Verdanta

Twelve days after my last post in which I said I had about one week of editing left, I’m still editing.

To my credit (?) I ended up re-doing yet another section of the book, part 5 of 6.  And since 6 was only half the size of the other sections, I should have just redone that one too, but I couldn’t make myself do it.  So why did I do part 5?  Well, I’m not sure how I did it, but I screwed something up.  The waveform looked like sawblade teeth, rather than rolling waves.  And the breaks between words was all hissy.  I couldn’t leave it as it was so I re-recorded it.  Twice. 

That’s when I noticed it.  My voice sounded strained.  Like my throat had gotten lazy, or as if I was talking with my chin on my chest. It was very subtle, and I was pretty sure no one else would notice it, but it didn’t sound as effortless as it did in previously recorded sections.  Still, I took Tim Gunn’s advice and made it work, recording and editing a new part 5 in about four days.  (That’s about 18 hours of work time.)  I glued it into the big file and was much happier. 

I finally finished editing the big file, and remembered I had to record the Intro, the Preface and the Extro.  (What else could you call it?).  I have now recorded, edited, and glued them into the big file, and I’m going through the whole file yet again. 

Will I ever be completely happy with it?  In a word, no.  But I’m getting closer. 

I don’t know how an artist ever finishes a painting, or a musician ever finishes writing, arranging or recording a song.  You can tweak something forever, but does it really make it better?  Or is it just a way to postpone putting your heart’s labor up for public scrutiny?  I know my answer to that question, and I’m going to finish this pass, and then I’m going to take the next step.  A step which shall be determined after I wake up tomorrow.

I’ve been telling myself I had one week’s worth of work left for almost a month now.  Not counting the week and a half my parents were here for the kids’ fall break, I’ve been working very hard to get Advent finished.  But every time I reach what I think is the final milestone, I realize there’s “one more thing” I still need to do. 

At this point, I’ve got the entire book put into one BIG file, and I’m going through the whole thing with a fine toothed comb.  I hope this is the last pass, but who knows?   The whole thing is about four hours long.  I’m not sure if making one big file was the right thing to do, but it seemed like the easiest way to work on leveling out the volume across all the recording sessions.  Later, I’ll cut it back up into shorter tracks. 

I’m not sure if I want to do short tracks (3 minutes) or longer tracks, or perhaps offer both, simply because I know that on my iPod, longer tracks work better, but on my shuffle, shorter tracks were easier to use. Then there’s the question of format: mp3 or audio? 

Of course, all that is a bit premature since first I have to submit it to the Baha’i review board, and I want to see if my sound engineer can make it better through mastering.  I’m not sure which to do first, or how long either process will take.

I wish I could say with certainty how long it will take before I have something to put online for sale.  (Hard copies will take even longer.) All I can say right now is that the current process of fine tuning the whole file should take about one more week.  But then, that’s where this whole discussion started, isn’t it?