Back when I did it, they offered human analysis of an extended sound sample and detailed suggestions if they found problems.
âYour sound file is perfect, you canât announce, donât give up the day job.â
Words to live by.
Then the pandemic happened, everybody on the surface of the planet decided to read for audiobooks, and half the staff called in sick. They now offer ACX AudioLab which produces automatic, human-free analysis and a close cousin to Audacityâs own ACX-Check except we check noise and they donâtâor didnât last I checked.
Noise is notable because home performers never pass noise. âStudio quietâ is right out of normal peopleâs experience. Right this second I can hear my computer fan, the fridge, two birds, one dog, and the traffic outside. Not a studio.
Nowhere in the new automated testing does anybody listen to the work until the final submission, so there is no theatrical testing ahead of timeâunless you wish to submit samples to the forum. We can catch some of the obvious mistakes. Also note the theatrical test is what I failed.
Yes, you are expected to produce and submit perfect sound files. Depending on what they find wrong, you may hit the automated tester first which may or may not offer suggestions or hints what it found wrong. I suspect Room Tone Management is automated. It wouldnât be that hard. There may be other things wrong, too.
There is a New User problem that may pop up here. What form are your Edit Master chapters? Audacity Projects or WAV (Microsoft) sound files? You canât âfixâ an MP3 file. If you open a 192 quality MP3 file to correct it, you wonât have 192 quality any more when you export the new file. You canât submit that, sorry. You have to go back to your perfect quality edit masters and make a whole new MP3.
Since you got far enough down the path, can we assume your book is for sale on Amazon and itâs not a cookbook?
Is this your first book?
Koz