English Speech Files

Nested
jaiger-10212006
User: jaiger
Date: 10/23/2006 4:28 pm
Views: 3671
Rating: 15

This is my first attempt at recording for VoxForge.

I had a tough time keeping my recording peaks between 0.5 and 1.0 in audacity.  I think the settings I used resulted in some crackling or maybe lip smack?  I re-recorded a number of prompts but some of the passages would consistently result in similar noise.  I ended up just leaving them in the hopes that I can either be coached to improve or 'bad' prompts can simply be removed.

I'm open to constructive criticism if anyone can offer suggestions for improvement.

I hope the project finds these recordings useful.

-joe 

--- (Edited on 10/23/2006 17:28:25 [GMT-0400] by jaiger) ---

jaiger-10212006.tgz jaiger-10212006.tgz

Notice: many prompts in "English Speech Files" were adapted from the prompt files contained in the CMU_ARCTIC speech synthesis database, which were in turn derived from out-of-copyright texts from Project Gutenberg, by the FestVox project at the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Re: jaiger-10212006
User: kmaclean
Date: 10/24/2006 9:54 am
Views: 494
Rating: 18

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the submission.  

To improve your recordings and get rid of the 'crackling' or  'lip smacking', you might try putting your microphone a little further away from your mouth, and correspondingly increasing your recording volume.  What I find is when you do this, the 'crackling' and 'lip smacking' noises don't seem to be as pronounced.  I also sometimes have to watch to volume of my speech - and try to control it that way.

There is a little bit of hiss in the background of your recordings that I have removed using Audacity's noise removal effect.  However, if you turn up the volume higher than normal upon playback, Audacity just seems to replace the hiss with 'space age' sounds.  I'll need to experiment with Audacity's filtering to get the right approach to remove this hiss.  Is there anything in your environment that might be causing this hiss (air conditioner, computer fan, etc.)?

I've added your audio to the svn tree (see http://www.dev.voxforge.org/browser/VoxForge/Trunk/Audio/Original/48kHz%3A16bit/jaiger-10212006) and will be creating a updated acoustic model (using your speech audio) shortly.

thanks, 

Ken 

--- (Edited on 10/24/2006 10:54 am [GMT-0400] by kmaclean) ---


Notice: many prompts in "English Speech Files" were adapted from the prompt files contained in the CMU_ARCTIC speech synthesis database, which were in turn derived from out-of-copyright texts from Project Gutenberg, by the FestVox project at the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Re: jaiger-10212006
User: jaiger
Date: 10/25/2006 9:15 am
Views: 177
Rating: 14

I believe the hissing is due to my recording settings.  In trying to get my levels between 0.5 and 1.0 in Audacity I settled on enabling 20db gain in my audio mixer.  When turning on this setting I noticed hissing in my headset.  Enabling this gain probably also contributed to crackling and lip-smack.

Environment: The only computer in the room was my laptop - it was very quiet, TV/stereo was off, kids were asleep, wife was out, dog in basement, dishwasher off, AC is central air and I couldn't hear it.  I even turned off all but the lights I needed to read my prompts - I've heard some lights make buzzing sounds.

One of these days I'll record a submission without the 20db gain and you can tell me if the hiss is better.  The downside might be that my Audacity levels are lower.

-joe 

 

--- (Edited on 10/25/2006 10:15:40 [GMT-0400] by jaiger) ---


Notice: many prompts in "English Speech Files" were adapted from the prompt files contained in the CMU_ARCTIC speech synthesis database, which were in turn derived from out-of-copyright texts from Project Gutenberg, by the FestVox project at the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

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