A lot of trial and error

A lot of trial and error occurred during this time. I had to nix several cuts due to Audacity issues (I was using the old version), or straight out anger at the copy. Sometimes you just can't get a proper rhythm.

One of the things I realized at this point is that life gets in the way. Meaning, I had to record a cut, then go back and edit it, and then save it. Trying to remember where I was in the book was just getting too difficult. This is where I'll sanction to write on your copy. If you don't take notes you won't remember!

Here's my next note to Joel (dated May 16, 2010)

Hi Joel,
I'm about a quarter of the way done with recording... I'm home sick
with a sinus infection so I'm taking care of all of the editing since
I can't do much. So, that's my update :-)

On a non-recording note, my workplace has had some big integrity
failures over the past 6 weeks, and my husband I are now seeking
alternate employment. It's most likely that I'll get a job for an
agency that my church runs, as an office manager. It's at a place
called Urban Concern, which is based off of Harlem childrens zone in
NYC. Most of the kids there have one parent, and are afraid that
before they are 21 years old they will be dead because of drug related
activity. So, I may be switching from a mind numbing job to one where
I actually get to serve other people!

That being said, if that's the case, we will take a week off before
starting new job(s). During that week, we hoped to visit Polyface. If
I could guess, I would say it would be the week of June 1st-5th or the
week of the 6th-12th.

Will you be around any of those times for us to come visit? As far as
I'm concerned, we can just come there and walk ourselves around the
place.. I know you're running a farm and a business, and have your own
speaking engagements. But, I wanted to see if there were any times in
there that would be good or bad.

Keep on doing what you're doing!

Theresa

-- End of my message, beginning of Joel's message --

Hi Theresa--

Yes, I'll be here during those times. I'm pretty close to home in the middle of the
summer just because the work load is heavy. July is also when we do our seminarHi Theresa--

Yes, I'll be here during those times. I'm pretty close to home in the middle of the
summer just because the work load is heavy. July is also when we do our seminars.

So yes, please come by. As your schedule formalizes, give us a heads up so we
know what you're planning. I'd love to see you.

Best,

Joels.

So yes, please come by. As your schedule formalizes, give us a heads up so we
know what you're planning. I'd love to see you.

Best,

Joel

A quick note, including thank yous!

Well, if you've ever put your mouth to a microphone, you know about popping. Popping p's, s's that sound like snakes, etc. I started recording, and realized that with how INCREDIBLE the microphone is, you were going to be able to hear every single noise I make!

Well, where do I get a damper. I asked a couple of folks at work how much this costs, and where I can buy one. Doug Hare, and Quikson D both suggested that I use panty hose pressed into a loop. Did it work? Yes. Did it work well? Not really. Did I still have to sit there and take every single popped noise out of the recording. Yes.

Would I have bought the damper if I had more money... probably. Ah well. Vince drew me a melancholy award for all of my hard work on the book.

Pictures of the home made damper, melancholy award, and other fun pictures will be posted here.

Starting the read

At this point the book changed our lives in a couple of different ways.
1. The way that we interacted with what we ate.

I would challenge you to read this book. Pay close attention to the chapter "Million Mile Chicken". Just to TRY to bring you some meat from an animal that lived close to you (think about the gas used for transport, refrigeration, it really does add up quickly), the farmer has to fight, argue, fill out paperwork, spend time that could have been used doing more productive things than negotiating with buyers, etc. You may begin to question the label "Fresh" on the product you buy at the grocery store.

2. I moved to making any spare time that I had into reading time. After getting the book and the microphone in the mail, I started recording. Here are some lessons learned:
- Make sure that the version of Audacity you are using is the most current version. I realized, after recording the first two chapters several times, and each time when attempting to save the whole program shutting down, I found that I didn't have the most updated version. This created a lot of anger and frustration with the whole project. About three weeks were wasted here, with lots of technical intervention from Vince. I don't have much patience for details once I start to get frustrated!

In the meantime, I got a response from Joel!
--- Beginning of message ---

from Joel Salatin
to Theresa Lyons
date Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 9:54 PM
subject Re: Everything I Want to Do is Illegal

Apr 21


Hi Theresa--

Oh, of course read it with gusto--great drama and verve.

This sounds great. I'm in no rush--just go at your pace and let me know
how you get along.

Many thanks.

Joel

reading

As an audio book presenter, you may spend time trying to figure out how to present the author's work in their own likeness. Go ahead, Google Joel Salatin, you'll understand then how many things we have in common physically.

I set out online to try to hear his voice. Not necessarily to imitate it, but to at least familiarize myself with the way he talks. My Mom and Dad would always tell me "Make sure you don't put the emphasis on the wrong sill-laab-bull."

I figured my best bet would be to ask him how he would like this book read. It's a VERY different genre than what I was used to hearing as an audio book, so I figured ANY guidance would be good!

--- Beginning of email ---

Theresa Lyons
to Joel Salatin
date Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 8:52 AM
subject Re: Everything I Want to Do is Illegal



Hi Joel,
I just wanted to write a follow up email. Certain things have fallen
through, and other things have turned out positively! I've ordered
your book from Amazon so I can return the library copy and not mark it
up. I've also purchased a microphone online, and recording software is
easy to come by. Both of those should come in the mail this week.

