How Should I Stop/Decrease Stuttering?

[mightyfelix]

You are obviously better than I at "monitoring" yourself. I *know* that even though I think about those things and listen to the surroundings (and pause when a truck rolls by or the neighbour's dog barks), I *shall* miss words or in the excitement substitute one for another. I am not a native English speaker, those things are "natural" to me, you know.

I am a native English speaker and still do this occasionally. I think the best one was when the text said something about a "chocolate colored Pomeranian." I said "chocolate covered Pomeranian" and just kept on rolling! Thank goodness I listened to that part afterwards!

[annise]

Sounds delicious

[Cori]

Possible useful comment: Jay, had you experimented with players that can speed up the recording? You could listen through more quickly that way, though it might be more bother than it's worth going between the player and Audacity for editing.

Fairly unhelpful comment:

I think the best one was when the text said something about a "chocolate colored Pomeranian." I said "chocolate covered Pomeranian" and just kept on rolling!

That is hilarious! I've done the same thing repeatedly with books that mention the Royal Navy, where there turn out to be a lot of 'Rear Admirables' (which they might well have been, but should be 'Admiral').

More seriously, though, the majority of what my lovely, patient PLs catch are misreads along those lines. If I didn't listen to everything as I edit, they'd have to do far more work -- but my goal is to get PL-OK first time, every time, out of respect for their time.

[DACSoft]

More seriously, though, the majority of what my lovely, patient PLs catch are misreads along those lines. If I didn't listen to everything as I edit, they'd have to do far more work -- but my goal is to get PL-OK first time, every time, out of respect for their time.

Hear! Hear!

That's also my goal for the projects I read, although I don't always achieve it.

Don

[JayKitty76]

Thanks, everybody!
Cori,
I've tried the speed-up player in Audacity, but it makes the black line ZOOM through the sound waves- making me dizzy
I'll check out other app ones, though

[JayKitty76]

I never go back and listen to the full recording. In my solos I've been doing a lot of very long recordings (over 1 hour) and I simply don't have that time to spend. Instead, I've gotten very used to actively monitoring myself while recording. Slight stumble? Mispronunciation? Slurred speech? I immediately stop, snap my fingers (giving a clear big short spike in the recording), and repeat the phrase from the start, or from a recent comma where there was a breathing space, i.e. so that the point where I need to edit it is during silence. I don't think about it long, just if there is a doubt of it needing to be better, I just redo it.
Next to that, I always have my recording open on my screen, so I can monitor what is happening there too. Getting a bit too excited and speaking too loudly? Snap fingers, redo. See a weird spike appearing from some kind of internal click in my laptop? Snap, redo. Etc.

Then after, I scroll through my recording from the start, and look for the spikes of my finger snaps. I also always have "mark clipping" or whatever it's called turned on, so there's a bright red line on my snaps. Then all I need to do is find the point before the line from where I restarted, and delete from there up to the start of my speech after the snap. Easy peasy.
The added benefit of the snaps + red lines is that when I zoom out, the red lines remain very visible. So after I'm done, I can at a glance see if I missed any editing spots.

Thanks, Foon. I will try marking my mistakes. I never thought to have the recording open from the start, just sized down so I can still read from the text. I'll try that- it's also a way of ensuring I actually record what I'm saying (Once I accidentally muted the recording halfway through...but if I'm monitoring it constantly I can stop it early on. That time I 'finished' reading the section, only to find I had about 8 minutes of flatlining...)

[JayKitty76]

You are obviously better than I at "monitoring" yourself. I *know* that even though I think about those things and listen to the surroundings (and pause when a truck rolls by or the neighbour's dog barks), I *shall* miss words or in the excitement substitute one for another. I am not a native English speaker, those things are "natural" to me, you know.

I am a native English speaker and still do this occasionally. I think the best one was when the text said something about a "chocolate colored Pomeranian." I said "chocolate covered Pomeranian" and just kept on rolling! Thank goodness I listened to that part afterwards!

It does sound delicious! At least, the chocolate... I'm not sure how chocolate would taste on a Pomeranian...

It is better if you listen to the whole recording, in order to catch mistakes that might otherwise be caught by a PLer. Listening beforehand saves you a slight amount of embarrassment, too, since the PL notes are generally posted on a public forum

I'm trying to get everything PL OK the first time...I still get lots of PL notes, but that's ok- I'm still learning and I'm developing in the quality of my recordings, soon enough I'll be getting better and better

[Foon]

Thanks, Foon. I will try marking my mistakes. I never thought to have the recording open from the start, just sized down so I can still read from the text. I'll try that- it's also a way of ensuring I actually record what I'm saying (Once I accidentally muted the recording halfway through...but if I'm monitoring it constantly I can stop it early on. That time I 'finished' reading the section, only to find I had about 8 minutes of flatlining...)

That is EXACTLY why I made it a point always to have my recording visible! I've had it randomly stop on me before, and after reading a full section, I found that I had about 30 seconds of recorded audio... So I never record without being able to see it anymore.

I get that my method doesn't work for everyone; I'm reasonably good at reading word-perfect, so I don't need to worry about it that much (although mistakes still happen, of course). And I've gotten so used to monitoring what I say, which makes my system work well for me--I hardly ever get PL notes. But my main take away message was that it can be useful to get used to fixing mistakes right away (and clearly marking them), rather than going back in and redoing a line after you've already finished recording (after all, trying to match inflection/reading speed/whatever else can take quite some time and effort). But to each their own, of course!

[JayKitty76]

Thanks, Foon. I will try marking my mistakes. I never thought to have the recording open from the start, just sized down so I can still read from the text. I'll try that- it's also a way of ensuring I actually record what I'm saying (Once I accidentally muted the recording halfway through...but if I'm monitoring it constantly I can stop it early on. That time I 'finished' reading the section, only to find I had about 8 minutes of flatlining...)

That is EXACTLY why I made it a point always to have my recording visible! I've had it randomly stop on me before, and after reading a full section, I found that I had about 30 seconds of recorded audio... So I never record without being able to see it anymore.

I get that my method doesn't work for everyone; I'm reasonably good at reading word-perfect, so I don't need to worry about it that much (although mistakes still happen, of course). And I've gotten so used to monitoring what I say, which makes my system work well for me--I hardly ever get PL notes. But my main take away message was that it can be useful to get used to fixing mistakes right away (and clearly marking them), rather than going back in and redoing a line after you've already finished recording (after all, trying to match inflection/reading speed/whatever else can take quite some time and effort). But to each their own, of course!

You are much more experienced at reading for LV than I am-- I still get PL notes a lot and I've only had 1 word perfect submission so far. *shrug* But that's OK, as I said before I'm still learning
Thank you for the helpful tips, you introduced a new concept to me that I never even thought of

[ej400]

I have the problem quite often, I just randomly say the wrong words at the wrong times, (and sometimes don't even notice it ). As for stuttering though, I usually stutter only once or twice in my recordings, but I've found that the more you get used to the book or the wording of the book your reading, the less you'll stutter. I was having problems in my solos with stuttering at one point, but then I got used to the books more, and things got better. Maybe before recording, try to familiarize yourself with the text. It will certainly help cut down some stutters.

[JayKitty76]

Thank you, ej400. I think that has worked for me in the past, but for some reason, I forgot that that had worked. Thanks for the tip. As Anne said earlier, the text is fairly difficult and (as with all PD texts) was written a while ago, so it is unusually hard to read. I'll try that the next time I go to record it, though- whether that be today, or tomorrow, or whenever