podficbigbang | Podficcer Check-In #2

From:

I'm doing pretty great! I have 7.5/11 chapters recorded (152,304/183,364 words). I'm hoping to have the rest done by the end of the week. Then it is just editing!

From:

analise010

I WISH I HAD YOUR STAMINAAAAAAAAAAA. I think all the cardio has increased your podfic ability times 100. Super jealous.

Edited Date: 2017-08-15 02:29 am (UTC)

From:

opalsong

AHAHAHAHHAHA :D it helps that I've sung since I was a kid (and when I sing now I do opera) and that I do synchronized swimming.... breath control and lung capacity are a thing I SHOULD be good at >_>

You can work on it for sure!! It isn't just breath stamina either, but also concentration. Not getting bored.

uhhh also, I record while sitting in a comfy chair. not standing. that helps for stamina. not so much with the sound quality/quality of performance.

From:

analise010

I went back and forth on it, but I am really, truly, actually recording like a map of a place you've never been by

bydaybreak and saving That Other Fic for later.

Since Check In #1, I have:
- found a job (with benefits)! \o/
- found a cheerleader
- taken my story from barely recorded to 70% done
- posted one podfic, inspired by pod_together and another for my 5 year podfic anniversary

I still have ~7500 words to go, but I'm happy with the progress I've made in the past month. I'm definitely on track to be finished by early September to send to my beta.

P.S. There wasn't a post for it this year but, if anyone wants a cheerleader - NOT a beta - to help them finish the challenge, I am happy to help. ♥

Edited Date: 2017-08-14 02:24 am (UTC)

From:

madnads

congrats on finding a job with benefits!!!

what do you do as cheerleader?

From:

analise010

A cheerleader, in its purest form, is someone who mitivates you to record, edit, and post by the deadline. I would check-in with you personally (maybe every week?) to make sure you're still recording, to answer podfic questions like, "I feel unmotivated. How can I get back into recording?" or "OMG. I have to make it sound like 2 people are talking at once... BUT HOW???"

Long story, short: I can help you in any way possible, with the exception of actually listening to your story. (I'm sorry! I wish I could, but with the new job and trying to make my own podfic, I just don't have the time.)

Edited Date: 2017-08-15 02:29 am (UTC)

From:

madnads

Thank you for the prompt reply! :D

I see, so that's what a cheerleader is! (This may be really duh but....) A beta is a person who listens to fic and helps you locate places of error and looks for anything you ask them for such as background noise... May I ask what's a person who listen... and tells you bits they like, get excited at a particular reading of a part of fic, or when pacing needs to slow down a bit called?

From:

analise010

That person is still a beta listener. With written fiction, you can ask your beta to just do a spelling and grammar check or you can ask them to identify character development and plot holes in the story. Podfic works the same way.

Your beta can be involved as much or as little as you choose. You can ask, "Are there any repeated lines and weird noises?" up to, "Does this music work for the emotional impact that I want?"

(I once did an beta for someone, where I listened to her podfic and periodically made audio corrections within the work. She had never made a podfic before and needed a lot of help.)

It's all up to you.

From:

madnads

ohhh!!! I see!!! :D Now I know~!!! Thank you for explaining to me! :D

From:

xancredible

idk if it was an automatic email or not but I realised too late that I'd received an email from you. It had landed in the spam folder and in my bleary-eyed, early morning absentmindedness I've deleted it without reading it. If it wasn't an automatic mail, would you please send it again to momotastic[at]gmail[dot]com? Thank you!

From:

xancredible

For the actual check-in: I have the entire thing recorded and edited. I do need a cover, but I have very specific ideas about what I want, so I'm not sure I'll sign up for an artist. I'm glad I have a couple more days to decide!

From:

jadesfire

I had to go back and look at Check In #1 to try and remember what I'd said!

1) We're on the Road to Nowhere (let's find out where it goes) 100% recorded, 95% edited. I still intend to offer this as individual tracks AND one giant one, with and without music. But the music part is proving harder than I thought - it's something I've always wanted to experiment with, as I've never added music before, but I'm now discovering why! I'll get there, I just need a bit of time to concentrate on it.

2) Try again to get it right. I hope to have this recorded by the time we get to the next check in, but I guarantee it won't be edited. I can find the time to record at the moment but am lacking the concentration span for editing. I'm torn as to whether it's better to just get it all down, then edit, or do a chapter and edit it right away. I'll see what happens!

3) It starts with an earthquake. There's going to be an awesome animation project of this at some point, but I still want to record it as podfic, I think. Again, it's interlinked stories, so hopefully I can do it in batches.

As so often happens, it's the editing that's kicking my butt at the moment.

I've got a very clear idea of what I want for covers for all of these, so I don't think I'm going to request anything at the moment, and will give it a go myself. If I get stuck, I'll reach out to some fandom friends :)

If anyone has tips on adding music to podfic, I'm all ears! Results so far have been...unsatisfactory...

