Need recording advice from seasoned readers

[amitsharma]

Its been a little more than a month since I've joined so maybe its still too early for me to figure things out on my own. Since I don't want to reinvent the wheel, I thought I'd ask here for advice on fixing my workflow.

I seem to be spending almost three to four TIMES the amount of time editing as I'm doing recording the track.

Is this normal? And does it get better with practice?

Everything seems fine when I'm recording but when I actually listen to the track, there is bumbling, stuttering, all sorts of odd mouth clicks and strange noises which aren't in the room and which I hear only on playback (like the alien chatter from Mel Gibson's movie "Signs"). And its not the equipment.

Over the last month, I've been slowly going over the material already present in this forum and there is a lot of helpful advice - everything from shortcut keys for Audacity to dampening the room for proper acoustics and choosing hardware and stuff. But none of it seems to be significant in cutting down the editing time for me.

I'm one of those people who like lists maybe because I can go down step by step and get things done. So if anyone can point me to a workflow which would help me cut down on editing time and still get acceptable recordings done, I would really appreciate it.

Please let me know and I'll do my best to implement whatever I can. Thanks.

Amit

[DACSoft]

Hi Amit,

For your question on editing times, I'll give you my experience over the last 5 years, and about 150 sections recorded (of all different sizes from about 5 minutes to 35 minutes in length).

I'm probably a slow editor, but an average of all my recordings is about 10 times the amount of time to edit as to record a section. In my case, I'm a heavy breather, have involuntary internal (throat, etc.) and external noises (clicks, occasional traffic, etc.) to deal with, and don't always get the tone, inflection, or phrasing correct (as I see it) on the first read, so my recording is scattered with multiple readings of some phrases, which I can edit out the bad ones later.

Due to my RL background, I too am hooked on checklists, and also statistics, so I keep track of how long it takes me to accomplish various recording/editing tasks.

Said another way, a raw recording of one of my sections may be 2 to 3 times the length of the finished recording, and I can generally edit about 2-3 minutes of finished recording per hour.

I get the feeling, from what I've seen, that I may not reflect the average (and may be too much of a perfectionist ), but I think your editing times do.

Welcome to LibriVox,
Don

I seem to be spending almost three to four TIMES the amount of time editing as I'm doing recording the track.

Is this normal? And does it get better with practice?

[amitsharma]

Wow, thanks Don, that was a very fast reply.

I feel relieved after reading your response. Ten times is a LOT. You have much more patience and dedication than I could ever have. I felt like I was doing something wrong when it was taking me two hours for just 30 minutes of recording that eventually came down to 18 minutes.

And with extensive experience here to back you up, I am sure you know what you are talking about.

Its nice to hear from people who like a little organization in life though I am far from being a perfectionist. I often wish I was.

Thank you for your reply. It has taken a load off my mind.

warm regards,

Amit

[schrm]

not so old but not so new, i joined this year - maybe february or march?
editing time:
it gets better, but not really.

first:i use to edit around an hour for ten or fifteen minutes of reading time.
i read a thread by claudia, who asked the same.
she once was a well known student for fast reading, but edits 4 times the reading time.
the alternative, which you can try to train into, is "reading like a robot or machine" - or reducing your own claims on your recording.

eg:
remember the one minute test. it is testing the technical basics.
or read in our faq:
"Project Gutenberg has a 99% accuracy rate target for its texts; we aim to equal or better that. For a 20 minute audio recording, 99% is equivalent to 12 seconds of error. Count to 12 and see how long that is. So, we think by a pretty objective measure, even with a few mistakes, we're doing pretty well."
or read a posting by hugh, the founder of lv, back in 2006:
viewtopic.php?p=6563#p6563 now I'm not suggesting that we *encourage* background noise. but we can certainly accept some. (also, read the following post by kayray)
or, another reasonable aspect: read about standard pl. it is just for checking for long pauses, repeats (i have to add it: and maybe loud noises, easy to edit. i have to argue with that, sometimes. also with poems, i cannot accept this for my own readings. but then, i delivered some weekly poems in english, which were..well..i was glad, i didnt listen to the other contributions, or i would have never uploaded these files.)

so, what is an "acceptable recording" for you?

