Hello,
I record audi0books and after I recently installed 3.6.1, the limiter effect in the macro manager I use does not limit to the -3 ACX requires even though I left the settings as is. I went back to a previous .wav file that had before passed the ACX check, and had the same issue. This may be a user error, but I did not make changes to my macro manager after installing the new version and wondered if others were having similar issues?
Thanks,
Melissa
Audiobook Mastering Macro no longer works as designed. It calls tools that have been changed in Audacity 3.6. A 3.6 version of Mastering is on my to-do list.
The easy way out is roll your machine back to Audacity 3.4.2 where everything works as designed.
You can get older Audacity installers here.
When you install the version you want, Tools > Reset Configuration to keep 3.6 contamination away.
Koz
Great, thank you so much!
Deep Breath. This is what the step-by-step 3.6 Audiobook Mastering looks like.
`
— Audacity 3.6 Audiobook Mastering —
Select > All
Effect > Eq and Filters > Filter Curve EQ > Presets & settings > Factory Presets > Low rolloff for speech. Apply.
Select > All
Effect > Volume and Compression > Loudness Normalization > Normalize RMS to -20dB > Apply
Select > All
Effect > Steve Daulton > Limiter >Presets & settings > Factory Presets > Defaults.
Change Limit to -3.50dB > Apply
`
— ACX-Check 3.6 —
Analyze > Steve Daulton > ACX Check
Notes:
— This will have to do until I write the New Macro
— You may find that some settings stick past the first time you use them and the process is a lot shorter than it looks. Select > All sticks unless you change it.
— The goal is to hit the ACX audiobook volume specifications exactly— and still sound like you. If you record in a quiet, echo-free room, you may pass noise and be done. File > Export the WAV as Edit Master, File Export the MP3 chapter submission in 192 Constant, and go on to the next chapter.
I see File > Export changed, too. More later.
More Starbucks, please.
Koz
Oh gosh! Thank you so much for taking the time to lay this all out! I really appreciate it!
It occurs to me to ask. Are you using Audiobook-Mastering-Macro? What does it say in your Macro listings? I’m not the only one who wrote one of these things.
Did you find that ACX-Check doesn’t always work right, either?
Some of the Audacity legacy programs and codes were carried forward, but you have to know where to look for them.
I was surprised to look at one of the other applications. They took a very different path than I did. I wonder if theirs still works. Mine is straight out of radio and television broadcasting.
Koz
I’m embarrassed to say I did not know there was an Audiobook-Mastering-Macro…where can I find that? 
I created my own and set each effect to the ACX guidelines: Filter Curve, RMS Normalize, Limiter, Noise Gate, ACX Check.
It has worked well up until the latest audacity version. I have not had problems with the ACX check not working properly. I do a double check of each mp3 on the ACX audio lab.
Doesn’t work in Audacity 3.6. 3.4.2 and before. There 's even a note if you’re in a really old Audacity.
That long thing I posted by hand is what you do to get the basic macro goal to work, then you write the actual Macro code getting the whole thing down to one step.
I do not use Noise Gate. You can get in trouble with that. If ACX Quality Control catches any of the damage Noise Gate can cause, they will bounce your whole book.
My personal preference is simple noise reduction at the 6.6.6 settings. Noise Reduction of the Beast. You can’t hear it working. The goal is to hit or exceed -65dB background noise, not total silence. One other forum poster got stuck with that. “But I can still hear the noise!!” he complained turning his headphone volume up.
As long as it’s gentle spring rain in the trees (fffff) and is quieter than -65dB, it passes. I did a recent microphone test whose noise came in at about -61dB right out of the recorder. Technically, that does pass…barely. So I applied Noise Reduction and produced -67dB noise.
It occurs to me I don’t know how the 3.6 noise reduction works.
[runs screaming into the night]
Well shoot! I’ve been using my home-made macro for years, and just recently added noise gate (for the same reason, lol). No issues with ACX yet, but I’ll pull it back out just in case!
I panicked a bit when my macro didn’t work the way it was supposed to and changed some settings so I’ll have to go back in. Oops!
Yeah. That was not welcome the first time I had a complaint about wonky sound values. It’s sneaky. If you Install 3.6 and Tools > Reset Configuration, everything fails immediately, but if you let the older configuration ooze forward, some of it will sorta work… !@#$%
I’ve been recommending sticking with Audacity 3.4.2 until you get the newer Audacity versions stable. Also remember, you can’t patch or change an MP3 once you make it. Export your Edit Master chapters as WAV (Microsoft) (not only Projects) and only then File Export the MP3 as 192-Constant MP3.
Noise Gate does not work for general application. If you come out of your studio with quiet chapters, it will not matter, but if you have “Home Recorder” noise in the background, Noise Gate will give you noisy/gritty words in a velvety quiet chapter. Even worse, Noisy words will pass ACX-Check, and ACX Audio Lab doesn’t check noise. But ACX Human Quality Control does check. It qualifies as “Distraction” and will trigger a rejection.
If you have other kinds of noise, the rules change. There is a broken USB microphone noise that sounds like screaming mosquitoes. We have (had) a special filter for that.
Koz
FYI I was ready to hurt someone and your post totally helped me figure things out and fix it. I ended up just disabling the built-in Limiter and replacing it with the Steve Daulton one, and now everything works like it used to! Thank you so much!!! 
Shannon
Or.
You can use 36Audiobook-Mastering-Macro which does use the limiter native to Audacity 3.6.
36Audiobook-Mastering-Macro.txt (585 Bytes)
Turns out the secret was the new limiter has two places to set thresholds, not just one like in the old tools. If you run the old Mastering in 3.6.1, one of the settings—the abandoned one—will go nuts and crash your sound to maximum volume. You probably noticed that. The new Mastering produces work tiny fractionally different from the old one. Both will produce passing chapters and sound clean.
As far back as I checked (3.4.2), 36Audiobook-Mastering-Macro works in all the older Audacity versions.
Note 2.4.2 won’t run either Mastering. It doesn’t like the comment line in the programming.
ACX-Check still has to come from Steve Daulton. I tried installing it cold as a regular tool and no go. No idea why. It does its job—I did check.
Koz
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