Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion FoLC Productions Experiment - AudioFic - Persephone's Return (Part One)

As you may have noticed, I've been having fun with my new headset lately. I haven't had a decent quality computer microphone before. I've also got a lot of time on my hands these days.

The latest result of that situation?

AudioFic.

It's a little experiment I'm springing on you guys.

You've heard of AudioBooks? Same idea. Record a file of someone reading a story.

Today, I did a cold reading of part one of Persephone\'s Return . I picked that one because it's relatively short, was well-liked enough to get a Kerth nom, and is not written in the first-person perspective of a young girl.

It's a little rough. There are some mistakes. The intonation could perhaps be better in places. For a first shot, though, it's not bad. I hope. You'll be the judge(s) of that.

It's also rather large. Larger than I was expecting. 11.6 megs. I'm not sure what I can do about that. Anyone know a way to change the bitrate of an mp3 file without making it sound horrible? Or should I just record shorter segments?

If you're interested and have a high-speed connection (or a lot of patience), please download the file and let me know what you think.

Should I do the rest of the story?

Should I make the sections smaller?

Should I do other stories? (If so, any requests?)

Anyone else interested in doing stuff like this? Maybe we could even voice cast a story, to make the speakers more distinctive...

Or is this all just a waste of time and bandwidth? (Please don't be afraid to say so. Really.)

Whatever you think, please let me know.

EDIT:
I've finished the recording. Also rerecorded part one. It's all at a lower bitrate now, so the files are smaller (while hopefully still being clear).

Persephone's Return:

Part One (5.8MB)

Part Two (3.4MB)

Part Three (5.3MB)

Paul

I really like this ! Keep going!!

Yes! Definitely!!

Hmm I don't know I prefer to have it all in one part but if people have problems with bandwith etc then maybe it's better to devide it in sections.. I'll just go with the flow

Yes But after you finished this one :p

Ooooh, neat idea!!!! Now that I think about it, I can't believe that, with all the fic out here, that this hadn't been done, because there *are* people who prefer audio stuff. I'm not one of them myself, so probably won't listen to any. But the idea is awesome, and I know people who listen to books on tape and stuff, so . . . just have to find some FoLCs who do that.

For speech, bitrate is usually lower than music, because speech can get away with lower sound quality. What bitrate do you have the file at?

Wow, Paul - just yesterday I wondered whether it wouldn't be great to listen to fanfic while I'm doing other stuff.

Logox came into my mind, an old programme, able to read written text - but unfortunately it's very old and has this stupid computer voice

So, I LOVE your idea and it would be pretty cool to if you could do more of this stuff.

Now, I'm gonna listen to your work - really looking forward!

Bye,

Jana

So, interest seems to be limited. Which is okay. It was an experiment.

Thanks to those who did comment.

I'll probably come back and finish off this story in the next few days or so, but I don't think I'll be doing any more.

As for bitrate... I found the Audacity option. Seems it was set to 128 (k/sec, I'm assuming). I'll probably lower that for the rest of the story.

Jana, if you want to work with other stories, there are programs to do it. A quick web search for "text to speech" or something similar should turn them up. Alternatively, there's a Wiki article with a good number of program links, including a bunch that are free.

Anyway, thanks again to those who posted their thoughts. I'll post back to this thread when I have the rest of the story recorded.

Paul

Hey, Paul,

I'm not really into audio pieces because my attention tends to stray away. But I downloaded and listened to the first few minutes of it, out of curiosity. And because I like the listening practice (I had no idea this was how you pronounced Persephone. I thought the -phone part would be pronounced like 'phone' :p )

I don't think I'll be downloading any more, but perhaps others would enjoy it. In any case, it's a neat idea. And you narrate well

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

This could seriously be the answer to my prayers, Paul. My work constantly keeps me away from the internet or any electronical devices to read fanfiction from I'm travelling a lot and while my laptop has limited battery life this option is limited to probably an hour out of five each day.

I've ordered some audio books now and then and recently found a neat collection via iTunes which will keep me busy for a few months. So listening to some fanfiction would be a neat and welcome addition.

