Podbang, or, how I learnt to stop worrying and love Audacity.

[pennyplainknits.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe 'love' is too strong a word...

I did two podbang recordings, one solo, one as one half of 7pennies. As I think countess7 is going to talk about that one, I'll mostly skip over that, and talk about recording Reparo instead. Some of this is taken from a post at my journal, so sorry if you're seeing it twice!

I was instantly thrilled with the idea of podbang, as I in many ways think of myself as a podficcer before I think of myself as a writer. I was all signed up, got my assigments for both podfics, and then found out that I would have to move house, right on the deadline for submission.

This, as you can imagine, was not ideal. It was an incredibly stressful time, and the only thing I could do was try and get my recordings done way before the deadline, so they could be submitted while I still had reliable internet. Oh, and did I mention I also started a new job? Yeah, my timing could have been better! I was coming home every night, throwing some food down ny neck, and recording or editing, in between bouts of packing and house hunting. Throughout, the mods were supportive and awesome, and made a stressful experience much less so.

The fic I chose to record was Reparo. It's an odd choice if you look at my fandoms, it's in a fandom I've never recorded in before, and one I'm not really active in: Harry Potter. It's a Harry/Draco fic. And it is looooong! 80 000 words, over 8 hours or recording.

But! I stumbled across amalin's fic, and was instantly captivated. I just love this fic, it fixes pretty my everything I hated about the end of Half Blood Prince, without subjecting Ginny to character assassination, with wonderful characterisation throughout, with a great plot, and great secondary characters. As soon as I read it, I knew I wanted to record it. And when Lian and Fleur came up as my recipients, I knew what I was going to do.

For some reason it came into my head to do voices for each character. I recorded samples of each character, and sent them to countess7, who assured me they didn't suck. Harry, as the POV character, has my voice. Ron's is a bit sloppier, he loses the ends of words. Hermione's has less of an edge, is softer, and she speaks faster. McGonagall has my attempt at a scottish burr. Neville, for some reason, is West Country. It just seemed to fit him. Draco was the hardest. I recorded the whole of the first chapter (in which he doesn't appear) without knowing what he sounded like. Then I remembered he is mentioned as drawling. So, in came the drawl, the swallowed 't' in the middle of 'Potter' and the elongated vowels. I had to rerecord some of Draco's lines because I'd used my natural short 'a' in path, bath, castle rather then Draco's 'Barth, parth, carstle'.

One thing I had not taken into account: the story makes me cry. A particular speech has me in tears every time. And, sure enough, when I recorded it, I cried. I left it in, as it seemed to add to the story, but it was very odd to be sitting there with my head mic on, tears running down my cheeks, and try to maintain the accent at the same time.

When recording, every time I made a mistake I would click my tongue, and carry on. In audacity these clicks became long lines, making it easier to do a quick first-edit run through and take out the major stuff, before doing a second edit.

I say quick. Editing is not quick. I hate it, at times it felt like it would never end. The ratio for me is about 4:1, that is, 4 hours editing. And there were a ton of tiny clicks, made by my head mic, that all had to be got rid off. By the time the rough cut was done I was seriously panicking that I wouldn't get it done in time, never mind get my second podbang done.

In stepped dodificus. "Send me the files and I'll beta" said she. "Awesome!" said I. "Oh, and it's Harry Potter." Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth as dodificus is dragged into a fandom she wanted no part of :)

Without dodificus, I'm not sure I would have finished. Having a beta made such a difference. I stopped fretting I'd missed stuff. I was getting feed back on stuff I just wasn't detached enough to notice. And dodie was endlessly encouraging, and that kept me going. I really don't think the benefits of having a beta for long podfics can be overstated. They are essential, as were my cheerleaders, countess7 and nicolasechs, who both put up with a lot of whining from me early on.

So, lessons learned?
1) if possible, arrange not to move house in the middle of things
2) pick a story you love. I really, really wanted to do a good job for my giftees anyway, but the intense love I had for the story made the recording (if not the editing) a pleasure
3) Buy a new mic. I love my head mic, and I find it very comfortable, but the mic clicks are so much effort to edit out.
4) Find a beta, love you beta, your beta is your friend.