Text With Audio: Length & Size

[Aurora Black]

I'm thinking of doing an audio story at some point, and I'm concerned about the length of the story (and the size of the sound clip as a result).

What is a reasonable length for an audio story? One page? Two? I'm not planning for the story to be any longer than a page.

Does Lit have a size limit for sound files that I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance.

 

[cantdog]

Sorry. I honk (you may have seen the big nose?) so I never even thought about such a thing. That said, though, there's a program called Audacity which will make smaller files. *.wav files are bulky, but Audacity will make *.mp3's.

 

[R. Richard]

I'm thinking of doing an audio story at some point, and I'm concerned about the length of the story (and the size of the sound clip as a result).

What is a reasonable length for an audio story? One page? Two? I'm not planning for the story to be any longer than a page.

Does Lit have a size limit for sound files that I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance.

I did an audio story for the Survivor Contest. I learned quite a bit in the process.

1) The shortest story Literotica will accept is 750 words. This is a good length for your first audio story.
2) It is not easy to read your story flawlessly. You will probably need several tries. Don't become discouraged here, keep at it.
3) Unless you have a fancy recording program, you are limited to one minute length files. What you have to do is record a section of less than one minute and then stop and close the file. You can then reuse the file and create a longer than one minute file in "layers."
4) If you have what I used, a cheap microphone, you need to be very careful. You must find a distance from the microphone that allows decent recording of your voice at normal speaking level. You need to maintain that distance throughout the recording session(s). You also need to maintain the same speaking level [volume] of voice, which is why it is important to use a normal speaking level.
5) "That aint me talking in that recording!" The voice in the recording is yours and it sounds different from the voice you hear when you speak. You do need to speak clearly at all times, a task made more difficult because you KNOW what you are saying. The listner doesn't.
6) "Mit vhat an eggcent dot machine spieks!" I got a hint as to where the accent comes from. You can see the source in your make up/shaving mirror.

Good luck!

 

[cantdog]

What Richard said. But Audacity does not limit to one minute, and it's a free download. It has a display that really shows you what you've done, and an editing capacity that has to be used to be appreciated. Free. Do get it. Make a few trials, and you'll know what you need to do, but Richard has spelled it out pretty clearly.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

AsianPrincess is a popular text with audio author, and she often records 20-30 minute stories. Mine have been on average 20-30 minutes as well.

Somewhere between 2000-4000 words...

 

[Aurora Black]

Thanks for the tips, guys. I've already done an audio poem, so I know the drill concerning recording, software and MP3 conversion. I'll try to keep the story's word count in the 2 to 4K range, and 20-30 minutes seems like a good time frame for a nice, leisurely reading.