Thank you! You provide an amazing service here.
Hi Koz,
The book I’m narrating has a big mistake in its layout.
There are 106 chapters. There is a chapter 41, followed by chapter 43, followed by chapter 42, then followed by another chapter 43!
I’m assuming ACX will be kind of baffled if they get my recording in that screwy order.
Any thoughts on how I should handle that? Thanks.
I’m assuming ACX will be kind of baffled if they get my recording in that screwy order.
They won’t be baffled. They may refuse to publish the audiobook if they catch it. They hate anything that looks like a damaged product.
Koz
OK. Thanks.
Hi Koz,
Back in February you gave me some valuable tips about my audio project.
I’m still working on the project (it’s a 600-page book).
Could you do me a favor and listen to the attached 38-second mp3 clip and give me your feedback?
Thanks so much.
I’m not Koz.
IMO “To Koz.mp3 (1.46 MiB)” sounds a bit bassy & boxy.
There are plugins which will automatically EQ out resonance, (the boxiness).
The cheapest I know of are Acon Digital DeFilter, & HoRNet ThirtyOne, [Try Before you buy].
Hi Trebor,
Thanks for taking the time to look at that.
I’m a newbie, but to my ear the Before sounds better than the After EQ & Compression.
IMO it sounds a bit bassy & boxy.
Are you recording in a nice room with carpet and blankets or heavy towels on the walls? That can go a long way to making your voice sound clean and not bathroomy.
Is the script written with fewer than normal contractions? See 8 seconds.
“Until that moment, I had not noticed that…” >> Until that moment, I hadn’t noticed that…
Is the story written like like 1 or line 2? Line 2 with the contraction sounds easier and it flows better in the story. This is a cousin to my earlier complaint. Long or odd gaps between words can sound awkward.
I’m sure you noticed that neither of these complaints will show up until the publisher actually starts to listen to the story in Human Quality Control. By then you’ve read the whole book.
Past those two, I think you’re doing well. Post the next sentence after this one. This is the magic sentence where you would change slightly the rhythm and pitch of your voice. You’re going from first person speech to third person description of Robert’s reaction. Perfect place for a timbre change. Do you?
Koz
I had to sacrifice some of the bass to reduce the resonance at ~150Hz.
Spectrum is more reliable than by-ear,
as headphones, speakers, hardware & software can affect the sound heard.
I’m not suggesting you slavishly-copy popular vocal talent,
but if you look at their spectrum you’ll see how different you are from them.
Thank you, Koz.
To answer your questions:
- I am recording in a walk-in closet in my basement that I have treated with heavy blankets and acoustic foam. But the floor is concrete. I could easily put carpeting on the floor if you recommend that.
- My script is a 600-page book which is largely in Question and Answer format. I’ve been pretty religiously reading each word as it is written. So if a questioner or answerer has used fewer than normal contractions, I copy that to a T. But if you recommend it, I can easily chat with the author and see if he agrees that I should make more contractions so that it sounds better.
- I’ve attached an mp3 of the next sentence. I think a strong point of mine is that I really understand the meaning of the author, which can often be fairly deep and complicated. A weak point of mine is that my acting chops are pretty lame; so changing the rhythm and pitch of my voice would be quite a stretch for me.
Thanks again.
I probably need to listen tomorrow on a good sound system. Right now we’re stuggling with California Flex Alert power restrictions and water management issues, so I’m giving up and going to bed. I’m doing this on a laptop.
so changing the rhythm and pitch of my voice would be quite a stretch for me.
I don’t mean try and sound like someone else. I mean a slight change like the difference between reading a line as a simple declarative sentence and reading it as a question. That kind of gentle pitch change. It can help the audience follow the story.
It occurs to me to ask if this book is available on Amazon now? It needs to be for audiobook publication. Also, ACX really likes books with Plot, Setting, and Charactors.
I’ve been pretty religiously reading each word as it is written.
So if you’re in character while youre reading, then that’s purely between you and the author. It’s my opinion that it might sound slightly better with fewer of those odd word combinations. The author might agree.
Did the author sort the out-of-order chapters? That’s important.
I don’t think the voice tonal distribution is all that terrible, but I do know that the first step in Audiobook Mastering is a rumble filter or bass reducer. So some of that room bass boost is going to go away in Mastering.
There’s two things you can do to the room. Yes throw a rug down there. You can get better echo reduction by hanging your blankets about a half-inch to an inch away from the walls instead of hanging directly on them. It doesn’t take much and it depends on the size of the room. It can make an audible difference.
Do you have a little desk in there? Is there a blanket on the desk? You can get slap and comb sound distortions by having a microphone, say, about three or four inches above a hard desk—even if it’s aimed toward you. Much better to put a folded over towel or other pad down there.
There are boundary effect type microphones which like a hard desk, but most microphones don’t.
As we go.
Koz
I don’t trust the ground beneath my feet. This is California. I need to go in later to get fresh batteries for my earthquake prep flashlight and radio. Never let your gas tank go below half-way.
I’m going to stop second-guessing your author now. Do they have a human editor?
