Self-producing an Audiobook

Special Interest Groups Audiobook Production
2

  1. Mono. Mono is a thing. It’s not just one of the two stereo channels. Almost all stereo systems “know” what Mono is and will play it to both stereo speakers. Most CD services and systems “know” to make a CD which will play to both stereo speakers.

  2. Uncompressed WAV. In Audacity-Speak, File > Export as WAV (Microsoft) 16-bit. You can make WAV into anything else with little or no loss in quality. MP3 is a playback format, not a production format. If you edit an MP3, its quality degenerates. It is pointed out that ACX demands submission in MP3. True, but they also have to store all their reader’s work on servers which cost money, and they have very stringent requirements as to the quality level of MP3 to submit. It’s not just ratty, play it on an iPod quality. WAV is much better. WAV is recommended for personal archive anyway, whether you submit lower quality to ACX or not.

A side note: WAV matches CD quality. They’re the same. Making an MP3 in the middle needlessly reduces sound quality.

  1. The volume and quality levels for AudioBook are not a mystery. But passing can be a little rough. Submission quality is slightly different from recording quality.

Record in Audacity such that the -6dB (yellow) level of the recording meters gets touched on occasion.

You can pull the Audacity sound meters bigger to make them easier to see. I like mine full-width.

After you finish, adjust volume and any other effects and filters needed such that maximum peaks are lower than -3dB, RMS (Loudness) level is between -18dB and -23dB and the noise level (when you stop talking) is lower than -60dB.

https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/measure-between-23db-and-18db-rms/32770/16

Audacity forum publishes ACX-Check which is an Analyze tool to tell you the condition of your work with respect to ACX.

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Analyze_Plug-ins#ACX_Check

We will note ACX-Check will only tell you the technical specification. After you pass that, you still have to pass Human Quality Control and one of their failures is “Overprocessing,” where you pass ACX-Test, but your show sounds like a bad cellphone.

If you submit a sound test, we can sometimes tell you which processing or corrections to make.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/TestClip/Record_A_Clip.html

It’s very common to meet two of the three specifications, but not all three at the same time.


Since you’re self-publishing, you can do whatever you want, but it’s good to match existing, published works.

Let us know.

Koz