Peak and Floor levels

[TJB]

So then I went back to the raw recording and adjusted according to your earlier success and came up with:
Peak was good 3.5
RMS was now good 20.6 ... BUT NOW ...
Noise floor failed 50

You're great to work with me on this and I deeply appreciate it.

[kozikowski]

My head is turning to mush ..............

Isn't this fun?

The ACX Standard has two limits and one range. The peaks can not be louder than -3dB and the noise can't be louder than -60dB, but the RMS must land between -18dB and -23dB. You do have to meet all three in the same show.

Could you get the tiny LEVEL SET light in the upper left to flash when you talked? That's kind of step 1.

Koz

[TJB]

yes ... it flashes. If I turn it up too much, it squeals. Right now I have it set at about the 3 o'clock position ... any higher it squeals.

I'm gonna take tonight off ... we can continue this tomorrow if you'd like

[TJB]

Koz, I dreamt about peaks, noise floors and RMS last night ...

I've promised the author that I'd record Chapter 1 today for him and will do so. We can use that, I suppose, to work magic on the peak/noise/RSM stuff when I'm finished. Once I finished the raw recording, I'll send you the ACX scorecard and maybe you can tell me what to do next .....
Thanx, Tom

[kozikowski]

If I turn it up too much, it squeals.

That's a danger sign. We'll discuss that when you're done.

I've promised the author that I'd record Chapter 1 today for him and will do so.

That's a New User error. "I need to become a professional engineer and actor. By lunch."

I need to go back up the message thread and see if I gave you enough details so you can patch it together yourself.

Are you good with editing out your mistakes? There's a fuzzy rule that editing takes five times the length of the show. That's if you're good at it and know all the tools.

Koz

[kozikowski]

One bright spot. I expect your new microphone and mixer to work. We just have to figure out the settings.

Read through the chapter and be sure you put that hold your breath and don't move segment at the beginning. That's called Room Tone. ACX needs Room Tone as part of the submission requirement and we need it for the filters and effects.

When you get to the end of live reading and before you do anything else, File > Export > Export as WAV. That's the safety backup. There are no options for this format. This is the first time you need to settle your bookkeeping.

Everybody knows what this is.

ClapBoard.jpg (40.54 KiB) Viewed 132 times

It's for sound synchronization, etc, etc, but less well known is the bookkeeping. Somebody looks at you weeks later and says: "I need everything we shot for the Scene "I Do Stuff." Where is it?"

It's your job to know.

Filename hygiene tells us it's OK to use Upper Case letters, lower case letters, numbers, _underscore_ and -dash- in filenames. No Other Characters. Today is 2020-04-18. No slash marks.


Back to Audacity. File > Save Project > Save Project. Use the filename rules and call it something you'll remember.

Apply Audiobook Mastering.

MasteringSuite.png (41.82 KiB) Viewed 132 times

If you're missing some of the tools, you can get them from the instructions.

https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audiobook_Mastering

You're getting power line hum and buzz from somewhere, so I applied US Hum Remover.

de-hum.ny

(2.11 KiB) Downloaded 4 times

HumRemover.png (32.64 KiB) Viewed 132 times

Followed by medium Noise Reduction.

If you've never used Effect > Noise Reduction before, it's in two steps. Drag-select a portion of your Hold Your Breath and Don't Move (Room Tone).

SelectRoomTone.png (13.53 KiB) Viewed 132 times

Effect > Noise Reduction > Profile.

Then, select the whole piece with the SELECT button on the left and actually apply Noise Reduction according to these settings.

NoiseReduction_8-6-6.png (50.26 KiB) Viewed 132 times

You should be able to inspect the piece with Analyze > ACX Check and it should pass like this.

Success.png (40.24 KiB) Viewed 132 times

Piece of cake, right?

Then you can get to work editing out your mistakes and fluffs.


You can zoom in and out to see accurate edit points and beginning and endings of words. There are thousands of Zoom tools. I only use three.

Drag-select some of the blue waves and zoom into them, Control+E. Zoom back out to the full show, Control+F. Zoom out a little bit Control+3.

When you get everything in perfect order, File > Export > Export as WAV a file called Edit Master followed by the names you settled on.

Then File > Export > Export as MP3: 192 - Constant Bitrate.

That's the one you actually send to ACX. They're not interested in the WAV files and you can't ever edit or change the MP3 once you make it.

192-ConstantBitrate.png (88.73 KiB) Viewed 132 times

ACX has a way for you to send them a test rather than taking a chance on the whole book failing in one go.

They changed it since the last time I looked.

https://audible.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/f ... VJXHqPX?c=


Koz

[TJB]

Koz ... fantastic ... how can I possibly go wrong

Here goes .... see you in a couple of hours

[kozikowski]

This is the landing page for ACX submission requirements. They don't mention submitting a test.

https://www.acx.com/help/acx-audio-subm ... /201456300

This is where you post back when you figure it out. I don't know.

All that filtering and patching is only going to get you past the first of two ACX inspections. The "robot" which works a lot like ACX Check and automatically figures out whether you have your microphone act together or not.

But then it goes on to Human Quality Control where an actual person listens to the work. That's where you get into trouble if you used too much Noise Reduction and your reading sounds like a bad cellphone. It has to sound natural and you have to pass everything.

Everything has to match. The beginning and endings of chapters, all the chapters in the middle and the first and last chapter. That means you can't change microphones or studios in the middle of a job. One of the forum posters had to move houses in the middle of reading a book. That was not fun.

It's not unusual for a New User to get to the end of a book a seasoned professional and go back and listen to the first few chanters when they read as rank beginners. And then read the first few over again.

Koz

[TJB]

KOZ, YOU'RE A MAGICIAN ... I FOLLOWED YOUR STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS STEP BY STEP ... 24 MIN RECORDING WITH PASSING GRADES IN ALL THREE AREAS (NOISE, RSM AND PEAKS).

IF YOU'RE EVER IN LOUISVILLE, I'LL BUY YOU DINNER AND A BEER

[kozikowski]

This process is not in addition to the other tools you've been using. It's stand-alone. The tools are designed to follow one another and do their job with little or no sound damage.

Compressors in particular can cause sound problems and distortion that can't be fixed later.

There are postings from people who designed different methods and tools for meeting ACX Standards, this isn't the only one. But, as a rule, you can't cross the methods and you can't pick and choose which filters and effects go where.

Koz