--> in other words: you are caring for the results, therefore you are stressing yourself, maybe.
--> ... it all bases on your own wishes, your own fascination with lv, and your own ability to be satisfied.
having fun with this hobby, editing is somewhat the backside of the wonderful possibility to publish audiobooks into the public domain.
but there are other things to participate, also. you know already about them: your wonderful cd covers, maybe pling or hosting a book as a bc, to interact in this forum with people all over the world.
to get a feeling for the right mixture, coming back to reading and editing sometimes, sometimes trying to hang on to other stuff to do..
well, this is all about the great hobby of librivoxing, i think.

im pausing with reading, btw. in summer, we had 3 building sites around the house, a public pool, some sport events within 5 minutes of walking (unbelievable, i never realized, that they are that loud), my work life is changing, and so on. and to admit it: i dont like editing, i get a headache after two hours of concentrated listening with headphones.
but i really missed reading (and editing) that much, that i began to read some poems or really really short texts again. and i want to finish my solo.
also, i realized, that a chewing gum is reducing mouth noises - strange, should be the other way round?
and i was building a recording cabin, sort of. but it helps just to reduce some noice, and my recordings sound.."other"..
and i tried to read near perfect, to make cutting easy for myself, to..
wish you the same

[Darvinia]

Put me down for a 10:1 editing time:finished length. I wish I could get it down to 4 or 5!

And yes, that's finished length. Recording time is 3 times as long as finished length due to deliberate repeats and pauses to be edited out later.

[tovarisch]

... I seem to be spending almost three to four TIMES the amount of time editing as I'm doing recording the track.

Is this normal? And does it get better with practice? ...

Amit,

It is definitely not normal -- it's better than normal. And only time will show if it gets better, because for each of us different things come into play. For instance, your ability to read without mistakes can develop, which will save time during editing, and will shrink the recording time because you will not need to repeat passages. That would make you an even rarer exception to the rule. Or you can grow more critical of your own style, start listening to yourself better, and will start being picky and repeat certain places more to get them right (which will in turn make the recording longer and will require cutting them out more). That might actually increase the time-to-final.

My ultimate goal is not to gain speed in producing more of the material, but to (a) make it better for the listener and (b) deliver a PL OK section every time. The latter is to (a) save the time of my PLer and (b) improve quality because during re-recording I can rarely match my original voice well. And since I record in my living room, the room noise can be different tomorrow. Not all my pieces are PL-OKed the first time, but that's my goal anyway.

I've heard from professionals that it takes them about six to eight times the final duration of the recorded piece to record and edit. If you can beat that, great!

[amitsharma]

This is a big load off my mind. I guess I'm not doing that bad after all.

the alternative, which you can try to train into, is "reading like a robot or machine" - or reducing your own claims on your recording.

Lol, I don't think I would like to read like a machine so I think this is probably a loss in translation schrm but I understand what you mean. And reducing claims is a solid suggestion. So far I'm sticking to just one project at a time and till that is all PL okay-ed, I don't move on to the next one.

so, what is an "acceptable recording" for you?

I am totally okay with the normal LV error margin, but even to get there takes an effort in editing for me.

As for "enjoying" this hobby, I guess there is a learning curve with all new hobbies before the joy overcomes the effort.

maybe pling or hosting a book as a bc, to interact in this forum with people all over the world.

I think this is what I may end up doing but before that I wanted to at least experience and understand the process so I am able to do a better job with PL-ing and BC-ing.

unbelievable, i never realized, that they are that loud

You should try India, our normal noise levels are usually above 100 dB while the sun is shining.

Put me down for a 10:1 editing time:finished length. I wish I could get it down to 4 or 5!

Like Don's case, this is so inspirational for me that you have this much dedication to this purely voluntary enterprise. Thank you Darvinia.

My ultimate goal is not to gain speed in producing more of the material, but to do it (a) better for the listener and (b) deliver a PL OK section every time. The latter is to (a) save the time of my PLer and (b) improve quality because during re-recording I can rarely match my original voice well. And since I record in my living room, the room noise can be different tomorrow. Not all my pieces are PL-OKed the first time, but that's my goal anyway.

I hear you tovarisch, I will certainly keep this mind as I will the caveat about being over-critical. I guess the 99% accuracy framework fits here well.

I've heard from professionals that it takes them about six to eight times the final duration of the recorded piece to record and edit.

It certainly doesn't feel this way with the ease the pros (like Stephen Fry) maintain their consistency even after 400 pages.

Thanks guys for voicing in. This has been very helpful.

