COMPLETE The Golden Scarecrow by Hugh Walpole - ck

cynm1788 · Post by **cynm1788** » December 13th, 2012, 11:59 am

jojowasaman wrote:No problem, Cynthia. No need to rush.

Smiling bravely, I thank you for your patience. I always feel in a bit of permanent rush, because sooner or later, there will no longer be a personal reason to feel rushed: I'm recording for Grandma; she's just been moved from her home into A Home, and I'm not taking it as well as I should. Sorry if that's too much reality, and I'm not even into melodrama tactics. So allow me to hasten to add that I've recorded Section 05/Chapter IV. & need merely to get through the edits. Speaking of which:

jojowasaman wrote:As for my own recording, I think it is *preventing* the nasty sounds from getting recorded in the first place that I am focusing on at the moment.

A kindred spirit, how reassuring! If I may descend into The Biological, the sorts of noises my mouth makes in addition to whatever I'm saying has everything to do with saliva quality & quantity, plus any-and-all contributions by congestion &/or swelling of the soft palate. Some days I can't hardly pronounce "emm" without it coming out "bee". On the other hand, I'm actually trying to hedge toward enunciating less distinctly (the curse of the clicky consonants, particularly terminal "dee"/"tee"), which makes me feel all mush-mouthed & mumbly.

jojowasaman wrote:Although, yeah, if you have any secrets to editing them out, please share, in good time.

I don't have half the toolbox that some LibriVoxers do, especially when it comes to using "filters", etc. My favorite discovery is how terribly effectively [Audacity's] "Fade In" Effect eradicates what it used to take me three distinct edits to achieve: when I have an extra click attached to the tail of [e.g.] an "ess", followed by another kind of start-of-breath pop, leading straight into that raggedy intake-of-breath noise {& sometimes I wheeze}, a single pass with "Fade In" is usually all that's required, but I've been known to tap "Repeat" a time or two; insanely easy, once you know what region to select. Oh, and I hardly ever forget to hit "Z" [snaps to {ascending} zero-intersect] before each & every edit, of whatever sort, nowadays.

I'll be thinking about trying to describe what I'm doing during the upcoming editing, to be sure.

Here's to getting back into the swing of things.

cynm1788 · Post by **cynm1788** » December 14th, 2012, 3:28 am

Not exactly "out of practice", but my ear may be desensitized somewhat:

Section: 05 - IV. Bim Rochester
URL: http://upload.librivox.org/share/uploads/ck/goldenscarecrow_05_walpole.mp3
Length: 40:57

But this is an issue I've begged of PLers previously, with no violations resulting: I caught a couple of "wheezes" & edited them down; if I missed m/any others, please do drag my attention to them.

At least I no longer even bother to worry about whether or not the garbage trucks could be audible; another reason to be very happy with the Yeti!

jojowasaman · Post by **jojowasaman** » December 16th, 2012, 6:51 pm

Section 05 is PL OK.

I heard no wheezes or other objectionable sounds.

—JJ

cynm1788 · Post by **cynm1788** » December 17th, 2012, 12:50 am

No wheezy-worries during this recording session:

Section: 06 - V. Nancy Ross
URL: http://upload.librivox.org/share/uploads/ck/goldenscarecrow_06_walpole.mp3
Length: 43:12

Glad you didn't hear any wheeziness {&c.} in Section 05/Chapter IV, JJ, thanks.

jojowasaman · Post by **jojowasaman** » December 17th, 2012, 3:23 am

That was the best of them all.

I'll check the tech specs later to-day.

