All I can think of is Jim Dale’s reading of the Harry Potter books. Fucking epic.
Comment on Audible unveils plans to use AI voices to narrate audiobooks
Godnroc@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Fucking gross. Maybe it’s the 250+ audiobooks I have influencing me, but the very best ones I’ve listened to transcend just turning words into sound. Sound effects, music, tone, emotion, accents, sarcasm, and god damn BLOOPERS all improve the experience beyond just hearing what is written down.
I’m against it, fuck that literal noise.
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Also Andy Serkis reading the lord of the rings. 11/10
echodot@feddit.uk 15 hours ago
What, no way, they did not replace Steven Fry.
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 13 hours ago
They didn’t replace Fry. When the Audiobooks were released in the US, they were read by Jim Dale. Fry was for the rest of the English language releases. During the run, Jim Dale broke the world record for the most character voices performed by a single actor in an audiobook (146).
PCurd@feddit.uk 4 hours ago
That award was rescinded and given to Roy Dotrice for A Game of Thrones (2004) where he voiced 224 characters. I believe Jim Dale did hold the record before that though with 134 voices for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 19 hours ago
Actually hard disagreeing on that. I absolutely hate the audio drama versions of audio books and prefer the narrator only ones since they are much clearer and require a lot less focus to listen to and work in more contexts (background noise,…). Sound effects and music (while something is read, intro or outro style music is okay) distract from the actual content.
echodot@feddit.uk 15 hours ago
Usually I agree with this with the exception of hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy where the audio drama is much better than the audiobook version.