort to be on top of the industry's audio quality standard, and there's one thing for sure: our clients are VERY happy with our products! :-D
We therefore expect the very best out of every single voiceover product ... and especially now that so many professionals compete in this market with top-of-the-line recording gear (with some solid room acoustics how-to knowledge), borderline-quality VOs may not qualify sometimes, especially in our Contest projects where your voice sample gets compared back-to-back with others.
One thing I can say from the bottom of the soul is that we are extremely fortunate to be working with you and your enormous professional expertise, and wish to continue collaborating with you. In the meantime, we truly appreciate your patience ... Thank you very much!
I look forward to seeing your voice entry again very soon.
Best regards,
Oki
Thanks Oki. However, you didn't address the issue. If you had "rigorous" standards then 100 percent of my work would be rejected. But no one can explain why 1 out of every five pieces of audio is rejected. Because it's the same mic, same set up and same read everyday. It sounds to me with contesting that your QC people are looking for "something better" when they reject a voice piece. (Better red, better fit) That's not an issue with "room noise" or "white noise" or "Mouth noises". (I get a new excuse every week) So if my suspicion is correct - QC might not like the quality of the voice or read on the voiceover they receive in a contest ,and reject it for "mouth noises" and in order to get another submission that your client might be more inclined to prefer.
I still think you should take my suggestion under consideration. (You made no mention to the suggestion in the original post) Have initials or a QC inspector number for each person that inspects the audio. This will help track biases to audio and voice quality. If inspector #4 is perpetually rejecting someone's work - that would be a good time to either review the audio on the voice talent or Inspector #4; thus making a more consistent sound amongst your talent.
I do this for a living. My voiceover groups say the same thing about Voice Bunny and that's QC is random and inconsistent. You are not helping people with this inconsistency; you are just creating further confusion amongst talent. I know of two very good members who are now former members for this reason.
That's about as much free advice as I am willing to offer before my consulting fee kicks in. Going to make carrot soup now.
Hello again ! Hmm... Regarding mouth noise / saliva noise issues, it can turn out to be enormous :-((( Could you please present some audio samples? I need to listen to how serious the issue is/was.
As for me (I'm a professional VO talent as well), I edit out my own mouth noise with waveform editor (Wavelab 9.5) ... one by one, unless I work for clients with engineers who can do the job for me. Removing mouth noise / saliva noise, by the way, is pretty much expected by most clients, and I don't take chances myself.
Thank you! ;-)
BR,
Oki
Here's a few VO's. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bvs5w62xse4dg94/AACuiqNWpASy1d9L9tuc4l-Qa?dl=0
Hey Matt, fellow VB voice here.
I took a listen to your samples. Sounds great. Noise floor, technique, acoustics, I would say minimal processing but perhaps a quality pre, great mic (which model btw?). Warm with no harsh sibilance.
Sample 1 = The ONLY potential noises I could find were at 25-26 a tinlike momentary echo and some nasal air interference at 27 with 'companies'. But they really aren't rejection worthy at all
Sample 2 = 3s (nasal air) and if I had be ULTRA unfair and picky similar noises at 8s (when), 13s (the). I'm being as picky as humanly possible btw.
Sample 3 = Minor sound reflections at 2s (peoPLE), 11s (DISSolution) 15s nasal air (from)
Sample 4 = 2s, 10s nasal air (like/up)
When I say nasal air its like air being blocked in the nasal passage when speaking which gives an unpleasant sound. Performance wise I can't knock them. Those observations listed were if I had to listen with unrealistically harsh ears and the goal of absolute technical perfection.
All the best.
I would've approved these, but for future reference, here's a list of what I found:
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[1.wav]:
@ 00:01.948 : Inserting these 'dead silent zones' (-∞ decibels) may not be a good idea, because by doing so, you are presenting a stark contrast between the noisy region and dead-quiet region
@ 00:03.450 : ... also these dead-quiet regions can make some clients nervous because it looks like you are going all out to cover up the imperfection of room acoustics. I see some talents leave natural background noise suppressed to -70 db, -80 db or less
@ 00:16.690 : This mouth noise can be cleaned up as well
@ 00:23.735 : Mouth/saliva noise
@ 00:26.527 : The background noise floor. I cannot identify what this is but it sounds like a distant factory noise (nasal noise, pointed out by James, perhaps?)
[2.wav]:
@ 00:14.025 : Room reverberation
@ 00:15.039 : Room reverberation
[3.wav]:
@ 00:17.593 : Mouth/saliva clicking noise
[4.wav]:
@ 00:10.983 : Room reverberation
@ 00:12.391 : Room reverberation
------
Thank you!!! We look forward to another collaboration!! :-)
Best regards,
Oki