COMPLETE Potop by Henryk Sienkiewicz - rap

Jagoda · Post by **Jagoda** » September 22nd, 2020, 11:11 am

Oh EXACTLY proof listening... Does it make sens to record on, next chapters if i don't know the opinion on those i already have? It doesn't seem safe. So what am i to do with these recordings? Any special folder, or maybe i should send it to someone?

Post by **Rapunzelina** » September 22nd, 2020, 12:11 pm

Since you got your tech specs correct with your test recording, you're fine to keep recording. You can upload any sections you have ready to my folder through the uploader. If the proof-listening finds any fixes needed, you can work on them, but in the meantime you can record as much as you like

Only please upload the files when you feel they are ready for the catalogue; that is, try to edit out reading mistakes like repetitions or stumbles. Then the proof-listening will catch any edits you missed

Whenever you upload any files, post the links and durations here, and I'll update the magic window for you.

Jagoda · Post by **Jagoda** » September 24th, 2020, 1:26 am

Al right. Below links (btw i feel that 4th chapter from about seven minute sounds almost good

)

https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/wstep0_Jagoda.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/rozdzial1_Jagoda.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/rozdzial2_Jagoda.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/rozdzial3_Jagoda.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/rozdzial4_Jagoda.mp3

Post by **Rapunzelina** » September 24th, 2020, 6:24 am

That's so productive Jagoda! Well done!

Could you also post the duration of the recordings with the links? (For example: 12:34) it will be easier to find a proof listener when they know how much time they'll need for it.

You'll notice that on the first post there's also the file name format, potop_##_sienkiewicz_128kb (where ## is the section number, e.g. potop_00_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3 for wstęp)
No problem about your current filenames, I can fix them eventually, just letting you know about the file naming in general, where to look for it, in case you get addicted to Librivox and record for other projects too

PS: I don't remember if I mentioned it before; the maximum duration of a recording can be up to 74 minutes, so that it fits in an audio CD. If a chapter is longer than that, it would need to be split into two recordings. Thanks!

Jagoda · Post by **Jagoda** » September 24th, 2020, 9:06 am

All right amendments implemented.

Chapter 5, duration; 34:25
Chapter 6, duration; 19:23
Chapter 7, duration; 47:24
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_05_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_06_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_07_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3

Post by **Rapunzelina** » September 24th, 2020, 11:54 am

Cool! I have entered your links so far in the Magic Window.

Post by **Kazbek** » September 24th, 2020, 12:34 pm

Hello, Jagoda and Rapunzelina! It's great to see this project advancing at such a rapid pace!

I can't DPL this, but I wanted to jump in and review some technical specs for you before you've gotten much farther, so that you don't have to fix them retrospectively for too many sections. The following are just examples from some spot checks I've made.

1) There should be no more than 1 second of silence at the beginning (and no less than 0.5, depending on who you ask) and about 5 seconds of silence at the end.

Section 0 has 0.2 second of silence at the start and less than 2 seconds of silence at the end
Section 2 has 6 seconds of silence at the beginning and 1 second of silence at the end

You can easily reduce or lengthen those silences through editing.

2) There are some large variations in volume, and it's often falling outside our standard range of 86-92 dB:

Section 1:
0:00-5:00 75 dB
25:00-30:00 86 dB
Section 2:
0:00-3:00 66 dB
10:00-13:00 76 dB

In future recordings, you can adjust this by shifting the recording level slider. There are also ways to reduce the volume of an existing recording. In Audacity, the first is the Amplify effect:

https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Amplifying

Another useful effect is ReplayGain. It allows you to measure your volume relative to 89 dB in the Analyze mode, and change the average volume to 89 dB in the Normalize mode:

https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Measuring_Volume_within_Audacity

You can check all our technical specs in your mp3 yourself using the Checker program:

https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Checker

3) There's a significant level of background noise. The first thing is to check for any sources of noise that you can turn off, like humming equipment. After your environment is as quiet as possible, this wiki page shows how to do noise cleaning in Audacity (this is a regular part of LibriVox workflow):

https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Noise_Cleaning

For section 0, I was able to eliminate most of the noise by getting a profile from a random silence and applying noise reduction with parameters 20-6-1, but there's additional background noise at 0:14-0:18 and 14:58-15:03, which you may want to look into.

