Hello there I am an Italian VO artist, I’m fairly new to record on my own at home.
The issue I am experiencing is this: I record my audio, (mostly commercial material, so not too long) and I usually record it few times in one track. When I check for ACX standards it passes. No problem.
However when I start the editing, deleting room tone at the beginning or at the end, deleting two of the readings to leave the best one, deleting mouth noises or breathing, the ACX standards are all messed up and my track doesn’t pass the ACX test anymore.
As it is suggested in the forum I always apply the effects: limiter, loudness normalization and filter curve.
How can I edit without encountering this issue and keep the ACX standards in place throughout the entire track?
Thank you so so so much. I really appreciate any help.
Broadcast standards may be different from audiobook standards. You may be allowed to hit 0dB (or get closer to 0dB) on the peaks and there may be an LUFS loudness standard instead of RMS.
Something is off. Nobody can read directly into ACX from home. Are you using a special effects mixer or other real-time processor with your microphone?
limiter, loudness normalization and filter curve
That’s exactly backwards. The mastering suite needs to be applied in order, with no additional tools, and none left out. That could be where the mastering of the final piece is failing.
Audiobook Mastering guarantees Peak and RMS. If you recorded in a nice quiet room, Noise will work, too.
deleting room tone at the beginning or at the end
You mean silencing the room noise? ACX doesn’t like you doing that. Human Quality Control may catch you with nice, quiet beginning and end, but noisy words. Everything should match.
Also, there are no compressors in Audiobook Mastering. If your announcing style has large volume changes, then maybe one of the other mastering processes is for you. We’re not the only one.
Thank you so much Doug. I will try to record 2 to 4 sec room tone and do the mastering after the recording.
What is failing for me is the editing. Once I record the entire script in audacity, I go to “analyze” check ACX and it passes everything, but the problem comes when I edit it. Removing room tone at the beginning and at the end screws up the RMS, peaks and noise floor.
It’s either the RMS too quiet or the noise floor became too loud.
