Thanks for the assessment of my reading of the Barack Obama article! I'll fix the 96kbps issue very soon, and aim for higher accuracy when I re-read the article in the near future! Regards, Rahzel 07:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the assessment on my Julius Caesar recording. I changed the recording to mono and I think I succeeded in making it 48 kbps instead of 96. Thanks for catching that! -- Kevin F. Story 21:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Try tie-jin kyaw-aww-phoo-shaw-aww. Hard J as in jug, Y as a consonant, and aw as in paw. Note the frequent mistake English-speakers make in pronouncing Kyoto as either kye-oh-tow or key-oh-tow; it should be kyaw-aww-taw. This is probably strictly wrong but it's better than nothing. Cheers. -- Euniana/ Talk/ Blog 00:29, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm just listening to it now and it's great!! Really well done. Your voice is perfect for this project. :) pfctdayelise 11:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Great voice work! -- Eeee 07:45, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Oi! Steady on, you two. A person could get a fat ego with talk like that flying around! :) --
Macropode
03:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Hey... I've been wanting to create some spoken word articles for awhile but haven't until today. I created a *test* file on a small article and would like you to take a listen for some contructive feedback before I begin creating more. Anyway, if you have the time please take a look at Parks_of_Chicago. Jasenlee 03:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I'm not sure if you've done a new recording of SA, but this is just to let you know, I will probably expand the article this week. Gflores Talk 21:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the compliment! By the way, I'm impressed with how long you've been with the project. I think a lot of the contributions come from people who record a few articles and then seem to lose interest. (I'm not sure how long I'll be able to contribute, since I don't know what I'll be doing this year.) It's good that you've stuck to it. And your recordings are of fairly good quality, too. T J McKenzie 00:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I was wondering if you could show your opinion on what the title of the article should be (social anxiety disorder, social phobia, social anxiety). Discussion is here [1]. I propose that a new article be created named social anxiety disorder with social phobia redirecting to it and social anxiety will remain that talks about the more common anxiety. You may think differently though. Appreciate your input. :) Gflor e s Talk 18:24, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the "Criticisms" edit. That sounds a lot better now. WookMuff 08:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for your note. I replied on my talk page so it's all in one place :) -- Laura S 22:13, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Hey there. (I'm putting this here because it's literally a reply to your spoken article, specifically Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. :P) Nice recording job - I like your voice. Reminds me of a documentary narrator. Then again, for some reason I've always been biased against Received Pronunciation and in favor of Aussie English. Moulder 06:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't realise. Feel free. :) Rebecca 07:09, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the compliment! I'm counting on being able contribute more to the project in the future.
-- Alekjds 16:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Certainly not - looks like the page is due for an archiving! - SCEhard T 02:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for adding my articles under your review list. I cannot believe your well-tuned ears and patience! Those mistakes in reading you caught on Article One of the United States Constitution.ogg were spot on (one day in the future when I summon enough patience I will correct them, recording it the first time was a monumental task for me enough :P). I greatly appreciated your reviews. Unfortunately my mic is somewhat low in volume when recording audio recordings. I tried to up the db level but the quality of the recording becomes poorer and too much fuzz gets added to the audio. As far as adjusting the kbps, I attempted to export an .ogg with the proper settings and was successful to do so but somehow the recording become mechanical sounding along with distracting echoes and sacrificing some quality. I also listened to your own audio recordings and I must say they are of excellent quality. All in all, I quite enjoy the WP:SPOKEN project, and longstanding members of it such as yourself are doing an excellent job and inspire me to continue adding to it in the small way I can. Once again thank you :). ¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 21:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi Macropode; many thanks for your very prompt assessments of my first spoken article attempts. As you can see, though, I'm still having trouble with the encoding arrangements ... I use Audacity, and having checked the settings I had used on my first article ( James Bulger after you posted your review, I saw the "Quality" slider was at "5 out of 10" - hence the 96kbps. So before doing the next three, I adjusted this to "3 out of 10", while making sure that I was still recording at 44.1 kHz mono ... unfortunately, this has only reduced the quality to 80kbps. Oh dear...! Can you suggest anything I might be doing wrong? With thanks from a technologically naïve Wikipedian - Hassocks5489 09:04, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your reviews of my three spoken articles! I thought the correct .ogg compression in Audacity was achieved by setting the quality to 3, but from reading above I see this isn't the case; I'll be sure to correct this in the next article I read out. Concerning the "breath-thumps", do you have any suggestions for another material to create a screen out of? Being a guy, I don't happen to have many tights lying around the place. =P Cheers, Panser Born (talk) 18:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
