None of the judges turned their chairs

[kmarler]

Thanks Koz. I’ll keep on keeping on and keep having fun. Thanks for the tips!

[kozikowski]

You are one-in-a-row of people with no obvious problems and yet failed acceptance. Finding and posting their technical standards may go a long way to figuring this out. Where are they posted?

Koz

[kmarler]

Koz,

I couldn't find any technical requirements on their website, but found this blog post on their forum.

It seems legit. It's long, but you start getting to the meat and potatoes in the section titled, "technical requirements".

https://help.bunnystudio.com/hc/en-us/c ... uirements-

Basically, it sounds like they have similar standards to ACX although they don't post specifics on the noise floor like ACX does.

Kyle

[kozikowski]

Thanks for the link.

The peak specification is the only one they explicitly call out and that one matches ACX.

In My Opinion, if you can meet ACX, you can publish anywhere.

You are apparently the only exception.

Since you are in conference with them, see if you can pin them down to how they measure noise.

They do have one odd duck theatrical specification. Your vocal presentation has to match the book. As they put it, there is no grown-up struggling to sound like a child.

But that's not what they complained about. We keep coming back to that. They complain about you having a rubbish submission. And you don't.

Koz

[kmarler]

Hey Koz,

I may just be listening to myself too much and going crazy, but I swear my sound has changed seemingly on its own without me knowingly doing anything, touching any knobs or recording any differently.

I was recording a VO a couple of days ago (everything sounded like it has been), went for a walk and left my booth for about an hour, and then came back and it's like my mic sensitivity increased or something. I feel like I can hear much more background hiss now (the rain sounding kind) than in my older recordings which were the exact same settings.

I wonder if you could do me a favor and listen to this new recording that I've attached (shaka 2). Like I said, everything, to my knowledge, is exactly the same about the recording process and interface settings but the hiss seems more prominent (you can really here it when you apply the mastering suite settings).

I've also included the original shake sample that you mastered earlier last week.

Thanks,
Kyle

[kozikowski]

The background sound in both samples is the same number. Drag-select some of the first two seconds...

Screen Shot 2020-05-05 at 7.14.45.png (12.36 KiB) Viewed 100 times

... and Analyze > Contrast > Measure Selection. They're both -83dB.

That's a suspiciously low for raw readings, but OK.

Shaka 2 sounds further away from the microphone than Audacity-Shaka.

When you get closer to a directional microphone you get proximity effect. It gives you "Broadcasting Voice." You get bassier and more intimate. It's important that it does change your voice and you need to know that. That's the main reason you can't go in a week later and patch up one little word mistake somewhere in the middle of a reading. You'll never get the tones to match.

You are strongly urged to use one of the reading tricks to make a correction right then—double read with marker or Punch and Roll—and keep reading. Don't give yourself the chance to change your reading style or distance. Headphones help a lot with this.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Do you use Skype, Zoom or any of the chat or conference apps? They can change your sound settings without asking. Make sure chat and conference is turned off and maybe Restart your Mac before you read.

Koz

[kmarler]

Koz,

Thanks for taking a look at that and for your feedback. I do use Zoom and Skype so I'll look into those. On a separate note ...

The Bunny people provided some very detailed feedback on my latest sample.

Here's what they said,

1) Sibilance - Your deliverable presents sharp and loud -s, -sh and relative sounds (present in the 3 to 10 kHz frequency range). These also cover some hard consonant sounds as the formants of 't-' sounds and relative phonemes. Solving this issue may be a bit time-intensive, but totally doable.

2) White Noise - The audio presents the tiniest bit of hiss, this is an easy fix.

3) Levels - Your deliverable presents some peaks in open vowels (as in "stArt a revolution!"...) This is a common occurrence with pros entering the trade, as diaphragmatic control is not yet spot on. Another easy fix. Additionally, the file requires manual levelling and spot normalization. Another easy fix.

4) Sound Signature - I recommend that you apply a low-cut filter at around 70 Hz to roll-off some of the hardness in your pronunciation of hard consonants.

They actually provided a breakdown of each imperfection in a chart, what time it occurs in the recording and a video on how to correct the issues using Adobe Audition. You can view the audio recording I submitted to them entitled "bunny again", the breakdown entitled "details" and tutorial video which has no sound entitled "kyle tutorial" via the link at the bottom.

This was the Bunny guy's explanation as to why he likes Audition ...

"Why do I recommend Adobe Audition for you? Well, because of spectral editing. I prefer to take care of sibilants, noises and such things this way, as it is a highly useful skill in our trade, not to mention that it is much more precise than de-essers in this particular case for example. De-essers can make it fast but can also deteriorate a broader range of frequencies while working, or even color the sound (a big no-no)."

My question to you Koz is do you think I can do all of the things they're suggesting in a program like Audacity or would I have to consider biting the bullet and purchasing something like Audition ?

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Thank you,
Kyle

[kozikowski]

I'm not sure where to go with this. Apparently, Bunny's requirements are different enough from ACX's that we're not going to get there. Not having specific written numerical goals is rough. It's hard to deal with "the tiniest bit of hiss."

But fold that into this whole transaction. Bunny Again does have many of the problem they complained about, but that's different from your last forum postings and is, in some places, impossible.

1) This posting does have Essing and harsh SS sounds. But your earlier postings didn't.

2) I need a number to hit for noise submissions. Trying to reduce inter-word microphone hiss to zero will drive you nuts because it's really easy to damage vocal sounds by accident.

3) Your voice volumes do wander all over the place. Audacity Mastering should have corrected that.

4) "I recommend that you apply a low-cut filter at around 70 Hz..."

So do we. That's why the first step in Audacity Mastering is a 100Hz low cut filter. Everything between 100Hz and 0Hz should go away.

I don't think you mastered that submission right—or maybe you added tools or changed the settings. I have no idea where the Essing came from.

Did you use an automated Macro instead of using the three Mastering tools individually? We don't have an official Macro yet, but there are Macros published. They can have problems. Did you use stiff Noise Reduction? Sometimes that can cause Essing. No idea why.


Audacity can do spectral display and editing.

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/spe ... _view.html

This is ten seconds of your post in waveform...

Screen Shot 2020-05-06 at 5.15.06.png (16.46 KiB) Viewed 87 times

...and in Spectrogram...

Screen Shot 2020-05-06 at 5.15.34.png (78.44 KiB) Viewed 87 times

I'm not a post-production editor, so we can wait for someone to post with solutions.

Koz

[kozikowski]

I can help a little with #3. Wear good quality, sealed-on-the-head headphones.



That's Chris Pratt in the session where he voiced "Emmet" in the Lego Movie.

Screen Shot 2020-05-06 at 5.41.42.png (43.4 KiB) Viewed 84 times

He's listening to his own voice and possibly a backing music track to keep his volume from wandering.



David Greene at NPR-West with his Sony MDR-7506 headphones.

They have to be large and seal against your head and they have to be wired.

And they can't be plugged into the computer. That will give you delays and echoes. You have to be listening to the microphone, interface, or pedal in your case.

Koz