Hey all!

I've only started getting into the podfic craze this last year (I'm *always* slow to the party) The tech side made sense to me (mostly) as I was using Audacity to record filk scratch tracks, but I'm still playing around with the noise reduction and have found the comments, observations and suggestions people have made here very useful and interesting. So thanks, everyone. Much appreciated.

My question(s) for all of you today; if you were going to a con and there was a Podfic panel, would you go? What would you want to learn? What would you want to share?

Assuming that there is a mixed audience (newbies and old hands) what would be the ideal subject matter for presentation?

Hand outs with URLs to find instructions? Archive URLs? Tips and tricks? Podfic recs?

Is there a Podfic FAQ that you would recommend?

What do *you* want to know about podfic? What would *you* want to *tell* people about podfic?

My general outline for this presentation:
- a 15-20 min "What is Podfic" intro
- aprox 30 min Q&A/discussion
- remainder allowing ppeople to have a chance to do a reading (maybe bring a selection of drabbles, or invite participants to bring a drabble) so they can try out reading into a mic, see how Audacity works, see how easy it is to edit a sound file; possibly find several volunteers before hand to do a multi voice reading and convert it to mp3 right there and them so if people want, they can upload a fresh podfic right onto their iPod by the end of the session.

What do you think? Suggestions? Comments? Discussion? Bueller?

BTW - is anyone here attending Writercon? This presentation is on Sunday afternoon, and the person that I was supposed to be moding the panel with apparently has a timing conflict, so I am on my own. (Eeep!) I wouldn't be adverse to having an experienced guest who would be willing to field some questions.

Hi! Still working on planning a new podfic community oriented toward Supernatural anthologies or "podzines." I've received some great ideas so far and thanks for that. Today, I have two quick (I hope) questions I'm hoping someone can address:

1) Permission - I am having some difficulty reaching authors, having tried both private messages and posting comments to the original stories. These are authors who are still active on lj, so that is not the problem. Anyone have any tips about reaching folks to ask for permissions?

2) Art - Thanks to cybel I can now attach "album covers" to podbooks fairly easily. However, I've just used a jpeg I had in my Photobucket and, while it looks okay, it has dark borders. Can anyone tell me what size (in inches or pixels) the jpegs need to be to match an electronic album cover?

Any and all input appreciated!

Hi, all. Newbie here with a couple things:

• I've been wanting to try to podfic for a while, but I'm very aware that I don't have a very good ear for sound quality of recordings. I've been fiddling with some options, and was hoping to get a few second opinions on the two I'm playing with right now, if that's appropriate for this comm?

• Jumping ahead a bit, is there anyone who might be willing to beta-listen part of a Magnificent Seven fic (gen, h/c) I've been working with? Aside from technical issues, I'm in need of a little critiquing on delivery, pacing, etc. to get a feel for whether I'm "doing this right" at all before I commit too much more time to it. :)

Thanks!

Just joined the community and am relatively new to podficcing but enjoying it greatly. A flistie of mine and I are contemplating a variation we are calling a "podzine." We thought it would be cool to podfic several one-shot fics by different authors on a similar theme. We're still in the planning stages, but we're excited about the idea. (This would be in the Supernatural fandom, by the way, since that is our current obsession.)

I use a PC and have the freeware to convert mp3(s) to podbook(s). I have experimented with it and it seems to work fine, but it does not have the bells and whistles of Apple's Audiobook Builder. That being said, I am wondering if anyone here has a method of attaching cover art to a podbook (or an mp3 for that matter) that does not rely on Audiobook Builder or a Mac. I'd prefer freeware, but wouldn't mind paying for a good application that is not terribly expensive. Alternatively, once an mp4 has been created and is in iTunes, is it possible to add the art inside iTunes and then upload the file back to a fileshare program or archive? I'm no technical whiz kid, but I know a little about ID3 tags and the like.

Of course, if anyone else is excited by this idea and would like to help us out with reading, compiling, etc., we would be thrilled....

Thanks for any input. :D

Hey everyone,

I'm new to the recording of podfics. Actually I haven't started to record anything because I need a microphone. But before buying one I want to ask you all what kind of microphones do you use ?
Do you prefer a headset mic or not ?