![]() |
The Spoken Barnstar | |
For all of your contributions towards Wikiproject Spoken Wikipedia, which have taken the form of not only a lengthly number of .ogg files, but many helpful spoken article reviews! -Panser Born- (talk) 02:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC) |
Dear Macropode, Thank you for reviewing this spoken word article produced by myself for WP:WSW - I have seen the review, and as a result, have made changes to the file and re-uploaded it to include the changes you recommended, including Stereo to Mono - Corrections to the spoken text and amendment to the OGG file quality, which is now 48kb/s as suggested. Please would you be kind enough to re-review the article and comment upon it as you see fit. Your suggestions are always welcome. Thor Malmjursson 12:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC) (talk)
Thanks for your interest in my work! Though I normally don't let personal attacks bother me in Wikipedia content discussions, yours was directed towards a good friend who happened to be in the next room over playing guitar while I recorded the spoken version of Coitus interruptus. I would appreciate it if our conversation remains within the guidelines of the Wikipedia:No personal attacks policy. If you would like to suggest a way of removing this music from my piece in post processing or offer up any constructive criticism, I would be delighted to discuss more with you. I am a huge fan of the work you've done with the Spoken Wikipedia project thus far. - WAZAAAA 05:21, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I thank you for reviewing my work, and respectfully disagree with your decision to remove references to my spoken Wikipedia recordings File:Teabagging.ogg and File:CoitusInterruptus.ogg. In the interest of finding a balance between compelling audio and "entirely unsuitable for a formal encyclopedia / violates Wikipedia policy," I would like to know the specific policy regarding what is appropriate.
If changing voices during a piece or including non-spoken (but still GFDL'd) elements are disallowed by current Project:SpokenWikipedia policy, would there be a possibility of publishing these as a part of a different project? Maybe I could begin drumming up support for an InterestingSpokenWikipedia project? Thanks for any direction or guidance you can lend. - WAZAAAA 20:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for reviewing my spoken articles on Caravan (band) and The Jeremy Kyle Show.
As I can see you are heavily involved with the Spoken Wikipedia project, I'd like to bring up an issue: I've recorded several other spoken articles but cannot upload them (the page fails when I try to upload them) as they are too large in file size. I made them using Audacity, reduced the noise, and made them .ogg files. I've done long recordings about various bands including Soft Machine, Can (band), Family (band), and King Crimson, some of which I'm not entirely convinced are of top quality, although the one for Soft Machine is certainly good.
I'd also like to bring up the issue of User:WAZAAAA and his recordings. Teabagging and Coitus interruptus are obviously jokes, although his spoken style on Reggae has influenced my spoken style. I must admit that I do find his joke recordings amusing, although that probably has to do with the fact that my sense of humour is a little bit left of centre.
- h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 22:14, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
"Appropriate low-level background noises in this recording. :)" MEW!!!!!!! lol.... DollieLlama 09:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I made a newer version of with updated info to update it to the current version of Windows "Vienna", but I can't see the new info, and Yahoo! Music Jukebox isn't working for me so I can't hear if the audio has been updated to match the article. Could you please check and see if the audio has changed and see if the info has changed too. Also tell me if you like the recording. Please respond to my Talk page. Thanks in advance.-- Chetblong 20:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for reveiwing my recording and helping out. But I still have a problem: the recording in the article Windows Vienna has not been updated, could you please update it and tell me how to from now on? Reply to my talk page. Thanks in advance. -- Chetblong 12:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Hey could you please review for me again? I fixed the pronunciation of "paradigm" and added the spoken license statement. Please reply to my talk page. Thanks in advance. :) Chetblong 22:15, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi, since I found Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz and its German spoken article, I thought that the english-speaking community should get something similar too ;) And here it is - my first spoken article: Image:En-Rinderkennzeichnungs-und-Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz-article.ogg
Since I'm not into the spoken articles guidelines, I'd be happy if you could listen to/check the file. Thanks :) -- Gerolsteiner91 (glugg) 12:31, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Lol cool thanks for reviewing my Urbanization recording, it was one of my firsts and yeah kind of bad but lol thanks for medium-medium-high marks! It's been too long since I've done voice-work. Davumaya 21:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
