Muff or how I learnt to stop worrying and love to podfic

[alexisjane]

Okay, a few people have asked me about how I do my podfics so this is a quick post about that. Bear in mind, that I have not been doing it that long, so I have no real clue what I'm doing. If you want advice I suggest podfic_tips or there are some great tutorials on youtube too.

I use GarageBand to record my stuff. I use the podcast settings, female voice noisy, mono...basically I just pressed all the buttons until they stopped making a difference, because I'm not 100% sure how it works : ) Again youtube has some great vids that explain the basic stuff you need to know just to podfic and I'm sure there's stuff out there for other recording apps too

I use the integral microphone on my iMac, so it's a teeny tiny hole at the top of the screen. The computer sits on a low surface so when I want to record I just pull it close to me. Then apply the Muff (see Muff below: )

In terms of prepping the text, I copy and paste it into a blank document  and then read through, putting line breaks in where a natural breath or pause should happen and highlight any words that i might get wrong, for example, the number of times I thought I was done only to realise I've said 'Jared' when I meant 'Jensen' Grrr! I also look up any words I'm not sure about and write them out phonetically. I do some singing or vocal exercises to warm up but that's coz I usually don't talk all day so going from that to talking constantly for three hours hurts my throat. I also lay off the dairy products that day, brush my teeth before I start as well as coating my mouth with oil olive, to reduce mouth sounds.

Then I just read. If I screw up I pause and then go back a phrase and start over. I try and do it all in one sitting as the sound quality changes in different sittings. And then I editing out the screw ups, pauses and any random noises.
I try and start and end with a sound clip...coz I like it : ) It's my understanding that clips of less than 30secs used with a disclaimer are okay but there is always the possibility of getting sued unless you have permission.

I have something called AudioBook Binder that converts stuff to m4b (I just push a button, I don't really know how that works either)

That's kinda it. The extent of my knowledge. Scary really.


The Muff

I did have a loop of wire with some tight's stretched across it for a pop filter  but it wasn't very good and with all the extra noise around recently I wanted to make a sound booth to fit around my computer. So I made the Muff




The sound clip has me rambling and then reading my two favourite Yates poems one without, one with muff...really badly. It's genuinely for me to hear how the sound works/doesn't. Not very interesting. I say um and muff a lot : )

Online recording software >>

Comments

[siennavie.livejournal.com]

WOW! *applauds* That's really a lot of work, lady! I had no clue so much prepping was needed.

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

I'm a faffer, I tend to faff. I'm sure most people do it much more sensibly : ) x

[siennavie.livejournal.com]

Faff - is that a real word or something made up like asshattery and flurf? :P

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

faff |faf|Brit. informal
verb [ no obj. ]
spend time in ineffectual activity: we can't faff around forever.
noun [ in sing. ]
a great deal of ineffectual activity: there was the usual faff of getting back to the plane.

ORIGIN late 18th cent. (originally dialect in the sense ‘blow in puffs’, describing the wind): imitative. The current sense may have been influenced by dialect faffle ‘stammer, stutter’, later ‘flap in the wind’, which came to mean ‘fuss, dither’ at about the same time as faff (late 19th cent.).

Asshat is in my dictionary too! FTW \0/ x

[siennavie.livejournal.com]

I feel like I'm at a spelling bee. You should know that a lot of what I'm taught goes in one ear and straight out the other. I have the worst memory retention.

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

I love the origin of words and how they change over time. I also love that when I typed in flurf, the dictionary practically rolled it's eyes at me and redirected me to fluff. Bless it : )

[kalliel]

Lovely tips! And man, if that's not a perfect example of someone committed to their craft, I don't know what is. So awesome. <333333!

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

It's a bit haphazard! But it's really fun! I really like doing it. Also really like say 'muff' a lot : ) x

[yohkobennington.livejournal.com]

My god you also have a sexy accent on top of being awesome. Holy shit...
(http://s803.photobucket.com/user/YB87/media/Gifs/tumblr_inline_n47uzcqiFO1qbdxog_zps3fc79f20.png.html)

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

*blushes* You!

The accent appears to be popular. I've no idea way but it does seem to detract from me being a dork : ) x

[yohkobennington.livejournal.com]

Eh, we are all dorks. I wanna roll around your accent. I love Brit accent so muuuuch!

[sleepypercy.livejournal.com]

OOH thank you! And I'm kinda glad you have a Mac because I just got one. Only, apparently you should under no circumstances update Garage Band because the new version does NOT have podcast options. And I sadly have the new version. So I'm at a bit of a loss and just downloaded Audacity because I'm more familiar with it. Even though I did want to try garage band. But it is making my brain go crazy.

Ah, wow, you are inventive! I like your, um, computer muff ^_^

Also - yay Yeats! (psst... if you ever need to test sounds again, you should do The Stolen Child. Because it is tragically beautiful).

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

Oooo thank you for the heads up, I always so scared to update anything. It might be possible to revert to an earlier version by uninstalling it and then reinstalling the version you want. I could ask my tech guy if you like?

It's fugly but I'm so glad it kinda works! Also I get to say muff a lot : )

Oooo I was looking at that one too. I do like those two as they go together. Second Coming is also yummy...and so S9! I love how he always has such a killer last line!
And what rough beast, it's hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? WTF! how the hell are you supposed to follow that! Just fab : ) x

[sleepypercy.livejournal.com]

That's a great idea - I should see if I can find an older version available. You can ask if he knows of a download link to the older version, although it's not necessary since I might just look myself too. ^_^

SECOND COMING YES. Absolutely, I love that one as well.
I adore anyone reading Yeats. Especially in an Irish accent because (obviously) that's the way he would have read it, and I had enough of my professors who would play audio clips - read by original poets if possible - so we could hear it how it would have originally sounded. So sometimes when I read certain poems, I read them with accents in my head. (okay, fine, sometimes when I read them out loud to myself, too).