Mangst

Tips on recording spoken articles

Hello! As you asked, I did some spot listens on Diamond.

The big thing I noticed is that the noise reduction sounds overly agressive, which is why the final product sounds "tinny" or "hollow" and has scattered high-pitched humming. (You may not hear it unless you listen to the recording with earphones or external speakers.) The way to fix this is to experiment: Start with the least aggressive setting, then continue up the scale just up until the background noise becomes inaudible or barely perceptible. If you use Audacity, you may want to try 1.3.7 beta, which has a more robust NR engine with additional settings as compared to the release version. One of the new settings, Frequency Smoothing, is useful for filling in "holes" in the frequency spectrum that can make NR'd recordings sound hollow.

I use Levelator to even out the sound level throughout the recording. It works really well, and fixes things such as variations in volume between recording sessions, as well as the common human tendency to start a sentence strong then tail off toward the end. Audacity beta does have a built-in leveling function, but I've found that Levelator gives much better results.

Your speaking style and pacing are good. It sounds like you speak far away from the microphone, but it's possible this may be caused by NR. The closer you are to the microphone, the fuller the recording will sound (I also use bass boost to fill out the sound), but that may result in a lot of popping and essing. My simple fix for this is to put a cotton ball over the microphone. Any minor pops that still come through, I fix with a high-pass filter at around 100 Hz. Speaking close to the microphone also increases the potential for clipping; Audacity beta has a clip-fix tool that I use whenever this happens. To reduce echoes, I record underneath a comforter that I drape over two chairs. It's not as nice as an anechoic chamber, but it doesn't cost thousands of dollars, either. :-)

I hope you find these tips useful. Have fun! —Tonyle (talk • contribs) 21:31, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Tips on recording spoken articles

Thanks so much for your advice!

• I tried using the improved NR functionality in Audacity 1.3.7 beta...this did indeed bring about vastly better results.
• Levelator didn't appear to help me at all. I live in an apartment that sits next to a fairly busy six-lane road, so there is always car noise in the background. Levelator seemed to amplify that noise, even after I had performed a NR sweep in Audacity.
• The microphone I use is built-in on top of my computer monitor (I use an iMac), which is why I sound so far away from the mic...I should probably look into getting an external mic I can speak closer to.
• Haha, nice recording studio! Full grown adult and still building forts? ;-)

I've uploaded the improved recordings if you'd like to hear the difference.

Mangst (talk) 21:25, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Hahaha, I hadn't thought of that image, but you're right. :-D

There's a noticeable amount of background noise in the new recordings that sounds like a low-frequency hum or rumble. It sounds like the traffic is an issue. An external microphone might help by increasing the difference between noise and speech, making it easier to NR the recording. That's about as much advice as I can think of; you may want to try the Spoken Wikipedia talk page for more.

—Tonyle (talk • contribs) 18:46, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

OpenBSD audio

Danke Mangst for your audio recording of OpenBSD, I have a minor quibble with how you say Theo de Raadt's name, the name is of a Dutch origin and pronounced, "de wrought." The Theo de Raadt article lists this pronouciation, though it is hard to read unless one knows the zany text they use there. 74.13.40.60 (talk) 05:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Thinking about it, you also say, "dee," instead of, "duh," for the, "de," in, "de Raadt." 74.13.40.60 (talk) 05:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. I made the fix and have uploaded an updated recording here. --Mangst (talk) 04:44, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Audio

Hi Mangst, thanks for uploading all the audio recordings. I saw you licensed the audio files you uploaded as {{GFDL-with-disclaimers}}. This creates unnecessary baggage and limits compatibility with other projects, as explained by WP:FIXGFDL. Perhaps you could license your work in the future to {{GFDL}} or {{cc-by-sa-3.0}}? Also, Iapetus (moon).ogg, Enceladus (moon).ogg, and Titan (moon).ogg have wrong licenses - one can't publish them under a public domain license and they need either {{GFDL}} or {{cc-by-sa-3.0}} to comply with the Wikipedia license - however, no license is mentioned in any one of them (I listened to the end in each) but needs to be. Regards Hekerui (talk) 12:36, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks Hekerui, I changed the licensing of the three files you mentioned. In the future, I'll be sure to use {{GFDL}} and to mention the license in my recordings (I used to do that, but just got lazy :-/). Mangst (talk) 22:04, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Good. Hey, I fixed the "Amerrrrrican" - I had a keyboard that got stuck like that too, but with "l". Best Hekerui (talk) 00:17, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I was just trying to be funny, but ok, you can change it. :-P Mangst (talk) 01:13, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I guessed it but wanted you to say it ;-) Hekerui (talk) 07:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

How in the hell can the public domain be a violation of anything's terms - it's the utter lack of a license, the disowning of intellectual property, signing it off to the masses without restriction. 74.13.39.186 (talk) 20:38, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the public domain license implies that I'm also the creator/owner of the content (i.e. the Wikipedia article), which I am not. What do you think Hekerui? Mangst (talk) 01:13, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Precisely. Hekerui (talk) 07:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Your recording of Titan (moon)

Sorry to bug you but you did make a rather substantial flub in the opening sentence of your recording. You said that Titan was the sixth largest moon of Saturn, when in fact it is the largest. Serendi^podous 13:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that is a pretty big error, thanks for the correction. That's strange that I said that...I must have seen "Saturn VI" and subconsciously mixed the words around. I'll put it on my to-do list. --Mangst (talk) 22:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

While you're at it, add a license mention in the file. Thanks. Hekerui (talk) 10:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure thing Hekerui! --Mangst (talk) 12:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Changes made. --Mangst (talk) 16:11, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Yay. Hekerui (talk) 18:30, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Cool! Serendi^podous 21:39, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

		The Audio Barnstar
		For having the rare consideration to update your spoken word articles, I award you the audio barnstar Serendipodous 01:37, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow, thank you very much! --Mangst (talk) 16:52, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

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Invite to Join WikiProject for Spoken Wikipedia

Hi Mangst! I am Galendalia and I have revived the WikiProject for Spoken Wikipedia. I noticed that you signed up at some point to be a participant and as I am reviving this project, one of my tasks is to get the participant list in order. Would you please go to the Participants List and add your name and language(s) you speak? If you are already there and do not want to be, please move yourself to the inactive list at the bottom of the page. If you want to remain, please put remain next to your name (this way you are not moved). If I do not see anything from you by May 30, 2020, I will move you to the inactive participant list. It would also be great if you would be willing to join the task force for Pronunciation that would be awesome, as there are troublesome words we run into. Thank you for considering joining us. If you decide to leave, I will be sad to see you leave as so many people have done a great job on the recordings and any work you have done makes a significant difference. Galendalia (talk · contribs) (sent via Mass Message. This is a message that is one time, so no unsubscribe link is provided.)

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia at 11:42, 16 May 2020 (UTC).

Updates to Spoken Wikipedia

Hello Mangst! I hope this message finds you well and healthy! I am working this weekend on the Spoken Wikipedia project pages to get them in line with other projects. I just wanted to inform you in advance that some pages may be created. deleted, moved, or otherwise. If you have any questions, please feel free to post them on my talk page.
Thanks, Galendalia (talk) 16:27, 23 May 2020 (UTC) WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia Coordinator