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Hi, Macropode. I just wanted to stop by and say thanks for giving me such good reviews on my two spoken articles! I really didn't think I put that much effort into them :-) Thanks again! -- 00:55, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks you for the feedback and review. I'll be sure to take the critique to heart on my future projects! 16:21, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Hi Macropode,
Thanks for your comments. The problems have arisen from the fact that I have bought a new computer and have had to set up Audacity on it again. For some reason, when I came to do a recording for the first time, the settings had changed significantly; it took me a long time changing various parameters to strike a balance between getting any audible output at all and having excessive background noise. On my old computer, the voice output was pretty much in proportion to the my normal speaking voice; however, when I tried speaking at the same level with the mike attached to my new one, virtually nothing could be heard! I played around, finding a "boost" enhancement in the Control Panel, but even then, I had to enhance the sound level twice and do a double dose of noise reduction. Do you think this could be related to the microphone not liking the computer, or to the software? (The mike is >10 years old now, and it was pretty cheap even then!! :)) Also, I thought I had recorded it in mono ... I'll have to check (perhaps it defaulted back to stereo, although I was sure there was only one track recorded; when I get home from work, I'll have a look at the file and make the necessary changes). Oops - I see what I did - that won't happen again! ;) As I have since recorded
Aston Villa as well, some/all of these problems may also apply to it.
I think the low audio level problem might be the hardest to resolve; I'll do some testing tonight. I suppose I can always use the "Amplify" function. Incidentally, I think the scraping/hissing noises I used to have were caused by a loose connection in the microphone socket on the old computer - the new one fits tightly, so these should no longer be an issue.
Anyway, I'll resubmit S&C when I've done as much as I can to it. I think I still have the uncompressed/unfiltered raw file to work with, which will help. Hassocks5489 11:56, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Excellent. One channel of very fine narration. (I'll update the review shortly). There's room for quite a lot more amplification yet, but I can hear noise reduction artifacts that would come up with it, although they'll come up anyway when the listener (whose name, by the way, is Glynis) turns up their speaker volume to hear your voice. Have a look at your recording in Audacity, and see all that empty space above and below the blue trace. That's all unused room that your voice could be taking up! If we could just improve your technical quality a wee bit so it does full justice to your narration...
To address some of your earlier comments:
Firstly, thank you for providing a detailed account of your experiences. The more I can learn about the difficulties people are having with recording, the better I can (try to) help with, at some stage, a jargon-free guide to recording Wikipedia articles with Audacity.
I don't think there's much, if anything, wrong with your microphone, age or lack of obscenely-expensive-studio-mic credibility notwithstanding. Many inexpensive mics work very well indeed for recording voice, although some do introduce a bit of undesirable noise. To say anything further at this point would just be speculating. Only if you want to go the extra mile with this, do the following:
It's good practice to always make your recording as loud as possible so the listener doesn't have to fiddle with their volume control to hear it. The correct way to do this is not to speak into the microphone more loudly, but, after you've finished recording and removed (edited out) the mistakes and bits you don't want, to apply something like Audacity's "Amplify" tool to the entire recording. Professionals would do something like this as a routine part of "post-production". It's a necessary step in turning a good narration into a finished, listenable recording.
The crackly hissy noises, which sounded very typical of a dry joint / bad connection have disappeared, along with your old computer. :) -- Macropode 12:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
You pretty much got it with your first guess. There are two (probably related) problems with your "raw" recorded signal: it's low in level and it's noisy. The low level could be either software or hardware related, but the noise seems indicative of a hardware issue. Divide and conquer! We're basically trying to isolate the source of the noise. My guess at this stage is that when you make a recording with the mic un-plugged, you'll get (effectively) blissful silence, with any noise being at an extremely low-level. If this is the case, the next step is to try another microphone (there's a possible explanation as to why your current mic seemed to work reasonably well with your old computer). I want to hear that silence before I recommend that you spend money on new hardware (although mics that will do the job well are quite inexpensive, and should be easy to obtain from any computer shop worth their salt).
There's no need to upload before-and-after recordings. Anytime you've got noise and low signals in audio equipment, among the first suspects (and the easiest ones to verify) are the connectors. Clean them (not with anything abrasive) and you may solve your problem right there.
