I’m not sure if it should be AudioBook or Audiobook - Our Wording consistency page has the second form right now
Peter.
Oh, I think I see it. There’s a little tick at about 5 seconds (there may be more). That’s not a logical place for a lip smack, I don’t think, so the computer may be doing that. That could be fun. Hope for lip smacks. Those are relatively easy to deal with.
Trying to cure data errors in the computer can be really entertaining.
There is an up side. ACX rarely rejects submissions because or human noises. Breathing typically goes straight through. This may be a good time for a test submission.
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-send-a-test-to-acx/49588/1
Koz
It sounds good, for most purposes, excellent. But … I can hear a motor/fan on “can opener”.
I’m not imagining it : if an extreme degree of compression is applied the motor/fan can be heard throughout …
If you want people to part with money you need to do a bit more to reduce that motor/fan noise,
(and DeClick),
You can reduce the can opener with gentle noise reduction. After mastering, drag-select a bit of the 2-second room tone and Effect > Noise Reduction: Profile.
Then select the whole performance by clicking just right of the up arrow on the left.
And Effect > Noise Reduction: 6, 6, 6 > OK.
That should reduce the noise without affecting your voice.
Koz
Audiobook
That works. We’ll make it into a simple word instead of a compound.
Koz
We should note that the standard for background noises is some 13dB louder than your can opener. So you’re already doing quite some better than the ACX cutoff. Balance that against needing to remember to perform all your corrections for each and every chapter.
Keep notes.
Koz
Thanks Koz, I’ll sort that.
Peter.
Balance that against needing to remember to perform all your corrections for each and every chapter.
Not sure what that means Kos? I appreciate any and all constructive criticism you can give me. If I’m being a pain in the butt, please feel free to hand me off to someone else, or tell me where I get get the info I seek.
Trebor,
I don’t know how there is a fan motor noise in my recording. There are no fans, or motors of any kind running in my location. I was suspecting my computer which sits right next to the vocal booth. According to the tech at Apple, my iMac doesn’t have a fan. I even took my mic out of the booth and set it down right behind the computer and clicked on the mic recording level to see if it was picking up any noise, but nothing. But I will study up on how to eliminate these sounds. you gentlemen have given me a lot of great info. I wish there was a class that I could take to learn this stuff. I do much better when I can talk to and ask questions to alive person.
Done- see: Missing features - Audacity Support
Peter.
That’s also what Wikipedia says: Audiobook - Wikipedia
Phew …
It’s also what Connie says (now)
Peter
Not sure what that means Kos?
I hear the noise too, but I had to crank up the volume on my speaker system to do it. In my opinion that doesn’t count. If you dig enough, you can always find something wrong. But the object is not to dig. The object is to produce a saleable work that passes the standards of ACX and you can do that now. I think you should let them tell you there’s something wrong.
This is one of the less attractive parts of production. The juggling act of production complexity and effort versus just getting the work out the door. Who is going to listen to your book in a studio? My guess is 0.0 people. Most of us are going to enjoy the work on portable music devices while running, walking or doing something else in noisy environments. Or worse, driving.
So my interest going forward is trying to figure out where the noise is coming from—separate from producing a book. As you say, there should be no noise at all and first tests are puzzling. I don’t remember if I mentioned my own Mystery Noise, a hum that just would not quit which turned out to be a bass speaker cabinet with a defective power supply. That had me going for over a year.
Start a recording and lift the microphone up from the desk. Did the hum change? Nobody ever thinks about junk coming up from the floor, desk or table. Is the microphone cable tight? There is such a thing as vibration noise coming up the cable. The cable should always be a little loose or have a “drip loop” in it.
Desperation method has you starting a recording and then piling towels or other heavy cloth around the microphone. Did the noise change? It’s possible (but not likely) that it’s not sound noise, that your electrical setup is doing something wrong.
I followed a internationally respected engineer around the TV station once while he was doing a survey. What impressed me was he was doing everything I would be doing but he didn’t make any assumptions or skip any steps. That and he loved talking about what he was doing (I think everybody else was afraid of him). That was worth several college courses right there.
Koz
Very well said Mr. Kos. Thank you!
Need to figure out how to get those plug-ins installed, new stuff for me, hopefully I won’t have to bug you about that. But I’ll get it worked out.
Thanks for your time!
Christian
Sorry, me again. I’m trying to download the plugins like ACX-Check, De-Clicker and so on from the links that have been provided. I’m not getting any kind of program, seems like just a text file. The extension.ny doesn’t open any kind of download. Like I said, it’s some kind of text document. Sorry
Christian, see this page in the Manual: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/installing_effect_generator_and_analyzer_plug_ins_on_mac_os_x.html
Peter.
Thank you Kos! I managed to get it installed. I gave ACX Check a try with the “The Cat” file you checked but with a different result.
Is there a reason why my test failed? Maybe I did something different/wrong. Sorry the pics are so big.
The specifications for raw reading and the ones for finished submission are different on purpose. Raw reading has to take into account the possibility of high voice volume and overload damage (very, very bad) and so the specification is quieter than the book submission. Live Reading Audio Peaks (tips of blue waves) should occasionally reach up to about 50% which is about -6dB on the bouncing sound meter.
That’s quieter than ACX submission standards which are pretty strict. So you can only use ACX Check after you master. You can’t announce straight into an audiobook. Or you might do that once by accident, but not reliably for all the chapters in a book.
-Mastering-
Equalizer to get rid of rumble and microphone errors, RMS Normalize to set loudness and Limiter to take care of blue wave errors. As it says in the instructions, if you have a quiet room and know how to read out loud, that may be all you need.
https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audiobook_Mastering
Koz
Your readings are slightly hotter or higher volume than is probably good. See where your peaks are at -2.8dB (first reading). Those should hover around -6dB or so (quieter). With peaks that high, you can’t have excitement or “yell” as part of the show. The sound track will overload and distort.
So run it a bit quieter and then let Mastering make up the difference between what you shot and what they want.
Koz
If you do need to yell as part of the show, there are pro techniques where you back away a little or yell off center so the microphone gets the stress in your voice without the sudden high volume.
Koz
This is The Cat mastered. It sounds exactly like you, but this time it fits in the ACX specifications.
Koz