COMPLETE Thought Power Its Control and Culture by Annie Besant - rap

Post by **Rapunzelina** » November 8th, 2023, 4:35 am

Anything goes for catalogue name, so Karen V. it is!

One thing I noticed when listening to your recording is that there's silence between the sentences but background noise behind the speech, so I wondered, is there a noise-cancelling feature activated on your microphone?

karenv · Post by **karenv** » November 12th, 2023, 5:12 pm

I added "end of forward". https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/thoughtpoweritscontrolandculture_01_besant_128kb.mp3

I don't have noise canceling software but did try to clean up the noise in the silence. When I do noise reduction to the whole thing it tends to go too soft and amplifying after seems to cause distortion. I do have my sponge on the mic now so maybe I can continue to experiment with the volume. I wonder if because I live by the ocean it adds some background noise. I have all windows closed but it can be loud at times depending on the weather.

Post by **Rapunzelina** » November 14th, 2023, 7:06 am

Forward is PL OK!

Regarding Noise Reduction in Audacity, it is a two step process. Is this how you do it, too?
First to get the Noise Profile, you select a section of your recording that has only background noise, no speaking. You can select by highlighting with your mouse. You could probably use the final seconds of the raw recording for this. Then you go menu Effects -> Noise Reduction, and click on "Get Noise Profile".
Then, you select the whole track (e.g. with Ctrl + A) and go to menu Effects -> Noise Reduction again. My settings are "Noise Reduction": 10, "Sensitivity": 3 and "Smoothing": 2, but you may experiment with these settings to find what works best for your own setup. When you click OK, Audacity will run Noise Reduction on the entire track.

karenv · Post by **karenv** » November 14th, 2023, 3:02 pm

Thanks - I was doing it this way but not sure I was selecting just quiet parts for getting the noise profile, so I will make sure I do that in the future. Much appreciate your input. I recorded the Introduction and will be cleaning it up and posting by the weekend and will see if it sounds better.

karenv · Post by **karenv** » November 18th, 2023, 11:47 am

Introduction posted - I did a lot of noise reduction, and it passed in checker. LMK any additional suggestions - thanks! https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/thoughtpoweritscontrolandculture_02_besant_128kb.mp3

Post by **Rapunzelina** » November 19th, 2023, 7:46 am

Introduction is PL OK! Very nicely read, and the sound is pleasant and clear. When you say "a lot of noise reduction", do you mean you did multiple passes? I think your white background noise, just needs a light level of noise reduction. I'm just mentioning this in case it saves you time, and too aggressive noise reduction may affect the natural warmth of the voice, but trust your ear, and adjust as you see fit.

One suggestion for the Magic Window: In the last column, you can toggle the status of the section to "Ready for PL" when you add a new file. I've now marked it PL OK!

karenv · Post by **karenv** » November 19th, 2023, 9:15 pm

Great! Re: noise reduction, I did the whole thing first, based on the profile of quiet parts, like you said, but then I went through when listening and started reducing or replacing with more quiet parts the breaths I still would hear, in-between the words primarily. It did take a bit of time but nice to have them gone.

OK about putting "PL Ready" - I'll try to remember that. Thanks!

Post by **Rapunzelina** » November 23rd, 2023, 1:38 am

Here's a discussion about breaths if you'd like to see more points of view on the subject: viewtopic.php?t=94427
My personal take is, unless it's louder than the actual speech, just leave it be. It's natural to breathe.

I think the more you record, the more comfortable you'll feel in front of the microphone, less self-conscious, more confident, you won't need to focus on breathing as much.

karenv · Post by **karenv** » December 3rd, 2023, 6:12 pm

Chapter 1 is posted - https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/thoughtpoweritscontrolandculture_03_besant_128kb.mp3
Thank you

Post by **Rapunzelina** » December 6th, 2023, 8:56 am

Chapter 1 is PL OK!

karenv · Post by **karenv** » December 25th, 2023, 11:45 pm

Chapter 2 is posted- thanks!
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/thoughtpoweritscontrolandculture_04_besant_128kb.mp3

Post by **Rapunzelina** » December 26th, 2023, 11:34 am

Chapter 2 is PL OK! Are you still reading from the text source given in the first post? There were a few text differences

karenv · Post by **karenv** » December 27th, 2023, 1:04 pm

Oh - I didn't realize. Yes I started to use this one: https://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/books/Thought_Power-AnnieBesant.pdf
assuming it was identical. It's a lot easier to read from, but now I will have to proofread against the other to make it align before posting. I can make the changes needed fairly easily, I believe, and will repost. Thanks!

Update:
OK I made the changes - the new edited file is uploaded in the Magic Window and is here: https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/thoughtpoweritscontrolandculture_04_besant_128kb.mp3
It was easy to edit in that it involved only taking out some words (reduction of 5 seconds total) - I removed the "voice of the silence" attribution, changed one "vibrations" to "vibration", and took out the "First", and "But also" that were added. Those last 2 were in brackets - so when I see that in the future I'll be alerted to that as being something the theosophical society added. I personally don't think it adds much so was happy to remove them. And again I will proof against the original before posting in the future. Hopefully I caught all the differences - I think I did. Thanks again.

karenv · Post by **karenv** » December 28th, 2023, 10:58 pm

Chapter 3 is posted - https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/thoughtpoweritscontrolandculture_05_besant_128kb.mp3
Thanks!

Post by **Rapunzelina** » December 29th, 2023, 2:45 am

Chapter 3 is PL OK! Optimistic content!