How I Learned to be a voice for LibriVox-The Basics

[wordplay]

at first glance it looks to me like a permissions problem. I'd talk to the hosting company's tech support...

Thanks Brian, It might also be because I moved all my files around cleaning up my pc! Duh! Dope slaps self. I will fix that first and then see! I hate when I so that! Better now than after contacting support! Will update soon I hope.

Becky

[Cori]

My tip for long recordings, is to read the piece out loud first. It's completely impossible for me to record any poetry without rehearsing the piece several times, because it takes forever to work out the stresses and patterns of the piece -- and it just can't be done in my head.

But I confess I've been skipping that with regular fiction (and just reading in my head), but seeing how much difference it makes, I think I will regularly do an out-loud run-through beforehand. Not just the reading style is affected, too, the editing is FAR lighter that way!

Re. organisation, I have a Librivox folder where I save a copy of any text I've said I'll record. My audio-recording program dumps automatically to a sub-folder of this, called Audio, and I name each file to a short version of the real book name as soon as I've finished saying the last word. Once edited, ID3 tags sorted, etc., the text and audio get moved to a different sub-folder called Complete. I also have a sub-folder for Possible Readings, and another one for a Duet I'm working on. It's not complicated, but I can see at a glance when I go in what I've committed to and is left to record, and bits of Duet don't get muddled with things I've Completed.

[kri]

What do you do when you have a wonderful system-so you thought-for giving people access to and uploading files for LV-and no one, including myself can download anything? May I scream? Sound effect time I guess! Pulls hair out..... See link in sig, bad, bad, link. bad hosting site? Worked earlier. I love/hate technology.

Becky

Try yousendit.com, or my uploader at librivox.greenkri.com (password libre). My uploader will only work for non Internet Explorer browsers, but if you're still using IE I highly recommend you change

There are other sites similar to yousendit such as bigupload.com

[Cloud Mountain]

My tip for long recordings, is to read the piece out loud first. It's completely impossible for me to record any poetry without rehearsing the piece several times, because it takes forever to work out the stresses and patterns of the piece -- and it just can't be done in my head.

A few thoughts...

I usually do not rehearse at all, but instead record a reading of a poem three times, one after the other, without break, the final time with the project-appropriate intro and outro.

So, yes, I guess you can say I rehearse, but doing it this way serves a purpose. The first reading has a certain spontaneity to it, a freshness that sometimes, depending on the nature of a poem, better expresses what I sense to be the author's purpose or intent. (Or an interpretation that I’d like to convey.) And so I'll submit that. But this is not a common experience.

By the time I get to the second reading, my voice has become seated and I’m less concerned with “getting it right” (which always reveals itself in one way or another in a reading.) when I get to the third reading, the likelihood of a misreading is still there. Still, at the same time, it’s getting to the edge of becoming “stale,” —and yet it’s still mostly “in the zone.” If anything’s misspoken in the third reading, the second reading can serve as a source for “cleaning up” the final “take.” The rhythm, pacing, and timber of my voice will be similar in both 2 & 3, and so a copy of any small portion of the second read, a word or phrase, and a “punch in” of it into the third, final sound file, will create a unified expression: a seemingly seamless straight read.

If I go on to a fourth recording, by that time the reading has become more fixed and predictable and begins to lose heart. If I find that for some reason I have to go beyond three, I stop recording and come back to it later. Because of pitch and timber variations from recording time to recording time, I find that it's usually better to start all over again with a reading. Give it new freshness once again.

I'm not sure that this can be helpful to anyone, but, it might inspire something.
8)

[ceastman]

What do you do when you have a wonderful system-so you thought-for giving people access to and uploading files for LV-and no one, including myself can download anything? May I scream? Sound effect time I guess! Pulls hair out..... See link in sig, bad, bad, link. bad hosting site? Worked earlier. I love/hate technology.

