[katelyndawnvo]

Hey Shmuel. I think you’re getting closer with the last read. The first two reads felt like you were trying to get the words out of your mouth as fast as you could 🙂

I think you can work on smoothing out the read The second line felt a little choppy. You can smooth that whole line out like you are casually talking to a friend. Your pace can be picked up here (not so fast as the first reads) and then you could maybe pose that question of “you know that oomph you feel” a little slower paced.

It’s all about feeling how you would say this in real life. Personally, I would say that the first line pretty straightforward, a little bit throw away but then I’d slow down and use my hands and say “you know that oomph you feel” and give those words their due because you are describing a full-body feeling that doesn’t really have much language to describe, its more of a feeling, but everyone knows that feeling.

That one line “Our patented Oscillating Frame accurately reproduces and plays frequencies up to 200Hz including subsonic frequencies.” is SUPER hard. You need to break it up into sections that the listener will actually be able to grasp potentially, so I think here it is appropriate to pause intentionally between phrases/ideas here:

Our patented Oscillating Frame (pause) accurately reproduces and plays frequencies up to 200Hz (pause) including subsonic frequencies.

Regarding the first line and the question there – I have been told by Larry Hudson and his group that when we ask a question in a script, it’s generally treated as a rhetorical question. Especially here where you are going to explain HOW it works. You’re not asking the listener, you are going to tell the listener, so it is a rhetorical question. So when you “upspeak” on the word “work” it sounds like you are indeed asking a question like you don’t know how it works.

Those are my thoughts. I thought this was really well done though. Nice work! I’d like to hear another go at it from you! You’ve got a really inviting, warm and trustworthy tone. You sound like a guy I’d go buy a speaker with. There’s just a few things that stuck out to me:)

[katelyndawnvo]

Hi John – I just had time to listen to the first upload.
I think you have a lovely upbeat and energetic tone. Very friendly and welcoming. So if that is what you are going for with your tone, then you did very well. The pace was too slow and made it sound like you were reading. If you vary the pace while you are reading that is something we do naturally in conversation. Also, there were times you added a pause between words within sentences. Note how you speak to friends and family. Normally we don’t pause within sentences. We say “ready to learn something new every day.” not “ready (pause) to learn something new every day.” These are little things that make a big difference in smoothing out a read and sounding more conversational. I hope that feedback is useful! 🙂

Nice work! I love your David Attenborough voice!

[katelyndawnvo]

Hey Sherry –

Fragrance: Lovely read! I love how you painted a picture in the first half of the perfume thing. I think at 0:14 there could be a transition. When you read the whole thing in the hushed whisper voice, I started to lose focus. If you can come into a full voice for the last part once you hit “Roseau articulates…” (however you spell that) I think that is a good spot for a transition.

Healthcare: Really nice tone and feel for this. When you got to “something as important as healthcare”, you did “upspeak” on the word “healthcare”. When we use upspeak (which is a super millennial thing to do) it sounds less confident, like we are asking a question or are unsure about what we are saying. So you can just remember to always bring it down at the end. “create a partnership” – pronounce “a” as “ah” in scripts. I’d say always unless asked specifically to pronounce it “a”.
I think you lost it a little bit at the tag – you had me up until this point. When you say “Edna and US healthcare… raising a standard for… and the rest of the tag” The tag is super important so give it its gravity. At this point, you can be feeling very proud of this healthcare company because it’s yours. Either you own it or you work there or else you wouldn’t be talking about it. But center yourself in some pride for it and really sell me on why this is important, good, or why I should care.

Really nice work!!

[katelyndawnvo]

You have a really nice tone of voice for this and a very marketable voice at that. I think you could warm it up a bit, it sounds more like a documentary piece which is typically read more “matter of factly” without bringing in your personal opinions into it and letting the listener figure out how they feel about what you are presenting on their own. I think you can guide the listener into feeling how you feel about this content. Right now you sound distant from it, like an observer. Can you warm it up, bring a smile to your face and connect more with the copy? I think this will help people to stay engaged in this “eLearning” style script. Right now you sound a little bit bored about what you’re talking about. I’d love to hear this again with this feedback applied, I think you can totally nail it.

[katelyndawnvo]

Hey Tim! All good, this is a great place to learn! There are also some really awesome Facebook groups to join to get feedback or advice on audio quality like VOpreneur or something. I think something that is useful is copy and pasting the script with a few mark ups. Hope that’s ok! I’m going to copy and paste the Advil script here with most of the places you paused or micro-paused. When you pause within a sentence you break up the copy in an unnatural way. This makes it sound like you are reading, because we never speak like this in real life. Here is your script with most of the pauses in there:

Muscle aches? Nothing(pause) is proven more effective (pause) or longer lasting than Advil. For long-lasting relief of muscle aches, count on Advil. In a recent clinical study(upspeak), Advil was found to work(micro-pause) better than Tylenol in relieving the pain of sore muscles the day after exercise. No wonder doctors recommend Advil(pause) for muscle aches (pause) more than any other non-prescription brand. ADVIL — Advanced medicine for pain.

Try it again and don’t pause between the sentences. Another idea is for you to literally sing the sentence and note that there are no breaks in what you are saying. Then bring it back to talking again and try to keep it as smooth – never closing the back of your throat. Connecting words and avoiding pauses within sentences will help you to sound more natural. Then you need to think about connecting to the copy emotionally and think about who you are talking to and all that good “acting” stuff 🙂

I hope this is helpful!

[katelyndawnvo]

Hey Dickson – lovely performances! Really nice!!

Read 1 – I have nothing to add except for great job, you killed this!
Read 2 – I heard a few glottal stops at “every” in every move. I think you can smooth out the sentence “yet the private side of Amelia would”. The first part of that sentence can be smoothed out and I think you can forgo the comma there – just thinking that it is probably proper writing but in natural speech, we likely wouldn’t pause after saying yet. Try both ways and see what feels natural when you’re not looking at the script.”
Read 3 – Glottal stop at the o of “or longer-lasting”. There is a pause after “count (pause) on Advil”. I think it would sound more natural if you connected those words “count on Advil”. In “In a recent clinical study” you should pronounce the “a” as “ah”. You can also smooth out “no wonder doctors”, you don’t need to pause after “wonder” There were a few glottal stops throughout as well.

Honestly, these are nit-picky things but will take your read from 90% to 100%. I think you’re fantastic! When I learned about glottal stops it opened my eyes on how to smooth out my reads. But it’s a HARD habit to break, I still catch myself doing it all the time.

[katelyndawnvo]

Hi! I really liked this read I feel like you’re almost right on the money. The first line was a little mumbled however “it wasn’t a good time at work to go away”. I had to replay that part and listen closely. So if you could just make sure your pronunciation is clear here (especially as this is the first line) – you’re golden! Nice work.

Katelyn

[katelyndawnvo]

Hi everyone! Here is a kid’s eLearning practice read. so much fun! Any feedback is appreciated 🙂

Katelyn

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[katelyndawnvo]

Thank you! I appreciate you pointing out the repeated melody. Makes total sense to my music brain 🙂

[katelyndawnvo]

Hey Tina, really nice work on this script, I love your voice for this copy. I think you could have paced this a bit quicker as it would make it sound more conversational, particularly the sentence “Galileo had a remarkable aptitude for the invention of instruments designed for philosophical research” I think there was too much attention given to each word here and it sounded like you were reading. Between the words “springing from” there was a but of a glottal stop or pause that took me out from what you were saying, so I think if you smooth that out it would be even better. Really nice work Tina!

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