beta notes re: podfic
May. 1st, 2018 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaixoWhich told me which I already know, in terms of narrative stuff and how-tos, but it’s good to get confirmation.
However, on the technical side, I really am going to have to reach out to podficcers who work with GarageBand - and preferably not in legacy settings (2017 or bust). Although speaking to people who work exclusively with Audacity is good in terms of general practice and feedback; with regards to technical how-tos on my own system, it isn’t good enough for me at the minute. It’s like… learning Spanish when you really want to learn Italian. Similar, but not the same.
For instance, I’ve been told in Audacity, there’s a process of universal noise levelling. For the uninitiated gits such as myself, this process makes sure the sound quality of the file is consistent, and it cuts down on miscellaneous bits of noise (kinda liiiiike, straining tea leaves, you won’t catch everything but most of them to make the experience of tea drinking pleasurable) process makes sure the sound quality of the file is consistent. Meaning, there aren’t loud spots in the flow of audio, everything is even, so the listener doesn’t have to fiddle with the volume levels of their own device when listening.
The thing is, when recording podfic, sometimes, you have to rerecord things (like flubbed or missed lines, or reading and a dog barks through the read, etc), and the noise quality can be variable. Or you change positions from one section of fic to another section (with recording a really long fic, I can see how this happens) and it affects your speaking/reading voice (sad, but true). Or the room that you did your reading in, you’ve changed the surroundings somewhat (thrown out books and yarn), now the space is emptier and it affects the audio quality.
Think of noise levelling being akin to adding cream in a soup. The flavours are there, but everything is smoother and has a better mouthfeel. You want that same experience for the audio. Garageband is supposed to have a good noise leveller, and the early feedback is that it’s confusing, so I’m going to need to clear some headspace. That’s the next skill set to be battling with, I guess.
I’ve been directed to Aurophonic for noise levelling, but it’s only seven days free trial, or x amount of hours before you have to pay (€69 ). I know from my crafting days that the first 50 hours of learning anything new is just you muddling your way through until you grasp the concepts. I’m nowhere near the skill level to be taking advantage of a seven-day free trial where I’d just use the time to run through lots of sound files before being kicked out.
Once you know what you know, or don’t know, that’s when you can start spending money. Also, I don’t really know if I’ll actually take to podficcing. Liiiiike, I might like and appreciate the process, but it mightn’t like me. Or we don’t get on through no fault of anyone (that happened with crochet and woodwork). Or, I might just find it beyond my ken to have to do research on GarageBand how-tos all the time, because compared to Audacity, knowledge about this is relatively thin, the programme itself relatively unintuitive (it’s one of these things where it’s easy if you know how, but you gotta know how, you can’t just muddle around and hope for best. Or at least, I don’t work that way).
It also doesn't help that apple keeps changing the interface, so much so that screenshots which worked two years ago aren't applicable now.
Then on top of that, there’s the whole covers issue for podfic which… hah. But I’m far from thinking about that right now.
However, on the technical side, I really am going to have to reach out to podficcers who work with GarageBand - and preferably not in legacy settings (2017 or bust). Although speaking to people who work exclusively with Audacity is good in terms of general practice and feedback; with regards to technical how-tos on my own system, it isn’t good enough for me at the minute. It’s like… learning Spanish when you really want to learn Italian. Similar, but not the same.
For instance, I’ve been told in Audacity, there’s a process of universal noise levelling. For the uninitiated gits such as myself, this process makes sure the sound quality of the file is consistent, and it cuts down on miscellaneous bits of noise (kinda liiiiike, straining tea leaves, you won’t catch everything but most of them to make the experience of tea drinking pleasurable) process makes sure the sound quality of the file is consistent. Meaning, there aren’t loud spots in the flow of audio, everything is even, so the listener doesn’t have to fiddle with the volume levels of their own device when listening.
The thing is, when recording podfic, sometimes, you have to rerecord things (like flubbed or missed lines, or reading and a dog barks through the read, etc), and the noise quality can be variable. Or you change positions from one section of fic to another section (with recording a really long fic, I can see how this happens) and it affects your speaking/reading voice (sad, but true). Or the room that you did your reading in, you’ve changed the surroundings somewhat (thrown out books and yarn), now the space is emptier and it affects the audio quality.
Think of noise levelling being akin to adding cream in a soup. The flavours are there, but everything is smoother and has a better mouthfeel. You want that same experience for the audio. Garageband is supposed to have a good noise leveller, and the early feedback is that it’s confusing, so I’m going to need to clear some headspace. That’s the next skill set to be battling with, I guess.
I’ve been directed to Aurophonic for noise levelling, but it’s only seven days free trial, or x amount of hours before you have to pay (€69 ). I know from my crafting days that the first 50 hours of learning anything new is just you muddling your way through until you grasp the concepts. I’m nowhere near the skill level to be taking advantage of a seven-day free trial where I’d just use the time to run through lots of sound files before being kicked out.
Once you know what you know, or don’t know, that’s when you can start spending money. Also, I don’t really know if I’ll actually take to podficcing. Liiiiike, I might like and appreciate the process, but it mightn’t like me. Or we don’t get on through no fault of anyone (that happened with crochet and woodwork). Or, I might just find it beyond my ken to have to do research on GarageBand how-tos all the time, because compared to Audacity, knowledge about this is relatively thin, the programme itself relatively unintuitive (it’s one of these things where it’s easy if you know how, but you gotta know how, you can’t just muddle around and hope for best. Or at least, I don’t work that way).
It also doesn't help that apple keeps changing the interface, so much so that screenshots which worked two years ago aren't applicable now.
Then on top of that, there’s the whole covers issue for podfic which… hah. But I’m far from thinking about that right now.
