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Booktrack Adds Music and Sound Effects To Ebooks
Zothecula writes "There's no doubt that a soundtrack can significantly enhance the immersiveness and emotional impact of films and TV programs. But can some audio accompaniment do the same thing for books? New York City-based startup Booktrack thinks so and has released an iOS app — with an Android app also on the way — that adds soundtracks to eBooks. As the user reads they can listen to ambient background noise relevant to the book's current setting, specific sound effects synchronized to the text as it is read, and music. But does a soundtrack 'boost the reader's imagination and engagement' as the company states, or does it just create another distraction to be overcome when delving into a book on the bus on the way home?"
Hey what next moving pictures? I think they call that TV.
Of all the things I will miss if I live long enough a good printed paperback is very close to the top, maybe even higher up than cheese...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Look, if you had been the military dictator for 40 years, and STILL UNABLE to get promoted above the rank of colonel, you'd do some bad things too, purely out of frustration.
Like kids fighting on the lawn.
Gently reply
*ahhhh,,,.. pssshhhhhhhhhrrrr* "Nooch Vader!"
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
...if the soundtrack was something more suitable, like the Benny Hill theme.
...is spinning in his grave.
We really need your help
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Based on my experience with audiobooks, I can't support this product.
This ebook sponsored by Taco Bell, now leave Borders and run for the border.
God spoke to me
So, after I'm finished inserting irksome background noise to compensate for any deficiencies an author may have had in terms of showing rather than telling, or deficiencies I may have in reading ability, can I have a smartphone app that detects when I'm in a restaurant and automatically inserts the sound of somebody with an annoying nasal voice having an obnoxious conversation? How about some random honking every time my phone detects that it is going more than 30mph?
Bloody hell, people, if there is one thing that modernity needs like a hole in the head, it is more fucking background noise...
Fan slash fiction is about to get even creepier folks. Much much creepier.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
There was supposed to be a less-than sign in the title. :\
...to books. Thank You
but who cares? This is hardly an original idea or concept.
Try listening to some of GraphicAudio's audiobooks instead. They're more like radio dramas than audiobooks, though
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Call me crazy but I prefer reading in silence. I don't want a television experience with a book. If I did I'd watch television.
Specifally those by 07th Expansion. Sort of a bit more than a simple book since they have images... but Umineko no Naku Koro ni and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni do really well in adding to the ambience by having audio tracks and sound effects. But, again, it's a visual novel rather than a simple book. So I have my doubts about this idea...
Audiobooks are great, except when the narrator tries to change his voice depending on who's talking. It's extremely creepy when a male is doing a female voice.
lucm, indeed.
Yeah I guess I wasn't specific enough. I love audiobooks. I love audiobooks with background music less than I love audiobooks without background music. Based on that fact, I can't see myself liking regular books with background music more than regular books without.
as long as they didn't try to patent it.
There's no doubt that a soundtrack can significantly enhance the immersiveness and emotional impact of films and TV programs. But can some audio accompaniment do the same thing for books?
- No, it can't.
I can think of one useful application of this technology - Reading a music score while listening to the music. That would be cool.
Maybe traditional books could get in on the multi-sense stimulation fad with a scratch-and-sniff panel on the back of every page. They wont though because it's a fucking stupid idea.
Who chooses the appropriate sound anyway? Do they really think someone is going to more fully appreciate the murder scene of Camus' "The Stranger" because some prick in a sound studio came by with: "This scene is on a beach so I'm going to add some wave noises"?
We should go a step further and add a audio based narrative. Then we dont even have to read. Then for fun throw in some video in which people act out the scenes of the book. Then we dont even have to use our imagination to recreate any imagery. Then some day we can add things like special effects to jazz it all up.
I agree. I used to listen to audiobooks while commuting and found music and sound effects distracting in the few titles that had it.
it was so hard to be annoying on the air plane while reading.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
...that cheap whale sound effect would just make me laugh. And unless they're tracking your eyes while you read (DRTMFA), I assume it approximates where you are on the page given your average speed, which may make for some interesting combinations if you start reading too slowly.
when I start reading 1970s porn?
One of my favorite readers does it in a way that it comes off as comical, rather than creepy.
Fortunately, "comical" is a good thing when Nigel Planer is reading the Discworld novels.
While my friends were playing Super Mario Bros.
I was immersed in one of the most vivid books I ever read.
I found it was the game soundtrack lulled me into a hypnotic state, open to suggestion.
Ultimately, enhancing the book I was reading at the time.
long before I jack in headphones just to read a book with immersive sound.
Since these guys even thought of this idea, they are idiots. First of all, the only person who has the right to choose a soundtrack is the original author.
Second, the whole idea of books is a completely immersive experience. This merely shows me these morons are not readers and don't know that the addition of a soundtrack adds nothing to the experience. Another stupid waste of time app.
Planned features include moving pictures, followed by the removal of text, as it will be obsolete.
As usual, Slashdot is a little slow.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/books/booktrack-introduces-e-books-with-soundtracks.html
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/bad-ideas-booktrack-adds-sound-effects-and-music-to-books
It's Been Done. Just add some blurry photographs and character sprites and your done.
Does this involve eye-tracking software? Or is it just going to warn me ahead of time when something bad is about to happen, like fight music in a video game? And speaking of which, can it play the FF7 victory music whenever something awesome happens? 'Cause that might actually sell me on it....
I can see this working for some readers, but it would be an awfully delicate balance.
