Input for tutorials!

[lunchee]

Hi all!

I'm thinking of making a series of podfic tutorials for garageband users, and I was wondering if there was anything anyone might like to know/learn about specifically? I've gotten some requests for music/sound effects help, but any specific questions will really help me out ♥

EDIT: if there was anything in one of my pods you wanted to learn specifically, please cite it! Here is a list of planned tutes so far.

Comments

[aphelant.livejournal.com]

asdl;fkjaaljdf;lkja you already know this, but I'd love to learn all about EVERY SINGLE EFFECT YOU USED IN THE FIFTH ACT.

::chin hands::

[lunchee]

This is going to sound REALLY DAFT, but which ones especially jump out?
The telephone conversations? Music under the scene? Music breaks? I SHOULD HAVE ASKED EARLIER /o\

[aphelant.livejournal.com]

Okay, the ones that jumped out for me the most were:

- the voice-overs/dialogue that used special effects like the telephone and comm and...like, memories/thoughts? I assume they're all done the same way and just use different effects/settings, but maybe not! I WANT IT ALLLLL. :P

- any sound effects! I'm pretty sure I remember, like, the phone ringing/beeping? where did you get them, or did they come native to GarageBand and omg how do you put them in?

- the fading effects that you used for passing conversations &c

- music under the scene, this I would like to know about very much, because you did it in such a way that was JUST LIKE A VIDEO GAME and was enhancing and not, imo, distracting or overwhelming (sometimes music is distracting/overwhelming to me because it is too loud compared to the reader's voice for me to be able to separate the sounds properly (fyi, this is often a problem for me with television/movies/etc, so it's not that it's a problem specific to podfic or anything, it's mostly a problem with my auditory filters and processing), but yours was just right for me, and done SO WELL to boot!), and I want to know your process! also, the one time I used music in a podfic the quality after importing and exporting seemed kind of poor and fuzzy (I think this might be an Audacity issue, but I'm not sure) but your music was not like that at all.

Seriously, every little bit of information you could provide about any of these I would find immensely useful! <3 <3

[lunchee]

Cool, I'm on it!

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

What a great idea!

I'm a completely novice user, so I don't know if this even possible, but I'd love to learn more about editing in order to minimize/eliminate unwanted background noises.

Also, if there's a way to fade specific tracks instead of the whole track when recording (because that's a serious pain when I'm recording fic).

[lunchee]

Thanks bb, there're really good questions! I'm going to answer them as best I can :)

[elsewhere-kels.livejournal.com]

I can't really think of any questions right now, but this is a wonderful idea! =D

[lunchee]

Thanks! If you do think of any though... :)

[reena_jenkins]

Okay, here's a question: So, I'm using GarageBand, and the vent fan on my computer starts whirring. Do I have to stop recording and wait for the fan to stop running, or is there a way to edit out the fan-noise from behind my speaking-voice-noise? (I've been recording right on through the fan, but is there anything else I can do?)

I'm sure I'll come up with more questions, no worries. Thanks in advance - I'm sure the tutes will be very helpful!

[lunchee]

To be honest, I am completely baffled by noisy fan questions! It's not something I've ever had to deal with, but I'll try to address it as best I can -- are you working from a macbook or a desktop mac, I wonder?

And yes, please share any questions you have! They will be very helpful :)

[reena_jenkins]

Yeah, I use a MacBook - half the time, I'm at a desk with it, and the rest it's balanced on my knees.

[zenodameaccount.livejournal.com]

Uhhh... how about how to not get lost during edits? It all gets very confusing after awhile, those purple boxes. And maybe how to keep a consistent sound while recording? There's all sorts of Vocal>Female Voice, Podcast>FemaleRadio/Narrator/Noisy ARGH that gets confusing to tell which gives the best sound for a voice. Or which ones tend to be best for recording (bg noise, blahblah) and which best after it's all finished(fuller sound, &etc)??

