Audio sessions?

[MistaG]

I was listening to a somewhat recent interview given by Carla, moderated by Norwegian journalist Anne Hess, where Mrs. Rueckert says, "If you listen to one of the CDs that have the Law of One audio on it, from our site, 'You. Can. Hear. Ra. Speaking. Like. This. With. No. Break. Between. Sentences. Or. Words. Or. Ideas. and ...' (interview @3:25)"

This made me curious enough that I started digging around on llresearch.org, lawofone.info, et cetera trying to find a link to listen to a sample or to purchase a copy of the audio sessions. However for the life of me I can't find anything that appears to be an authentic copy of the original recordings.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

[Peregrinus]

I believe this is under consideration, but not yet released.

[MistaG]

Dang. It would be nice if there was even an audio sample to get a sense of what the session was like in terms of pacing, changes in speech patterns, speed, pitch, etc.

Well here's to hoping!

[Questioner]

In other post on this same topic - "Audio versions," still on the front page as I see it today - I put the link to someone who used a computer speech synthesizer to read the Ra books, and posted the results on Youtube. It sounds completely disinterested and precise. From Carla's description, you're probably not missing much to not hear the original "spiritual telegrams."

[MistaG]

In other post on this same topic - "Audio versions," still on the front page as I see it today - I put the link to someone who used a computer speech synthesizer to read the Ra books, and posted the results on Youtube.

Saw that one, thanks! But ...

It sounds completely disinterested and precise. From Carla's description, you're probably not missing much to not hear the original "spiritual telegrams."

... the left half of my brain wants to verify through careful analysis each leg of the entire story regardless of how much subjective experience I've had confirming what Carla's saying.

[βαθμιαίος]

I have had the great privilege of listening to audio versions of the Ra sessions through the relistening project and I actually disagree with Carla somewhat on this. In general, she's right, but in the sessions about the tarot and the archetypical mind Ra is, for them, fairly animated. You can get a sense of this from the written transcripts ("O Student", etc.)

[Steppingfeet]

Having downloadable audio available of the 106 session Ra Contact along with the remainder of the vast L/L Library has been a hope of ours for some time.

We're coming close to making it a reality. Steve (the guy who created and runs this website) is currently working on finding the right software to clean up and improve upon the audio. Once that step is accomplished, we'll begin working on making the Ra Contact available for download through the online store.

If anyone out there is an audio expert and would like to offer advice and/or assistance to Steve, drop him a PM through this website at Bring4th_Steve. Or send an email to the "Contact Us" address: webmaster@bring4th.org.

Love/Light, GLB

[xlsander]

i loved the interview - Carla is such a warm lovign person - i am endlessly greatful for being the catalyst that got me on the way to know myself - i think i will read over 101 now - some time has passed and alot has been learned L/L

[Peregrinus]

If anyone out there is an audio expert and would like to offer advice and/or assistance to Steve, drop him a PM through this website at Bring4th_Steve.

I will get in touch with Steve. Oh wait, I talk to him almost every day anyway! lol. I'll see if he can give me a 3 minute clip of a session and see what I can do with it.

[MistaG]

I will get in touch with Steve. Oh wait, I talk to him almost every day anyway! lol. I'll see if he can give me a 3 minute clip of a session and see what I can do with it.

That would be awesome! Thanks for taking the initiative Peregrinus! *thumbs up*

[ayadew]

i loved the interview - Carla is such a warm lovign person - i am endlessly greatful for being the catalyst that got me on the way to know myself - i think i will read over 101 now - some time has passed and alot has been learned L/L

That's such a great book

[Questioner]

I'll see if he can give me a 3 minute clip of a session and see what I can do with it.

