Here is a spin on the bash this recording. Welcome to “bash this voicemaiI”. I signed up for Nextiva phone services just so I could record my own and have a more professional sounding voicemail. However, now that I have it set to their required format,( .wav, PCM, Uncompressed/PCMU, 8000z, 8 or 16 bit MONO.) it sounds horrible, like it is under water. The first clip is an mp3 before it is set to the required format in Goldwave. The second is after the format is set. Does anyone have any suggestions to get this voicemail out of the water a bit? Thanks,
There’s a lot about the format of phone VO deliverables that I don’t understand. The other dub engineer I’m finishing that movie with is coming over today and she has a SHIT load of experience in this field. I’ll run the question by her.
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Hey thanks so much. I know nothing about is myself. I thought it would just be an mp3 but apparently not. I look forward to what she has to say.
Is that the only formatting spec they gave you for the deliverables?
Yeah, that’s all it says.
I think you are best off mixing this in the format that you will be releasing it in. Since the end format is going to be over the phone and with an upper limit of 4kHz, I think you’d be a lot better off mixing in that format rather than mixing in high res and down converting it.
The decisions you will make on the low end will be very different when you have no high end to work with. And of course, the number 1 priority with this is to make sure the voice is intelligible. Everything else is a distant second in importance.
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Excellent point. I asked on the Sonar forum how to get those specs with Sonar x3 and the feedback was the opposite, to record it on Sonar and then convert it with Goldwave, which is what I did but now reading what you just wrote, that is the way to do it. I think it was just easier to do the Goldwave conversion because you can just pick the settings and your done. I have not been able to find those settings on Sonar, which is how I got to the Sonar forum in the first place. As of yet, not one on the Sonar forum was able to suggest how to get those settings on a wave file. I will go back to the settings on Sonar and see if I can figure out how to meet the specs with the first recording. Thanks Boz.
No real deadline. The new phone service won’t kick on for another few days.
I am not opposed to using another phone service provider if she says that there is one better for audio files. I only know of Nextiva so I went with them.
ok. I’ll ask tonight 
It’s a good way to get the specs, but it’s a bad way to do the project. The problem is that it sounds just fine in full res, but it falls apart in low res. You’ll want to full res version for anything that isn’t over the phone, but the phone version is going to need it’s own mix. If sonar won’t go down to 8kHz, you can at least simulate it by putting a super sharp low pass filter at 4kHz so you can hear what it will sound like when downsampling.
Ok…Natalie said if you want it to translate brighter, ramp up 3k, but there’s very little besides that you can do for an 8 bit deliverable. Bounce it and be done. She said she skips over ProTools and sends strait from Audacity for these because it makes zero difference. There’s no point even mixing because the compression is going to destroy details anyway.
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Thank you so much for helping with that and getting Natalie’s input, thank her for me. It makes sense to just start off with it that way. I will get on audacity and knock it out.
Hi Love the processing on that guitar. I am not a mix guy. ha ha The voice was very clear and convincing. Not sure what the other forum guys said:) Thanks again for listening to my last one:)
Paul
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