Feedback Forum
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Hi! Upload your recordings, and get feedback from your peers!
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Hi, all. I had my second coaching session last week, and I’m still working on making my narrations sound conversational–especially when the copy gets a bit grandiloquent. Here are two attempts at the Cosmos practice piece from the script library (the one with “blue nitrogen skies”). For the first one, I tried to be fairly conversational while not completely fighting against the rather high-flown register of the text. For the second one, I tried to push it about 15% further. Please let me know how you think I did and which one you like better. I’d also be grateful for any general critiques. Thanks!
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Both reads were similar, but appropriate and well executed. The second one was a hair faster and slightly less emphatic which didn’t take away from the piece at all IMO. The subtleties were there and the inflections were mindful. Good storytelling, your voice is just perfect for this piece.
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Hello. I’ve been working with Art Bruder and I’ve learned a tremendous amount about the VO biz. Please let me know your opinion on these you have some time.
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I agree with Hazaro, your voice has a wonderful natural resonance. I thought the natural jokey/amused tone in the Harvey2 clip fit really well and came across as natural and endearing. The Financial Engines reading was a good tonal shift for a more serious script. I thought the message of experience you can trust came through naturally due to your voice’s timbre. One note is that you may want to try to push through a little more naturally as you go into “using proprietary advice…,” but I understand that is where you took a breath. Otherwise, I thought the two takes were very good.
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Hi all! I’ve been out for awhile because life hits hard sometimes 🙂
Just trying to jump back in and any feedback would be much appreciated! I’m just on my Mac with headphones, please ignore quality.
Thanks!-
The first read, at first is a little on the slow side. I think that’s intentional, but I believe that your listener will lose interest before you even get to the second half, which is the meat of the commercial. Also, the last last phrase ‘always open’ sounds like it’s more of an annoyance that they’re open all of the time.
The second read has a couple of places where there are pauses where there shouldn’t be. The first is between the words ‘hello’ and ‘to’ at the beginning, and the second time is between the words ‘day’ and ‘and’; the pause is a little too long. Also, the word ‘versatile’ is kind of mumbled in the middle. Hope this helps!
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Evenin, friends
Here are a couple of lightly edited commercial reads for an upcoming coaching session.All comments and feedback welcome
Thanks
Jerry
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I think that you did a good job on the Amtrak commercial read. The Duke’s mayo commercial read, however, I have a couple of minor issues with. The first is that when you say the phrase ‘one of a kind flavor’ you go up on the word ‘kind’ and that makes the phrase, in my opinion, sound off a bit. The other minor thing is when you say ‘Duke’s mayonnaise’ that is a slight pause between the two words that seems to draw undue attention to the phrase. Hope this helps!!!
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Hey, guys, I’ve got a few commercial scripts that I’ve tried out for my homework assignment and I picked some to have a little fun with. Yes, you can comment on my ‘accent’ as well. I have a pretty thick skin, as I’ve worked in retail for several decades. Thanks for your input in advance!!!
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Ben & Jerry’s: I like your read! You might want to speed up slightly, though, both because it’d pep things up to give the fairy a slightly more manic pace and because I’m assuming that this is meant to be a 60-second spot and you’re at 68.
Nit picks:
I like your choice to change “ing” endings to “in'”–but you ought to make sure that you do it consistently throughout.
I would make the emphasis “really WEIRD in your freezer” rather than “really weird in your FREEZER,” because you’re contrasting the item that you’re going to give them, not where you’re going to place it.
I would take less time to pretend to find your place at “So, where was I?” because I feel like the pause is a bit too long and the elongated “So” kills your momentum. (It all has to be super quick to avoid interrupting your flow.)History Channel: This needs much more gravitas. If your voice can go lower and sound more resonant without straining, pull out all the stops for this one. The repeated question–“Who would you be?”–sounds as though the copywriter meant it to feel almost hypnotic, so you’ve really got to sell it.
Nit picks:
“What would you feel?” needs to sound less cheerful and more dramatic.
