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ACX Mastering levels
Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2017 4:31 pm
by lcastleb1
Greetings. Looking for help with a file I'm trying to master for ACX. I've played with both amply and normalizing but cant seem to get the Clipping and peak values to both meet. I've attached a copy of what the acx checker states (sorry, haven't figured out how to cut and paste into this window).
Hoping someone can help.
Thanks in advance.
- acx image.PNG (11.18 KiB) Viewed 928 times
Re: ACX Mastering levels
Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2017 9:48 am
by steve
lcastleb1 wrote:(sorry, haven't figured out how to cut and paste into this window).
Click the "Place inline" button (just below the message composing window after you have uploaded a file).
That automatically adds text to your post at the cursor position that looks like:
Code: Select all
[attachment=0]acx image.PNG[/attachment]
lcastleb1 wrote: cant seem to get the Clipping and peak values to both meet
You mean the "RMS" and peak values I presume?
Your RMS level is a little low, but only by a fraction. If you "Amplify" by +2 dB, and then apply Audacity's "Limiter" effect with
default settings, my guess is that your peak and RMS levels will then be within range.
Your "noise floor" level looks unbelievably low. Have you used a Noise Gate or silenced gaps between words? You shouldn't do that because it created
deathly silence that is disconcerting to listen to and will be rejected by ACX. "Silence" should be natural sounding "room tone". (On the other hand, the ACX measuring tool can be a long way off when measuring the noise floor, so your audio 'may' actually be OK, but it looks unbelievably low in your screen shot).
Re: ACX Mastering levels
Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2017 12:56 pm
by kozikowski
Q. What countries observe July 4th?
A. All of them. The US celebrates Independence Day.
Do you have WAV Export copies of your raw, unprocessed readings? You need to do that. File > Export WAV (Microsoft) 16-bit (stereo or mono). We can't take processing out of a reading and Audacity Projects do not save UNDO. Any mistake anywhere in the process and you get to read the whole work again.
Unless you have your WAV backup.
We published a new audiobook mastering technique greatly simplified that can get you to pass ACX in relatively few steps—assuming your reading works OK.
http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 64&t=96103
Try that with a
raw reading chapter and publish the ACX Check panel. If you have no raw readings, you can create a short forum test clip and see how the new mastering technique works for you.
http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/Test ... _Clip.html
The new technique sets RMS (loudness)
first and then cleans up the blue wave peaks in a second pass. If you read in a quiet environment, you could be out the door finished, or at worst need a little gentle noise reduction.
Koz
Re: ACX Mastering levels
Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2017 1:07 pm
by kozikowski
Excessive noise reduction can create nasty problems. Besides the 'blackness of space' thing, it can give your voice a bad cellphone, talking-in-a-wineglass sound (ACX failure), and on some microphones, it can make you sound harsh, sharp, peaky and gritty. You can fix that with the sibilance tools, but that's just putting bandages over each other.
The goal is a natural reading of someone telling you a story over cups of tea.
Koz
Re: ACX Mastering levels
Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2017 7:54 pm
by DVDdoug
I've played with both amply and normalizing but cant seem to get the Clipping and peak values to both meet.
When you adjust the volume (linearly) the ratio* between peak and average (or RMS) remains the same... i.e. If you adjust the volume by -3dB, the peak and average both go down by 3dB.
You can use (dynamic**) compression or limiting to "push down" the peaks and bring the peak & RMS closer together. And then use make-up gain (or regular 'ol
Amplify) to bring-up the overall-average volume, if necessary.
* Decibels are logarithmic, so the difference (subtraction) is actually a ratio. Or, it might be easier to think of it as a percentage... If you reduce the peaks by 50% (-6dB) the average also decreases by 50% (-6dB).
** Not to be confused with
file compression, such as MP3.
Re: ACX Mastering levels
Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2017 12:36 am
by kozikowski
When you adjust the volume (linearly) the ratio* between peak and average (or RMS) remains the same...