A note regarding microphones: If you decide to buy a new one, get a desk mic, you'll likely get better results from it. Headset mics are for sports commentators, on-line gamers and pop performers who want to look like they're not miming. There are various types of microphones. Get one that's specifically designed to work with a computer and you probably won't go far wrong. -- Macropode 08:10, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Just a quick note before I go to bed ... (11.30pm here!)
I have uploaded a new version of the AVFC recording, with significant amplification and as much noise reduction as I could manage without causing the words to start "eroding". The result isn't ideal, but as you said, at least it's louder. :)
Recording with the mike unplugged was troublesome: the program didn't let me do it first time. I'll try again tomorrrow. However, I did some recording with it plugged in but switched off, and the output was very "noisy". I'll fiddle around with things at the back of the computer and see if I get anywhere. (I have cleaned the jack with a cloth, BTW, so that possibility has been taken care of.) Hassocks5489 22:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Hey, just wanted to thank you for the reviews of my spoken articles Julia Set and Prisoner's Dilemma - only read them today and has given me renewed vigour to get on to recording some more - bit easier now I'm back at Uni as well :) My only issue is I'd love to do some crazy article like Sobolev space but I think there's only about 100 people in the world that would actually read it! Here's to the project! JebJoya 23:53, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Could you update the spoken article for Australia? The current one is too loud and not clear enough. Your recordings would be pretty much perfect for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sagan The Great ( talk • contribs) 01:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Hi there. I was just browsing around various talk pages which I've contributed to in the past, and came across Image_talk:En-Gilberto_Silva.ogg. It's an assessment of a spoken article which I recorded. Even though the assessment is over a year old, I basically just want to say thanks for doing it! For some reason, I hadn't seen it until now - maybe in the future you could inform the recorder of the audio file that you have done the assessment (assuming you still do assessments). Anyway, thanks again - maybe I'll re-record the Gilberto Silva article and make the improvements which you suggested in your assessment. Cheers. - GilbertoSilvaFan ( talk) 11:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
For some reason, you messed up the entire character set of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant with this edit. I assume this wasn't intentional, but do you have any idea how this happened? Maybe you walked into another bug of the MediaWiki software. -- bender235 ( talk) 10:51, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the assessment of my reading of the Barack Obama article! I'll fix the 96kbps issue very soon, and aim for higher accuracy when I re-read the article in the near future! Regards, Rahzel 07:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the assessment on my Julius Caesar recording. I changed the recording to mono and I think I succeeded in making it 48 kbps instead of 96. Thanks for catching that! -- Kevin F. Story 21:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Try tie-jin kyaw-aww-phoo-shaw-aww. Hard J as in jug, Y as a consonant, and aw as in paw. Note the frequent mistake English-speakers make in pronouncing Kyoto as either kye-oh-tow or key-oh-tow; it should be kyaw-aww-taw. This is probably strictly wrong but it's better than nothing. Cheers. -- Euniana/ Talk/ Blog 00:29, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm just listening to it now and it's great!! Really well done. Your voice is perfect for this project. :) pfctdayelise 11:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Great voice work! -- Eeee 07:45, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Oi! Steady on, you two. A person could get a fat ego with talk like that flying around! :) --
Macropode
03:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Hey... I've been wanting to create some spoken word articles for awhile but haven't until today. I created a *test* file on a small article and would like you to take a listen for some contructive feedback before I begin creating more. Anyway, if you have the time please take a look at Parks_of_Chicago. Jasenlee 03:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I'm not sure if you've done a new recording of SA, but this is just to let you know, I will probably expand the article this week. Gflores Talk 21:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the compliment! By the way, I'm impressed with how long you've been with the project. I think a lot of the contributions come from people who record a few articles and then seem to lose interest. (I'm not sure how long I'll be able to contribute, since I don't know what I'll be doing this year.) It's good that you've stuck to it. And your recordings are of fairly good quality, too. T J McKenzie 00:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I was wondering if you could show your opinion on what the title of the article should be (social anxiety disorder, social phobia, social anxiety). Discussion is here [1]. I propose that a new article be created named social anxiety disorder with social phobia redirecting to it and social anxiety will remain that talks about the more common anxiety. You may think differently though. Appreciate your input. :) Gflor e s Talk 18:24, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the "Criticisms" edit. That sounds a lot better now. WookMuff 08:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for your note. I replied on my talk page so it's all in one place :) -- Laura S 22:13, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Hey there. (I'm putting this here because it's literally a reply to your spoken article, specifically Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. :P) Nice recording job - I like your voice. Reminds me of a documentary narrator. Then again, for some reason I've always been biased against Received Pronunciation and in favor of Aussie English. Moulder 06:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't realise. Feel free. :) Rebecca 07:09, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the compliment! I'm counting on being able contribute more to the project in the future.