Becky

Try yousendit.com, or my uploader at librivox.greenkri.com (password libre). My uploader will only work for non Internet Explorer browsers, but if you're still using IE I highly recommend you change

There are other sites similar to yousendit such as bigupload.com

And, er, is anyone but me NOT seeing becky's sig? I feel like I'm missing out on something here...

-Catharine

[kristin]

Nope, it appears to be gone. But, I assure you, it was there once.

[wordplay]

Audio Bookshelf-Hear the Words Play Recordings are here now! This saves so much time-it links to the site for lv volunteers and general public-and I only have to do it once. Time to record and edit instead of fiddling with files!

I am in the swing of things now. This is what is working for me:
Clouds record 3 times suggestion
Identifying noise-phut sound-tries the silence thing-too hard for me to edit
Use the label feature on Audacity, listen to the recording-1st time mark stuff to cut or re-place, second time-removing all the bad stuff and replacing errors. Third time-proofread while listening. Then polish the puppy for downloading.

[a.r.dobbs]

When I save my tracks in Audacity, they all start at 0 seconds when I reopen the file.

Yeah, but you can change that.

You record 10 minutes and hit stop, let's say. Then you save your project. Now you're relaxed; if your computer crashes, those 10 minute are saved.

You're ready to record again. Click your cursor at the end of what's recorded so far, right in that last track. Now hit record, and the next track begins where that one ended (instead of at 0 seconds).

Later, you have 5 tracks, staggered beautifully, and you would love them to be one track, please. Highlight them and hit Edit > Quick Mix. But do be very careful that you don't have overlapped tracks before you do that. You would be sad.

Suppose you have 4 beautifully staggered tracks but the 5th track started at the beginning of track 4 because you forgot to click that time at the end of the track. Look at the little icons in the sort of upper left corner area of Audacity. See the icon with double arrow and line <--->. Highlight that tool and click on the unstaggered track and drag it so its beginning lines up under the previous track's end.

There. How was that?

While I'm here... I'll tell you my favorite how-to-boost volume trick:
highlight your single track after it has been edited, choose Edit > Duplicate, and you suddenly have two identical tracks and a very nicely boosted volume. Need a little more? duplicate again.

And then there's input volume. That's very important. So here's a bit about input levels.

On a newer PC* it's
Start > Control Panels > Sounds and Audio Devices**
and then you get a window, "Sounds and Audio Devices Properties"
Click the "Voice" tab in that window
and select your microphone in the drop-down menu for "Voice recording"
if it's a headset, select it also in the "Voice playback" menu
click the "Volume..." button (for each) and adjust

*On a PC "classic Start menu" it's
Start > Settings > Control Panel > etc.
[**or Sounds, Speech and Audio Devices > Sounds and Audio Devices]

On a Mac OS X, it's
Apple icon (upper left corner of screen) > System Preferences... > Hardware > Sound
In the "Sound" window that opens, under "Choose a device for sound input," highlight your mic/headset. Then adjust the volumes.

It's prudent to check the levels at the beginning of each record session and after any interruption (e.g., computer crash = interruption).

[brianlojeck]

There's a much easier way to change volume of a track, there is a GAIN control for each track on the left hand side.

Very handy when you are cutting someone else's work into your recording, or merging two recordings you did at two different volumes...

[Gesine]

This is all good. Is anyone putting this stuff in the wiki? :)

[a.r.dobbs]

There's a much easier way to change volume of a track, there is a GAIN control for each track on the left hand side.

Very handy when you are cutting someone else's work into your recording, or merging two recordings you did at two different volumes...

Hey, that's why I said "my favorite" rather than "the best" or "the easiest" -- the chief reason it's my favorite (there are several) is that it is in the nature of digital to sound a little bit richer when the track is doubled.

Maybe it should be spelled out that if you're using gain (which is handy and dandy, and appears in the box at the far left of each track with + - and a slider) ... if you're using gain to fit together a couple different recordings of different overall volumes, you'll have to keep them on separate tracks.

