So. I’m now on my fourth DAW.

A DAW for those of you who aren’t audiobook narrators, is a Digital Audio Workstation …the software you use to record yourself. And I feel foolish. And stubborn. And a lot of other things. But I’ve tried Audition and Reaper and then I just loved Audacity before it decided not to work with my Mac OS (unless I had Terminal going.) I’ve recorded 31 chapters of my book. The first seven chapters have been recorded 4 times.

Most of those chapters have been recorded multiple times, in fact.

And about half of them All of them are going to be recorded again. With my new DAW.

See what happened was, I joined a narrator’s group on Facebook.

Now I know about clicks. Mouth noises. I never heard them before but trust me… once you hear them, you cannot unhear them. I have a lot and I mean a LOT of clicking. It’s unacceptable.

But that’s not why I have to rerecord. You can remove the clicking in editing.

Apparently I didn’t have the gain turned up when I recorded. I did on about half the files. So those would be ok. I could use them. Gain is volume. The files are so quiet that when you turn them up, the room tone is too loud. I bump things. But even then, I can edit those. I’d save half my files. Right?

Wrong.

There’s a hum. It’s more of a rumble actually and it happens when my AC and heat turn on. The good news? Now I know this. I also know how to filter it. With my new DAW. And I’m hiring a coach to help me. He’s very nice. He will help me with the clicking. And with my voice acting. Making sure I’m not completely horrible.

So. The good news is …. I have my fourth DAW. The bad news is…. I have to rerecord my entire book. But I’m going to take a week and just do it. With a coach helping me. Making sure I don’t screw up again. It will be ok. I will do this. It’s a moral imperative that I do this, at this point. lol.

Thank God the next book needs mostly male voices.

Trust me, for the next book, I’m hiring a narrator.

Featured Image by Alexander Antropov from Pixabay