[COMPLETE] The Pig Brother and other Fables and Stories-philc

Solo or group recordings that are finished and fully available for listeners
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lynies
Posts: 17
Joined: April 10th, 2017, 9:33 pm

Post by lynies »

Hello! Sorry for being late..

Section 7:
https://librivox.org/uploads/philchenevert/thepigbrother_07_richards_128kb.mp3

Section 21:
https://librivox.org/uploads/philchenevert/thepigbrother_21_richards_128kb.mp3

Section 33:
https://librivox.org/uploads/philchenevert/thepigbrother_33_richards_128kb.mp3
"Not all those who wander are lost."
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philchenevert
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Post by philchenevert »

Thank you. I did not notice that you were late but thanks anyway. :D
"I lost my trousers," said Tom expansively.
89 Decibels? Easy Peasy ! https://youtu.be/aSKR55RDVpk
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loon
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Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Post by loon »

Speaking of late - I just noticed these & will take a listen tomorrow.
Rich Brown - Minneapolis, MN
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loon
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Post by loon »

lynies / Caitlin

Section 7 - "The Wheat-Field" - PL OK

"Checker" reports your recording has some DC bias so I zoomed in on the silence at the end of your track and looked at the waveform. Yep - the waveform spends much more of its time below zero volts than above. When I cranked my headphone volume all the way up I could hear 60 Hz hum as well.

I haven't listened to sections 21 and 33 yet but I'm betting they will be the same.

Note that both of these audio flaws are much quieter than your voice so they aren't affecting the intelligibility of your recording. You can fix these (slight) problems in future recordings pretty easily, so even though it's not strictly necessary, why not? I'll describe the fixes in Audacity - if you use some other audio editing program it probably has similarly-named functions.

To fix the DC bias in Audacity you can use the "Normalize" effect or the "High Pass Filter" effect - I prefer the latter. In my copy of Audacity the high pass filter is in the Plug-Ins submenu at the bottom of the Effects list. Setting the frequency box in the high pass filter to 15 or 20 Hz will get rid of that DC and some other very low frequency stuff.

The Audacity "Notch Filter" effect can be used to reduce 60 Hz hum - set the notch frequency to 60.0 and the 'Q' to some moderately high number such as 10. Since the notch filter is working with frequencies you can hear it shouldn't be used willy-nilly. In this case, however, using the notch filter gives a small improvement. Hum in recordings usually comes from the computer power supply, so if you're using a laptop to record you can try running off battery power during the recoding step and plug your computer back into the AC outlet once your track is recorded.

The dog wants his morning walk so I'll get to your other two sections in a little while.
Rich Brown - Minneapolis, MN
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loon
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Post by loon »

Phil -
I'm confused about the state of the Magic Window. Has it been rearranged?

lynies read "At the Little Boy's Home" as section 21. I see it's now #14 in the Magic Window. This section is after "The Quacky Duck" in the Gutenberg eBook. "The Qucaky Duck" has been read by realisticspeakers as section 20 (on June 26th) and I marked it as PL OK (on June 28th). Now "The Quacky Duck" is listed as section 21 "ready for PL".
Rich Brown - Minneapolis, MN
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loon
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Post by loon »

Phil -
I keep local copies of each section as it comes in until the book is made public at librivox.org. From the filenames and what each reader announces the section to be -

"Little John Bottlejohn" should be section 14 (PL OK)
"A Fortune" should be section 15 (needs fixes)
"The Stars" should be section 16 (PL OK)
"Buttercup Gold" should be section 17 (PL OK)
"The Patient Cat" should be section 18 (PL OK)
"Alice's Supper" should be section 19 (PL OK)
"The Quacky Duck" should be section 20 (PL OK)
Rich Brown - Minneapolis, MN
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philchenevert
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Post by philchenevert »

loon wrote:Phil -
I keep local copies of each section as it comes in until the book is made public at librivox.org. From the filenames and what each reader announces the section to be -

"Little John Bottlejohn" should be section 14 (PL OK)
"A Fortune" should be section 15 (needs fixes)
"The Stars" should be section 16 (PL OK)
"Buttercup Gold" should be section 17 (PL OK)
"The Patient Cat" should be section 18 (PL OK)
"Alice's Supper" should be section 19 (PL OK)
"The Quacky Duck" should be section 20 (PL OK)
I do not know what happened. The sections are very touchy and can be 'moved' my mistake perhaps that hppened. I will try to fix all of this today. Thanks for the help.
"I lost my trousers," said Tom expansively.
89 Decibels? Easy Peasy ! https://youtu.be/aSKR55RDVpk
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loon
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Post by loon »

lynies / Caitlin -
Section 21 (but it's currently listed as 14 in the Magic Window) - "At the Little Boy's Home" - I'd like to see some fixes.

