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This topic was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by David Goldberg.
Pleasure to make your acquaintances. Currently going through the training program and was hoping to get some feedback on these two recordings. One is Narration Corporate while the second is Narration Documentary. Thanks.
This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by adarn010.
First of all, I want to start out by saying that I thought that both of your readings were very good. Now I’m going to knitpick just a little bit. The first reading that are a couple of places where, at the end of your phrase, you went up instead of down. I have been told that, unless there’s a specific reason for going up at the end of a phrase, the natural tendency is to go down. The word ‘mind’ in the phrase keep this in mind and the word ‘you’ in the phrase keep this card with you. In the second reading I would put a little more emphasis on the word ‘and” just before the phrase about marijuana growers. Also, in my opinion, the phrase ‘heart and soul’ show be read together (the word heart has a bit of a space between it and the rest of the phrase). Otherwise, you did a good job! I could just hear some kind of nature background music playing when I listened to the second one. Hope this helps!
Thanks for your feedback, Dex. The tendency to go up instead of down at the end of a phrase has been also noted by my coaches soon after you posted this.I appreciate you taking the time to listen to my samples and providing me with your observations. Best of luck!
I’ve got one session left before I record my commercial demo and looking for final feedbacks please. Inflections, pitch, pacing. Thanks as always! Ryan
Just a quick note about the middle two demos. My wife and I both agree that there are two things about these: 1) You tend to be ‘singsongy’ and 2) You need to flow a little better. some spacing is fine, but it seemed to us kind of choppy. The first one was okay (a little singsongy, but I think it works with the demo). But the last one was beautiful! Hope this helps!!
Many thanks, I’ll take a deeper look at that. Whenever you start chopping down scripts to make the time requirements for a demo it seems to get a choppy. I hadn’t fully recognized it in mine till you pointed it out.
Hey Folks. Here is some homework for my next coaching session. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank You! I went easy on the Irish accent on the second one. I did a recording with my normal voice, but my wife liked this one better.
Dexterius, I listened to both and you got a smile out of me with the fairies one! Accent came across well and I liked the delivery. The Jack Daniels had correct inflections are the right points. I think your audio may need a little work but that comes with time, equipment, and sound treatments, and you pry aren’t as worried about it on the forum as you would be with auditioning. Nice work.
Here are my thoughts on your performances:
Sandals: I think that there are two main issues 1) you need to speed it up just a little bit, and 2) I agree with Michael that the ‘wry smile’ mentality needs to be throughout your performance. I did like the smoothness of it, though.
Harvey Home Theatre: In this one, you need to bring down the tone to your normal register (too high), and I would recommend a slightly sarcastic attitude throughout this script. The script, in my opinion, lends itself to this kind of attitude. It will also make the reading more entertaining. Hope this helps!!!
“Harvey Home Theater”. For your tone and pitch, think about the message you are delivering which is that electronics systems are typically so complicated that someone as sophisticated as a doctor can’t operate them, but here’s one simple enough for anyone to operate”. Your delivery sounds a bit unnatural, like maybe you are pushing your voice into a higher register. Try to imagine explaining this to an individual, like a friend.
“Sandals”: I like this one better. Again, try to imagine telling this to a friend, particularly in the first sentence, to add more naturalness. I agree with Michael above that “everything else is included” was my favorite part.
Hope this helps, and I should mention that I am not a coach, just someone like you learning, so take my feedback accordingly :).
What up, my dude. Listening to both, here are my recommendations. Take em or leave em 🙂
Sandals: Delivery is too slow. Pick up the pace a bit, and I think you’ll hit the sweet spot with the relaxed feel you’re trying to convey. The line “Because everything else is included” was your best moment on this one. I heard the wry smile coming through. Try to do that throughout.
Harvey Home Theatre: A few good moments on this one. I feel you might be trying too hard to be cool when you end your sentences on this one. Again, speed of delivery. Start is a little slow and then there’s some back and forth. “…he can even operate his…” is the meter and tone you want throughout. If you can match that everywhere, I think we’ve got a winner.
In general, relax. Be aware of how each sentence is ending the same and try to change it up a bit. When I started out, I sounded like I was trying too hard to act. I’m still having to overcome that at times, but the faster you can get your mind around imagining talking to a person and keeping their attention, the better this will click.
Hi All –
I’d greatly appreciate some feedback on the attached recordings. I didn’t use a pro mic, so just technique comments please. Specifically, I worked on pacing, and “flow” (painting a picture, finding “beats” in the script, ensuring it has a beginning/middle/end). Feedback on those aspects are particularly welcome, although any feedback is great!
Here is the copy I used:
Real Estate Educational Explainer:
Would you like to buy a house?
Maybe it’s your first house, or even your 2nd and you just think that MAYBE you didn’t think hard enough about the last one.
Listen, I love Real Estate. And in most cases, even a bad deal can work to your advantage in the very long run.
But there are dumb things that people do without realizing it when they buy a house.
Humor me for a short story before we get into the meat of this video.
