newbie seeks recommendations

[kozikowski]

Uncle Armatige is going to be exhausted by the end of this.

Koz

[Lorain]

Yours is SO much better! Please tell me how you did it!

I live in a cinderblock condo building in Florida --and it's July. Everyone is blasting their air conditioners and fans. I've checked, that hum is permeating everything. I don't think I can get away from it. Sometimes just before dawn I can catch a brief window when it's not there (that's what I was doing) but lately even that is gone. I think I will need your filter.

Also, I was wondering if you might be familiar with any sound that can be used as an unobtrusive, bland, scene separator. I've experimented with Pluck and Risset Drum but I haven't been able to make anything that I thought would work (probably my lack of skill). I really like the little xylophone-like tone Audacity uses when it tells you you've screwed up, I'd swipe it if I could!

PS-- the book is a humorous cozy murder mystery, and, sadly, Uncle Armitage is about to buy it --so to speak.

[kozikowski]

I was just approaching the lychgate in front of the house with my Tesco haul. I looked up and froze with the hair on the back of my neck standing up. There, in the second floor music room window was Aunt Letty waving me to come up and join her in one of her randy but endlessly entertaining glockenspiel duets.

One catch, though. Leticia's been dead for three years.

It's just not that hard. I know what that microphone can do, so it's just a matter of preserving what you have. The hum problem is not dreadful. If you had a lower pitched voice it would be a problem. In that case your voice tones and the hum can be similar and rough to separate. It doesn't seem to bother you at all. You win.

I need to drop for a while.

Koz

[kozikowski]

an unobtrusive, bland, scene separator.

ACX may have some ideas about that. They don't do radio theatrical production, although I do have some CDs of shows with musical interstitials.

I do have some ideas, though.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Stingers.

Any of these work?

I can't get Audacity to error out.

Koz

[kozikowski]

I think you already have ACX-Check, right? A quick and easy way to tell if you're close to ACX conformance.

This is what I think is the current RMS-Normalize. That's one of the tools you need to add to Audacity for Mastering 4.

rms-normalize.ny

(810 Bytes) Downloaded 7 times

This is the write-up for Audiobook Mastering 4.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=96103

I don't think I can get it any simpler than the post up the thread one or two chapters. It's only three effects plus one analysis tool.


Select your reading by clicking just right of the up arrow.

Effect > Equalization That's your rumble filter. That gets rid of most of the environment fan and traffic noise (whether you can hear it or not). Hollywood loves these things for outside recording.

Effect > Notch Filter: 120Hz, Q of 3 > Enter. That's your Special Florida Filter. It specifically attacks that one hum tone you have from all the Air Conditioning motors.

Effect > RMS Normalize. This is fancy electronics-speak for loudness. It sets your loudness in the middle of the required audiobook range. Use the one I sent. It's a fixed version for long postings.

Effect > Limiter. This one cleans up any errors left by RMS Normalize and sets the ACX overload value.


That's it. The tools are a "suite" — a harmonious grouping. It doesn't do to scramble them or leave tools out.

Do it to the raw clip you posted for us. See if you get similar results.

Post back if you get lost. Do the shortcuts in the mastering posting make sense? In general it's the numbers you put in the boxes to make the tools and effects do what you want. I tried to write it in plain English as much as possible.

Koz

[kozikowski]

I liked Stinger-Rock-CMaj-Low.wav

That was almost an accident. That's a rock band organ (on my Yamaha keyboard). I was shooting for a plain C Major chord and instead of going up, 1, 3, 5, 8, I went down 8, 1, 3, 5. It came out better than I thought.

It's in full theatrical stereo, but if you jam it into a mono voice recording (recommended) you'll need to produce a version of the tone in mono.

Tracks > Mix > Mix stereo down to mono. Export new mono tone.

That's also supposed to be a cousin to the Mac diagnostic/startup tone.

If you can remember how to make Audacity or the Mac error I can try to grab that one.

Koz

[Lorain]

I sent in a sample to ACX ---I've have made a lot of improvements (thanks to you) since then, but I just got back this:

"Hello Lorain,

Thanks for submitting your sample, "0.200_Sample_HDG_mastered.mp3", for review. This is a great start and there are only a few minor items that need adjustment. Below are the issues to address before submitting your final files:

This file contains insufficient spacing at its end. During a production, be sure that every file meets the following ACX spacing requirement - All submitted files must have between 0.5 and 1 second of room tone at the beginning, and between 1 and 5 seconds of room tone at the end. Click here for more specific techniques and tips on editing and spacing your files.

Though the audio is recorded well, some of the louder segments sound distorted (Ex. 03:06 – 03:10). When recording the louder parts of a narration, be sure that your input signal is not clipping the meter. This is often interpreted as an undesirable distorted sound, and should always be avoided. Then in post-production, you can use automation to level the volume being output to the master fader.

The file does not meet the encoding requirements. This file is encoded in Variable Bit Rate (VBR) at 104kbps. All files submitted to ACX must be 192kbps or higher Constant Bit Rate MP3s with a sample rate of 44.1kHz. Audacity supports mp3 encoding using LAME. This should be selected when exporting your audio file. Click here for more specific techniques and tips on encoding.

Regards,
The ACX Team"

Bold added.

I haven't got a clue what "you can use automation to level the volume being output to the master fader" means. I figure it means I have to apply some sort of Effect or Filter or something else to either some portion (or the whole thing?) of the recording to make the 'loud' portions not clip, but I don't know how to accomplish this. I Googled "Audacity Master Fader" but I wasn't really able to find it on Audacity's dashboard. Could you by any chance point me to something that explains what it is and how to use it? Thank you.

[kozikowski]

you can use automation to level the volume being output to the master fader

People who use large professional sound mixers in studios may be able to do that. Those sound mixers have automated voice processing and can be used to automatically set voice volume, or at least keep the volume from getting so loud it distorts.

You can't do any of those things because you don't have a sound mixer. The best you can do is record with gentle volume and apply post production processing in Audacity to conform the reading to ACX requirements. Audacity doesn't apply any corrections during recording.

Can you hear the distortion at that show time when you play the submitted MP3? Were you being expressive?

Did you keep a WAV copy of the original raw reading? MP3? Any copy?

I've have made a lot of improvements

Did you apply the corrections in Audiobook Mastering 4? If you didn't then it's going to be impossible to separate recording the chapter wrong from possibly bad corrections.

The other problems are a piffle compared to that. Which corrections did you use?

Koz

[kozikowski]

This file contains insufficient spacing at its end

You do have to pay attention to the ACX requirements for submission other than sound. They need file size, silent lead-in and lead-out, chapter announcements, etc. That has little or nothing to do with Audacity. That's all up to you.

When you get an edited chapter you're happy with, File > Export > Export WAV and make a perfect quality WAV of the work. That's your edit master and it's used if you have to make changes or repurpose the reading for a different venue. Do Not use the lesser quality MP3 for that.

Then File > Export > Export MP3 according to these settings.

Screen Shot 2018-07-25 at 20.20.35.png (83.07 KiB) Viewed 213 times

File Name Hygiene is good here. Upper case, lower case, numbers, _underscore_ and -dash- are the only characters allowed. Dates are done in ISO format: today is 2018-07-26.

Koz