Podfics vs professional audiobooks

[luzula]

I've been thinking about the differences between podfic and professional audiobooks, and especially about whether podfic is developing its own styles of reading.

I listen to both podfics and professional audiobooks, and it happens much more often that I stop listening to a professional audiobook because I don't like the style. By this I mean that the reader sounds affected in a way that annoys me. It's like they're interpreting/acting out the text in a way that doesn't match the way I think of the characters or the way I want things narrated to me. They sound professional, but not in a way that I like.

OTOH, when I stop listening to a podfic, it's most often because it fails for me on a more basic level--there's too much background noise, I can't get the volume high enough, or the reader is going too fast for me. Obviously professional audiobooks don't have these technical problems to the same extent, and so the only thing that can put me off is the style. And of course, it does happen that the reading style puts me off a podfic, but never in the same way that the style in a professional audiobook does.

Anyone else have thoughts on this? I know my own thoughts are rather vague at the moment, which is why I wanted to discuss it with others.

Comments

[pandarus]

I haven't listened to many pro-audiobooks at all - maybe 3 or 4. But Gail Carriger linked to the free first chapter of the audiobook of her 'Soulless' a while ago, on her Facebook, and it was AWFUL. Awful, awful, awful, awful. And she clearly liked it a lot, but it was done playscript style with narrator and various different character voices, which I found a bit distracting but could have adjusted to over time, probably - but it also had MASSIVELY distracting incidental music which made me want to stab someone in the face, and clattering teacup sound effects, and all this kind of thing, which I didn't need either. But I could probably have adjusted to that too - or at least the sound effects, maybe not the incidental music.

The dealbreaker for me, though, was that they'd chosen to do it this way, with one narrator and with all these different people performing the characters (and clattering teacups etc etc) - BUT THE VOICES WERE ALL WRONG. Not just subjectively-wrong-to-me-because-of-the-timbre-of-their-voices wrong. Wrong because the characters are all British, and the actors were all Americans pretending to be British. It was PAINFULLY clear that we were listening to modern Americans LARPing, rather than listening to the actual characters - no suspension of disbelief was possible for me on that one. And, hell, the guy voicing the fierce Scottish werewolf love interest wasn't even taking a stab at sounding gruff or Scottish - he was going with a generic toffee-nosed faux!English too, despite the narrative telling us he was supposed to be this gruff Scot.

(The audiobook of 'Ender's Game' was done with multiple voices too, and that generally worked for me. But it was a lot more pared-down and unfussy, so it was effective.)

I can't often download podfic effectively, because of my crappy internet connection, but when I've been put off listening it's been for reasons like the volume being so low I can barely hear the speaker. Perhaps once or twice because someone's voice happened not to be my cup of tea? But generally it's been technical things.

[zvi]

Oh, good night, I googled and listened to the first 30 seconds of this with cast audio performance.

That is not a professional audiobook. It was, as far as I can tell, a freebie audio promo someone offered to do because they liked the book so much. I mean, it was done by a pro or semi-pro sound people, but it wasn't done by audiobook people, if you follow.

If you go to Amazon.com, there's a sample of the professional audiobook, done by a single narrator without audioeffects. A narrator, I might add, born and raised in England, although her accent has somewhat Americanized after living in the States for some time.

[pandarus]

Well done you! Well, I'm relieved to know that the thing she linked to way the hell back when *wasn't* the professional/have-to-pay-hard-cash-for-it audiobook. She asked for feedback at the time, and I must admit I said that I thought it did her work no favours, and that it would be way the hell better to have a single narrator, who actually was British, and to eschew distracting sound effects. Nice to know they did exactly that!

[darkemeralds]

The pro audiobooks of His Dark Materials were, sadly, produced in this way. The author read the narrator bits, and actors of varying degrees of fame played the parts. It was incredibly distracting and a really, really bad choice for a dark, demanding and powerful set of novels. Mind you, I listened to the whole thing because, as with much podfic, I was already in love with the stories.

On the whole, multiple actors and sound effects are a big no for me. This isn't old-time radio, dammit! It's story-reading.