How to know if 15 percent faster is better - Patricia Fisher Mystery Adventures Audiobook Boxed Set
Patricia Fisher Mystery Adventures Audiobook Boxed Set 1 is now
available! The set includes five cozy mystery audiobooks: What Sam Knew,
Solstice Goat, Recipe for Murder, a Banshee and a Bookshop, and Diamonds,
Dinner Jackets, and Death. Wow, the name of the boxed set is a mouthful! Try
saying it five times fast.
Speaking of talking fast, there is one difference between the individual
audiobooks in the set and the set itself that I want to tell you about. I read some
listener comments on my early audiobooks and learned somethings that were very
helpful. One listener said that in the audiobooks I did not talk fast enough. Most
useful critique I’ve ever received.
I should be clear; this was said about an early audiobook. No one
who has heard me speak under normal, everyday conditions has ever accused me of
speaking to slowly. It’s also not a problem when I do voiceovers or film work. But
narrating books is different from other types of performing and everyday life.
The difference is that I am playing all the characters and giving exposition. It
calls for a different type of focus and different styles of annunciation. That in
turn requires speaking slower than usual.
In audiobooks, there is something a trade-off narrating between
enunciation and speed. For my earliest books, I chose to default on the side of
enunciation. Then comment from the listener who thought the book was too slow had
me rethinking not what I was doing in the recording booth, but what I could do post-recording
to make the book better.
The listener explained that they found a kind of fix for the
problem: they listened to the audiobook sped up by 15%. Only problem was, speeding
up the MP3 on the player also made me sound higher pitched.
Fortunately, in post-production there is a bit of magic called
change tempo. It’s a way of increasing how fast a file moves without also
changing pitch. After experimenting in post-production with change tempo, I
learned that the one listener who said 15% faster was spot on correct. My audiobook
recordings sound best when the tempo is increased 15%. I also discovered that
when the tempo is increased by 15%, the total time of the audiobook comes in as
an almost perfect match to the estimated time from the audiobook distributor.
For me, 15% is the magic number.
As standalone audiobooks, a Banshee and a Bookshop (Book 4) and
Diamonds, Dinner Jackets and Death (Book 5) are at optimal tempo. The great
news about Patricia Fisher Mystery Adventures Audiobook Boxed Set 1 is that all
5 books are at optimal tempo! I was able to increase tempo in the first three
books when the boxed set was compiled. Lessons learned; listener experience
improved.
Let’s here it for 15% more!
Audiobooks in This Set
- What Sam Knew
- Solstice Goat
- Recipe For Murder
- a Banshee and a Bookshop
- Diamonds, Dinner Jackets, and Death