Just last week, the audiobook version of my book, Agile Discovery & Delivery, went live on Amazon! I recorded it myself using a program called Hindenburg Narrator. There is, quite frankly, not much information out there about using Hindenburg to create your audiobook, so I decided to write a series of posts about how I did it. If you’re another author thinking about recording your own audiobook, I hope you’ll find this helpful. If you’re starting from scratch, please checkout Part I (setting up your studio and choosing equipment) and Part II (recording) before reading this one about editing your audiobook with Hindenburg.
Editing Your Audiobook in Hindenburg
I’m not associated with Hindenburg aside from being a customer, but I want to say that they did make working within their platform fairly easy.
Hindenburg saves your audio perpetually, so know that if you end up cutting something by accident, you can always get it back. Just use the Undo / Redo buttons at the top or click on the edge of your audio section and drag it to expand it back to where it was. There is also a handy list of all keyboard shortcuts for Hindenburg Narrator here which I found to be very helpful throughout the editing process.
Zooming In / Out
Right next to those Undo / Redo buttons to the right is how you zoom in and out. Click anywhere in your audio tab, then zoom in and you’ll be able to see even the tiniest noises in your audio file. The amount of extra noise my regular speaking voice makes was quite a shock to me. I quickly became annoyed with how I drew in a sharp breath before reading and the noise my lips make when they part. After just a few minutes of editing and enough zoom, I could tell the difference between audio I wanted to keep and these little extra noises. I ended up doing a pass once my entire book was recorded just to remove these sounds.
Cutting / Inserting Audio
You can create a new audio section anywhere you’d like, by moving the white cursor (set point) to a spot and clicking on “Split” (Cmd+B for a mac or Ctl+B for a PC). The best way to move audio sections around is by using the cut or insert actions. If you don’t move the audio around this way, you’ll run into a problem keeping your script and audio in sync. See the One Major Problem / Quirk section for more details.
To cut, click on the audio section so that it is highlighted orange (as in the screenshot above). Then, hit the Cut button or Cmd+x (on a mac), Ctl+x (on a PC). When you do this, all of the audio sections to the right, as well as the yellow paragraph markers above will move over to fill the gap.
To insert, copy or cut the audio section that you’d like to insert. Then, put your white cursor (set point) at the place where you’d like to insert that section. Hit the Insert button, or Cmd+i (on a mac), Ctl+i (on a PC). All sections to the right will automatically move to accommodate the insert.
If you need to highlight all sections to the right or left of your cursor, the command for that is Shift+Fn+Right Arrow or Shift+Fn+Left Arrow (on a mac). This is helpful if you have a gap in the middle of your book and you need to shift everything over to eliminate the gap. I used this shortcut many, many times.
You can do all kinds of next level editing in Hindenburg that I just didn’t feel the need to learn about. I highly recommend you check out their keyboard shortcuts page and Hindenburg Narrator’s Academy videos to find out more.
How I Edited (Two Parts)
As I mentioned in my last post, I did two types of editing. Each day, I would record a chapter. Then, I went back and listened to the chapter. When I got to a place where I messed up, I would cut that section. If I found a place where I stumbled over some words or where the phrasing didn’t sound clear, I re-recorded that section. The easiest way to re-record is to place your white cursor (set point) at the spot where you’d like to re-record, then press record and overwrite the previous audio. I probably spent 2-3 hours a day working on recording, then rudimentary editing.
Once my whole book was recorded, I listened to the whole thing from start to finish, stopping to remove all of the extraneous noises (weird breathing, lip noises, keyboard clicks, etc). This, by far, took the longest and was the most tedious part of the process. I found that I could only work on this kind of editing for around an hour before my brain started to wander and I’d miss some sounds. I was lucky if an hour of editing turned out 10 minutes of beautiful audio. If you record more cleanly than I do, this will take you less time. But, budget for this type of editing to take a lot longer than recording. It took me probably 2-3 days to edit for every day I spent recording.
One Major Problem / Quirk
I ran into one major issue that I’m hoping I can help you avoid. Before I started using the Cut and Insert actions, I was highlighting my audio sections, deleting, then moving the sections together manually. Not only did this take a lot more time, but the little yellow paragraph markers didn’t move with my audio clips. This was incredibly frustrating. I was spending more time moving the stupid yellow markers than I was actually editing. Once I learned about Cut and Insert, I could move a lot faster. So, don’t click and drag your audio sections. That causes way more trouble than it’s worth.
Where to Find More Information
Again, the best place to learn about editing Hindenburg is with Hindenburg’s Academy videos. Watch as many as you have time for before you begin so you’ll know what you can do. It’s also helpful to look through the keyboard shortcuts. I…took the opposite approach. I dove in head-first and only looked things up when I couldn’t figure them out. That led me to mess up the syncing between my script and the audio and probably cost me multiple days of time.
I think I’ve armed you with enough information to get started. Good luck and happy recording!
Next week, I’ll talk about exporting and uploading your audiobook file for Amazon’s ACX.