Elfstone
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larrymurk wrote:
The beauty of a Submission thread is that people only see their own submissions. So you won't be seeing any submissions other then any you post.

I don't know about recording on the Mac as such, but the general method is:
1. Run a program that can record.
2. Click Record.
2.5. Speak into a microphone.
3. Click Stop when done.
4. Click Save and choose a filename to save it as.

Many thanks larrymurk! but, and without in any way belittling your advice, I knew that much from many years of recording music performance for SQA exams. What I'm really not sure about, and I'm sorry that I didn't explain this properly, is how to be sure that other people (particularly those who don't have Macs) can hear my recording. I know that with other types of file there have sometimes been problems with people here downloading them and I just wanted to avoid that if possible. The timescale is fairly short, especially as I'm not quite sure how jbluestein's 'midnight EST' relates to 'British Summer Time', so I'd rather not be trying to sort this out at the last minute (whenever that is ).

Elf.

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larrymurk
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OGG, WAV, and MP3 are all pretty standard sound file types.

jbluestein
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Elfstone wrote:

larrymurk wrote:
The beauty of a Submission thread is that people only see their own submissions. So you won't be seeing any submissions other then any you post.

I don't know about recording on the Mac as such, but the general method is:
1. Run a program that can record.
2. Click Record.
2.5. Speak into a microphone.
3. Click Stop when done.
4. Click Save and choose a filename to save it as.

Many thanks larrymurk! but, and without in any way belittling your advice, I knew that much from many years of recording music performance for SQA exams. What I'm really not sure about, and I'm sorry that I didn't explain this properly, is how to be sure that other people (particularly those who don't have Macs) can hear my recording. I know that with other types of file there have sometimes been problems with people here downloading them and I just wanted to avoid that if possible. The timescale is fairly short, especially as I'm not quite sure how jbluestein's 'midnight EST' relates to 'British Summer Time', so I'd rather not be trying to sort this out at the last minute (whenever that is ).

Elf.

I don't really know a lot about audio recordings. So far I've received one in .aud format and one in .ogg format. Note that sound is purely optional for this contest, so if you can't figure it out, don't sweat it.

As to the schedule, midnight EST is equal to 5AM GMT, so essentially you have until 5AM Saturday morning, from your standpoint.

Good luck!
Josh

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Elfstone
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jbluestein wrote:
I don't really know a lot about audio recordings. So far I've received one in .aud format and one in .ogg format. Note that sound is purely optional for this contest, so if you can't figure it out, don't sweat it.

As to the schedule, midnight EST is equal to 5AM GMT, so essentially you have until 5AM Saturday morning, from your standpoint.

Good luck!
Josh

Right, many thanks to you, and to larrymurk. I'll have a go at recording tomorrow.

Elf.

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Hikari
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For Elfstone:

iTunes is just for playback and management, not for recording/editing. I recommend using Audacity for recording things. It's pretty easy to use for just recording things (press record to start, press stop to stop, save is pretty straight-forward as well ), and can save in a bunch of different formats.

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Elfstone
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Hikari wrote:
For Elfstone:

iTunes is just for playback and management, not for recording/editing.

- which seems to beg the question why does the iMac have a built in microphone? I'll have a look at the missing manual book.

I recommend using Audacity for recording things. It's pretty easy to use for just recording things (press record to start, press stop to stop, save is pretty straight-forward as well ), and can save in a bunch of different formats.

I had a quick look and it's a 3.4MB download so it will have to wait till tomorrow (the joys of 56K dial up ) .

You are a wonderful source of useful info Hikari - thanks again.

Elf.

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Hikari
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Elfstone wrote:
- which seems to beg the question why does the iMac have a built in microphone? I'll have a look at the missing manual book.

iChat has voice chat functions, and you can use it for putting voiceovers into things in, say, iMovie.

Odd that the computer's got video editing software that comes pre-installed but no sound editing, huh?

And it's no problem helping you out... I have to use the logic/computer-savvy side of my brain for *something*, no?

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Elfstone
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Well, I baked some cinnamon shortbread this afternoon while Audacity was downloading. (I really must set aside time to do something about broadband.) I won't have time to try it out tonight, but I hope to have a go at it tomorrow. The weather has changed dramatically, after the hottest July on record and it has rained most of today with more forecast for tomorrow. There has been a 20-odd degree difference in temperature in 2 days! This global warming thing worries me


I have discovered from The Missing Manual that I can use iMovie to record sound - it was your comment which sent me on that trail - but it seems sensible to use software designed for the purpose.

