English Speech Files

Flat
the rainbow passage by Pat Mahoney
User: pmahoney
Date: 10/12/2006 4:09 pm
Views: 3982
Rating: 18

 

hey all, the quality should be better on this passage. I plan to get at least one passage done a day.

 

prompts: 

The Rainbow Passage

rp001 When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air,
rp002 they act as a prism and form a rainbow.
rp003 The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors.
rp004 These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above,
rp005 and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon.
rp006 There is , according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end.
rp007 People look, but no one ever finds it.
rp008 When a man looks for something beyond his reach,
rp009 his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
rp010 Throughout the centuries people have explained the rainbow in various ways.
rp011 Some have accepted it as a miracle without physical explanation.
rp012 To the Hebrews it was a token that there would be no more universal floods.
rp013 The Greeks used to imagine that it was a sign
rp014 from the gods to foretell war or heavy rain.
rp015 The Norsemen considered the rainbow as a bridge
rp016 over which the gods passed from earth to their home in the sky.
rp017 Others have tried to explain the phenomenon physically.
rp018 Aristotle thought that the rainbow was caused by
rp019 reflection of the sun's rays by the rain.
rp020 Since then physicists have found that it is not reflection,
rp021 but refraction by the raindrops which causes the rainbows.
rp022 Many complicated ideas about the rainbow have been formed.
rp023 The difference in the rainbow depends considerably upon the size of the drops,
rp024 and the width of the colored band increases as the size of the drops increases.
rp025 The actual primary rainbow observed is said to be the effect of
rp026 super-imposition of a number of bows.
rp027 If the red of the second bow falls upon the green of the first,
rp028 the result is to give a bow with an abnormally wide yellow band,
rp029 since red and green light when mixed form yellow.
rp030 This is a very common type of bow, one showing mainly red and yellow,
rp031 with little or no green or blue.

 

--- (Edited on 10/12/2006 4:09 pm [GMT-0500] by pmahoney) ---

 

--- (Edited on 10/12/2006 7:40 pm [GMT-0500] by pmahoney) ---

pmahoney-10122006.tar.gz pmahoney-10122006.tar.gz

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: the rainbow passage by Pat Mahoney
User: kmaclean
Date: 10/12/2006 7:09 pm
Views: 213
Rating: 19

Hi Pat,

Glad to see you will be submitting speech regularly!

However you forgot to add the audio files on this one.

Ken 

--- (Edited on 10/12/2006 8:09 pm [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: the rainbow passage by Pat Mahoney
User: pmahoney
Date: 10/12/2006 7:37 pm
Views: 221
Rating: 17

I knew I was forgetting something.
--- (Edited on 10/12/2006 7:37 pm [GMT-0500] by pmahoney) ---


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: the rainbow passage by Pat Mahoney
User: kmaclean
Date: 10/14/2006 3:33 pm
Views: 566
Rating: 23

Hi Pat,

I'm still seeing getting a fair bit of 'hiss' on your recordings ... I can remove it with Audacity's Noise Removal tool using these steps:

  • Highlight noise section in recording with mouse;
  • select from menu: Effect>Noise Removal;
  • click Get noise profile; 
  • select entire speech recording (the 'ctrl-a' key will do this)
  • select from menu: Effect>Noise Removal;
  • Step 2, select the noise you want removed (the less you use the better, because a higher setting seems to create a bit of an echo - I use about a quarter inch or less from 'none')
  • click OK

But it would be better if we did not have to touch the original recording.  It may be your mike or your audio card.  Do have access to another mike to help us figure out what the problem might be?

thanks,

Ken 

--- (Edited on 10/14/2006 4:33 pm [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.

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