Audio

I have hypnotized subjects live in person and online for years, but have only recently decided to attempt to make recordings to share online.

This has been a somewhat eye opening experience, which has shown me how little I know about handling audio. Raw audio of me speaking on its own sounded rather dry, and seems to sacrifice some potential benefits of the medium. I did some work to figure out how to generate some muzak (from Faure’s Apres Un Reve) using binaural beats. Mixing this with recorded spoken audio in and of itself isn’t so bad.

One subject who tested an earlier recording said that he thought my voice should be slowed down. Lazily, I took his note, but rather than re-recording, I artificially slowed down the previous recording, and re-mixed with music. This introduces some clear artifacts, but I actually think that doesn’t sound “bad” for what the recording is trying to achieve. It is slow, and combined with the binaurals and repetitive music, I think the right kind of subject might find himself drifting off rather quickly.

However, my big problem is stitching together recordings from different takes. I cannot pretend that I can do a 30 minute recording all in one take. I’ve tried to separate out a reusable induction, suggestions, a wake-up sequence etc. For the most part, I imagined, the suggestions for a specific recording could be new, but the other components could be re-used. However, for reasons I don’t fully understand, but likely including inconsistent microphone technique, as well as perhaps actual changes in my voice on different days, the seams transitioning from one segment to another are sometimes quite audible. Are they jarring to subjects? I’m not sure, but I can’t imagine they help.

However, the first hurdle of any hobby project is to actually ship. I’m sending first recordings into the world with these visible (audible) seams. I hope that I learn how to either make recordings which are consistent enough to be stitched together in this way, or how to fix them up in post to be less jarring. If and when that occurs, I will strongly consider fixing/replacing existing recordings. Until then, I have to hope that these flawed creations are still enjoyable.

However, if any listeners have concrete suggestions, I welcome feedback.