Ironically I may decide I don't like the sound of my own voice reading my piece. I've already submitted it in written form, so my options are open.


Thanks again Hikari.

Elfstone.

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jbluestein
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Just a little reminder: all of you budding writers have a little less than 56 hours in which to complete and submit your entries for this contest.

And what's at stake? No less than 50 rank points for the first place winner! Plus massive street...er, hold cred for all concerned.

Josh



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Pilchard VIII
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A great contest idea. I would add an entry, but I have absolutely no time to complete it. So after all of the voting, can I just post mine anyway.

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Elfstone
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josh, I have successfuly recorded my story (using to Hikari's instructions).

The original Aduacity file is just 20Kb, but if I export it as .ogg it is suddenly up to 6.1MB and if I export it as .wav it is a whopping 53MB!!

My ignorance of the workings of computers means that I have no idea why the same thing can have such a difference in size, just because the file type is changed, anyway what I want to know is if you think you can listen to the original Audacity file?

If not then perhaps someone can tell me if it is possible to shrink the .ogg file to a smaller size?
Thanks.

Elfstone.

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Znirk
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Elfstone wrote:
The original Aduacity file is just 20Kb, but if I export it as .ogg it is suddenly up to 6.1MB and if I export it as .wav it is a whopping 53MB!!
[...]I want to know is if you think you can listen to the original Audacity file?

Sorry, no. The 20kb file you have there is just a "table of contents"; audacity keeps the actual data in a lot of small files in a subdirectory near that information file. The total size will in the general vicinity of the 53MB the .wav file takes.

Ogg is a lossy compression format, i.e. it does to sound what jpeg does to images or freeze-drying to orange juice: when you reopen the compressed file, you don't get the original back, but you do get something that is close enough for most purposes. You get a smaller .ogg file by setting lower quality (i.e. allowing a larger difference between the original and the .ogg). Audacity just exports .oggs at default quality without asking each time you export, but you can change the default in Edit > Settings on the File formats tab (the Ogg quality slider).

Elfstone
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Ahhh, thanks Znirk, that makes a bit more sense. So sound files are just huge, by nature?

I'll go and see if I can make it smaller than 6.1MB, which will take an age to load here. I'm not sure how importatnt quality is when it is just a recording of the spoken word.

Elfstone

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jbluestein
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Pilchard VIII wrote:
A great contest idea. I would add an entry, but I have absolutely no time to complete it. So after all of the voting, can I just post mine anyway.

Of course. Although I would encourage everyone to submit something if they can -- so far I don't have very many entries.

(14 HOURS LEFT)

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Hikari
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iTunes Music Store sells audiobooks at 32kbps. I've not ever bought one so I don't know what the sound quality is, but I'd assume it's at least AM radio-quality.

A little searching tells me that spoken-word files can survive all the way down to 24kbps, but even so, I think I'd go with 32 just to be on the safe side.

Just make sure you encode in mono instead of stereo. Cuts filesize and sounds better for spoken-word.

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[Last edited by Hikari at 08-04-2006 08:11 PM]

Elfstone
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Hikari wrote:
iTunes Music Store sells audiobooks at 32kbps. I've not ever bought one so I don't know what the sound quality is, but I'd assume it's at least AM radio-quality.

A little searching tells me that spoken-word files can survive all the way down to 24kbps, but even so, I think I'd go with 32 just to be on the safe side.

32kbps - that's per second? Lord, I have no idea how my file is with regards to that. I was speaking about the total file size, which was much bigger than I expected, because of the thing Znirk explaned :
The 20kb file you have there is just a "table of contents"; audacity keeps the actual data in a lot of small files in a subdirectory near that information file. The total size will in the general vicinity of the 53MB the .wav file takes.
I didn't have time to look at the amadeus thing I'm afraid. I spent most of the day preparing for a barbecue I had for a few friends this evening. I will have a look though because the writing site I'm a member of, now has a facility for people to add recordings of themselves reciting their own work. I have never bothered about it, but having done this, I think it might be quite nice to record myself reciting some of my own poetry.

Just make sure you encode in mono instead of stereo. Cuts filesize and sounds better for spoken-word.

I think I recorded it in mono (?) I certainly compressed as far as I could in the export process, but even then it was 4.3MB. In any case it's too late to do anything about it now, and I sink or swim with what's there. When I uploaded the file I put a little note to jbluestein saying that if the file was too big to download I would understand. In the end it is the written file that really counts and it's that which will be judged I believe.

Thanks again for all your help Hikari, I'm very grateful.

Elfstone.


