More “Challenge” news…
Mark P. Steele, wrote in to say:
“Hi there. I ran across your challenge late, but decided to try anyway.”
The book Mark P. is interested in is the The Skylark Of Space by E.E. “Doc” Smith. Very cool, say I.
As you well know, Bob, The Skylark of Space is one of the earliest novels of interstellar travel. First published in 1928. It is oft considered the first literary Space Opera.
Frederick Pohl said of it:
“With the exception of the works of H.G. Wells, possibly those of Jules Verne it has inspired more imitators and done more to change the nature of all the Science Fiction written after it than almost any other single work.”
According to Mark P.’s research, BOTH the original 1928 and the later 1958 revision are in the public domain, and Mark P. is planning on recording the 1958 version.
Mark asks: “Is anyone else working on this?”
Well Mark, no, I know of no-one else who is working on that title. So far, we’ve got only three audiobooks in various stages of completeness in “The SFFaudio Challenge”:
CHALLENGERS SO FAR:
-Mark Nelson has COMPLETED & RELEASED (awaiting verification) an unabridged recording of The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer.
-Steven H. Wilson has has finished the recording of Badge Of Infamy by Lester del Rey
– and we expect a Podiobooks.com release of it relatively soon.
-Mark P. Steele is preparing to record The Skylark Of Space (1958) by E.E. “Doc” Smith.
Would anyone else like to publicly stake a claim from the titles on the challenge list?
Also, it seems Mark P. Steel wouldn’t mind some technical assistance – as he writes…
“The main problem that I have is the static on the recording. I’m using Audacity, and filtered the static, but it sounds somewhat hollow and metallic, thus making me skeptical of the usability,of the recording. My next step is to try and move the mike away from the computer, on the possibility that it’s the fan hum I’m getting.”
Hmmm, I’m tech-challenged myself, but I can offer a custom bit of cover art to get Mr. Steele inspired:
Can anyone else give Mark P. some advice on how to get the static out of his recording?
Removing static or other ambient noise is one of the things that I don’t use Audacity for, for exactly that reason – it always leaves kind of a hollow, tinny feeling behind. Goldwave does a much nicer job of that, though I stick with Audacity for just about everything else, as I’m comfortable with it. I really don’t remember for sure, but I think Goldwave was a “free-for-thirty-days” or something or other. Anyway, poke around on the net and see if you can find it.
What concerns me a little more is how static got there in the first place. Any time I’ve been cleaning up “static” it’s either been transmission interference on an old radio recording, or from a source with surface irregularities like an LP. (Yes, I am a big enough geek to encode from LPs, thank you for asking).
If you’re hearing static on something you’ve recorded yourself, it suggests a problem with the process. It could be the computer’s fan as you suggest, but that usually sounds more like… well, a computer fan. White noise as opposed to static. There might be a short in your cable or microphone… I’m really just guessing as I don’t know anything about your setup… You might want to try running it through the “line in” port rather than the “mic” port and see if that helps clean things up a bit, if you’re not already doing that.