But then I don't believe that this really fits the profile of any fanfiction community, nevertheless I could and should kiss you for that idea Thanks for giving it a try even if you won't pursue it further.

Bettina

Elisabeth and I actually thought about doing this several years ago, but when we tried it, the size of the files were huge, for that time frame, and we had a limit on the amount we could record before the recorder would turn off.

James, who can't wait to hear what Paul sounds like.

ok, I listened to it. Wow, Paul, I never would have guessed your voice would sound like that. You sound so...mature (please take that the right way )

You could do this professionally.

I'd like to here the next part soon.

James

I hope you keep doing this!

Just don't do nfic.. That would sound very.. well.. ehm.. you know.

Ooo, more responses!

Anna - That's how I was taught to say the name. It's kind of confusing, especially since it's also sometimes written as "Proserpine." But you'd probably know how to say it better than I. Persephone is, after all, a figure from Greek myth. How is her name pronounced in modern Greek?

Anyway, I understand if it's not for you. I'm not sure that, as a reader/listener, it would be for me, either. Thanks for trying, though, and glad you enjoyed what you did hear.

Bettina - Check the links in my above post. A text-to-speech program will allow you to covert fic into audio files. You won't get the intonation and such, but it's better than nothing. I know someone who did that for reasons similar to your own, and I think it worked well for her once she got used to it. (Don't remember what program she used, though.)

James - Not sure what you mean by "mature." I am in my late 20's. I'd hope my voice would be mature by now. Is it that I tend to be goofy and have a cartoonish avatar? Well, whatever the case, thanks for the comments. Glad you like it.

Selinde and MetroRhodes - Uhm... Thanks. Glad to know you like my voice.

As for nfic, I don't generally read it and I wouldn't record another author's work without permission.

I am, however, open to requests.

Anyway... Now that I found the recording quality setting, I've finished the job. I rerecorded Part One and then recorded Parts Two and Three. Not sure how well it really works. I tried to distinguish quotes and proper names, but it can be tricky to pull off. Hopefully, it's clear.

I'll edit the first post as well, but for those who want to hear:

Part One (5.8MB)

Part Two (3.4MB)

Part Three (5.3MB)

Paul

Thanks for following up with the missing two parts Paul.

Regarding your idea/comment about TTS software: the last bit of experience I've had with that was coincidentally Logox some years ago. I'll be trying to gather some information on such software but as far as I can remember, pretty much each and everything sounds like a bad metallic computer voice from some cheap action movie Thanks for the ideas though.

...Proserpine? Why? /me Googles... Aha, found it. Proserpina was apparently her name in some Greek dialects, and passed along as her Latin equivalent.

I recorded myself saying 'Persephone' (Περσεφόνη) as it's pronounced in modern Greek. Here\'s the file .

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

I haven't had time to listen to the file, but that doesn't mean I don't think this is a great idea, Paul. Could be fun to do more of them. Others, too. With the permission of the authors, of course, as you say.

One thing you can be sure of. I ain't doing Masques.

LabRat

Has anyone contacted Jude to let her know? As many of you know, she has severe vision problems and would probably love this option!

Irene

Bettina - Yes, TTS will, by its nature, sound mechanical (though I'm told that they've made improvements in the vocal quality, even if not intonation and emphasis). If you can get used to that, though, it may be worth it. Up to you, of course. It's a very individual preference.

Anna - Thanks for the file. Interesting. I wonder why the English pronounciation (which you can also hear here ) is so different. It is a proper name, after all... Oh, and while it's just the one word... You seem to have a nice, soft, clear voice.

Lab - Thanks for the encouragement. I'm open to doing more if there's interest. If I did, though, I'd probably have to start looking for a better place to host the files. My personal webspace is limited.

But... hmm... you sure about Masques? You, a microphone, a barrel of cider... Could be fun.

Irene - I didn't know that about Jude, but that sounds like a good thought. Do you have her contact info handy?

Paul

LOL! I'd certainly need a barrel of cider. Probably more than one.

LabRat

Well, the English pronunciation of Persephone doesn't sound all that foreign to me. As I said, I thought it was worse <G> If you try to say it the way you say it, only accentuating the 'o' instead of the second 'e', you'll be pretty close, I think.

