Editing an audiobook for a home office reader

Special Interest Groups Audiobook Production
,
1

The author of the book is reading in his home office, or another room, and the sound is still very off to me. It’s better than his first attempt but he still sounds a bit like in an open room with immediate “echo” but nothing awful, and when he speaks and stops I hear something like “sand falling.” When he trails off you’ll be able to hear it briefly.

This audio clip is raw at 44100 and 16 PCM mono. He has a good mic but no pop filter and no dampening around him besides carpet. He will try to make a makeshift recording blanket fort as it will improve the quality, yet if you listen to this clip, does it sound like he needs that dampening?
sample.aup3 (2.7 MB)

Update: reverb…the word I was looking for is reverb.

2

There is such a plugin: Supertone Clear. It solves this problem, but it costs $99. You can try the trial version

3

It looks like that would get ride of reverb, and that would clear up his voice then? And the sound that is heard, is that actually reverb or something else? I’m not opposed to spending money on something that can help, but if the recording can be done right the first time and not need additional purchases to make it sound good, I’d be for that. Thank you for the info!

4

I listened to your recording. I think that it will not be possible to fix such a room with this plugin

5

Odd that I don’t hear any damage like that.

I did publish a Kitchen Table Sound Studio from common parts. (The forum titles and headings get scrambled. I gotta fix that one of these days.)

Thanks for the long 27-second sample. Many forum posters supply a really short 2-3 word sample and that’s not useful. Nor is “testing 1, 2, 3.”

I’m much more concerned that the performer is mispronouncing some of the words.

“Unimaj-Able” “Anta-Botics”

I have a moving pad on sale picture here somewhere…

Koz

1 Like
6

HarborFreightBlanket
HarborFreightBlanket799×600 178 KB

Turns out a neighbor does voice work and wanted to cut some tracks, so I let them borrow my “studio.”

As mentioned several times before, your car is not the worst place to record voice tracks.

This is.


Koz

7

I could just be hearing something that doesn’t exist, yet when I compare his audio even after some adjustments, to a released audiobook, his isn’t anywhere near as clear. He does have an accent based on where he’s from, so enunciation is going to be different for sure and lots of dramatic pausing.

I think the main take away is his audio now is better than it was before, but if this doesn’t sound terrible, then I could give him the green light to go ahead and start recording? It was already a struggle to get him to even test some blankets around him :sweat_smile: him being the author and narrator, I’d love for his audio quality to not be subpar

8

“As Read By The Author,” is a perfectly valid production format.

Any changes now will put you in: “All The Things That Can Go Wrong Recording On The Computer.”

Please note the whole book has to sound the same. There is no experimenting with patches, software, and corrections once you start. Do Not Change Anything!

The old forum had a record established by a man recording voice work in his apartment in Hollywood. That’s Hollywood the real place, 90028, not the fuzzy metaphor.

It took us just over a year. When we got it all working, he started cranking out quality voice work right and left.

So that makes you the upper-case “P” Producer. This is the decision those people get to make.

Koz