It’s not my fault… (Part 1)

When it comes blogging, at least when I’ve thought of blogging myself, I ranked my desire as on par with posting my latest meal on Facebook or tweeting the status of my toenails. To say it hasn’t been a high priority is not really capturing my deep and abiding lack of interest.

That began to change when I read a post on TheBurningPlatform.com. A post by a guy named “NickelthroweR” (outlining how he had built a hand wired amplifier, preamplifier, or maybe a processor of some sort) caught my attention. You see I build audio systems too. I don’t build the components; I use the components to create systems that range from tiny to large. I specialize in systems for churches, stadiums, and arenas, and while the particulars of what I do don’t matter much in this context, a detailed outline of hand building an esoteric audio device is something that catches my attention.

Somewhere along the way it occurred to me that I was glad to have an opportunity to share in the build he detailed, and I also realized that I have reaped the benefit of similar documentation via blogs, youtube, and innumerable websites I’ve used to educate myself over the years. I also realized that it didn’t come across as a bragging “look at me” type of exposé. Inasmuch as I could tell it was simply an expression of his enjoyment for the work and the sharing of it with someone else who might be glad to see it, and that sharing really struck an otherwise dead chord within me.

Sadly when I went looking for the post in the archives I believe it was lost in the most recent site update. Perhaps JQ at The Burning Platform could resurrect it for me at some point. If so, I’ll be sure and update this with a link. It is really a cool process to witness if you like those sorts of things.

At this point you may be asking yourself, “so what?” Well in point of fact I have something I think is worth sharing. It won’t alter the course of history, guarantee a 5% rate of return, or insulate you from the teetering housing market; however, it might be worth your time if you like building things, acoustics, recording, and putting theoretical knowledge into a practical application. And for those who aren’t interested, go ahead and click on to something else. It is a long read for a blog post, and for people with sub-Carassius auratus attention spans I’ll save you the anguish best expressed in trolling comments.

And thus begins the grand adventure I get to call, because I paid for the name, “The Sonic Singularity”. I hope you enjoy…

All you need is a good excuse.

I’ve always enjoyed bedtimes. There are several reasons for this, but the one that matters for the sake of this particular monologue is that I like reading to my kids. Somewhere along the way I really got into the idea that bedtime stories should be small productions including voices, accents, dramatic narration, and even sound effects whenever possible. Moreover I “read” a lot of books by listening to them. As the owner of a small business big enough to deal with things like payroll, scheduling, ordering, maintenance, insurance, etc. I don’t get much time to read, and most of that is soaked up by reading my favorite blogs on topics I care about.

I also drive a lot. Our projects are generally at least several hours away from our office, so there is a good bit of time that gets eaten by the highways and byways of North Carolina and sometimes the neighboring states. I listen so much and so often when driving that I find I sometimes look forward to a long drive simply because I know I’ll get more time with a particular book.

Anyone who listens to a significant number of audio books quickly realizes the importance of the narrator. While there have been books good enough to overcome a bad narrator (or recording) they are few and far between. Most of the really good books can afford the high grade narrators coveted by the audio book consumer, and it is only the self-produced novel or limited run study on a narrow topic that generally has to survive on whatever is left in the bucket of available narrators. Some of these are pretty good, and some are not. Some are God-awful.

Well I’ll connect these dots by saying I’ve always thought I’d like to try my hand as a narrator. I certainly have the technical chops to provide a high grade recording, I have help in the form of a family member that has several years experience with editing and mastering audio books, and I have space to host a small recording operation in my shop. What I don’t have is any professional experience narrating or, for that matter, any professional experience in a related field like recording voice overs.

I’m not one to let a simple detail like not knowing what I’m doing stand in my way, so when one day I saw a person I knew (through a Facebook group) had released his first novel I immediately pm’d him to see if he had a narrator. He said he did not, so I propositioned him to let me do it with the full faced optimism that can only be found in deep wells of ignorant naiveté. We discussed it, and I recorded a demo chapter for him to review. He said “go”, and badda bing badda boom, I became a narrator.

Well sortof.

It turns out that there was quite a bit more to do. Aside from all of the work flow and prep necessary to pull off an actual non-bedtime-story-for-my-six-year-old type novel, I had to sort out how and where I was going to record this parturient masterpiece. And that, my friend, is where this story comes full circle back to the creation of this blog. You see I decided that since I knew how, in theory, to build a isolation booth that I should do it. After all, I reasoned, this isn’t going to be the only book I narrate. I should go ahead and build a space that will be good for years to come. Besides, if I had a high quality recording space I would need a high quality recording microphone, and I had always wanted a reason to play with one of those….

A Simple Plan

Nothing proves how bad I am at estimating time like my time estimates do. As I ruminate about this new “recording space”, sketch little doodles about how I’ll construct it, count up the amount of lumber and materials I’ll need, tally the cost, and start to map out the process I think to myself, “this will take a couple weekends”. I immediately then say, well if I think it will take a couple weekends, then really I should multiply that by three. It seems I’m always at least off in my estimates by at least 300%, so I naturally have learned to overestimate by that much to start even if it seems like a silly exaggeration. Maybe someday I’ll learn.

Regardless, notebook in hand I snatch my six year old son up to and hare off to Lowes with my box trailer attached. His job is to learn manly things like building stuff since, and since, at six, he’s got a long way to go, he gets to be immersed in the world of lumber, fasteners, and similar fascinations. In the end he mostly ends up riding around on the cart, eating Doritos purchased mid-trip from the contractor check out line, and helping me count the boards I’m loading up onto the multiple carts and dollies.

All in all he does great, and I enjoy the company for the two hours or so it takes to get all of these things loaded onto three carts, purchased, and then loaded again into the little 6′ x 12′ cargo trailer I’ve kept in good use for more than two decades. Add about twenty minutes extra Dorito time while we waited for an epic toad-strangler to finish its work with local flooding, and at this point we’re about a full day into the process. Half a day to noodle what I wanted to do; a couple hours to recurse how much material would be required to do it; another hour to derive how much cash it would cost; and three more hours going to, carting around, and coming back from Lowes and one full day was in the books.

With the continuing threat of rain there wasn’t any point in unloading the box trailer, so I decided to use it as temporary storage for the project…

…doesn’t look like much at this point, but damn it’s heavy. A big thank you to the boys at Lowes for helping me get it in the trailer!

By the way, how can you hate a project that gives you the excuse to buy a new tool? (Note: I had a decent miter saw, but the complicated cuts and large lumber size in this project was the perfect excuse to pick up a compound version):

And no it didn’t stay on the ground…this was day 2!

To be continued…

http://thesonicsingularity.com/its-not-my-fault/

http://thesonicsingularity.com/all-you-need-is-a-good-excuse/

http://thesonicsingularity.com/a-simple-plan/