Narration review & tips required, for ACX audiobook

Special Interest Groups Audiobook Production
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(All rights of the clip above reserved to Venla Bevan. Title: Adventures of a Flying Squirrel in Faraway Lands 2024)

The clip above is a test recording, it contains some miss-spellings in narration, as that is what I am currently working on.
I am most concerned about how my theatrical narration sounds to the listener. There are fairly high elevations and low-downs between when I am playing a part, and when I am using my narrating voice. Does this provide a problem to listeners and make it generally uncomfortable to the ear, or is this style mostly fine? Any other ear-sores I should take to concideration?

This sort of theatrics come quite naturally to me and I find it hard to keep my voice steady when I am in character. Tips from other narrators are very welcome. I rather not use compression if it can be avoided.

Mic used: Deity VO-7U, Gain ~60% from max, distanse to mouth about ~18cm.
Recorded with: Audacity
Plugins used: Filter Curve EQ-Low rollof for speech, Loudness normalization, Peak limiter : all to ACX standard.
The clip passed ACX requirements as is.

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Too much loudness variation compared with a typical audiobook …
too much loudness variation
Youlean Loudness Meter - Free VST, AU and AAX plugin (free plugin)

Some sort of dynamic range compression is the only cure.
dynamic range compression

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It’s not the worst idea to wear big, fluffy wired headphones and listen to yourself while you present. It’s self-correcting when your voice vanishes during theatrical expression or you blow your ears off.

It’s also a poor idea to go into a project with the idea that you’re going to have to rescue it.

All that and ACX isn’t fond of voice processing. They call it a distraction and they hate distractions.

Koz

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