{"id":10251,"date":"2013-10-29T11:37:40","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T18:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/?p=10251"},"modified":"2017-01-26T22:44:34","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T05:44:34","slug":"hidden-things-audiobook-hunting-the-hisssssss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/2013\/10\/hidden-things-audiobook-hunting-the-hisssssss\/","title":{"rendered":"Hidden Things audiobook: Hunting the HISSSSSSS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I mentioned yesterday, I&#8217;ve already begun some preliminary recording work with Tim White, who&#8217;s doing all the sound engineering work on the project. I&#8217;ve known Tim for years, and we&#8217;ve done some recording in the past (mostly for his podcasts, where editing my tangents becomes something of a challenge) &#8212; he&#8217;s even helped me set up my own recording tools.<\/p>\n<p>And, having worked with him, I had no doubt he was exactly the person for the audiobook project.<\/p>\n<p>We met for the first recording test back in early September. Tim had just finished rebuilding his recording studio from scratch (following a move) and he was eager to&#8230; umm&#8230; you know. Set some levels? Track some masters?<\/p>\n<p>People, there&#8217;s a reason we&#8217;re paying Tim to do the audio stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, we got together, arranged everything to our satisfaction, and the end product of that first session was splendid; after a few weeks worth of quality time with my laptop, Screenflow, and Prezi, it became the audio for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/doycet\/hidden-things-audiobook\">Hidden Things introduction video<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Once that was done and the project was submitted for final approval from the Kickstarter folks, we decided to celebrate with the first recording session for the book itself.<\/p>\n<p>Which is where we meet the villain of the piece.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Sir_Hiss_by_egnawg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10252\" alt=\"Sir_Hiss_by_egnawg\" src=\"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Sir_Hiss_by_egnawg.jpg\" width=\"254\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Sir_Hiss_by_egnawg.jpg 254w, http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Sir_Hiss_by_egnawg-238x300.jpg 238w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 254px) 100vw, 254px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Somewhere between our first and second recording sessions, something had crept into the recording studio. Something evil.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, it had crept into the microphone I used to read the first three chapters of the book, and the end result was subtle, low-grade, but altogether annoying hisssssssss that lurked in the background, mucking up the sound quality. It didn&#8217;t matter whether you listened to the recording on a phone, a computer, a laptop, headphones, stereo speakers, or your car audio (we tested all those and a few more): <em>hissssssssss<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we&#8217;re going to have to re-record,&#8221; I said. &#8220;But hey: extra practice for me!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tim was less sanguine.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m going to find that hiss.&#8221; He promised. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to find it, and I&#8217;m going to kill it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The next communication I saw from him showed a picture of the microphone I&#8217;d been using, <a href=\"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BXi2ri0CAAAx2mq.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">laid out like a frog in Sophomore Biology<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10253\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10253\" style=\"width: 450px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/robin-hood-c2a9-walt-disney.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-10253\" alt=\"&quot;TELL ME WHERE THE HISS IS HIDING.&quot;\" src=\"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/robin-hood-c2a9-walt-disney-1024x576.jpg\" width=\"450\" srcset=\"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/robin-hood-c2a9-walt-disney-1024x576.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/robin-hood-c2a9-walt-disney-300x168.jpg 300w, http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/robin-hood-c2a9-walt-disney.jpg 1706w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10253\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;TELL ME WHERE THE HISS IS HIDING.&#8221;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;d like to say no component electronics were harmed in pursuit of a clean recording line, but that would be a lie.<\/p>\n<p>That said, I&#8217;m coming down on the side of &#8220;ends justify the means&#8221; with this one: Tim informs me that the reassembled gear is crystal clear and ready to go, and I strongly suspect we&#8217;ll be back in the studio this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the project backers have seen this chart already:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/ksr\/assets\/001\/000\/215\/e585e793a6ff637a2451bcf86472e084_large.png?1381259394\" width=\"473\" height=\"281\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I think it&#8217;s obvious where most of the resources are going for this project.<\/p>\n<p>I hope it&#8217;s equally obvious <em>why<\/em>. Our goal is to do the very best recording we can &#8211; that&#8217;s not empty talk: that&#8217;s hours spent bent over capacitors and very, very tiny screwdrivers.<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t wait to share the result.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Interested in backing this project? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/doycet\/hidden-things-audiobook\" target=\"_blank\">Head to the Kickstarter page to find out more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Want to find out more about the <em>Hidden Things<\/em> novel? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Hidden-Things-ebook\/dp\/B007ED2XX8\" target=\"_blank\">We&#8217;ve got you covered.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I mentioned yesterday, I&#8217;ve already begun some preliminary recording work with Tim White, who&#8217;s doing all the sound engineering work on the project. I&#8217;ve known Tim for years, and we&#8217;ve done some recording in the past (mostly for his podcasts, where editing my tangents becomes something of a challenge) &#8212; he&#8217;s even helped me &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/2013\/10\/hidden-things-audiobook-hunting-the-hisssssss\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Hidden Things audiobook: Hunting the HISSSSSSS&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,42],"tags":[373,638,645],"class_list":["post-10251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-writing","tag-audiobook","tag-hidden-things","tag-kickstarter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10251"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15253,"href":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10251\/revisions\/15253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}