[COMPLETE][Short stories]The Black Cat Vol. 01 No. 02 November 1895 - kit

NemoR · Post by **NemoR** » January 16th, 2020, 7:56 pm

Hey Sonia!

On a chilly -10 deg night, here is a story to chill your blood!

https://librivox.org/uploads/kitty/blackcat0102nov1895_06_various_128kb.mp3 14:52

Post by **Kitty** » January 17th, 2020, 1:34 am

NemoR wrote: ↑January 16th, 2020, 7:56 pmOn a chilly -10 deg night, here is a story to chill your blood!

wow ! I didn't see this ending coming. I thought the whole "Amontillado-plot-à-la-Poe" was quite obvious and was onto the guy as soon as he entered the vault

So his story wasn't surprising at all, but then the dénouement at the end... Craftily written. I loved this story. One wonders why these authors didn't get more fame, they are very talented indeed.

But at least thanks to us they are not entirely forgotten. We discovered quite some gems here in this magazine series already.

Thank you so much, Nemo, for an excellently narrated first story. You managed to enhance the creepiness with your foreboding intonation throughout the story. And that laugh you gave the narrator, wow, that was chilling.

PL ok ! A worthy start. And I hope you'll stay faithful to the series

Sonia

NemoR · Post by **NemoR** » January 17th, 2020, 7:39 am

Kitty wrote: ↑January 17th, 2020, 1:34 am

PL ok ! A worthy start. And I hope you'll stay faithful to the series

Sonia

Thanks Sonia! ..... I hope to!

dg73 · Post by **dg73** » January 18th, 2020, 5:10 am

I would like to claim section 1 please?

ShannaLea · Post by **ShannaLea** » January 18th, 2020, 5:25 am

I would love to claim section 4, please.

Thank you.

Post by **Kitty** » January 18th, 2020, 5:47 am

dg73 wrote: ↑January 18th, 2020, 5:10 am I would like to claim section 1 please?

hi there and thank you for your interest. A new voice in this magazine, yay. Looking forward to your contribution

Sonia

Post by **Kitty** » January 18th, 2020, 5:49 am

ShannaLea wrote: ↑January 18th, 2020, 5:25 am I would love to claim section 4, please.

hello Shanna, and welcome to the forum, as I see you are quite new still. Although you skipped the one-minute-test, it looks like your section in the weekly poem has been approved, so your technical settings are ok. You're ready to roll, I'll sign you up. All the details for the filenaming and intro/outro can be found in the first post.

Have fun !!!

Sonia

ShannaLea · Post by **ShannaLea** » January 18th, 2020, 5:54 am

Thank you Sonia. I know I will enjoy my reading and will certainly mind the directions you mentioned.

I hope to have many more on the future.

Have a great weekend.

Post by **Kitty** » January 18th, 2020, 5:55 am

ShannaLea wrote: ↑January 18th, 2020, 5:54 amI know I will enjoy my reading and will certainly mind the directions you mentioned.
I hope to have many more on the future.

great attitude. Enjoy !

And have a nice weekend too.

Sonia

dg73 · Post by **dg73** » January 18th, 2020, 9:59 am

Well here's section #1. Let me know if you think it might be too fast.

https://librivox.org/uploads/kitty/blackcat0102nov1895_01_various_128kb.mp3
18 min.
Thanks. This was a good story!

Post by **Kitty** » January 18th, 2020, 10:57 am

dg73 wrote: ↑January 18th, 2020, 9:59 amWell here's section #1. Let me know if you think it might be too fast.

wow already finished ! That was a quick turn-around, thank you so much, Dan

And the story was excellently narrated, you have the perfect voice for a western.

And no, I don't think it was too fast, I understood everything perfectly and you made lots of pauses to assimilate it all. It was agreeable to listen to.

Concerning the pauses though, I have a small note here. For a listener who is absorbed in the story, a pause of over 2 seconds feels really too long. I got thrown out of the story a few times here, because there was such a lengthy break. 1.5 seconds maximum, even between paragraphs, are wholly sufficient to make a significant break. I noted down a few spots where I really think you should cut down on the pause, so as not to exceed 1.5 seconds.