-- Alekjds 16:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Certainly not - looks like the page is due for an archiving! - SCEhard T 02:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for adding my articles under your review list. I cannot believe your well-tuned ears and patience! Those mistakes in reading you caught on Article One of the United States Constitution.ogg were spot on (one day in the future when I summon enough patience I will correct them, recording it the first time was a monumental task for me enough :P). I greatly appreciated your reviews. Unfortunately my mic is somewhat low in volume when recording audio recordings. I tried to up the db level but the quality of the recording becomes poorer and too much fuzz gets added to the audio. As far as adjusting the kbps, I attempted to export an .ogg with the proper settings and was successful to do so but somehow the recording become mechanical sounding along with distracting echoes and sacrificing some quality. I also listened to your own audio recordings and I must say they are of excellent quality. All in all, I quite enjoy the WP:SPOKEN project, and longstanding members of it such as yourself are doing an excellent job and inspire me to continue adding to it in the small way I can. Once again thank you :). ¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 21:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi Macropode; many thanks for your very prompt assessments of my first spoken article attempts. As you can see, though, I'm still having trouble with the encoding arrangements ... I use Audacity, and having checked the settings I had used on my first article ( James Bulger after you posted your review, I saw the "Quality" slider was at "5 out of 10" - hence the 96kbps. So before doing the next three, I adjusted this to "3 out of 10", while making sure that I was still recording at 44.1 kHz mono ... unfortunately, this has only reduced the quality to 80kbps. Oh dear...! Can you suggest anything I might be doing wrong? With thanks from a technologically naïve Wikipedian - Hassocks5489 09:04, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your reviews of my three spoken articles! I thought the correct .ogg compression in Audacity was achieved by setting the quality to 3, but from reading above I see this isn't the case; I'll be sure to correct this in the next article I read out. Concerning the "breath-thumps", do you have any suggestions for another material to create a screen out of? Being a guy, I don't happen to have many tights lying around the place. =P Cheers, Panser Born (talk) 18:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
![]() |
The Spoken Barnstar | |
For all of your contributions towards Wikiproject Spoken Wikipedia, which have taken the form of not only a lengthly number of .ogg files, but many helpful spoken article reviews! -Panser Born- (talk) 02:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC) |
Dear Macropode, Thank you for reviewing this spoken word article produced by myself for WP:WSW - I have seen the review, and as a result, have made changes to the file and re-uploaded it to include the changes you recommended, including Stereo to Mono - Corrections to the spoken text and amendment to the OGG file quality, which is now 48kb/s as suggested. Please would you be kind enough to re-review the article and comment upon it as you see fit. Your suggestions are always welcome. Thor Malmjursson 12:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC) (talk)
Thanks for your interest in my work! Though I normally don't let personal attacks bother me in Wikipedia content discussions, yours was directed towards a good friend who happened to be in the next room over playing guitar while I recorded the spoken version of Coitus interruptus. I would appreciate it if our conversation remains within the guidelines of the Wikipedia:No personal attacks policy. If you would like to suggest a way of removing this music from my piece in post processing or offer up any constructive criticism, I would be delighted to discuss more with you. I am a huge fan of the work you've done with the Spoken Wikipedia project thus far. - WAZAAAA 05:21, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I thank you for reviewing my work, and respectfully disagree with your decision to remove references to my spoken Wikipedia recordings File:Teabagging.ogg and File:CoitusInterruptus.ogg. In the interest of finding a balance between compelling audio and "entirely unsuitable for a formal encyclopedia / violates Wikipedia policy," I would like to know the specific policy regarding what is appropriate.
If changing voices during a piece or including non-spoken (but still GFDL'd) elements are disallowed by current Project:SpokenWikipedia policy, would there be a possibility of publishing these as a part of a different project? Maybe I could begin drumming up support for an InterestingSpokenWikipedia project? Thanks for any direction or guidance you can lend. - WAZAAAA 20:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for reviewing my spoken articles on Caravan (band) and The Jeremy Kyle Show.