[Kitty]

It certainly doesn't feel this way with the ease the pros (like Stephen Fry) maintain their consistency even after 400 pages.

may I add to this that Stephen Fry is surely NOT editing his recordings, he's probably got at least 2 sound editors working a professional studio to do that part of the job for him

(Mr Fry, if you read this and I wronged you in my assumption, please accept my sincerest apologies.)

And I can speak from my own experience, that I also need at least 4 times as much in the editing process than the final recording is. That's why I prefer short sections, like poems maybe. They would be an excellent start for you, you can learn the editing process with short 2 minute poems and it's much more rewarding to finish a section more quickly. Maybe later move on to longer sections.

But whatever you do, have fun. Taking pride in doing a good editing job can also be rewarding. I actually enjoy the editing process as well and, like Tovarisch, I'm happy when I give less work to the DPL and pass on the first go. Being DPL myself, I know how much work they put in, and I don't want to make their life harder

Sonia

[mightyfelix]

I think my process is also somewhere in the 4:1 or 5:1 range.

Lately, I've started something a little different that seems to help bring that time down. While recording, when I mess up, I'll snap my fingers right in front of the microphone, which creates a very distinct visual spike in the wave form. This way, rather than listening all the way through to my own recording to find my mistakes, I can go right to where I see those spikes and fix them. I'll admit, this actually results in a higher chance that I'll miss something and it won't be PL ok the first time, but I've actually started to make that less of a priority. I'm learning that I don't need to be perfect the first time, every time, and that I can trust my DPL. That's what they're there for. (For me, this has a lot to do with letting go of perfectionism, and so I think it shows some healthy growth, really.)

It also depends on which project I'm reading/editing. I put in more time and effort, and take more care, over the sections I edit for my solos or for books that feel meaningful and important to me than I do for something that I just find kind of fun. Maybe I shouldn't play favorites with books that way, but there you have it!

[Penumbra]

If you want to reduce your editing time, I think your first step is to identify what it is you are spending your time doing while you are editing. Then see if there isn't something you can do during recording that minimizes that process. For instance, deleting a phrase with clearly defined start and stop points is quicker than deleting a word in midstream, so if you stumble over a word while recording, then repeat the entire phrase and not just the word. Or if you spend a lot of time manually deleting mouth noises you might find the de-clicker tool useful.

A little perspective is also a good thing here. I always listen to my recordings all the way through at least three times (once to remove throat clearings and repeated phrases and to check for accuracy, once to adjust timing between phrases to get it to sound the way I want, and once to eliminate any mouth clicks or other odd noises I find distracting). So right there I am guaranteed that my editing time will be at least three times as long as the finished recording. And since I ALWAYS have plenty to fix in each pass, it is more like double or even triple that. And then there is re-recording and patching over the misreadings I care about. If you analyze where you are spending your time during editing, you may find that it isn't unreasonable at all.

[philchenevert]

4 or 5 to 1 is about right for me. You have hit on something everyone here is deeply concerned with and has spent many hours doing so we have both experience and opinions.

1) I do one pass and do not move on in a recording until I am happy with it. When I reach the end of a sections, dat's it, I export it.
2) Using shortcut keys and AutoHotKeys is the greatest time saver i have discovered.

Have fun!. Did you see my video "How I REcord and Edit"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMHG6WbiEYg It is not a guide, but just shows my flawed way of doing things. I would LOVE for others of our community to make videos of how they do it so I can see them at work. Just think of how neat it would be to have a library of how different people and their techniques. I bet it would be very popular. How about it people? Even two or three minutes videos would be soooooo nice.

[mightyfelix]

I would LOVE for others of our community to make videos of how they do it so I can see them at work. Just think of how neat it would be to have a library of how different people and their techniques. I bet it would be very popular. How about it people? Even two or three minutes videos would be soooooo nice.

I remember you've expressed this wish before, and it does sound very nice. But though I've learned a good thing or two about audio editing, video is a whole other can of worms that I don't feel prepared to open. Wouldn't even know where to start.

[amitsharma]

Thank you Sonia, mightyfelix, Penumbra and philchenevert... I will definitely follow what I can from the excellent suggestions given here. It's good to know that I am not the only one keeping an eye on the editing to recording ratios.

That's why I prefer short sections, like poems maybe. They would be an excellent start for you...