I get all very lost after a while. xD

Also, what is your process on multiple versions/saving? Garageband ocassionally deletes the sound, or (when coming back for editing) makes the waves look like flat-lines even if the sound is still there. How do you cope/prevent? Give us direction, O Veteran! :P

[lunchee]

These are some really great questions! Thank you, I'll try to work them all in :)

To better try and construct my tute, can I ask you how you go about editing? Are you a person who edits as they go, or someone who comes back to edit things? Do you do take after take and then come back to determine which you'd like to use? I'd really love to know your process to best determine how best to go about answering that question.

Also, I don't think I am a veteran! But at this point I've at least acquired enough experience to at least attempt a tute :D

[zenodameaccount.livejournal.com]

Argh, sorry for the late reply!

My editing style is all over the place — or better to say — it has gone all over the place. I started out editing as I went until the inconsistencies when returning to recording bugged me. Then I recorded everything and returned later for edits...which was a bit overwhelming for a 45 min podfic, ~1.5h of noise total? So then I recorded in chunks, each important act or mood or whatever covered or consistent (~about 6-22 minutes each if edited). That's where I'm at at the moment.

It... theoretically should be easier to handle, but I keep rerecording! And then wavering on which version I like best. And then recording another, because obviously that version should be better, shouldn't it? Shouldn't it?? Goddammit.*

I think the biggest problem is my own inexperience , so uh... I don't know! I'm pretty open for instruction and change. It's pretty telling that I have almost 5 or so WIPs, (two of which are 99% finished other than edits) and only one completed and posted podfic. A 12 minute podfic at that. Hahahaha.

I'm kinda desperate for a good, clear guide to editing. I so dearly love podfics and podficcing, but it's the edits that kill me! Do you print out the story and make notes? Or in the case of longfics, open up a text document and things?

Wow, stopping now! Clearly I'm all over the place tonight. I mean to be succinct and instead have spilt my podficcing woes all over your new clothes! Um, here's a wet towel. And another fruit drink! .__.

tl;dr I avoid the editing process! And I dearly love that you're taking the time to do this tute. Whatever appears in the final version, I'm very much looking forward to it! ♥


*Oh, the obsessive need to make everything perfect! Sometimes recording different 'versions' is done for character's sake (i.e. [happily] "Yay!" Stop, record: [sarcastically] "Yay!"), sometimes for general pronunciation, eliminating a chair squeak, etc. It gets a bit crowded after a while.

[fishpatrol]

Will you be explaining the basics of Garageband? :D I have the program, but I've never used it since it looks so much more complex than Audacity. /o\ Also, I'd love to know how you did that hollow (echo-y?) sound effect, when you read a section that's not in the main narrative (I think you did it for this Merlin RPS fic, iirc? when you describe the e-cards?) Many thanks in advance! :>

[lunchee]

(i find audacity to be much more complex than garageband to be honest...)

by basics, what would like me to detail specifically? I am planning to do a basics tutorial, but what you'd like to know exactly would really help me out :)

i can definitely go through the echo effect! thanks for that ♥

[fishpatrol]

Haha, oh man, I start feeling lost as soon as I open up Garageband. All those buttons and functions! \o\ If you could go through what all the functions do and where they're located, etc, it would be super helpful? :DDD

[lunchee]

can do!

[blueyeti.livejournal.com]

I approve of this post. *grin*

Also, I find Audacity much more complex than GarageBand, but GarageBand is hardly *intuitive*. It's just better for my mode of reading.

I second the fiddling with background/fan noise wish. And knowing how to get effects would be neat. (I only just figured out how to muck with volume. Fail Yeti.)

[lunchee]

i actually found garageband to be so much more intuitive than audacity! But you're right, it depends on what you're trying to achieve with your pod that might make you choose one over the other.

This actually came about through the prompting of aphelant, but also from a comment made by mific who, even though she has access to garageband, prefers to use audacity instead -- so trippy! So from that I wondered how many others I could try to wow over to the mac app side...

I've been pretty blessed with not having fan noise problems, but I'll try to address it anyway. Thanks for your input!

[blueyeti.livejournal.com]

Mostly GarageBand is better for me because I am Queen Stumbler, so seeing my segments is *extremely* useful. The seamless look of Audacity makes it harder to keep track of what I've edited, the timing between lines etc.

And there's a serious dearth of GarageBand tutes. So, thank you. I really look forward to your wisdom.