My goal is to have the book read in 3 months. If there's a reason you
would like it to be done sooner, simply communicate that to me, and
I'll ramp up my time working on it. (Also, see Proverbs 16:9, because
God knows about schedules more than I do).

My question for you is, do you have any comments on how you would like
for me to read the book? Like "with gusto", or "just read it
straight", or "whatever". I've never heard you talk before, except
for an excerpt in "Food Inc.", so I'm going to listen to whatever I
can find on youtube to get an idea about what your voice sounds like.
I'm sure this request about how to read the book may sound weird, but
as my dad says "Don't put the accent on the wrong se labble".

Thanks for your input, and I'm excited to do this! I've already talked
to several folks about this, who are interested in hearing the
information, which makes it even better.

Theresa

space and equipment

Two more topics to digress on for this post!

Space: I am lucky, no I am blessed, to have a very strange neighbor. The house next to ours is the house where his parents lived, and he grew up. He actually lives across the street from us, and owns the house next to us. I haven't been in the house next door, but evidently, it's the same as it was when his parents died. This means that the house is quiet, except for when Fred sets off fireworks. He likes to do this, but I like him anyway because we're the same temperment.

Anyway, it was MOSTLY quiet in a our back bedroom, since that's the room furthest from the road and closest to the "no one lives here" house. Sometimes, Fred's friend Jason, uses the that driveway to move stuff around with big machines, but generally not until after he starts drinking (around 9am).

Well, back to the space. I decided on the back bedroom as the place to record, knowing that was the best option. In general the quieter, the better. You can't do anything about ghetto-copters (learned that too).

Something else you never think about is the fact that the microphone needs to be close to your mouth, and the laptop. Close but not too close, the water to drink close but not close enough to spill all over yourself, the book and the laptop.

Eventually, I'll add a picture of the set up to this page.


Now let's think about equipment. I'm used to recording in VERY expensive sound studios, where all you do is saunter up to the microphone to speak.

I asked some friends if they had a microphone to spare, but no one did. We saved up some money, and I bought this wonderful microphone:

http://www.bluemic.com/snowball/

I think the best part about it is that it's multi use. It has a switch for multi or single directional, so it's good for podcasting or single reading.

In addition, the price was VERY reasonable--- only $80.00 on Amazon.

Next, I needed a copy of the book that wasn't the library's. That was pretty cheap too $15.00.

Finally, the laptop. We have two of them, A Dell Inspiron that I use that we've had to replace the hard drive twice on (Runs Linux only because of it's unreliability), and Vince has a HP TX 1300.

Finally, software is what I needed. I found a version of Audacity online, and downloaded it onto my computer.

You'll hear more about troubleshooting all of the problems on another post. Suffice it to say, that's all we needed!

continued

Well, I hope the last post was helpful as to defining the details involved with voicing an audio book. Let's move along!

Moving along (Star Wars reference) , lets look at time:

- Time
Let's see here. My husband and I both work full time jobs, with a 35 minute drive each way. In addition, we attend about 3 bible studies a week. And we have our own business. This made figuring out when to record . . . challenging. I thought about using a studio, but after looking through how expensive it was to rent time, I decided I'd rather record in my pj's, when I wanted to.

This ended up being time consuming. Firstly, I wanted to record only when I had enough time to get into a groove. Stopping in the middle of a chapter changed the tone and rhythm of the read, and led to general frustration. My personality shows that I'm a senguine (easily distracted), so when I tried to read and then come back to it after doing a chore, I had completely lost my concentration.

The lesson here- Make sure you have at least an hour to read. The phone should be in the other room, don't try cooking dinner while you read, and bring some water or tea in with you to avoid getting up and down.

Total time to read the whole book- April 15th- July 20th.

Did I mention that we have no working television? That helps!

How to begin

Dear reader,
Working in the broadcasting field is like this. You show up to a studio where someone has already bought all of the equipment. As stated earlier, you just play the "dumb voice". Here were some preliminary things I needed to figure out:

- Space

- Equipment

- Time


- Help
I'll start this post with Help. Typically, when an audio book is read, there are several parts to play. Editor, producer, director, script writer, and vocal talent. I asked Vince if he would be willing to edit the audio book as we go. He pointed out that if he made ANY noise in the room while I was recording, I would have his head. He was right. In addition, he pointed out that, like most things, we do things differently. What I would think is important to edit out he may keep in, causing greater conflict. Without knowing it, I became editor, producer, director, script writer, and vocal talent.

You may think that none of these things are actually needed. Trust me, they are! I wasn't about to go out and find people to do that, but I knew I needed to mark up the book for proper reading. In addition, translation was needed. It's actually difficult to translate a book from reading into listening.Also, Joel Salatin is REALLY smart. If you read one of his books, or browse his bookshelf, you realize that most of his life is well thought out. Just in the section before chapter one, I had to figure out how to pronounce the following words, having never spoken to the author:

Names: Jeff Ishee, Nathan Vergin, Matt Rales, Robin Leist, Talleyrand, Stuyvesant, Milo Minderbender.

Online dictionaries, with pronounciation tools, will become your friend. I just kept a window open on my laptop for the following website:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/

It has a nifty tool that will read the word for you out loud.

I'll cover the next three in my next post.