Pocket Fiction - My Setup

How I Record Pocket Fiction

I’ve gone up in the world as far as podcasting is concerned; I’ve made my own recording studio. It’s not much, but it didn’t cost me much either. Most importantly, the quality of the recordings I’ve made has gone up, to the point where I’m wondering if I want to re-record the last couple of poor-quality episodes.

Here’s a photo of my set-up:

The mic is a Samson Q2U, seen here with an iPad mini

The ‘studio’ itself is a nice little walk-in cupboard we’ve got under the stairs. I’ve cleared it to the point where I can stand in it. The printer lives there, among a hundred other things, and on top of that is my recording booth.

Not pictured: The cats that hassled the foam the entire time.

I started with a box – I got lucky, and found one that exactly fitted the measurements of the space. I probably should have a smaller box, but I couldn’t resist buying one that fitted so perfectly.

I bought 10 squares of sound-proofing foam from eBay. I spent a while comparing the different sorts, but I couldn’t find any definitive proof that, at the standard I’m working to, a more expensive foam would yield a better result. I wasted a fair amount of time sticking it in with tape, then super glue, before finally shelling out £14 for a can of spray-adhesive. In a side note, there is a lumber shop in Brockley that sells everything. Like, everything you could ever want. Ever.

With the box lined, I put my microphone in one corner, leaving plenty of room for whatever else I needed. My laptop does fit in there, but it’s much easier to leave it out on the side. Instead, I take my wife’s iPad in there. If I transfer whatever I’m reading onto it, I have a backlit screen behind the microphone that I can read from.

The last bit of physical kit was a pop-guard. By far the most irritating thing was editing out all the plosive sounds – p sounds that ‘pop’ in the recording. I looked online; they were about £3, and I nearly bought one. Then I came across a tutorial that demonstrated how to make my own, pointing out that the part most likely to wear out (the material, not the ring) can’t be replaced on one that you buy. So £3 might be good for six months, but then it’s another £3, and then another. Instead, I used a cross-stitch hoop, a £1 pair of tights, a £1 jubilee clip and a length of stiff wire to make my own pop-guard. It works like a dream. No more plosives!

Software was next. I’m blessed that I’ve got a Mac here, really, as the second-to-most-recent version of GarageBand includes a Podcast template. I’ve got some fiddling to do to ensure that it sounds the best it can, but that’s a good place to start.

And that’s it! I’ve had the microphone for over six months now, and that was by far the most expensive piece, coming in at about £80. The box was £13, the foam was £6, the pop-guard maybe cost around £10 or less. GarageBand is free, as is iMovie (which I use to port the podcasts to my YouTube channel.

I hope this was useful!

Pocket Fiction is back!

I've started doing Pocket Fiction updates again, with a view to uploading a more finely-polished product each Friday. I'm using different software again, something simpler: Garage Band '11, which is actually a downgrade. Turns out they took out the Podcasting functionality in the most recent version of Garage Band, and it's pretty darned good. I've had a play around with it, and I think it's generally better for me.

I've also made a recording booth in my downstairs walk-in cupboard; it's basically a plastic box with some foam in it. I've also made my own pop-filter out of a pair of tights and an embroidery hoop... it's pretty good! Didn't get a single plosive in the two short stories I recorded today, so it's obviously doing its job!

Also! I'm going to take a break from recording episodes of Poisonroot, for two reasons. One, it's difficult to jump-on at any point other than the beginning. Two, some of the writing is actually a little shaky, and I'm writing better stuff now. If, at some future point, people ask me to do the rest of it, I will record the other half.

For now, the podcast is available on the iTunes Podcast store, on YouTube and on my Tumblr. It'll be updated every week now that there's absolutely no excuse.

I'm actively looking for other authors who would like their work read out. As a guide, 1600 words is about ten minutes talking time, so if you've got something of about that length and would like it narrated, then fully linked through my blog, Tumblr, podcast and YouTube channel, drop me a line!

