newbie seeks recommendations

[Lorain]

I tried Mastering Four, but I couldn't get it to get me past ACX Check. So, basically, I just kept trying new number combinations until I finally found something that got me past ACX Check, and, worked on all of my chapters.

I'm continuously discovering new Audacity stuff. Last night I Googled how to get rid of hard consonants and learned about the Fade In and Fade Out effects. These are wonderful! I had been trying to get rid of the harsh sounds manually, but these work way better in many instances.

For me anyway, this has definitely been a learning curve!

[kozikowski]

but I couldn't get it to get me past ACX Check.

What part failed? We're always looking for ways to improve services and tools. We're continuously improving ACX-Check. It's not a gift from the angels. You can make it lie to you and it will not analyze super long chapters.

I'd be shocked if Peak and RMS failed. Those are mature tools that work very well. Everybody fails noise because everybody is recording with home microphones in a noisy environment or at low volume. I see other mastering suites start the day with Noise Reduction before they do anything else. It's possible there is something magic about doing it that way. In theory it shouldn't make any difference at all, but then, Noise Reduction had been a little magic before.

If you have a good quality "Professional," "Studio" Condenser microphone (you have to include those two words in any microphone ad), to have stiff Noise Reduction produce quiet, but also harsh, overly crisp and sibilant recordings when they didn't start out that way. That leads directly to a lot of post production filtering and corrections—see the current popularity of "De-Essing."

It makes my teeth hurt when people start with Noise Reduction before they know if they need it or not. ACX Hates Noise Reduction—and they said so. I'm not making that up.

Koz

[kozikowski]

What part failed? We're always looking for ways to improve services and tools.

This is the not-so-subtle prod. Audacity is a forum, not a help desk. Users helping each other.

Koz

[Lorain]

Well, now I can't find Mastering Four in the Help Manual. So I guess that would be my first suggestion-- put "ACX" and/or "Mastering Four" in the Index (though what would of course be really wonderful would be a Search Box, though I know that isn't always feasible).

[Lorain]

I somehow ended up with a whistle in a word. I would like to use the Notch Filter to remove it, but have not been able to figure out how to use it. Could somebody walk me through it? As near as I can figure out, I highlight the word > Analyzer > Plot Spectrum > but then I'm lost. I would really like to learn how to do this, stop being such a dummy! Thank you.

[steve]

To me, it doesn't sound like it needs 'fixing'.

[Lorain]

Here's another example of it, a double whistle on "found out". Could the Notch Filter remove it?

Edit--Never mind, I used the Change Pitch effect on it, and it buried it enough it isn't too noticeable.

[Lorain]

I submitted my book to ACX and just got the "Congratulations, your book is up for sale" email from them. (I'd post a link but I'm afraid someone would think I was trying to self-promote.) Anyway, I just wanted to once again say thank you; I am not a techie (when I was in school we girls were sent to "Home Ec" where we were taught how to sew holiday aprons for our mothers --no joke) so any new tech is always an uphill climb for me. Woulda been very difficult without the help I received here. So, once again, thank you so much!

[kozikowski]

I can't find Mastering Four in the Help Manual.

There's a terrific reason for that. I didn't write it for the Help Manual. It's a plain, standard forum posting just like yours.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=96103

Every so often I'll write something in a post that turns out dangerously close to being useful for way more than just a single human. A couple of expansions, a nip here and a tuck there and it turns into Audiobook Mastering 4. What it didn't turn into was a manual entry.

I'm OK in English (American) and I'm passable in HTML/CSS (web page language) and Forum-Speak, but the Manual is written in Wiki format. That's like a fourth language. "OK, translate your document into Latin. That's not a problem, is it?"

I'll get right on that. It has a very prominent place on my 2Doo list.


Do you remember what failed in your original pass through the suite? It's not unusual for us to post custom versions to address specific problems.

I'm not suggesting you do it now. Once you get a process to work, you should stick with it. Still, it would be good to know what happened. There are even "standard" problems that appear regularly often enough that we wrote "standard" solutions, but not often enough to include them in the suite. One of the goals of the suite was simplicity. All that fuss and it's only three effects, four if you have noise.

Congrats on your success. I'm going to put another notch on my CPU. Have you picked out the beach you're going to retire to after the checks start rolling in?

Koz

[kozikowski]

I'd post a link but I'm afraid someone would think I was trying to self-promote.

Post it.

Koz