How long does it take you to produce a section?

Post by **philchenevert** » November 16th, 2019, 12:30 pm

Just a note to say that LCaulkins described exactly the way I record and edit. Only she took the time to write it out carefully and beautifully. It was a pleasure to read. Thank you.

tovarisch · Post by **tovarisch** » November 16th, 2019, 1:14 pm

I am with Phil on this one, as well. Well written, Lynette!

(yes, my process is about the same)

schrm · Post by **schrm** » November 16th, 2019, 1:36 pm

- for the recording i need 1,5-2 times the length of the recording, depending on airplanes, cats, me myself and neighbours
- for editing i need 4 times the length of the finished recording (i listen to it from the very beginning, also edit clicks, pauses and so on)
- i honestly don't prooflisten the result again, in most cases. i hope it is good enough, and am not able to detect any mistakes after speaking them, listening to them and...

...but: this is void for german, only.
in english, i need additionally:
time to look up words, trial and error to speak them (btw, the carrot method is fun), and alltogether, everything needs..
well up to ten times the recording duration? or in a case of disadvantegously spoken words some hundred hours?

i try to get better in reading, because i hate editing.
i think of buying other hardware, because i hate clicks.
i hate to edit in 5 minute breaks, also - i need an hour at least.
and to say it: the minute for noise reduction, amplyfing and silenceperiods is not worth to mention...

punch and roll i never heard of, but im doing that manually.

and: i love to librivox

commonsparrow3 · Post by **commonsparrow3** » November 16th, 2019, 1:41 pm

TriciaG, LCaulkins, and Phil, all of them sound pretty similar to the way I work, also. For a file that ends up at 30 minutes when completely edited, I probably began with a raw file of about 45 minutes, including all the stumbles, re-reads, coughs, pauses to wait for distractions to pass, etc. Editing that file takes a little longer than the raw file itself, as I listen right through it and edit as I listen. So figure say, 45 minutes reading time + 55 minutes editing time = 1 hour 40 minutes, to produce a 30 minute recording. That makes a rough ratio of 3:1 or thereabouts. This has stayed pretty consistent over the past 4-5 years. During my first year at LV, the ratio was more like 4:1 or sometimes 5:1, as I made more flubs, and was more of a perfectionist. This work-to-results ration now feels comfortable, so I'm not likely to change it much, unless I suddenly start getting a lot more PL notes. I do get some PL notes, because I don't re-listen to the file after I edit it, so I might miss an edit and not catch it myself.

moniaqua · Post by **moniaqua** » November 17th, 2019, 1:56 am

Ah, I see. I didn't realize that punch and roll already takes place at recording. So I think we're doing pretty much the same.

Thank you for the clarification, also to you, Availle.

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » November 17th, 2019, 2:39 am

DACSoft wrote: ↑November 16th, 2019, 9:37 am I'm probably still a statistics outlier. This was a post from about 5 years ago, when I was first starting out.

DACSoft wrote: ↑June 10th, 2014, 5:07 pm
... After recording my first solo, and two more in progress, I find that, on average (even for small colaborative pieces), it takes me about an hour per minute of finished recording to record, edit and polish (compression, noise removal, etc.) and upload. Partly because I find it difficult to read more than one or two paragraphs without making mistakes (I have to work on that), so I may record a paragraph twice (or more) and cut and paste the best versions. Also, I may be too much of a perfectionist (I am by nature) in cleaning up all the clicks and mouth noises. I tend to try for word perfect even though I set the PL level for standard (and I also PL all my recordings in addition to my DPL)....

What keeps me going is that I really enjoy recording. I expect (hope) that I'll get better with experience, but it is still an enjoyable hobby, and I feel I'm contributing to the greater good.
How has this changed in 5 years? Well now, on average, it only takes me about 35 minutes per minute of finished recording (I've cut my time in half, and editing is about 80% of the total time). All the rest is still the same, including the primary reason why I do this. I continue to PL all my recordings before submission, because I want to save PLs/DPLs time in their task. IMHO, they shouldn't have to spend needless effort finding obvious errors that I should have identified PLing my own work.

FWIW,
Don

I really admire the productivity of some of our most accomplished readers, I've listened to them, but I'm very slow too, Don.

When I started I was much brisker. But I put a lot of effort these days into trying to sound younger - so 80 per cent of my total time would be post-production too. What's worse, I pre-read and research my texts, always non-fiction, for pleasure. I enjoy researching texts I'm PLing too. Librivox has been educative for me.

Best,

Barbara

Cori · Post by **Cori** » November 17th, 2019, 1:07 pm

It depends on what I'm reading. A 3 min poem can easily take 45+ mins, because I faff about with every millimetre of it. 30 mins of easy non-fiction, or not-too-character-heavy fiction, perhaps 3 hours to produce. Harder fiction, or a lot of character voices, more like 4 hours. So a ratio of 6:1 to 15:1, depending. I started before we had PLs, and I'm still super-grateful every time for them helping me produce good work, so aim to give them nothing to do beyond typing a PL-OK

Punch and roll was a bit faster for me (e.g. 5:1 rather than 6:1) when I tried it several years ago, but it was also incredibly tiring somehow. Perhaps the focus needed to catch every issue just takes practice, but I was coming out of each recording session ready to nap for a week, so it hasn't seemed worth pursing since.

