Chapter 4: Number 9
John Lennon had an obsession with it. Unfortunately, I’m developing one.
The number 9.
When I recorded Chapter 9 of Schooled over a week ago, I was in a really good mood. The sun was shining, something good had happened to me that day and I couldn’t have been happier to morph into Lexy and all of her cohorts to deliver the story goods.
What I didn’t realize until I began editing on Monday night was my tendency to be louder when I’m happy. Just like the Pharrell song, I suppose I felt like a room without a roof. I sure sounded like one.
Trouble is, for the audio files to all line up nicely and become one book, the sound levels have to be exactly, precisely the same.
Think of it like this: It’s what happens when you’re laying in bed, half dozing, half listening to/watching a show. Its comforting din almost drifts you off to sleep until… a commercial comes BLARING ON and you’re jolted out of your peaceful state, scrambling for the remote to make it stop.
I don’t want to do that to Schooled’s readers, but once the file is there, without being in a state-of-the-art, $1000 per hour studio, it’s very hard to equalize those sound levels.
I employed a few of my best podcast editing tricks (my partner and I are never the same volume, so I typically put us on separate tracks), but separating out my “happy” voice from my normal voice was unsuccessful. The drop was too noticeable, and my enthusiasm within the reading too uneven.
I could choke my happy self.
So tomorrow I can only do one thing: scrap the happy file and start fresh. Make a new recording of Chapter 9 and forget it ever happened.
13 days until deadline.