Greetings All!

Narration and Voiceover

You can engage me directly for voiceover work at Voices.com
Have me narrate your audiobook at Amazon/ACX
eMail: SoundsmithServices@gmail.com

Author and Editor

See/Buy my books and narrations at my Author Profile Page on Amazon.com

Just me as myself

Send an e-mail to DavidWSatterlee@gmail.com

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Enjoy the last thing that made me laugh really loud:

"Let's do this thing."

 -- Eric Holder, 82nd U.S. Attorney General

You gotta see at 2:12 in this 4-minute clip: https://news.grabien.com/story-trevor-noah-urges-eric-holder-run-president-2020 

 

Narrated and produced "The Future of Education" audiobook

I have completed narrating and producing the audiobook of The Future of Education by Deborah L. Killion.

This was a stretch -- not only because I was speaking in the voice of a self-professed "blond woman," but because she expresses political opinions that are far to the right of my own. I believe I faithfully did justice to her on both counts.

This audiobook is now available on Audible.com, Amazon.com and iTunes.

Narrated and Produced "Empowered to Succeed" audiobook

I have completed narrating and producing Empowered to Succeed by Efosa Emovon.

"Efosa Emovon is a firebrand motivational speaker. He is also a consultant in human resources management. He is the former Chairman and CEO of Immortality Records and the founder of Gate of Success, a company whose goal is to help you accomplish your dreams faster and easier than you ever imagined."

Narrated and Produced "Summary of Buddha's Brain"

I'm delighted to be the Narrator and Producer of Summary of Buddha's Brain for Better.Me, which is now available on Audible.com, iTunes, and Amazon.com

Tips for a better non-studio recording

This note is inspired by a lovely article from iZotope: "Podcasting Tips for Better Audio Quality."

The better your recording, the better the finished product. Magic, yes. Miracles, not so much.

• Find a quiet recording space. The more noise that needs to be removed, the more likely that distortion artifacts will be introduced. Typical culprits include incidental appliance, pet and traffic noises including computer fans, keyboard clicks and even squeaking chairs. This includes avoiding a space with lots of hard flat surfaces that reflect even slightly-delayed echos of your voice. Even if you like to sing in the bathroom, it is better to add well-controlled reverberation after the fact.
• Use a good microphone and place it well.  Talking directly into a microphone catches plosive noise from from consonants like B and P. A windscreen between you and your mic can help. Also, a microphone that is too close also catches large changes in volume that can drive it into clipping and distortion. Do a test recording on the full range of expression that you expect to use and make necessary adjustments. You can also place your mic at a slight angle to your mouth in order to speak past it. However, if the angle is too extreme, you may find yourself speaking into a null area of directional microphone.
• Stand while you speak. This allows better breath control and a fuller, more-appealing sound.
• Record toward the middle of the volume meter (about -20 to -16 dB). Don't let your loudest sound go anywhere near "the red." Your sound editor can adjust the signal up much easier than repair clipping.
• Create a high-resolution, uncompressed, unprocessed original recording file. Digital recording at 24-bit, 48 kHz provides plenty of detail for audio engineering. Save your file in a lossless format such WAV or AIFF rather than throwing away information by compressing to an MP3 or AAC format. You can never get back lost detail, so [digital data] compression should be the very last step if it is needed for distribution.
• Consider making a test recording before you spend hours doing work that may need to be repeated. Listen to yourself carefully for anything that you may want to change about the room, recording equipment or performance. You may want to get an opinion from someone experienced with audio production. Also, listen to your effort on a variety of speakers including earbuds, earphones and smartphones. The end listener may be using any of these.
• Optimize your performance. If you can, work from notes or a script. Rehearse. Plan your message and timing. Stay aware of your performance without letting your mind drift.
• Record remote guests separately. The sound quality across telephone lines or digital telephone codecs is often quite bad. It takes coordination, but if the participants can catch a full direct recording on each end, these can be combined in the editing room; the result will sound much better.
• Avoid the temptation to pre-process the recording before giving it to your audio engineer. Give him the cleanest, most-original version available. For instance, if you filter out electrical hum, he loses the low frequencies his algorithms need to detect and remove plosives. Once effects like equalization, compression, de-essing and leveling have been applied they are appallingly difficult, if not impossible, to adjust.

