Do you listen to the audiobooks?

[Josh]

Because Kris and I are preparing to secure financing for audio productions of the Warpworld series, and I'd like the input of any audiobook listeners as to what they prefer in an audiobook.

Specifically, these are the elements I'd like to know about- soundtracks, and whether you prefer single reader or a multi-cast ensemble of readers.

But any other input as to your preferences would be nice.

[B4UTRUST]

Audiobooks are my primary source of entertainment during my work day while driving. I usually get about 2-3 hours worth of listening in every work day. So it may take me a few weeks for a single book but I do listen to them. Personally, I love them.

I've talked to you about this before I think, however here's my bits.
Multiple cast members are great if they can be afforded. Unless the person is really talented when you start trying to do voices for members of the opposite sex they usually(to me) end up sounding either forced or just plain horrible. There have been some great exceptions from various readers but in general it usually irks me and throws me out of the listening experience.

Soundtracks - some can be good. Some good light background music can help set certain scenes amazingly. However I get extremely pissed off by 30 second to 1 minute full orchestral transitions between chapters every chapter the way some seem to do. I want to listen to the story, not the same clip of music over and over every time there's a new chapter.

Also, as a separate note: Ensure that the encoding is a good high quality and that the person reading has a loud enough voice to be clearly heard. I'm probably in a fairly uncommon situation in my setup to be fair but I've had some issues along these lines. I'm hard of hearing in my right ear from working on aircraft. Sometimes it's hard for me to clearly understand voices. Which makes it doubly hard when I'm listening to most audiobooks in MP3 format on my work laptop and playing them off of my laptop speakers since I don't have an aux in on my van's radio or a CD player. Most of us know that, with some exceptions, that laptop speakers just kinda suck. They're small and underpowered. I've tweaked every audio setting I can and equalized the hell out of what I've got but even then on some audio books I have difficulty hearing and understanding the reader. Others come through amazingly clear and loud. Part of it is the reader, part of it is the encoding used in the book itself and the recording levels. Just a thought to consider for the hearing impaired.

[Josh]

Well the cool thing is that we may have a grant coming that better than doubles our projected budget, though it does tie us back to using artists from Kris' particular region. I'm definitely on the side of multiple actors myself, but I only listened to a few back in the day when I was a truckdriver so I'm absolutely nothing in terms of representative market.

(Okay and I've listened a few of the 40K audio dramas more recently.)

I'll definitely take note on the encoding. This is all very first-time for us, so we're having to learn it from the ground up.