Yesterday, for the first time, I used audacity to make several recordings and the quality was excellent. Today I went in with, I thought, the exact same settings and setup and the quality is noticeably worse. I can’t understand what happened and if there’s a fix for this. Here is a sample of the good, then the not so good.
Any help or ideas is appreciated.
The second version is highly processed (AI?)
Automatic Windows update can enable “audio enhancements”.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/disable-audio-enhancements
Don’t do critical recordings on devices that get updates. The computer that you went to bed with last night is not the same one you woke up to this morning.
That’s a Zoom H1n stand-alone recorder in full studio configuration.
Koz
Dig that groovy mike stand/tripod … 
Note the heavy blue furniture moving pad on the desk.
I have a second microphone mount where I found rolls of coloured towels. One in a car parts store and another from the specialty cleaning department at Vons Grocery
Actually, if you can insure that the table or the floor doesn’t make noise, you can do very well putting the recorder right on the table. That’s Pressure Zone Configuration, if any body asks.
Voice volume doubles, the electronic noise goes down by half and the character of the microphone doesn’t change.
The other possibility if you know you’re going to be doing serious production is stop performing updates (gasp!). You can totally turn that off— it’s a setting. You may have to put up with graphic complaints and jumping up and down admonishments, but the machine should stay working until the next time you turn it loose.
We should remember who is serving whom.
Koz
Thanks for the info. I’m just curious. I’ve watched a lot of videos about recording audiobooks and no one has mentioned using a dedicated recorder. And I continue to be perplexed how I got a quality that I like a lot the first time around and now can’t get back to that same quality. I’ve tried all the suggestions I’ve run across and still can’t replicate whatever it was I did that first day of recording. Sigh. I suppose I can order this thing and give it a try. Doesn’t look like you think a separate mic is needed when using this. Thanks.
I probably wouldn’t spend any actual money until you fix your machine. Whatever you do, you’re going to have to clean up, cut, edit, and process your work in the computer after you shoot it. All the stand-alone recorder is going to do for you is give you a clean voice recording and good hardware backup.
Have you read through the ACX (I’m assming ACX) customizations and instructions? A certain amount of gentle room tone at the front and back of each chapter, no chapter longer than a certain number of minutes, etc. I have it here somewhere.
https://help.acx.com/s/article/what-are-the-acx-audio-submission-requirements
How many of them had their computer do magic things in the middle of production? Have any of them mentioned turning off computer updates for the duration of the show? When you go into a studio, they’re not recording on an IBM PC. They have dedicated microphones, mixing desks, and recorders.
I did a “How-To” a while back where I assumed everything went absolutely, totally perfectly.
It doesn’t read like the podcasts you met.
How many jobs does your computer have? Email? Watching YouTube, writing letters, [cringe] Zoom conferences? Is Zoom still running in the background?
Have you done a clean Windows Shutdown? Do your Control-Alt-Delete but press and hold the Shift key before you press Shutdown. Not Restart and not regular Shutdown. That should close and reset all your applications. It will take longer, but you should be left with a clear computer. See if that helps.
I’ll go look for my How-To.
Koz
Record your chapter in Mono (not Stereo) in a quiet, echo-free room. Include two seconds of hold-your-breath room tone at each end. Export a Protection WAV (Microsoft) file—errors and all.
Correct the accidents, fluffs, stutters, mis-speaks, and pronunciation errors. Make it sound pleasant. Use “Room Tone” for editing and not generated silence .
Apply 36Audiobook-Mastering-Macro. Check the chapter with ACX-Check. Export your Edit Master WAV (Microsoft) file. Export your 192 Constant-Quality, MP3 file for submission. Go make dinner.
There are certainly opportunities for missteps. But, just to do it, I recorded a short “chapter” on my phone in my quiet bedroom. A note. That’s an iPhone and I’m recording in Lossless Voice Memo. So it’s not crappy sound.
Using just that, I was able to produce a chapter that passes ACX Submission Standards.
Koz
Again many thanks. I’m actually using my closet as my “studio” because it does close out pretty much all extraneous noise and it did give me that nice quality from the first recording. I’m nowhere near the ACX time limit on my chapters, so that’s not an issue. I did download and apply the audiobook mastering macro but the resulting edit would then fail ACX for Peak level, RMS level and Noise floor. So, I went in and changed the macro to get the right peak level but then the RMS level would still fail. And if I manually chance the RMS level the peak level is, once again, too high. I will try the shutdown procedure you recommend and see if that helps. For me, given my time limitations, I just need to figure out something that gives me consistent results from day-to-day as I work my way through my book (I usually can only record for a couple of hours a couple of days a week). Are there particular Windows apps or processes I should be looking for that might interfere with my goal of consistency? Again, many thanks.
And the rest of the time, the computer has many other jobs? It appears that you should be able to sandwich audiobook reading among the other applications, but it doesn’t always work like that.
Absolutely do a clean shutdown and see if that recording distortion goes away. Do that before you mess with anything else. You didn’t say whether you use Skype, Zoom, Meetings or other conference apps. Those do not always get along with Audacity.
Mastering’s goal is to apply a rumble filter and then automatically set Peak and RMS (loudness) perfectly. That’s its job. If that’s not what happened, then there is something wrong. Do not change the macro settings.
There are two versions. The original Audiobook-Mastering-Macro.txt no longer works. It calls tools and processes that got changed in recent versions of Audacity. I re-wrote it as 36Audiobook-Mastering-Macro.txt. If it’s wrong in the instructions, I need to go in and change it.
36Audiobook-Mastering-Macro.txt (585 Bytes)
Isn’t this fun? By the way, I forbid my machines from hiding filename extensions. I’m grown up now, I can handle seeing .txt at the end of files. This is particularly important if something goes wrong. Having the computer hiding parts of the filename “to help me” is not welcome.
Post back how it goes.
Koz
It sounds to me like your first sample is recorded on the laptop’s internal mic, and the second sample is recorded on an external mic. Perhaps you didn’t have the external mic plugged in when you recorded the first sample. Check the Audio Setup and make sure you have the intended device selected.
I recommend recording voice on mono, too.