And, thanks for the compliment

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

Hi Paul!

I just saw that I completely forgot to give you some feedback.

Due to my bad English (especially when I have to listen to someone) I had to read the story at some points. But as I read a good story several times, I'd certainly use this audio option after having read a story completely.
And it is definitely a good exercise.

Today, I brought your file to my language lunch meeting (English people trying to learn German and vice versa while having lunch) cause I had a question concerning the pronounciation of a word and everybody praised your voice which is actually perfect for this kind of work!

Well, I'd love to listen to more of these things - either from you aswell as from other authors.

Bye,

Jana

Paul, I haven't listened to this yet because I'm mostly on Athena these days and I don't really feel comfortable listening to fanfic there, headphones or not <g>. But I did want to comment on the TTS option.

I used to run fanfic off to mp3s all the time. A few years ago I had a data entry job that let us listen to music all day. But at 40 hours a week, I exhausted my music collection pretty quickly. I turned to audio books from the library, but they required a lot of prior planning (ie, requesting a title and waiting for it to be sent to the library near me, and then actually going to the library and picking it up... I couldn't do this on the spur of the moment.) And they didn't always have the books I wanted. What I really wanted was to be able to listen to fanfic <g>. So I went in search of TTS software, and I came up with NextUp\'s TextAloudMP3 . I could paste a bunch of fanfic into it, set it up to convert overnight (it read pretty quickly, but I used to give it a lot to read <g>. I think it could convert anywhere from 10x to 50x; that is, 1 minute conversion for 10-50 minutes of audio.), and then transfer the files to my mp3 player in the morning and take it to work with me. Not quite spur of the moment, but pretty quick and more convenient than going to the library. I did all my Kerth "reading" aurally that year

You do have to get used to the voices. They don't sound like a normal person. You just have to accept that they'll never be perfect. But after a while I noticed that sometimes they intoned things differently than I might have imagined, and it made me think about the story differently <g>. Once in a while my computer reader could teach me something It's been a while since I used TA, since I don't have that data entry job anymore, but I think I used to prefer AT&T's Crystal voice.

The other thing to be aware of is that if the computer doesn't know a word, it'll try to sound it out. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. With TextAloud you can "teach" it the proper pronunciation of words you use often (names, etc); I assume similar programs work the same way.

Anyway, there's a 15-day trial of TA available on their website. This comes with just the standard voices, which aren't as good as some of the others you have to pay for but should give you a good idea what they sound like and you can decide whether or not to purchase one of the better ones. I also still have several old audio files that I made this way. If anyone is curious in hearing what they sound like, I'd be happy to share for demonstration purposes

Honestly, I adored this software when I had the data entry job. Kept me awake at work more often than I'd like to admit <g>. One of the biggest user testimonials on their webpage is mine

Kaylle

Wow, Paul! This is great! I haven't listened to all three parts yet (have downloaded), but I listened to the first part you made a few days ago and love what you're doing. I had to amplify the sound a bit in Audacity to hear well enough using my underpowered speakers, but it sounded fine as is with headphones turned up.

Like Kaylle I'm one of those people who listen to audio books at work, at least during those things I can do while on autopilot. If it weren't for Audible.com and its Terry Pratchett selection, life would be a lot less interesting.

Sometimes when I'm working -- or driving -- I've thought how cool it would be to have fanfic audio to listen to. I'm intrigued by Kaylle's experience with text-to-speech and may give that a try, but a real human reading and emoting is more satisfying, and I really like your voice. If you were planning to do some more fanfic readings, I'd love to hear them.



-- Lauren

Wow. Two posts from Lauren. In the same day! Cool!

Glad you enjoyed the first part. If there's anything else you'd like me to do, just let me know.

Kaylle, thanks for posting. Was hoping you still had the info and would put it up.

Paul

Since we've been on this board for nearly 10 years, I guess I still think of you as a kid.

James

Hi, Paul!

I test-drove your finished recording in my car. Burned the three parts to CD for a road trip, and "Persephone's Return" occupied me for 30-odd happy miles. Bravo! You've got a great voice for this.