From:

itsadrizzit

I have a lot of practice at adding music. Can you tell me more about what specifically you're struggling with? Happy to help if I can.

From:

jadesfire

That's very kind of you, thanks.

My first problem is just a judgement call of how much of the intro music to use - I probably need to work that one out myself, and probably be braver! My instinct was 'just a few seconds' but having tried it, it just didn't work. Do you find longer intros/outros to be better?

But from a technical point of view, I want to layer my voice over the music, and slowly fade the music out. I don't have much practice using anything beyond noise reduction in audacity, so tips for what other commands might be handy (they're not always labelled very obviously!) would be much appreciated!

From:

itsadrizzit

I used to (and still sometimes do, if the song is exactly right) use full songs at the beginning, but I've gone away from that recently and moved to using one verse or a chorus or a bridge or really just the part of the song that is most relevant to the fic. (I should note that I've only ever worked with music that has lyrics so this process may make less sense with something purely instrumental.) I try to keep it to 30 seconds to a minute (maybe 2) of music to start, just so people don't necessarily have to sit through it if it's not their thing (but you're doing a no music version so I'm a bit *shrug* if people complain about the song when they have the choice to not listen to it.) I will often then use just a tiny (30 sec) clip between chapters/sections. I also often put the full song at the end b/c it's fairly easy for people to just skip it then if they don't want it.

As for music under reading, I've done this for several Welcome To Night Vale podfics I've done. I edit in Audacity, so I only know the process there, but basically you'll want to add the audio on a separate track. From there I recommend deamplifying it to well below the audio level of you're vocal track. Then you can fine tune with something called the envelope tool. Let me know if you want more on that. It's a bit complicated for text, but I can make/share a doc with screengrabs and/or a video. If you're editing in something other than Audacity I may be of less help.

The only other thing I would say is that I definitely encourage you to be brave and not worry about too much/not enough and just do what feels right for you for the piece, and also listen to the music/spoken words transitions on several devices with and without headphones to make sure you the music isn't drowning out the words but also that the music is still audible. I have several sets if headphones that will equalise such that the audio always sounds twice as loud as the text so I deamplify/reduce the gain on the music track but then I listen on speakers and I can just about hear the audio.

Hopefully that's helpful? Also happy to talk offline and/or send visuals, just lmk.

From:

jadesfire

Okay, wow, that's brilliant, thank you! I think my music thing is complicated by the fact that the music is the Star Wars theme - it's a fusion fic - so I'm trying to work out how much of that to go with before I put my voice over it. I thought just the opening bars, but that sounded daft, so I'm going to take your advice and see how 30 seconds or sounds. As you say, people can choose non-music if they want, so I think I'm worrying too much about bothering them :)

I'll look up the envelope tool, thanks. I'm pretty good at finding guides and following instructions, once I know what I'm looking for. It's just that in Audacity, there are so many tools, and so few of them have obvious names, that I sometimes struggle to know where to start.

That's hugely helpful, thank you! I'm feeling much braver about plunging into this :D

From:

analise010

Itsadrizzit gave you some EXCELLENT advice, so I won't repeat her words. However, if you wanted to listen to a podfic that is short, but incorporates a TON of music, I made a collaboration called 'Broadcrastination', where Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark are rival radio hosts.

From:

analise010

I'm torn as to whether it's better to just get it all down, then edit, or do a chapter and edit it right away. I'll see what happens!

OH, WOW. I can say that I'm super linear and NEED to record everything before I start editing. Otherwise, I get confused as to where I am with each section. However, what I would suggest to you go with how you feel. If you have the time and energy to record? DO IT. If you're sick of recording? EDIT AWAY! Trying to force one when you're not feeling it is a challenge.

From:

jadesfire

You're absolutely right about forcing it. The problem is that I *always* feel like recording, and *rarely* feel like editing - editing is always something I want to have done, rather than want to do!

The things I'm recording are broken into very clear sections - one is a chaptered story, the other is a collection of shorts - so I'm going to have to split them anyway. The trick then is remembering which files I've edited and which I haven't!

I think I need to just suck it up and do the editing as I go. I tend to use my iPad for the first pass, so it's not like I don't have it with me most of the time anyway :)

From:

night_inscriber

Recording is at 100% and I'm now into the editing, which I think would be at 65% currently.
(I'm pretty sure this counts as 60% done?)

This is less of a 'need help' question, but I've noticed a lot of podficcers have nice templates whenever you guys post.
Is there a link somewhere for these things?

From:

analise010

Hey, Night! I got my template from

eosrose. A while back, she posted tutorials on Livejournal, HERE and HERE about how to post your podfic on AO3. I will admit that, if you aren't already familiar with coding, the learning curve will be STEEP.

You could always be like Reena_Jenkins and keep it simple. She uses a relateable template for her one-shot podfics and creates a chart for the multi-chapter stories.

From:

night_inscriber

Thank you!
I looked at Eosrose's code and it definitely made my eyes cross. But I'm willing to learn (and cry)!

I'll have to ask Reena_Jenkins about hers; that might be far simpler for multi-chaps.

