I know as of late I’ve been pretty quiet. Oh, I’ve posted a few things on my Heritage and trail cooking blog but not much on this one.
Here’s the reason, I actually have written 3 new stories but want to reserve them for a later date. The latest one is partway through and I will post that one fairly soon. I’ve been mighty busy doing all kinds of stuff. some of it really cool.
For instance, I recently reconnected with my other half of the family out west. I’d lost contact with them years ago when I left AOL (which didn’t let you save contact info back then. Dirty rats!) Well I just found out my long lost cousin was the foreman at the 290,000 acre Deseret Cattle ranch down here! He moved to Oregon and set himself up with his own Cattle and Dude ranch. How cool is that?
Then I found out I got a whole herd of great relatives I never even knew I had! There’s going to be a big family reunion out west on Labor day of 2014…I’m there!
My other project of turning my stories here into audio books has also taken up a lot of my time. I can throw a rope on most any cow but when asked to master the art of studio recording… well, let’s just say I’m a green horn to boot! Here I thought all I had to do was read into a microphone…wrong. I had to learn all about recording, learn the technical jargon, understand what all those squiggly lines on the computer screen means and learn the difference between such odd things as ‘Gain’ and ‘truncate silence’. I have a new respect for folks who narrate stories or do voice overs. I have now read the latest story 25 times now and still blow my lines. Thank God for editing software.
My two sons (who, having been in a band, practically grew up in recording studios) decided to set me up with my own mini digital studio in my home rather than force me to go up to Ohio and sit in a dusty recording studio for $65 an hour. All seemed great until I realized just how tired one gets standing up reading with a microphone and spit screen 4 inches from your face. I cried to be able to sit down in comfort. I needed either an adjustable microphone stand or a shotgun mike (directional microphone).
I emailed my son and asked if there were not a ‘shotgun mike’ in his vast arsenal of recording goods. Instead of saying “yes or no,” he sent a photo back of all these home made microphone stands folks had posted on the internet. I emailed back “OK,OK I get it, make my own set up.” (I’m used to that).
So I did… and here’s the photo of me and my new shotgun mike below…pretty cool I say!
(No, the gun was not loaded and I did end up building myself a real microphone stand )
good to see you back JW
Thanks, as you can see I’ve been busy with new stuff besides still writing
looking good, JW
Get your eyes checked my friend! Ha ha. JW
lmao
I am not sure what you use for recording your audio, but if you need help with anything you can hit me up as well.
Cool, I’m using an H2N recorder. It came with wavlab 7le software that ended up being a trial like version. It was very limited, one stereo channel unless you purchased the upgrade at $99.
I instead downloaded Audacity for free but I have to figure it out better. When I played back the recording it was like playing a 45 rpm vinyl at 33 rpm! Something goofed up. Trust me, recording this thing is harder than writing it! I liked the wavlab better but my walllet has that Italian disease ‘fundsalow’
What operating system are you running?
PC – Windows 7 home premium
Recorder- Zoom H2N
Audio software- Audacity
And Audacity is either speeding up or slowing your audio recordings when you import them from your H2N?
Must be, I sounded even older than I am! I’ll be checking it out friday with one of my sons. He may know what’s up? thanks for the concern
JW
No sweat.
Hey there Joe! Sounds like hard work, but also an exciting project! You’ll be a pro by the end of all that
Ha! The only ‘pro’ I’m getting to be is ‘procrastination’. Every time I look at that recorder now, I can think of 33 different things I’d rather be doing! LOL
I should have seen this coming.
I’m ‘under the gun’ Carl!
Very creative I love it!
I got a ‘bang’ out of taking the photo!
BTW Merry Christmas to you and yours and those great Donks!
Hey! WAY COOL! Always something new going on with you, I love it!
I had a ‘bang’ making this photo!
Wal, I get a durn sight bigger bang outta yore stock in trade stories…which seem to me, exactly what the audio format does well.
Thanks friend. I finished recording and mixing the first one yesterday. The folks who heard it said it sounded great. I on the other hand, heard every voice quiver, forgotten word, too deep of breath and wrong inflection. I thought I sounded terrible. But I was warned by a pro that everyone who does this for a living says the same thing. Well, I sure hope so!
I enjoyed reading this post. Love the mic!
Thank you! I checked out yours too
Are you on wordpress at all?
Been wondering where you’ve been! You are a very busy guy. Good luck with your latest endeavor.
Thanks, I’m going to post on my site, the link to a few audio book stories I made you can download for free. You’ll have to bear with my’ narrators’ voice