Would There Ever Be a Possibility...?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Nogrod, we ask members not to post their e-mail addresses in order to protect themselves from spam or worse. There are too many bots combing the internet for links. Please do remove it from your post; those who wish to have it can contact you by PM. Thanks!

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Nogrod, we ask members not to post their e-mail addresses in order to protect themselves from spam or worse. There are too many bots combing the internet for links. Please do remove it from your post; those who wish to have it can contact you by PM. Thanks!

I see. Done.

[Nerwen]

If you need a second person to mix the recordings etc., I have experience with this and access to professional software and equipment (my father's a musician and I'm doing a multimedia course).

[Nogrod]

Great!

We could try different mixings and then compare them. If you have far superior sofware we should use yours but if they are roughly similar - producing roughly similar quality - we could share the tasks according to which one of us has time or whether certain tasks are better suited to one software than the other.

[Nogrod]

I got Matthew's clip on Boromir.

You act well but the recording is pretty terrible...

I'd give you (all) two pieces of advice.

1. Don't record your voice too loud so that the voice breaks down. Adjust the input in a way that the recording levels stay in the middle or little above it. Whatever the recording device it normally goes red when the input volume is too high. If the voice breaks down already in the recording session there's no way to mend it afterwards. One shouldn't record on too low levels either as then all the background noises come to the fore: so try to find the levels just below the "red zone" as it gives the optimal quality of sound.

2. Get away from your computer, as far as is possible - or at least build some kind of a sound-wall between the microphone and the central unit of your PC. It's no problem if you record from far away of the PC and there's some empty track before your recording starts (if you have to move yourselves to the place where you will make the recording after pushing the rec-button) as that can be always cut away. When you record by your computer the humming of the cooler-system of your PC will come through to the recording and it sounds really nasty indeed - like you'd be talking on the deck of an old-fashioned steam-boat . My friend who's a professional told me there's no solution for that as the pitch of the noise the computer has is low enough to be on the same wavelengths as the speech so cutting those will also cut out important lower tones from the voice.


I'll send a few clips to anyone who sends me their e-mail addresses. There will be two versions of Matthew as Boromir: one where I have tried to downplay the background humming as well as I could and one where I have tried to make his tone as Boromirish I could (which ended up sounding Boromir being on board of a steam-riverboat as heightening the lower frequencies to make the tone more forceful and low ends up also heightening the background humming of the computer...). Then there is one where I play Gimli and it has been done near the computer (and you can hear the humming) and on the other I play Bilbo a few meters away from the PC (and you can't hear the humming any more).

Btw. Those parts I've made myself you should not judge by the acting merits as they are basically just read-throughs with a lots of mistakes as my main focus was on finding the fitting tone to my speech as those characters - both acting-wise and mixing-wise. And I'm in no way trying to steal those characters to myself. I just tried them.


Speaking of audiosoftware once more. You Nerwen should especially listen to this - and why not the others who have not heard it yet (use headphones if you can). For I just remembered that I do have a Myspace account where there is my version of the Song of Boromir (a Finnish composition to the local theatrical version of the book which I have arranged myself and turned back to the original lyrics; it's all done in my room eg. I played all the instruments and made the vocals there). From it you can hear what I can do with my sofware; the possibilities and the limits as well - basically the interesting stuff from this point of view is in the end of the song as it's one that grows little by little. But I think we should aim for that kind of sound-quality (and it's an mp3 and not an audio file!).

Just keep on sending me your emails and audio clips! We'll overcome the technical obstacles!

[Nogrod]

Crashlanding!

I tried to send a few samples to Matthew via gmail and after trying to send it long and hard the program said that sending of it failed because it went over the 20 MB limit... and only those short clips I tried to send took 29 MB (Matthew's originals took about 3MB...) So let's take a different approach then.

I sent it to both Matthew and Gwath as mp3's. I had problems in sending things to Myspace as well and it's getting late. That's a stupid site indeed. I managed to send my song there when I joined the site (just to do that) a long time ago but now it seems practically impossible to add anything to my account there if it's not a video or a pic...