Are they happy with the presentation? I put the two clips together and they flow very well one to the other. I also applied Effect > Filter Curve > Low Rolloff just to see what it was going to do, and it didn’t do very much theatrically. The very low rumble in your voice vanished, but you still sound like you (which was one of the design goals).
You don’t have to be Hollywood-Ready to read for audiobooks. I think I’ve posted before I have all of Sarah Vowells “books on tape” and nobody would accuse her of being a studio announcer.
https://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/clips/Pro/SaraVowellAssassinationList.mp3
I’m assuming the two MP3 posts are submission ready? They pass ACX-Check OK, but they still have very low pitch rumble damage which means you didn’t apply the three Mastering tools.
Did I miss something?
Can I buy the book on Amazon? How much does it weigh? Is there a significant shipping charge?
I wouldn’t like to be you facing a 600 page book with the possibility of getting rejected and having to read it all over again. One of the worst things ACX did was stop offering Human Quality Control to a sample reading.
Just now thinking about this. They stopped offering free Human Quality Control. I wonder if you can pay them for it…
Koz
Thanks, Koz. I just sent you a Private Message.
If you’re “EQ-matching” the source should be a male voice, if you’re male.
I just remembered that the paid-for “GE” versions of “TDR” plugins can do EQ-matching,
and remove room resonances … https://youtu.be/GNqfyAa1jxk?t=33
I just sent you a Private Message.
You shouldn’t fall in love with that. I’m not all that good at managing PMs and I regularly lose messages in there. Even worse trying to flip back and forth.
There’s a process problem, too. People appear on PM (and email) and want to dive right into detailed, advanced personal diagnostics and troubleshooting. That’s the whole purpose of the open forum. So others can learn from the progress, solutions, and mistakes. I’m much slicker out here.
How did the author contact you to read the book? As you posted, you’re not a professional performer and how you got the job isn’t obvious.
Also, how are you reading it? Printed sheets? Flipping/dragging pages on a tablet? Not getting a noisy laptop too close to your performance microphone is pretty obvious, but you are warned that if you get your phone too close to your microphone, it can make noises into the show and it won’t be clear what happened until later. It’s not just always turn the ringers off.
Koz
To answer your questions:
-
The author had a Facebook page. As I was reading his book (about 5 years ago), I had a lot of questions about the material in his book. I would send him a question via Facebook Messenger, and I was surprised that he usually responded immediately. Over time we became friends. About a year ago I offered to do the narration of the book as an audiobook, even though I had never done anything like that before (I was recently retired and thought it would be a fun project). He listened to a sample of my voice, and offered me the gig. I’m not expecting to make money on the deal (maybe make enough to cover the equipment I purchased). It’s definitely a labor of love. 50 years from now somebody might listen to my recording and become just as inspired from his ideas as I am.
-
In my basement walk-in closet sound studio, I have the microphone set up on a tripod. Just behind the microphone I have a Levo Book Stand with the 600-page book on it. The laptop is just outside the door of the walk-in closet.
By the way, this morning I made some changes in my studio as you suggested. I put a carpet on the floor and hung up more heavy blankets. I think that helped a lot. Please listen to the attached 30-second clip and let me know what you think.
Thanks again.
When the sun comes up.
It occurs to me you may avoid the New User curse of getting to the end of the book a seasoned professional and realizing what trash the first few chapters are which you read as a rank amateur and want to read them again. Cycling through forum reviews can be handy.
Will you contact ACX and offer to write them a check to review your work? That could be one of the more valuable checks you write.
There’s a note here that ACX expects everything to match, so once you start reading for real, you need to freeze the studio and environment. There is no getting a new and better microphone in the middle of a book.
There is a story from the forum of someone who moved houses in the middle of a book. I thought to myself, “There’s the kiss of death.” But no, they set up a studio in the new house and just continued on as if nothing had happened.
Koz
Better. Much less of that “talking into a broom closet” voice.
Let’s address the blankets. My favorite is furniture moving blankets.
The goal is heavy. Vibrations in the air have to push the blanket back and forth to get in or to reflect.
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/too-compressed-rejection/52825/22
People try shipping foam because it looks just like acoustic foam and it’s dirt cheap. Put a piece of foam on a picnic table and watch the wind blow it away. It’s useless.
Most bedroom blankets, quilts, and duvets don’t work well, either. They’re designed to keep you warm and not weight anything. See: goose down and feather bed.
Moving blankets are good. They’re common, relatively cheap, and they’re designed to keep two credenzas from smashing into each other in the back of a moving van. They’re not bashful.
That’s from the experiment where I made a recording in my garage. Perfect studio, right? no echoes from all those storage boxes and collections of Reader’s Digests. I needed to deaden the metal roll-up door. Two moving blankets did it.
Picking up a moving blanket takes both hands. That’s the kind of thing needed for soundproofing.
Koz
Cool. The force must be with me because that’s pretty much what I hung up yesterday, moving blankets very similar to the ones in your photographs. Thanks.
Not Koz again,
“To Koz number 3.mp3 (1.16 MiB)” does sound much less reverberant than “To Koz.mp3 (1.46 MiB)”.
If you reach a stage where you can’t acoustically-treat the room any further,
a free plugin called Couture can dry-up what little reverb remains …
[ I would still investigate what EQ-matching / de-resonate plugins can do ]