What goes into an Audiobook?
Today, we're one-on-one with narrator, John Solo, who is also Falcon Sound Company's Audio Engineer, Producer, and self-described Itinerant Adventurer. We get a lot of questions about our process for creating the audio version of a book. Hopefully, John's able to answer some of those in today's post. Enjoy! ⇼
What goes into an audiobook? Sugar and spice and everything nice? Well, maybe. You have no idea about some of the audiobooks I’ve worked on… And before you judge me, you should know that I get paid to do something I love to do! Even if it does sometimes involve me saying questionable things to myself in a dark soundproof room. At night. Alone. For money.
There seems to be a common misconception that recording an audiobook is as simple as reading the book into a microphone and sending off the audio file to the author. Easy, cheesy, done. That should take, like, 6 hours for a 6 hour book, right?
If it was that easy everyone would be doing it. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t rocket science. It’s certainly not a difficult job. I don’t have to dig ditches or shovel horse poo. In fact, there are many days that I don’t change out of my pj’s. But it is a skilled job, and without the proper knowledge, time, perseverance and the occasional bit of talent sprinkled on top, you may as well be listening to your high school science teacher drone on about pendulums. And my science teacher had a tendency to spit every time he said the letter “P”...
Every hour of audio that a listener enjoys (I suppose this counts for even the hours the listener doesn’t enjoy) takes, on average, 7 hours to produce. My job here at Falcon Sound Company, as a narrator and producer is to take a project from receiving the manuscript to delivering the finished audio.
Let’s take a look at the breakdown of a typical six hour audiobook:
Pre-production: 7 hours This is typically done by the narrator. The process varies from person to person (these actor types tend to be a fiercely independent, stubborn lot), but when I work on a book as the narrator I will start by reading through the manuscript once to get a feel for it as a reader. Then I will skim the manuscript a second time while taking notes pertaining to the character voices I plan to use, the emotional ebb and flow of specific scenes, what kind of coffee I plan to drink during production… You know, important actor stuff. I will also record a sample of each character voice, to be used for reference throughout the recording and QC process to help with consistency (maybe I should share some pre-production character voice recordings in another blog post…)
Recording: 10.5 hours This is where the fun begins! Sitting in a dark, padded room telling a story to no one… Actually, some of our sessions do involve an audio engineer/producer sitting outside the booth, where they follow along with the manuscript and provide useful input, such as, “That didn’t sound anything like a 72 year old British woman with a hair lip!”, or, “Why can’t I feel my face?!?” (Seriously, it’s really good coffee…). But the majority of our sessions are done alone. There is a lot of extra time spent during this step trying to deliver each line perfectly, practice Audie awards acceptance speeches, and generally trying not to get distracted by videos of cute pets on Facebook.
Editing: 7 hoursAfter the recording of each chapter is done we have to go through and cut out a lot of dead air, coughs, spit takes, laughing, hysterical crying, the occasional sound of cats (real and over mobile devices), and mistakes. This is considered a first pass of touching up the narrator's timing and delivery.
Quality Control: 14 hoursAbbreviated to QC, this step is by far the most labor intensive. We listen through the recording once again, this time perfecting the delivery of the spoken word, marking any extraneous noises that may have slipped through (you’d be amazed at the number of involuntary, and lets be honest, sometimes voluntary, noises the human body is capable of making) as well as marking any deviations from the manuscript.
Punch Out and Pick Up Lines: 7 hoursThe narrator records any Pick Up Lines that are required. Those are then spliced into the original recording, replacing any mistakes that may have been made during the initial recording sessions. We also go in and fix any of those extraneous noises that were marked from QC, using fancy software and voodoo and stuff.
Mastering: 3.5 hoursBy this point in the game we are almost out of coffee, and you know that’s going to be a problem… Here we prepare the files for consumer formatting, making sure there are consistent pauses used for the beginning and ending of chapters, scene breaks, etc… We also insert a clean room tone sound in between pauses in the narrator’s speech, prep the opening and closing credits, and bring all of the chapters up to a uniform industry standard volume so listeners don’t have to turn down or turn up their players from chapter to chapter. Finally, we deliver the completed project to our client via US carrier pigeon and make a traditional sacrifice to the gods of the romance universe in the hopes that the people will be entertained...
Whew! If you’ve been keeping up with the math, and I know you have, that comes out to 42 hours of fun; all to produce a 6 hour audiobook. There’s also the day-to-day operations of running the business side of things, and don’t forget the playing with animals! But, from where I sit, this is the most enjoyable and rewarding career an introverted extrovert that likes to make funny noises and pretend he’s other people could ever have…
So, if it takes 42 hours just to make the audiobook, I wonder how long it takes to write the damn thing...