Following guidelines like these will make everyone's life more joyful, save you time and money and improve your finished product. Happy recording!

You made your recording for a purpose.

But, maybe, it didn't turn out quite good enough for that purpose.

As a Sound Editor, I can help.
..................................................

Toward a more-perfect recording

Modern technology has made it possible to manipulate sound recordings in ways that were not possible just a few years ago. It used to be that the best you could hope for was a skilled tape splicer with demagnetized scissors. But now, listeners expect to hear better than simple cut-and-paste to remove gaps, stammers and word-whiskers.

The environment may not be ideal. A good Sound Editor can remove or dramatically reduce hum, background room noise, room echo and even incidental noises such as a ringing phone or cough. Some of these services can be performed quickly across an entire recording, while others will require case-by-case editing.

Your speaking talent may bump the microphone, introduce 'plosives, sibilances, breath noises or mouth clicks and pops. These can all distract from the performance... and from the message you are trying to get across. Processors can even adjust a voice to sound like it had different larynx and nasal proportions.

The overall performance may also need to be adjusted to repair minor over-driving (clipping) and to adjust timing, tone, leveling and compliance to broadcast loudness standards.

Your basic recording can even be enhanced to fill empty spots with matching ambiance, or conform to a common equalization profile. You may need to have intro and outro segments added.

In my career as a technical engineering specialist, I learned that my job was to make my supervisor look good. I bring that same attitude to my work for you. Job One is making YOU look good.

David Satterlee

p.s. The bottom line is:

• I offer boutique custom audio editing and modification. 
• I'm set-up for processing, not recording. Although I can put you in front of a pretty-good microphone, my space is not noise-isolated.
• I'm a one-man shop. Therefore, I'm at liberty to fool around with a difficult problem for as long as my interest holds out. At the other end of the spectrum, I will be reluctant to take on long-term, high-volume commodity services. 
• I want your business... and your repeat business. Let's discuss your project.

p.p.s. I'm also an author with books in print and free stuff to read on my writing blog. It would be lovely if you dropped by to visit at  DavidSatterlee.com. Thank you.

Offer new services to existing clients - Instructional media

I have been doing some volunteer transcribing for IntegralLife.com  a favorite organization that promotes the work of one of the world's great philosophical theorists. In appreciation, they offered to enroll me in one of their new courses. But, the opening words of the opening module caught my attention. I said to myself: "Self," I said, "You can make this sound better. Why don't you just have a go at it?" And so I did.

I prepared the following brief sample and offered to discuss their using my audio services as well. Time will tell... I'm already doing this work for random clients. I would really enjoy working with some of the finest people I know on some of the most important topics I have ever encountered. Note to self: People who already know you in one context have a hard time imagining you in an other. Be patient.

This picture simply shows a short phrase being repeated before and after processing. The low end of the spectrogram shows less low-end room "boominess" in the right side.  Also, look closely at the trailing edge of the peaks. On the right side, there is more-obvious fall-off as you hear less of the original sound lingering in the recording space.

It's fun to watch the processing finish and all the waveforms grow different shoulders as the display refreshes.

I also enjoy working in the iZotope RX editor to remove pauses in the X-axis (time) and unwanted sounds in the Y-axis (amplitude).

• After selecting a horizontal area, pressing [Delete] simply closes-up the remaining content at zero crossing points.
• If [Instant Process] is turned on, a new selection is automatically rendered with the desired function (such as replacing an unwanted noise with a signal based on a sample of background room noise). 

In both cases it's like it never even happened. I feel like Luke Skywalker shooting womp rats.