ACX Guidelines and mp3 export (Really sorry this is a dim question)

Special Interest Groups Audiobook Production
1

Feeling really dim at this stage.

ACX Guidelines say: be a 192kbps or higher MP3, Constant Bit Rate (CBR) at 44.1 kHz.

I think I have the settings the wrong way around. I had set the project at 19200 and expected to export at 44100. There are only export options for 48000, 40000. These mark the file as 40k or 48k, which I am guessing will be rejected.

I have now converted the project to 44100 hz and exported the MP3 at 19200 constant bit rate. This is a 13M file for 10 minutes of recording.

I really don’t want to proceed through the whole of the book and then find I have been making the project wrongly in the first place.

Can somebody please clarify confirm the steps?

Project setting:

Export MP3 CBR

Windows 10 Audacity 2.4.2.

2

I really don’t want to proceed through the whole of the book

No. Don’t do that, either.

You can post a ten second, sample reading to the forum and we can evaluate it.

https://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/TestClip/Record_A_Clip.html

Read down the blue links. They’re very short.

The little number on the lower left of the audacity window is the sample rate.

Screen Shot 2020-08-05 at 7.12.41 AM.png
That should be 44100, forever. If you’re keeping score, that’s the digital sample rate of an Audio CD. The other common number is 48000. That’s the sound sample rate for video.

Then at the other end, when you’re done reading, correcting, and mastering; File > Export > Export as WAV your chapter or segment to WAV (Microsoft) 16-bit. That’s your Edit Master. Only then File > Export > Export as MP3 to 192 like this.

Screen Shot 2020-08-05 at 7.20.50 AM.png
You can’t change the MP3 once you make it without damage, so don’t lose that WAV file.

There’s ACX rules for file naming and I don’t have those right to hand.

There’s also rules for amount of silence (room tone) at the beginning and end of each chapter, etc. A surprising number of readers miss this.

https://www.acx.com/help/acx-audio-submission-requirements/201456300

Recently, ACX advanced several changes to their publication standards and they’re not all digital related. I must be able to buy your book on Amazon as either paper or eBook. It’s much more difficult for fresh Author/Readers to get published now.

ACX used to offer Audition Evaluation Services where they would run a short reading through a complete inspection and offer hints and corrections. Not any more, They do offer a basic, limited, automatic digital evaluation, but it’s a duplicate of the ACX-Check from here on the forum—and ours is much faster.

So no. Don’t just start reading a book. A lot of the safety nets have been removed.

Koz

3

A few words about the kind of book. Two forum posters recently asked about their work. One was reading a cookbook and the other wanted to publish their yoga chants. Neither would have made it past the book type specification.

Scroll down.

https://www.acx.com/help/200878270

Oddly, the yoga chants may have also failed for a different reason if they had the usual relaxing, plunky, thrummy music in the background. No music. That performer is producing “radio theater” rather than an audiobook. That and it’s really hard to manage music rights—and ACX does insist on managing rights—many times even before they look at your sound files.

Koz

4

this is a dim question

It’s not a dim question. You are playing Producer, Recording Engineer, and Performer. You are finding out what they all do.

Koz

5

Hi,

Thanks for the prompt and accurate answers.

The book is Monkey on my Shoulder. It’s a self help/ guide to the AA 12 step program. It has been on Amazon since 2007 and has had quite good sales every year since publication.

It sits well with the other books of this style on Audible. Chimp Paradox (What is it with monkeys?) Therefore I am reasonably confident of book type being accepted.

It was a start of lockdown project, I mean, how hard can it be?

Since starting I have then acquired more professional equipment. Constructed a recording booth and taken voice lessons. Both real life and internet.

Whilst I have used Audacity for years, I have never spent so much time in it and didn’t know this forum existed.

I did find another audio forum that whilst for recording tech was brilliant, they had no knowledge of Audacity and suggested I purchased other DAW software. I took the free trial of Reaper, but really didn’t want to invest the limited time I had to relearning techniques that seemed to work fine in Audacity and didn’t seem natural in Reaper. I am sure I felt that way in Audacity when I first started with it.

Didn’t expect the offer of somebody listening to the output as preparing the whole project and then finding a fundamental flaw would be off putting.
It is a shame they have stopped the audition service. Although, my earlier recordings were pretty awful.

I attach a 12 second clip of the first chapter. Which, in honesty is the first one I think is up to standard. If you are interested, the entire 6 month progression is loaded online.https://bit.ly/ozmaudio

The first files were processed through RX studio repair to try to remove the echo. (Insanely expensive software.)

And then each change in standard is part of my 6 month progression. Better room positioning, better equipment, more training, more equipment, better room, more experience.

Still growing - still learning.

6

Thanks for the prompt and accurate answers.

As far as we know.

The book is Monkey on my Shoulder

Did you write it? ACX makes you jump through serious hoops to nail down rights.

The first files were processed through RX studio repair to try to remove the echo … better room

You can get a remarkably modest microphone to work in a quiet room. The natural tendency is to try and buy your way out of sound distortion. It’s hard to buy a quiet room.

how hard can it be?

Said every person on earth with pulse, respiration, and heartbeat. It’s one of the reasons ACX is running behind on accepting and publishing. I’m not guessing. They said so on their web page.

~~

Can you hear the slightest FF and SS distortion? I’m not a terrific editor. We can wait for someone better at this kind of patching. This also supposes that you have good speakers or headphones as quality control check.

Koz

7

Yes, I wrote it. I did have to jump through some hoops because of anonymity. I wanted to keep my name away from easy discovery. However, I do get the earnings paid in every month. Not vast, but just about covers the website.

The last change I made to the file was Paul L de-esser and in fact that is what led me to this forum. I was trying to turn down the SS

The room issues were sorted on the audio forum. I did think I could buy out of it, but they pulled me and guided my creation of the ‘booth’ It’s actually a rise and fall desk that goes up to almost 5’ I mounted acoustic foam and hung it with duvets. I was recording directly to Audacity using a snowball, but lost a full session due to a rumbling stomach. I now use a tascam recorder to get a live/ monitor output to headphones. I can’t stop my gut rumble, but at least I know it occurred and can repeat the section.

It was a pro sound guy in Australia offered to RX the files for me. There is no way I could spend that kind of money.

Headphones are about as expensive as I can justify without wife going through the roof!