Audio Submission Guidelines
World Literature Today will only accept recordings that follow the basic guidelines outlined below. If you are creating a home recording, please refer to the audio recording tips below in order to create an audio file that complies with our submission guidelines.
- Audio files must be free of extraneous sounds such as plosives, mic pops, computer hardware noise, room noise, excessive mouth noise, and outtakes. Extraneous sounds are distracting to listeners and deteriorate the overall quality of the recording.
- Audio must be sent in one of the following formats: MP3, M4A, WAV, AAC, AIFF.
Audio Recording Tips
- Use an external unidirectional microphone (with a preamp if available) to record your audio. This will improve the audio recording quality and also help in noise reduction. A/C, fluorescent lights, and soundcard buzz are common noises that get picked up in a recording.
- Use a pop filter or screen. This is particularly helpful with spoken word recordings and can greatly reduce any clipping that might occur.
- Use headphones to listen to your completed recording. This will help you to more easily hear any extraneous noises that may have been picked in your recording.
- If you don’t have access to the necessary external equipment to improve your recordings, we recommend using a smartphone or tablet device to record your audio. These devices have less hardware noise. You will still need to listen to your completed audio with headphones to determine if the extraneous noise is minimal.
For a more extensive list of tips to improve your recording quality, see the following two web pages provided by the free audio editing tool, Audacity.
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Improving_Recording_Quality
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Recording_Tips
Revised September 2014
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/submission-guidelines