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Hikari
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I'm looking forward to the voting on this ^^ I'm sure it won't be a problem for that filesize; I seem to recall a few holds on here being upwards of 11MB (Odd Jobs consists of three holds all of which are 11MB, right?)... I'm looking forward to all the entries; I would've entered, myself, but haven't had the time to be writing anything like a narrative lately, unfortunately.

And it's absolutely no problem, Elfstone... I'm just glad that my brief experience in the world of tech support, combined with my knowledge of Mac basics that aren't really that basic, is able to help someone out.

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Znirk
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Elfstone wrote:
32kbps - that's per second? Lord, I have no idea how my file is with regards to that. I was speaking about the total file size, which was much bigger than I expected, because of the thing Znirk explaned :
The 20kb file you have there is just a "table of contents"; audacity keeps the actual data in a lot of small files in a subdirectory near that information file. The total size will in the general vicinity of the 53MB the .wav file takes.

Getting even off-topicer here, but it seems that my bad spleling managed to cnofuse you Here are the figures for comparison. (They're more or less improvised; someone correct me if I'm substantially wrong).

The audacity file is actually 20 kB -- kilobytes. The data rates Hikari talks about are expressed in kilobits per second - note the lowercase abbreviation.

If you didn't change any settings before exporting, then your .wav file was probably the same sort of data as what's on a standard CD (except that the CD would have twice as much because it's stereo): 44100 2-byte samples per second, i.e. around 88 kilobytes per second, which works out to something near 700 kilobits per second. So, yes, 32 kbps would be a lot less than that.

You can check for yourself if my figures are relevant to your recording: they are if your recording is 53000kB/(88kB/s) = a bit over 600 seconds long.

Edit: Sorry, another thing. Ogg's quality settings don't tell you about the bitrates, but to quote from the faq at vorbis.com:

quality 0 is roughly equivalent to 64kbps average

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[Last edited by Znirk at 08-05-2006 10:21 AM]

Elfstone
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Znirk wrote:
Getting even off-topicer here, but it seems that my bad spleling managed to cnofuse you Here are the figures for comparison. (They're more or less improvised; someone correct me if I'm substantially wrong).

The audacity file is actually 20 kB -- kilobytes. The data rates Hikari talks about are expressed in kilobits per second - note the lowercase abbreviation.

Ok, I know about kilobytes; I have never heard of kilobits.

If you didn't change any settings before exporting, then your .wav file was probably the same sort of data as what's on a standard CD (except that the CD would have twice as much because it's stereo): 44100 2-byte samples per second, i.e. around 88 kilobytes per second, which works out to something near 700 kilobits per second. So, yes, 32 kbps would be a lot less than that.

You can check for yourself if my figures are relevant to your recording: they are if your recording is 53000kB/(88kB/s) = a bit over 600 seconds long.

Edit: Sorry, another thing. Ogg's quality settings don't tell you about the bitrates, but to quote from the faq at vorbis.com:

quality 0 is roughly equivalent to 64kbps average

Umm, is it important that my aging brain understands all of that? The Arithmetic is fine - I can follow that well enough, but it's the deeper understanding that illudes me.

I always felt that way about Physics when I was at school. I did get my Higher Physics, and a 'B' pass at that, but I always felt it was because I was bright enough to apply the Maths well enough to pass the exams, not becuase I actually understood any of it. For instance, I still don't understand why electricity doesn't stop when I stand on the cable, in the way that water stops if I stand on my garden hose. So long as I can use software effectively I suppose the rest doesn't matter?

Anyway that is even more off-topic, so my apologies, and my thanks for all your help and your patience with me.

Elfstone.

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jbluestein
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OK, folks. I have three entries for the contest, which is fewer than I was hoping for, but I don't see any reason not to put them up for a vote in any case.

Expect a poll sometime tomorrow.

Thanks to all participants and supporters!

Josh

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Bunches
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Could you put up the storys now, and post the poll later? I'm very interested in what people wrote!

jbluestein
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OK, folks: The Moment of Truth!

All entries have been posted to this topic.

PLease take some time to read and listen to the entries and vote.

Thanks!
Josh

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Pilchard VIII
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File: Beethros Last Job - Pilchard VIII.doc (32 KB)
Downloaded 46 times.
License: Public Domain

*Bump* Here's a very late entry. I would have finished it in time, but my holiday got in the way.

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Elfstone
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Pilchard VIII wrote:
*Bump* Here's a very late entry. I would have finished it in time, but my holiday got in the way.

I'll have a read through later today Pilchard.
Elf.

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Jason
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Nice job!

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I like it, but I have one problem with it.

Jason
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Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

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