Just curious, do people do sound editing on prescreens? Do colleges have policies on that? Is it considered taboo?
My son recorded video prescreens to a camera’s internal mic and a musician friend (who hadn’t heard them but was speaking generally) was telling me we’d be foolish not to have him do some light cleanup on the recordings, and that a lot of his competition would be doing the same. I have no idea if that’s accurate re the norm or if it’s considered kosher. Thoughts?
I think it is explicitly state on some instructional pages that “clean up” is not permitted. D never did anything like this, and as far as I know, none of her peers did either. She is in vocal performance.
I checked on one of the schools she applied to as undergrad (didn’t look at them all due to time constraints): “All video submissions must contain a continuous, unedited performance of each selection; cuts in between movements/selections are acceptable.”
To me, unedited meant not “cleaned up”. If you have questions, perhaps it would be best to call the schools to which your son is applying and ask directly.
The foolish one sounds like the musician! I would absolutely check before attempting any clean up. My understanding is that it is NOT acceptable. We never touched my D’s audio. So the idea that “everyone does it”…is most likely wrong. Also what will he do when he shows up for a live audition? He will sound different…and that would make the clean-up obvious and probably would not bode well for him. He could lose his chance for an admittance that if he would have left it alone…he may have received.
If you are concerned…call the schools and check.
Thanks all. It didn’t feel right to me either.
to be clear, he was talking about eliminating hiss, fixing reverb, etc. basically fixing flaws in a non optimal recording and equated it to the sound-boarding at a live show or a studio recording engineer. not making the voice sound different. I know nothing about sound engineering - definitely not looking to break the guidelines of this process and don’t imagine my son needs a cheat. Neither does this friend - he framed it in terms of sound recording quality
Oops…sorry to hav been a tad flippant when you asked a serious question. I didn’t take it as cheating at all. Just answering quickly…and wanting to say : be careful with a clean up!!! I would guess that the professors can hear through the tech issues to talent. So no big worry. But call the schools to check if you are concerned with quality.
Call and ask. I think most of us would be leery of it but in the context of getting rid of hisses and bangs in the environment, I really don’t know. Is it a slippery slope? I would have your son call the schools if the recording is messy enough to warrant it. (Editing to add that obviously I didn’t mean messy in terms of the performance itself.)
If the hiss and background noise are so distracting from the vocals, I would err on the side of caution and consider re-record before editing.
Good point @songbirdmama!