VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Yonie]

Heya guys,

I collected, re-wrote, and recorded some snippets that I put together into what I hope is a coherent demo. What I'm asking of you is to lend your ears and knowledge to point out and enlighten me on the things that need or could do well with a change.

I had recorded this before, but ended up not being happy and tossed out the eight hours of work I'd put into it, then spent the day feeling generally down. Caught a second wind by midnight and decided to re-record in the hopes of getting something worthwhile up.

One thing that struck me while working on this is that my preamp is ghastly awful.

http://soundcloud.com/yoniewela/e-learning-demo

Cheers ever so much for your help.

[Bruce]

Okey dokey. First, I would never lead off a demo with the words feces, vomit, et cetera. It just sets the wrong tone right off the bat...even though you may be good at medical pronunciation, I'd go for something with anatomical names or diseases. Second, E-Learning projects rarely have music under them so I'd drop that.

As far as reading style it was alright. Just be careful of overdoing inflection which you did a bit in the first place. Be mindful of who your audience is for each thing you record. They are very interested in what you have to say (or should be interested) but rarely is it fascinating! Let that sensibility guide your read.

If this is going to be your one generic E-Learning demo, pick something relatively generic but interesting for the first piece, i.e. a sales training piece, how to make a flight plan, how to use a new piece of software, "get to know our safety regulations", how to operate a fork lift. A little medical is fine, just not, ya know, poop.

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[todd ellis]

what bruce said. i do a LOT of medical/pharma stuff and rarely does it include music. a LITTLE over the top on enunciation - but some folks (especially medical) like that ... but not everybody. i'd vary the reads on the demos - one more formal, one more casual, slightly more "up", more "down", you get the idea. sometimes you're asked to "talk to the listener like your standing at the (machine, computer, forklift) and explain it as you would, casually, to a co-worker.
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"i know philip banks": todd ellis
who's/on/1st?

[Yonie]

Cheers, guys. I replaced two of the spots, while still choosing to lead with a music spot, as I pictured it not being interactive. Dirtied down my diction a bit and went for the more interactive kinds, without music.

Question number two: Audio quality. Is the sound good enough?

Link to the fourth iteration: http://soundcloud.com/yoniewela/e-learning-demo-1

[Bruce]

Better, although I'm still thinking the music under the medical, especially since the copy appears geared for medical students and personnel and not the public, is out of place. Watch your diction...a little bit of slur here and there, but fine elsewhere. Lastly, I know you're trying to sound casual, or one-to-one, but at times it's feels dis-interested to me, like maybe you'd rather not be there.

Technical quality of the recording is fine although there's a big drop in "ooomph" (fancy technical term) from the first to second cuts.

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .