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2 hours ago, Petike the Taffer said:

though are you sure about the .wav ?

Yes. Ogg is a lossy format, the compression should be done once, on the final result. If she's doing just the recording, she should send .wav files for further processing.

2 hours ago, Petike the Taffer said:

I'll try to provide more vocal direction, if possible. Since these have been all recorded as tests, I wasn't too keen on stressing "you've got to do it exactly this way or that way", as discussing the recording quality with you guys was my main priority.

Namesake, if you and others have some feedback on the content of the vocals, feel free to provide it. SC's been very willing to help out with this and I'm sure if we give her a clearer idea on recordings that we don't think quite fit, we'll eventually get the results we need. This whole thing is a process, after all.

 

Since you took the initiative, you should have at least some minimum knowledge about audio processing techniques, and be the defacto "audio producer" here. Or, someone from TDM Team who knows their stuff should take over. The enthusiasm and rallying the people feels nice and all, but ultimately someone with knowledge, tools, and skills has to do all the work.

Edited by peter_spy
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2 hours ago, peter_spy said:

Yes. Ogg is a lossy format, the compression should be done once, on the final result. If she's doing just the recording, she should send .wav files for further processing.

Since you took the initiative, you should have at least some minimum knowledge about audio processing techniques, and be the defacto "audio producer" here. Or, someone from TDM Team who knows their stuff should take over. The enthusiasm and rallying the people feels nice and all, but ultimately someone with knowledge, tools, and skills has to do all the work.

Oh, I'm very open to supervision, it's just that I didn't want to make too much noise before things got really going.

I'll definitely relay the advice given here over to the voice actor. And as I've said above, comments and criticisms on all versions of the recordings are very welcome. If it's going to be part of the core game, we do need to engage in plenty of quality control, but that's been clear from the outset.

What I'm personally more bothered by is a lack of communication. Maybe I'm misremembering, but there's no real central thread where we can state "hey, core devs, we'd like to help with this unresolved asset stuff and seriously need your feedback". That makes working on side-projects like this feel really discouraging. On the one hand, it's true that contirbutors to TDM need to work mostly independently, and I approve of that. Unfortunately, what I also find flawed about this approach, is that the feedback from the core team is often lagging behind. With FMs, the oversight/feedback process is at least a lot more streamlined, set in its place, experienced. But when you want to work on a project that finally does some new asset contributions to the core game, it often gets stuck on lack of adequate feedback. Either to the point of not knowing how to proceed, or just ditching the whole thing, because there's some misunderstanding.

Concerning the cooperation with SC, if contact details are needed, I can always provide them. I'll provide them gladly, far be it for me to be the only intermediary around for this stuff. Pete, do you want to help out with this ? Not full-time, you have your own stuff, but if you had a little time to spare.

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9 hours ago, Petike the Taffer said:

What I'm personally more bothered by is a lack of communication. Maybe I'm misremembering, but there's no real central thread where we can state "hey, core devs, we'd like to help with this unresolved asset stuff and seriously need your feedback".

I think the way it works is mostly DIY – if you have an idea on something, do it, then make a forum thread. The degree of completion can be anything between a WIP that can be tested and a final solution – if it gets traction, people will jump onboard and help. It kinda works best if you're working on something for your mission, but you also think it might benefit TDM as a whole.

As you've already seen, ideas like Kurshok's musings and a "let's you people do it" approach have the least chance of fruition, unfortunately.

9 hours ago, Petike the Taffer said:

Pete, do you want to help out with this ? Not full-time, you have your own stuff, but if you had a little time to spare.

I have some technical experience in recording (dialogue, field recording, etc.), but I barely have time for modeling right now, sorry :(

Edited by peter_spy
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1 hour ago, peter_spy said:

As you've already seen, ideas like Kurshok's musings and a "let's you people do it" approach have the least chance of fruition, unfortunately.

I have some technical experience in recording (dialogue, field recording, etc.), but I barely have time for modeling right now, sorry :(

Precisely why I started this particular effort in the first place, or contributed my translation already a while back. I am never too cocky to think other people have the time and patience to work on everything, with others just staring at the sidelines, cheering on or making unrealistic demands. I know all too well we have a lack of manpower, so thinking anyone will find the time to work on something when they're already swamped with other aspects of the project is a bit too presumptuous. Hence taking matters into one's own hands, provided the core team also does some feedback and quality control.

