Complete ignoramus re audio stuff, trying to do audio books. Part 1

My apologies in advance for a long, rambling query! I know so little that I don’t really know where to start or how to break this up. But this is Part 1- I’ll leave part 2 until after, and if, I get some feedback on this, I think!

I’ve recorded a few stories of my own for friends, and was wanting to produce them - and a bunch out of copyright stuff - for a Youtube channel, but after coming across this Very Useful And Informative forum, I thought before really putting the hours in, I would see if I can produce them to ACX standard with the equipment I have, so that I would have the option of rearranging my aims and trying stuff for ACX - (and producing them to a higher quality if not!)

So, I have a Roland R-1 Edirol recorder. The right hand microphone is more than a bit dodgy, but when set on “mono” for recording, its default is apparently to only use the left hand microphone, so that doesn’t seem a problem.

A recording on it - in a bedroom, the Edirol is battery powered, with record mode as WAV 24 bit (whatever that may imply)- gives a WAV file as shown below. (Roland3). Well, actually I had to load the file into audacity and cut out a bit of it, then export it as WAV again to get it small enough to be an attachment, if that makes a difference.

After doing an “audiobook mastering” in the suggested way, It passes Peak level and RMS level but fails Noise Floor (-58.49 Db). A section of this is Roland4.wav

Now, after a noise reduction effect based on a few seconds silence at the start, it passes Noise Floor (-61.43). The Noise Reduction set at 3Db, sensitivity 2, and smoothing bands 3 - the latter two values chosen completely at random, as I have no idea what I am doing. A portion of this is Roland5.wav

So- well, does this sound OK? It barely passes the Sound floor, should I alter it more? Differently? Give Up? Sorry to be vague, looking for feedback on whether I would be able to produce to ACX quality with this equipment.

(Part 2 is I find it far better to record straight to Audacity - firstly for editing, and secondly because the batteries can give up on the Roland recorder with little obvious warning [a bit of a design flaw in my opinon!] leading to a lot of recording being lost if you haven’t taken a break in a while. I can connect the Edirol to my computer to do that, but I’ll wait for feedback before starting on that, if at all.)

Thank you for taking the time to read this disorganised ramble, and thanks in advance for any responses.


whether I would be able to produce to ACX quality with this equipment.

It’s been my experience we can produce good quality voice work with remarkably modest equipment as long as it’s all happening in a quiet, echo-free room.

The ACX Check tools look for quiet portions of the performance to measure for background noise or Room Tone. If there aren’t any, it takes what it can get. In Roland3, the first second or so of work has you shuffling, breathing and gasping. So you are making a lot of your own noise.

We can’t take effects and corrections out of a show, so if you post again, you only need to post the raw reading.

True. You can’t post a book chapter. If you have a mono track (one blue wave) the forum is going to max out at 20 seconds.

I find it far better to record straight to Audacity

It would be enormously more convenient, but not a good idea. We spend the most forum time solving people’s computer recording troubles.

“What’s that ticking sound? Why do I sound like I’m talking into a milk bottle? Where is my new microphone?”

All troubles you are not going to have by recording on the Roland. There may be a half-way point. It’s possible the Roland will run from the computer battery power with the cable connected and still record the show to its internal memory. That would be the way to go.

You have low volume. Nobody is shocked. Most home microphone systems have low volume, but it would be good if you could bump up the volume a bit. That should help with noise, too.

This is your file.

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This is more like where it’s supposed to be.

StandardRecordingLevels-650w.jpg
Can you get a little closer? You can’t get too close because the microphone will start picking up tongue ticks, lip smacks, and P-Pops.

Generally, a Hawaiian Shaka spacing.

Do you know where the front of your microphone is? That can affect volume. Most microphones like that are directional and if you’re not in “front” the volume will be reduced. I can look at the instructions, but you can, too.

Don’t fall in love with the ACX Audiobook -60dB noise restriction. You need to pass it by at least -65dB and even quieter is better. Before Noise Reduction.