So anyhow I'm afraid we need to go on compressing the files - at least those I will send you as they include lots of mixing stuff and thence are heavier to load.

Let's first try with everyone sending me basic audiofiles if they're of reasonable size. I will send mp3's back to your mail after I have meddled with them.

We might also try sending them to Nerwen to see whether her software would bring better results.

PS. Anyone wishing to hear those first trials just send me your email address by a PM (this first trial is something like 2½ MB as an mp3 file).

[McCaber]

If we are still talking about setting a musical background, I have several guitars and some software which should be up to the task.

From my (somewhat limited) experience, acoustic guitar and keyboard can work very well together.

[Gwathagor]

Nogrod, I thought you were terrific as both Gimli and Bilbo. Thanks for sending those.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Gwathagor

Nogrod, I thought you were terrific as both Gimli and Bilbo.

Thanks. Although, as I said somewhere before, they were only kind of sound-checks. And my Gimli has a bit too low voice indeed. I mean how will we make the Balrog or the Ringwraiths if already a dwarf is speaking that low?

* Although some general discussion about the scope of this effort should be done as well eg. how much do we want to do this? It's possible to make a chapter or two even if it's task indeed but what's the reasonable limit? The whole book? I read it as a bedtimestory to Lommy and Greenie when they were young and it took something like 9 months reading about an hour or at least half every night. So what's the first goal? A whole chapter? Which one? *


I can promise to make those low-baddies if no-one else comes forwards with a lower voice (in my choir I'm a tenor!!!). I can drink a bottle of whiskey the night before and record the tracks first thing in the morning - or when I have a really sore throat...

[Nogrod]

I'm going to sleep and stop this flood-posting right away.

But how is it?

If we're planning on background music should we then also think about some sound-effects? Some sound-effects are easy to make at home but others may require some creativity and effort.

I've tried a few, like a sword-battle going on around and steps moving from left to right and they seem to work - at least in a way. Others might be experimented. I would indeed be interested in experimenting with them as that is something I have always loved: the soundscapes. But it will be a task.

And making music for even a chapter of narration is not a small feat either.

[MatthewM]

Nogrod- thank you for being involved with this! You definitely are a great asset. As far as the scope of things- should we try a chapter first to see how it all goes? Or a certain Book (Book I, Book II, etc.)? I would like to do a part from Book II but we'll see how it goes.

[Gwathagor]

I think a chapter would be plenty for us to work on until we get the hang of things.

[McCaber]

Well, which chapter?

[Thinlómien]

I think I might like to try some Elf... but not sure whom. Maybe Haldir (or even Legolas)? But I don't know if we want to have them sound like me... Maybe I should try...

[MatthewM]

Hm...well let's all say some chapters that we would want to do.

My personal choices are really any chapter from Book II. There would then be quite a few characters in which we could cast. I'm sure you could say the same with The Return of the King, at least the first Book of it. But yeah, I'm for a chapter from Book II.

What does everybody else think?

[Nogrod]

Just keep on sending me your email addresses. You don't know what you're missing! I will then mail you back what we have.

This far we have Matthew's, Oddwen's and my interpretations of some of the characters. Mac, Rikae, Lommy (and Gwath?) have already promised to make their versions as well. It's testing all the time as we need to learn how this thing works.

So join in and contribute & enjoy what others have done!

This is fun indeed!

[Nogrod]

I see a problem coming though...

When we combine recordings made in different places with different equipment they will then follow one another (like what we shall soon hear there being Oddwen narrating and myself bringing Gandalf into the midst of it after which Oddwen will continue) and the different levels of background humming may sound nauseatingly disturbing.

Like there is the narration with midlevel humming behind it followed by character X with a clean background - interrupted by a humming "X said" - and then the voice goes to character Y who has a lots of background noise...

It all just goes on to say that you should try to minimize any background noises. The first thing is to get the microphone away from your computer as the computer makes a lot of noise.

Do not worry about there being gaps or silences in your recording. Those I can cut away easily.

[Azaelia of Willowbottom]

It's nice to see that things are happening! I won't have access to recording equipment until mid-May, more than a month away, but if that's not too late, I'll send some stuff in then. If it is, then best of luck/break a leg to all, and I'll be looking forward to hearing the final product/helping in any other way I can.

