How am I doing on the voice?

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Lowell on November 12, 2009 at 5:22pm

I grabbed the file and opened it in audacity.

It's clipped really badly. Looks like it got over driven, either during recording or amplified after recording. It's normalized below the maximum threshold so it doesn't over drive the playback but it's hard to listen to. The wave form is almost flat across the top and ragged at the bottom so I'm thinking something happened between recording and rendering.

I'm assuming the promo won't be included in the final product. The clipping made it hard to understand the female voice -- or maybe it was my ears. Somebody with younger ears might be able to make her out.

The 45 seconds of intro music followed by another almost 45 seconds of intro might be an issue for listeners. I'd suggest dumping anything other than title, "written and read by" line, and *maybe* the 'listener discretion advised' ... move the 'find us on the web' part to the outtro along with any closing credits for music / production. My rule of thumb is that I need to be telling the story within 30 seconds of the start of the file, you may decide to ignore that, but it's worked pretty well for me.

That's all construction, tho, and you've got technical issues that you'll want to address before you get too far, I think.

Anybody else?

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Permalink Reply by Kenn Crawford on November 14, 2009 at 12:40pm

Thanks Nathan.
I appreciate the feedback.
No, the promo won't be included.
Yes, I agree the music intro is too long. I think 30 seconds is a bit fast... I believe you do hold the current record for the fastest intros lol ... that being said, I understand what you mean and I will shorten it up. I just got carred away composing music. :)
I'm a little confused with your comment of 'maybe' using the content warning. Obviously I can't put it on the end of the book, that would just be silly, and not to include a warning might be opening a whole new can of worms, the idea is to gain subscribers, not tick people off because they let their kids listen to it and didn't know it had some bad language.
As for the sound itself, my tube preamp colored it too much and the digital processing further added insult to injury, but it is not in any way, shape or form, clipped. What you saw in audacity is the result of limiting to tame the transients, not clipping.

So.... its distored, you can't make out the girl, intro is too long... Got it. :)

Sooooo..... how am I doing on the narrating? Too fast, too slow, too choppy? LOL

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Permalink Reply by Craig Robertson on November 14, 2009 at 9:27am

Wow, I love your promo, I hooked already! I get the child's synthesized voice, she's a computer talking, but clean it up a bit, she garbles too much for her soft volume. Also, the background effects are too prominent over the voices, hers in particular. I'm a lousy techie, but there are ways to subordinate a sound tract to say a voice tract, over just tune it down. As for the male voice, I get that it mirrors the child's mechanical voice, but it's slow and lifeless (maybe the point), but I'd infuse some caffeine or something. Really creative though; nice.
I'm with Nathan on the music intro, too long, think about a fade to voice a little quicker. I think listeners get nervous if things run long, wondering if this guy's a weirdo, you know. I started a podiobook which is a year or so old, and the kid (had to have been) ran a minute of metalic rock before the voice, and not surprisingly, the story was lame.
As to your voice, I think you can make it work. As you know, we are all stuck with the instrument we posses, and many of us, myself included, are not blessed with a golden throat. Two pieces of advise. First, your mouth is dry, sip water frequently. Second, your speech has a jowly quality, a looseness I'd tighten up. Recalling that we are amateur voice actors, do say a California accent, or pretend you're Ed Harris. This will also help close of the ends of your words, which have a tendency to drift apart rather than phonically terminate. As you don't know me, please don't take any offense in my advise, I take this very seriously, and want all of us to succeed, and who's to say I'm right, right?
Finally, I mentioned this to another author, and stopped listening to another book very early on because of this. You are the author, and must act as the muse directs, however (had to be one didn't there), I advise caution when a story started off with a brutalized poorly clad young woman. It may be essential to the plot, and we do have to grab the readers quickly, but, well, I think you get my drift. You do suggest she gave worse than she got with her knife, but I still get nervous, you know. Anyway, this is a forum for offering technical advise, so: I like the first efforts and I think you can polish it up easily.

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Permalink Reply by Kenn Crawford on November 14, 2009 at 1:06pm

Wow Craig, great reply. Thank you.

I have no idea what a California accent is... I'm Canadian eh :) The only accent I knw about California is ala Sean Penn or surfur , "Gnarly dude" and I don't think that's what you meant. Ed Harris movies I have. Great actor :) but I'll have to google california accent.
I am offended, I am hear to learn. The end of my words drift apart instead of phonetically close? Do you mean like saying walkin' instead of walkinG? If yes, that I am aware of that and have been working hard to kill my Cape Breton accent that is riddled with bad enunciation. If that's not what you mean, could you please give me a few examples so I can understanbd, and adjust,
If you heard me talk in a day to day conversation you'd be like "You want a narrate your book? With the way you talk? Thats a joke right?" LOL

I never thought that the prologue would create a problem and I have to admit that no, I'm not sure I what you mean. What makes you nervous about it? Why did you have to stop listening to the other novel?