Find John Solo and Falcon Sound Company on Facebook
Also, check out his newest narration "One Man's Trash", by Marie Sexton. Available now!
What goes into an audiobook? Sugar and spice and everything nice? Well, maybe. You have no idea about some of the audiobooks I’ve worked on… And before you judge me, you should know that I get paid to do something I love to do! Even if it does sometimes involve me saying questionable things to myself in a dark soundproof room. At night. Alone. For money.
There seems to be a common misconception that recording an audiobook is as simple as reading the book into a microphone and sending off the audio file to the author. Easy, cheesy, done. That should take, like, 6 hours for a 6 hour book, right?
If it was that easy everyone would be doing it. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t rocket science. It’s certainly not a difficult job. I don’t have to dig ditches or shovel horse poo. In fact, there are many days that I don’t change out of my pj’s. But it is a skilled job, and without the proper knowledge, time, perseverance and the occasional bit of talent sprinkled on top, you may as well be listening to your high school science teacher drone on about pendulums. And my science teacher had a tendency to spit every time he said the letter “P”...
Every hour of audio that a listener enjoys (I suppose this counts for even the hours the listener doesn’t enjoy) takes, on average, 7 hours to produce. My job here at Falcon Sound Company, as a narrator and producer is to take a project from receiving the manuscript to delivering the finished audio.
Let’s take a look at the breakdown of a typical six hour audiobook:
Pre-production: 7 hours This is typically done by the narrator. The process varies from person to person (these actor types tend to be a fiercely independent, stubborn lot), but when I work on a book as the narrator I will start by reading through the manuscript once to get a feel for it as a reader. Then I will skim the manuscript a second time while taking notes pertaining to the character voices I plan to use, the emotional ebb and flow of specific scenes, what kind of coffee I plan to drink during production… You know, important actor stuff. I will also record a sample of each character voice, to be used for reference throughout the recording and QC process to help with consistency (maybe I should share some pre-production character voice recordings in another blog post…)
Recording: 10.5 hours This is where the fun begins! Sitting in a dark, padded room telling a story to no one… Actually, some of our sessions do involve an audio engineer/producer sitting outside the booth, where they follow along with the manuscript and provide useful input, such as, “That didn’t sound anything like a 72 year old British woman with a hair lip!”, or, “Why can’t I feel my face?!?” (Seriously, it’s really good coffee…). But the majority of our sessions are done alone. There is a lot of extra time spent during this step trying to deliver each line perfectly, practice Audie awards acceptance speeches, and generally trying not to get distracted by videos of cute pets on Facebook.
Editing: 7 hoursAfter the recording of each chapter is done we have to go through and cut out a lot of dead air, coughs, spit takes, laughing, hysterical crying, the occasional sound of cats (real and over mobile devices), and mistakes. This is considered a first pass of touching up the narrator's timing and delivery.
Quality Control: 14 hoursAbbreviated to QC, this step is by far the most labor intensive. We listen through the recording once again, this time perfecting the delivery of the spoken word, marking any extraneous noises that may have slipped through (you’d be amazed at the number of involuntary, and lets be honest, sometimes voluntary, noises the human body is capable of making) as well as marking any deviations from the manuscript.
Punch Out and Pick Up Lines: 7 hoursThe narrator records any Pick Up Lines that are required. Those are then spliced into the original recording, replacing any mistakes that may have been made during the initial recording sessions. We also go in and fix any of those extraneous noises that were marked from QC, using fancy software and voodoo and stuff.
Mastering: 3.5 hoursBy this point in the game we are almost out of coffee, and you know that’s going to be a problem… Here we prepare the files for consumer formatting, making sure there are consistent pauses used for the beginning and ending of chapters, scene breaks, etc… We also insert a clean room tone sound in between pauses in the narrator’s speech, prep the opening and closing credits, and bring all of the chapters up to a uniform industry standard volume so listeners don’t have to turn down or turn up their players from chapter to chapter. Finally, we deliver the completed project to our client via US carrier pigeon and make a traditional sacrifice to the gods of the romance universe in the hopes that the people will be entertained...
Whew! If you’ve been keeping up with the math, and I know you have, that comes out to 42 hours of fun; all to produce a 6 hour audiobook. There’s also the day-to-day operations of running the business side of things, and don’t forget the playing with animals! But, from where I sit, this is the most enjoyable and rewarding career an introverted extrovert that likes to make funny noises and pretend he’s other people could ever have…
So, if it takes 42 hours just to make the audiobook, I wonder how long it takes to write the damn thing...
Find John Solo and Falcon Sound Company on FacebookAlso, check out his newest narration "One Man's Trash", by Marie Sexton. Available now!
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