I also have an interest in audio editing, but I'm not currently set up for it. I wonder what approach you plan to take. Mine would be:

1. Use a noise gate with a long release time and slow attack to reduce background noise between talking, while leaving in all the speech content.
2. Use a noise reduction filter that can sample background noise, identify the dominant frequencies and reduce them, again without garbling the speech.
3. Use a compressor to even out the volume of the speech, then peak normalize for a consistent level.
4. Discover equalization settings that include clarity for each speaker's voice. Split the audio into a track for each voice so that the EQ per speaker can be applied throughout the session.
5. Add an overall low frequency cut to reduce rumble and wind noise, and an overall high frequency cut to reduce tape hiss. Gate the high cut so that it is only present between times of talking.

In the next few weeks I might be able to participate in the audio editing project.

[Peregrinus]

Update. Steve is working on this. He feels that once he has come up with the best audio outcome, batch processing will occur. He asks our patience.

[Bring4th_Steve]

Questioner,
You pretty much ran down the same list I did in terms of trying to clean up the audio. I have a pretty extensive VST library, which includes some noise canceling plug-ins. Since analog tapes are one of the noisiest mediums to clean up audio from, the methods you described are great in theory, but have some crazy side effects when tweaking them.

Gary was my second set of ears when he was here in Washington DC visiting me, and he can attest to the difficulties when trying to optimize old analog audio. I've tried high/low pass filters, isolated equalization, band compression on only the voice frequency ranges, and noise gates with varying degrees of attack and release.

The main problem was that the audio quickly began to sound fake. Gates become completely distracting to the ear, because no matter what degree of gating you do, the ear tends to zero in on the "hiss-quiet-hiss-quiet" effect rather than being able to concentrate on the words. Equalization takes away the brightness of Carla's voice and brings it down more towards telephone frequencies while still preserving a degree of dampened hiss. So that was definitely a no go.

Noise "learning" has been the best approach, by far. By using BIAS's SoundSoap Pro 2, we can sample a "quiet" section of tape hiss and ambient room noise, and then diminish those exact frequencies across the tract.

Since the application does a great job with batch processing against a custom profile of processing parameters, we can start cranking out clean audio automatically, and then compress it and normalize it to make it more comfortable to listen to.

Not only will we clean up the Ra sessions, but we'll also be able to do the same to the Q'uo sessions, as well. So stay tuned... :-)

Steve

1. Use a noise gate with a long release time and slow attack to reduce background noise between talking, while leaving in all the speech content.
2. Use a noise reduction filter that can sample background noise, identify the dominant frequencies and reduce them, again without garbling the speech.
3. Use a compressor to even out the volume of the speech, then peak normalize for a consistent level.
4. Discover equalization settings that include clarity for each speaker's voice. Split the audio into a track for each voice so that the EQ per speaker can be applied throughout the session.
5. Add an overall low frequency cut to reduce rumble and wind noise, and an overall high frequency cut to reduce tape hiss. Gate the high cut so that it is only present between times of talking.

In the next few weeks I might be able to participate in the audio editing project.

[ayadew]

Thanks for your dedication everyone. Looking forward to the results. (sadly I know absolutely nothing about sound)

[Questioner]

Questioner,
You pretty much ran down the same list I did in terms of trying to clean up the audio. I have a pretty extensive VST library, which includes some noise canceling plug-ins. Since analog tapes are one of the noisiest mediums to clean up audio from, the methods you described are great in theory, but have some crazy side effects when tweaking them.

I won't quote the whole post but I did find it all interesting.

I've also tried playing with plugins to clean up bad audio and found the same problems with artifacts. In particular, overdoing the noise removal made speech sound like chipmunks gargling underwater. And I found the same problem with gates. After a certain point, it's like how opening and closing the doors all the time is more distracting than just living with the breeze.

SoundSoap is new to me. From your description, that batch noise reduction feature will give you a quick way to get much better sound quality.

I don't have the reference right now but a few months ago NPR had a mention of some audio archivist, maybe at the Library of Congress, who was able to discover the speed variations of analog tapes and correct for the wow and flutter. This made old concert recordings really come to life once the wandering overtones got straightened out. I don't think it would make much difference with speech, though.