I hope this helps and good luck with the project!

Michael

Post by **Rapunzelina** » September 24th, 2020, 12:55 pm

Most helpful, Michael! Thank you!

Jagoda, this is good advice! Let me know if you'll need any help applying it. My suggestion is to apply it to your next recordings, and wait for a full PL to your existing recordings, in case there are more edits needed (like repetitions and stumbles) so that'll you'll edit those in one go.

Post by **Kitty** » September 25th, 2020, 4:29 am

Hello

since there seems to be no available Polish native speaker around to PL your sections for the time being, I can try my hand at it. As a warning, I don't speak the language, but I think I can follow along with the text. You do read a bit fast (surely not for native speakers, but for me), but I managed on the whole to follow and notice whether anything was missing

Your accuracy to the text source was very high

I only noticed 2 spots where I think I hear something different than the text, but since I don't speak the language, I don't know how much this would change the meaning, so I rely on you to check those spots and see if you need to correct them.

As Michael (kazbek) already mentioned, your volume is quite low at times, it would be good to amplify it all by 3 or 4 dB.

Something else I noticed is some patches, where I guess you made an error and you pasted in a new recording of part of the sentence. Before you paste them in the right spot, it would be better to do noise-cleaning of that part, because in those spots the noise level all of a sudden is very high. Below I marked all those patches, if you could go and noise-clean those spots, then it would sound more agreeable to the ear.

So here are my PL notes. It looks like a lot, but it's basically mostly the same noise-cleaning issue, with a few text corrections (if they are errors at all).

> the beginning is a bit abrupt, we recommend between 0.5 and 1 second of silence before the intro starts

> from 2:51 - 2:56: (p. 2) from" w Pacunelach..." to "wszystkie gladkie" I would apply noise cleaning on that part. You can take a sample right at the beginning, between 2:51 and 2:52

> at 3:25: (p. 3) "imionami sie wolaja" - since I don't know the language, I'm not sure you said the correct words here, what I hear is "imiona pa wayum"

> at 3:51: (p. 3) stumble and repeat: "Herakliusza" – the first two syllables can easily be cut

> at 4:21: (p. 3) "on chce tego" – I hear "on tego chce" – not sure if that changes the meaning, so I prefer to point it out

> from 4:24 – 4:48: (p. 3) from "ten znów..." till "na Litwie" - again more background noise that could be cleaned with a sample

> from 6:25 – 6:30: (p. 4) from "jak potem na..." till "najprzedniejszy" – noise

> from 7:25 – 7:38: (p. 5) from "Butrymi..." till "do Birz" – noise

> from 7:46 - 7:50: (p. 5) from "w Pacunelach..." till "zalozul" – noise

> at 8:56: (p. 6) between "swawola" and "ludzka" I hear another word, something like "svujdzem", not sure if that should be there

> from 9:10 - 9:15: (p. 6) from "Lubicza..." till "orszanskiemu" – noise

> from 9:37 - 9:41: (p. 6) from "z ktorym wojny..." till "ratowal" – noise

> from 13:49 – 13:54: (p. 9) from "zadnych..." till "w granice" – noise

> from 14:01 – 14:06: (p. 9) from "owszem..." till "czem ktora" – noise

> from 14:59 – 15:03: (p. 9) from "szlachta..." till "i kraj" – noise

> at the end we should leave a standard of 5 seconds of silence, you only have a bit over 1 second

That is all. So since you reupload anyway, could you also please change the filename to the standard name in this project, please: "potop_00_sienkiewicz_128kb"