I've always heard that one page of script equals one minute of screen time. Interestingly enough, your story, which is about 30Kb on the archive, turned into about a 30-minute story read aloud. And because I wasn't speeding it lasted about 30 miles. I just found that interesting.

What are your thoughts about audio on the archive, Paul?

Everyone else, too, what are your thoughts?

Thanks,

-- Lauren

Whoa.

That would be really cool!

Go ahead and put the files up.

As for reading... I did do a Librivox recording. A chapter of The Count of Monte Cristo. Thanks for pointing me over there. I'll probably do more with them, but this is more fun. Homier. So, sure... I'll keep going.

Like I said before, though, I wouldn't read another author's story without permission.

I'm also not sure that I can commit to a regular schedule. (For various reasons. Including the fact that the room directly below mine is currently undergoing repairs and there's a lot of background noise...) But I'd be happy to get things rolling. If we can get a few more readers, we won't have to worry as much about the schedule.

So, in short:



Let's do it!

Paul

Paul,

I like your idea. It's great!

Thank you... and keep them coming. I'm sure many authors would give permission to you record their stories.

Andreia

Here is an idea that may or may not be possible.

What if we had multiple individuals for the various roles of a story. Similar to dramatic readings done of various classical works of art.

At first glance, it might be seem awfully complicated, it couldn't be any worse than splicing together audio bytes!

We could invite the author to the narrator, and then have someone be Clark, and someone else be Lois and so on.

We could hold auditions for the parts!

or am I just needing more sleep so that these silly thoughts will go away???

James

Thanks for parts two and three, Paul. You did a good job with those as well and like others have mentioned before, your voice is easy to listen to and in great contrast to TTS software it's also a pleasure

While this software is definitely better than I've remembered from past use, it does not sound anywhere as near as real voices. This is somewhat of a letdown because an important part of listening to audio books is the pleasure of the reader's voice. Thanks all the same for those links to TextAloud, I'll be trying it for real in the next days but I don't have great hopes.

Oh and James, the idea is lovely, I just see a huge problem with trying Just imagine some three speakers who constantly disrupt each other and while those may share the workload somehow the brunt of the work falls to the editor. I don't even want to think about mixing those parts together because there have to be thousands of pieces to align from three different sources and that will take time! An additional problem which could occur are postproductional issues because of different sound qualities, volume etc (think about a shy and quiet Lois towards a loud and confident Clark, wouldn't that ruin some dreams for you? )

ok, I can see that would throw things if there were technical difficulties.

It was just an idea...

James

The thought occurred to me too, James, but then I thought it would be quite difficult.

I had another thought, though. (BTW, does anybody think that we're spamming the thread, since the subject has branched out so much?)

Anyway, my idea was - I've written several stories in first person. And two of them (No Excuse/No Excuse At All) include switching viewpoints from Lois to Clark. Perhaps these would sound good - a female reads Lois, a male reads Clark. I'd do Lois, but if this is to serve as educational hearing material, it would be better if the reader was a native English speaker.

Any thoughts? (Should I make a different thread for this?)

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

Don't worry about thread drift. Thanks, but I'm interested in this, too.

If you do want to make a new thread, though, for visibility's sake, please go right ahead.

As for recording parts, I'd thought of it, too (see the first post in this thread). There are some technical challenges to it, but it could be done. Just not sure if it'd be worth it.

But what you suggest, Anna, is much simpler. Not sure how many stories it'd work for, but worth it for ones like you mentioned.

Paul

Hm, this is surely not accurate in any way but a story of 60 kilobyte plain text amounts to approximately 1 hour of reading (based on Paul's story 32min for 29kb and 11:20 hrs for 594kb of "Meet me in Kansas City" by Chris Mulder).

Based on that, editing dialogues and narratation from (at least) three different sources will take days or weeks to complete. For shorter stories this will take much less time and it could certainly be attractive, listening to audio-fanfic in a brand new way

Reducing the workload by splitting the jobs to whole chapters would work very well, I believe. Why don't you give it a try Anna

Hi, Paul!

I put the audio version of your story up on the archive with today's update. I listened to it again on my iPod. Again, GREAT JOB!!

