Any Advice for my first podiobook?

[P.J. Vander Kooij]

Hi there. A friend of mine has written his first novel which we're releasing at www.aromathus.com. We've decided we also want to release an audio version, and after having Podiobooks recommended to us by several friends, decided this was the right place to try.

I'm relatively new at this audio recording stuff and narration, though (and am on a shoestring budget. Seriously, I use velcro on all my shoes now because I sold all the strings!) and think I've done a decent job on this, but would like some feedback. Any would be welcome.

Thanks!

[Mike Sharpe]

Well, you're going to better than I am.

Audio side of things, it's excellent. The episode here is Short, but usable for Podiobooks. Usually Podiobook episodes are usually around the same length, But it's not a requirement.

The only thing you really NEED to do is apply what it says in the to it. http://www.podiobooks.com/authors.php The bulk is in the PDF, so read it.

As far as I can Tell, you just need the File name and Tags. It's an won't get accepted unless you've got the Tags the right way. Also Possibly, Make the file Joint Stereo, I hope you kept the masters, It's better quality.

[Bryan Lincoln]

Just listened to the first minute. The voice sounded very mechanical. I think this is an effect of a noise removal pass eating into the quality a little bit. You might consider a less invasive process. What did you use?

[Nathan Lowell]

the bed music doesn't duck down far enough so it makes your intro really muddy.The outro isnt quite so bad but the rising level of music under the narration doesn't help your cause.

and there *is* something wrong with the audio. I think bryan may be right with the noise suppression.

[P.J. Vander Kooij]

I used Audacity, to do the recording and editing, as well as the noise removal. The noise removal is what gave me the most trouble. Any advice on a good program to do that?

Thanks for the advice on the intro and outro. I'll tweak that some.

[Jeffrey Kafer - Male Voice talent]

If you have any more than a small amount of noise, there is no noise removal that's going to work well. Your best bet is to change where you record. I know it may be a hassle, but a clean signal is the best thing to do.

[Nathan Lowell]

What he said.

And it may be counter intuitive, but you're better off with a noisy signal that's constant and natural sounding than a "cleaned up" signal that's mechanical. The human ear will cull the noise if it's constant, but will focus on any sound that pops up or down.

Best is to keep it as clean as you can, but that's not always easy.

[P.J. Vander Kooij]

Hmm... hadn't thought of that Nathan. Thanks for pointing that out.

[David Alastair Hayden]

I know this is a little late, but I had the same problem early on.

Did you try removing the noise with equalization or lowpass/highpass filters? Sometimes the buzz is in a specific frequency. If it's just low-level hiss that doesn't interfere and is consistent, I'd say leave it. Ever listen to any old music with some good headphones? You'll hear a lot more hiss than in modern recordings. Didn't stop those songs from becoming classic hits.

From the sample, I think your reading sounds great but your noise removal is spoiling it by making you sound robotic. We're losing the sibilance and that end of your words, breaths, etc.