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Free public domain audiobooks
- FloatArtifact 5y agoThe the text to speech market is so suppressed. I've seen some amazing demos but nothing that comes out and open source or consumer markets outside of Amazon and other big players.
- FloatArtifact 5y agoFor text-to-speech services such as Google or Amazon it costs more (end user perspective) to process audiobooks from eBooks. Compared to buy the audiobook through a subscription service. Deep fakes audio sounds better than most text to speech models that are freely available.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- umvi 5y agoI listened to Treasure Island[0] on librivox and was impressed with the quality of the voice actor (Adrian Praetzellis). Beware though, some books are fragmented and performed by N different voice actors/actresses which can be jarring. [0] https://librivox.org/treasure-island-by-robert-louis-stevenson-2/ https://librivox.org/treasure-island-by-robert-louis-stevens...
- hcrisp 5y agoAnother excellent narrator with a British accent is Karen Savage. She has read many complete works by Jane Austen and E. Nesbit, among other titles, and is as good as any professional voice actor: - 'Pride and Prejudice' (Austen) - 'Sense and Sensibility' (Austen) - 'The Story of the Treasure Seekers' (Nesbit) - 'The Railway Children' (Nesbit) - many others (says 141 total matches) http://www.karenrsavage.com/blog/ http://www.karenrsavage.com/blog/
- zem 5y agowow, that's an incredible amount of work
- oska 5y agoDirect link listing her books on librivox: https://librivox.org/reader/103?primary_key=103&search_category=reader&search_page=1&search_form=get_results https://librivox.org/reader/103?primary_key=103&search_categ...
- vmilner 5y agoYou can tell she's good because her books are copied and sold on Audible.
- RobertLoblaw 5y agoHN lurker for years, created an account just to say how much I love the librivox recordings by Adrian Praetzellis. His "Wind in the Willows" is just wonderful.
- gxqoz 5y agoIt's been a while since I've listened to something on librivox. When I did, it was hit or miss in terms of narrator quality (as you'd expect from a volunteer-led initiative). If you have access to something like Overdrive or Libby through your public library, I'd check there first. You'll probably be more satisfied with a professionally recorded audiobook.
- hugs 5y agoAs a learner of French, I absolutely love Librivox. Science fiction (Jules Verne), fairy tales (Charles Perrault), poetry (Charles Baudelaire), novels (Victor Hugo) -- there is so much really good source material in French. However, as one would expect from a free/public domain resource, classics over 100 years old are well covered... But for anything newer, you'll probably need Audible*... *edit: Or check out audiobooks from your local library!
- JZL003 5y agoFor a technical audience, I would look at some TTS (text to speech) programs especially by google and IBM. It's definitely robotic and nothing like a nice narrator but audiobooks are amazing regardless. And your mind actually starts filling in the emotional blanks. It can also be really cool to use like internet archive's scanned book's OCR -> TTS and make an audiobook from a cool old book that would never be professionally narrated And for anyone who listens to a lot of audio, I'd look into using an audio equalizer. Pulling down the high frequencies (especially for some woman narrators) makes it more comfortable after many hours of listening. On android the "Smart audiobook" app has this and it's really nice. Maybe some headphones/android phones can do this globally
- meremortals 5y agohighly recommend @Voice Aloud Reader (TTS Reader) on Android too
- primaryobjects 5y agoiPhone users can enable Spoken Content. Open an ebook. Swipe down with two fingers. Instant audio book. Also, you can select the Voices option (under Spoken Content) to download high quality Siri voices.
- colechristensen 5y agoThank you for the suggestion. I had been using Voice Over which is a very similar feature but not quite as good for reading ebooks and the like.
- RobMurray 5y agoVoice Dream Reader is also very good on the iPhone. It can use any of the apple voices (download high quality versions in accessibility settings), and has other voices available. It can OCR pdf files that are otherwise inaccessible. It also makes a great audio book player.
- badguybeetle 5y ago
- TheFreim 5y agoI am very thankful for librivox. I have listened to "Heretics", "Orthodoxy", and "Against Eugenics and Other Evils" by G.K. Chesterton. I've also listened to some works of St. Patrick read by librivox contributors, quality has been very high (exceptional when you consider that it was all for free).
- sammyq 5y agoI’m reading heretics currently! Curious why you listened to Against Eugenics and Other Evils as opposed to Everlasting Man? Seems like Heretics and Orthodoxy and Everlasting Man are the three works that people read most often by Chesterton.
- TheFreim 5y agoIt's on the list, but when I was deciding which to listen to next I was interacting with some eugenicists online and felt like it would be interesting to hear Chesterton's point of view.
- turing_complete 5y agoSounds great. I am reading through C.S. Lewis currently. Chesterton might be next.
- Faaak 5y agoI've downloaded these audiobooks for my grandad (in german). He really enjoyed listening to the stories. Thanks to all the volunteers for their hard work !
- hidden-spyder 5y agoAny Android app recommendations that let me access LibriVox contents?
- JonathanBuchh 5y agoYou can grab the RSS feed from LibriVox and put it into most podcast apps. I'm on iOS and really enjoy using Overcast.
- mmcdermott 5y agoThe mobile site is actually half-decent. You can download the MP3s and listen to them in something like VLC as well.