[Nerwen]

Re: humming–

Sounds the 50-cycle hum (or 60-cycle in America). This is very common and it means your equipment is not grounded properly.

You can try using different connections. However, most sound-editing programs have filters for getting rid of it.


As for sound effects– I have heaps, so I don't think that should be too much of an issue.

[Oddwen]

Re: humming–

Sounds the 50-cycle hum (or 60-cycle in America). This is very common and it means your equipment is not grounded properly.

You can try using different connections. However, most sound-editing programs have filters for getting rid of it.

I thought so - I have a very cheap microphone. It's the first time I've recorded on my laptop, I shall try again later on my Mac.

I tried a minimal noise removal effect on my original wav, but that made the rest of the audio sound like I was talking into a tin can. Which would, I suppose, be alright in Moria, but not under the darkening sky.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

This is very common and it means your equipment is not grounded properly.

You can try using different connections. However, most sound-editing programs have filters for getting rid of it.

You're quite right Nerwen. But I'm afraid the basic problem we have faced this far is the hum that comes from the computer (computer's cooling system that is). If you listen to my two versions you can hear the difference as my Gimli is recorded with the mic on the table right beside the computer (and there's clearly audible humming in the background) while my Bilbo is pretty clean of any background hum because it was recorded about two meters away from the PC.

Filters are handy when the noise one wants to cut out is on different wavelengths than the stuff one wants to record (like the scratches from old LP-records or the hissing of old C-cassetes). But the humming of a computer is quite low and cutting those frequencies out will also cut those frequencies from the human voice leading up to this "tin-can" effect Oddwen speaks of as you now miss those important lower frequencies that add to the richness or fullness of the human voice.

Sure. The quality of the microphone makes a difference but unless the mic is really bad its main effect is just lower quality of tone. Better microphones produce clearer, richer, wider and sharper sound - not exactly the slang one should use I presume but those words describe the difference to me at least.

Originally Posted by Zali

I won't have access to recording equipment until mid-May, more than a month away, but if that's not too late, I'll send some stuff in then.

I'd say don't worry. This kind of project will take time even if we decide on just one chapter... as I think we should first concentrate.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

You're quite right Nerwen. But I'm afraid the basic problem we have faced this far is the hum that comes from the computer (computer's cooling system that is). If you listen to my two versions you can hear the difference as my Gimli is recorded with the mic on the table right beside the computer (and there's clearly audible humming in the background) while my Bilbo is pretty clean of any background hum because it was recorded about two meters away from the PC.

Oh, that's what it is. In that case people to need to either keep well away from the computer during the recording, or use headset mikes. Also it's a good idea not to have the record volume too high, so the mike doesn't pick up hissing and background noise.

[Eönwë]

Ok, I think I'll rejoin

[MatthewM]

Originally Posted by Eönwë

Ok, I think I'll rejoin

Good! I was just about to leave you a message saying it's too bad you're going to depart.

[Nogrod]

Oddwen's clip is almost a page long and there's three hobbits, Gandalf and the narrator involved in it. We are going to make a trial with it tomorrow. Lommy comes over to my place and she'll record one hobbit's lines and I will do the Gandalf parts - and hopefully Greenie has time and enthusiasm to join us making another hobbit so Oddwen would have one hobbit and the narration left to her. I'll send it all to you all to hear as it's done. Then we can hear how different voices act together.

Matthew: If you can please make another go for Boromir (or whoever you want). Just lower the input levels a bit so that your voice doesn't break and try to get the mike (and yourself) at least a little away from the computer. Let's see if a second try brings better results in light of recording quality. You acted nicely already in the first clips.

Others: Keep those clips coming (just record a short passage of someone's lines and send them to me) and we'll get this thing going! Send me a PM to get my email address to send them into. Remember this is just testing so do not take it too seriously. But we need first to hear how your equipment works and surely we'd all like to share your voice.

I promised to send those "raw-materials" to Nerwen as well so that she could try out whether her software would produce better results.

Meanwhile - as the testing goes on - we should actually start the discussion what is the chapter we should try first and who should play which role.

