Update: I have some bad news about this, but then some good news. GeeMac32bit is cancelling the project... I pasted his email to me from the other day below:
Just letting you that due to many factors especially the fact i'm having my internet cut at the end of next week, I am cancelling the project.
If you want to take the reins then go for it.
I wish you the best of luck and hope you succeed.
GeeMac32bit
I had been trying to organize things with him the past few weeks, but it didn't pan out. He had started recording dubs from people and did not have the original Japanese adpcm samples to work with, nor a needed cross-reference to know which English translation line applies to which sample so that the actor would know exactly how much time to spend saying their line in English. That is, if Goban says something in Japanese that is 2.5 seconds long, I cannot increase the length of that clip, so whatever is supposed to be said in English must be said in 2.5 seconds or less. It's even more preferable if the actor can match the points when the Japanese speaker cycles between pausing and speaking when it comes to the character portrait parts and you have moving lips so as to achieve lip syncing... As such, most of the samples that were recorded are likely a waste and have to be redone. That's if I can get anything from him. He's been hard to reach. (I did get a little frustrated with the time it was taking for him to get back to me.)
Anyway, I think I wanna see this project completed once and for all after having heard some of ParanoiaDragon's dubs in the link he pasted. I'm gonna try to organize a plan with him and/or whoever else would be willing and go from there. What I'm gonna need is the following:
1) All the samples that have been recorded so as to help pick who would be the best actor/actress for each part. Whatever samples have been recorded are good as auditions, but like I said, they'll likely have to be recorded again.
2) We need one person that can understand and listen to spoken Japanese in order to help me cross reference the original Japanese audio clips to the translations provided in DeuceBag's Ys IV Speech file. Some work was actually started by DeuceBag on this, but he actually cannot understand spoken Japanese; he's limited to textual abilities and even then requires the aid of services like WWWJDIC. What happened is he found another text file from a Japanese website that cross-referenced some things, but it was incomplete and the accuracy is unknown. So anyhow, we need somebody that's very proficient in Japanese as a speaker for this job!
3) Tips on recording software and the like. We need to have every actor using the same software, recording at the same volume level, etc. What's good freeware out there for this? Something better than the generic Windows included one.
Well, that's all I can think of off hand. This being the second time seeing this project fail has irritated me to a point where I'm willing to manage it myself and as things are going a little better for me in 2010, I'm willing to put a little time on an excursion like this. It can be done and it should, I say!