Teaching Lows and Podcast Highs

Almost exactly as I predicted, term started and I dropped completely off the radar. Not a single blog post since September 1st, when term started. The truth is that the school I'm working at now has very high expectations and is also expecting the Inspectors any time soon. That translates to very late nights, working at the weekend, and generally not wanting to do anything other than vegetate in the evenings.

That's not entirely true. I play a bit of Final Fantasy XIV; it's fast becoming an escape from what I do, but this week is a prime example. The first time I was able to get on was last night, so it's not exactly taking up all my free time!

I've found time to do some writing. As well as continuing to work with Patrice Aggs, I'm collaborating with Nana Li on a project which should be finished soon. But it's not as much writing as I'd want to do, sadly.

I do plan to do NaNoWriMo, my second one this year, and the plan is to write Noctis Point during that month. Whether I actually manage to get the time is a question I can't answer right now. Work's getting busier and I'm getting more tired as we crawl closer to Christmas.

However, one thing I have managed to do is release a podcast every week, and a video on YouTube! I've yet to garner much interest, but that's to be expected. I think it's fairly niche, but hopefully eventually I'll just have been doing it so long that I get watchers/listeners through attrition. It's also incredibly handy; it's allowed me to spot several mistakes in Poisonroot, and also realise that I really don't like the first ten chapters or so. I should have rewritten them. They're a bit pants. Luckily, it picks up after that, almost exactly at the point where I started writing it as my NaNo two years ago. Funny, that.

I have found time to do some reading, namely 'Endgame: The Calling' by James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton. It's the first part of an ARG (alternate reality game) sort of thing where there is a real prize of $500,000 in gold coins. Think Kit Williams' Masquerade or The Merlin Mystery (both of which, I know, date me slightly!). So far, it's fairly impenetrable to me, but that's because I just read it through like a normal book. If I really want to go for it, I'll need to sit with a notebook and actually try and solve some of the puzzles. There's a book signing next week in Waterstones, Piccadilly; I plan to ask the author why it's written in the present tense, which I find a little difficult to parse!

Hopefully it won't be another six weeks until I update this!

Sweden and back!

I've just come back from a holiday in Sweden with John Aggs, Nana Li and my wife Sue. We went to Visby, Gotland, and it is beautiful! We were blessed with the weather as well, only one day of rain and it was the day we'd 'planned' for there to be bad weather. All it meant was umbrellas, a museum and some writing/drawing at home!

And believe me, there was a fair amount of drawing, writing, or talking about either going on. We must have talked for hours each about our projects, picking out potential plot points, filling in plot holes, renaming the entire thing in my case, and generally being creative. Sue quite rightly said that it felt like a week-long brainstorm.

I did actually manage to get some writing done, namely replotting the entirety of what is now called Noctis Point. 'Psy-Clones' was a stupid placeholder name, and it's gone for good now. Some of it is familiar; since I last posted about it, I've actually done a fair amount of work towards making the psych powers have rules and actually work. I can now answer questions like 'Why can the Moon be terraformed in your book when it doesn't have an atmosphere?' and 'Where does the half-light drive come from?' and 'What is the Machine doing out beyond Pluto?' which is nice. The new plot is tighter, and starts with more of a bang.

I'm also super excited to be starting a new project: audio books. I'm going to be reading chapters of Poisonroot and putting them up on YouTube and the iTunes store, basically as a way of getting my work to more people. These podcasts will be going up on a dedicated channel, which I'll blog about when it's populated a little.

I love the world of Poisonroot, and I'm not leaving it yet. For a start, my D&D group wouldn't let me suddenly transport them into the sci-fi world of Noctis Point, I'm sure! Second, I feel there's more stories to be told in Ehrian, perhaps not about Trip but definitely more stories. I'm going to read some of my short stories too, and anything that's been published on this blog (and therefore can't be published in print). And now that I've actually written about it, I have to do it!

I read a couple of books while I was away, which I'll go over briefly in tomorrow's post, but I just wanted to post to say that I'm not dead, and very excited going forward from here!