I have no strong preferences to either question.

[McCaber]

I'd love to help out with this.

I don't have mic equipment, so I can't contribute to the voices. However, I can help with soundtracks, as that is more my area of expertise and I have the hardware to do it.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I actually need to save some time to even make some recording... and first I should probably save some time to read most of this thread since my last post here, as I have only vague idea what's been arranged meanwhile... I wouldn't have been of much use lately anyway, as my voice was still recovering after I was ill (though maybe an Orc would do then; I was recording some singing for my brother however, so hopefully it didn't ruin my voice again)... I will try to come up with something soon, but if I don't, don't bother with me, maybe you won't even need me, depending on the thing you pick to record...

[MatthewM]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Matthew: If you can please make another go for Boromir (or whoever you want). Just lower the input levels a bit so that your voice doesn't break and try to get the mike (and yourself) at least a little away from the computer. Let's see if a second try brings better results in light of recording quality. You acted nicely already in the first clips.

I sent you three more takes as Boromir, the other day actually. Did you get them? I tried different mic placings, taking the chord as long as it stretched.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by MatthewM

I sent you three more takes as Boromir, the other day actually. Did you get them?

Sadly no. Okay. I'll PM you... ***

Otherwise some nice news.

Lommy came here today and played Frodo's part in the clip Oddwen sent me. Greenie will come on Wednesday and I try to persuade her to take Merry. I try to find time to recording Gandalf in that clip. Then we would have a clip including four different actors in it! That should give us a taste of how it might sound like.

Btw. Many of the clips are now from Rivendell. They are nice scenes but there is one problem considering the actual trial of making one whole chapter and that is the fact that The Council of Elrond is composed mainly of long monologues...

*** EDIT: I sent you Matthew a mail instead of a PM so that you can reply to it. Thus we can remove the possibility that the address was wrong. I have a few ideas in the mail I sent you to try out.

[Gwathagor]

The only microphone I have is built into the keyboard of my laptop. I'll try it anyway, but hopefiully I'll be able to dig up something more legit when I go home (in a month).

[Thinlómien]

Yes, I did Frodo, and it was horrible. I do not like hearing my own voice recorded, especially as I always thought it less feminine, clearer and less squaky. Whatever. Anyway, I let Nog keep my Frodo in order to demonstrate how it works with a "dialogue", but I don't want to be Frodo when we do the recordings. So, don't regard it as an "audition" for the role. I also tried some Legolas and deleted it - because someone whose English is more fluent has to do the part and because I sounded even more girly than normally when I was trying to sound like Legolas... poor guy...

[Eönwë]

Augh! My voice is breaking (even worse than usual)I suppose this means I'm out, or can only do only minor characters, as my voice wll obviously change too much to be recognisable as the the same one.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

All right, I FINALLY managed to read all the thread between my last posts... I have a few comments to that...

Originally Posted by MatthewM

One more question, for now - How are we going to incorporate the "Frodo said.", etc. into the dialogue? Do you know what I mean? For example Frodo speaks, and then in the book it says "Frodo said" to let the audience know who just spoke to avoid confusion. I suppose with actual voices it may not be hard to tell but to some it may.

Originally Posted by Rikae

Certainly I would prefer to stay as close to the original as possible, changing only those things (like "Frodo said") which would be awkward or redundant in this format. I would much rather see each character given a recognisable enough voice, than to hear "Frodo said"'s all over the place. The only other instance I can think of where deviation from the text would be the most sensible route is where sounds are described, as it would be far more intuitive and make the best use of the medium if we provided the sound itself. Other than this, why not stick to the text?

I think the "Frodo said" things should be left out. Just as Rikae said. In most of the audio plays, it is managed like that in the first scene a character is being called a name by someone else (if possible, several times), so this way the audience knows his name. Or, actually in our case it is quite possible that the character may be introduced by the narration. Or, if not, another classic trick is to introduce a character by adding some "situation briefing" at the beginning (which is made up by the screenwriters). See, in the Czech radio play the narrator was Bilbo Baggins and at the beginning, Frodo said something and Bilbo's voice interrupted: "This is my nephew, Frodo Baggins. He is a nice guy. He had been growing with the Brandybuck but I adopted him..." Of course, that play was without really just a conversation play and all was done by the dialogues, but the basic idea is this and it is also a variant to use. I see Mac probably imagined it to go in some way like that. But that will really take lot of effort and would practically mean writing a totally new story (stageplay).

