Lee Goettl

The History

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It’s a wonderful Tuesday here in Eau Claire, the fall here is always excellent–when we get to enjoy it. The past few years, we’ve had summer, 2 weeks of fall weather, then winter. Prefer a longer fall and a shorter winter, but alas, things are what they are.

Funny thing was, I was a huge fan of summer. Was. After spending 2 years in Tempe, AZ, I learned that there’s only so much warm weather I could take, and I had enough. When it hit triple digits in October, I was learning the hard way that hot weather isn’t really my thing at all.  The Mrs. and I moved back to WI in 2012, and from that point forward, I was forever grateful for the Midwestern weather. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.

Finished with a few projects last week, now looking forward to what the 4th quarter of the year will bring. Audiobooks have been pretty interesting this year, with the variety of titles I’ve been lucky enough to narrate. Still waiting on a call from Stephen King or Walter Isaacson, but nothing on my voicemail yet.

For the audio production nerd in me, RX9 is coming out shortly–what this means in layman’s terms is I have more digital toys to play with. It essentially makes everything sound awesome after I record it. You don’t think I sound this great on my own, do you? But, in all seriousness, it’s a brilliant piece of software, and I’m looking forward to playing with it. Might actually get to work on those old cassettes from when I was a young producer at heart.

Been reaching out to various Presidential museums and libraries to see if they’re in need of my services. They’re all interesting characters (in my opinion, there isn’t a single BORING prez, including Millard Fillmore), and anyone who knows me knows how passionate I am about American Presidents and everything about them. The sad thing I’ve found out is there are a few that don’t really have an online or brick and mortar footprint. I know there’s not a ton of people screaming for a Franklin Pierce museum or Zachary Taylor Library, but there are so many stories to tell about how these (for now) guys got here, and how they still affect today’s news.

On that note, time for me to stick my nose into one of my Presidential history books.

 

Well Pronounced

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Couldn’t really think of a decent, short title, so going basic.

 

It’s a warm Friday, and I’m not sure if it’s time to call it unseasonably warm or not, considering how warm the past few years of Fall have been. We get Summer, then it’s Winter.

So it’s been a good week, getting another book finished, although I had to deal with an overwrought throat earlier in the week. It never seems to strike when people are looking for a Sam Elliot soundalike, and that would really be beneficial one of these times. Oh well, eventually another western will come my way.

Been reading the book Shogun, still digging my way through it. Made me think about the amount of time that one would need to invest to create an audiobook of it. Ralph Lister is the narrator’s name, and I have to applaud how the guy was able to juggle back and forth between English, Spanish, and Japanese. I narrated a wonderful book, BESA, that involved having to take a crash course in Albanian pronunciation, and that was TOUGH. Thankfully, I had the author teach me the pronunciations, as opposed to working off of a dictionary, but there was still a steep learning curve. And no, I can’t speak conversational Albanian at this point.

Another was a more recent book, The People of Ostrich Mountain, where I had to learn some Kenyan. Amazingly, I had an easier time with Kenyan than I did with Albanian.  Another book I recently finished had Babylonian, Greek, Portuguese…finding the pronunciations for those (especially Babylonian) was a chore, but I eventually found them.

One of the perks of the job, at least, that’s how I look at it. If you’re pronouncing it right, then it makes it that much more realistic for the listener, even if you don’t understand the language.

The Fall

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It’s a crisp September morning, and I’m currently working on finishing a book for Tantor Media, then going to be brainstorming some other ideas that I have for the Goettl Voices biz and see if they’re worthy. Still kicking around the podcast idea, and I think I finally found something that I like that fits my “brand”, so to speak. More on that in future posts.

A week ago, saw the news that Norm MacDonald died. Oof. That was a punch to the gut. This guy was one of my favorite comedians, I listened to his podcast religiously, and quoted him endlessly. Still do. Couldn’t believe he kept his illness secret, but completely understandable. Going to miss his take on, well, anything. Always enjoyed his asides, like when someone would be talking about a reprehensible character, then you’d just hear Norm in the background say “seemed like a nice guy…”.

Been playing around with the RX8 Advanced DAW–man, this thing is magic. I thought the standard did magical things, but this…this is something else. As you all know, I love playing around with recording software, and seeing what I can get it to do. Going to try to take some of those positively ancient sounding wax cylinder recordings, and see if I can work any magic on it. I’m guessing that this is something that AI will be really good at in the future, but for now, this is just fun to try. Recording nerd exercises, if you will.

