I heard back today that I was supposed to separate the opening credits from the quotes at the beginning, turn them into a ‘prologue.’ I was pleased that I heard from a specific person who responded back immediately with a question I had. This is my first submission, so I expect they’ll be looking at it all closely. Do the theatrical reviewers really listen to all 13 hours? That seems improbable. How could they afford that? Just uploading the files they were checked automatically for the technical requirements, noisefloor, RMS, all that.
ACX Audiobook Testing
It’s not likely somebody is going to sit through 13 hours of work. But they don’t have to. Quality Control has rules and techniques.
We can tell you with almost surgical accuracy what the hardware test is (RMS, etc.) because they say so in clear English, and we have actual experience of forum posters who reported their successes and failures. That and their path can be automated. Submission > Hardware Test > Further Testing.
That’s the easy part. Human Quality Control can take a bit of a touch, but that’s no mystery, either:
Are you a first time submission?
Did you put the right room tone segments in the right places? Did you follow the recommended format: Introduction, Chapter Headings, etc.
Do you sound like a bad cellphone or answering machine? (overprocessing!!!). Do you make mouth noises? (drink apple juice!) Are you sick? (asthma gasping—that happened once.)
All that in the first paragraph or even couple of sentences.
If everything seems OK, spot check down the book. The paragraphs and both ends of the book need to match. If your reading got this far, chances are good you have this process licked. I doubt anyone is going to find that one paper rattle 2/3 through a long book, as an example.
There is one mystery. What happens if you can’t read out loud? Your reading is technically perfect, but it makes the listener cringe, squirm in their seat or cover their ears. I suspect those get bumped up to a department manager or higher authority, particularly if the reader and author are the same person. They are a business and businesses don’t like putting out marginal products. That said, you don’t need to be a BBC Presenter. One of my favorite readers is Sarah Vowell who has a very strange reading style I like. She’s also moderately famous, so I suspect that helped.
http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/clips/Pro/SaraVowellAssassinationList.mp3
They don’t have to diagnose your recording environment and theatrical technique. They just have to find one serious thing wrong. Any interaction beyond notifying you of the error is a gift.
The process can get scrambled. There was one poster who sailed right through Audacity ACX Check but failed noise. ??? What actually happened was the poster had a very quiet background noise that sounded like a child screaming on a jet. Ever try to ignore that? It’s built into our genes not to.
There are microphone and computer combinations which naturally produce that irritating sound. We went to a lot of trouble to design an effect specifically to get rid of it.
So that’s the deal. We can do some of that diagnosis here, which can be a lot faster than waiting for the ACX cycle.
Koz
As to whether it’s likely I’ll pass theatrical I have mainly to refer to your very much appreciated comment at the bottom of this page:
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/file-conversion-editing-and-fidelity/215/1
That remark seriously influenced how seriously I’ve taken this. I felt a serious letdown when I was done with the project. I want to do some more. I’m hoping the narrator gigs open on Audible aren’t too crowded a field and I can find some gigs.
Once we get out of the hardware realm (noise, RMS, etc) it’s all opinion, and the opinion that matters is theirs.
Koz