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.