Both these are better than just bland text (though I have playing with coverart to avoid the blandness). XD

From:

jadesfire

In addition to the above, I found this guide by Shmaylor incredibly helpful - the code is all there so you can copy and paste and adapt if you want :)

From:

night_inscriber

Thank you, thank you!
That is a very helpful guide; having the images are great!
And the link about hosting sites is just as informative, though I have to look into those a bit more. It seems like most people are hosted by Paraka.

From:

jadesfire

Yes! For some reason, hosting is something I always struggle to get my head around - I understand it when it's explained to me, but it never quite sticks.

FWIW, I've been using kiwi6, which I've found fairly straightforward, and the links just drop into the various templates. The only problem is that my home ISP has decided it's a forbidden site, so I have to do all my uploading at work! But beyond that, it's fairly easy to use. I keep backup copies of everything in Dropbox, just in case. It won't help with the streaming, but would at least mean I could put in a download link if anything happened to kiwi6 and I needed to get myself sorted out.

I'd love to look into it properly, but sadly, like telling my left from my right, it's something my brain will not latch onto, and I ended up annoyed and confused! Hope you get yourself sorted out :)

From:

night_inscriber

Does kiwi6 host longer works well?
I'm using Box right now but using something that streams would be immensely convenient.

From:

itsadrizzit

I got (more than) a bit sidetracked with Pod-Together, but that's done and I'm planning to dig back into my recording for this.

Still 100% planning on recording loose ends as a fall a bit more in love with it every time I look at it. It doesn't feel like that ambitious of a project anymore after PT, but I've also started writing again and still have ongoing podfic commitments, so it will have to do.

I plan to have it 100% recorded by the cover art deadline, but also I love making covers and have some specific ideas in mind, so I won't be too put off if that ends up not happening, especially since I'm travelling out of town starting on Thursday so I might be ambitious in trying to get it done since recording in evenings is hard b/c of neighbours and airplanes and I will be working in the office all week so I won't be able to record over lunch. We'll see. It's still a goal of mine

From:

analise010

...I hate you. (♥)

From:

itsadrizzit

😙😙😙

From:

itsadrizzit

Edit...now 100% recorded.

I had started editing on the first part I recorded, but probably won't get much time to edit much until next week since I will be out of town Thursday - Sunday.

From:

itsadrizzit

Aaaaaaand I did all that work to get the recording done before I left on holiday and then missed the art request deadline anyway because I was on holiday.

Lol my life.

From:

madnads

BH@Dawn: Since 1st check in, I'm 100% done with part 1 of fic(5 of 5). Part 2 is 1 out of 4 done.

One of the hangups I've been having is a good page breaker. But I've finally found the one that I really really like so finishing will just be quit straight forward.

I haven't made final push to finish yet because I've been working on Podtogether fic, pitch hitting, and working on an on going project. But once I'm done with Podtogether, I will finish editing this before I record my next super exciting project. :D

From:

analise010

WOOHOO!!!!!! Congratulations on being 100% finished with part 1 and finding a good page break. (I'm searching for one now and it's HARD. Everything is too light and fun or too dark and scary. Isn't there a song that means mid-level angst?)

Good luck with editing!

From:

madnads

thank you! :D

Searching for page breaker is SOOOO HARD! It was one of the things that made me drag my feet in finishing the edits for BH!

I've got quite a collection of instrumentals collected now. One that I've been able to pull a few good clips from for various projects is Two Steps from Hell (I think that's the album name) It has an array of angsty dramatic bits. :D

Best of luck finding your music break!

From:

analise010

I was reading this post and the right song just came to me. It was magical
:D

From:

madnads

That's great!!! :D

Update: I've had reeeaallly productive week and I'm done with BH@Dawn podfic!!!! like 100% done done!!!!! *soooooooooooo happppy* soooo much thanks goes to my pd-together partner!!!! :D :D :D :D *dances* (I also did the short sequel Big Dish Guy too!!!!!)

I'm doneeeeeeee!!!!! (now to upload this monster.....)

From:

vepres

IIIII meant to check in and didn't.

I'm very very close to being completely 100% finished with one title. I might end up doing another, we'll see.

>:)

From:

analise010

Congratulations on finishing! Are you planning to do another story?

From:

vepres

I might? I'm 2/11 chapters recorded, and I start my PhD in a week so it really is a question of if I have energy/time/not being podblocked.

/endless sighing

From:

analise010

O_O. DUDE. FRIEND. PODFIC SIBLING. If podficcing is your way to relax from being a student? I say go big or go home. As a math person who has a LOT of friends in grad school, I would advise you to not take on too much in your first year.

HOWEVER. If this it makes you happy, go for it. Let your friends know how we can support you and make your process as easy as possible.

From:

vepres

Yeah, not taking on too much is a good idea.

I'm going to leave it as an option, we'll see. I figure I've already mostly completed my big bang and if I get to this I get to it, no pressure.

Thanks, podfic friend and sibling :D