Your background noise is worse than in "The Wheat Field" - I'm hearing what I think is your computer fan - are your computer and mic sitting on the same table? The computer can shake the desktop and that can shake the mic if they are all touching. Fortunately, you can do a bit of processing to make the recording quite a bit cleaner.

I opened your section in Audacity and ran the high pass filter (frequency = 20.0, rolloff = 6dB/octave) to reduce the DC offset and low frequency stuff.
I then ran a notch filter (frequency = 60.0, Q = 10).
There was still a spike of noise at 120 Hz (two times North American AC frequency) so I ran the notch filter once more (frequency = 60.0, Q = 10).
I saved this as a new .mp3 and switched back and forth listening to the original and my version. With headphones at a loud-but-not-uncomfortable volume I could hear low rumbly-grumbly noise between words in the original vs. quite a bit less of that in my edited version.

Can you please run the fixes I've suggested and upload the section again (perhaps after the chapter numbering in the Magic Window is restored)? Your reading itself is just fine and will be an easy PL OK after you've cleaned up the noise a bit. Thanks!

By the way, "Checker" reports the overall section volume as 90.2 dB in your original and 89.7 dB after the rumbles are removed. Both of those numbers are near the center of the LibriVox acceptable range.
Rich Brown - Minneapolis, MN
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loon
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Post by loon »

Section 33 - "The Burning House" - PL OK

The noise in this section is much like in your recording of "The Wheat Field" and much quieter than in "At the Little Boy's Home" - you must have recorded the middle one on a different day, eh?

Three sections: thank you, thank you, thank you!
Rich Brown - Minneapolis, MN
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philchenevert
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Post by philchenevert »

Rich. Is the Magic Window fixed now? I think it is OK but another pair of eyes is better. :D
"I lost my trousers," said Tom expansively.
89 Decibels? Easy Peasy ! https://youtu.be/aSKR55RDVpk
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philchenevert
LibriVox Admin Team
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Joined: October 17th, 2010, 9:23 pm
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Contact philchenevert

Post by philchenevert »

Lynies / Caitlin -
Section 21 (but it's currently listed as 14 in the Magic Window) - "At the Little Boy's Home" - I'd like to see some fixes.

Your background noise is worse than in "The Wheat Field" - I'm hearing what I think is your computer fan - are your computer and mic sitting on the same table? The computer can shake the desktop and that can shake the mic if they are all touching. Fortunately, you can do a bit of processing to make the recording quite a bit cleaner.
Hi Caitlin - would you like a little video showing you how to reduce that annoying hum ? What Loon says is right but sometimes a little video can make things clearer. I listen by the way and you do indeed have a wonderful reading voice.
"I lost my trousers," said Tom expansively.
89 Decibels? Easy Peasy ! https://youtu.be/aSKR55RDVpk
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loon
Posts: 2952
Joined: December 31st, 2016, 9:14 pm
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Post by loon »

philchenevert wrote:Rich. Is the Magic Window fixed now? I think it is OK but another pair of eyes is better. :D
It looks good to me.
Rich Brown - Minneapolis, MN
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PatsyAnn
Posts: 41
Joined: September 9th, 2016, 4:21 am

Post by PatsyAnn »

Hi Phil,
Here is Section 09
https://librivox.org/uploads/philchenevert/thepigbrother_09_richards_128kb.mp3
Time: 3.49
Hope it's OK.
Pat
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loon
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Joined: December 31st, 2016, 9:14 pm
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Post by loon »

Pat -
I'll be home in ~6 hours and will proof listen then. Thanks!
Rich Brown - Minneapolis, MN
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loon
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Joined: December 31st, 2016, 9:14 pm
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Post by loon »

PatsyAnn wrote:Hi Phil,
Here is Section 09
https://librivox.org/uploads/philchenevert/thepigbrother_09_richards_128kb.mp3
Time: 3.49
Hope it's OK.
Pat, you had an extra "The Pig Brother, and Other Fables and Stories, by Laura E. Richards" at the beginning of your recording. Then you doubled back and read the normal intro. This isn't anything serious - you got all the important information in. The rest of your recording is just fine as well.

Section 09 - "The Apron String" - PL OK

Thanks for the recording.
Rich Brown - Minneapolis, MN
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