I'd guess that these days, sessions would be recorded into a computer and also into a standalone digital recorder?

[Bring4th_Steve]

Questioner,

That's actually a good idea about the guy at the Library of Congress. I work there, so I think I might look him up when I return to work on Monday.

You are totally correct about the processing artifacts. Gary and I looked at many tweaks, and the best we could get with gates and equalization is the same effect you mentioned--chirps right at the start of each open gate. I thought it was a VST anomaly, but apparently that's as close as you can get to not making it sound like you are intentionally gating the sound.

I was actually very impressed with Sound Soap. In fact, when I ran some of the Q'uo sessions through the application, we heard crickets in the background that were otherwise not audible behind all that analog hiss. To me, I was like.. SOLD! :-)

Granted, the sound is not going to come out perfect. There is no perfect way to eliminate everything. Some aspect of hiss will not be part of the sound canceling profile, and it will end up surfacing one way or the other. The best we can do is try to identify the "rude" parts of the hiss, while equalizing any remaining portions. At least the hiss can become like a soft "woosh", which is entirely more comfortable hearing than piercing sibilance ("ess" sound).

It's cool that there are some of you into this stuff! I'll definitely ask this thread for help if/when we find the right solution, sound profile, and can scale the operation consistently. I would need to establish a strict protocol of processing tasks for each track so that they all sound consistent and similar. I am also creating an intro and ending sountrack for each one as well, which will be batch appended. This will give the audio a little more professionalism and can help people identify the tracks in case their ipods don't have accurate filenaming.

Onward! :-)
Steve

Questioner,
You pretty much ran down the same list I did in terms of trying to clean up the audio. I have a pretty extensive VST library, which includes some noise canceling plug-ins. Since analog tapes are one of the noisiest mediums to clean up audio from, the methods you described are great in theory, but have some crazy side effects when tweaking them.

I won't quote the whole post but I did find it all interesting.

I've also tried playing with plugins to clean up bad audio and found the same problems with artifacts. In particular, overdoing the noise removal made speech sound like chipmunks gargling underwater. And I found the same problem with gates. After a certain point, it's like how opening and closing the doors all the time is more distracting than just living with the breeze.

SoundSoap is new to me. From your description, that batch noise reduction feature will give you a quick way to get much better sound quality.

I don't have the reference right now but a few months ago NPR had a mention of some audio archivist, maybe at the Library of Congress, who was able to discover the speed variations of analog tapes and correct for the wow and flutter. This made old concert recordings really come to life once the wandering overtones got straightened out. I don't think it would make much difference with speech, though.

I'd guess that these days, sessions would be recorded into a computer and also into a standalone digital recorder?

[Questioner]

It's cool that there are some of you into this stuff!

I've been playing with audio on my laptop, which is an older machine. It's been great fun for me to explore the world of VST hosts, softsynths, and effects. Music production has been a great love of mine going way back. From time to time I've been able to own some music hardware. Changing financial circumstances meant I would have to sell it off and replace it later on when I could. The power and affordability of computer-based audio these days just amazes me.

There are a few things that work well with my old laptop. But I also encounter limitations in what the hardware can handle. When I get some money ahead I plan to get a more up to date machine. From what I read on audio forums, a more current computer should let me handle multitrack audio without the hardware limits getting in the way of what I want to do: composing, songwriting, arranging, producing, scoring, and mixing.

Over the long term, I'd love to add a Muse Research Receptor to my shopping list. That will take a bigger budget than I have now! I'd love to see the Muse folks collaborate with some of the DAW software vendors (Steinberg, Digi, MOTU, Cakewalk etc.) to make a plug & play recording/mixing rack, that does for recording what Receptor does for synths and effects.

If I was rich enough, I'd split my time between a personal office where I could ponder and discuss the Law of One material, and a personal studio where I could express my ideas about it in music.

This is getting a bit away from the Law of One discussion so maybe I should start a music production thread in the appropriate forum.

