Hello there! I have started doing audio books in the last year and am still learning about editing and all that. I am currently working on a book and am now having to go back and correct some audio, but it doesn’t always sound the same and the cut-ins are quite obvious. I was wondering if there was a way to make the cut-in’s match the rest of the track.
For clarity of the audio track. The phrase, “It was rare that the Mala’kar, the Bladeless masters of the Arethkon, met in formal Conclave.” is the cut-in and “When they did however, it was a time of tremendous ceremony and celebration” is what the rest of the track sounds like. Am I just gonna have to re-record this whole track or is there a way to fix this? Appreciate any help ya’ll can give to a novice.
(Audio track is below)
If you use cut and paste, before cutting ensure that the start and end of the selection are located at points where the waveform crosses zero, press “z” a couple times for that; that will make the cut-ins less obvious.
If you mean voice tones, I don’t hear all that much difference and if you didn’t tell me there was anything wrong, I would have missed it.
“Make This Sound Like That” is almost always either hopeless or a career move. “Make these tones a little louder…roll off these tones just a bit,” and you could be there matching tones until the sun cools off.
Do you know what the difference was between the two shoots? There is a word or two at 2.5 seconds that doesn’t match the tones of the rest of the first segment. I noticed that first.
You should probably read it over. There is a fuzzy rule of breaking patches or edit points at natural stopping points like paragraph breaks. Slight differences are less noticeable.
Koz
Are you using a Noise Gate on your show? Noise Reduction? While the whole presentation passes audiobook testing, you do sound a little like talking into a tube. That can cause maching problems, too. Have you published before?
Koz
I’m not sure what you mean by difference between the two. I believe the main thing was that I was recording at a different distance from the mic before. I’m still pretty amateur and made some stupid choices along the way.
I have tried to use the noise gate before and it sounded terrible when I did it. Every time it would start to pick up my voice, it was clipped. I do use noise reduction as I am not a fan of background noise, even neutral noise. As for the tube thing, I believe it was because I was a little too far from the mic. I have published before, but I am actually rather ashamed of the end product once I actually ended up listening to it. This is going to be my first production with a decent mic, Yeti Nano, and I plan on going back to fix the other books after this one.
I do use noise reduction as I am not a fan of background noise, even neutral noise.
Depending on Noise Reduction settings, you can cause voice distortion. That cellphone, talking into a wine glass effect. If you ACX publish they may get on your case about that. They hate stiff noise reduction and they’re looking for it.
Directional microphones do have Proximity Effect. Far away sounds are relatively neutral, but you get that robust, ballsy, announcer sound as you get closer. I once played two different characters by messing with that effect—one man, one woman.
So you’re right. Most of that difference can be put down to microphone spacing, but it’s a little rough to tune it out with filters. Just for grins, you might try the tone controls, Effect > Bass and Treble. Back off the bass a little on the closer track.
The fuzzy spacing rule if you don’t have a pop and blast filter is one Hawaiian Shaka.
If you’re too far away from the microphone that can let the system noise (ffffffffff) dominate and cause you to use extra Noise Reduction which can cause milk jug voice.
Everything is hooked to everything else.
Koz
Hey thanks! That helps a lot. I’ll give it a try!