Slate
A verbal identification spoken at the beginning of a recording take, typically including the chapter number, page, and take number to help organize audio during editing.
A slate is a spoken label recorded at the start of a take to identify what is being recorded. The term comes from the film industry, where a clapperboard (slate) is held in front of the camera to mark each scene and take. In audiobook production, a slate might sound like “Chapter 3, page 47, take 2” or simply “Chapter 5, opening.” Slates are especially useful in open record workflows where the editor needs to locate specific retakes within a long, continuous recording file.
In studio workflows where a narrator is working with a director or engineer, slates help everyone stay organized. The engineer can quickly find specific takes when assembling the final audio, and the narrator can reference their pickup notes by page number. Some studios use a more formal slating convention, while others keep it informal. The key is consistency: whatever system you use, apply it the same way every session.
For narrators using punch-and-roll recording, slating is largely unnecessary. Because mistakes are corrected in real time by rolling back and re-recording over the error, there are no separate takes to identify. The audio file is continuous and edit-ready, with no retakes to sort through. This is one of the practical advantages of punch-and-roll: it eliminates the organizational overhead that slating is designed to solve.