As for modelling, what do you mean ? I only asked if there'd be interest to help out with editing the recordings, and above all, help by providing supervision and strict feedback ("I'm sorry, that's not acceptable quality-wise, redo it", etc.). I myself feel supervision and feedback are the most valuable of all.

Concerning sound editing of the raw material, I could do that on my own, easily, but maybe I wouldn't be that good at noise reduction or some of you guys have better software for the task. I mean, sure, there are pretty good open-source offers like Audacity, but I'm not so sure noise-reduction or hum-reduction is that perfect in those, so I'll gladly defer to the core team's judgement of what is best.

Anyway, Shadow Creepr has been informed about the necessary changes to the recording process - what has worked and what we still need her to modify. She'll be getting back to it next week, once she's back home, as she'll be away for the rest of this week.

Edited by Petike the Taffer
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23 hours ago, Goldwell said:

I cleaned it up a little bit by trimming out some of the audible mouth clicks and applying a removal filter on the background noise. What do you guys think?

cleaned_mantle_push01F.wav 106.27 kB · 2 downloads

Goldwell, thank you !

I got all caught up in the conversation with the other Peter and didn't even notice your post. Apologies !

Personally, I think the edit you've made is really good. I pressed my headphones against my ears (mind you, these are big ear-covering, sound-isolating ones, nothing tinny) and listened carefully for about a minute. I didn't hear any background noise or hum, certainly nothing audible to the human ear (and I have very sharp hearing). So I'd say that's a success, on the technical front.

We can quibble whether the performance in that test recording fits what we're going for with this voice file, but that's something easily remedied, compared to any recording issues that we needed to sort out first.

Goldwell, would you be interested in providing some VA direction feedback, in your spare time ?

I can send you the contact info on Shadow Creepr next week, once she's back. Just so I don't have to serve as an intermediary (slowing down things too much) and you could also provide some direct feedback on the performance, if you'd like to. As much as I want to get this done, the other Peter's guessed correctly I want this to be up to the quality standards of the male vocal set.

Edited by Petike the Taffer
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On 11/21/2019 at 7:58 PM, Petike the Taffer said:

Goldwell, thank you !

I got all caught up in the conversation with the other Peter and didn't even notice your post. Apologies !

Personally, I think the edit you've made is really good. I pressed my headphones against my ears (mind you, these are big ear-covering, sound-isolating ones, nothing tinny) and listened carefully for about a minute. I didn't hear any background noise or hum, certainly nothing audible to the human ear (and I have very sharp hearing). So I'd say that's a success, on the technical front.

We can quibble whether the performance in that test recording fits what we're going for with this voice file, but that's something easily remedied, compared to any recording issues that we needed to sort out first.

Goldwell, would you be interested in providing some VA direction feedback, in your spare time ?

I can send you the contact info on Shadow Creepr next week, once she's back. Just so I don't have to serve as an intermediary (slowing down things too much) and you could also provide some direct feedback on the performance, if you'd like to. As much as I want to get this done, the other Peter's guessed correctly I want this to be up to the quality standards of the male vocal set.

As much as I enjoy what this project is, I don’t have the time to devote to it sorry. 
 

My day to day life is very busy right now, and my spare time is divided up between two huge fan missions I’m working on. 
 

I don’t feel I would be able to give this project the attention it needs, and would be spreading myself too thin amongst an already busy schedule.

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5 hours ago, Goldwell said:

As much as I enjoy what this project is, I don’t have the time to devote to it sorry. 
My day to day life is very busy right now, and my spare time is divided up between two huge fan missions I’m working on. 
I don’t feel I would be able to give this project the attention it needs, and would be spreading myself too thin amongst an already busy schedule.

That's fine. But who would you suggest for oversight, then ?

As I've said earlier, I'm more of an intermediary, but we need an experienced team member for the sake of quality control. (Not just audio quality, but also VA quality.)

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The cleaned up version Goldwell posted was fine, so obviously there are ways to deal with the hum if the actor can't get rid of it herself.

As for the delivery, I didn't find it very convincing either--it sounds like the actor is just mimicking what she heard, without knowing what the sound is for.  Those mantling sounds are for a character pulling themselves up from a hanging position--there should be a sense of exertion, of the entire chest compressing.  These sound more like someone clearing their throat.

I don't think being an experienced team member is a requirement to make either of those observations.  Nor is it a requirement to edit the files.  I'm the one who did the editing and processing of virtually all of our vocals, and I just used Audacity and trial and error. 

 

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4 hours ago, Springheel said:

The cleaned up version Goldwell posted was fine, so obviously there are ways to deal with the hum if the actor can't get rid of it herself.

As for the delivery, I didn't find it very convincing either--it sounds like the actor is just mimicking what she heard, without knowing what the sound is for.  Those mantling sounds are for a character pulling themselves up from a hanging position--there should be a sense of exertion, of the entire chest compressing.  These sound more like someone clearing their throat.

I don't think being an experienced team member is a requirement to make either of those observations.  Nor is it a requirement to edit the files.  I'm the one who did the editing and processing of virtually all of our vocals, and I just used Audacity and trial and error.

On a technical level, there aren't really any insurmountable problems.

I was talking more about what Peter_Spy brought up recently. We need more quality control on the performance. Like those mantling samples you've mentioned. Give a bit more direction to the VA, so that it can sound more convincing. Get into the headspace needed for that particular voice file, what it's supposed to sound like to the player. You and the others are absolutely right it needs to sound convincing first, that's why I asked about feedback by the core team. I'm not always 100 % sure what is adequate VA-performance-wise, that's all.

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The Thief 2X voice acting was good.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

badge?user=andarson

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I can help with audio editing/processing if necessary, although I'm certainly no better at it than any of the other forum members who have experience in this regard. I have registered versions of REAPER and Renoise which I use for my own audio work. I'm no creative director though — I'd vote for Springheel in that regard although he may not have the time now he's officially retired.

Removing hum can be achieved with a notch filter, which may give better results than a full spectrum noise reduction plugin depending on the spectrum of the noise you want to remove.

And (although I cannot speak officially) I definitely second what Peter said: we do need uncompressed WAV originals, not just lossy OGGs. It's fine to distribute the final product in OGG format to save space, but we should have the uncompressed originals checked into the source repository so they can be edited, combined into new sounds, recompressed with a higher-quality codec or whatever may be necessary in the future. Having to recompress already-compressed OGG files is really sub-optimal and introduces generation loss.

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5 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:

I can help with audio editing/processing if necessary, although I'm certainly no better at it than any of the other forum members who have experience in this regard. I have registered versions of REAPER and Renoise which I use for my own audio work. I'm no creative director though — I'd vote for Springheel in that regard although he may not have the time now he's officially retired.

Removing hum can be achieved with a notch filter, which may give better results than a full spectrum noise reduction plugin depending on the spectrum of the noise you want to remove.

And (although I cannot speak officially) I definitely second what Peter said: we do need uncompressed WAV originals, not just lossy OGGs. It's fine to distribute the final product in OGG format to save space, but we should have the uncompressed originals checked into the source repository so they can be edited, combined into new sounds, recompressed with a higher-quality codec or whatever may be necessary in the future. Having to recompress already-compressed OGG files is really sub-optimal and introduces generation loss.

You don't need to worry about .ogg, I explained the need for .wavs to SC already almost two weeks ago (around the 20th). So, we are getting .wavs only. She also agreed to record 2 or so empty seconds at the start of each recording, just to make noise reduction or hum reduction a little easier, and promised me she'll be doing recordings in the second setup she used - that newest recording I shared here, with almost no noise.

Thank you for you offer to help out !

I'll note that I find it important we have a VA supervisor just to be sure we won't need to throw most of the material away. It's better to tell the voice actress what sort of exact expression we have in mind (where to pull back emotionally and keep it subtle, where to emphasise something, etc.), rather than let her figure it out on her own, based purely on those male voice files I shared with her (I've sent her the whole collection, so don't worry, she has all the reference material already).

Once again, thank you, and if you have anything to recommend further, I am all ears.

 

Edited by Petike the Taffer
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  • 2 weeks later...

Right, so here are a few samples of the new .wav recordings SC has sent me. She's managed to get rid of background noise, I listened closely and they all sounded crisp. The early test recordings from November have been disposed of, we're not going back to those.

I have several more of these (two or three times as many, in fact), but I've only chosen a few. As we have tight upload limits for attachments here, and I can only fit a single .wav file into each post, I don't want to do twenty posts in a row.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/hpzkvlht7dqn2oc/Preliminary_female_player_vocals.zip/file

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b58hep54e198unz/Preliminary female player vocals.zip?dl=0

So I'm providing a link to a .zip with the files, as available above. If there are download issues, use the second link, please.

