Rejection for sounding "too boxy", never been a problem before
Hello there,
I'd like to know what's wrong with this recording and what might have been better.
It was rejected for sounding "too boxy", but I do always record in the same acousticaly treated room (it said it might not be, but it is of course) on the same professional equipment.
This Contest entry was another part of the same project - I took part in the earlier entry only 2 days ago, and there was not a problem. I made other work at the same timeframe at Voicebunny, there was not a problem.
Now this one was rejected surprisingly, and I have the impression the same QC member just shot it off, even the 2nd recording for which I even changed my setup (which I usually don't do as I have to put it back to keep the sound the same is it was for corrections, changes, add-ons etc.) to avoid anything being "too boxy".
Any thoughts on this?
Thank you.
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Hi Cedric,
Thank you for reaching out and sharing your file with us.
We evaluated it and found the reasons why our QC agents might've rejected it, it does sound a bit boxy, it is not much, however, just to be on the safe zone, we could experiment a bit to make it sound even better of what you already have.
That way we will prevent this from happening in the future, how does that sound?
It seems like there are some early reflections being picked up by your mic, that could be fixed by making sure you don't have flat surfaces near your recording environment, or by covering those surfaces with thick materials.
Would you like to do some experiments? Let us know what you think
Hi Jonathan,
to be honest I'm still very disappointed. I listened to this again and again, compared it to my other recordings, and I really can't find anything that would be resonable to reject this. There are no reflecting surfaces in the room, it is as empty as possible and all surfaces are thickly padded with acoustic foam, with no totally straight walls etc. I studied sound engineering, so I did my best to optimize the recording booth, and I never in years had a complaint of sounding "too boxy".
Maybe it is the proximity effect your QC member meant? It is when talking closely to the mic, the low- and mid-low frequencies are boosted a bit, which is made intentionally though, as it is done in radio talkmaster settings. I could do less of that of course, still that's no reason for rejection in my view.
Of course putting more distance between me and mic is possible and if you prefer that it is no problem at all, but still I don't know what to say. As said before, I still like I'm cheated out of a higher-profile project due to - more or less - nothing.
It is your platform and your rules, I'm aware of that, but this makes it hard for me to rely on anything if something like "that" leads to recjection and seems quite random, decision-wise. What will be next time?
I don't know, I'm not sure right now how to proceed, this whole thing makes me feel quite insecure.
Sorry for not being more positive on the outlook right now.
Best.
We understand how you feel, and we want to assure you our Quality Control agents abide by clear standards previously defined by our team, you can find more about these requirements here:
https://help.bunnystudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000322144-Voice-Quality-Control-Standards
That being said, if you want, we invite you to experiment with your suggestion and sending us new audio for evaluation.
We'll make sure to bring the new audio to our team and ask for further feedback. But in this particular case, we shared your wetransfer file with some of our agents and they all agree on that conclusion.
Would you like to try your approach?
Hello Johnatan,
please evaluate this demo take (I'm just saying blabla more or less there, so just natural talking and no "commercial style" or something, it's just for recording sound evaluation). I moved the microphone to make for less proximity effect, so maybe that's the solution.
https://we.tl/t-5A4SPBxrPX
Thank you.
Thank you for this new submission, Cedric.
It does help, we are getting closer.
Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about sharing pictures of your recording space with us?
We feel we can improve your quality, for that we'd love to know what are we working with and offer specific suggestions for your recording space.
Let us know what you think
Hi Johnatan,
thanks for your feedback.
Yeah I can do that, I'd like to know though... I hope it doesn't sound strange, as communication via the Internet tends to lead in some ways it wasn't maybe intended to. Could you tell me at what stage were at right now? I'm not sure if it is about "optimizing sound to make sure all sides are happy and carry on", or is it about "the sound right now is unusable"?
I'm just asking as I'm still getting a weird vibe in this whole situation and it could just be me, so I want to make sure. Sometimes it is good to take a step back and see if you're going a wrong turn or something like that, I think. ;)
I've been enjoying work in Voicebunny so far, I think you can see that in my stats and flagged projects, I've always been trying to solve problems that could've come up, tried to always do things the best I could. So there's a bit of an alienation I'm feeling right now, and that's why I'm asking. Also, because I've never in years had a really substantial complaint about my recording quality. I'm always open to improve on details, but... well, I'm running in circles here, sorry. I hope you understand about my thoughts and feelings, I'm just trying to be honest here. :)
Best
No problem, Cedric.
Here's the actual feedback from one of our Quality Control agents:
Pretty good! Just a tiny bit of high-frequency reflections, but nothing important and actually really good!
In other words, you're good to go. How do you feel about that? :D
Hi Johnatan,
thanks for the feedback, that's super great.
I can imagine where hi-freq reflections might come from, so I can work on that, too.
Still I'm not sure what this whole fuss was now actually about and what to make of that. I used to feel different about Voicebunny and try not to be disappointed.
Could you tell me about consequences from this - for example, are my stats affected by this?
Thanks.
You are very welcome, Cedric.
It's great to know that you'll be able to get passed that small issue.
Think of it as another project with a rejection, one that you'll be able to make up for with another approved project. It is a chance for improvement and we believe it'll help you deliver better audio in the next projects that might come your way.
Hi Johnatan,
> You are very welcome, Cedric.
With all this issue, it still really doesn't feel like that at all, quite the contrary.
Anyway, be it as it is. There's room for improvement for everyone I guess, so let's all work on getting better.
Hopefully there'll be new projects coming up and things will blur over time or whatever.
Best.
Sure thing, Cedric.
Best of luck with future projects, we're sure you'll do great!
Yeah, luck.
Bye Johnatan.