The music would have to compliment the text, rather than distract from it. That means no gimmicks (e.g. sound effects), smooth transitions (remember, people read at different speeds), and quite probably multiple sound tracks (what one person finds emotionally moving, another will find annoying).
Production costs are another issue. Books cost bugger all to produce, at least compared to other media and the duration that people will use it. But they typically suffer from low volume sales. Are consumers willing to pay for that?
Worst idea ever. The last thing I want is someone else's noises invading my reading. I'll keep sticking to my nice, old-fashioned, uncomplicated paper books, thank you very much.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Why can't they just leave nice simple books alone? If they want to invent new paradigms to value-add to the ocular experience they should go waste their time adding 3D to movies or some such shit.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
...a publisher or a guild of publishers and/or writers are going to say this service violates the terms of a license they already have with the ebook services, and come down on these guys like a bag of hammers.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
It could be good. Adding a soundtrack can really make you feel more immersed in things, that's why we have soundtracks to movies in the first place. If it didn't have an effect, there would be no point of having sound tracks for movies, it's not like violins at the moment of a first kiss actually has any reflection of reality, and yet it can set the mood, at to the feeling.
That said, doing so would be VERY VERY hard. A movie lasts a couple hours, a book lasts much longer. You would need high quality sound-effects and scoring the whole way through, you couldn't have cheap repetitions over and over, people would hate that. And the cost of creating a high quality soundtrack to a nine hour (or whatever) book is not low. Not low at all.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That is the dumbest comment ever. They are leaving books alone, they're creating something new. You can still go to Borders and get a normal book. I mean, for a few weeks anyway. :)
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You know, this has halready been done. With pictures. The only new idea here was to decrease the amount of poorly written pornography.
Why? Are you sexist?
They should be targeting young children, say less than 8. They might be enticed to read a story book with some fun sound effects. There are plenty of book-toys you can buy with buttons to press to hear the cow moo, etc.
As a matter of fact, I am, but I find it equally disturbing when a female narrator is doing a male voice, so that is beyond the point
lucm, indeed.
there is also the issue of timing. everyhing in a movie is precisely timed so, for example, you get an orchestral stab when the monster face appears in the window. how are you going to achieve this sychronisation with the reader without severly restricrting the amount of words visible at a time? so you are limited to picking a sound loop per page with none of the dramatic timing of a movie score.
I want my vinyl to play music and my book to have text in it.
What is it with you youthes and those satanic audio/e/i/©books??
Get of my laaww.... (heartattack)
-- no sig today
Japanese already have visual novels, and they've been there for years. They are immersive and some of them are really well written. I would be glad if something like that appeared on the western market as well, but most of us here hardly read any books right now. So what's the point?
Text 2.0 was a research project undertaken at DFKI, the German AI research institute. - Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QocWsWd7fc More Info here: http://text20.net/
Say, for example, I'm reading Everybody Poops...
Come on, who among us when immersed in a good book would even be aware of the soundtrack?
I've had people practically shouting at me before and been completely oblivious.
Does it count if you are the author as well as the songwriter? - http://itunes.com/podcast?id=331469643
It's much more popular in Japan. The music, pictures and sound isn't as distracting as you think. You still keep the imagination part while reading while the sound, pictures and music just help to enhance what you're imagining. Generally if you find those distracting, you can turn off all the sound off.
Often I like to listen to music while I read a book, but then the problem is that the music can clash with the events of the book (happy song comes up on playlist during somber part of book). I think this might not be a bad idea, if they can pull it off tastefully.
Bookphoto adds images to audiobooks.
It could be good. Adding a soundtrack can really make you feel more immersed in things, that's why we have soundtracks to movies in the first place. If it didn't have an effect, there would be no point of having sound tracks for movies, it's not like violins at the moment of a first kiss actually has any reflection of reality, and yet it can set the mood, at to the feeling. That said, doing so would be VERY VERY hard. A movie lasts a couple hours, a book lasts much longer. You would need high quality sound-effects and scoring the whole way through, you couldn't have cheap repetitions over and over, people would hate that. And the cost of creating a high quality soundtrack to a nine hour (or whatever) book is not low. Not low at all.
People read at different speeds, so it seems impossible to do anythin more than have vague background music. If a book that takes you ten hours to read takes me four, how are you going to compress or extend the music to fit both? In films, the soundtrack matches exactly to the action on screen, I don't see how you could do that with variable speeds of reading.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Cheese will be replaced by the smell of cheese. (relevant bit is maybe 2/3's in)
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Yeah, that is a primary difficulty, but I think there are several ways around it. The most obvious is to change the sound based on what page you are on. If the music loops a couple times on each page it won't be too bad. Of course ideal would be to have the soundtrack match the exact word you are reading, but I don't think that is an easy thing to do.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Get a camera that watches your eye movement and plans accordingly. Short of that, put anything dramatic that happens right on a page turn. :)
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I'm surprised to see that the only comments modded up are those bashing the idea. I think it's novel. I imagine it's extremely difficult to implement with any positive effect and in this case probably doesn't work very well, but i can certainly see cases where this would be at least interesting, if not fun. I frequently read with music on in the background, i think it can help set a stage. I mean, imagine reading a good World War II novel with the soundtrack to something like the Band of Brothers soundtrack. Again, i'm sure it's difficult to implement well but all this bashing of the idea? I'm disappointed. Heck, it's a Friday, i would think everyone would be in a better mood...
These things are called visual novels. They have text, voice, music, sound effects, and (sometimes) video,
People intentionally make audiobooks for terrible fanfiction now, you know.