I need to sit and stare at those numbers for a second. That’s a very serious imbalance
I’m afraid anything I do is going to become audible.
…
nooooo, ahhh! I wonder why this is happening. So sad.
I appreciate you helping!!!
I’m afraid anything I do is going to become audible.
That’s a joke, isn’t it? That’s not a pun. Is it a play on words?
Run the suite with the original Ratio value of 2:1.
Tack this onto the end.
– Effect > Amplify > OK
– Effect > Limiter: 3dB, 10msec > OK
– Effect > Normalize: [X]Remove DC, [X]Normalize to -3.2 > OK
Post the analysis.
Koz
The limiter went through versions. Are you in Audacity 2.1.2?
Koz
Hi, yes, I’m in 2.1.2. Okay, I’ll go through all the previous steps with the low pass filter and after all that I will then add your most recent fixes and then I shall post the results.
What do I set the amplify to? I’ve fiddled with it in the past so I don’t know if it saved a previous setting or not. Right now it is at 3.845, peak 0, allow clipping
OMG so, freaking close!!! (gouges eyes out)
Okay this was after all the new filters. SO CLOSE
I unchecked the clipping box in amplify, should it be checked?
Amplify, unless you change it, will always try to cram the volume up as far as it can (0). I’m using that predictability to set the parameters for the limiter. The limiter will bring objectionable peaks back down from 0 and leave everything else alone.
The final cleanup in Normalize brings us into (hopefully) ACX compliance.
Koz
Do Not Allow Clipping. Clipping produces irrecoverable sound damage.
Put something on the timeline so you can see Effect > Equalization > Select Curve. Do you see LF Rolloff For Speech in that list?
Koz
Okey dokey, I do not see that from the list 
I know you probably figured this out by now, but this goes a lot faster if you repeatedly refresh your browser. In FireFox it’s a little curved arrow in the menu bar. It will not automatically show you the latest forum postings.
Koz
Ya, I’m in safari and I just keep clicking refresh. I’m trying!
It’s official. I don’t remember how to install custom equalizer curves… !@#$%
Download this from my web site.
http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/Documents/LF_rolloff_for_speech.xml.zip
It has the same data size as about six English sentences. It “looks” like a short shopping list. You should receive a Zip file. Unzip it into the original XML programming file.
LF_rolloff_for_speech.xml
Open some sound in Audacity so Effect > Equalization will open.
Effect > Equalization > Save/Manage Curves > Import. Point to LF_rolloff_for_speech.xml
Windows may try to hide the “xml” part of the name because this isn’t already hard enough.
From that point on, LF_rolloff_for_speech will be a part of your normal rolling stock of equalization settings.
Back to the show. Do you remember the show?
Put the test chapter on the timeline and Effect > Equalization > Load Curve > LF Rolloff…etc, Set the length slider to about 5000. > OK.
It should look a little like the attached (click or scroll around).
I expect little or nothing to happen to the quality of the sound, but a couple of dB worth of rumble (thunder, metrobuses) should vanish making it easier to make ACX Noise. You don’t have to actually have a metrobus. Some microphones make noise down there secure in the knowledge nobody can hear it. But ACX can hear it.
Then run the last good version of the whole suite. Ratio at 2:1 and follow the whole thing by Effect > Limiter.
okay this plan sounds good! I need to leave it here for now and pick it back up in the AM. I 
will surely be back on this ASAP tomorrow!!
Thank you for all your help!!!
I do in the back of my mind wonder why a normal woman’s announcing voice should have such extreme troubles. This is a similar rescue process as someone who walked out in the middle of a noisy street with a broken microphone and tried to read audiobooks.
Koz
This is where your data link restriction is going to cause problems. You can’t post the whole chapter somewhere can you?
Koz
Hi, yes I feel this is odd. Before we did not have any problems, we would just do normalize and then limiter and we were good to go well within the limits and ACX approved us lickity split for the 15 minutes. I don’t know why the RMS is like it is. We live in the middle of nowhere, no cars drive by hardly (cul de sac dead end house), I record in an upstairs large walk in closet, though we put high pile area rugs everywhere. I use a Blue Yeti Pro with the gain at 45%, I have a wind screen that sits there and I sit 2 inches behind the wind screen while reading. The only occasional noise I hear is an owl and my dog roaming around but then I just put her outside. I always record when nobody is home and typically when it’s just sunny outside so no rain or hail or wind gusts. We also do not live where airplanes fly overhead. So, really I don’t understand it at all.
I can post this chapter in drop box if that helps at all? Maybe I’m running the filters wrong I have yet to try the new download. My husband is a day trader so I typically have to wait until after closing bell (EST) to get on here.
Maybe I’m running the filters wrong
I hope so. By that I mean that’s easily fixed.
If I have a shot at the whole chapter, that will eliminate a lot of the “Black Box” aspect of this process. Why does the 18 second sample apparently not match at all the whole chapter?
I know you can make a DropBox Private and you can make one public, but can you assign one to someone or restrict the access?
That’s up to you, of course. I don’t know what anyone would do with an orphan chapter from a book.
Koz
Hi, that’s a good question why it doesn’t match the raw 18 second clip. I couldn’t tell you, I don’t know enough about any of this to make an educated guess. Um, I’m also fairly new to drop box- the only people who we have shared files with are the author who also doesn’t know drop box well. But either way- I can put it in drop box and attempt to put it private, otherwise I’m okay with it being public. Do not mind the nature of the book which is R-X rated. I will PM you the link, or whatever it is. Thank you!!!
I feel like between me, my husband, and the author- we are all a bunch of clowns trying to get to the circus. None of us have any experience with it and none of us are much help to the other.