Feedback Forum

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  • #15468
    David Goldberg
    Edge Studio Staff

    The Edge Studio Feedback Forum is the best place for you to post a recording and get feedback from the community! Record in your home studio, upload the file, and see what people think. This is a great place to get some advice on your technique, on your home studio, or to ask for people’s opinion on your reads. Remember, that this is a community forum, so please remain positive and encourage your peers in helpful ways. If Edge Studio feels that a user is too negative, or antagonizing other members of the community, they will have their posts deleted, and risk being banned from further communication. 

    Stay positive, listen to each other, and have fun!

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  • #81620
    Jenconnelly20
    Participant

    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!

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    • #81629
      Dexterius
      Participant

      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!

  • #81609
    Jaljr
    Participant

    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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    • #81627
      Dexterius
      Participant

      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!!!

      • #82248
        Jaljr
        Participant

        Thanks very much. Very helpful

  • #81593
    Dexterius
    Participant

    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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    • #81657
      JDM
      Participant

      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!

  • #81580
    Nikka Kowidge
    Participant

    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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    • #81608
      Jaljr
      Participant

      Hello, Nikka

      Good job on all. The redo on the activity TV spot was on the mark. I could hear the excitement and see the smile. The tone on the Shakespeare read was good as well and fit the topic.

      Great reads. Thanks for posting

    • #81602
      Thomas_D
      Participant

      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

    • #81583
      Nikka Kowidge
      Participant

      Oops I uploaded the wrong kids tv spot. This is my attempt using Feedback previously given. If you don’t mind listening to this and letting me know if you think I made progress I’d greatly appreciate it!

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  • #81567
    RCampos
    Participant

    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

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    • #81764
      Grace17
      Participant

      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.

      • #81829
        RCampos
        Participant

        Hi Grace,
        Thanks so much for the helpful feedback. I do think I need to loosen up a bit and put a little more variation into my read. I appreciate your thoughts and will incorporate into my practicing. All the best,
        RC

    • #81729
      Mike_Control
      Participant

      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!

      • #81830
        RCampos
        Participant

        Thanks Mike-Control, Appreciate your notes. I will work on a more casual read. I’ve noticed I do have a tendency to slip into a more formal delivery. All the best,
        RC

    • #81579
      Nikka Kowidge
      Participant

      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.

      • #81831
        RCampos
        Participant

        Thanks very much for your notes, Nikka. I’ll work on adding differentiation in lists. I appreciate your time and thoughts.
        All the best,
        Robert

  • #81544
    joekett
    Participant

    I’d appreciate any feedback.

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    • #81558
      mattjfogarty
      Participant

      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. 🙂

  • #81542
    Unity
    Participant

    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

    • #81566
      RCampos
      Participant

      Thanks very much for your post, Unity, and wish you all the best with the tech troubles!

  • #81521
    adarn010
    Participant

    Good Afternoon to all! Attaching a corp read for your analysis and critique. I appreciate your time an feedback in advance. Thanks.

    • #81525
      adarn010
      Participant

      Let’s try this again with the MP3 files 🙂

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      • #81560
        mattjfogarty
        Participant

        Hi Adam. Great pace, tone, and expression. I think your voicing is very nice. There were some technical issues. More severe with Julia than 4H. some minor things like clicking (for example 4h 23.562s). But more distractingly was a sort of distortion and/or repetative noise through large segments. Best I could guess is maybe a noise gate set to strong. I could see it in the wave form in the gaps between words. There would be big dips and peaks in the sound floor and those could be heard in ways ranging from clicks to distortion. I have had this happen to me when I either pull down levels to much on breaths or noise with abrupt transitions before and after, or when I have cut and pasted room noise into a place it isn’t well matched with it’s surroundings. I guess overall just felt overprocessed. Having said all of that, I think these would be very easy technical fixes. You have the much trickier part…a great read and sound to your voice, well on it’s way.

  • #81505
    Grace17
    Participant

    Hi,
    There may not be much of a difference between these takes, but I was speaking to different people in each take. Which do you like better and why? What’s good, and what could be improved? I really appreciate your time giving feedback, thank you very much.

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    • #81510
      Grace17
      Participant

      Hi,
      I just decided to add this one too. It sounds nice and professional I believe, but I thought it was too quiet and sleep-inducing, but let me know what you think.

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      • #81598
        DillonP
        Participant

        It sounded clear the last time, and on the fourth one you had your volume under control. But there where certain words that you were over enunciating such as “long”. other then that I think it was a good take just need to work on your enunciations and it can be good. Just keep up the good work.

      • #81569
        RCampos
        Participant

        Hi Grace,
        I like #2 best. I think it’s the most natural and most friendly. In this one you have an upward inflection on name, which sounds friendly. You also put a little bit of “concern” into “call you back as soon as we can,” which makes it sound like you really will make the effort to call ASAP.
        Other minor notes: on the word “long” – it sounds like you hang on the “g” a bit longer than usual. Maybe this is an effort to end the word clearly, but I don’t think you need as much emphasis.
        And finally, when you say “hold,” – I don’t hear the “l” very well. Very nice job all around, though.
        If you have a moment, I would greatly appreciate your feedback on my “Cosmos” VO – just posted at about 9:05pm Eastern time. Thanks!

      • #81538
        mattjfogarty
        Participant

        I think they all sound nice and professional. I like the pacing on 3 and 4 a little more. Just a little bit slower, especially between “long wait” and “if you prefer”. Seemed just the slightest bit rushed there in 1 and 2 but open and natural on 3 and 4. Only technical thing I heard that caught my attention was an inhalation at the end of #3 just after all the dialogue had ended. I would edit that out since it doesn’t lead into anything. Otherwise sounds very nice

  • #81502
    Grace17
    Participant

    Hi,
    I would love feedback on what’s great, could be improved, or better about either of these takes. Really appreciate your time! Thank you!

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    • #81628
      Dexterius
      Participant

      I think that both of your reads are very well done! It sounds very professional, on an even keel, but also interesting enough to keep from falling asleep if that’s not your cup of tea. Hope this helps!!!

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