The poll shows more people are interested in audio fics than not. I think people will love what you've done. And, like me, hope you do some more.

James, your idea about multiple voices is interesting but may be hard to pull off logistically. It would involve lots of editing, pulling from multiple audio files. But maybe something could be worked out using Skype, or some VOIP tool like Skype, so that people could read their lines and react to each other in real time, to make it more like a play. Haven't got a clue there, myself, as I've never used Skype. But in a podcast I listen to, TWiT, the old TechTV guys use Skype all the time to hold conversations online.

Anna B., I listened to your sample and really liked it. Your English is very good!

-- Lauren

I have to say that the audio version of 'Persephone's Return' in the Archive looks pretty nifty

And, thanks for the compliment, Lauren!

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

Oh wow. It's up!

That's awesome! And I have my own front page news blurb!

Hmm. But what are you going to do with the audiofic links in the future? Put them up next to the text links for the individual story? Create an audiofic section? Both? Something else?

I spent my recording time this past week on Librivox (thanks again for that, Lauren!), but I'm going to have to get started on another audiofic real soon...

Gonna have to listen to your sample, too, Anna. Great to see someone else picking it up. Good luck with your endevour!

Paul

Hey Paul - great job on that story. (both the story and the audio file!) You've got a pleasant voice for this, I had a good time listening.

I also think audiofic is a really neat idea and I hope there's more of it in the future!

(and I can't figure out a way to say this without sounding like I'm showing off or something - which is definitely not how I want to come off! - but here goes anyway... I may have a few tips and tricks as far as reading a story goes, if anyone is interested. Someone with acting classes would probably know a lot better than I do, but I studied radio broadcasting and have had voice coaching all through College, so I do know a few useful little things.)

Thanks Lara. Glad you enjoyed.

And hey, I'm pretty new at this. Any suggestions you may have would be appreciated, I'm sure.

There are also some pretty useful tips and guides over at Librivox\'s wiki/FAQ page . Including the very helpful page entitled " Help! What if I suck? "

Paul

LOL! They called it "what if I suck?" - that's too funny!

Here's a couple little things that could be useful. It's stuff I learned in school - and I've used these myself when doing some recordings for radio adverts and phone systems ("please press one").

Btw, if it's helpful, I could record a few examples of these things to show you what I mean, if you like. You'll be able to hear the difference; there really is one.

- You should speak as loudly as if you're having a normal conversation, or better yet, place the mic an inch further and read the text as if you're adressing a classroom full of people. (don't shout though, obviously) The recording will sound "intimate" even if you do that, it's all in the way the mic captures the sound.

- Even if you read the text without emotion (neutral tone) you should try to smile a little bit as you speak. If you're reading it with emotion, then smile more. It sounds weird, I know... but trust me, you can always pick up a smile in someone's voice and it can make all the difference in the world.

- One little thing that can help you "pretend" you're reading this to someone is to read it in front of a mirror; it's easier to smile at yourself, too. I know this sounds incredibly vain - staring at yourself, but the point isn't actually to admire your looks here.

- Sit up straight, or even better, stand up. This will help your breathing for one and sometimes also help your voice come out better. Mind you, it's mostly for the breathing - like a singer.

The last thing, well... it's not really something they teach you in school, but most people I know did this (I did too) and personnaly I find it helpful. I print the text I need to read, then mark all the pauses with a red slash then I add accents over the words that I think need to be accentuated in the text. It's also useful because it forces you to read the text out loud once to figure out the accentuations - like a practice run. Of course, myself, I used to go through pronounciation exercises and several practice runs before I read something - but that's usually cause they *paid* me to read the thing, so it had to be this close to perfect.

If this is useful, then great. But I don't claim to be an expert at anything, just someone who's actually done this sort of work in the past. Mind you, my lil sound byte on Anna's thread is not my best work ever -- it's WAY harder to do this in English than it is in French for me.

Hi, Paul!

I think both would be a good idea. Have a page for audiofic and maybe a little audio icon next to the story in the catalog pages.

Yay! I'm looking forward to hearing it, Paul. Also glad to hear you're doing work for Librivox. I love that site.

-- Lauren