THE BLUE DIAMOND CHRONICLES

 

In the library room of an old Victorian gentlemen's club, a group of scholars meet regularly to share stories by the fireside with a pipe and a fine selection of wines. On a cold winter's night, Mr Kensington arrives at the regular gathering with Edgar Allen Poe's poem, 'The Raven'.

A new series of audiobooks are currently being recorded and the pilot episode can now be heard for free here:

The Blue Diamond Chronicles: The Raven

EDGAR ALLEN POE - THE RAVEN

At the request of my podcasting partner, Simon Exton, I recorded the classic Edgar Allen Poe poem, The Raven, for our Halloween episode.

Again, I felt that the words, whilst perfectly well-crafted, would benefit from a little in the way of music and sound effects. The finished version can be heard here:

Edgar Allen Poe - The Raven 

THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

When I asked my sister what I should get for my niece India's birthday this year, she said that I should record her an audiobook and gave me a stack of her favourite stories.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar was in that pile and it is a story from my own childhood, one which I think all children should experience at some point or other. It is a very simplistic tale of a caterpillar's progress from egg to butterfly and took just a couple of hours to produce in its entirety on audio.

With less than two minutes' worth of vocals, I felt that music and effects were necessary to give the audio version a little more depth and so I turned to the back catalogue of Kevin MacLeod at Imcompetech for a suitable piece of opening and closing music (called 'Transition One').

The only effect really needed was a 'chomp' sound for each bite that the caterpillar takes in the story and one was easily sourced from Freesound, a website where you can download and share sound recordings for free. It has proven invaluable over the past couple of months whilst recording The Tales of Estolia.

The finished clip can be seen here:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

TALES OF ESTOLIA - VOLUME 1

Following an audition earlier in the year, a contract has now been agreed and production has started on the audiobook version of The Promise of Zaccarius, the first volume of the Tales of Estolia by Sasheena Kurfman.

After discussions with the author about the overall sound and feel of the audio version, I happily entered into a formal agreement and script editing has been going on for several weeks. The first recording sessions will take place in the next few days.

Sasheena said, "I decided to see if someone was willing to take a chance on me. I’d rather spend my time doing everything else rather than recording my own voice. The result is that I’ve now got someone else doing the audio book and he has a most extraordinary voice. He’s magical, and he will breathe life into the Tales of Estolia in a way I could never have done!"

She added, "I’m absolutely floored by how tremendous his voice sounds. I may know my book better than anyone, but he adds something to my voice that I didn’t even know was there and he’s in it for the long-haul, with plans to narrate each of my novels. It’s my hope that Volume 1 will be available as an audio book by Christmas."

High praise indeed! This is certainly a large project, with a projected ten books in the series, several of which are now in the latter stages of editing. As my first major project I must say that I am very excited about the forthcoming sessions, particularly now I have researched the technical aspects of audio production which enables me to produce mastered recordings to Amazon Audio standards.

Sasheena's blog for the Tales of Estolia can be viewed here:

Tales of Estolia

SAMPLE - NEURAL NETWORKS

Sample from a book by John Slavio on the processing pattern used by brain neurons to achieve prediction and simulation:

James Kensington - Neural Networks

THE EXTONMOSS EXPERIMENT

One of my private projects includes a brand new series of podcasts exploring the British television archives with my good friend Simon Exton (under my real name, Ken Moss). We have been friends for 13 years following a chance meeting at the premiere screening of the Doctor Who episode 'Rose' at The Vines in Liverpool back in March 2005. Since then, we have met up regularly to watch episodes of long-forgotten television series, plus copious amounts of Doctor Who!

Recording has now been completed on the first four episodes of The ExtonMoss Experiment and editing will begin this week. Each episode is expected to be around 50 minutes long.

The ExtonMoss Experiment - Episode 1

SAMPLE - THE PROMISE OF ZACCARIUS

After uploading several samples on ACX, one of the first scripts I was actively asked to audition for was The Promise of Zaccarius which is the first in a series of 7 books by American author Sasheena Kurfman and due to be published shortly.

My sample reading can be heard here:

James Kensington - The Promise of Zaccarius