As I can see you are heavily involved with the Spoken Wikipedia project, I'd like to bring up an issue: I've recorded several other spoken articles but cannot upload them (the page fails when I try to upload them) as they are too large in file size. I made them using Audacity, reduced the noise, and made them .ogg files. I've done long recordings about various bands including Soft Machine, Can (band), Family (band), and King Crimson, some of which I'm not entirely convinced are of top quality, although the one for Soft Machine is certainly good.
I'd also like to bring up the issue of User:WAZAAAA and his recordings. Teabagging and Coitus interruptus are obviously jokes, although his spoken style on Reggae has influenced my spoken style. I must admit that I do find his joke recordings amusing, although that probably has to do with the fact that my sense of humour is a little bit left of centre.
- h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 22:14, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
"Appropriate low-level background noises in this recording. :)" MEW!!!!!!! lol.... DollieLlama 09:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I made a newer version of with updated info to update it to the current version of Windows "Vienna", but I can't see the new info, and Yahoo! Music Jukebox isn't working for me so I can't hear if the audio has been updated to match the article. Could you please check and see if the audio has changed and see if the info has changed too. Also tell me if you like the recording. Please respond to my Talk page. Thanks in advance.-- Chetblong 20:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for reveiwing my recording and helping out. But I still have a problem: the recording in the article Windows Vienna has not been updated, could you please update it and tell me how to from now on? Reply to my talk page. Thanks in advance. -- Chetblong 12:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Hey could you please review for me again? I fixed the pronunciation of "paradigm" and added the spoken license statement. Please reply to my talk page. Thanks in advance. :) Chetblong 22:15, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi, since I found Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz and its German spoken article, I thought that the english-speaking community should get something similar too ;) And here it is - my first spoken article: Image:En-Rinderkennzeichnungs-und-Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz-article.ogg
Since I'm not into the spoken articles guidelines, I'd be happy if you could listen to/check the file. Thanks :) -- Gerolsteiner91 (glugg) 12:31, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Lol cool thanks for reviewing my Urbanization recording, it was one of my firsts and yeah kind of bad but lol thanks for medium-medium-high marks! It's been too long since I've done voice-work. Davumaya 21:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
P.B. Pilhet has smiled at you! Smiles promote
WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{
subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Hi, Macropode. I just wanted to stop by and say thanks for giving me such good reviews on my two spoken articles! I really didn't think I put that much effort into them :-) Thanks again! -- 00:55, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks you for the feedback and review. I'll be sure to take the critique to heart on my future projects! 16:21, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Hi Macropode,
Thanks for your comments. The problems have arisen from the fact that I have bought a new computer and have had to set up Audacity on it again. For some reason, when I came to do a recording for the first time, the settings had changed significantly; it took me a long time changing various parameters to strike a balance between getting any audible output at all and having excessive background noise. On my old computer, the voice output was pretty much in proportion to the my normal speaking voice; however, when I tried speaking at the same level with the mike attached to my new one, virtually nothing could be heard! I played around, finding a "boost" enhancement in the Control Panel, but even then, I had to enhance the sound level twice and do a double dose of noise reduction. Do you think this could be related to the microphone not liking the computer, or to the software? (The mike is >10 years old now, and it was pretty cheap even then!! :)) Also, I thought I had recorded it in mono ... I'll have to check (perhaps it defaulted back to stereo, although I was sure there was only one track recorded; when I get home from work, I'll have a look at the file and make the necessary changes). Oops - I see what I did - that won't happen again! ;) As I have since recorded
Aston Villa as well, some/all of these problems may also apply to it.
I think the low audio level problem might be the hardest to resolve; I'll do some testing tonight. I suppose I can always use the "Amplify" function. Incidentally, I think the scraping/hissing noises I used to have were caused by a loose connection in the microphone socket on the old computer - the new one fits tightly, so these should no longer be an issue.
Anyway, I'll resubmit S&C when I've done as much as I can to it. I think I still have the uncompressed/unfiltered raw file to work with, which will help. Hassocks5489 11:56, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Excellent. One channel of very fine narration. (I'll update the review shortly). There's room for quite a lot more amplification yet, but I can hear noise reduction artifacts that would come up with it, although they'll come up anyway when the listener (whose name, by the way, is Glynis) turns up their speaker volume to hear your voice. Have a look at your recording in Audacity, and see all that empty space above and below the blue trace. That's all unused room that your voice could be taking up! If we could just improve your technical quality a wee bit so it does full justice to your narration...
