Iambik and LibriVox status reports

I had to wait until Tuesday last week to record the last section of One Vacant Chair for my first Iambik audiobook, due to the lines of thunderstorms. It's a good thing that I made time as soon as possible because by the time Thursday arrived, the storms and tornadoes were much worse than Monday.

Once I finally finished recording, I spent almost 3 hours editing which involves noise-cleaning (for background noise), amplifying via Dynamic Range Compression and, finally, painstakingly listening for any mouth sounds (tongue clicks, breathing, etc.) and eliminating them. The last procedure makes me feel like some kind of cyber-surgeon. Most mouth noises actually show up as tiny spikes on the file so I can spot them but the breathing noises don't work that way.

One thing I haven't figured out how to do is to record while not breathing.

I use a device called a 'pop filter' in front of my microphone but I honestly don't believe it helps much.

My mic is simply too sensitive. It picks up everything. The pop filter is supposed to keep certain sounds from getting through to the mic, particularly 'p' sounds and other letters that tend to cause a 'pop' sound when speaking. I have researched this some and a number of audio engineers who edit sound for singers have threads up about how to handle this. Some use different types of software but many admitted that good old-fashioned 'surgical' removal is still sometimes the only way. I'm getting pretty good with my surgical mouse.

One Vacant Chair is now being processed for the next Literary Fiction batch of books. Unless there's anything I need to re-record, I'm now finished with this book. It's well-written with a great story and memorable characters. I'll post here when the next Lit/Fic group is scheduled to be released.

In the mean time, I'm still proof-listening for another narrator who is recording a non-fiction children's book called How to do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself by Robert Paul Smith.

The reader is doing a terrific job. There are illustrations which will be available for download with the audiobook when its completed.


I've just begun work on my second book for Iambik called With or Without You by Lauren Sanders.

This is another book that will end up under the Literary Fiction genre. I finished the first section yesterday and I'll continue this week as soon as I get the OK for my sound check.

On LibriVox, I've continued recording the weekly poem which I can always make time to read. I'm also still plugging away on my current solo Three Girls in a Flat but it's had to take a backseat recently in order to meet deadlines on Iambik. Most of the chapters are pretty short so I hope to squeeze them in when I can. Particularly since I already have my eye on my next solo for LV...