REMOTE ENGINEER DIRECTIVES
FOR EDITING
The only task as a single-pass editor is to cut out any flubs and excessive pauses the narrator might have done during their recording.
At the head of every file, there should be a half-second of complete silence; at the tail of every file, there should be 2 and a half seconds of complete silence.
After a chapter heading is read, there should be a 1 and half second gap of silence before the reading.
Generally, there should be 1 second between paragraphs and about a half-second between sentences or dialogue tags. But a lot of times you can go by your gut (especially if you’ve listened to a lot of audiobooks). But if in doubt, you can return to the above directive.
Whenever a narrator says “scene break” please leave a 3-second gap of silence between the end of the previous scene and the start of the next scene.
Final exports will be in WAV format.
FOR MASTERING
Everything is edited based on Audible’s guidelines. You can see all of their guidelines here.
But as a shorthand, these are the primary things we do to ensure mastering of our files is within Audible specs:
Final exports will be in WAV format.
Insert 1 second of silence at the start of each track.
Insert 3 seconds of silence at the end of each track.
Files should never peak or exceed -1db when finishing WAV files in STEREO.
Files should never peak or exceed -4db when finishing WAV files in MONO.
Integrated audio should be between -18 LUFS and -16 LUFS or -21 db RMS or -19 db RMS.
If you’re still unsure if you’ll meet Audible’s guidelines, you can always use their Audio Lab checking system here.
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After you’re all done, e-mail your files via whichever filesharing service you use to antoine@antoinebandele.com