Inside story of recording the audiobook

There are sound studios and sound studios. Among the 850+ media interviews I have done so far, a fair number of them have been live radio interviews.

That’s one kind of high-pressure situation in a sound studio. I remember sitting in the studio at WAMU, public radio, being interviewed for an hour by the great Diane Rehm.

Until some of the highly intellectual and skeptical listeners called in to voice their disdain of the very concept of physiognomy, I didn’t really know the meaning of the term “quaking.”

And I remember doing a big talk show in Maryland, a Face Reading interview, where I took one look at my interviewer and went “Help me, God” because the broadcaster had extremely angled eyebrows and a very angled chin, not to mention a highly skeptical expression.

But he did turn out to be kind. I vaguely remember leaving the room in a kind of relieved stupor and hearing someone who worked at the station say something like, “He certainly was unusually nice to you.”

But I can’t think of any radio interview that had the same kind of terror for me as my first several recording sessions for Empowered by Empathy.

Recording an audiobook — not exactly a snap

In the sound studio, one did not snap fingers.

One did not pop “Ps.”

One was aware of every teensy sound, all if it being picked up by the super-fancy microphones at WETA, the classical radio station in Washington, D.C.

I was renting the space by the hour, along with the services of sound enginner Bruce Cain.

I was paying through the nose. And trying not to speak through it.

Broadcaster Marilyn Cooley had entered my life through the door to a public school in Virginia — Marshall High School, I believe. Although I had heard her for years on the radio, I never thought she would walk into one of my adult education classes. But she did.

She brought another WETA broacaster celebrity with her, and it took me a few hours of being with them both not to stare and drool and blush etc. To me, voice talent on the radio is more impressive than any American Idol.

Already a hugely talented empath, when Marilyn added skill, she became a far more powerful empath. Far happier, too.

Marilyn also became a really close friend. And when I confided that I wanted to make an audiobook for empaths, she volunteered to provide narration and also to coach me.

All her years of “senior voice talent” gave me a kind of confidence cushion. During the recording process, she was able to listen for phrases that didn’t flow right. Like a sound umpire at a sports event, she called my “fouls” and helped me do retakes without beating myself up. (A multi-inning sport that you, too, may be familiar with.)

Marilyn knows cool broadcaster tricks, like how to turn pages really, really quietly. Also how to stay calm and how to avoid fits of the giggles.

In retrospect, I’m especially grateful to Marilyn because she coached me to keep my sound natural. Listen to the sample of the audiobook here and you’ll hear pretty much the normal voice of Rose Rosetree. (Not stagey and also not nearly as intimidated as she might have sounded, under the circumstances.)

Editing sound recordings

The other part of making this audiobook where I was clueless before starting involved editing.

Jon Hilton, a fabulous freelance sound editor, spent hours matching voice bits and inserting them hither and yon.

Little did I used to know that an audiobook has a lot in common with a patchwork quilt, with tracks moved, then “sewn” together with electronic stitches.

Little did I know the expensive mistakes I would make, due to knowing so little. But I’m glad I didn’t know until it was time to pay. Because, frankly, I never would have begun making an audiobook at all. Nor would I have guessed the whole production would take about two years, from script adaptations to finished product.

And all that fuss and bother and growth became very worthwhile to me when feedback began coming… not from Marilyn or Bruce or Jon, but from listeners. They got that double-strength intensity I had meant all along. It helped them with Empath Empowerment(TM), just as I had hoped.