Friday, April 2, 2010

Ahem

I have acquired a good-ish pair of headphones with a microphone that doesn't suck. Accordingly, I have downloaded free audio software and recorded myself reading my own writing, thus spiraling ever further into narcissistic self-indulgence.

However, the files are now hosted at Podbean until I run out of space there and embedded here for your enjoyment. I will likely not record every episode; I already spend a half-hour to an hour every day on this stuff, and the record-tweak-upload-embed sequence adds another twenty minutes to that. However, I hereby swear a solemn oath that, if audio is considered a good thing, I will record any episode which achieves 5 or more "Cool!" votes via the handy-dandy little response checkboxes.

Please, speak up in the comments here. Tell me if you like this and if you think I should record more episodes. (Currently recorded and embedded: "The Nature of Wisdom," "After the Fire," Loren's prompt about the Avenger of Blood, Angelo's prompt about the flying snail, and Adrian's prompt about zombie paratroopers.)

Yes, I know about the quality. I had the gain turned up way high. I'll fix that in the future. Maybe one day I'll even get an intro. Anyone know a good free clip of music that fits the tone of Mirrorshards?

3 comments:

dolorah said...

I do like the audio. Somehow, the real voice doesn't fit the writing voice.

I'm sure the quality will improve as you get used to it.

As for music; something twilight zone like. Hmm, I'll have to think on it and get back to you.

.......dhole

Loren Eaton said...

I love hearing authors read their own stuff, and these didn't disappoint. Good vocal resonance, fun character inflections and nicely done overall. I wonder if this might help with the tiny bit of room noise that comes through in a place or two.

Scattercat said...

@Donna

It doesn't sound much like me 'cause I'm using my Stage Voice. I can't help it. Mind you, that's probably a good thing as my regular voice tends toward the sort of precise diction and nasal tones that characterize unlikeable pedant characters in cartoons. Also, my conversational style is lots and lots of words and fairly constant restating and revising of previous statements, so the sort of semi-poetic structure isn't natural for me. Hopefully I'll get better.

I just need like a quick trill or a few notes; these things are less than a minute long, so I don't want more than a few seconds of intro/outro.

@Loren

Well, this is a headset/mike combo, so a portable booth isn't really an option. :-D It will hopefully be better if I record it back in the bedroom instead of out at the table. And, as I said, I'll be turning the gain down and speaking louder; I recorded these at like two in the morning and I didn't want to wake anyone up.