Whether you’ve written a nonfiction book, a short story, or a novel, audio Book recording equipment can help you turn your work into a new source of revenue.
Recording an audio Book of your unique novel can help you supplement your income if you’re an author. Audio Book production may appear difficult. But you can turn your living room or spare bedroom into a home studio with the right recording equipment.
Quality audio Books have a sizable market, providing an additional revenue source for every book you publish. You can, of course, employ a voice actor to record the book. However, many authors are discovering that they prefer to record their audiobooks.
Software For Audio Book recording:
Audio Compressor Software
The volume level of an audiobook is evened out with an audio compressor. Let’s imagine you’re recording an audiobook, and you’re speaking softly in certain sentences and louder in others.
Because the level of your voice is continually fluctuating when you play it back, it will sound amateurish.
An audio compressor reduces the volume of the loudest parts of your audio Book to a preset level. Like lowering the group, it does not drop the entire audio file. Setting the threshold on a trustworthy compressor allows you to decide what is too loud.
If this is your first time recording an audiobook, go with free compressor software. You won’t get all of the extra features that a premium tool would, but you probably won’t need them anyway.
TDR Kotelnikov and TDR Molotok are two of the most popular free compressor plugins. Both interfaces are quite simple to use. You can find the typical threshold, attack, release, and ratio controls on each dashboard. The loudness of your audio Book will be constant with these characteristics.
Audio Editing Software
The importance of post-production is equal to that of recording. Make sure it sounds clean and professional before putting it on Audible or iTunes. This is where audio editing tools and DAW software come in handy.
You can edit, manage, mix, and remove your audio files with ease with audio editing software. Sound professionals employ these complex tools to reorganize audio and modify MP3, WAVE, and MPEG-4 files to achieve the best sound quality. On the other hand, these tools do not require you to be an engineer to use them because they are rather simple to operate.
Consider using iZotope RX to edit your audio files if you want a flexible solution. You can make all of your adjustments in one program with this software. Studio One is a good alternative if the price is too high. It isn’t as thorough, but it is far less expensive.
Audio recording software
Finally, software to process and edit your recordings is required. Adobe Audition and Pro Tools are popular among professionals. Still, your program doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive to record an audio Book – especially if this is your first time. GarageBand or Audacity are two (free!) apps we recommend.
As believed by custom book printing services, GarageBand, a free audio workstation preloaded on your Mac, is a great option. You can easily get it for free from the App Store if it isn’t. The program includes basic features for recording, cutting, and rough editing audio recordings, and its UI is easier to use than professional applications. You’ll need to get acquainted with the app’s functionalities and tabs, but it’s not difficult.
Audacity, an audio editing program for PC users, is available. However, it has fewer features than GarageBand. You may add plugins to access the whole collection of tools required to engineer your soundtracks. We’ll go over this in further detail later since, for now, let’s get to the fun part: narrating your book!
Essential Equipment:
Computer
Make sure you have a computer or iPad to capture your work before you start worrying about your studio. Of course, any regular desktop or laptop computer will suffice, but if you’re in the market for a new computer, keep these points in mind.
- Your financial situation
- RAM
- Portability
When purchasing a computer for audio Book recording, your budget is the most important element to consider. You won’t need to buy another computer if you currently have a laptop with more than 8GB of RAM and a fast processor. If your computer is slow, you can upgrade to a faster computer or laptop for $300 to $600.
Another important aspect to consider when recording audio Books is RAM. RAM stands for random access memory and is one of the most important components of any computer. elements that influence the speed and performance of your computer.
Microphone
When recording an audiobook, the most important equipment is a high-quality microphone. Although most computers and tablets have built-in microphones, they struggle to block background and ambient noise. However, the microphone will pick up only your voice.
Pop Filter
You’ll need to optimize your audio now that you’ve obtained a good microphone. Controlling plosives is one of the most difficult aspects of audio production. Plosives are sounds that produce a little puff of air that flows to the microphone and are made up of the letters P and B.
Unfortunately, this sounds like a tremendous thump and makes your listeners uncomfortable. These thumps are especially difficult to get rid of after a recording because You can’t equalize them.
On the other hand, you can use a pop filter to eliminate these thumps in audio. A pop filter is a thin metal screen that breaks up puffs of air before they reach the microphone.
Headphones
You can listen to your recording while wearing headphones. You can listen to your audio and see if there are any background noises with a good pair of headphones.
You’ll need feedback on how you sound like a voice actor immediately after recording. This way, you can spot faults right away and fix them.
Consider the Cowin E7 if you’re on a tight budget. It was only $59 and came with noise-canceling technology. This is useful if you have trouble finding a quiet location to record in your house. The Cowin E7 is also Bluetooth, so you won’t have extra cables cluttering up your desk.
Try the Apple Air pod, Max, if you want higher-quality headphones that will let you hear even the tiniest noises in your audio. It also has noise-canceling technology. And a powerful speaker system, allowing you to hear practically everything. Furthermore, the battery lasts more than 20 hours, which is beneficial for long recording sessions.
How to Record the Audio Book:
This stage is simple: in a separate file, narrate each of your chapters, pausing at the beginning of each chapter to establish it, and save them in a folder. You’ll also need to write down the opening and closing credits. It should include the title, your name as author and narrator, and the dedication or acknowledgments for the book. This will take some time and will inevitably get exhausting.
Conclusion
When it comes to audio Book recording equipment, you can spend as much or as little as you want. Of course, high-quality equipment will help you get high-quality audio. But you can build a home studio on a limited budget as well.
Take some time to do your research. Pick up the necessary equipment, and try to record an audio Book from your novel or short story.
Once you have a home recording studio, explore more options. For example, you can use the same equipment to record a podcast, work as a voiceover artist, and record music.
