AUTHORS ELECTRIC HOW-TO DAY Making and embedding audio recordings - Bill Kirton

     (The illustration features the author depicted in the act of recording at what has become a mixing deck, and listeners who are either inspired to dance or deafened by his music. It is by Isla Kirton whose rates are very reasonable.)

     A recent suggestion was that we use some of these blogs to offer tips on perhaps more 'technical' aspects of writing. For me that narrows the topic range significantly but I have done plenty of voice-over work, so my own suggestions are about audio recording.

      Using audio opens up different possibilities through trailers, extracts or even whole chapters. The more courageous might try entire books but that's fraught with lots of difficulties too numerous to explore here. This advice is for anyone who wants to record a sound track for a trailer or try making a short reading to post on SoundCloud and/or their website.

     First, if you haven’t yet got them, download these free bits of software:

• Audacity (an excellent audio editing programme) – get it here.  I won’t go into details of editing techniques and effects because there are so many and it depends what you want. The best way to find out about these is to play around with them. It really isn’t difficult. You can apply effects (speeding up, slowing down, adding echo, changing pitch, fading in and out, etc., etc.), to either the whole piece or highlighted sections.
• A file converter, for changing your files to mp3 or other formats –  get one here.  (No need to say how to use it – again, it’s so simple.)

Making the recording.

     I’ve made recordings in 2 different ways. The obvious way is to use a mic and record directly into the computer, but to get good results you need a really good mic. Ribbon mics are best but they’re very expensive so instead I used a digital recorder – they used to be called Dictaphones. It’s an Olympus WS-750M (about £70 but there are cheaper versions) and I recorded into it, then transferred the file to my computer. That’s important. Whatever type of recorder you get, it must have a way of transferring your file from recorder to computer (usually via a USB cable connection).

     Of course, you can use your normal headset mic but, apart from the fact that sound quality is likely to be low, the danger there is that you’ll get pops and all sorts of other intrusive noises. Indies get enough flak already in the ‘amateur’ v ‘professional’ writing stakes without giving out ammunition in the form of substandard recordings with rumbling tummies, noises off, popping plosives, rustles as pages are turned, and readings that sound as if they’ve been made in a bucket.

     A tip which will help you to overcome some of those problems is to create a ‘mobile sound studio’. You need a cardboard box with no lid. The one I use is about 18 x 12 ins and about 5 ins deep. Line it with an old piece of towel or other material, stand it on end and set up the mic or recorder inside it so that you can speak directly into it (but don’t get too close). It cuts out all those intrusive ambient sounds and the hollowness you get in most normal rooms. (This obviously can’t be done with a headset mic.)

     My second method came about when my son bought me an iPad (the best Xmas present ever). This may work with iPhones, too – I don’t know because I don’t have one. Anyway, you buy an app called GarageBand, which I think was about £6. (Aside – it’s a terrific app with which you can create music, sound effects and seemingly limitless other audio things.) Choose the ‘Audio Recorder’ option. Touch the spanner (top right) and, on the drop-down menu that appears,  turn off Metronome and Count-in. Then touch the + sign beneath the question mark (still top right), change ‘8 bars’ to automatic and switch it on. And you’re ready to record. A good mic is still the preferred option but this provides a recording of surprisingly good quality - certainly good enough for most purposes.

     Still on the iPad, when you’ve finished recording, tap ‘My Songs’ (top left) press on the icon for the recording you’ve just made until it wiggles and has a yellow border around it, touch the page+arrow symbol top left and mail it to yourself.

A recording tip.

     It’s unusual to be able to read through a whole piece without making a mistake, getting the emphasis or intonation wrong here and there, or inadvertently making a sound that shouldn’t be there. If/when that happens, pause, make a mark on the script, remain silent for 2 or 3 seconds, then start again at the beginning of the sentence which went wrong. It’ll be very easy to cut out the offending sentence when you’re editing.

Transferring and converting the file

     Whichever way you’ve done it, you now have a sound file in your computer. What now? Well, just follow these steps:

1. Use your file converter to change your file to an mp3. (No need to explain this – as I said, it’s very easy.)
2. Open the resulting mp3 file in Audacity and tidy it up (cut out clicks, put in or take out gaps, generally mess around and find the features you need to make your recording as clean and effective as you can and to add any special effects).
3. When you’re satisfied, click Edit > Export as WAV.
4. Use the file converter again to change the .wav file to an mp3.

And that’s it.

Uploading to SoundCloud

     You need to upload the file to SoundCloud so that it’s permanently available to anyone who clicks on your blog link to it, so:

1. Go to the SoundCloud home page and sign up.
2. When that’s done, click the ‘Upload and share’ button, top right.
3. On the screen that appears, click ‘Choose files’.
4. A window will appear listing files and folders on your computer. Click the audio file you’ve made.
5. The file will upload to SoundCloud. You can add an illustration, title and notes as it does so. Also, down at the bottom, click the box on the left to enable downloads.
6. When the upload’s complete, click ‘Save’.
7. You’ll now see a bar showing your file as a sort of block of sound with the usual play arrow to click. Just above the arrow is a small button labelled ‘share’. Click that. It’ll open a wee window with all sorts of stuff in it – facebook, twitter, etc.
8. Click on ‘embed code’. This will highlight the text in the small slit there.
9. Copy the text.

Embedding it in your blog/website/article/whatever

     Now you’re ready to embed it. I should say here that the following instructions refer specifically to blogspot because that’s the Authors Electric host. I’m sure other blog providers have the same options as those I’ll be mentioning, but I’m not familiar with them so you’ll need to go into the Help menu of yours and ask ‘How do I embed audio?’

1. Go to your blog. Sign in and click on ‘design’, then ‘layout’.
2. Click on ‘add a gadget’ in the right hand column.
3. In the window which appears, choose ‘HTML/Javascript’.
4. Paste the embed code into the big window and give it a title.
5. Click Save.

     If you’d like to see what it looks like and how it works when you’ve done that, I’ve embedded several of my own recordings on my own website here.  Scroll down past the two trailers to see the audio only pieces.

     And that’s it. For someone like me, with no technical savvy, it feels satisfyingly like an achievement. Good luck.