[COMPLETE][Psychology]Nerves And Common Sense by Annie Payson Call - kit

[Gren]

This sounds really interesting!
I'd be interested in being a DPL, if you're still looking for one
-Gren

Hello Krystyna I saw in your welcome post that you are from Prague. Beautiful city that I already visited once.

Thank you for volunteering to DPL here. I will sign you up, so you should be able to enter the MW. I see you are already DPL for other projects, so you probably know what to do there and how to PL. Just one question to make sure: do you also use the Checked to check the technical details for each section ? If you can't use it, please tell me and I will handle that part of the checking. Just let me know.

Sonia

Hi!

Prague is a truly gorgeous city, I can't claim residence though. I just commute there every day. Commuting? Not so gorgeous.

I have Checked installed and have used it to check my 1-min test, so I have no problem using it here.

- Gren

[Kitty]

Prague is a truly gorgeous city, I can't claim residence though. I just commute there every day. Commuting? Not so gorgeous.

oh indeed, there's probably much traffic going into the city

I have Checked installed and have used it to check my 1-min test, so I have no problem using it here.

excellent you're all set then. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

Sonia

[Scientila]

Awesome!
Gren and Sonia Thank you soo much!
Now the delay is on me huh!
Please bare with me.... I’ll post my link very soon.

Thanks,
Scientila

[Scientila]

Hi,

I have read 5 chapters but I hear some noise. I'm not satisfied with the result. Even with editing, I hear some noise and it's changing my voice with lot of noise reduction. I'll try to read them again.

Please know that I'm still interested in reading this book.
Thanks for the Patience!

-Scientila

[Scientila]

Hi Gren,

Just posted a Link. If all is good will post other links as well.
Thanks for being DPL here. Appreciate it.

Thanks,
Scientila

[Kitty]

I have read 5 chapters but I hear some noise. I'm not satisfied with the result. Even with editing, I hear some noise and it's changing my voice with lot of noise reduction. I'll try to read them again.

I would suggest, that you already post one section as soon as you have recorded and edited it. That way we can already check before you launch into recording more sections. Because if you are unhappy with the quality, it's a waste of time to record more, if you have to re-do them all later on.

Also: for the DPL it's less stress if you post the sections one by one as you finish them, instead of dumping 5 files on them in one go That way the flow of the project is smoother in the long run, I find.

I'll have a look at your first section and give you feedback about the quality if you wish. Then Gren can prooflisten to the text accuracy.

Sonia

[Gren]

Hi,

I have read 5 chapters but I hear some noise. I'm not satisfied with the result. Even with editing, I hear some noise and it's changing my voice with lot of noise reduction. I'll try to read them again.

Please know that I'm still interested in reading this book.
Thanks for the Patience!

-Scientila

Hi Scientilla!

Here's your DPL with some notes and comments on your 1st chapter.

- meta info for the file is filled in, which I think the manuals say shouldn't be?, when you "Export the file to MP3", ignore the box which asks for information about the "interpreter" ect

- technical specifications OK (congrats! I always have trouble keeping to the required dB range )

- as for sound/background noise, it's not horrible, but here's some of my suggestions, if you want to improve it. Of course, it all depends on what's available to you

• what kind of mic are you using?
  --try to experiment with holding it differently; closer, further away from your mouth and see which you prefer
  --if possible try recording in a less open room, "more furnished", it will get rid of some of the echo (I found out that it's better if I record in my bedroom, rather than in our open plan kitchen/living room)
  --read through the LB manuals on how to get rid of noise and try experimenting with your program (I use Audacity & always run my recordings through "Normalize" and "Noise reduction"; if I use "Amplify", I do "Noise reduction" following that, since increasing the volume of my voice also increases all the hums and noises)

Content notes:
1:06 - mistake "an enforced resul", text "an enforced rest"
3:37; 3:46; 3:50 - the word "initiative" mispronounced, in recording sounds like "initiatue"

I hope my notes/comments were useful to you.
Have a lovely day!

Gren

[Kitty]

as promised, I also had a short listen and I am thinking that maybe the "tinny" sound is coming from too much noise cleaning, regardless what room you are recording in.

To check this I would need to listen to your unedited file first. Do you happen to still have that one ? The file without any noise-cleaning or amplification. If you still have it, could you upload it here under a test name maybe ? Then I'll have a look and see whether I can clean it without distorting the sound. It could be that the numbers you use in the cleaning process are too "aggressively high".

Sonia

[Scientila]

Gren,

Thank you so much!

That's very supportive.

I totally agree with you. Will take all your suggestions.

More details about my recording:

1. I use headphones. No Mic.[Previous book didn't had this noise, not sure if it's my headphones or laptop]
2. Never used Normalize. Have to understand it throughly so i can use it.
3. Did noise reduction and then amplified a little to get the DB to 87 ish. Previously it was 86 ish.
4. After amplifying didn't do noise reduction. Like it was suggested, i completely forgot the fact that this would also amplify the noise.
So have to do noise reduction again. Thanks for suggesting!
5. Will edit the audio with corrections, Once Kitty suggests me the editing numbers.[/list]


Kitty,

I have the unedited version. I always save them. Let me post that here.
https://librivox.org/uploads/kitty/Chapter_1_unedited.mp3

Thank you for looking into it. Appreciate that!


Thanks,
Scientila

[Gren]

Gren,

Thank you so much!

