Just before I met Carol I took a course in audio engineering at WCC. Part of that was a visit to Ann Arbor's premier recording studio and a discussion on how and why it was designed the way it was.

This was enough to convince me I could set up a room in the basement with homesote soundproofing panels on the walls, a quilted ceiling and sound absorbing flooring. Sweetwaters was very happy to sell me good quality mics and a 2 channel pre-amp. My obsolete Apple notebook doesn't have a fan, but controls the mics and pre-amp very nicely (and quietly - no fan!).

The intention was that Carol would use this room for recording her parts to the music her trio was hoping to release.

So much for that plan.

The recording studio has sat empty for a few years now, except when I do some sort of quick piece because someone asks about a song or such.

One line I've been hearing a bunch lately when I try to sell my book is "I only listen to books these days."

Those comments led me to attend a talk on making audio books at a recent conference. The upshot from that talk was that the big investment in making an audio book is the cost of a decent studio.

Been there, got that.

So, as a first try, I recorded one of the Bard & Sigurd short stories. I did the audio editing on my laptop, using the laptop speakers. On little 2-inch speakers, it sounded pretty good to me, so I sent a link to a few friends.

The reviews were not favorable.

I hooked up a decent set of headphones to my laptop and listened to it like that and realized that the reviews were kinder than they should have been.

In particular, while I couldn't hear the popping P's, I could feel them.

I tried rearranging the microphones. This reduced the popping, but didn't get rid of it.

I trooped down to Music-Go-Round in Ann Arbor and got a foam windscreen for the mic that displayed the most pop.

Again, it helped, but not enough.

You can make a Pop Filter out of a wire coat hanger and a pair of panty-hose.

Carol hated wire coat-hangers and replaced most of my old hangars with nice wooden ones. She stopped wearing pantyhose when she stopped working in downtown Chicago.

Per the google search, window-screen is even better than pantyhose. The stiffer the material the better.

Leftover scraps of window screen is one of those things that all homeowners have hiding in the back corner of the garage.

A few minutes in my wood-shop and I had a pretty little hexagonal frame holding a chunk of window-screen.

I re-recorded the story, and I can barely tell the pops are there. Not perfect, but (maybe) good enough.