Any advice is more than welcomed since I have no clue in what kind of mic to buy :D

allis

hi sorry to bug...
i just recorded my very first podfic and I have this really weird clicking noise.. especially at the beginning
i don't know how i got it or how i can get rid of it!
i used an external mic and recorded it on the latest version of audacity. I have windows xp.

is there any way i can fix it without re recording?

how can i stop this in the future?

Any help is greatly appreciated and grovelled for!!

here is my story

Title: Long Day (the aftermath)
> Author: kodiak_bear
> Reader: Parisindy
> Fandom: Star Trek 2009
> Pairing: General fiction
> Length: 16:55 (15.49 MB, mp3)
> Download: temporarily @ http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NGKWGRSH

thank you!!!!

Okay, here's a reason to kick your cats OUT of the recording room when you're editing:  one of them stepped on the keyboard and somehow selected to the end of the recording (about 30 minutes) and now that's faded out.  ARGH!!  Any idea how to UNfade it out?  I'm using Audacity on a PC.

I really hope I don't have to re-record all this ....

ps - I already tried to hit "undo" and it didn't work.

So, I'm pretty new to the world of podfic. I'm just wondering if there are any standard practices regarding adding metadata to the final, recorded mp3 files. Obviously the title of the story goes in the title field. But where do people generally put author and reader? Is there a particular field people like putting the fandom title? What other information do people like to have?

Just when I think I've got them figured out...

The problem is that I have 4 Mp3s for a podfic, labeled as 1_Hell of a Town, 2, 3 and 4. That part seems okay. For the album I have Hell of a Town_The Sentinel Slash Podfic. And numbers 1 and 2 are together under that album name. 3 and 4, though, I had initially just typed The Sentinel Slash Podfic, and when I realized my mistake I retyped it so I matched number 1 and 2.

However, each time I try and synch it with Windows Media player onto my Mp3 player, 3 and 4 are still coming up with The Sentinel Slash Podfic, not Hell of a Town_The Sentinel Slash Podfic, even though that's what it says on the IDC tags. I've erased that line and retyped it and it still is coming up wrong. So my story is split into two different albums, meaning it won't flow from 2 to 3. Very annoying.

Any theories? It's like Windows remembers the earlier versions and keeps insisting on using them, even though they've been corrected.

ETA: FIXED. But I'm leaving the post up in case anybody else has come across this or will in the future. Remember when I wrote earlier that it was like Windows remembered the earlier versions and insisted on using them instead of the corrected ones? Well, that was it. I checked with search on Windows Media Player, and yes there was the older, incorrect versions, so I deleted them from the Media Player library and dragged the correct ones onto the synch list and behold -- the damn thing worked.

Laurie

Hello all,

I have what may be a stupid question...

When I sync my iTunes library to my iPod, it rearanges everything by song title instead of album title. How do I change it so that my podfic is in order by album?

Thanks Bunches!
--Sly

After finally getting access to a real graphics program, I've gone though and redesigned the layout and look for podfic_tips. I hope this works for everyone, and please, play around with it and test it out! See if it works for you, or not, and let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions on it.

Think a color combination doesn't work? Formatting errors in your browser? Background doesn't code correctly? Let me know! I'm eager to hear what everyone thinks. We're striving to make this the best environment possible for the best podfics we can produce, and that means this comm is all about you guys. Let us know what you think.

I hope you guys like the new look!

Hello. I am working on a podfic of an incomplete WIP. So far there are 38 chapters written and I have a rough cut (unedited) recording of chapters 1-14 complete. This is my first podfic so I want to learn from other people's experience and make it as good as I can. :)

What I'm wondering is, should I make it 1 long file of all the completed chapters or break it up into multi-chapter sections (like chapters 1-15 in the first file, etc)? Does anyone have experience/advice on this kind of thing?

I also really need an experienced ear to listen to my attempt and give me some advice. If there's anybody here who would be willing to do that, please let me know. ♥

Thank you in advance and Happy New Year. :)

I really hope someone else has struck this problem and knows what to do. I'm turning grey before my time. :{

I'm using Audacity and a very good microphone. I'm recording in a quiet place, with the doors and windows shut. There's nothing left for me to switch off or muffle in this room. And I've used every noise reduction tip on this page:
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Reducing_noise

I've applied all the listed plug-ins and effects to both greater and lesser extent, repeatedly and not, and have saved my recordings over and over. And no matter what I do, the finished product retains a constant, very creepy background noise which sounds like metallic alien murmurings. Nothing I've done in the way of noise reduction helps in the slightest. Any ideas at all?