Newest addiction: Rocketbooks. Those things are so darn handy, it’s insane. Been using them to plan out stuff. I’m not a paid sponsor or anything, but these things are incredibly useful. You can write on the pages, upload them to your email, google drive, one note, etc., and then wipe ’em clean with a wet cloth.

Ok, that’s all I’ve got for now, stay tuned for further developments…

Branches

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Today I start off with a new branch on the tree of my career, directing. I haven’t done it before, but the good folks at Audivita have given me a pretty good education on how to do it, and I’m sure I’ll do just fine. And I don’t plan on being like the teacher from Whiplash, either.

Another fun addition is editing and mastering Amanda (my wife)’s audiobooks. She’s been doing a bang-up job, and has given me a little more directing experience, before I dive in.

I love all facets of this job, the mastering and editing portions included–there’s something fascinating about being able to take the sound of someone’s voice and be able to take it from its raw state into something ready for the listener. Whether it’s adding depth to the voice, having to alter it, getting rid of background noise, the tech out there for this stuff is just incredible.

So, currently working on 3 books, and 2 are due at the end of this month. A backlog is a good problem to have in this business.

 

Nerding Out

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Years upon years ago, I was a 7 year old that had a cassette recorder. I also had a Fisher Price record player, and had the luxury of  the millions of rock records that my parents had. Naturally, I had to have my own countdown show. I’ve got some cassettes hiding somewhere with me counting down to #1 spinning records.

 

It was addicting from the start.

I always had some sort of audio recording, whether it was making top ten shows, recording friends, or, like everyone else did in that time, recording songs off of the radio.

The fun of it was using the equipment. from the aforementioned Fisher Price record player, various tape recorders, moving on up to boomboxes, then an actual stereo (complete with massive speakers, and if that wasn’t enough, my dad gave me used car speakers to use as EXTRA speakers). If I didn’t have a microphone, I could use one of the cheap headphone speakers as a makeshift mic. It actually worked!

I learned if you hit pause lightly while recording, it’d distort your voice. The result was hilarious. Wasn’t great on either the cassette or the stereo, but it was funny.

Once I started working at an actual radio station, it was fun to play with the gear there; actual RECORDING mics, headphones, professional recording equipment, sound effects…I was like a kid in a candy store. Unfortunately, there was only so much time an 18 year old kid working part time could work in the studio, and, well, there were actually people WORKING, so my time having fun was limited.

 

Flash ahead to today. I’ve got just about all the gear I could ever want, all sorts of funky software to make me sound like I’m an old time radio guy to a demented robot, and it amazes me. There’s so much experimentation I can do with this stuff, and I love it. And after spending all these years working with the technology, it’s made me a better audio producer.

Moral of the story: That one thing that you did as a kid might end up becoming a full time career.

Audiobooks and The Endurance Factor

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Hi everyone, it’s me with another blog.

Finished an #audiobook a little while back, and have been editing a special project, and it got me thinking about all that goes into putting these things together.

The first one I worked on was an Elon Musk biography. Starting out, I had a Blue Snowball mic. For those not in the know, these things are more for fun than they are for actual work. Next, I recorded in my work office. Not an audiobook work office, but the office where Amanda and I did our day jobs. No sound treatment, other than a blanket over the desk where I had my laptop. No voiceover training, and no acting lessons. Just a pretty straight read. The only thing I had going for me was my audio production skills, but, alas, it’s hard to polish a turd. It sounds exactly like I said it did, like it was recorded in an untreated room.

 

Flash ahead to this past year, where I got the go-ahead from a PenguinRandomHouse engineer to record from my own studio for Seth Rogen’s Yearbook audiobook. I didn’t master that book, obviously, but I am responsible for how I sounded, and I thought I sounded pretty damn good.

The big difference between 2018 and 2021 is immense; I’ve upgraded equipment, had my own studio built (and rebuilt), got some training (from the esteemed Johnny Heller), went to a few online conventions and learned a few new tricks. Everything has built off of everything else.

But you can’t stop.

I still plan on taking more acting classes, visiting more conventions, upgrading equipment as needed (although, unless a U87 is dropped into my lap, I’m more than happy with my Sennheiser 416).  And getting new software is always a blast.

Anyhow, this was just a little insight as to how I got here, and what it took. Going to keep doing what it takes to make sure I can give Johnny Heller and Scott Brick a little competition. Gotta dream big.

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