Now this section took me over an hour to check, which is a lot for a 15 minute section. It's because of the many "noise PL notes" and the unfamiliarity with the language. Could I therefore please ask you, instead of continuing right away with more chapters, to go over the sections that you have posted so far and check all your patches once more and do some editing work ? In Audacity you will easily see where the noise all of a sudden is higher. If you could pre-clean all these already BEFORE I do the next PL on the next chapter, that would lessen those PL notes considerably and therefore also the invested time, which I would be grateful for. Then I can concentrate more on the text itself. At the same time you can adjust the intro/outros to the correct wording and rename the files.

I will wait for your answer before I commit to any DPL job here.

Sonia

Post by **Rapunzelina** » September 25th, 2020, 5:57 am

Thank you, Sonia! It's not as bad as it looks! And these are the usual notes for people new to recording, who don't know yet what to expect from recording and editing, but that's how you learn

So, fear not, Jagoda, it's a learning curve! And you're doing great so far!
I agree with Sonia about noise-cleaning, I believe a classic work like that should have as nice a sound quality as possible! And if noise cleaning can make it sound better, then go for it! Michael above linked to some useful tools, including a guide to noise cleaning. But let me know if you need more help!

Jagoda · Post by **Jagoda** » September 25th, 2020, 12:54 pm

All right i introduced changes. In chapter 8 i used ReplayGain and noise cleaning, in chapter 9 only ReplayGain. So as effect we get chaper 8 without any background noise (but also with a kind of "submerged" sound) and more traditionally incorrect in a metter of background sound chapter 9. I had to split chapter 10 in two parts (i was afraid that i'll take more than 70 minutes) and the first part is without any effects (clean as water but maybe not loud enough).
Which one is better? I don't know how to handle following chapters.
And warm thanks for all previous feedbacks.

08. duration; 34:48
09. duration; 15:59
10.1 duration; 53:29
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_08_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_09_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_10.1_sienkiewicz_128kb_.mp3

Post by **Rapunzelina** » September 30th, 2020, 3:46 am

Hi Jagoda! I started listening to Chapter 9, which was a short one, but half-way I realized that you are reading from the modern text source, so I stopped

Your reading is wonderful, it has a nice flow, and I enjoy your change of voice for the different characters.

The volume is good in chapter 9, and as for noice-cleaning, if you feel that it makes your sound more "submerged", you can experiment with different settings to see what works best for your recordings. I personally use:
Noise Reduction: 10
Sensitivity: 3
Frequency smoothing: 2

Please read from the public domain text source. I would suggest, for your already uploaded sections, to listen through along with the public domain text, and make any necessary changes. This way you can also make any fixes needed to volume levels, and background noise, for example the proof-listening notes on your first section: viewtopic.php?p=1785442#p1785442

After listening to your reading, I feel that this can become a great audio-book, but we have to iron out these important details, especially the public domain text source.

Jagoda · Post by **Jagoda** » October 13th, 2020, 2:54 pm

https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_10.2_sienkiwicz_128kb_.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_11_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_12_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_13_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_14_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_15_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_16_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/potop_17_sienkiewicz_128kb.mp3
10.2 duration; 21:03
11 duration; 21:35
12 duration; 1:03:03
13 duration; 53:24
14 duration; 24:03
15 duration; 18:34
16 duration; 16:07
17 duration; 58:23

I'm back

Post by **Rapunzelina** » October 13th, 2020, 3:19 pm

Lovely to see you active! Could you clarify which text source you are using, please? Thank you!

Jagoda · Post by **Jagoda** » October 17th, 2020, 1:50 pm

I'm reading from Wolne Lektury, you said it's ok, because it takes text from that second site you've send me ( on Wolne Lektury it's easier to read than from that scanned version, but that's the same source, isn't it?). Is something incorecct?

And i have ended the first volume.