So I want to record some podfics, but before I do, I have a question- what is the etiquette for correcting obvious typos in the fic while recording? When reading silently, small errors such as omitted words or incomplete edits are easy to overlook; read aloud, they are obvious and jarring. I'm not talking about substantially altering the text, but just inserting a missing article here, dropping a repeated "the" there.

Should I just read it as-is, and faithfully render exactly what's on the page into audio form? Should I attempt to "fix" minor but obvious flaws? And if I do make changes, should I show the author my edits and get explicit permission before recording my edited version?

Thanks.

Edit: No-longer-preemptive thanks all 'round!

labluekatt1721

Hi  Guy's
 

Is there any free download's of a Speech-To-Text.  Program out there anywhere : F.Y.I
( Speech-To-Text  is a Program that  Write's  down what  You are saying as Your speacking.)

p.s. to the Mod : If this kind of request is not allowedthen Could
someone Please tell Me were to Post this Please.



Thank You.

labluekatt1721

This does not make the file an m4b. It just means that iTunes sees the file as an Audiobook and automatically puts it on the Audiobook playlist.

Check out the very brief tutorial here on Lifehacker.

Just remember that this does not shrink the file size or give you any of the added bonuses of actually converting the file to m4b. It's just a convenience for your iPod or other device.

Okay... so I decided to get into podfic creation because I am a little bit obsessed with a couple of bigbangs. I know. I'm out of my mind. Because I am really not prepared to do this. BUT. I started with a shorter fic, and I thought I read it decently. I seem to really suck at editing, though.

My first few failures were due to not realizing the thing about the stop button in audacity creating a new track... (*headdesk*) Then, I used the Generate Silence thing without realizing it would screw with the timing of everything that came after. I did my most recent edits on a rerecording and tried my hardest to jot down everything and go from the end backwards, but in the end I didn't catch everything and I ended up just editing as things DID occur to me. So.

Obviously I sort of fail at this so far. But I really, really want to see this pair of fics done, and I have permission already. So if I don't do them, I kind of suck... :/

Anyway, I want to be able to do this... However, if it is really frustrating me (just the editing part) is this a sign that I should leave the podficcing to other people?

And okay, earlier, I snipped somethiing, and I didn't leave enough space for me to edit around things... because I am SMART. So... is there a way to insert silence in audacity that doesn't sort of smash everything else together? I'm not really explaining this right, because it was a few days ago that I made the mistake with generate silence, but I am pretty surer that it didn't INSERT the silence, and in fact I do not know how to INSERT anything in Audacity.... and I would prefer being able to do this so that I could compare and contrast better.

Since I did snip something badly earlier, do you guys have a rule of thumb about how much time you leave on either side of something if you snip it?

Am I making any sense? Am I just stupid for not understanding why I can't add without breaking things? Obviously I'm new, so I hope you guys will bear with my stupid questions. :/

Thanks. :)

I just stumbled upon this program:

http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator

Looks like it might be helpful for podfics where they've been recorded in several sessions (or by different people?) and different parts are at different volumes. Can anybody who tries it report results??

I thought I'd share my editing method, because the way I do it now is a lot faster than what I did when I first started podficcing, and it might always be of help to someone who's just starting out. I use Audacity, but the following probably works for other programs as well.

Whenever I make a stumble, I jot down the time, and I have symbols to indicate whether it's just a long pause that needs to be removed, or if I stumbled once and had to do a retake, or if I stumbled twice, etc. Occasionally something complicated happens and then I just circle that time for a special look.

When you edit, you have to start from the end of the list, because otherwise you mess up the other time markers. At each time, just cut away the long pause or the stumble--usually you don't even have to listen, because you can see from the look of the sound waves what to cut (sequences that start the same way). Then at the end, just listen to the whole finished product to see if you missed anything or if something needs adjusting!

If you have some other way of editing that works well for you, I'd love to hear it.

hi  i am new to this podpost
and i just downlaoded Audacity and the lame codoe  thing 
and i have my head phones and my  old mic and its all installed
 and set up but it wont let me choose an input sourse 
i have a windows vista and i havent a cule what i did wrong 
i downlaoded Audacity before back in 2003 and i just set it up and it work fine 
but now for some reason the new one that i just downlaeoded today wont 
let me choose a input sourse can some one please save me from the stipedness
of my own brian... please!