Need recording advice from seasoned readers

[amitsharma]

Thanks for chiming in Cori, I picked up several pointers from your post and will try to implement the ones I can - especially
1. prereading (I did screw up my recording earlier by prereading but I didn't know whether to stop it or live with it, now I'll dump it ),
2. the limit of 20-40 minute sessions. I read somewhere in this forum that we should complete one section in one sitting otherwise the voice never stays the same and try as I might, I was not able to do it as my voice starts breaking after about the first 15 minutes and I felt guilty about it. Now I won't. And of course
3... little fixers (brushing teeth, drinking water, tea, etc) don't work for everyone. They don't for me. I read online that eating mints before a recording helps by dilating the throat and vocal cords because of menthol and the voice becomes clearer... did not work for me at all except gave me a headache after the fifth one.
And I am very impressed by your 1:10 ratio of editing. My hats off to you. I wish I had half that dedication.

...around 1.5 hours of editing for a 1-hour recording...

That is what I was originally hoping for when I started but it never worked out like that.
And yes, one thing I definitely need to learn is frequent edits with the waveform. That's one thing I am sure will speed things up for me.

Long story short, I edit to please myself.

...and I really like your attitude.

Thank you both for helping me.

[Cori]

Thank you for asking the questions, Amit -- it's always fun to talk about how we do things ... both because things change, and because there are always new things to learn!

Something simple that helps me keep my voice similar between sessions, is to start each one with a couple of paragraphs from the previous. That warms my voice up, so it gets to its comfortable pitch and settles, and also gets me into the pace of the text. Though, that said, the biggest positive is being able to have a permanent set-up -- I have a pop filter arranged so I'm always about the same distance from the microphone, on the same seat, and so on.

[JayKitty76]

Hi Amit,
I'm also fairly "new" in join date to LibriVox(I joined about three months ago), but I have worked on several different projects (I've recorded and DPLed) and I have gained experience. It takes a while for me to edit also, but what I'd suggest is to try to relax in your 'edit mode'. I'd say only edit out the really big mistakes- most DPLs won't point out smaller mistakes. I don't edit out small stammers, hesitations (as long as they're not very big- then if they are, I just quickly cut the silence), and smaller word bumbles. If I need to go back and edit more, the DPL will tell me, but I don't start off with editing every mistake in my recording.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
~JayKitty

[amitsharma]

...is to start each one with a couple of paragraphs from the previous. That warms my voice up, so it gets to its comfortable pitch and settles...

Thanks Cori, this is what I really need to do between sessions. My voice varies a lot.

As for the rest, I'm old school so I use a desktop and my set-up (and my seat) is permanent but my recording stuff gets packed up after each use. Takes up too much space. I did buy a big "voice-over" recording mic, a "scissor-arm suspended" stand and a "wind-screen pop-filter" and the desktop already had a very good sound card but the whole thing was intimidating and I kept bumbling through the recording, maybe it was the assumed pressure. I ended up using a Sony PCM voice recorder and made far less mistakes.

I don't know, I might dust off the equipment again when I am a little more seasoned and comfortable facing this giant contraption hovering before my face. The sound is definitely better with the big mic. But I remember one of the mods, Annise I think, give stellar advice in one of the older threads for newbies like me... "...we accept anyone whose recording are comprehensible..." So let's see.

[amitsharma]

...I'd say only edit out the really big mistakes- most DPLs won't point out smaller mistakes. I don't edit out small stammers, hesitations (as long as they're not very big- then if they are, I just quickly cut the silence), and smaller word bumbles...

Hi to you too JayKitty. And this is great advice and I will certainly remember it. Thank you.

[lurcherlover]

I often do one hour or longer recording sessions, but also short 20-30 minute ones as well.

Twenty minutes of finished recording takes me about one hour to edit, and that's taking out all mistakes, shortening gaps, taking out the frequent swearing, reducing the peaks on the waveform, increasing the gain to match where needed, putting in some room sound, putting in short fade ups and downs to make it smooth and taking out any noises that I hadn't noticed during the recording session. I've had a lot of experience editing both audio and video, although I never edit video anymore these days, life is too short. I've done a lot of classical music recording and editing so that helped.

I have a permanent little studio/junk room and all the equipment is set up already, unless I decide to change a mic and I do take the solid state recorder in and out to upload to computer in a different location. The room is also treated to drastically reduce reflections so the sound of the recording is always consistent.

But I would love to be able to record with zero or close to zero errors ... (Hence the swearing).