[Ole]

I can't wait to get the Ra-sessions once they are for sale on the site! Thank you.

[Lavazza]

Also looking forward to buying the Ra audio collection. I work in front of a computer all day creating visuals, leaving the left side of my brain empty and ready to absorb additional information.

Peregrinus, ever get a hold of that three minute sample clip? Would be interested in a preview myself.

[Peregrinus]

No sample clip, sorry.

[carrie]

I do not know whether this sounds relevant or not,

While you guys are busy with audio sessions, why not provide Law of One CD, of, a person speaking each session out, reading story? That would work out to approx 10 hours of listening time.

I would love to have an audio version of Law of One

[Peregrinus]

It has been done with Microsoft Sam. I don't remember where, but I think it may be on YouTube.

[Lavazza]

I was thinking about that too. Would be great to have someone like Leonard Nimoy read it, especially the cosmological parts.

[blargg]

i understand there are resource management issues while we are here

but selling this, it's not the way

the audio has been kept from the public for decades, why?

the original audio tapes, even if they be poor quality, should be released and allowed to be freely distributed to all who are willing to hear them.

if it costs money to do so, then do it for a short time, then allow others to carry on the burden by hosting themselves.

[Lavazza]

i understand there are resource management issues while we are here

but selling this, it's not the way

the audio has been kept from the public for decades, why?

I think it's very reasonable to be selling this audio instead of releasing it. L/L Research is not profit oriented, and at the same time relies heavily upon donations to continue operating. Such things as the L/L Library website, not to mention this forum costs money. That the group chooses to make all of their transcripts, not to mention books free for download is by itself amazing! My two cents

love and light,
~L~

[blargg]

i agree that the people associated with L/L Research and bring4th.org regularly display business ethics far above and beyond what you find in the rest of the greedy and corrupt corporate world.

in fact, gary, an admin at L/L Research has been more than courteous to give lengthy and thoughtful responses to my e-mail inquiries i've had in the past. he even followed up with corrections to ensure as much accuracy as he could instill in each message. i think there are good people here associated with this, and i think they have good intentions.

but, if you're dealing with one of the most undistorted endowment's of wisdom that i know of, the only price should be willingness to receive the message, in my opinion.

if it starts to look like a business, you've added ripples to the wavepool, not reduced. all can do as they wish, and i wished to make my thoughts on the matter known.

[Steppingfeet]

i understand there are resource management issues while we are here

but selling this, it's not the way

the audio has been kept from the public for decades, why?

the original audio tapes, even if they be poor quality, should be released and allowed to be freely distributed to all who are willing to hear them.

if it costs money to do so, then do it for a short time, then allow others to carry on the burden by hosting themselves.

Dear Blargg,

Thank you for expressing your concerns on this forum and thank you for your kind remarks concerning those involved with L/L Research and Bring4th in a later post you made. I agree wholeheartedly with your positive comments. ; ) Hopefully I can clarify things a bit for you in my response. Please know that while I intend to be firm, I do not intend to chide.

The practice of vocal channeling, recording channeling, transcribing channeling, and editing channeling has been going on without interruption since 1974. The process of publishing this material to a website did not begin in earnest until the mid-90's when the webmaster of LLResearch.org began manually scanning thousands of hardcopy documents into digital format.

From taking the time to gather in a circle come rain or shine for over thirty years for the purpose of meditation, to the actual vocal channeling, to transcribing, to editing, to publishing the channeling, to living ones life in accord with the principles of the channeling, to the many, many other details that come up during this process -- a massive, collaborative effort of time, energy, health, money, and love has gone into this four decade old, ongoing project.

Jim and Carla McCarty have dedicated their whole lives to serving as instruments through which come these channeled messages that you seem to appreciate. Jim doing so despite constant exhaustion from hard work; Carla doing so despite constant pain from her physical ailments. Ian, LLResearch.org's webmaster, has dedicated the latter half of his life to making a home for this information on the web. Not to mention the hundreds of volunteers who have donated ten times as many hours transcribing these sessions over the years. You likely do not grasp all the effort that has gone into this venture. These are no small investments.

