Recording in Progress! by Sarah Nicholson

Have you ever wondered how an audiobook is recorded? The processes involved?

While I can’t give you a complete step by step guide I can share my own author experiences. Last month, I had the opportunity to record my memoir at a top-notch recording studio – Monkeynut Audiobook and Sound, in Hampshire.

It’s not something you get to do every day, unless you work in the industry doing voiceover work. If publishing your words in book form is the icing on the cake, then recording them is the cherry on the top.

After a soundcheck to gauge levels, speed and tone you quite simply you read your beautiful words with expression.

But it’s not the same as reading aloud to an audience in front of you, occasionally gazing up into appreciative faces hanging on your every word. Or reading a bedtime story snuggled up close to a child. Although these experiences will undoubtedly have helped me develop my voice.

You read from an iPad, to stop the sound of rustling pages and scroll at your own speed. The screen is positioned to eye level and microphone to the required distance from your mouth. The microphone and screen are all you see for the next few hours, as you are shut away in a tiny booth.

Meanwhile, Elliott, the founder of Monkeynut, sat behind a control desk pushing buttons, doing all the technical wizardry. He could see me on a video screen but I had no idea of the expressions he was making.

Was he cringing, yawning, crying? Did my words move him?

At whatever stage you share your writing you lay yourself bare This is especially true when the words I’d written were so personal; my own story of how I came to terms with the unexpected loss of my husband. This is book that very much deserves to be narrated by the author for extra authenticity.

To that end Elliott told me to put myself back in time to remember how I was feeling at each stage so I wasn’t just reading but taking the listener on an emotional journey.

For me this was a really interesting part of the process. Each story stirred up so much and I tried to relive as much as I could. The breathlessness of “Sleepless” – the first night without Andrew. The joy of having our first son in December and placing him beside the twinkling Christmas tree, everything so  magical. The horror of youngest son when I took a pair of scissors to his dad’s sweatshirt which I was recycling into a bag.

My memoir is written in tiny stories, many fitted completely onto the screen, I took a big breath after each one before launching into the next. Transported to another place and time. Another complete memory.

I could see every scene playing out in my mind, taste each mouthful of food I mentioned, touch the coldness of Andrew’s dead body, hear the laughter as we watched the fireworks with friends and smell the soup in our mugs. Maybe I’m just blessed with a vivid imagination, but I really hope I have managed to convey all these senses in the recording.

“How many mistakes did you make?” some friends have asked, as if a mistake is a huge tragedy.

It really isn’t. Elliott would just interrupt the proceedings, “can we go back to…”. I never felt as I was letting him down.

I would just repeat that one sentence, without fuss or any fear I’d jeopardised the whole project.

Often, I knew the issue - a rumbly tummy, a slight hesitation or mispronunciation. These things are easy to edit out. In my student days I did a media option as part of my degree and we used reel to reel tape which we cut with razor blades and spliced with tape, a time-consuming process. Digital recording is much simpler, or at least I assume it is, I’m leaving all of that in the hands of the professionals.

Once I got to the last page there was just the freestyle intro to record. We planned it and I had a bit of scrolling to do between some of the front pages of the book and a few extra words to add. By then I was a natural, completely relaxed a “one take wonder!” Elliott's words. My confidence was sky high.

It has given me a greater appreciation of the audiobooks I listen to. I know they have not been recorded in one take; however seamless they sound. Even the greatest of actors will have stumbled over words and maybe they have rumbly tummies too. Maybe there were expletives when they get things wrong – I believe I was a good girl and no swear words passed my lips – but there might be evidence to the contrary on a hard drive somewhere. What happens in the booth, stays in the booth.

There is just one thing to add, a tip I learned and that is - apple juice. Apparently there is something in apple juice which helps eliminate mouth sounds that can be difficult to edit out. It is also refreshing and stops your mouth going dry.