Field notes & margin scribbles
The Booth Log
The guides on this site are the method; the Booth Log is everything we learn around the edges of it — spec traps narrators keep falling into, measurement habits worth stealing, and the occasional argument with conventional wisdom. Shorter than the guides, opinionated on purpose, always tied back to a number you can check.
House rules for the Log, so you know what you're reading: entries carry their dates, fragile facts carry their verification dates, and when something is a typical pattern rather than a measured certainty, we say so in the sentence, not a footnote. When an entry grows up into a full method, it moves to the guides and the Log entry points there. If you're new here, the fix order is the front door — the Log assumes you've at least peeked through it.
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September 18, 2026
Recording at 2 a.m. is a workflow, not a failure
Your noise floor has a schedule. The 24-hour measurement protocol that finds your house's quiet shift — and why software is the day shift's compensator, not the night shift's replacement.
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September 14, 2026
Passed the meter, still returned
Every number green, file rejected anyway. The gap between ACX's measured specs and its listened ones — and the pre-submission listen that closes it.
What the Log will and won't be
Will: measurement-first, dated, specific, occasionally cranky about advice that costs narrators money. Won't: gear roundups, room-makeover tours, or engagement-bait about whether AI is coming for narration (ACX's answer as of our 2026-09-20 check: their requirements prohibit unauthorized text-to-speech and AI narration — the gate remains human, and the spec checklist is what it judges humans on). Two entries is where the Log stands today; it grows when we have something worth your session break, not on a content calendar.