Author: Eneasz

Hearing recordings of your own words can make you painfully aware just how much of a disconnect there is between the things you think you’re saying, and the words that are actually coming out of your mouth. Sometimes it’s a simple slip of the tongue – saying “must” instead of “much”. Sometimes it’s a slip of the mind – there has been a lot of times where I’ve said “Draco” rather than “Harry”, or vice versa. While clear communication is certainly primarily the concern of the communicator, I’ve come to realize how important it is to have a charitable audience that helps with the translation. Talking to a hostile audience probably makes inferential distances far worse, as they are no longer working with you to bridge those gaps.

In today’s episode there was a line I simply omitted. An entire line that I thought I’d read out loud, but had instead simply skipped over. How the hell?

When it doesn’t change the meaning of a sentence I’ll generally leave such slips in, but if it’s a noticeable error I have to go back and re-record an entire sentence or paragraph and splice in the re-take. I hadn’t realized that when I started this, but you can’t simply splice in the word that was flubbed. The cadence and rhythm doesn’t match. What’s worse, even redoing an entire line or paragraph, it’s still rarely a good match. A lot of things affect the final recorded sound – distance from the microphone, my energy levels, the posture I’m sitting in, even when I last drew a breath. Over episodes small variations in tempo, tone, and pitch are unnoticed, but a sharp change from one line to the next is jarring. I have to repeat the correct line several times, attempting to manipulate those variables as much as I can to match the original reading, and pick whichever works best. And it still usually doesn’t quite sound right. /sigh

It doesn’t happen as often as it used to, I pay more attention when reading now. Like they say, it saves a lot of time simply doing it right the first time.

But still, how did I overlook a whole dang line?

It’s been quite a while since I began re-recording the early episodes. After the initial push I haven’t done many more. I’ve decided to stop with Chapter 9 – the episodes from then onward aren’t so bad they need a full redo. Up to the mid-teens they still aren’t that great, but I need to draw a line somewhere. I will, however, be going through and doing some re-editing on everything up to the Azkaban arc, which includes replacing my voice for every role that now has an actor. And because I don’t want this to last for months while I do an episode here or there, I’m planning on taking a week off from work in mid-February to dedicate 8-hours a day to podcast editing.

What this means is that if you’ve been wanting to do the voice of Anthony Goldstein, or Sybil Trelawney, or even just “Fifth-Year Slytherin Girl” – sometime in the next few weeks would be a great time to do that. :) It’ll let me mix it in with the least amount of fuss and you’ll get to hear yourself within a month or so. See the submissions page for lines and tips, and please be sure to contact me first to make sure no one else grabbed the part already.

There’s a new Madam Longbottom.

When I originally recorded chapter 38 I asked my girlfriend to do Madam Longbottom’s voice. I had already slated her to play Amelia Bones, because my girlfriend is also a tough-ass bitch and she feels perfect for the part. But I didn’t yet have anyone for Madam Longbottom, and it seemed that this was a one-off role which wouldn’t reoccur, and had over a dozen chapters from her appearance to Amelia’s appearance. No problem, right?
Not long after that Taboo Tradeoffs came out, and not only do the two of them appear in the same chapter, they actually speak directly to each other. >.< Epic facepalm.
So I have recruited a new Madam Longbottom. I’ve also gone back and replaced Melissa’s lines in 38 with Sabrina’s, for consistency. Hopefully Lily Potter won’t ever have a conversation with Molly Weasley…

In non-Potter news, The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson is absolutely awesome. It’s got power armor, lightsabers, and an awesome messiah character. It’s full of Capital Letter Ideals and if you like fantasy I highly recommend it. Not strictly rationalist fic, but lots of problem-solving, some research, and at one point the messiah character asks the Fundamental Question of Rationality almost word-for-word.