LibriVox Forum

Hey all,

What I love about this community is that the answer to this question is completely irrelevant for most. So much awesome passion here.

(sorry if this has been asked already, I tried to use the forum search without luck)
I was wondering though if anybody had gone through the trouble of timing themselves out of curiosity. There's tons of "rule-of-thumb" numbers out there, like for every hour add 4 hours and stuff like that.

But, I wanted to know from people who were actually doing it.

Also, I'm really curious how long it takes for people doing it on their own (not a paid sound studio).

Anyway, how long does it take you to record and process one hour of audiobook?

It has been asked before but there are so many variables that there really isn't an answer. If you just count the time from the moment you start recording to the time you are ready to upload then the minimum would be 1 hour - I do know of one reader who could do that with sort sections and modern language but that is very very unusual. As readers need to listen to their recording before uploading for most readers that would be make 2 hours though you could speed up the playback and it would be less. Depending on the number of errors you make while reading fixing them is probably another hour so that makes 3 hours at least.
Some texts are easier than others , checking words you do not know adds more time , some like to read it before recording, some make more or less mistakes, recording for an hour can be tiring on the mind and the voice. Some edit as they go , practice does improve the time and some authors don't provide punctuation I feel.
So 3 plus is probably a good starting point

Anne

And from what I have seen of paid readers with an engineer, it doesn't finish up much quicker

I've timed myself in the past because this question comes up a lot.

Like Anne said, it depends a lot on the text, how "on the ball" I am at recording that day (some days I can't get the words out straight), etc. But in general, it takes me about 3:1 or 4:1 to record, edit, and post-process my recordings.

EDIT: another thread on this topic is here: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=79303

annise wrote: ↑September 18th, 2020, 4:12 am And from what I have seen of paid readers with an engineer, it doesn't finish up much quicker

That's because the engineers are getting paid by the hour.

TriciaG wrote: ↑September 18th, 2020, 4:54 am
EDIT: another thread on this topic is here: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=79303

Thanks TriciaG! My search abilities seem to be poor.

Either that or the forum search isn't very strong. Either way, I should probably have looked through some pages before making a new post... I appreciate your weigh-in very much, though.

Editing is a critical part of recording and a skill learned in the hard school of oops. Almost everyone here has spent many hours struggling with editing and so we have tons of experience to share. I will not add to what has been said above, but will invite you to a zoom meeting this Saturday (tomorrow for me now) at 7 pm central where editing will be the main topic. Some very experienced people will be sharing and discussing their methods of editing. Well,ok, only 2 that are for sure but believe me, this topic is so near and dear to all our hearts that many others will jump in to say how they do it.

And for what it is worth my ration is 2.3 to 1. 2.3 hours of editing to produce 1 hour finished track; no the recording, just the editing.

audiomike wrote: ↑September 18th, 2020, 5:36 am

annise wrote: ↑September 18th, 2020, 4:12 am And from what I have seen of paid readers with an engineer, it doesn't finish up much quicker

That's because the engineers are getting paid by the hour.

Good, Fast, Cheap: You Can Only Pick Two!

Winston