'Equipment not professional'... rejected!?
I was rejected from Bunny Studios because my 'equipment was not professional' but I am using a top of the line NT1 mic, 3 gen compressor, top of the line cables.... Can anyone please help me understand what's going on? I emailed Bunny Support, and they just to post here and maybe someone would answer my question. Any help would be great! file - https://soundcloud.com/nrichardson20/brody
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Hey! Can u share your recording space?
Well the quality requirements always recommend that is better to upload a sample that is not heavily processed
"The audio doesn't sound heavily processed (i.e. noise reduction plugin, EQ)."
"There isn't heavy compression and/or limiting."
https://help.bunnystudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000322144-VoiceBunny-Quality-requirements#:~:text=Technical%20Requirements%3A&text=The%20volume%20is%20normalized%20around,noise%20reduction%20plugin%2C%20EQ).
I also find that you are a little bit far from the microphone.
Hello Mr. Richardson (I assume that is your last name)
Just another v/o artist here who likes to participate in the community. A couple listening observations - First, good voice, nice and personable, with natural delivery. Second, the actual recorded sound - I am hearing a lot of close-order reflections, possibly from hard surfaces near you as you record. I think this is why Luis asked for info (a photo is great) about your recording space. Such surfaces include walls, ceiling, floor, desk, nearby window... even the computer screen itself - if not positioned just right - can reflect your voice back into the mic to add unwanted reflections and degrade audio quality. Those may have have been the reasons for the "equipment not professional" rejection.
The NT1 is certainly good. I am curious - what computer interface are you using?
Best regards for getting the bugs worked out and signing on soon,
Joe Brown
First of all, thank you both very much for helping me with this and for your time!
Luis: I did run it through Izoptope before sending it, because there is no way I could treat my space any more than I have and I was trying to avoid the co of 'not in a treated space'. Also, I was sitting a little further from the mic, because I was trying to avoid 'distracting breath'. Photos of space attached for any help!
Joe: I really appreciate your helping here, I am using a 3rd Gen Compressor in a Mac, so that should be a problem.. Is it possible that the iPad is reflecting sound? Pictures below, thank you very much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-lMIwnLGac&feature=youtu.be
Cheers guys!
NR
Joe, grateful for your thoughts here. Could it be this iPad that is reflecting sound? I am using a 3 Gen compressor interface, into a mac computer, so the quality their should be okay!
Afraid I don't know what 3rd Gen Compressor is. Googled that and came up with car air conditioning LOL.
You should use a Mic with XLR cable into a computer interface such as PreSonus, Scarlet solo, or other similar interface rather than a USB mic. I've not used an iPad but think there are interfaces for those.
Seems like your acoustic treatment would certainly be adequate. Is your NT1 a USB mic?
Per reflections from iPad screen- it's possible. Just make sure reflections from the screen are not aimed back at the mic.
Oh no! lol It's a focusrite, 3rd generation solo ( I just googled that to make sure it did not take you to a car). And no It is not a USB, it connects to the compressor, then to my computer.
If you have a second, here as link to another read that may provide some more clues as to why it is sounding like the equipment isn't right.
https://soundcloud.com/nrichardson20/narration-short-sample
Again, thank you!
Hi Nicholas, thank you for reaching out!
Hi Joe!! So excited to see you here
Hi Luis, thank you for your input!
It seems like these guys are right, they are giving you very good feedback here.
Top things to work here:
Is there a chance you could send us a raw recording, bypassing the compressor?
Also, one where you are pointing the mic to a corner?
Hello Johnatan, absolutely i'll that right over.
thank you!
Good morning all,
Below is a raw file, with zero edits. I hope this helps. I made sure to have the mic pointing into the corner instead of face on.
Thank you again for any help!
NR
https://soundcloud.com/nrichardson20/raw-file
Hey, Gents!
First of all, it's lovely to see the community coming together to help our guy NR, who should be getting better results from this setup. One thing to note is that the rejection may state something along the lines of "Your deliverable appears to have have been produced using non-professional equipment''. While this is certainly not true in your case N, the thing is that improper acoustics and less than ideal settings may produce a similar effect to that, which is what likely happened in your audition.
I'd love to be able to download that raw file to analyze it properly and see where the frequency spikes are so that proper advice on mic positioning can be dispensed. Judging from the sample and the detailed video tour, the issue may come from parallel surfaces (our worst enemy). As Joe pointed, the kind of reflections audible in your recording are very much first-order, meaning that they in fact come from every hard surface around you, given that the mic is placed in such tight quarters, regardless of the acoustic treatment present at the time.
The bass traps seem to be doing a great job, but at least from just listening, there are spikes in the 2400 Hz and relatives, with a bit of a peak in the ~7000 Hz range, audible as sibilance. This 'hollow' sound signature is all too common and very consistent with the frequency response of your NT1, a mic I own, and know all too well. It's great, but it's also a quirky beast to tame.
Now, I've read that you were recording a bit removed from the mic to prevent breaths, but that's certainly not a sustainable strategy to mitigate such noise. I'd recommend flipping that mic around, to position it dead in the corner as you've already done, and to try to use some homegrown 'acoustic treatment materials' to aid your acoustic foams. Those foams will also perform better when closer to the mic and if they're not stuck dead-on to the walls of your booth since they absorb the energy from your voice but see their effectivity trumped as that energy does penetrate them and quickly bounces back off the hard material behind them. Double-layering them could be a good idea. As for the iPad, I don't hear/see that as an important source of reflections at the moment.
For reference, here's a file of mine produced with that same mic in a much inferior acoustic environment (a closet filled with sweaters and some memory foam strategically placed around the mic's sensitivity lobe) but carefully EQed to mitigate the offending frequencies and to comply with our policies regarding room echo. I'm sure we can work to make you sound even better than this.
Please, share your gain settings and that raw sample in a downloadable format so that we may move forward and help you solve any sonic quandaries as fast and accurately as possible =)
Cheers!
- Héctor Adolfo Ituarte (Bunny Studio QC Agent)
Hector, a huge thank you for taking the time to help me here. Learning a lot with all these Bunny rejections! I'm not sure how to send you a downloadable file, could I email it to you? I can't seem to drop it into this forum.
I am happy to double foam and so on if that's the issue. Having said that I re recorded with the mic in the corner, and turning the gain down a bit, (not sitting far away!) and I think it's much better, but if possible would still love to send it to get your thoughts, as it does not sound like your sample!
Your recoding is encouraging! I feel like I'm figuring this mic out a little better every new job. Please let me know where might be best to send this file, and once again, can't thank you all enough!
NR
Hi NR,
You could upload your file to Google Drive or SoundCloud and share the link here so Hector can review it.
Let us know if that works for you
Ah thank you! Hopefully this works, thank you!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17566_2jE0ZACYr4mv7JYBi7gNGhxnj91/view?usp=sharing
It is saying that we don't have access to it, can you change the sharing setting so anyone with the link can access it, please?
Apologies, hopefully this one works!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17566_2jE0ZACYr4mv7JYBi7gNGhxnj91/view?usp=sharing
It does work, NR.
Thank you, very soon Hector will be giving you a reply.