Some things I am thinking about

This is the final edited audio from the video in my last post. The audio in the video was recorded on my cell phone, and this one is from my professional mic.

I touched it up in Logic Pro. Edited out background noise and any extraneous sounds. Removed any repeated lines or awkward pauses. The reason I snap when I’m recording(see video) is so that it makes a very obvious marker in the waveform, the visible representation of the audio that I edit. Makes it a lot easier to go in and see where I need to edit out the redos and second takes.

One of my jobs (my favorite one) is narrating and editing audio books. I’ve gotten involved with a company that mainly produces children’s and young adult literature so that’s what most of my work has been in. It’s been a lot of fun, surprisingly hard work, and occasionally mind-numbingly repetitive, but on a whole I have really enjoyed it. 

Being the occasional perfectionist that I am, I periodically go into phases where I try to make my at home recording set up as perfect as possible. I started out just recording with a comforter draped over me between two mic stands. There wasn’t enough room in that. So then I built this kind of insane 4’x4’ PVC pipe frame that allowed me to have this chamber of comforter’s. However, it literally took up all the space in my room, except for where my bed was. 

Then I read up on how to build cheap sound absorption panels out of 3’x4’ rockwool(stuff you put in walls to help sound proof them). I built metal frames to keep the panels from collapsing, then covered them in burlap. These ended up working really well, and for awhile I would put them on my desk lengthwise and record into them with my mic right in the middle. 

I then decided that this sounded a little weird, kind of muffled since the panels were so close to my mic, and there was still too much background noise. So, I decided that I would set up shop in my closet. After some serious rearranging and a trip to Goodwill I was able to make just enough room for my three panels and a stool to sit on in front of them. I am actually pretty happy with the way it works now. Just the right amount of sound absorption but not so much that it sounds muffled. And the closet doors have really cut down on the background noise. 

The video is a sample of what it looks like in my sound booth, and what an average recording session looks like (although only 3 minutes out of the 6 hours I usually go for in a single session). The black things on the sides are two of my sound panels, my camera is on top of the third. At the moment, I am pretty satisfied with my sound booth. But the quest for the perfect sound is almost never ending, and I’m sure that soon I will be back at it, striving to get that golden sound. 

P.S In the post after this one I will put up the edited version of the audio from this video. It will also be the audio from my professional mic, as opposed to my cell phone video camera. 

Hmm, did it just snow on the first day of spring? Northwest weather never fails to surprise.

THE IMMORTAL JELLY FISH! Seriously, watch this video. There is a jelly fish that, when it needs to, can revert its entire body to a state earlier in its development cycle. Then when conditions are better, it starts to grow again. Potentially, this cycle could be repeatedly indefinitely, making it technically immortal. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Oh how right you are Will, how right you are. 

So, somewhat recently I did something that I never thought I would end up doing, I purchased an ebook reader. It was for very practical reasons. I make part of my income through audio book narration and it was getting very impractical to print all the pdfs I was getting for my work. However, having owned a Kindle for a few months now I have noticed some interesting side effects. 

I have always been and still am a true lover of books, not just the stories, but the feel and the smell, the way it bends, the texture and thickness of the pages. The sensual aspects of a book have always had a huge impact on how I feel while reading it. 

At first, the Kindle was a little strange to use, it’s much lighter than most books, and it requires a much different style of grip while reading. Also, while the pages are very close to printed text, they’re not quite the same. Eventually I got used to it and now find it just fine to read books on. For the few months that I’ve had it, my use of printed books has dropped drastically, mainly because ebooks are cheaper, or even free. 

Today, for the first time since buying my Kindle, I went to Powell’s City of Books. If you don’t know of this place, and you like books, you really need to come to Portland, OR right now and visit it. Powell’s City of Books, aptly named, is a four story building, occupying an entire city block, full of books. To me, it is one of the most magical and incredible places in the world. I realized tonight, how much I truly missed wandering its seemingly never ending shelves of books. But while I sat and perused my potential purchases, I noticed something. I found that holding the books felt much different than usual. I was even getting annoyed at having to hold the book open with one hand, and at the fact that it was harder to read the words printed near the crease of the book. It was a strange experience when I noticed this happening. What has this Kindle done to me!? 

I ended up buying a book from Powell’s, the first printed book I’ve bought in months, and will be reading it in the coming days. I am interested to see how the experience goes after having only used my Kindle for so long. Will I regain the incredible, sensual relationship I used to have with books, or has the Kindle ruined me for printed literature? 

We shall see, we shall see…

Oh how I hope this is good, how very much I hope.

Can you feel the feelings?

After the rain comes one of the best springs in the country. How I love you Northwest.

Want to give me your opinion on this as a script of some kind?

We are in modern times. Jeff is sitting on the beach, at night, with a small fire in front of him, staring off into the distance with a look of longing and solemn questioning. He stares for a few moments then looks down at the fire in front of him. He stares at the fire as if trying to figure it out. He sprinkles some sand on the fire and watches what it does, he ads some more sticks to the fire, and observes, but sees nothing. Eventually he gets up and begins to walk down the beach. As he walks he passes many things, the water lapping at the beach, little fish jumping out of the water, birds flying above him, trees and plants growing all around, rocks littering the ground. However, he see none of it. He comes to the entrance to a vast forest and enters without looking around himself at all. Just lost in his mind, unaware. Eventually his wandering brings him back to the fire at which he started and he slumps back down in front of it, discouraged and terribly distraught with not being able to figure anything out. As he stares at the fire the camera slowly zooms into the fire so that it eventually fills the whole screen. The fire fills the whole screen for a few moments and then the camera begins to zoom back out to show Jeff in the same position as when the camera zoomed in only this time we are in early times and Jeff is dressed (or undressed) in such a way to indicate this. He is staring at the fire this time in a much different way. With less questioning and depression and more awe and wonder. He examines the fire again, but this time is amazed by everything that happens. The crackling of the fire when he ads more sticks the way it changes shape when he sticks something in it or drops sand in it. His attention is drawn from the fire to the water and he goes to inspect the waves lapping the shore and smiles as he feels it. He then notices the birds over head and is awe struck by them, he imitates their movement a little bit and is once again distracted by the rocks. He examines them and throws some in the water, delighted by the splash they make in the water. He eventually comes to the same place where Modern Jeff entered the forest and stops, staring in amazement at the fantastic forest before him. He enters and is transported into a completely different world. The trees all around him and the canopy over his head put him into an almost trance like state of euphoria and he wanders through the forest constantly amazed by everything around him. He too eventually comes back to the fire at which everything started. He sits back down in front of the fire in a state of bliss from the magical journey of discovery he has just embarked on. After a moment he lies down and is then witness to the greatest, most awesome discovery of his journey, the night sky full of stars. Camera shows his reaction to the epic discovery and then pans up to the night sky full of stars.