I think poems, while smaller for sure, are a lot more difficult to render in speech than normal text. The forms, the rhyme, meter and a ton of other exclusive structural stuff is critical to doing it right and I know I would not be able to do justice to the poet. Right now I just go to the "Readers Wanted: Books" section and take the first one on the list. I think I need to build up some experience before I can choose what I may enjoy more.

I agree with philchenevert that it is important to have fun but again I think fun takes precedence once the learning curve plateaus and the process becomes near instinctive. BTW, Phil, I did see a lot of your videos and go through your pearls of wisdom strung across this forum. You have done a great job and much of my workflow (or whatever I have this early on) is based on your work. Thank you so much for that. Please keep doing it. It is vitally important for us newbies.

so if you stumble over a word while recording, then repeat the entire phrase and not just the word

Excellent advice, I will print this out and paste it on my monitor. Thanks.

I'll snap my fingers right in front of the microphone, which creates a very distinct visual spike in the wave form.

Another printout I intend to paste beside Penumbra's above. Thanks mightyfelix. These specifics are exactly what I can work with.

Thank you all again.

[Cori]

Chiming in too ... I have been tracking my timings for a few years ... and for the last couple of books, also noted how many edits I made to each section (I don't use Audacity, and don't know if that has a counter. I make a LOT of edits for mouth noise, and thought this was a good way to figure out if anything made a big difference.) Things I thus know:

* Everyone is different and what helps one person is utterly useless to another.

* Cleaning my teeth before a recording session, frequent drinks of water and tea make no difference to the amount of editing required after. Lip balm made it slightly worse. These are all things that work for some other people though!

* Experimenting is good, and helps me feel better about needing really long editing sessions.

* The Poem of the Week projects are excellent for trying things out, because they aren't all that long, and if the experiment isn't a good one, I can always just bin my version -- there will be several other readings for listeners anyway.

* Prereading doesn't make a significant difference UNLESS there are accents / unknown languages which I can prep in advance. It doesn't help me with pronunciation, because I just make (wrong) assumptions about it in my head which I only discover when I go to say it aloud (or, not infrequently, much later, when a tactful proof-listener asks 'um, really'?)

* Doing two edits feels faster to me, but isn't according to the clock. (First edit just to cut out all the basic repeats / overlong pauses, done over speakers with some music in the background to help focus. Second edit with headphones to remove mouth noise, moderate (but never remove!) overly heavy breathing and fix remaining pacing issues, also a check against the text.) So I'm going back to doing a single edit, and though I do spend some time polishing phrases that I find I've repeated half a second later better anyway, it's still quicker than the two pass method.

* The more you learn, the longer everything takes.


My overall ratio is 1:8.5 (that is, 8½ hrs work for 1 finished hour of book.) It breaks down to 1 hr 30m to record, 6 hrs 45m to edit, and 15 mins to noiseclean, export, upload, post, and complain about how long it all takes. The two pass method was closer to 1:10, sometimes higher. Note: I never ever record an hour at a time ... I like to work in 20-40m sessions.

[kayray]

I don't do much editing, so it's a lot faster for me. I guess around 1.5 hours of editing for a 1-hour recording. Maybe 2 hours if it's a really complicated text and I make a ton of errors.

When I make an error while recording, I snap my fingers to leave a big spike in the recording, then re-read the sentence. I pause the recording if a jet flies over my house or the family gets noisy. If I cough or or yawn or sniff loudly, I leave a great big pause around that spike so I will notice it later.

When finished with the recording, I do a visual scan for the spikes and snip out the bad takes (double-checking the surrounding audio to make sure I'm snipping out exactly the right bit). I know what the "right" length of pause looking like between paragraphs, so if I see any extra-long gaps, I snip a little out. I double-check any wave forms that look "funny" (It's AMAZING how you can learn to read your wave forms!)

Then I run my 10-band EQ to take out the very lowest frequency, and a mild compression filter to even things up just a little bit.

Then I put my feet up, get my knitting, and listen through from beginning to end. (This step makes up the bulk of my "editing" time)

If I hear any truly horrible mistakes (this is very rare) I get the mic back out and re-record the paragraph around the bad bit. Yeah the sound quality doesn't match EXACTLY, but it's good enough.

I don't take out any breathing or mouth noises.

Long story short, I edit to please myself. I take out anything that would bother ME as a listener -- that is to say, not much -- I'd rather hear a little error in the text than an obviously pasted-in re-take, and I don't care about breathing and mouth noises. If I had to edit much more than this, it would stop being fun for me.