None of these parties have received any monetary gain for their efforts. On the contrary, up until the past two years, Carla and Jim have had to fund their non-profit organization, L/L Research, out of their own pockets each and every year for lack of needed revenue. And Ian, LLResearch.org's webguy, has offered countless hours, days, months, and years of his life without remuneration in order to make this material available to any interested seeker through L/L's archive website.

(Steve, Bring4th’s webmaster – also a volunteer who created and maintains this website after taking care of family, a full time job, and a long commute – created an online store for L/L Research in February of 2008. This has enabled more people to purchase L/L’s book and many generous others to make donations. This has kept L/L Research in the black, meaning Jim and Carla have not had to pay out of their own pocket to fund L/L beyond providing the organization a place from which to operate. This however does not mean that they have received any money personally. All monies received go to keeping L/L Research running.)

This has been a very costly venture for all parties involved, a constant sacrifice in terms of time, energy, health, money, and in the case of the Ra Contact, the loss of Don Elkins. The reward has come in the form of spirit - in the fulfillment that positively oriented entities feel when being of service to their fellow beings.

Considering the expenditure of time, energy, and money necessary to keep the project going, and the low return of money, one would expect that the instruments for and/or authors of this material would make it available for sale only - in order to recuperate expenses and save the outflow from their own wallets.

However, those to whom you ultimately address your complaint, Carla and Jim McCarty, made the decision to make virtually ALL of their life's work available for free to the interested seeker. Their thinking was simple and service-oriented: the material should not be withheld from anyone for lack of money. Though this has cost them who knows how many dollars and how many headaches of funding issues, they have faithfully stuck with this altruistic philosophy, making over 1,500 channeling transcripts and 11 some publications available for *free* from their archive website www.llresearch.org.

Typically when the seeker stumbles upon this treasure chest of information available at LLResearch.org - recognizing the material's infinite value to the entity desirous of spiritual evolution - they tend to feel and express gratitude for the opportunity and the privilege to have complete access to thousands of documents in a library brimming full of shining diamonds, material which they may bring into their heart without need to give L/L Research a single penny.

In the case of your honest and well-intentioned criticism, Blargg, your implication that vital, spiritually-oriented information has been deliberately "kept from the public for decades" is completely baseless. (I mean you no offense.) On the contrary, as I have explained, Carla and Jim have made virtually all of their life's work available for free.

No channeling has ever been withheld from the seeker because the complete *content* of the channeling lies forever accessible in the transcripts on the website. The audio on the other hand is just another form to enjoy the already freely available content.

The audio has been locked up on over 1,500 cassettes on shelves at L/L Research. While they have been accessible to anybody physically present in the house since each one was first recorded, it is only within the past year that an effort has begun to get the cassettes over to CD in order to make them available through our online store.

As the content of each channeling session is already available for free at www.llresearch.org in the form of written transcripts, we do certainly and without reservation plan on offering digital downloads of each channeling session, the Ra Contact included, for a small fee in order to raise revenue for the organization which offers its material nearly all of its content for free.

Please feel free to enjoy the free material at llresearch.org without obligation of purchasing the audio version of the same sessions.

And thank you again for your kind thoughts. : )

Love/Light,
GLB – Admin, L/L Research

[blargg]

much detail in your post. i'm sure much sacrifice has been made.

however, it all is a roundabout plea for "give them what they've earned". i don't disagree that if anyone deserves to be monetarily compensated for doing good deeds, it is the people associated with ll-research.

but that is still no excuse for not offering the audio free. there really is no good reason for selling a message of such magnitude. no matter how much sacrifice has been made you do not "invest", "earn", or otherwise own the right to control the flow of such a message. that is the argument that is being made. no matter how it is dressed. no matter how the emotional plea is made, the essence of the message is that certain individuals,through sacrifice, may earn the right to charge for the message. and that doesn't seem right to me.

