Meeting ACX Requirements

Audacity 3 Help Forum macOS
1

A bit of information before I start: I am using Mac OS Mojave, Version 10.14.6. Audacity version is 2.3.3.

I am new to the Audiobook world and am working hard to understand my equipment and setup prior to taking on any audiobook narration. Right now I am trying to understand how to edit an audiobook once it has been narrated. I believe I understand what I need to do prior to recording (quiet and treated room, good equipment - I have the Rode NT1 mic with pop filter etc., have downloaded Audacity and set up my preferences on it, have downloaded the most recent version of ACX Check plugin that I can find, and have played with Audacity for a few weeks every day to get a feel of it).

So, all that said, I have three questions:

  1. I have downloaded the ACX Check Plugin and it seems to be working. However, I absolutely cannot get the RMS Normalize Plugin to install. I have honestly spent hours and hours and hours trying to figure this out. Any help would be appreciated. So, is this a plugin I should actually have? Is it necessary?

  2. This is my most important question. I am hoping to set up macros to create a chain of effects so I don’t have to manually do this for every file. There is a ton of information out there to do this for the previous versions when it was called Chains, but I can’t find anything to help me with the updated versions of Audacity. Here is the chain I see floating around so often:

Effect > Filter curve… > Manage > Factory Presets > : Low roll-off for speech > OK.
Effect > RMS Normalize: Target RMS Level -20dB > OK.
Effect > Limiter: Soft Limit, 0.00, 0.00, -3.50dB, 10.00, No > OK.
Analyze > ACX-Check.

HOWEVER…I do not have RMS Normalize. I also don’t have a Limiter option.

Is there a macro out there for Audacity 2.3.3 that I can put in place to edit my audio files? Any information on this would be helpful.

  1. There are quite a few YouTube videos for editing audiobook files for ACX, but many of them are at least a few years old and using older versions of Audacity. Can anyone point me in the right direction for good quality content to help out a newb like me? I am really looking to learn, but want the best content out there to learn from.

Thanks a lot!!

2

I absolutely cannot get the RMS Normalize Plugin to install…

…So, is this a plugin I should actually have? Is it necessary?

Strange, but you can work-around that. Run ACX check and the difference from -20dB is the amount of gain you need. For example, if ACX check reports -26dB RMS, you need to amplify by +6dB.

You’ll probably need to “allow clipping” but that’s OK because the audio isn’t actually clipped (yet).

I also don’t have a Limiter option.

That’s also strange and that’s a bigger problem. You need the limiter to “push down” the peaks to get them in-spec, and to prevent clipping. And, you should limit before exporting because most formats will clip if you “try” to go over 0dB.