In my last post I wrote about recording some of my e-published stories. Here’s my progress and what I think I’ve learned.
I got the microphone and set it up (which really just meant making sure that plug-and-play had the right settings). I downloaded the recording software. (Audacity). I purchased the e-book of a fellow Smashwords author on how to go about recording something.
As recommended in the e-book, I tried a test.
Now, this clearly isn’t ready to go, yet. I need to work on my technique a bit. I probably want to find some music or, well, for this story I’m considering bird songs for occasional background and markers between scenes. I think it’d be appropriate.
But this recording gave me some new ideas, too. I’ve tried reading my stories out loud before, which is often recommended. All I got was a sore throat. You see, I hear my stories in my head when I’m writing them, so reading it out loud didn’t really add anything to me.
Until I listened to this recording. I hear things in the recording that I didn’t hear just reading it out loud and my fingers itched to make a couple of revisions. Now that I’ve got everything set up, I think this is definitely something I’ll be trying with my writing.
Gotta love serendipity.
That was a great first try, Meredith. Love your voice, btw. I loved that as you were listening to afterwards you heard things you hadn’t picked up on while you were reading it aloud. I read aloud to hubby and always want to change things but never thought about recording it so I could listen to it, too. I’m going to have to do that.
I’ve looked at doing something like this before and even done a little research. Here’s a link I bookmarked a while back about things to consider if you’re serious about a home studio.
http://www.voice-over-training.org/home-studio-tips-interview-with-dan-friedman-pt-2/
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Thanks, Donna. In fact, you don’t need a whole lot of expensive equipment for this. Everything I used for that recording–microphone, software, and a how-to book–was well under $50. The microphone was the “most” expensive. The software is free.
I guess it depends what you want to do with it.
I need to get a little more excited about those first few paragraphs, though, or I’ll put my listeners to sleep before they get to the good part. 🙂
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