How to Create Some Special Effects

Like my earlier article, How to Record a Text with Audio Story, this article is primarily geared to those new to recording Text with Audio stories for Literotica or those not very familiar with Sound Recorder. Sound Recorder is limited in what it can do and certainly has few of the special effects and other capabilities that many other sound and recording software have available. While it is limited, there are few things writers can do to enhance their recordings of poems or prose.

The first thing you can do is not really a special effect, it is simply a function of the sound quality, however, with a bit of imagination and insight, a resourceful writing can advantage of the sound qualities available. In my article on how to record a story, one of the first software settings we looked at was the sound quality. Sound recorder allows you to record with CD quality, radio quality or phone quality. While a writer may select a lower quality sound to make file handling easier (the lower quality sound recording creates smaller files) he might also want to use the quality level to add dimension to a recording.

While the CD quality recording provides a crisp, clean sound, perhaps a story taking place outside on shipping dock might seem odd with such crisp sound, perhaps a slight crackle or hiss in the background might give a rough quality to the story that enhances the listening experience. Perhaps if the story is related through a phone call, perhaps a phone quality recording might enhance the effect. You might want to try some readings using the different sound qualities and see which one works best for you (refer back to my article How to Record a Text with Audio Story for detailed instructions on changing the recording quality.)

Sound Recorder has some simple editing features that will allow you to merge several different files. This might allow you to mix several different quality level recordings into a single story, so you can have a dock scent, a telephone conversation and a crisp, indoor scene all rolled into one story. I don't have a lot of experience in mixing and merging files so I will leave this to you to perfect and perhaps report upon.

In addition to the sound quality and editing effects, Sound Recorder has some effects available to modify the sound once it has been recorded. Please be safe with your file and make sure you save a backup file of your recording before trying the effects, it is far too easy to screw up your recorded story, so make sure you have a backup plan.

Once you have backed up your main file you can simply click on the menu item Effects and take a peek at the drop down menu. You can modify the volume up or down. While this is not an exotic technique, you will be surprised how often the volume level of your recording needs adjustment. Here you have an easy fix for a too soft or too loud recording.

Another effect will allow you to speed up or slow down a recording letting you reduce the size of your file if you need to or extending the reading time if you think a slower reading will add to the story. I imagine a good pornographic elf story might be enhanced with the elf-like sound a speeded up voice would produce. Hey, elves need sex too you know.

Perhaps the most enticing effect available adds an echo to the sound. This is especially rewarding in reading poetry or perhaps some more gothic or horror based erotica. All you do is click on this item after you have recorded a story and your words will echo. Give it a try and see what you think. It certainly won't work on all stories, but it is an interesting effect.

Sound Recorder has one last effect available but I am not sure how understandable your stories will be if you use reverse. I am reminded of the old TV series Twin Peaks, which ended so abruptly that they put out a movie to finish up the story. There is a dream scene in the movie where a dwarf speaks. He speaks English but in such an odd way you can barely understand (the movie actually provided captions here). I finally figured out that the actor actually spoke the work backwards in the original recording and this track was then run in reverse, so the words she spoke backwards now played out running forward. It was an odd, odd effect.

Of course, anyone recording a story is free to add any special sound effects your microphone can pick up. Play music in the background, or perhaps add some other sounds pertinent to your story. I think some writers here have actually recorded some love making sessions and included the sounds in the stories. See what works for you.

With these effects in mind and with the recording techniques discussed an earlier article, you are ready to grab a story and start recording. Or if you really want to do something special, perhaps tailor the story you write with this audio recording in mind. Watch for my next article: How to Write for a Text with Audio Submission.