[Hidden-tech] estimating editing time for editing an audio-book

[Studio Manager]

Greetings Tom, et al;

I've had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of narrators/authors
over the past 30yrs, both as the recording engineer and editor.   Regarding
your question about audiobook editing, here are some considerations to go
along with the solid points made by Marcia.

* Quality of Source Material: Was this recorded in their living room, where
there are likely to be 'echo-y' reflections and 'outside noise', I.e.
Traffic?  
> * How was it recorded? Rolling, vs. punch-in.  .wav or mp3?   Machine (laptop
> or device) noise, noisy mic, you get the idea.
> * Consistency of the narration itself ­ I.e., mic-placement, recording level,
> energy level of the read, etc.
* Mouth Noise ­ Leave it in, or take it out?  This is a big time-eater,
because everyone generates mouth noises of some kind.  When they become
distracting, then they've got to come out.
* Breaths.   Some publishers want them all removed. Others prefer a more
reasonable approach, preserving them as much as possible.
* Proper spacing of sentences/paragraphs/transitions/chapter headings,  that
are seamless to the natural cadence of the narrator.
* Deliverables:  Edited, un-procecssed files (no compression, gating, etc) ,
or fully processed and "Retail Ready" ?
In (very general) terms, count on an edit-ratio of  2:1 at best ‹ with pro
narrators and no audio processing --  increasing with the variables listed
above and the desire/need to mitigate them.

My experience with the high-quality deliverable standards of
RandomHouse/Crown; HarperAudio, Audible and ACX projects, has my average
edit-ratio at a little under 3:1, delivering processed, "Retail-Ready"
files.

I'd be happy to discuss or answer any questions that you (or anyone else
who's interested) may have, offline.

Good luck and best to all,

Peter Acker
Armadillo Audio Group
Www.armadilloaudiogroup.com
-------------------------
tl.  413-253-1775 MA
tf  800-234-5050






>    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area. **
> If you did, we all thank you.
> Hi Tom,
> 
> In the last couple of years, I have produced 11 audiobooks for Audible.com and
> other audiobook sales venues.  All of them were my own works, which I also
> narrated myself. 
> 
> When I recorded, I was careful to redo any sentence or passage with a flub, so
> editing consisted almost completely of cutting the flubbed version and making
> sure everything else matched the script.  Very rarely I discovered something
> I'd said wrong and had to re-record it.
> 
> With this procedure, it took me three hours to read and edit every hour of
> audiobook time.  That's with no music or special effects.
> 
> If your narrator follows this method, you may need two hours for every hour of
> audiobook time.  If the narrator makes a lot of mistakes that need to be
> re-recorded, it will take a lot longer than that.  If you will be adding music
> or anything else, add on extra editing time as well.
> 
> Audible is very fussy about quality and format, and a few of my titles got
> kicked out of production and sent back to me for one technical reason or
> another.  In a few cases I had to fix the files and resubmit, which took more
> time.
> 
> Good luck,
> Marcia Yudkin
> www.yudkin.com
> Goshen
> 
> --- On Tue, 3/5/13, Tom Adams ~ Reelife Productions & Folktography
> <tomadams at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> From: Tom Adams ~ Reelife Productions & Folktography <tomadams at gmail.com>
>> Subject: [Hidden-tech] estimating editing time for editing an audio-book
>> To: "Hidden-Tech Tech" <hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net>
>> Date: Tuesday, March 5, 2013, 4:25 PM
>> 
>>    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>>    ** If you did, we all thank you.
>> 
>> 
>> Hi hidden-techers,
>> does anyone have any helpful tips about how one might go about estimating the
>> time involved in editing the recorded audio narration... with the end product
>> being an audio book.
>> 
>> I'm sure there are people out there that have had experience with this so I
>> hope to not re-invent the wheelŠ.
>> thanks for any info you might be able to lend...
>> 
>>  
>> Regards,
>> Tom Adams
>> 
>>  <http://www.hidden-tech.net/members>
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