I’m using Audacity 2.1.0 to record an audiobook (fiction). I already saw there’s an update, so I’ll apply that. I just found this forum so I want to run my method by others to see if there’s a way to do this better or more efficiently. It takes a ton of time! I’m using a ATR2100-USB Audio-Technica mic plugged into my Asus/Windows 10 laptop and recording in a walk-in closet in the central part of my house, using a cardboard box lined with noise-protecting foam to encase the mic. I have the foam sock over the mic to shield breaths, etc.
- set recording channels to mono.
- Set project rate to 44100Hz.
- After recording, I go through and remove any parts that I repeated due to mistakes, then I take these steps for each track. Select a second of clean, room tone noise and do Effect->Noise Reduction and Get Noise Profile.
- Then highlight the whole track and do Effect->Noise Reduction and use Noise Reduction 48db Sensitivity 0 db Frequency Smoothing 150 and apply
- Effect->Compress Dynamics 1.2.6 and Compress Ratio .75 Compression Hardness .6 Floor -24 Noise Gate Falloff 4 Maximum Amplitude .99.
- Then Analyze->RMS Calculate to ensure it’s between -20.1db and -19.4 db. If not, undo the last step and adjust the compression ratio up or down and repeat.
- Run the hard limiter at -3.
- Then I grab a second of clean room tone again and go through the track and replace any of the pauses between words or sentences with it, adjusting to go back to the original length after copying over it with the second of clean noise. This part takes forever. It’s to remove any remaining breaths, lip smacks, etc. I’d like to be able to reduce this time. I actually repeat this with a much shorter length for very small intervals between words where I can detect any of that excess noise.
- When that’s done, I listen again to make sure it sounds okay, then export as MP3 at 192kbps and upload to ACX.
Any tips as to how to do this better or reduce the long hours it takes, especially for step 8? Any help is appreciated. I’m already most of the way through this book but have two more to do after it.