i understand that the transference of the audio onto cd is underway, and that this must take place before the audio is placed online. and i will have to stand by my decision that to charge for the truest medium of the message, the one in which it was given, is not the highest way. the message was not written, it was spoken, through Carla.

it seems as if all the sages and truth bearers of the world have a need to charge for their service to humanity. the Law of One text begins to separate itself by being provided free. that resonates well with me. not providing original audio, and charging for doctored audio does not ring true for me.

your points are well taken, my knowledge of business is relatively low compared to most. i suppose i can't add anything further to the matter. though, if you post any more i will read and contemplate what you say.

[Monica]

but that is still no excuse for not offering the audio free. there really is no good reason for selling a message of such magnitude.

blargg, I'm a bit confused. Can you please clarify what you mean by 'the message?'

Do you equate 'the message' with the medium it is stored on?

For the message is indeed offered for free. The only thing not free is a physical object, a piece of plastic, upon which the message has been stored thus far. This little piece of plastic called an audio tape, alas, is not free to reproduce. Thus, to reproduce it is indeed an expenditure that must be covered by someone.

Recently, now that we have a new storage medium, we have the capability to offer 'the message' in electronic format. This is underway, for a nominal charge. I think of this as an additional offering of the same message, just in a different format, for those who prefer it. It's optional.

May I suggest to you that a distinction be made between 'the message' which is an intangible (information) that is freely shared, and 'the message stored on an audio tape copied from the original' which is an additional offering that is costly in terms of both time, technical expertise, and money to reproduce.

May I suggest that 'the message' not be confused with the format in which it is offered or the vehicle upon which it is stored.

no matter how much sacrifice has been made you do not "invest", "earn", or otherwise own the right to control the flow of such a message.

Again, I'm confused. The message is freely offered. Being able to offer unlimited copies of hundreds of audio tapes requires work, time and money. It's not so much a controlling of that form of the message as it simply a logistical concern.

that is the argument that is being made. no matter how it is dressed. no matter how the emotional plea is made, the essence of the message is that certain individuals,through sacrifice, may earn the right to charge for the message. and that doesn't seem right to me.

Respectfully, I can't speak for Gary, but that's not what I perceived of his comments. I don't think it's so much whether they have a right to charge for it, as it is simply a matter of practicality. It costs time and money to offer 'the message' on a particular format (electronic or audio tape) and they simply need a way to cover those costs. We're still in 3D and, last I checked, food still costs money too. It's just a reality we have to take into consideration, no matter how good our intentions.

i understand that the transference of the audio onto cd is underway, and that this must take place before the audio is placed online. and i will have to stand by my decision that to charge for the truest medium of the message, the one in which it was given, is not the highest way. the message was not written, it was spoken, through Carla.

Ah, so what I'm hearing you say is that you consider 'the message' in its audio form to be 'truer' ie superior than the transcribed form? OK. I don't quite understand why, but I will accept that to you it makes a difference. (Personally, I prefer reading than listening, but I guess it's a matter of preference.)

So, since 'the message' being offered in audio format is important to you, do you perhaps have a suggestion how L/L can get around that inconvenient little issue of material objects costing money in 3D? In other words, do you have a suggestion (other than winning the lottery) how they can freely offer physical, tangible objects that cost money to reproduce, when their own funds are limited?

it seems as if all the sages and truth bearers of the world have a need to charge for their service to humanity.

Well, maybe it's because they still need to eat and clothe their families...?

the Law of One text begins to separate itself by being provided free.

Agreed!

not providing original audio, and charging for doctored audio does not ring true for me.

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding/miscommunication. No one is 'doctoring' the info. Many of the audio tapes have quality issues. Efforts will be made to restore the integrity of the originals...not change anything.

your points are well taken, my knowledge of business is relatively low compared to most.

Well, it's not so much about business as it is just a simple fact of life that physical objects cost money.

Thank you for your comments!