COMPLETE: Short Poetry Collection 144 - rap

Solo or group recordings that are finished and fully available for listeners
dadjunior
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Joined: May 7th, 2015, 1:18 pm

Post by dadjunior »

Here's "Charge of the Light Brigade." Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809-1892
Text URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade_(poem)
Duration: 1:51

https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/spc144_chargeofthelightbrigade_da_128kb.mp3

Thanks! The checker kept saying I was too loud, even though I turned the microphone volume all the way down. :roll: :hmm: :cry: :? :D
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Rapunzelina
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Post by Rapunzelina »

That was wonderful! Thank you!

Yes, it's a bit loud but not to worry. It happens to me also, when I record poetry I tend to recite louder :mrgreen:
The adjustment of the microphone works before recording, so now that you've turned the microphone all the way down, remember to bring it back up again, otherwise your next recordings might be too soft. If you need to adjust the volume of an existing recording (that is, after recording) you can use the Amplify effect; with a negative value you can make the recording softer.

Even though this turned out to be a bit loud, I wouldn't change it, because there are also some parts that are soft, so if you de-amplify, those soft parts will get too soft. I think it's fine as is, and I'll mark it PL OK in the Magic Window. So congrats on your second already librivox contribution! :clap: May there be many more!

Another thing I'd like to mention is that we avoid using wikipedia because they put a Creative Commons license on their texts, which means they are not in the Public Domain. Fortunately I found the same poem in a public domain site, and I'll use that url as text source :) http://www.bartleby.com/246/386.html
dadjunior
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Joined: May 7th, 2015, 1:18 pm

Post by dadjunior »

Wow! Thanks! I was wondering how it would turn out.

Thanks again! :lol: :thumbs: :clap: :birthday: :9:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
dadjunior
Posts: 13
Joined: May 7th, 2015, 1:18 pm

Post by dadjunior »

Here's my next one.

Paul Revere’s Ride
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
Text url: http://www.bartleby.com/42/789.html
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/spc144_paulreveresride_da_128kb.mp3

It's also loud, but there are soft spots too.
When can I listen to my recordings online?
Thanks :thumbs: :mrgreen: :) 8-) :clap:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Rapunzelina
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Post by Rapunzelina »

:D :9:
No worries about the volume :thumbs:
So I think there is a line missing at around 1:32 "Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church". Would it be easy to edit it in? Or maybe it got chopped off at editing and you still have it in an unedited file?
And I actually just noticed that you used the full intro; there is an abreviated intro for poetry if you'd like to use that, as the first post says: "[Poem title], by [author], read for LibriVox.org by [your name]".
So I went back to check your first poem, too. Sorry I missed it the first time! I think it would be nice to have the short intro, for consistency within the collection - which will be catalogued come end of the month, and you'll be able to listen to your recordings online on June 1st! :wink:
If the intros are too much trouble, that's ok, you can skip that, but we'll definitely need that missing line :mrgreen:
dadjunior
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Joined: May 7th, 2015, 1:18 pm

Post by dadjunior »

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Rapunzelina
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Post by Rapunzelina »

Great editing :thumbs: :thumbs: All PL OK!
GrayHouse
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Joined: October 6th, 2012, 3:27 pm

Post by GrayHouse »

Hi Rapunzelina,

Here's my next offering for this month.

Longing by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
Text URL: http://www.bartleby.com/254/40.html
Duration: 1:15
MP3 URL: https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/spc144_longing_ik_128kb.mp3

Thanks,
-Ian
Rapunzelina
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Post by Rapunzelina »

Thank you, Ian! :D I've added it to the collection!
GrayHouse
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Post by GrayHouse »

I seem to be on a theme of yearning this month, so I'll finish with this one.

Remember by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Text URL: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19188/19188-h/19188-h.htm#p_38
Duration: 1:13
MP3 URL: https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/spc144_remember_ik_128kb.mp3

Thanks,
-Ian
Rapunzelina
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Post by Rapunzelina »

Thank you, Ian!
SonOfTheExiles
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Post by SonOfTheExiles »

While there are no doubt any number of bells and whistles to use in sound editing files, you can achieve some desirable results with just the amplify-deamplify feature if you're prepared to spend the time. Rather than select the whole recording, you can just select the loud parts and drop their volume down a bit, then select the soft parts and raise their volume, thereby getting an all-round medium volume recording. This can be handy if the text indicates that a character is shouting - doing that into the mike with cause a harsh distortion in the recording, but if you do a sotto-voce "shout", then amplify, you get the effect of a raised voice without the distortion.

Sometimes a reading calls for several character parts in conversation with each other and, if you're like me, it's not always easy to rapidly shift back and forth between the different voice parts if they radically differ from each other. Or perhaps, one particular day, you feel you've really got that character's mojo on voice-wise, so to speak, but when you come back to record more of the book next week, you can't quite recover the timbre, or whatever. (I remember one day waking up with a touch of hayfever which, while not coming through in my voice as sounding "stuffed-up", did have the effect of dropping the lower limit on my voice range by a noticeable amount. Rather than not record, I seized the opportunity to do the "Mitchell" voice part in the "Send Round The Hat" short story! I'd been looking for something to make it distinctive from the other main characters, and that was just the ticket. Just as well I did it immediately, because the first cuppa tea cleared things up in my voice-box, and up went the low end of my range again. So, I guess I'm saying, seize the day, Librivox-wise!). So what you can do in those cases is, go though the text and highlight a particular character's voice part, just like in an old-time radio script, then go through and read all that character's speech parts one after another, all in one go, while your voice "stays in character", as it were. Once you've got all of them done, and preferably in separate saved Audacity files, you can cut-and-paste them into the master file. This master file would be mostly done in your "narrator's voice" - you find where the particular character said something, then cut-and-paste over it from your character voice file.

Here's where this is relevant to the amplify-deamplify feature. Coming from different recordings, and hence inevitably different mouth-mike separation distances, the various voice-part recordings won't have the same volumes. So you just play around, highlighting and raising or lowering the volume of different passages until they all match up at a consistent volume. Interestingly, even if you don't quite get this perfect, this can actually add to the authenticity as, in any conversation between different characters, not everyone talks at exactly the same volume and the same distance away.

Also if, like me, you find your recordings pick up, to some extent, when you take a breath, you can go through the recording, pick the breaths out ... they have a very distinct little wave-pattern ... and highlight and drop the volume way down on them. Probably not all the way to zero - that makes for a slightly "suspicious" short silence, just down enough so it doesn't sound like one is channelling Darth Vader. Since you can play the highlighted little of wave-pattern first, you can be sure you've just got the breath, and not part of the last or first word either side of it.

This a fair bit of work to do on a recording before submitting it, and there is probably software that automates the process, but I find that it works for me.


Regards,
Son of the Exiles
Currently on sabbatical from Librivox
Rapunzelina
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Post by Rapunzelina »

So that's your secret for so wonderful recordings, Son of the Exiles! Thank you for sharing!

I used to use auphonic.com while it was limitlessly free, and it had a nicely leveled volume in the resulting file!
I have been playing with what audacity has to offer, leveler, compressor, amplifier, but haven't found the correct formula yet!
soupy
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Post by soupy »

The world needs some positive fanaticism.

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Rapunzelina
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Post by Rapunzelina »

A fine reading! Thank you, soupy!
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