Can my noise floor be fixed or am my screwed?

I am unable to get my audio files to meet ACX requirements.

Originally, I recorded the file and then I applied Noise Reduction and Compression features. Additionally, whenever I was not talking, I applied the silence feature and removed even the background noise (in hindsight, I realize this may have been a bad thing to do).

After I discovered that my files were not compatible, I applied the Limiter feature and was able to pass the Peak and RMS tests. However, it tells me that my Noise Floor sounds unnatural and is too low (-inf dB). How do I raise the noise floor? Unfortunately, I’m not sure I can remove the “silence” segments of my audio file.

Really at a loss here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Fire up your studio and record a ten second “clean” sound test. Post it here.

https://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/TestClip/Record_A_Clip.html

We can’t take effects, filters or corrections out of a sound file. We have to start somewhere.

Koz

Could add comfort noise: mix in a track of brownian noise at say -70dB.

But that won’t regenerate any beginnings/ends of words clipped-off by gating to “-inf dB”.

(For future reference: Noise gate can be set to to attenuate by say -10dB, rather than “-inf dB”).

We can guess at this forever, but we still can’t take effects or filters out of a show.

Post the clean voice test.

Koz

have you tried voice test?

What are you referring to jeniferdaisal?

I applied Noise Reduction and Compression features.

Were you following someone’s recipe for audiobook production? Our Audiobook Mastering process stays away from Compression if only because it makes background noise worse and most home readers fail background noise (Room Tone).

We really are entering in the middle of the movie. I think you passed the point of rescuing the reading. Any patches you make will take longer than just reading it again. There is a theater quality shift, too. People’s second books sound better than their first—they have better experience.

There’s a terrific chance we can steer you to a simple process to publishing, but we need to know what your studio sounds like without all the gymnastics and patching.

This is the process for announcing and posting a plain 10 second voice test.

https://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/TestClip/Record_A_Clip.html

Is this your book? What’s the material? Is it a story of unrequited love on the Scottish highlands? Are you already published in paper or eBook? ACX has changed some of their requirements since before the sickness.

Koz