I have had my audio book professionally produced. Audio is clear and sounds great. However, Audible.com says I must upload files that are at least 192kpbs. I tired importing a file and exporting with “Extreme” MP3 setting which is at least 200kbps. Is there a trick to doing this? Is there some sort of meta data that Audible looks at that I could edit manually?
(Yes, I know I could lose quality by resampling. If I actually accomplished this it sounds the same to my untrained ear.)
Thanks for any help you can provide. Oh yes, I reached out to the production house. I hope they have the original high quality files and can output to Audible’s specs. But it’s Saturday and I set aside the weekend to getting this done.
Yes it is possible to transcode lower bit-rate to higher, but in-practice the result will sound lower quality than the original.
So if you are transcoding mp3 use the highest mp3 rate : 320kbps to minimise generation loss …
You don’t resample. MP3s get funny if you do that.
The studio should deliver WAV archive files in addition to anything else. Open their WAV archives and File > Export > Export as MP3: MP3, Constant, 192. You should be in mono (one blue wave), so the stereo options don’t do anything.
If you took delivery of MP3 from the studio, note the bit rate. The voice quality will never get any better than that no matter what you do and you can make it worse by resampling. Did you tell them you were targeting an audiobook reading? They should know about that 192 thing.
ACX resamples your work for many different products and services. They’re going to resample which is why they need the 192 (very high bit rate) from you. The quality will go down as they go. If you deliver a lower quality, somebody at the end of the pile is going to get a ratty product.
If you got lucky, the studio still has the perfect quality WAV files around. I never throw anything like that away until I have to.