- themodelplumber 5y agoArchive.org has a pretty easy interface. I prefer it over the Android apps I've tried, because I can easily move to desktop using synced browser data, or send books to other devices. Example: https://archive.org/details/scaramouche_gm_librivox/ https://archive.org/details/scaramouche_gm_librivox/
- Jaepa 5y agoIf anyone has a few free cycles & wants to help, the project is on Github & there are plenty of open tickets. https://github.com/LibriVox https://github.com/LibriVox
- worldofmatthew 5y agoI have been working on remastering some audiobooks from there, once I got more books done, I will have a proper section for people to download them for free from my website (direct links from the listing, no bs). Remastering as in removing background noise, EQing, compression and normalization of audio levels and reducing the librivox intro to the start of the audiobook only, rather than annoying people every chapter.
- BitwiseFool 5y agoI'm grateful that you're willing to do so much work for free. Kudos!
- jonny_eh 5y agoAre you able to submit them back so it's easier for users to find your work?
- zibzab 5y agoYou should publish how you do it to help others. The community has the manpower but now always the knowledge
- type0 5y agoThank you, that's desperately needed.
- dang 5y agoPast related threads: LibriVox: Free Public Domain Audiobooks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23558686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23558686 - June 2020 (81 comments) Free Audio Books: Download Great Books for Free - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22104143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22104143 - Jan 2020 (84 comments) LibriVox: free public domain audiobooks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11141452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11141452 - Feb 2016 (37 comments) LibriVox hits 100 Million downloads, looking for a PHP Dev - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3808080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3808080 - April 2012 (9 comments)
- ganzuul 5y agoThank you kindly.
- sandreas 5y agoA german resource is: https://vorleser.net https://vorleser.net Anyone who is interested in merging a set of mp3 files to a single m4b file or use a single mp3 file with chapters, check out https://github.com/sandreas/m4b-tool https://github.com/sandreas/m4b-tool (Author here)
- jbj 5y agoreminds me of an episode of planet money where they read a whole book that just entered public domain: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/14/956800308/the-great-gatsby https://www.npr.org/2021/01/14/956800308/the-great-gatsby
- throwaway984393 5y agoNate DiMeo recorded it for The Memory Palace too: https://beta.prx.org/stories/380337 https://beta.prx.org/stories/380337
- throwaway984393 5y agoCan anyone recommend a microphone / audio setup for recording audio books? I'd like to record some and I want to avoid the quality problems some Librivox recordings have. Actually, more important: is there an app that makes recording audio books easier? Like, can I record in one shot, and mark places I want to cut out so I can just re-speak one passage, and later on it'll automatically be cut together like I want? I could probably jury-rig some keyboard-based app to do it...
- themodelplumber 5y agoI did some podcasts using a Blue Yeti and it sounded great as long as the knobs and switches on the mic were properly configured. Afterwards I used Audacity for noise removal, some EQ for things like bass roll-off, and TAP Scaling Limiter for adjusting levels. It was helpful to compare to other podcasts on the same speakers or headphones. Doing the same today I would probably give Ocenaudio a shot, as I like it so far. Good luck. Edit: Yes, apps that allow you to mark and quickly edit are common.
- aasasd 5y agoYoutube is likely full of advice on this topic. With live examples.
- GrinningFool 5y agoOnly on youtube, you have to watch everything through a filter of "who is an expert sharing their knowledge" and "who is trying to sell me this thing".
- savant_penguin 5y agoThis kind of work is a great candidate for a multilingual text<>speech dataset
- surfsvammel 5y agoI love this, but the problem is discoverability. Not sure how I would find my next book on here.
- DantesKite 5y agoEventually TTS technology will automate all public domain books so they can be listened through audio. In any voice you want.
- GhettoComputers 5y agoWho wants to hear Edward Kemper (the serial killer, a tall, imposing “co-Ed killer”, who was also well read) recite audiobooks? Anyone heard his Star Wars reading before? He’s absent from this library. edmundkemperstories.com/blog/2019/03/09/list-of-17-books-narrated-by-edmund-kemper-for-volunteers-of-vacaville-the-blind-project-part-1-of-2/
- deepspace 5y agoThis is a great resource for classical works, but to me, it emphasizes what a damn shame it is that copyright terms are so long. In my mind, a copyright term of, say, 25 years is reasonable, and more than long enough to compensate authors for their work. Imagine if we had free access to works written in the 80s and 90s, rather than the 1800s.
- Breza 5y agoI agree that this project emphasizes the unfortunate state of copyright. The last Civil War veteran died in the 1950s. Imagine he had written a memoir of his war experiences. If the United States had always had its current copyright laws, that book would only now be entering the public domain. Billie Eilish's music might not be public domain until 2150. There's no justification for such long copyrights. Artists aren't making art so their estates will make money fifty years after they're dead.
- Dig1t 5y agoNot really related to this site but I have been dying for a version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide books different than the ones on Audible. All the books other than the first one are read by someone who gives Zaphod a New Yorker style accent which totally kills the character, and thus the books, for me.
- mymythisisthis 5y agoThis was a fun listen - Around the World in Seventy-Two Days by Nellie Bly https://librivox.org/around-the-world-in-seventy-two-days-by-nellie-bly/ https://librivox.org/around-the-world-in-seventy-two-days-by...
- benkaiser 5y agoI've been working on something similar to this specifically for crowd-sourcing readings of the Bible available here: https://thereadbible.com/ https://thereadbible.com/ It's super MVP and currently uses youtube for the recordings, but it works and is entirely hosted on GitHub Pages (including user-submitted data that runs through a github action).
- Breza 5y agoThis is a really cool project!
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