Other than that, it was nearly word perfect, I only found one significant error which you may want to correct:

> at 1:04: (p. 1): "but to one who might have seen" - you say "no one"

And here are the pauses that need trimming. I would suggest, start at the end and work your way up to the beginning, that way the time stamps stay the same for you

0:33-0:36 / 1:15-1:18 / 1:49-1:50 / 6:50-6:52 / 9:06-9:08 / 10:24-10:26 / 11:23-11:25 / 13:28-13:30 / 14:41-14:43 / 16:09-16:12 / 17:30-17:32 / 17:51-17:55

thank you so much, excellent narration. And the story was heart-breakingly tragic in the end.

Sonia

ShannaLea · Post by **ShannaLea** » January 18th, 2020, 12:26 pm

Section 4

https://librivox.org/uploads/kitty/blackcat0102nov1895_04_various_128kb.mp3
7:21

Post by **Kitty** » January 18th, 2020, 12:45 pm

ShannaLea wrote: ↑January 18th, 2020, 12:26 pm Section 4
https://librivox.org/uploads/kitty/blackcat0102nov1895_04_various_128kb.mp3
7:21

thank you, Shanna. I'm sorry it's a bit late tonight here, but I will listen to it tomorrow morning and give you feedback

Sonia

dg73 · Post by **dg73** » January 18th, 2020, 1:40 pm

Ok, here is the corrected version;
https://librivox.org/uploads/kitty/blackcat0102nov1895_01_various_128kb.mp3 16.65 KB
17:45

Thanks very much for the feedback, I hope it's better now. I actually have read for a few podcasts in the "weird western" genre and they are quite fun.
Let me know if there's anything I missed.

Post by **Kitty** » January 19th, 2020, 1:54 am

ShannaLea wrote: ↑January 18th, 2020, 12:26 pmSection 4
https://librivox.org/uploads/kitty/blackcat0102nov1895_04_various_128kb.mp3

ok Shanna, I had a listen to your story now and it was SO funny. I was on to that guy from Maine after his second con.

A very entertaining story. And you have read it very nicely, very fluently and agreeably to listen to.

The only thing I may mention in your reading style is that compared to the previous reader Dan, your pauses in between sentences could actually be a tiny bit longer sometimes. It does have a bit of a rushed feeling in some parts. Leaving a second of silence in between sentences, or at least when a new paragraph starts, would make it easier on a listener to follow, so they can collect their thoughts and assimilate what is being said. I don't mean pauses over 2 seconds, that's too much (as I mentioned in my previous feedback to Dan), but a tiny bit more would be optimal. That said, you don't need to correct any pauses here, it's fine, but I mentioned it for your further recordings as a sort of suggestion

I have a few notes to correct though. But don't worry, you don't have to re-record it all again ! Please don't do that, it's too much work - I mention it because we had some new readers re-record an entire section just for one error in a sentence - this is not encouraged ! Best to learn editing from the start.

So here is what you need to edit:

> the whole section could use a round of noise-cleaning as there is some background hum. Are you using Audacity ? It's easy to noiseclean, if you need help with that, I can give you a step-by-step

> your volume is just on the lower accepted range at about 86 dB. But the intro is way softer than the rest. I would suggest highlighting the intro part and amplifying it by 9 dB

> from 0:00-0:05: with 5 seconds the intro silence is way too long, people will start to think there is no audio at all in the file. We recommend 0.5-1 second maximum before starting the intro disclaimer

> at 0:38: for the author please say "by J. D. Ellsworth"

> at 3:16: (p. 26) "whose strict prohibition principles deprived them of the gracious influence" - you say "derived" which is a change of meaning. So here I would suggest re-recording the short part of the sentence. Record it in another window, then copy/paste it over to the right spot. Maybe adjust the volume and noise-cleaning a bit so it sounds a bit similar to the rest of the sentence

> at 5:25: (p. 27) "I wouldn't dare (cough) to take water (cough)" - our policy is actually to read what the author wrote and not "act it out". We do that in our drama section if you are interested in playing a role. I'm sure you would fit right in there.

But in prose texts it's usually not done.

> at 7:10: "end of the Black Cat..." etc. you can cut all of this out, as it's actually only suppose to be said at the end of the very last section of the book. (which I noted in the first post) So only the reader of Section 8 has to say it in this case

thanks, a great start. These small PL notes are actually really easy to correct, so don't worry.

If you need any help, please ask.

Sonia