Originally Posted by MatthewM

About the background music, I meant mainly for in between scenes, not over dialogue, really...if we use it wisely (and sparingly), like Rikae said, it could be nice...for example, a transition into another scene could be cued up with some bg music for a couple of seconds, maybe with the narrator speaking over it.

The only words we would have to change, as mentioned, would be words that signify sounds, in which we have to try and produce that sound - saying it would be quite bad for this medium, and I'm sure all would agree on that!

Concerning background music, I am really for just sounds in the background, and leave the music... maybe only during very long narrative sections, just soft one, and as Matthew said, between the scenes...

Now concerning the present things. I will record something soon - only a question, it does not matter what I record, Nog? Whether a dialogue, narration, a mix of both; a dialogue between two characters - should I act them or, like, what exactly is the purpose of this? Just technical thing (to find out that I need to buy a better microphone or probably a microphone with longer cable, as I am quite sure the computer humming will be heard in my case), or also to show my acting capabilities and such? (The thing I have in mind is, if I record a dialogue between Gandalf and Frodo, and in the end I turn playing Gimli, the sample won't tell much, as my voice or acting may not be good for Gandalf nor Frodo, but good for Gimli.) Speaking of that, I have no clear idea of whom I'd like to play - well, how could I when I don't know what chapter we are going to record or such. But I don't particularly care (although I just got an idea what I could record... we'll see).

Hm, not sure if I said all I wanted, but I will post if I remember. It has been enough for now anyway, I think

P.S. Oh yes, Nog: And mainly: How long thing should the recorded sample be? And in which format (I was not able to figure out from the posts whether it has to be wav or whether converting it to mp3 does not matter - I think depending on the length of it, wav can be quite a big file).

[Nogrod]

To the concerns of Lommy and Eönwë - and anyone else - I'd just want to say the following... Don't raise the level of expectations for yourself too high. This is no Hollywood or BBC production with professional actors, directors, studio conditions or equipment. We are amateurs all of us who have gotten an idea to do something fun together. Right? It would be awesome if we could - come fall - boast that we have indeed made one chapter from the LotR together over seas and continents. And we have had fun with it. And we can remember that thing when we're old in a way "well, then we did this thing back in the early third millenia... now where's that file again... I was soo young back then, just listen to my funny voice..."


I got Matthew's clips finally. I'm afraid most email-providers have a 10MB size limit what comes to attachements so we should start using mp3's indeed. Otherwise the files get too big to be posted. I'm trying to upload the next bigger one to Myspace though. If it works we could share larger files that way later. But just for now let's stick to mp3's (I know I myself said let's try to use wav.-files as they have a better quality but having sent a pile of files recently over this matter I think we need to accept the mp3 format - and it's not that bad compared to the relative differences in the recordinhgs themselves).


I'd advice against meddling with the text, at least in a way of adding things to it. One thing we could and probably should do would be to skip off those narrations which only state "Frodo said" or "said Gandalf" (and there are a lot of those!). When the narration goes like "Bilbo laughed" or "said Elrond Gravely" we should think whether that tone of voice can be acted out clear enough to omit that phrase if that is the only thing that precedes, cuts or follows a speech. But when the narration says fex. "cried Sam, unable to contain himself any longer, and jumping up from the corner..." then the narrator should read that all, also the part "cried Sam".


Legate - and others who have not recorded anything yet: it's pretty much the same what you record now. Take something you like.

The first thing we need to see is, do the equipments work and how they do it? This far we know that Oddwen's equipments work well enough as well as mine (and Lommy & Greenie can use mine as well) and that Matthew has some problems with the technical stuff. I've sent one clip from Matthew to Nerwen for her to see whether she could get better results from it with her dad's stuff.