Is it “Who would you love?” or “Whom would you love?” (If the copywriter made a mistake, there’s nothing that you can do about it, but be careful not to omit the “m” if they have it written correctly in the copy.)
The final sequence of questions is much too rapid-fire. Find somewhere else to speed up your read a little bit in order to buy yourself a few seconds to slow that down a tad. (I noticed that you spoke more slowly in the first half of the commercial, as though you didn’t realize the time crunch until near the end, so start by looking there.)Lender’s Bagels: No, alas, you cannot do that accent. (I think that you knew that already.) If you really want to try the spot, perhaps you could read it in something akin to your Ben and Jerry’s fairy voice? Maybe you could try to have New York energy even if you don’t have a New York accent.
P.S. You seem to be having some audio quality issues, but I imagine that you’re aware of the problem so I’ll leave it at that.
P.P.S. I tried to post this whole reply a moment ago and it disappeared somehow. Hopefully it won’t show back up as a double post. If it does, my apologies!
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Hello VO friends! Here are two more reads for your consideration. I thank you so much for your time and feedback. Please no comments on production quality I still don’t have my home studio arranged. However, I am working on conversational style and glottal stops! Thank you in advance for your thoughts and critiques.
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Hey Nikka Kowidge! Despite the note re: production quality, I still think it’s great in these two reads. I liked your pace in both reads, as slowing down is something I’m working on in mine. What I found especially interesting is the different tone in both reads without having to “project” differently into the microphone. I often find that I try to project too much instead of just letting the mic do its job.
Thanks for sharing
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Hi Voice Over Artists!
I would much appreciate your feedback on my pace and tone in this VO. I’m working on varying my pitch a bit more and on being more conversational. This is recorded on my cell phone so not looking for tech feedback yet.
All the best, R Campos-
Hey RCampos,
Thanks for your feedback on my post! Your voice is warm and pretty conversational. You’re not straining your voice and “pushing” which is great. I would say it would add to the believability of your delivery to quicken the pace because unless it’s requested to speak at this pace, in a conversation you would say this at a slightly faster – conversational level – pace. I also suggest determining the words you want to “hit” beforehand and highlighting/bolding them so you don’t miss the opportunity to hit words that are important for the message like little, sunlight, gravity, atoms, fundamentally, important, cosmos, time, etc. Though it’s your choice what words you think should be hit. Lastly, it felt like you had a matter-of-fact attitude for this read. There are various attitudes(ex: instructional, strict, compassionate) you could have with the read, so try experimenting, and that will also help you incorporate your personality into your reads more, which will make them even more believable. -
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Hey! Thanks for your feedback on my post, it helps a lot in narrowing my improvement! You do a fantastic job annunciating your script and I couldn’t tell that you were recording on your phone. The “Except for children…important questions” part sounds like a lecture, so it’d be great if you could casual-ify that. I can’t wait to see how it comes out!
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Hi 🙂 Great job on this read. Your voice is very warm and conversational. I think you’re pacing is on point. This comment might be personal preference, but I think you can add some differentiation between the list items in order to highlight the sense of awe inherent in the text.
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Hi Joe. I really like your sound. Very rich, friendly, warm, relatable. Very pleasant to listen to. Good emotion and feel. And the sound quality is very good. No noise floor issues to speak of. I might try just a just slightly quicker pace…maybe 10%. Just seemed a little drawn. And a small technical note, I could hear and see a number of mouth clicks. More prominently in the BMW spot (for example at 3.883s, 6.638s). And less so but also present in the Awareness spot (for example 4.313s and 5.362s). I would run something akin to Izotope Mouth Declick, and then go through manually after to find the remaining stubborn bits. Something I spend an extraordinary amount of time doing myself. 🙂
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RCampos, my apologies. I haven’t been on the Feedback Forum page since I downloaded my practice tape on 10/25. I appreciate your feedback and would be happy to reciprocate as you requested but am having some tech problems – unable to open your MP3s as well as my own recording. Will be happy to respond once I figure out the problem. So sorry, Unity
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