Here I am in my home studio, Flabbey Road, which serves double triple multiple duty as office, library of SF, repository of ancient and medieval literature, reptile room, and man cave, just about to record the audio version of my next book Demure Mindfulness the Taylor Swift Way The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire. Amazingly, you can already order it, so I’d better get on with it. Last time I recorded an audiobook (A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth), listeners complained that I read too slowly, but mostly that I had had too much fun adding sound effects. This time the publisher wanted me to record with a producer listening in, but after a gentle reminder that I’d be frequently distracted by men women and dogs, and that they’d allowed me to do it unsupervised last time, they backed off, with the advice only that I spoke a bit faster. They didn’t say anything about sound effects (I shan’t add any. Well, maybe one or two). The studio has also improved since last time, when I recorded audio directly into my trusty but very ancient iMac (OSX Lion was all it could manage, poor thing); a trusty but equally ancient version of GarageBand; and a trusty but very ancient no-name dynamic microphone I’d used for backing vocals in any number of beat combos from the year dot. Today I am using a trusty 
but somewhat newer iMac (OSX Sequoia, noch); a newer version of Garageband; and a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface. You might both remember that I resisted upgrading for some while, but now I have everything set up, the sound quality seems a lot better. This is no doubt due to the interface; and the greater processing power of the newer computer. The coup-de-grace, though, was that my ancient and trusty dynamic microphone was rendered useless as a consequence of having been peed on by one of our three cats (I think it was Elvis, but he’s saying nothing), so I now have not one but two yes two count ’em two microphones, a Samson Q9U and a Shure SM57, which also make the sound better. The former I bought some time ago as it can feed either USB or audio and is great for podcasts. The latter I bought to trigger the vocoder application in my Korg Nautilus synth, but I am pressing it into service here. I balance the microphones in my trusty Behringer Xenyx 802 mixer, which feeds into the Focusrite and thence into the computer. Using two mics at once, simultaneously and both together at the same time gives a nice, warm, intimate sound. And I DO like the sound of my own voice. So now I’m all set. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…
