An off-again-on-again writer and father of a pony-fan. Incessant poking will make me write more/faster, by the way. (That's not sarcasm—I need reminders to write.)
I've been saying I was going to do it, and now I've begun!
You can now listen to the first chapter of the Words Failed Her Audiobook!
Now, I'm hoping this works and sounds good for everyone. I'm putting this out before I finish the whole thing with the hope that I can get some feedback. Is it any good? Should I continue?
If you've got 20 minutes, check it out. :)
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Sounds good to me!
Can't listen to the whole thing right now, but it sounds very professionally put together.
Is that you reading?
Well voiced. I like it. It's always nicer to hear it from the author's mouth, as they know exactly how they want the pacing to go—and it shows here. Keep it up!
1710090
Yes, that's me doing the reading. I probably should have waited until the cold was COMPLETELY gone, but... Well, now the next story I read will sound even better.
I'm editing chapter two right now. Actually, it's bedtime—well past. I'll continue tomorrow.
This.. wow
You have a wonderful voice for narrating. And the music was a nice touch. Very nice quality. You could put Jim Dale out of a job.
Your voice is a little muted. Not so much I can't hear it over the background music, but I could see it getting lost in ambient noise (personally speaking, I listen to audiobooks in the bath or while doing dishes, so clarity of speech is really important to me). The bit of Mr. Cake calling from the background was even harder to make out, honestly.
Your reading speed seems to be just about perfect, good inflection and differentiation between dialogue and narration, and you seem to be treating this as an actual audiobook so there's actual editing and no chatter at the start or end.
If you can't tell, I listen to a lot of fanfic readings and I've lately been doing a lot of thinking about how to read stories well. I definitely want to hear this when you've finished it, as the story's on my to-read. :)
1711034
I don't keep the background music running, in case you didn't get that far in. It fades out after the first few lines. I've also already reduced how long it plays once I start reading.
I've been learning by doing with this project. One thing I discovered is that, to make a reading sound like a real audio book (or at least more so), delete silence. Not willy-nilly, but removing the gaps between phrases that occur naturally (breathing happens) makes it sound far more like a professional production. Also, when it comes to structures like:
"It is a dark and stormy night, " she said quietly. "You really shouldn't be out."
Cutting out even more space between the dialog and associated narration helps emphasize the two distinct voices by making it sound like one is almost interrupting the other.
(Also, don't put Chapstick on before recording, no matter how chapped your lips are. Every time I opened my mouth, the mic picked up a little pop of my lips separating. Thankfully, I could see them in the waveform and cut them out while reducing the pauses.)
I'm using a Blue Yeti USB microphone with a pop filter and Audacity to record and edit.
1711344
Sounds like your setup's pretty good. :) I'm just learning tricks to maximize the quality of the input, so I can't get too technical with ya, but yes, managing your whitespace is really important. I use Audacity for recording and Sony Sound Forge (which I had to -- gasp! -- pay for, so it's not for everyone) for editing.
Do you know the trick for destroying background noise with Audacity?
1712558
Before I got the Yeti mic, I had noise to remove. There are ways to get rid of most of it, but not all. And you lose some of the sound quality when you do it. Best to get a good mic. Most of what you hear in my audio is untouched, quality-wise. My recordings are pretty much noise-free.
To use the noise removal effect in Audacity, select a chunk of pure noise and train the effect (button in the dialog). Then select the whole thing and apply the effect again, this time for real. It does a decent, but not perfect, job.
1712788
Yup, that's precisely it. :)