I saw your comment about still working out the settings on your audio. Yeah, you will want to turn down your gain and/or add a bit more distance between you and the microphone input to keep from clipping and distortion in the audio. Suggest lowering the gain and adjusting your position so that your peaks for yelling/loud projection land between -9 dB and -3 dB. Try adjusting your microphone so that you speak just passed the mic at a slight offset to limit plosives. To further improve your read, I would add a pop filter if you don’t already have one to reduce the sound of plosives. Generally a good distance from your microphone as a rule of thumb is the space between your pinky and thumb when they are extended apart from each other. If the loudness is caused by normalization, please bear in mind that it’s always good to leave headroom on your wave peaks. Shoot for -3dB of headroom. For normal talking, try to have the waveform peaks between -12 and -6 dB. 

0:11  In commercials, when you get to the brand name, slow it down a tad and give it some extra love. This is the client who’s paying you! They want their name to be remembered positively in commercials. 

0:13 Read “stand” instead of “stands”

0:40 Be aware of any movement noises that may be picked up by the microphone during recording. Also, not sure if this is the case for you or not, but ideally, you should not hold the microphone when recording - it’s good to have it on a boom arm or desktop stand. Shockmounts are also helpful to reduce movement of the microphone during recording. If you’re recording on a phone, set it down or in a holder to minimize movement during recording. For actual gigs or auditions, you will want to edit those out movement noises or re-record those lines if it occurs within a line as it can be difficult to edit out after the fact. 

0:53 Read “Killedagub” instead of “Kilagub”

Overall, this was a great read! I could tell you were working on projection and your enunciation and articulation was generally very well done!

Be sure you are pronouncing all parts of the words including the last letters which are easy to “lose” when reading. When practicing articulation and enunciation it’s good to over-do it. Use the cork trick to practice like Burger showed in class. Even without it, over-articulate and be sure to clearly hit all the letters and parts of the word including the ending letters. Being able to clearly enunciate and articulate very well becomes a very useful tool in your voice acting toolbox to use or not to use as needed!

When you’re ready to take the next step to improve your voiceover recording, you will want to look into treating your recording space with acoustic foam (we recommend 4” thick) and/or blankets to help reduce the reflections and reverb in the space. It’s not necessary for this class however as we are focusing on the basics of voice acting.

Keep up the excellent work!