Track 1, great volume recording.
Track 2, low volume recording with gain +3db or +6db
Track 3, blaring volume recording with gain -3db or -6db

etc.

pardon my rant:
And Audacity has the really dreadful problem of not letting you slide "clips" around on the same track.
So if you have a dialogue with Speaker A needing a volume boost and Speaker B needing a volume reduction, you'd have to make a new track each time you're cutting from one speaker to the next, if you want to preserve the gain method... no, I'd do a workaround ... nevermind, it's all too bothersome, all because you can't cut a single track into multiple clips and move them around on that track, creating gaps so another track could ... it's too hard to explain in words.
It's an unfathomable flaw in the design, requiring all kinds of workarounds. After almost a year, I remain unspeakably incredulous that they make each track one solid piece of audio. They're working on that problem in the latest beta (as of many months ago), so some day it may be a proper editor.
end of rant (I need to avoid making this rant, because it actually makes me feel worse to rant about it than to avoid thinking about the flaw)

[wordplay]

This is good,

I just wish I knew what you all were talking about! Gain in the US is a laundry detergent! Does audacity have a Gain control and what is a slider, and is there a better editing software-even a low-cost one that is easier-ie dummy friendly to use? The instructions are great, but I am short on basic knowledge.

Editing is frustrating me-it takes too long and I feel like a bull in a china shop with it-the time factor is the most frustrating-I would really like to cut and slide the cut piece to another track. I would also like to slow the speaking speed while editing and reset it to normal for publishing. I am sure this will all make sense to me soon, gosh, I hope so-it sounds like great stuff! Best analogy-editing is like learning a new language! You have to learn the vocabulary first-What is gain, slider, etc.

Back to the audacity tutorial,
Becky

[brianlojeck]

"gain" is audio-speak for "added amplification". In less professional settings (such as this) think of it as the same thing as "volume", only on a track by track basis. Yes, it's also a laundry detergent.

a "slider" is anything where you make selections from many choices by moving a small pointer along a horizontal or vertical tool. There are two sliders to the left of every audio track in Audacity for example.

Don't let the learning curve put you down. it may take some time, but audacity's not that hard to use...

[wordplay]

Anyone ever use this software? My humble opinion-it is easier to learn than Audacity, at least for someone completely new to audio recording! The other reason? I have an Olympus DS 2, voice recorder that makes beautiful recordings-I couldn't get Audacity to open the wav. files. They opened with no problems in Wave Pad. Yeah!!! Now I can record anywhere! If you are interested, here is a link to Olympus and Wave Pad. I set the recorder to best quality recording-it has a cradle that eliminates noise from holding it. I set it to HQ for the best quality, although it has the shortest time for recording.

Olympus DS 2 Voice Recorder
Wave Pad

I really like Wave Pad-has features that work for me. It is free-but they also have a professional edition for sale to sound engineers. I learned it very quickly-and find editing with it was much faster than Audacity-not a put down of Audacity, just a note about a software that works better with my brain. Um, that last sentence might scare some of you, but Cloud Mountain understands! That, truly, is scary too! Hey, Audacity is great! This is just one more tool in the arsenal! My ultimate goal is to get the editing time to a minimum leaving me with maximum recording time!

Becky

[kristin]

I use Wave Pad Masters Edition but still find myself using Audacity for certain things. Like exporting to mp3. I think audacity is better at it and my id3 tags didn't get all screwed up. Editing of one file/track is, I think, faster with WavePad because it keeps moving, I like that feature, it plays, you select, you cut, it backs up a pinch and starts playing automatically again. On the other hand if you have multiple files you can't play them at the same time.

Mixpad is another program to go with it that you can get to do multi-track so you can move them around and line them up and whatever but it doesn't edit. So if you need to trim anything you've got to go back into WavePad, take a guess at what needs to be cut out then back into the other program and hope it works. I'd rather use audacity for my multi-tracking needs.

For importing waves into audacity go to Project then Import Audio.