How Much Silence Before the Intro?

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Planish
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Post by Planish »

I'm familiar with the rule of thumb for ending readings with 5 or 10 seconds of silence (depending on the overall duration of the reading), but what about at the beginning?

I've listened to some readings with 5 seconds (which seems too long, to me); some jump right in within a second; and some have a brief silence followed by a music sting and then the intro.

I rather favour a half second of dead silence, followed by a fade-in of one second duration (ie. the ambient noise and any breath sound) fades in, and then the intro.

My five- (or ten-) second ending silences usually start with a one or two second fade-out after the outro as well, such that any ambient noise doesn't immediately snap off to dead silence.

What's the consensus on this?
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kri
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Post by kri »

Planish wrote:I'm familiar with the rule of thumb for ending readings with 5 or 10 seconds of silence (depending on the overall duration of the reading), but what about at the beginning?

I've listened to some readings with 5 seconds (which seems too long, to me); some jump right in within a second; and some have a brief silence followed by a music sting and then the intro.

I rather favour a half second of dead silence, followed by a fade-in of one second duration (ie. the ambient noise and any breath sound) fades in, and then the intro.

My five- (or ten-) second ending silences usually start with a one or two second fade-out after the outro as well, such that any ambient noise doesn't immediately snap off to dead silence.

What's the consensus on this?
Honestly there is no consensus. We have no policy regarding silence at the beginning. We'd prefer if there isn't an enormous amount of silence at the beginning (more than a few is probably too much), but it's not necessary to have any at all.
Starlite
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Post by Starlite »

Personally, I allow 1/2 a second before the intro.
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SmokestackJones
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Post by SmokestackJones »

Hey there,

My standard is 3 seconds at the beginning, 10 seconds at the end. That usually covers about everything.

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Mark Turner
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Post by Mark Turner »

Could we run a poll? I personally like it when there's about 3 seconds at beginning and end. Much more makes me look at my iPod to see if there's a problem.
kristin
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Post by kristin »

I like 2 to 3 seconds.
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Gesine
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Post by Gesine »

The silence at the end was standardised to 5 seconds on files of less than 30 minutes duration, and 10 seconds for longer files. This is the result of tests that showed some players were cutting off files at the end. The 5 and 10 seconds, respectively, seem to cover all players. Putting 10 seconds on shorter files is a bit long.

Re silence at the beginning - I think 5 seconds are too long. Imagine you're listening to the whole book and you're on a player that doesn't cut off files - then you wait for the previous file to end, and for the next file to start. Could be 15 seconds of delay.

Anything up to 3 seconds I think is okay, though personally I prefer 0.5-1 second at the beginnig.

I don't think a poll would be good on this - frankly, we have enough problems checking that readers adhere to the 5 or 10 seconds at the end rule. Introducing another rule for the beginning of files is something I'd not look forward to, and I don't think it's necessary, either.

I'm not saying that this thread isn't good! Always great to discuss things, and maybe a consensus will come out (at the moment, seems to be towards very short beginning silence), and perhaps some readers will be guided by it.
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Starlite
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Post by Starlite »

Gesine wrote: Re silence at the beginning - I think 5 seconds are too long. Imagine you're listening to the whole book and you're on a player that doesn't cut off files - then you wait for the previous file to end, and for the next file to start. Could be 15 seconds of delay.
There is absolutely no reason to have more then half a second silence at the beginning of a file. Real player ONLY cuts off the end of files. I feel very strongly about minimizing the silence at the begining for the reasons Gesine states.

Esther
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Post by Cloud Mountain »

Gesine wrote:I'm not saying that this thread isn't good! Always great to discuss things...
Things like this are always good to discuss from time to time so each of us can do a personal check on what we're doing, comparing with other folks... Because of comments like this, even grouchy me has made adjustments over time. Nice thing about LV... there's always space provided for improvement... even for those who have been here for awhile... 8)
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Mark Turner
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Post by Mark Turner »

At least if the beginning gets cut by some players then it's usually just the disclaimer. I believe my older Samsung was cutting the end of some files but I haven't seen it happen with my iPod Nano. I'd about bet there are players that cut at each end.
trioptimum
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Post by trioptimum »

No idea if there are players that miss the start, but there are certainly some players (at least in software; my iPod doesn't do it, but other hardware players might) that give the option to crossfade the last few seconds of the end of a track into the first few of the next track. It's great for music but not ideal for audiobooks, and it can be disabled in most players (provided the listener knows where to look).

I try to cut all extraneous silence from the start of my recordings. Silence at the start and at the end isn't necessary, in my opinion.
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kri
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Post by kri »

trioptimum wrote:No idea if there are players that miss the start, but there are certainly some players (at least in software; my iPod doesn't do it, but other hardware players might) that give the option to crossfade the last few seconds of the end of a track into the first few of the next track. It's great for music but not ideal for audiobooks, and it can be disabled in most players (provided the listener knows where to look).
This is the reason we require the silence at the end. It was mainly due to RealPlayer, but it obviously applies to others that do the crossfade.
trioptimum
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Post by trioptimum »

kri wrote:This is the reason we require the silence at the end. It was mainly due to RealPlayer, but it obviously applies to others that do the crossfade.
Ah, so that's the reason? Can it not be turned off in the options? I'd check it out myself, but RealNetworks stuff isn't getting anywhere near my computer. :)
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kri
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Post by kri »

trioptimum wrote:
kri wrote:This is the reason we require the silence at the end. It was mainly due to RealPlayer, but it obviously applies to others that do the crossfade.
Ah, so that's the reason? Can it not be turned off in the options? I'd check it out myself, but RealNetworks stuff isn't getting anywhere near my computer. :)
It certainly can! However, some people don't know how to turn it off, or that it can be turned off, or that RealPlayer is the spawn of evil and should just strip it from their computer at the best possible opportunity :) At least, that's my opinion.
TBOL3
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Post by TBOL3 »

Yes, believe or not, I think Real is worse then Windows...
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