Rico Chu

General American (deep and high-pitch), General British (higher-pitch generic voice and old villain voice)

All tones shown in the demos are current. (Updated 20260802) - New K371 purchased and it is a lot more bass-heavy than my old ones (bass loss with time or for other unknown reasons). It feels like some bass is bled back into the recording so now my clips will have a solid foundation and are more balanced across monitoring devices more easily. De-mudding with plugins is already done. - Singing practice continued. - Voices for Cantonese and Mandarin versions of Mark the Ballot - mascot of Washington State Election Campaign are shown here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7460820291695300608/ https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7460455998680506368/ - Cantonese and Mandarin voices readily usable; restoring and enhancing English accents after focusing on improving consistency of audio quality for almost a year My legacy vocal restoration gig https://www.fiverr.com/ricochu0311/ (Currently put on hold. Focus will be invested on VO.) 1. Acoustic Treatment: - Dedicated Home Studio Setup for Voice Over 2. Audio Interface: - RME Babyface Pro FS (Others include Audient iD14 MKII and Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 1st gen) 3. Microphones: - Shure SM7B (Main mic; full sound, easier to edit) - Lewitt LCT 640 TS (Bright, high gain) (Others include Audio Technica AT2020, Shure KSM9, Shure SM58, etc.) 4. Preamps: - Universal Audio 710 Twin-Finity (Better S/N ratio before noise reduction) - Cloudlifter CL-1 Mic Activator (For SM7B) 5. Headphones: - Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro 250 ohm - AKG K240MKII - AKG K371 x 2 (The new pair is used for tracking) 6. Speakers: - PreSonus Eris E5 (To reduce/remove excessive boominess not audible on headphones) 7. Preferred DAW and Audio Editor: - Cockos REAPER (Highly customized for VO production) - iZotope RX Advanced Audio Editor Other options I can use include but not limited to: - Steinberg Cubase Pro - Universal Audio LUNA - Avid Pro Tools Artist - Ableton Live Standard - Cakewalk Sonar - Tracktion Waveform - Ivosight Soundop - Magix Samplitude Pro X - Steinberg WaveLab Pro - Steinberg Spectralayers Pro (All other software is reserved as safe backup plans; available upon request) 8. Some of the Main Plugins Used (Updated 20260619): - FabFilter Pro-Q 3 - Waves F6 - HoRNet ThirtyOne MK2 - Universal Audio Manley VOXBOX - W.A. Production Deres - FabFilter Saturn 2 - Waves Sibilance - iZotope Everything Bundle (Including RX Post Production Suite) - Arturia Pre TridA (Optional) - Leapwing Audio UltraVox (Optional) - Black Rooster Audio VLA-3A (Optional) - TDR Limiter 6 GE (Optional) - Oeksound Soothe3 (Optional) - Nuro Audio Xvox Comp (Optional) - Plugin Alliance AMEK EQ 200 (Optional) - XILS-lab DeeS (Optional) - United Plugins VoxDucker (Background Music Ducking) (Or other plugins as needed) (Other plugins: Jon V Audio Fircomp 2, PSP Infinistrip WIND, Acon Digital Restoration Suite and Mastering Suite, Voxengo Premium Membership, Universal Audio UAD Diamond Edition Bundle (2023), Waves Mercury, etc) (Plugin choices are largely fixed. Other plugins for pre- and post-processing will be meticulously chosen on a case-by-case basis if needed.) 9. Experience and Qualifications: - Bachelor of Arts (Hon) in Translation, HKBU (2004) - 15+ years of translation experience (English to Cantonese/Mandarin and vice versa; editing experience mainly for Cantonese/Mandarin materials) - 21 years of English listening experience since the beginning of YouTube (I watch English content most of the time) + unique English and Mandarin accent training skills - State Language Commission of China, Putonghua (Mandarin) Proficiency Test (Grade Two, Level A) (1999) - Extensive + intensive self training (VO, accents and audio processing) to match the quality of select reference tracks - Paid Cantonese + Mandarin script editing experience for VO companies - Champion of local district's recital competition (Mandarin; Excerpt from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, 1999) - Diploma in Original Music Creation & Computer Music Technology, Hong Kong Productivity Council (2005) - Self-trained amateur singer ***************************************************** NOTES ON DELIVERY: 1. I will now provide clean, adequately processed audio (clean noise reduction, balanced EQing and normalization) by default. Mild breaths are optionally kept for naturalness. SM7B would be the mic to use. 2. I can provide my dry voice if required (no denoising, no debooming, no mid boosts, no smooth presence and high boosts, no compression, no limiting). LCT 640 TS would be the mic to use. 3. Unique, specific requirements might take more effort and longer time for delivery, and additional fees may apply. Slight revisions of the minimally processed audio will be done for free if issues arise. 4. Voice with background music requires full-fledged post-production processes and will be charged separately. Editing projects (voice only or with background music) are also welcome. 5. True peak (-3dB) instead of sample peak is used unless otherwise specified. 6. I also provide script translation, editing, localization and subtitling services for Cantonese and Mandarin (preferably combined with VO projects). 7. The reference tracks received might lack clarity on my K240 MKII or too tinny on my old K371 according to my past experience. I will raise my concern when delivering the audio file in case such situation happens. Happy collaboration!