Good practice guidelines for dramatic works

[Availle]

Donald, I have edited your post to remove your reference to the text and the reader. I realise you did not say anything negative about the reader's performance, but only about his setup; but still your wording of it came close to violate our rule of "no negative criticism". For the same reason, I have removed the link to the video.

[DonaldMiller]

I criticised someone's microphone. Good Grief!
I get the idea. I won't be coming back.

[Norman]

{Deleted by the author. Nothing worth saving for posterity. The replies are more than adequate. I do understand that the care and nurturing of volunteers is a delicate task. - Norm }

i think you should have ... asked for a link to his Wordpress sites and YouTube channels. I can go google it if i was so inclined.

Dramatic readings show up with some parts already pre-cast, and thankfully suggestions for noise reduction. There is a place for Librivox's policies but also an allowance to point to other sites and requests for readers for other venues. Donald was obviously trying to be constructive.

Dramatic readings certainly seem to attract drama.

Feeling very Libertarian,
Norman

[TriciaG]

We don't allow unsolicited negative criticism on the forum. Criticizing a reader's background noise in a cataloged recording might be cutting the rule a little close, but that decision was made in this case, so we'll stick with it.

I think "following the logic to its conclusion" is not logical. We have a line, and right at the boundary it may be a tiny bit fuzzy, but we do allow multiple versions. That doesn't always imply the newer reader thinks they can do it better. They could simply love the work and want to record it themselves.

Yes, Archive allows critical reviews. It's not the LV forum. And, by the way, LV doesn't allow the files to be hosted on Archive; Archive lets us host our files on their servers. Without them, we'd have to pay big bucks to host all these audiobooks elsewhere. So in their sandbox, we play by their rules. But on our forum, we play by ours.

Donald is welcome to post his YouTube and blog sites if he likes. But a direct link to an improved version of a project/reader he has just criticized? No.

EDIT TO ADD: P.S. I greatly dislike pre-casting of dramas, when the pre-casting is done via PM or off the forum. There is some volunteering for roles done in the planning thread, but that's open to everyone. It's un-LibriVoxy to tell someone they cannot read a certain role because they aren't good enough (either style, or voice match, or whatever).

[Availle]

Norman,

I indeed hesitated before deleting the link. But I cannot leave the link intact while deleting the criticism. That's the same as posting: "Oh, that was such a bad reading by somebody who's name I am not allowed to tell you on here, but here's the link with my own improvements so you can all go and find out for yourselves."

If you go on archive, you will often see complaints about readers, and often you can see a response along the lines of "well, why don't you go record another version of it?" And you will notice that most of them don't. I would guess that 99% of our multiple version books have been done by readers, not who hated the previous versions, but who loved the book.

Donald has every right to take our recordings and do with them as he pleases, that's what public domain means. Note however, that such a replacement of one or two readers would not be accepted as a new version on librivox, because we do not allow the same recording being used more than once.

[linny]

I have a question about saving a label track to an audio file.

I have a DP file in flac. As chapters are edited I want to include the cast list in order of the MW listing. I added a label track so ideally next time I can quickly find where to paste in a "role, read by" statement. Example if the new role is 15 in the MW and I have 2 and 21 already pasted in then I know this new character should be pasted between there and not between 21 and 30. It will also make it so I don't have to listen and find the spots with each chapter.

The problem I'm having is I can't figure out how to save the file with the label track. Any ideas?

Thank you,
Linny

[ToddHW]

I have a question about saving a label track to an audio file.

I have a DP file in flac. As chapters are edited I want to include the cast list in order of the MW listing. I added a label track so ideally next time I can quickly find where to paste in a "role, read by" statement. Example if the new role is 15 in the MW and I have 2 and 21 already pasted in then I know this new character should be pasted between there and not between 21 and 30. It will also make it so I don't have to listen and find the spots with each chapter.

The problem I'm having is I can't figure out how to save the file with the label track. Any ideas?

Thank you,
Linny

I do this all the time - but only while the audio and label track files are in Audacity.

It is possible to export a Label File from Audacity and then Import it back in. So if you want to have your audio as FLAC, that might be a way. (Also possible to mail the label file to someone then so they could import it.)

Thanks, Todd

[linny]

I do this all the time - but only while the audio and label track files are in Audacity.

It is possible to export a Label File from Audacity and then Import it back in. So if you want to have your audio as FLAC, that might be a way. (Also possible to mail the label file to someone then so they could import it.)

Thanks, Todd

Silly me! I didn't use "Import". It does not like >File>Open but with Import it works!
Thank you!

[Patrick79]

Hi
just a general question - is there a link explaining the recording process for doing a play. Are the parts recorded in isolation and edited together?

Sorry if this is not the right place to ask but thanks anyway.

Patrick79

[TriciaG]

Yes - each role is read by someone, with a few seconds between each line. An editor then stitches everything together.

Try this as a resource: http://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Dramatic_Readings_and_Plays