That's what gives people the tail-chasing thing. You fix the noise and that throws the peaks off.....
Post back if Steve's solution didn't work.
There's another nasty production problem with processing. ACX likes it when you do the same thing to all the chapters so there isn't a shock when you listen from chapter to chapter. That's rough to do if you're custom processing each chapter. That's why we recommend a global, simple processing suite like the one I posted.
Let us know.
Koz
Re: ACX Mastering levels
Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2017 12:12 pm
by lcastleb1
steve wrote:lcastleb1 wrote:(sorry, haven't figured out how to cut and paste into this window).
Click the "Place inline" button (just below the message composing window after you have uploaded a file).
That automatically adds text to your post at the cursor position that looks like:
Code: Select all
[attachment=0]acx image.PNG[/attachment]
lcastleb1 wrote: cant seem to get the Clipping and peak values to both meet
You mean the "RMS" and peak values I presume?
Your RMS level is a little low, but only by a fraction. If you "Amplify" by +2 dB, and then apply Audacity's "Limiter" effect with
default settings, my guess is that your peak and RMS levels will then be within range.
Your "noise floor" level looks unbelievably low. Have you used a Noise Gate or silenced gaps between words? You shouldn't do that because it created
deathly silence that is disconcerting to listen to and will be rejected by ACX. "Silence" should be natural sounding "room tone". (On the other hand, the ACX measuring tool can be a long way off when measuring the noise floor, so your audio 'may' actually be OK, but it looks unbelievably low in your screen shot).
!!
Thanks for the response. I did not use a Noise Gate. And no my recording area is not super quiet!! Not sure if I saw it on the post here or in one of the ACX videos but I record room silence (usually around -66db) and add that. I do the noise reduction for noises that occur during my recording (clearing my throat as this is sinus season for me, or any bumping noise that occur). Thanks for the info on the Limiter. I was not aware of that functionality.
Re: ACX Mastering levels
Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2017 3:47 pm
by kozikowski
(usually around -66db)
That's normally about what I get and that's about right. You can get in trouble when it's not gentle hiss sound, but more data errors or other irritating noises.
Limiter's trick is the ability to affect one of the three ACX values without seriously affecting the others. You can get a nice, gentle affect easily without the complexity of the compressor tool.
Koz
Re: ACX Mastering levels
Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2017 3:51 pm
by kozikowski
One note, you can get wonky noise values if you don't have at least a half-second of clean room tone available, and/or you put a half-second or more of Control-L silence in the piece. The former will give you very high voice values and the latter will give you those negative a million values. Both bogus.
Koz
Re: ACX Mastering levels
Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 1:04 pm
by lcastleb1
steve wrote:lcastleb1 wrote:(sorry, haven't figured out how to cut and paste into this window).
Click the "Place inline" button (just below the message composing window after you have uploaded a file).
That automatically adds text to your post at the cursor position that looks like:
Code: Select all
[attachment=0]acx image.PNG[/attachment]
lcastleb1 wrote: cant seem to get the Clipping and peak values to both meet
You mean the "RMS" and peak values I presume?
Your RMS level is a little low, but only by a fraction. If you "Amplify" by +2 dB, and then apply Audacity's "Limiter" effect with
default settings, my guess is that your peak and RMS levels will then be within range.
Your "noise floor" level looks unbelievably low. Have you used a Noise Gate or silenced gaps between words? You shouldn't do that because it created
deathly silence that is disconcerting to listen to and will be rejected by ACX. "Silence" should be natural sounding "room tone". (On the other hand, the ACX measuring tool can be a long way off when measuring the noise floor, so your audio 'may' actually be OK, but it looks unbelievably low in your screen shot).
Hi Steve. Realized that I didn't respond to your post. First thanks for the help!! Yes the limiter worked great. No I do no use Noise-gate and thanks to posts here and on ACX I am careful using the silence command. I do use the noise reduction feature quite a bit.