That's very supportive.

I totally agree with you. Will take all your suggestions.

More details about my recording:

1. I use headphones. No Mic.[Previous book didn't had this noise, not sure if it's my headphones or laptop]
2. Never used Normalize. Have to understand it throughly so i can use it.
3. Did noise reduction and then amplified a little to get the DB to 87 ish. Previously it was 86 ish.
4. After amplifying didn't do noise reduction. Like it was suggested, i completely forgot the fact that this would also amplify the noise.
So have to do noise reduction again. Thanks for suggesting!
5. Will edit the audio with corrections, Once Kitty suggests me the editing numbers.[/list]


Kitty,

I have the unedited version. I always save them. Let me post that here.
https://librivox.org/uploads/kitty/Chapter_1_unedited.mp3

Thank you for looking into it. Appreciate that!


Thanks,
Scientila

I'd recommend reading through this manual on the LB wiki. There's lots of useful tips, and is probably more trustworthy than my surmises, since the people who've created it have much more experience than me.

Have fun!
-Gren

[Kitty]

I have the unedited version. I always save them. Let me post that here.
https://librivox.org/uploads/kitty/Chapter_1_unedited.mp3

ok this background noise is really loud ! I didn't expect that. It sounds almost as if you had a sort of electrical feedback from the computer. Maybe you are sitting too close with your headphones and this gives the reverb sound. But I'm not too tech savvy with all this to really give an informed judgement.

I would post this excerpt in the Help forum, there are people who know more about audio than me. Maybe one of them knows how this happened and how you can avoid it. If you use Audacity, you can post here: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=40238

I tried noise-cleaning with the numbers I use on my own recordings, but they still distort your sound, so maybe the echo was there from the start. I suspect it's the headphones. But let's wait for what other people say.

So you said in the previous book this was not an issue ? Did you have other recording conditions then ? Another room, microphone, anything ?

Sonia

[JayS]

Hi Scientila and Kitty,
I was asked to check this file and found some interesting things.
Without knowing a lot more, I can't be sure what the exact cause is, but I can give you some possible hint.
Sticking this in the RX portion I found that this file is full of different sorts of noise.
1. There is a tremendous amount of hum and in a lot of different frequencies. That sounds like an electrical or electronic issue.
2. There is a lot of hiss also which could be related to the hum but is a different sort of noise.
3. Once I cleaned a good deal of both those problems I uncovered an additional problem related to the relationship of the voice to the laptop mic.
Of course, a mic is being used or there would be no sound at all. Therefore I assume that the mic is the built-in one on the laptop. Those are quite inferior and difficult to position correctly.
By listening to the reverberant sound, once uncovered by partial noise removal, it is clear the narrator is sitting in bad position related to the mic. She should be closer if possible and may be speaking near the wrong part of the laptop.
The hum and noise could be caused by positioning the laptop to near another electrical source. Any type of transformer like the cable that powers many laptops could cause this type of noise/hum combination.
Here is a way to test for that: unplug the laptop and if possible go into a room without much electrical stuff going on, sometimes like a bedroom. Power up the laptop on battery only, be sure of being 7-9 inches from the laptop mic and read or speak for a couple of minutes while recording exactly the same as usual.
I would love to hear THAT raw file for comparison.
I follow this issue with interest.

[Scientila]

Hi Gren,

Thank you. Will definitely get to LB Wiki.

Hi Sonia,

Thank you ! Previously different room but same headset and laptop. Both the times bed rooms though.

Hi Jay,

Thank you for such wonderful feedback. I feel sooo good for the tremendous help.


I do not have a mic. I was just using headset with Dell laptop. Previously when I recorded, like you mentioned I had the laptop cable connected. Now I used laptop on battery, about 1 and half feets away from me and did a sample. Even on battery, my laptop is emitting some noise. my headphones cable has little microphone kinda. Not sure if laptops mic would be used even when microphone is on headset cable. Low knowledge in this area.

https://librivox.org/uploads/kitty/sample1_oldhead.mp3

All of you appreciate your great help!

Thanks,
Scientila

[Kitty]

thank you, Jay, for your professional opinion on this.

Not sure if laptops mic would be used even when microphone is on headset cable. Low knowledge in this area.

you know it could well be that your laptop is not recognizing your headset microphone and using the laptop mic instead. You have to check this. It happened to me in the beginning with my first (very cheap) microphone, I thought I would record with the microphone, but I later found out that I always recorded from the laptop, because the microphone driver was not installed or something.

Do you use Audacity ? If so you can check there what microphone you use.

First: plug in the headset microphone
then: open Audacity (it's important that you open the program AFTER you plug in the microphone !)
between the top menu and the window with the audiowaves you should see a microphone icon: check in that box what the name of the microphone is that Audacity is currently using. You may have a scroll-down menu with all the mics available on your computer. Scroll down to the name of your headset mic. Only then when that name is in the box, will you use it with Audacity.

Please check this and let us know what you find. We will get to the bottom of this.

Sonia

[Scientila]

Hi Sonia,

I plugged in and opened the program.

Left to right
Now it shows MME to the extreme left
Microphone(Realtek Audio) is selected.(in the drop down there is Microsoft Windows mapper)
1(Mono) Recording
Speakers/headphones(Realtek)

Thanks again!
Have a good day!

-Scientila