To address some of your earlier comments:
Firstly, thank you for providing a detailed account of your experiences. The more I can learn about the difficulties people are having with recording, the better I can (try to) help with, at some stage, a jargon-free guide to recording Wikipedia articles with Audacity.
I don't think there's much, if anything, wrong with your microphone, age or lack of obscenely-expensive-studio-mic credibility notwithstanding. Many inexpensive mics work very well indeed for recording voice, although some do introduce a bit of undesirable noise. To say anything further at this point would just be speculating. Only if you want to go the extra mile with this, do the following:
It's good practice to always make your recording as loud as possible so the listener doesn't have to fiddle with their volume control to hear it. The correct way to do this is not to speak into the microphone more loudly, but, after you've finished recording and removed (edited out) the mistakes and bits you don't want, to apply something like Audacity's "Amplify" tool to the entire recording. Professionals would do something like this as a routine part of "post-production". It's a necessary step in turning a good narration into a finished, listenable recording.
The crackly hissy noises, which sounded very typical of a dry joint / bad connection have disappeared, along with your old computer. :) -- Macropode 12:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
You pretty much got it with your first guess. There are two (probably related) problems with your "raw" recorded signal: it's low in level and it's noisy. The low level could be either software or hardware related, but the noise seems indicative of a hardware issue. Divide and conquer! We're basically trying to isolate the source of the noise. My guess at this stage is that when you make a recording with the mic un-plugged, you'll get (effectively) blissful silence, with any noise being at an extremely low-level. If this is the case, the next step is to try another microphone (there's a possible explanation as to why your current mic seemed to work reasonably well with your old computer). I want to hear that silence before I recommend that you spend money on new hardware (although mics that will do the job well are quite inexpensive, and should be easy to obtain from any computer shop worth their salt).
There's no need to upload before-and-after recordings. Anytime you've got noise and low signals in audio equipment, among the first suspects (and the easiest ones to verify) are the connectors. Clean them (not with anything abrasive) and you may solve your problem right there.
A note regarding microphones: If you decide to buy a new one, get a desk mic, you'll likely get better results from it. Headset mics are for sports commentators, on-line gamers and pop performers who want to look like they're not miming. There are various types of microphones. Get one that's specifically designed to work with a computer and you probably won't go far wrong. -- Macropode 08:10, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Just a quick note before I go to bed ... (11.30pm here!)
I have uploaded a new version of the AVFC recording, with significant amplification and as much noise reduction as I could manage without causing the words to start "eroding". The result isn't ideal, but as you said, at least it's louder. :)
Recording with the mike unplugged was troublesome: the program didn't let me do it first time. I'll try again tomorrrow. However, I did some recording with it plugged in but switched off, and the output was very "noisy". I'll fiddle around with things at the back of the computer and see if I get anywhere. (I have cleaned the jack with a cloth, BTW, so that possibility has been taken care of.) Hassocks5489 22:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Hey, just wanted to thank you for the reviews of my spoken articles Julia Set and Prisoner's Dilemma - only read them today and has given me renewed vigour to get on to recording some more - bit easier now I'm back at Uni as well :) My only issue is I'd love to do some crazy article like Sobolev space but I think there's only about 100 people in the world that would actually read it! Here's to the project! JebJoya 23:53, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Could you update the spoken article for Australia? The current one is too loud and not clear enough. Your recordings would be pretty much perfect for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sagan The Great ( talk • contribs) 01:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Hi there. I was just browsing around various talk pages which I've contributed to in the past, and came across Image_talk:En-Gilberto_Silva.ogg. It's an assessment of a spoken article which I recorded. Even though the assessment is over a year old, I basically just want to say thanks for doing it! For some reason, I hadn't seen it until now - maybe in the future you could inform the recorder of the audio file that you have done the assessment (assuming you still do assessments). Anyway, thanks again - maybe I'll re-record the Gilberto Silva article and make the improvements which you suggested in your assessment. Cheers. - GilbertoSilvaFan ( talk) 11:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
For some reason, you messed up the entire character set of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant with this edit. I assume this wasn't intentional, but do you have any idea how this happened? Maybe you walked into another bug of the MediaWiki software. -- bender235 ( talk) 10:51, 14 March 2011 (UTC)