[JayKitty76]

Amit,
One more thing: I'm sure that, as you keep recording, you'll get better. Like anything, enough practice helps you to make perfect (or nearly almost perfect, anyway) and I've noticed that as I have recorded, I've gradually gotten better, bit by bit.


Oh yeah, and if you don't like editing (or it just takes way too long) you can always ask for help here on LV. There are actually editors who enjoy taking the raw, unfinished recordings of things and edit fantastically.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
~JayKitty

[lurcherlover]

Amit,
One more thing: I'm sure that, as you keep recording, you'll get better. Like anything, enough practice helps you to make perfect (or nearly almost perfect, anyway) and I've noticed that as I have recorded, I've gradually gotten better, bit by bit.


Oh yeah, and if you don't like editing (or it just takes way too long) you can always ask for help here on LV. There are actually editors who enjoy taking the raw, unfinished recordings of things and edit fantastically.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
~JayKitty

Good advice - but I do feel that having someone else edit your material takes away the final control of the finished version. But for those who can't edit or do not enjoy it, I suppose it's the best outcome.

[amitsharma]

Ah, lurchlover, youre the technical wiz here on LV. Thanks for the solid advice. I've read many of your posts here and even printed out a few technical details for reference. If I get stuck somewhere in technical quicksand, I hope you'll be able to dig me out. And like some others, before seeing your posts here, the only Lurch I was aware of was from the Addams Family, and since I love dogs, I'm glad I got to know about another breed because of your handle.
To be honest, most of what you said about editing went over my head (except swearing) but I guess you also picked it up over time during your recording and editing work. If it proves vitally important, I'll try to pick up bits and pieces as I need and I also have the additional advantage of a very helpful community of LVers to help me along the way.

...if you don't like editing (or it just takes way too long) you can always ask for help here on LV...

Perhaps I was a little inaccurate JayKitty, if I sounded like I don't like editing. While its true that recording is so much more fun, my main concern was that perhaps I was doing something wrong if it was taking so much longer to edit than to record. But after so many wonderful people have pointed out that my timings are well within what other people go through, I am totally okay with it.
And I wouldn't feel right asking others to clean up my mess. I think I would keep at it, even if it took the full two month timeline for submission, until I felt it was good enough - or offer my apologies and back out of the project say if there were too many words (including non-English phrases) I couldn't pronounce or too much vernacular for me to handle. If that ever becomes the case then there are a lot of other ways to contribute here at LV and I would gladly look at alternate manners to pay it forward.

Amit

[lurcherlover]

amitshama - I have problems with editing like everyone else - it's a hard slog. And I have big problems with promounciation - and not only those foreign words. Also, I couldn't hand over my work to edit because of all those swearwords ... (But I am getting better at not using them so much).

Yes, my dog is a Lurcher, and she gets lots of walks and love, although she is asleep on the sofa as I write this. It's nearly 9:30am - time to take her out for a walk.

Please don't consider me an expert - I'm on a learning curve as well!

[schrm]

Oh yeah, and if you don't like editing (or it just takes way too long) you can always ask for help here on LV. There are actually editors who enjoy taking the raw, unfinished recordings of things and edit fantastically.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
~JayKitty

uhmm..
really?

i cannot imagine...
though, everyone is different..
oh my..

i mean there are really editors who edit others recordings?

either way:

cool! thumbs up for this hint and to these people!

[lurcherlover]

To give an idea how slow editing can be - I've just edited 6 minutes of finished material and it took me ..... One hour ... that's 10 minutes for each minute! But that's hopefully the worst case and included searching out some missing files and getting them into the correct order.

[JayKitty76]

Oh yeah, and if you don't like editing (or it just takes way too long) you can always ask for help here on LV. There are actually editors who enjoy taking the raw, unfinished recordings of things and edit fantastically.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
~JayKitty

uhmm..
really?

i cannot imagine...
though, everyone is different..
oh my..

i mean there are really editors who edit others recordings?

either way:

cool! thumbs up for this hint and to these people!

Yes, I've found them described in the wiki. That's actually pretty cool!

~JayKitty76

[annise]

They might be described in the wiki but I haven't noticed any around the forums.

Anne

[mightyfelix]

Some of the info in the wiki is pretty out of date. I do remember, way back in 2010 or so, when I first heard of LV but long before I became a volunteer, I was following the project thread for a book I was interested in that was in progress at the time. That book was being edited by someone other than the reader, and so when I started volunteering, I was a bit surprised that that no longer seems to be standard practice.

But I also like having full control of the editing process. Sometimes I may have multiple takes of a phrase, all inflected differently. I like being able to decide which inflection to use, instead of leaving it up to someone else.