Hi there. I’m a new member. This is my first post, so I hope I’m not breaking any rules. I’ve been using Audacity for a long time. I just started recording my first audiobook, however, and this has presented some new challenges with the ACX guidelines. I also have a new home studio and new equipment. I was reading some posts related to my challenges and wondered if it’s okay for me to submit a sample for testing. I recorded the blurb about the cows (file attached).
I’m overwhelmed with trying to understand the science behind what is actually required rather than just using the tools to process and tweak until the numbers work, which I obviously don’t want to do. My attached file has not been “processed.”
Thanks, in advance, if someone can actually explain to me what is needed to convert this from raw to mastered, ACX-approved format.
I’m overwhelmed with trying to understand the science behind what is actually required rather than just using the tools to process
The Low Rolloff kills the low frequencies (deep bass) below the voice range. There is often (relatively) a lot of low frequency room noise and this will remove the low-frequency part of the noise. You may not hear the low-frequency noise, but it usually can be measured and the ACX are very strict.
RMS Normalize is simply a level adjustment to set the overall “loudness”. The RMS level is a kind-of average.
The Limiter “pushes down” the waveform peaks which are often out-of-spec after adjusting-up the RMS level. (Reducing the peaks normally has little or no affect on perceived loudness.)
If you need Noise Reduction (which your sample does not) the processing is complicated and if you need lots of noise reduction you can get side effects.