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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...
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*ahhhh,,,.. pssshhhhhhhhhrrrr* "Nooch Vader!"
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...if the soundtrack was something more suitable, like the Benny Hill theme.
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.
...is spinning in his grave.
45 RPM, in stereo?
And the lack of background music when relaxing with a good book certainly didn't help!
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
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.
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?"
In the end, this trend just raises barriers to entry to smaller producers since their books can't be as "in" without reluctanctly adding the same features to fit in. This is the same inflation forcing any console game and Hollywood movie to require a bigger and bigger budget just to get mediocre sales without providing anything new. And it will shrink the brain: gray matter stops flexing and Alzheimers is more likely to ensue. As an audience we'll all just get used to expecting cues before reacting at all. Think of the death of the mental exercise of memorizing personal phone numbers and how normal it is for people to stop caring about what they could do without assistance a few years back.
Like all early technologies, sound effects in E-books will be implemented as badly as the transition from text to "multi-media" CDs in the early nineties: slow, noisy, forced transitions for. EVERY. click. just to get through your content --frustrating enough even though ads didn't exist back then. Hopefully this thing will not be a forced paradigm upgrade. 3D movies becoming "most popular" today requires the production of the remaining new "un-popular" 2D ones to become an afterthought. And our pocket suffers just like when 4:3 LCD screens became a suddenly-costly niche commodity thanks to the arrival of 16:9 into the mainstream visual presentation world.
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.
I'm going to go with "easy to sell to venture capitalists, not designed to actually sell to consumers". Pump and dump. Move on to the "next big thing".
moox. for a new generation.
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.
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