*sits crosslegged before the master cat*

[lunchee]

Mostly GarageBand is better for me because I am Queen Stumbler

THIS. SO MUCH.

I edit as I go, and I think that happened because garageband kind of works in a way that supports that? After the colourfulness of garageband, the simplistic, monochrome look of audacity wasn't that appealing to me...

Eep, I am not a master! But there is definitely a dearth. I would have loved some more in depth tutes when I first started...

[blueyeti.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I don't suppose this happens on a regular basis, but it *did* once: I had GarageBand compress multiple tracks down into a single track between the few weeks of working on that file, laying them on top of each other. If that happens when you hit a limit of number of segments, or file size, or number of tracks or something, I'd love to know when I'm hitting the danger zone, because that was *incredibly* annoying. If anyone's had anything happen like that before, I'd like to know.

Ah, the humble voice of the Master Cat, so very wise. *grin*

[paraka]

I don't use Garageband at all (I'm a PC girl) but you should difinitely post a link to your tutorials when you're done. There's an Audacity for beginners tutorial I've been sitting on for a while that I made for ai_podfic and it'd be awesome to be able to point people to a Garageband one when I finally do post.

[lunchee]

I don't know when they'll be up, but I definitely will :)

GarageBand editing tip

[crinklysolution.livejournal.com]

I just found a nifty thing about GarageBand that makes editing a heck of a lot easier. Maybe this is only new to me, not sure. In the lower left hand corner of the screen (under "follow tempo and pitch") there's a slider that stretches time out or compresses it, which makes the small spaces between words more visible, allowing me to insert in my edited piece a lot easier without an awkward sound jump or accidentally cutting out part of a word.

I'd love to listen to your podfic tutorials on GarageBand. I've read several comments saying that GarageBand seems a lot more complex and less intuitive than Audacity, which is funny to me as a GarageBand user because it's the way I feel about Audacity, though I'd love to change that!

Re: GarageBand editing tip

[lunchee]

Thanks crinkly, it amazes me how many people don't know of that function! I found pretty quickly into my first podfic, so I was always confused when others said it was too difficult to edit very precisely on Garageband. I was a bit like o_o how much more precise do you want to be?? And, holy crap, how sloppy must I be editing?!

I would love to be fluent in both programs, but audacity is super unstable, and the presets, the compression and the GUI are all lacking compared to Garageband IMO. Plus, once you become really good at one program, you're probably already prejudiced against any other program? (see previous sentence for my clear bias :D )

[celtic-forest.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for doing something like this!!!
I'll learn from everyone else's questions, but I can think of two at the moment.
Please don't laugh, but: I can't get the thing to save files with the name of the author and/or reader listed correctly.
Second: I wonder if there's a way to make a slight alteration to specific portions after they're recorded. For example, selecting all of the sections that are dialog from one character and lowering the pitch slightly (to help the listener differentiate between characters) without the words sounding distorted or unnatural.

[lunchee]

i wouldn't laugh at you bb D: How are you trying to name them, and what actually happens?

I will definitely address both of your questions, thank you very much for your input!

[weimar27.livejournal.com]

I saw that you were planning one on editing. Does that include mimicking a ripple delete in garageband? I think it's changed between garageband '09 (which it looks like your using) and Garageband '11. If not i think i might want to make a tutorial on it for garageband '11. But i don't want to step on your toes if you're already going to cover it.

[lunchee]

not too sure what a ripple delete is actually, so its probably not going to be covered by me - and hey, absolutely no worries, not stepping on any toes at all. More learning is good!

[weimar27.livejournal.com]

Usually, you would simply highlight a section of audio over multiple tracks, an offending word, a cough, an awkward pause and then perform a Ripple Delete to remove the section from all tracks and then shift the rest of the audio over to become flush with where the initial selection point was. In other words cutting the audio out and stitching the two resulting tracks back together again: a Splice.

[lunchee]

I think I get what you're saying, and I'll probably cover something similar - but your technique will probably differ from mine, and more options is always a good thing! Plus, my tute is far from done, so take a crack at it, i don't mind at all :)

[weimar27.livejournal.com]

Okay, cool.

What tool do you use to capture videos of your screen?

[lunchee]

A program called Screenflow