But there surely is the other dimension as well. It would be useless for me to try a Lobelia just as a technical trial as that would in no case be my character. So keep your favourites coming. After we have a host of them we all have heard we can start to discuss who should take which role.

And we need a narrator as well. I think it would be good if the narrator was someone who speaks English as a mothertongue and has decent equipments because the narrator is the one who has basically the most lines.

About the length then. Oddwen read almost a page and that I think should be the maximum. Matthew has made some takes from almost oneliners to a few sentences. That I think is the minimum.


Regarding the chapter we should try eventually I'd say we should try to choose one which has lots of hobbits and elves in it so that all the females could find characters to themselves - if we are to try female voices as hobbits and elves in the first place; I do think myself it's a good idea as there are so many females compared to males in relation to the roles in the actual books.

Although a chapter with a few orcs as well might do as I could run the female orc-voices through a guitar amplifier with distortion or something... it might sound interesting as well.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

All right. I will have something for you hopefully tomorrow.

Originally Posted by Nogrod

I'd advice against meddling with the text, at least in a way of adding things to it. One thing we could and probably should do would be to skip off those narrations which only state "Frodo said" or "said Gandalf" (and there are a lot of those!). When the narration goes like "Bilbo laughed" or "said Elrond Gravely" we should think whether that tone of voice can be acted out clear enough to omit that phrase if that is the only thing that precedes, cuts or follows a speech. But when the narration says fex. "cried Sam, unable to contain himself any longer, and jumping up from the corner..." then the narrator should read that all, also the part "cried Sam".

Yup, I am sure once we choose the text, we will be confronted with such choices while going through the text itself - unless we really make it totally different and write our own stageplay - and so that will wait once the text is chosen.

Speaking of Orcs, I like very much the Uruk-hai, but not sure if it's everyone's cup of tea...

Or hey, what about the Voice of Saruman? That provides some good dialogues (but that will be quite a challenge to make a convincing Saruman - and even more convincing Gandalf in the end... Besides, I think MatthewM wanted Boromir there...).

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Speaking of Orcs, I like very much the Uruk-hai, but not sure if it's everyone's cup of tea...

When Greenie comes over tomorrow I'll try to persuade her to try an orc just to see what could be done with the voice.

I also think she's pretty outstanding Gollum as well (I've heard her acting him). So if I can talk her over to try that as well...

[MatthewM]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Besides, I think MatthewM wanted Boromir there...).

Indeed!

So, if we can agree that we are looking for a chapter which has speech from Men, elves, and hobbits...perhaps one from Lorien?

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

When Greenie comes over tomorrow I'll try to persuade her to try an orc just to see what could be done with the voice.

I also think she's pretty outstanding Gollum as well (I've heard her acting him). So if I can talk her over to try that as well...

Well, that is done now. We did a discussion of Shagrat and Gorbag and I also did a bit of golluming...

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by A Little Green

Well, that is done now. We did a discussion of Shagrat and Gorbag and I also did a bit of golluming...

Aah, I also thought about Gorbags when I was choosing what to do, but then I left the idea as I presumed we won't be probably doing Orcs anyway... so I picked something "neutral" (Strider). It's not the crown of creation, but now for the basic purposes it should serve well. Hope Nog gets it all right.

[Thinlómien]

This is beginning to look better and better...

To the concerns of Lommy and Eönwë - and anyone else - I'd just want to say the following... Don't raise the level of expectations for yourself too high. This is no Hollywood or BBC production with professional actors, directors, studio conditions or equipment. We are amateurs all of us who have gotten an idea to do something fun together. Right? It would be awesome if we could - come fall - boast that we have indeed made one chapter from the LotR together over seas and continents. And we have had fun with it. And we can remember that thing when we're old in a way "well, then we did this thing back in the early third millenia... now where's that file again... I was soo young back then, just listen to my funny voice..."

Okay, I agree with this, but I just want to protest a bit. For you can't count me to this category... I don't want to be Frodo because it is against my mental image that Frodo would sound like me and as for Legolas, well, is it too much asked that he would deliver his lines understandably?

If we're doing Lórien, I might reconsider doing Haldir... I like him and I would have great fun with some of his lines. Maybe I must test one day.