Mondy Meanderings - 10.23.2017

The week has been spent in learning about the audio book business. I have been recording books for years, but this is the first book that I have produced, to use the Audiobook.com term.

To this point, my part in the book process has been to go to the studio, sit in the recording booth, and as I scroll the text of the book on the computer screen, record the words. I go home, and someone else listens to what I have read, comparing it to the text, and makes notes appropriately in the recording software, pointing out those few, extremely rare, almost non-existent occasions when I might have made a teeny little error.

In my next session, I correct those errors (the custom software they use makes that extremely easy) and a few weeks later, I see that book title in the list of published books.

In the audio book production world, it becomes a whole lot more complicated. No commercially-made sound-proof recording booths (at least not on my budget) so you spend a lot of time treating the space you have. You have no idea how complicated it is to get eight 2x3 panels of acoustic foam positioned as a sound barrier that you can hang in front of the room windows, so as to keep the neighbor's A/C noise out. Forget about stopping the sound of the airplanes passing overhead, or the lawn guys mowing any yard on the block, or the garbage trucks, or the,,,

My microphone may be a little too good; I mentioned having to deal with the stomach noises. My current nemesis is a tiny little "pop" that I somehow make with my tongue, or lips, or maybe it's just my eyelids blinking real hard - I don't know, but it really shows up on the recording and it's driving me crazy.

My recording software doesn't scroll the scanned pages, so you have to figure out how to juggle the text while recording. Fortunately, YouTube University had the easy answer. Put the text in a file that you can read from your iPad. No page turning. Didn't know about YouTube University? Just google "YouTube" and any subject you need information on for a plethora of how-to videos. Never mind that they often take opposite positions on a subject: "NEVER do blah, blah blah..." vs. "Blah, blah, blah is the ONLY way to go..."

Then there's quality control - finding and correcting errors. It takes about 30 minutes to record 15 minutes of material (you stop and re-read - a lot). It takes another hour and a half to edit out the re-starts and carefully compare text and audio. Can a person QC his own work? Yes, but it's very time consuming.

Another half-hour is spent in "mastering" the audio. Audible.com has a very rigid set of technical specifications that you have to meet. Each file must measure between -23dB and -18dB RMS, must have peak values no higher than -3db, must have a noise floor no higher than -60dB RMS and must be 192kbs or higher 44.1kHz CBR.  No. I have no idea what any of that means. Fortunately, there's software that one can use to meet that criteria, so I'm good.

Tell me again why I thought this was a good idea.