If you just run out of tricks for increasing volume, you can try moving the recorder to one side a bit and get closer.

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Post another sound test when you get done messing with it. Use this format.

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

As I posted, you can go out to 20 seconds, and use your words. Forget Catskill Cows.


There is one theatrical note. I’ve never heard an audiobook in a burr. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any, but ACX can be sticky about that. You have to pass technical restrictions and voice and theater quality.

Koz

Don’t tell anybody what equipment you’re using. “Stand alone sound recorder” is good.

Koz

Thank you. The room I’ve been using generally is our small spare room, used as a Library/box room/study, so he walls are lined with bookshelves and boxes, so seems not too echoey.

The volume on the inbuilt speakers of the recorder I just can’t seem to improve - even using a pop screen made from a cut out plastic lid and a pair of my partners tights to get as close as possible! It just comes out as in the “inbuilt” file attached.

However, on plugging a microphone into the recorder, the volume immediately went up - “extmic” file attached. It’s louder, but I can not speak for its quality.

Maybe the microphone on the recorder is simply very bad, either to begin with or as a result of being years old?

(And thanks for the insight re “burr”- taken on board, but any action taken on that will be later.)

Oh, and I know how things can come across differently to how they are intended on the internet, so just to make it clear that “(And thanks for the insight re “burr”- taken on board, but any action taken on that will be later” wasn’t meant to be flippant - I have some idea how your input on such matters is valuable.

It’s good to have sensible, specific advice on the matter.

I was in a job where I appeared sporadically on television, and some advice from a BBC specialist was “you have a very good speaking voice, but sometimes speak too fast for your accent” - which left up in the air whether she meant I should be adjusting my speed or my accent! “I’ll try it in a Scottish one…” :wink: not to mention the fact my Welsh accent isn’t as pronounced as many people I know!

sometimes speak too fast for your accent

Oh. That’s good (writing that down).

I’m not dismissing it out of hand. You can match your speaking style with the material. There is nothing like the Mark Twain stories read in a region appropriate accent.

the walls are lined with bookshelves and boxes

Perfect. I had a storage area like that at work for a while and used it to good affect…until somebody moved their office in there and I had to time share. You should worry about opposing surfaces. The bookcases will take care of the sides, but you can’t have a bare floor and ceiling at the same time. Slap echoes. You don’t appear to have any of those problems. I was listening for room effects and I didn’t hear any.

I need to go for a while.

Koz

Inbuilt is the Roland by itself sitting on the desk and ExtMic is the Roland plugged into a laptop and recorded in Audacity. Right?

We may get to play “where’s the microphone.” They’re different enough that I don’t think both of them came from the Roland.

You can find out yourself with the scratch test. Never blow into a microphone, but you can gently scratch it.

https://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/clips/ScratchTest2.mp3

There was another note up the thread a bit. Do Not go off reading a book until we get all the problems fixed. A number of people got refused acceptance and it turned out their weeks of work was only their first reading.

The technical tests are the first and most obvious hurdle, but there’s some new restrictions in the last bunch of months.

Can you certify you have rights to read and publish? Can I buy the book on Amazon? Those two can be Full Stops for some readers, particularly if you’re not already published. There’s also a list of poor choices. Scroll down.

https://www.acx.com/help/200878270

One of the forum posters was planning on reading a cookbook. No word on how it came out.

Stories are good. Something I would want to listen to as I hiked around the neighborhood with my portable music player and tasteful lavender bandanna mask.

Koz

Inbuilt is the Recorder sitting by its own on the desk, yes. Ext mic is a microphone plugged into recorder sitting on the desk, still not connected to anything else. The computer (desktop) was off at the time, and not connected. I had to take out the memory card and plug it into a converter to move the recording onto the computer with both recordings, so absolutely sure on that one.

Thanks for advice on reading material. Oh, I’m reading/have read my own stuff, plus stuff I’ve looked into I know is out of copyright (most Sherlock Holmes, old horror stories, the sort of stuff which has already been done a thousand times and more before)- but I’m looking on it as practice as much as anything, so haven’t started reading a book specifically for ACX yet - and will get this sorted before I do.