EDIT: Yup, it's A-OK.
Why am I not surprised?

cynm1788 · Post by **cynm1788** » December 18th, 2012, 7:51 pm

Trying to keep it light as Walpole forays deeper into darkness:

Section: 07 - VI. 'Enery
URL: http://upload.librivox.org/share/uploads/ck/goldenscarecrow_07_walpole.mp3
Length: 44:32

And thank you, JJ, for your generous compliments; sorry, however, to insist that I'm strongly disinclined to screw something up solely to make your job more interesting

That said, Section 06 drove me bonkers refusing to "Normalize" to 89.0, on the nose: Audacity spat out 88.9 & 89.1, repeatably, and I simply gave up

(OTOH: if you could figure out what the real deal is with these sporadic 127K bit-rate files [which Checker reports as 128K, notwithstanding], I'm not the only one, I imagine, who'd be ecstatic to see the mystery dispelled, relatively inconsequential though it be.)

jojowasaman · Post by **jojowasaman** » December 19th, 2012, 12:26 am

Section 07 PL OK

I do not know how to access the bit rate in Audacity except when it is exporting. And if I try to re-export this file as an mp3, it says exporting at 128.

—JJ

cynm1788 · Post by **cynm1788** » December 21st, 2012, 1:38 am

More of Walpole's mind-blowing (for his day) psychological profiling:

Section: 08 - VII. Barbara Flint
URL: http://upload.librivox.org/share/uploads/ck/goldenscarecrow_08_walpole.mp3
Length: 48:56

And more of those technical distractions: another mysterious (to my mind) 127K bit rate; and the background noise crept up a few points, not that the silences are (to my ear) any noisier.

FTR, JJ, I would probably be less concerned about the fluctuating audio bit rate reports did my Mac display them less obviously. I have not explored Windows-based MP3 manipulations, so I can't even advise how to go about verifying what the Mac alleges. I've been assured that there's no liability resulting from the 127K-rate files, in LibriVox context, so don't let it become bothersome to yourself.

Thanks (again) for your help, ongoing and various

jojowasaman · Post by **jojowasaman** » December 24th, 2012, 5:09 pm

Gonna have to wait to after Christmas, but I assume before 01 Jan, to DPL this.

cynm1788 · Post by **cynm1788** » December 25th, 2012, 12:13 pm

My turn to say, "Take your time!"

And I appreciate your taking the time to put your intentions in writing, JJ.

Myself, I've been battling congestion; not sick, just non-conducive towards recording. Using the opportunity to reacquaint myself with {other kinds of} computer-games.

Happy holly-daze!

jojowasaman · Post by **jojowasaman** » December 28th, 2012, 12:13 pm

Section 8 is PL OK.

Nankin vase?

I had to do a double take on the first word, as I'd never encountered this that I take to be an older usage for Nanking/Nanjing.

cynm1788 · Post by **cynm1788** » December 30th, 2012, 12:52 am

jojowasaman wrote:Section 8 is PL OK.

Thank you very much, JoJo. Section 9 has (finally!) been recorded and is about to be edited.

jojowasaman wrote:Nankin vase?

I had to do a double take on the first word, as I'd never encountered this that I take to be an older usage for Nanking/Nanjing.

Good deduction! I'm glad that's what it is, 'cuz I totally assumed {without bothering to look it up, which has gotten me in trouble in the past

} that that's what it was. Since you piqued my retroactive curiosity, I have a hazy/tenacious memory of a Nankin [sic] teapot popping up in some children's story I read when I did, in fact, belong to the demographic. A cursory websearch yields some nice pictures in result of all three spellings. Cross-referencing with "Royal Doulton", well, that did it: in their mark, they spelt it "Nankin".

Thanks for the workout!

cynm1788 · Post by **cynm1788** » December 30th, 2012, 10:27 pm

More than a week since I've been directly LibriVoxily productive, but such a week:

Section: 09 - VIII. Sarah Trefusis
URL: http://upload.librivox.org/share/uploads/ck/goldenscarecrow_09_walpole.mp3
Length: 50:14

Then again, this [imo] was the "darkest" of this book's chapters, despite the French Maid, so I may have been procrastinating out of self-preservation

jojowasaman · Post by **jojowasaman** » January 4th, 2013, 12:14 am

I should be able to get to this in the next couple days.

jojowasaman · Post by **jojowasaman** » January 4th, 2013, 2:24 pm

Yup.
It's PL OK.