 

 

Edited by Petike the Taffer
I won't use the attachment method, I'll provide links to the .zip with the files instead
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Some of the files still have the hum: mantle_pull01F, for example.

Were these meant just to be sound tests, or is that the actual intended delivery?

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The hum is pretty easy to remove with a high pass filter (I tested in Renoise). There is a small amount of broad spectrum background noise (although strangely not in every single one), but I would say many of these would be perfectly usable from an audio quality perspective.

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1 hour ago, OrbWeaver said:

The hum is pretty easy to remove with a high pass filter (I tested in Renoise). There is a small amount of broad spectrum background noise (although strangely not in every single one), but I would say many of these would be perfectly usable from an audio quality perspective.

I am inclined to agree.

Which files would you say have the biggest BSBN issues ?

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Samples where the noise is noticeable at an ordinary listening volume (i.e. not selecting the noise and amplifying it artificially):

mantle_pull01F
mantle_pullF01
mantle_pushF01

With all of the others I think the noise would be very difficult to notice without specifically looking for it in an audio editor, as most of it is just electrical hum at 50/60 Hz which contains nothing useful for vocals and can just be high-pass filtered out.

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22 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:

Samples where the noise is noticeable at an ordinary listening volume (i.e. not selecting the noise and amplifying it artificially):


mantle_pull01F
mantle_pullF01
mantle_pushF01

With all of the others I think the noise would be very difficult to notice without specifically looking for it in an audio editor, as most of it is just electrical hum at 50/60 Hz which contains nothing useful for vocals and can just be high-pass filtered out.

I only see a white space. :(

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/15/2019 at 9:54 PM, OrbWeaver said:

Samples where the noise is noticeable at an ordinary listening volume (i.e. not selecting the noise and amplifying it artificially):


mantle_pull01F
mantle_pullF01
mantle_pushF01

With all of the others I think the noise would be very difficult to notice without specifically looking for it in an audio editor, as most of it is just electrical hum at 50/60 Hz which contains nothing useful for vocals and can just be high-pass filtered out.

Okay, now I've noticed which files you mean. As soon as I'm in contact with ShadowCreepr again and she'll have enough free time to do more recordings, I'll ask her to try and make a new version of these.

I'd really like to thank you for your help and advice so far. I really appreciate it. If everything goes well, maybe this project can get finished this spring, or at the latest, summer. I've been busy lately, but I'll try to pick up the pace.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/12/2020 at 5:37 PM, Shadow Creepr said:

I'm still around.  Do I need to continue recording?

 I've been waiting on feedback to the 20+ files I sent previously,  but I think I would need to redo them.. I've had to replace my mic since it keeps shorting out. Plus, I discovered spikes on our mains which was causing hissing. 

 

Hello. Please accept my apology that I've been so quiet since winter. Lots of work... I'd be delighted if we could continue the recordings, if you're still up for it. :) The gents over here will no doubt have plenty of feedback on the audio quality if they discover something less obvious in the background. Many of the recordings you've already sent are good, and now that you know of the sound source issue, I think things will be easier.

 

With the recent release of 2.08, I might have to ask whether there are a few extra interacting grunts added. Most of the new 2.08 player sounds are not vocal, from what I understand, but a few might be.

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  • 4 months later...

@Shadow Creepr, I'm looking for a female voice artist to help with custom TDM Wench speech for a short cutscene in my FM. The effort would be in Q1 2021. Please let me know if you might be interested and available and I'll PM you with details, no obligation.

Or if Shadow Creepr is not available, @Petike the Taffer, could you suggest anyone else?

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There a very good voice apps on the web, wich may serve you. F.Exmpl. https://www.kukarella.com/text-to-voice-converter

Free Plan

Text to Voice
120+ voices from 55+ languages and accents, plus 2,000 characters per month
Audio to Text
115+ languages, and 5 minutes of audio per month

More for 4.99€/month

 

Or this one, using AI and totally free

https://spik.ai

Edited by Zerg Rush
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Sys Specs Laptop Lenovo V145 15AST, AMD A9- 9425 Radeon R5 - 5 cores 3,1 GHz  RAM 8Gb, GPU 1+2 Gb -Win10 64 v21H2

Favorite online apps you may like too 😉

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