ACX Mastering

[lwitek]

So sorry for all the trouble Koz. I appreciate all you have done.

Thank you, Laura

[kozikowski]

I think I got it nailed. Steve (senior elf) wrote a tool that fills in some of the absences in the current Audacity processing suite. It's literally computer code. No graphics, no help and no guidance. I'm preparing enough info so you can use it. Starting from the download we have in common (DB Chapter 1 Edited.wav), I was able to process to this with just two tools.

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It even sounds reasonable. I'm going to squeeze my processed work down to an MP3 for viewing and listening, only. For anything serious or important, we need to ship the WAV file around.

As we go.

Koz

[kozikowski]

I'm going to squeeze my processed work down to an MP3

Oh no I'm not. It's too big. After I get the instructions together, it should look like this:

Screen Shot 2016-12-06 at 19.10.32.png (72.15 KiB) Viewed 2569 times

You may need to resize your browser to see the whole thing.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Effect (scroll down) > Limiter.
Do you have that tool? If you open it on a piece of scrap sound, the first selection should have four options starting with Soft Limit.

It's better than even chance you may need to download that.

Let us know.

Koz

[kozikowski]

It has an instruction page, so there's hope.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/limiter.html

Koz

[lwitek]

Hi Koz,

I have the limiter. Is this the only effect I need?

Thank you so much... Laura

[kozikowski]

Is this the only effect I need?

No. We're going to make the second effect.

I need to shift gears.

Koz

[kozikowski]

========================================


;version 4
;control target "Target RMS level" float "dB" -20 -40 -6
;control mode "Normalize stereo channels" choice "Linked stereo,Independently" 0

(setf target (db-to-linear target))

(defun mean-sq (sig ln)
(let ((j 1) (total 0))
(when (> ln 1000000)
(setf j (round (/ ln 1000.0)))
(setf ln 1000))
(setf msq (snd-avg (mult sig sig) ln ln op-average))
(dotimes (i j)
(setf total (+ (snd-fetch msq) total)))
(/ total j)))

(defun rms-mono (sig target ln)
(mult sig
(/ target (sqrt (mean-sq sig ln)))))

(defun rms-stereo (sig target ln)
(mult sig
(/ target
(sqrt (/ (+ (mean-sq (aref sig 0) ln)
(mean-sq (aref sig 1) ln))
2.0)))))

(if (= mode 1) ;independent
(multichan-expand #'rms-mono *track* target (truncate len))
(if (arrayp *track*) ;joined stereo
(rms-stereo *track* target (truncate len))
(rms-mono *track* target (truncate len)))) ;mono


=============================================


The above I'm calling "SetRMS" for lack of a better name. It directly adjusts RMS (Loudness) to ACX without all this beating about the bush with other tools.

In the above message, it's all the text without the top and bottom blank spaces and equal signs. You will need to drag-select the text (computer code) and Copy it using your computer Copy command.

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-- Open DB Chapter 1 Edited.wav in Audacity.

-- Select it all by clicking just above MUTE.

-- Effect > Nyquist Prompt > Paste > OK. The little window should fill up with lots of parens, punctuation marks and semi-English words. > OK.

-- Target RMS -20.00, Linked Stereo > OK.

-- The show will sit there staring blankly at you for quite some time, but in the background, SetRMS is pounding away figuring out where to put the corrected blue waves. I have a reasonably fast machine and it took 20 seconds. If yours is slower, you may be able to make tea.

If you get a response panel or other error message, it failed.

The blue waves will get much taller and some of them may expand off the timeline window. This is normal. If you have View > Show Clipping enabled you will see a forest of thin red warnings. That's normal, too. I'm using Audacity's odd ability to gracefully manage over-range sound without damage.

-- Effect > Limiter: Soft Limit, 0.00, 0.00, -3.50, 10.00, No > OK.

Limiter is a more finished tool than SetRMS. It has an annunciator panel and will tell you where it is in the process.

-- Analyze > ACX Check.

Listen around 10 minutes at "Rob? You called him Rob!!" That's where the tools had to do the most work. That was your theatrical expression phrase.

Koz

[lwitek]

Incredible Koz....

Worked, first time, exactly how you spelled it out.

I'm embarrassed that my "theatrics" LOL at the 10 minute mark, seemed to create a need for all this "custom code".

[lwitek]

000 aaa.png (9.5 KiB) Viewed 2570 times

Thank you so much. I am going to try this for chapter 2....

I truly appreciate your help.

Sincerely, Laura