Yeah, just double checking, the initial name of “Extmic” was “R1_0027”, which is which is what the recorder defaults naming files as. “Inbuilt” was “R1_0026”, funnily enough. So both from the recorder. I just plugged the microphone in for the second, and spoke through my partners stockings with both of them. (You are supposed to put them over your head, right?

See how easy this is to go off the rails?

About six messages back, you introduced a separate microphone and it went right by me. So you weren’t plugging the Roland into a computer as a microphone device instead of as a recorder. You used the Roland built-in ‘Left’ microphone recorded on the Roland, versus a mystery external microphone plugged into and recorded on the Roland. Did I get that?

What’s the mystery microphone? There are handy tricks for using microphones. Step one. Never use the little tripod desk stand that comes with many home microphones.

You should leave out Dacron fabric pop and blast filters until we’re totally sure they’re needed. That just throws mud in the game. We need microphone evaluation to be “clean” without any help. Same reason I’m not interested in patching, filtering, effects, and corrections. Lets get the microphone to work, first.

Koz

I had to take out the memory card and plug it into a converter to move the recording onto the computer with both recordings, so absolutely sure on that one.

That certainly works, but it’s not the best idea. That puppy is going to wear out. It wasn’t designed for constant motion. It should be possible to plug the Roland USB cable into the computer and transfer files that way. Consult your instructions.

Have you discovered yet you can’t run the computer without the background noise level going up? -60dB background noise in English means your room noises have to be 1000 times quieter than your voice. That’s how I could hear you quietly breathing in that first sound test. It doesn’t take much.

Koz

“You used the Roland built-in ‘Left’ microphone recorded on the Roland, versus a mystery external microphone plugged into and recorded on the Roland. Did I get that?”
That’s exactly it.

“What’s the mystery microphone? There are handy tricks for using microphones. Step one. Never use the little tripod desk stand that comes with many home microphones.”
A cheap one with no band name on it. I bought it years ago for so little I can’t even remember how much, but maybe even under five pounds. I’ve been wary of using it because of that, assuming the built in “branded” microphone would be far better. Attached is a (bad) photo showing it and the stand I use - a hobby vice with rubber “lips”, lightly pressed in against it wrapped in non-slip cover.

“You should leave out Dacron fabric pop and blast filters until we’re totally sure they’re needed. That just throws mud in the game.”
Wilco.

“That puppy is going to wear out. It wasn’t designed for constant motion. It should be possible to plug the Roland USB cable into the computer and transfer files that way. Consult your instructions.”
Alas, after a decade or two of heavy use by two previous owners, the USB socket no longer works. (One of those “bigger socket” USB things, but I have a few leads like that which don’t work with it, and it stopped working on the proprier… properiatr… branded lead the previous owner had.) So forced to use it like that, unfortunately. (After getting a converter for SD card to Flash, which the recorder would accept, because it wouldn’t recognise modern Flash Cards! A friend into photography was able to help me there, thankfully. Otherwise I would have been stuck on five minute bursts of recording on WAV. Now its up to hours.) But yes, you are right. Another reason I was setting it up to record on to audacity through its microphone now I think of it. Hmm.

“Have you discovered yet you can’t run the computer without the background noise level going up?”
Yes, now I’ve been listening harder! I recently got a refurbished computer with a hard disk drive, and that made a big difference, but it still makes a noise.

There is a difference between “basic equipment” and “old, bedraggled, breaking down equipment which is causing weird problems”, so thank you for all your help so far.
WIN_20200830_11_16_23_Pro.jpg

Oh, the microphone only works when the mic type switch is on “cnd” (rather than “dyn”) with the recorder (so presumably it is a condenser microphone?) if that makes any difference. Mind you, condenser microphones seem to be more expensive, which is a bit weird for the price I bought it. But I’ve always assumed that this one is just rubbish.