Thanks again for your feedback, I look forward to hearing more

Kenn

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Permalink Reply by Kenn Crawford on November 14, 2009 at 4:30pm

That was supposed to read I am NOT offended LOL My bad :(

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Permalink Reply by Craig Robertson on November 15, 2009 at 8:11am

Wew, it does read better 'not offended, than 'offended'. There's a you tube video titled 21 Voices by Amy Walker. The woman does a scary good job illustrating accents. If you search there you can find a few more of hers, and actually lots of voice coaching videos. The California accent is regarded among experts (like I'd know, eh?) as the cleanest English accent. Someone like Ed Harris (he's currently doing the Lowes TV ads) or a similar voice talent mirror this clean style. If you watch say Hugh Laurie (House) with his American accent vs his real British accent, you'll be stunned. He uses a CA-like accent.
I did research 'cape breton accent' on youtube and came up with one titled "caper talk!". Hopefully they are not fully representitive of the accent coaches one typically find in NS. But seriously, yes, it's the 'walkin ou the door righ now' open ended like you say.
A prologue is important, as opposed to our 'promo's', which probably don't find their way to enough ears to worry much about. I mentioned the voice and background stuff about the first 2 minutes of the loop you posted, that I'd assume is the 'promo'. The nervous part about victimizing young woman, is just my personal thing, and it's the part where I assume the story begins, Chapter 1. The Book I couldn't get more than a few minutes into is The Scars, a recent one, which opens with a girl tied in a chair, beaten and cut over her bare breast.....that kind of nervous. If the brutalized girl part needs to be there, then it needs to be there. If you can move it further in, where we will presumable understand why she's dripping blood and also we like the text, so we're hooked, it could be better. Again, just my personal view; maybe I'm too provincial.

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Permalink Reply by Kenn Crawford on November 20, 2009 at 8:30pm

Sorry it took so long to get back to you. Been practicing my narrating :)

I downloaded Amy Walkers videos.. the how-to parts 1 & 2 were interesting and informative.
Just so you know, I have no desire to write another Jack Ketchum's "Girl Next Door" and this novel is nothing like that.
I decided to start with that scene in the prologue because originally, this novel was a screenplay for a low-budget movie I was going to film and everything was written with imagery, camera shots, music, jumpcuts and fades in mind. As the story developed, it grew way beyond what I was capable of filming, and it started to collect dust.

Then I found this neat little book called "Podcasting for Dummies" and I was hooked on the possibilities. I downloaded the companion podcast, then Tee's book Morevi, and eventually I found podiobooks.com and have been a podiobook junkie ever since. Listening to Tee's novel inspired me to re-write the screenplay as an audiobook.

I opted to start with that scene for the prologue to make the listener wonder why, as opposed to knowing why by placing it later in the book. In fact, a later chapter revisits the exact same scene, and the story continues from there... so the prologue takes place around half-way through the novel, and by that point you know the why... just not the "what happens next".

Thanks again for all your tips and insight.
Kenn

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Permalink Reply by Kenn Crawford on November 21, 2009 at 11:47am

Hi everyone,
I uploaded another sample file in hopes to get some more feedback on my narration. I rerecorded the same prologue (without the promo) and without the tube preamp. I tried to make this as close as possible to what the actual episode will sound like, including the outro credits.

Nathan, the new intro is only 24 seconds long my friend :) Are you proud of me? LOL It is short and to the point with no fluff. I just know you're gonna say 'I told cha so' but, you were right (as usual), it does sound very clean this way :) Thank you.

I did notice a technical glitch where I repeated a line, but after nearly 5 hours to upload this test run on dialup, just pretend it's not there LOL
I tried to get rid of the 'jowly' nature Craig mentioned, and to close off the end of my words so they phoneticlly end rather than drift apart. How am I doing so far?

Thanks,
Kenn
The file can be found at:
http://deadhunt.kenncrawford.com/deadhunt-test2.mp3

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Lowell on November 24, 2009 at 1:52pm

intro is much better.

reading is still a bit mechanical and stilted. the "jowly" sound is still there.

nice closing credits. wave form looks pretty good and the sound quality is pretty good.

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Permalink Reply by Kenn Crawford on November 24, 2009 at 2:48pm

Thanks Nathan.
Narrating is hard! I think I'll stick to singing LOL
I think the mechanical and stilted nature is from concentrating too hard on the individual words and not just relaxing and enjoying reading it.
Practice practice practice :)

Thanks again for taking the time to listen and respond.
Kenn

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Lowell on November 24, 2009 at 6:45pm

The mantra is "Tell the story. Don't read the book."

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Permalink Reply by Kenn Crawford on November 24, 2009 at 6:59pm

"Tell the story and don't read the book" - This is true and you are the master at that :) When I listen to your books Nathan, it always feels like you were telling me *your* story as if it really happened to you, and not narrating a work of fiction.

I still get lost on the 'jowly' sound. Can't fix what I don't fully understand (or can't hear). I *thought* I fixed it, even if the narrating was a tad mechanical and I knew I had to tighten that up, but it appears the only thing I really accomplished was screwing it up even more hahahaha

I just did an A/B comparison of the first read and the second. Audio issues aside, the first one flowed better imho, while the second had better (but lifeless) enunciation.

Could I possible pester you to give me a few examples of where a word sounded 'jowly' so I can try to understand where I am going wrong?

Thanks,
Kenn

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