December 22, 2022
This small sound proof booth was my home for the past three days. It was an interesting experience to read my book, Buen Camino: What a Hike through Spain Taught Me about Investing and Life, as the narrator for the upcoming audiobook.
The studio my publisher, Lioncrest Publishing, utilized was CDM Sound Studios, Inc. If you need a good studio, I highly recommend them. I enjoyed meeting the owner, some of the team, and a couple of their clients.
Upon arrival I learned that the director and engineer who was assigned to me was sick. Therefore, Cathleen Conte filled in as my director and engineer. "The Camino gives you what you need" was a saying on the Camino. She was incredible and was exactly the person I needed. By the way, Cathleen is a Grammy Nominated Recording Engineer. Thank you, Cathleen!
I am sure that I had to stop and restart hundreds of times in those three days due to my many bumbles. Cathleen's attention to detail was impressive. She would catch a word I missed or added or would ask me to repeat a sentence if she felt a word was unclear. And there were many times I would ask her if I could repeat a sentence. We would re-record it, and she would then seamlessly marry the two audio segments. Have I mentioned that I am so thankful Cathleen was was my director and engineer?
It was also interesting to see the process. Cathleen would send the morning's audio file to the publisher during our lunch break and the afternoon's audio file at the end of the day. The publisher evidently had technology that would compare the audio file to the text of the book. Within an hour we would get a list of things the technology said didn't match. I would then read the sentence that needed to be corrected, and Cathleen would replace the old sentence with the new sentence. When you listened to the sentences before and after the new sentence, it sounded as if they were read in the same session. It was amazing. Again, I am so grateful for Cathleen, her professionalism, and the care and diligence she exhibited for my book. Since Cathleen's attention to detail was so high, I think we only had to correct around 20 sentences during those three days and none for the afternoon of the third day.
On a side night, my routine was to have a bowl of oatmeal and cup of hot tea for breakfast at a diner near the studio. On Wednesday morning, I sat down next to a gentleman (Hugh) who noticed and recognized the scallop shell on my work backpack. He immediately asked if I was a pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago. Of course, I told him I was, and we had a nice conversation. It turns out Hugh is a Catholic priest and New Yorker. He comes into the city around 35 times each year to watch a play on or off Broadway. He spends the night in the City and eats breakfast at this particular diner the morning after the show before returning home. He recommended that I get a ticket to "A Christmas Carol" starring Jefferson Mays. But this wasn't your normal production of "A Christmas Carol." This was a one-man show, and Jefferson Mays was incredible. If you ever have the chance to see it and see Jefferson Mays, I highly recommend it.
As for the audiobook, stay tuned. It will be out sometime in 2023! Buen Camino!