Forty Hours Later: Why I Restarted the Edit
This new series, Audiobook Audio (V3), exists because I made a mistake. Not a particularly dramatic one and certainly not a catastrophic one, just the sort of mistake that only reveals itself once you’re already committed—the kind that costs time, not money. In my case, it cost me about forty hours of editing, and somewhere inside those forty hours, I realised I’d been thinking about audiobook audio the wrong way round.
The restart
I was well into editing an audiobook—tightening pacing, fixing small errors, cleaning things up—when I spotted a problem I couldn’t ignore. It wasn’t just one thing; it had a pattern.
I was starting to see how small issues that had seemed manageable in isolation were compounding. Fixing one thing nudged another out of place. What was worse for me, was that tools that had felt helpful earlier were now getting in the way. The turning point was when I realised that the more time I spent with the audio, the less confident I felt about it.
But what finally sealed the edit’s fate was spotting an error that had been baked in by not noticing it.
Eventually, I drummed up the courage to stop and question my life choices. I scrapped the edit, and I started again from the original recordings. Forty hours of editing discarded. That decision hurt. Not because it was technically difficult, but because it forced me to sit with my own audio—closely, repeatedly, for hours—without the comfort of believing I could “fix it later”.
And that changed how I listened.
Editing is a truth serum
The thing is, editing, proper critical editing that is, is merciless. When you’re recording, a lot of things feel fine, feel good enough, and when you’re processing, a lot of things feel clever. But, when you’re editing—especially for long stretches—anything fragile starts to fall apart. You start to hear patterns, you hear fatigue, and you hear where clarity only exists because you’re concentrating.
Forty hours of editing stripped away my ability to lie to myself. And what it revealed was this: my process wasn’t broken, but it was backwards.
I realised I’d been letting problems into the recording and trusting myself to fix them later.
And even with good editing skills, that turns your time into damage control instead of enhancement.
V1, V2, V3: not versions, but mindsets
Looking back, I can see three distinct ways I’ve approached audiobook audio. I think of them now as V1, V2, and V3—not because they’re neat upgrades, but because each one represents a different assumption about where the real work happens.
- V1 assumed tools would save me later. Record clean enough. Process aggressively and edit carefully, then fix what’s left. This does work—up to a point. But it makes you tolerant of problems you shouldn’t accept in the first place. That’s what I was doing when it fell apart, and I scrapped the edit. I picked up the original audio again, and changed my approach.
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V2 was the reaction to that. I was using fewer tools and gentler processing. I was trying to show more restraint. This was better—but it is still a reactive approach and I was still letting problems into the recording and trusting myself to deal with them downstream.
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V3 is the uncomfortable one.
V3 assumes that if something matters, it has to be decided early. Recording turned out not to be passive—it’s where I decide what future-me has to deal with. Once I saw that clearly, the rest of the workflow stopped being optional.
What the editing taught me
The big lesson from those forty hours wasn’t about a specific tool or technique. It was this change of focus:
Instead of recording audio I can improve later, record audio that does not need improving.
Or, more directly,
Stop asking, How can I fix this?, and instead ask, Why am I letting this happen?
It seems obvious, but without real commitment, it is easy to neglect. Thankfully, with real commitment, it is achievable.
The shape of the series
This series is my attempt to explain how I try to record audio that does not need improving. I’m still learning, so this is not going to be by presenting a perfect workflow, but by showing the one that survived pressure—the one I now trust enough not to change mid-book. It’s my Audiobook Audio V3, and it is how I am now producing my highest quality audiobooks to date.
First, I’ll lay out the system as a whole, and the decisions I refuse to wing. Then we’ll zoom in on capture—because that’s where most of the leverage turned out to be. After that, we’ll deal with the problems that only appear once you’re deep into editing: noise, pacing, EQ, dynamics, loudness, and pickups. Each part exists to justify one commitment.
Where this leaves us
By the end of this series, you won’t just know what I do. You’ll know why I do it early, why I keep it boring, and why I resist fixing things that should never have been broken. Next time, I’ll start with the first commitment that made everything else possible:
A minimal recording chain — and how removing options turned out to be the real constraint.
If you want to know more, come and ask me over in the Slack community at podfeet.com/slack, where I and all the other lovely NosillaCastaways enjoy friendly, positive online conversations. Feel free to message me, Eddie Tonkoi, if you have any thoughts, questions, or techniques you’re using. It would be nice to share ideas.
You can also find our work at jerntonkoi.com, where you’ll find Jern’s character-driven queer love stories, the audiobooks I produce for them, and bonus material for our subscribers.
I’ll be back soon to talk through some more of my workflow but, for now, happy recording, and happy reading.
Part 1: Capture foundations
- Forty Hours Later: Why I Restarted the Edit ← you are here
- The V3 Chain: The Few Decisions I Refuse to Wing
- Mic Technique Is Processing: Making Consistency Boring
- Choosing the Tone: Mic Position as Creative Control
- Remove the Safety Net: Performance Craft When You Stop Fixing It in Post
- Leave Headroom: Gain Staging for Narrators
Part 2: Editing craft
- The Noise You Notice: Trains, Fridges, and the Myth of “Silence”
- Clicks, Breaths, Plosives: Prevent First, Repair Second
- Invisible Cadence Editing in Logic: Fast Cuts That Still Feel Human
- EQ for Audiobooks: Subtractive, Boring, Surprisingly Effective
Part 3: Delivery, Continuity, and Optional Processing
- Make Specs Boring: LUFS, RMS, True Peak, and Consistent Chapters
- Pickups Without Teleportation: Seamless Punch-ins with Room Tone and Calibration Reads
- Compression Without Fatigue: Levelling vs “Radio Voice”
- De-essing as Repair: Fix the S, Keep the Clarity