Cosmos Documentary:
Welcome to the planet earth. A place of blue nitrogen skies, oceans of liquid water, cool forests, soft meadows; A world positively rippling with life. From the cosmic perspective, it is, for the moment, unique. The only world on which we know with certainty that the matter of the cosmos has become alive, and aware. There must be many such worlds scattered through space, but our search for them begins here, with the accumulated wisdom of the men and women of our species, acquired at great cost, over a million years.
Biogenetic Law:
Commonly summarized as “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” (on-TA-jeh-nee re-cah-PIT-you-lates fill-AH-jeh-nee), biogenetic law posits that the embryonic stages in the development of an individual (its ontogeny) repeat the evolutionary history of its ancestors (its phylogeny). A corollary of the biogenetic law is the idea that new evolutionary features are typically added at the end of development, with formerly adult, or “terminal” stages gradually being compressed into progressively earlier stages (or sometimes being eliminated outright).
Jeff, I listened to Cosmos as that’s one of my favorite scripts. I’ll try and touch the feedback you requested. I think you found the flow and the beats. I would look at changing up the inflection in “at the moment, unique”. Moment ends on an up, and then go flat to slightly up with unique. May try and down inflection with moment, then end it higher with unique. There are also larger spaces in time than are pry necessary when describing the cosmos. You may be thinking of images being played, but without being able to see that they seem to far apart. Overall, I like the tone, pitch, pacing.
Something just for fun here – LOTR Opening Monologue. I have no business performing such an auspicious read, and it’s not my best editing. But it was a giggle just the same. 🙂
Really nice. I’ve listened to some of you scripts before and they are well delivered. You can be nit picked at this point, so the “seven” to the dwarf lords seemed like it should be a different pitch or inflection as when I heard “and nine” that one hit perfectly. Not saying they all need to be the same of course, but seven just came up a little flat. I’d thought to do this read in the past and didn’t as it’s such an auspicious read as you said but you pulled it off well! -Ryan
I absolutely love it. The read was smooth, the music was spot on. By the way where did you get the music from. Royalty free? You should be getting paid. keep on keeping on !!!
First I want to co-sign the last comment. You have a beautiful voice. Now you just need to nail the “acting” part of it so it.
My 2 cents: Read the copy and really grasp the meaning of each sentence. Then do the imagery exercise @atperry mentioned (or make one up that resonates with you better if you want). Then do the reading picturing you are talking to that brother, sister, friend, or whomever you choose to imagine.
Oh man you’ve got a great sounding, resonate voice. Warm, articulate and your studio sounds great. My critique is that this is a great read, but it sounds like a reading. I think the author wants you to be more expressive, not louder, maybe a little quieter. Close your eyes and imagine sitting on a porch andyour little brother or sis or child you care about deeply just lost a sports game. Yo bro instill afeeling inthem that there are going to be great. good luck
Lindsay Olives
My son, the olive, gives me such a pain! All I‘ve wanted was the best for him. To be a Lindsay olive, a perfect olive!
But would he listen to me? Noooo! He’s gotta act like a big shot all the time. Like when I told him “Hershey, stay in the sun, the sun is wonderful for you!” Would he listen? No!
Like when I caught him hangin’ around with a bad bunch of olives…I said: “Hershey, get away from them, you don’t need them, you’re a good olive!”
Do you think he listened to me? No!
So when the Lindsay pickers came, I said: “Yoo hoo, yoo hoo, Mister Lindsay picker! Pick over there my son, the big shot.”
Did they pick him? Nooo! They don’t want big shots. If he’d listened to me, by now he could have been a Lindsay olive!
I’m working on my natural delivery. Do these reads sound ‘fake’? Do they have a good pitch variation? Thanks!
RiseWell Toothpaste
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Your teeth will not only feel healthier but also look visibly whiter.
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Time for a mineral clean, time to RiseWell.
Balducci’s
Can your food market pass a simple taste test?
At Balducci’s, we put taste first.
This spring, we’re loading up our stores with fresh and chef-crafted foods that are simply bursting with flavor.
Like majestic orange wild king salmon, flown in daily.
And specialties like champagne ham, slow-smoked over hickory chips and glazed with pineapple juice and brown sugar.
Now there’s a store that puts taste first.
Balducci’s. The food lover’s market.
A1 Steak Sauce
With steak, you want to make every bite count.
That’s why we use A-1 Steak Sauce.
A-1 brings out every single bite of steak, or even hamburger.
Mmmmm, delicious.
For me, there’s only one steak sauce, A-1.
Because A-1 has all the taste that makes every bite count.
Balducci’s: Delivery feels a little “choppy”, which makes it sound unnatural, like it is being read (which it is, but it’s our job to convince the audience otherwise). Try not to hit words so hard and pointed (e.g., taste first). Some great advice I got from my coach, try to imagine the specific person you are talking to, where you are, and why you are saying this. e.g., perhaps you bumped into one of your neighbors, and you’re so excited about the place you work, Balducci’s, you just need to tell her about the great tasting food they make.
I felt similarly about the other reads you did, but didn’t dig as deeply.