My wife asked an interesting question about part 5 and 6 yesterday! “What is all that chatter in the background?” I blushed and confessed I record lots of extra conversations to make the atmosphere as real as possible.

You see, when my characters walk around in a crowd, I want that crowd to feel ‘real’. I cannot accomplish this by just adding a sound effect of a crowd chatting in the distance. Hannah and Milly walk around and so the sounds around them have to change. Sometimes they’re far away, then they get closer, etc.

That’s why, while editing part 5 and 6, I spent quite some time adding layers of real background chatter. You, as a listener, can only hear these sort of fly by. Sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right, sometimes in stereo. It depends on what’s happening in the story.

Part 5: my first experiment

For example: when Hannah is seated in the audience, someone is chatting about the recital in your right ear because this person is seated on her right. It’s very difficult to pick up on this conversation, but if you really pay attention, you’ll hear it. It gets a bit louder when I think it won’t be too distracting and helps you believe in the fictional world.

Part 6: a bigger challenge

For part 6, with Milly walking through a chatting crowd, I ended up recording over 10 minutes of fake conversations. They’re mostly improvised while recording so they often get a bit crazy 😉 These conversations  keep changing throughout the episode.  You’ll often hear one on the left and a different one on the right at the same time. Milly is walking in the middle of the crowd after all!

But…I can’t actually hear them?!

While listening to the podcast, I want you to take this chatter for granted and not be too distracted by it. That’s why it’s barely noticeable most of the time. But if it wasn’t there, the atmosphere wouldn’t feel authentic. Kind of like…a stock photo. In the past, I didn’t have the time and experience to add this amount of detail. But it’s very important to me now.

Let’s zoom in!

My wife was stunned I do all of this for one single episode. AND she was curious what the hell all these temporary characters are talking about. She said other listeners would probably be curious too. So, I selected a few moments from the background chatter and decided to share them here…

Everything you hear in the short extra below is included in the background of part 6 of The Diva Story! Click play to zoom in on my background chorus 🙂