I have an audio book that is over four hours long and I am spending hours and hours scrolling along the time line back and forth from the end. Is there either:
Any help hugely appreciated!
Thanks
Adam
I have an audio book that is over four hours long
You can’t submit that. You should be in chapters and each chapter no longer than 120 minutes, usually much less.
That’s from here.
https://www.acx.com/help/acx-audio-submission-requirements/201456300
- A way to skip to a particular time code of the audio book
Audacity doesn’t support SMPTE Time Code or Frame Code. All we have is running time. We do have labels.
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/label_tracks.html
Please note near the bottom of the instructions the ability to force synchronize the voice track and the labels. If you don’t, one will change without the other.
- A way to record voice directly into a selected part of the audiobook
We do have Punch and Roll.
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/punch_and_roll_record.html
But that doesn’t put new work in the middle of old work. That’s an electronic version of audiotape which destroys everything from the in-point to the end of the chapter.
Patching in the middle of a chapter is not for the easily frightened. It’s terrifically difficult to make everything match and ACX is watching for any distracting error.
One way is to record a correction is on a second timeline and then use the Time Shift Tool (two sideways black arrows) to push the correction into place. Then split the original track so the correction fits in the hole. Audacity will play both tracks at once unless you stop it. It exports work that way, too.
None of this is going to work if you don’t have convenient chapters. Reading corrections into a whole book all at once is a nightmare.
I can make this worse. Do you pass technical standards, loudness, noise, etc?
Read a 20 second test clip and post it here on the forum.
http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/TestClip/Record_A_Clip.html
Please follow the instructions. Don’t help and don’t ad-lib.
Koz
This is one way to manage a center-of-performance change.
There may be other ways to do that, but this technique is handy because it allows you do “tune” the correction without the two segments bumping into each other. It’s strongly recommended you record corrections as complete sentences or paragraphs. Nobody can correct a single word in the middle of a chapter.
Koz
Thanks for help on this - I did not know I needed to submit the book as a series of separate chapters - good to know!
Reading the requirements has raised another issue
In a few places in my book characters cry out or shout and inevitably the levels on these bits are a bit high. Is there any way that I can lower the levels on these exclamations so that they do not hurt people’s ears when they are listening!
Thanks
Adam
Audacity has the Envelope tool. Two vertical arrows and bent line up in the toolbar. That lets you change selected segments [as needed.
so that they do not hurt people’s ears when they are listening!
ACX technical standards are far stricter than that.
We have published mastering tools which may be able to save you a lot of work. We may be able to help your shouting segments automatically.
Read a 20 second test clip and post it here on the forum.
http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/TestClip/Record_A_Clip.html
Please follow the instructions. Don’t help and don’t ad-lib.
Koz
Thank you - brilliantly helpful
I have attempted to upload my first file to ACX (my opening credits to my audiobook lasting about 15 seconds with ambient room sound either side) but it has been rejected - the message comes up ‘please replace with a file of at least 192 bit rate’
I did do a sound test a while back and it was approved so I thought the way I was recording was fine - Ive now recored 4 hours of narrative but the bit rate is wrong - have I wasted my time or is there a fix?
Any help appreciated!
Adam
When you prepare work for submission, File > Export > Export as MP3. The bottom of that panel should give you the option to set the bitrate.
I’m confused how you got past the testers the first time and not the second.
have I wasted my time or is there a fix?
It is recommended that you read chapters into perfect quality WAV sound files (and not Audacity Projects or MP3). Those are your archive and production masters. Save those in a safe place—preferably two safe places.
Only then open one in Audacity and Export as MP3 audiobook submission, usually mono at 192 quality (or bitrate). You can’t edit or change an MP3 sound file without increasing audio compression damage. MP3 is a delivery format and you should not be doing production or editing in MP3.
If you picked a lower quality bit rate than 192, then you may be stuck. Even if you opened your existing MP3 work and exported at the required 192, what you will then have is a 192 bitrate MP3 with lower quality sound damage burned in. There is no recovery.
I’m really disappointed they passed your test clip even though it had something wrong with it. That’s the kiss of death for a New User.
Koz
I keep coming back to not knowing something important about this. We keep common error scenarios in our heads and this one doesn’t fit any of them.
Whose audio processing are you using? In general, most people can’t read directly into Audiobook standards.
If you produced the whole book in some lower quality/bitrate and didn’t change the export settings, then you submitted all the work so far in the lower quality. I think it’s worth a note to ACX asking how they passed the test if the identical quality submitted work was going to be wrong.
This is in your court, remembering we can’t see your computer.
Koz
OK I have nearly sorted all the issues that the ACX technician has raised but this one is really frying my brain.
Issue: 19 files have a low RMS and are too quiet: Please see attached document for a graph of affected files.
Requirement: files measuring between -23dB and -18dB RMS
Solution: Please raise the overall RMS level of each file to within our requirement. For example, if a file’s RMS is -30dB RMS, it must be raised +8dB to be within our -18dB to -23dB RMS requirement range.
OK here’s my problem:
A[attachment=0]Screen Shot 2019-03-28 at 16.58.36.png[/attachment
A]ll of the dB settings for every file are at 0 dB - in the centre
I am being told the files are too quiet but am being told to fix this I must REDUCE the dB level to between -23dB and -18dB , making them much much quieter!
What can he possibly mean!
Thanks for any help
(and by the way all your help has been hugely appreciated so far!)
Best wishes
Adam