Hmm. Just for comparison, here is a sample of a voice recording on a Wellknownbrand mp3 player I just did. It does seem (and look on the wobbly lines when I load it on Audacity) louder than the recording on the internal microphone on the R---- recorder. Maybe both (left as well) microphones on it are a bit dodgy.

When you quote existing text, drag-select the text and click the quote button, fourth from the left. That will post in a different colour and make it easier to read. Or you can actually type the markup commands manually, like this:

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The bracketed word on the left means “start quoting now” and the slash mark on the right means “OK, we’re done quoting.” The other buttons mean Bold, Italic, and Underline.

That’s how a markup language works. Don’t fall in love with “enhancing” your messages. Occasional tags here and there are OK. Some new users post their whole message in bold, upper case and boosted font size. That’s not helpful. It gets our attention for the wrong reasons.

That’s also an early lesson on computer programming. Leave out one slash mark and suddenly the rest of your book (for example) is in bold. You never told it to stop bolding, so it didn’t. An actual computer program would be more like you left out a slash mark on one page, in one book, somewhere in the public library on the high street.

Koz

There is a very real version of this kind of error in Audacity 2.4.2. When you apply Audacity Audiobook Mastering, the middle step is Loudness Normalization…. Except the tool settings are RMS (proper for an audiobook) on the left, but LUFS (appropriate for a podcast) on the right.

You can’t have both at once. A developer left out a semi-colon somewhere in the program.

Koz

Ok, ta, shall do that in the future.

Ah well. The latest try with microphone straight to recorder after switching off everything I could find, does pass the ACX check after loading it to Audacity and mastering (but only at -65Db).

Clip attached is straight from the recorder before mastering.

That does work, but it sounds of recording in a box rather than clear tones. You might try one with folded over towels or blankets on the table. I think I’m listening to your green linoleum tabletop.

This is the formula for a Kitchen Table Sound Studio.

https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/too-compressed-rejection/52825/22

You don’t need most of that with your storage room, but note in the third picture, the table has a large doubled-over heavy furniture moving pad under the microphone. That’s part of the design. Heavy is good. A light, feathery duvet need not apply. The distortion is comb filter effects, where certain tones and harmonics get boosted and others suppressed. It gets its name from the analysis of the distortion which looks a little like a comb.

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I do have second thoughts about turning you loose to start reading because if anything happens to your “one foot in the grave studio” what do you do?

You will never be able to pick up where you left off with so much marginal equipment. Quick, how would you replace your Roland? Your mystery microphone? If anything bad happens you will be straight back to first birthday; build a new studio and read it all again.

ACX makes chapter matching a really big deal and that does not leave a lot of room for fudging.

Have you read through the submission requirements? There was a thing a while back about submitting if you don’t happen to live in the US. I don’t remember what the discussion was. It’s worth a Google. Also dig through the ACX help system.

https://www.acx.com/help/acx-audio-submission-requirements/201456300

When you get rolling, you should be exporting two WAV (Microsoft) 16-bit sound files. One raw reading when you get to the end of a chapter, and then again as a chapter edit master, before you create the MP3 for ACX. Never do production directly in MP3.

Koz

Since “Everybody Knows” you need to have Noise Reduction, I applied gentle reduction to your piece and got this.

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Drag-select a portion of the quiet Room Tone at the beginning and Effect > Noise Reduction > Profile.

Then select everything and apply Noise Reduction of the Beast. Effect > Noise Reduction > 6, 6, 6 > OK.

The only down side I know of is the need to remember to do this to every Edit Master Chapter until the sun cools off.

Koz

Equalization can (somewhat) counteract the boxy (comb) effect Koz mentioned.

3 Free plugins worth the effort of download IMO …
Marvel GEQ … Real-time graphic-equalizer.
Gmulti … multi (3) band compressor, can de-ess.
Couture (free version) … an expander to squash down the noise-floor when you are not speaking.

Currently only 32-bit versions of these plug-ins work in Audacity on Windows, even if your computer is 64-bit,