KevinS · Post by **KevinS** » November 17th, 2019, 1:13 pm

You're all making me nervous. My recordings must be of a low quality as I record, most often catching my mistakes, redo the word or two---lots of that, though---then I edit the section pretty swiftly (when I'm feeling in the mood.) My time is: recording plus re-listening, plus a bit for the cutting, and I'm done.

And this is not a coy way of saying I'm good at all this. Far from it. I think I'm just more spontaneous---and likely so to everyone's detriment.

Cori · Post by **Cori** » November 18th, 2019, 3:43 pm

But ... we're LibriVoxers.

There isn't 'high' or 'low' quality -- just different ways of approaching the same activity, for different reasons, causing differences in process and outcome. It's all good. It's all "acoustical liberation of books in the public domain" in the long run.

KevinS · Post by **KevinS** » November 18th, 2019, 4:09 pm

Cori wrote: ↑November 18th, 2019, 3:43 pm But ... we're LibriVoxers. There isn't 'high' or 'low' quality -- just different ways of approaching the same activity, for different reasons, causing differences in process and outcome. It's all good. It's all "acoustical liberation of books in the public domain" in the long run.

I like this!

Kozmique · Post by **Kozmique** » November 18th, 2019, 8:04 pm

My method is similar to what LCaulkins described. Now that I have managed to find a reasonably quiet spot in my apartment, I'm getting faster at recording, and the more I practice the better I get at reading through the text without needing to repeat passages, which certainly cuts down on editing time. I'm trying to improve my editing skills, so I've been taking my time on that. Sorry if that makes my end product boring for the PL's!

sjmarky · Post by **sjmarky** » November 22nd, 2019, 6:44 pm

Punch-and-roll means you edit during the recording phase. Basically, whenever you notice having make a mistake, you stop the recording, rewind to before the mistake (the beginning of the sentence for example) and start reading and recording from there again.

Obviously cuts way down on editing during post-processing, but will increase recording time accordingly.

At first, yes. But with practice P&R recording adds very little booth time. Not much more than using a clicker, or just pausing between takes.
Here's the math:
Record and then edit for one finished hour:
Booth time: 2 hours
Edit time: 3+ hours, since you have to go through the whole thing again to edit.
Total: At least 5.5 hours to finish 1

Punch and roll:
Booth time: 2.5 hours (maybe)
Edit time: 0 - 0.5 (I go through and do a quick cleanup; i just scroll through looking for obvious noises, etc.)
Total: 3 hours to finish 1

Half the time. And less time doing the boring stuff.

lurcherlover · Post by **lurcherlover** » November 23rd, 2019, 5:40 am

sjmarky wrote: ↑November 22nd, 2019, 6:44 pm

At first, yes. But with practice P&R recording adds very little booth time. Not much more than using a clicker, or just pausing between takes.
Here's the math:
Record and then edit for one finished hour:
Booth time: 2 hours
Edit time: 3+ hours, since you have to go through the whole thing again to edit.
Total: At least 5.5 hours to finish 1

Punch and roll:
Booth time: 2.5 hours (maybe)
Edit time: 0 - 0.5 (I go through and do a quick cleanup; i just scroll through looking for obvious noises, etc.)
Total: 3 hours to finish 1

Half the time. And less time doing the boring stuff.

If you mean the boring stuff is editing, then I do not find this boring at all. In fact the expertise needed to edit well is not easily obtained. The whole tempo and rhythm of each chapter can be made or broken by the editing process. Leaving the exact amount of time for dramatic effect between the dialogue from one character to the next is extremely important, as is the extra time needed when a change of scene happens.

I would guess the "punch in" method might be OK, but maybe it's often rather hit and miss.

sjmarky · Post by **sjmarky** » November 23rd, 2019, 7:32 am

Since I can hear the pre-roll, I am able to match the timing, inflection, etc. much better than recording a bunch of takes and pasting one in. And it takes less time. But if you enjoy editing by all means do it your way.

ej400 · Post by **ej400** » November 23rd, 2019, 9:56 am

I don't know that there is a correct answer to this. For one, it depends on the word count. The more words, the longer the editing. It takes longer for audacity to remove noise on longer sections, so even if there aren't any reading mistakes, this length of the section would make this longer. This is of course, is the obvious reply. Another instance of a section taking longer would be if you were a perfectionist. Maybe not quite a perfectionist, but someone who wants their sections to be as high quality as they can make it. So if your a severe editor, then, of course, your editing would take longer.

For me, I don't edit my sections for too long or try to at least, but still, attempt to make it sound to my standards. One section, on average, would probably take me about 30 minutes to read, 30 minutes to edit, and 10 minutes to upload. So maybe an hour plus change?