Rejected submissions
Greetings,
I recently submitted some audio files for consideration to be admitted to your site. Unfortunately I was told the volume was too high. I do use a limiter set to -3 db and run the audio through an ACX plugin and it passes.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AvI8zQatp8ILs381Ftw1MgvCHhgfKbeS?usp=sharing
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Hi Stephen!
Thanks a lot for reaching out to us!
I was listening to your samples, and even though I agree that the levels are okay, I can notice some issues in your audios.
For example:
1. On audio 1 Voice 123 - Force Multiplier Trailer:
- At 0:17 and 0:18 your audio is distorting.
2. On audio 3 - Voice 123 - Smithfield Foods Its Our time:
- There are recurrent distracting breathing noises throughout your recording.
3. On audio 4 - voice 123 - Voice of Batman in the Comic Dub:
- Some of the other voices have room echo and the background track sounds a bit lo-fi. Although your voice sounds good, it is important that the whole audio has the same quality. We suggest you to submit an audio where there aren't more than one voices involved in order to avoid this type of rejections.
The good news is that these issues are pretty easy to fix. For the parts where there is some distortion, please make sure to lower your pre-amp levels in a way that the signal won't saturate. For the breathing noises, you could be aware of this at the moment of recording or you can edit your audios afterwards in order to remove these distracting noises.
Nevertheless, I'm sending your case to the QC teams so they can check internally and verify if the levels are alright or if there is something they might suggest.
I'll get in touch with you once I have an update :).
Hope you have an amazing weekend!
Gabriel
Hello,
Another voice actor here. I didn't listen to all the samples, but the first two seemed fine on level. Here's a waveform analysis on the first one:
Meant to add that the level did not seem too high to me (peak amplitute was -3.4 and no clipped samples) so I'm not sure why you got a rejection based on volume.
Just re-listened and DID notice some distortion on the word "Sure" just a few seconds in. Sounded like maybe the gain was set a bit too high and may have over-driven the mic pre.
I'll be interested to see what a Bunny Studio QC staffer has to say.
Best of luck,
Joe B.
Thanks for the help Joe. The gain might be a bit high as you mentioned. I'll tweak it a bit and see what my results are.
Regards,
Stephen
Hi Gabriel,
Sample 1 - I went back and listened to the samples you mentioned. I did notice clipping around the 0:17 second mark. I usually run my samples through a limiter set to -3 db so I don't know why this happening.
Sample 2 - I do inhale throughout the read. I wanted to sound as natural as possible since we often take breaths when having regular conversations. I listened to some audio books and noticed most breathing noises are edited out, so if necessary I can do that.
Sample 3 - I don't know what DAWs or sound treatment the other VO's used. I assume their recording environments were different than mine, hence the difference in quality. Also, a third producer dubbed our voices to the finished product and so I don't know what equipment or editing was used.
Yes, if you could please forward my samples to the QC team for further feedback that would be great. As you said, any remedial work on these issues is pretty simple. Thanks again and I look forward to hearing from you again.
- Regards,
Stephen
Hi Stephen!!
Thanks a lot for your patience.
I already have a word from the QC team and they all agreed that the levels were right. So from that point of view we should be good to go :).
In regards the other issues:
1. Most clipping noises and distortion might come from the recording stage and the way you setup your pre-amp levels. For this matter, you should always try to lower the gain level on your recording equipment (preamp/interface) and you should select a level that prints a signal of -9 to -6 dB maximum while recording. This avoids any distortion or clipping and afterwards you should normalize your audio recording to -3 dBFS Peak Level.
2. Yes, you should edit these noises out of your audios. Alternatively, you could try to be aware of this at the moment of recording so you avoid doing this edition process afterwords in post-production :).
3. It's totally understandable, and that's why we recommend to upload RAW samples where your voice over is the only audio that is featuring on the sample or at least make sure that the other assets are as high quality as your recording. It might happen that your voice over is sounding right but there are other parts of the recording that aren't sounding as good as your audio, so the whole sample gets rejected.
Please let me know your thoughts about this :)
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Gabriel
Hey Gabriel,
Thanks for following up. Glad to hear my volume levels were good! As I said, I do run my recordings through a limiter set to -3 db and ACX analyzer for good measure. Since our last conversation, I did lower my gain a few notches, so that should also help going forward.
Sample 1- Let me see if I can remove the saturation at the :17 sec mark. If I can't we can simply remove that from the list of submitted samples or I can replace it with another one.
Sample 2 - I can go back and edit out the distracting breaths.
Sample 3 - I still have the original recording with just my voice, so I can submit that.
Once I'm ready to resubmit, should I do it the usual way or let you know first?
Best Regards,
Stephen