Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Recording guidelines/Archive 1

message: Stay relaxed. Whenever you realize that your voice is becoming tenser than normal, or you're having more and more trouble speaking fluently, take a break, and resume when you feel muscular tension going away. Keep some fresh (not cold) water into reach, and drink some whenever you feel your mouth drying out.
Is this not the most patronising paragraph you've read in a while? Obviously the kind of people with the dedication and technical know-how to do this are going to be capable of understanding when they need to relax...
:What technical know-how? Plugging a mic in and following instructions in Audacity is hardly splitting the atom. I think it's important to encourage people to do this as far as possible. Odd bloke 04:00, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I think this is good advice. It's not meant to be patronizing. Vocal performance instructors will tell you the same thing. People today aren't conscious of their bodies when they're speaking, even though muscle tension makes a difference in their sound. Sometimes, it's good to be reminded of the basics. Ckamaeleon 19:29, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: on Relaxation

message: So, obviously an article in Wikipedia contains a lot of stuff besides plain text. We've already covered that one should read the things in parentheses, but I think it would be helpful to add more information about what to read on a  page.
For instance, how does one approach:
* references to visuals/captions
* tables
* subsections... "subsection 1, Variations" vs. "section 3.1, Variations" vs. "...Variations..."
* equations
* The entire references section of most articles
* InfoBoxes
*...
If there's stuff already written about this, my apologies. I didn't find it when I used the Beginner's guide. I also think a tutorial on recording would be grrrrreat. Ckamaeleon 19:36, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, that definitely shouldn't happen. That request looks like it would be better made as a request for the article in general. If it's too technical, then the article itself should be cleaned up and clarified, and then a recording made from that. -- Laura S | talk to me 14:55, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not sure if there's any great way to handle that sort of thing. I've generally omitted infoboxes and other tables full of information. It's hard to read them in a way that makes them useful to the listener, and especially long tables would get boring. Equations are also rough and I've omitted those, partly because I'm not sure of the correct way to read them, and partly because they're so visual that a listener would likely not find them helpful. For astronomy articles that's not such a big deal, but might become an issue in a mathematics article that depends heavily on equations. Lastly, whenever a sentence references an image (e.g., "The picture to the left shows..." or "As seen in this photo"), I leave out the reference altogether to avoid confusing the listener. -- Laura S | talk to me 14:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What to Read 

message: This page says, We recommend that you use the following settings: 48 kbit/s, 44.1 kHz mono. (see talk for how to achieve this). Talk links to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spoken_Wikipedia. I just read three archives and the current talk and I'm still in the dark, so please make this instruction more specific, it's very frustrating. >:( I suspect it's referring to Archive 1 but there doesn't seem to be a good guide esp. for setting the 47 kbit/s bit. Thanks, pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Which recording program are you using? -SCEhardT 12:40, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Only the one that everyone else here seems to be using...Audacity. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Hrm - come to think of it I'm not sure how to get those exact settings in Audacity.  You can set the 44.1 kHz by going to File-> Preferences-> Quality and adjusting the 'default sample rate'.  You can also change the output file size by using the slider under the 'file formats' tab to set a higher or lower quality.  However, as far as I know, ogg changes its kbit/s rate based on the complexity of the audio (so you get a consistent quality, not consistent kbit/s).  Hope this helps! -SCEhardT 21:55, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just used Audacity for the first time and it used those settings by default. Aguerriero (talk) 22:15, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  OGG settings - link to where? 

message: Would it be possible to get a list of shorter articles to record for newbies?  The thought of doing a FAC article for my first one seems a bit intimidating.  I did go look at the Articles All should have list, but even there, it's hard to figure out which ones I really ought to look at.  Thanks.  Wikibofh(talk) 20:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My suggestion would be to start with an article that interests you. The only real caveat is that you should try to select an article that's pretty stable; otherwise, the text may change significantly and soon, leaving your recording obsolete. -- Laura S | talk to me 01:05, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shorter articles... 

message: Can anyone recommend some good (free) software for doing the recordings on a Mac? I used Audacity on my PC and loved it. I've switched to a Mac (Tiger), and Audacity runs, but is very flaky and crashes nearly every time I run it. The other tools suggested are fairly expensive. A quick Google search shows there are plenty of tools out there, but I know nothing about them; can anyone recommend one? I'm going to keep trying with Audacity for now but I'm really worried I'll be twenty minutes into a recording and it will crash when I try to save or something! -- Laura S | talk to me 01:57, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't there a native application that comes with Tiger that does that stuff?  Maybe I'm mistaken.  Anyway, it looks like Audacity is the best free application.. which of course, isn't working very well for you! Aguerriero (talk) 15:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm, I'll have to check it out and see what there is. Maybe that's what Garage Band is for? I'm still figuring out what's on there :) Thanks! -- Laura S | talk to me 17:02, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Software? 

message: Instead of releasing our sound files under GNU, can we relase them into the publc domain?  American Patriot 1776 23:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope - since the text is licensed GFDL, all derivative works must also be GFDL. -SCEhardT 02:42, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GNU 

message: What do you think of Ogg Speex? Wouldn't that codec be a good choice for the spoken articles?--Imz 15:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Choice of Audio Codec: [[Speex]]?