Passing RMS on Audacity 2.1.1

[bbrady32]

Ok. Where should that go in my sequence? Now, I’m doing,

Filter Curve (LF Rolloff for speech)
RMS Normalize
Limiter

Should I do the rumble filter in place of something, or in addition? And where in the sequence?

Also, does it matter if I master before or after I trim to .1 seconds at each end?

[bbrady32]

My studio is in the basement- could that raise the infrasound?

[bbrady32]

Sorry - I think I see. Do the 100hz rumble, then LF rolloff and etc...

[Trebor]

My studio is in the basement- could that raise the infrasound?

I think it's noise generated by the electronics, rather than vibrations in the studio.

... I think I see. Do the 100hz rumble, then LF rolloff and etc...

Either 100Hz rumble, or LF rolloff will suffice: you don't have to do both.

On the subject of Low Frequencies, IMO you'd benefit from boosting the bass, (100Hz-300Hz range) ...

''sholder to cry on'', before-after.wav

"after" has had bass & treble boost, de-ess, de-click, & couture.

(700.47 KiB) Downloaded 10 times

~200Hz needs a 9dB boost, 500Hz-3kHz is OK, ~10kHz needs a 9dB boost.

''sholder to cry on'' spectrum before (in red), after (in green).png (93.55 KiB) Viewed 1060 times

Audacity has a bass-treble effect which you can adjust in real-time: i.e. when the audio is playing.

[kozikowski]

Either 100Hz rumble, or LF rolloff will suffice: you don't have to do both.

Exactly. Low Rolloff is part of a carefully selected suite of tools. A harmonious grouping. I know it seems too simple, but it's impressive all the things those three tools are doing for you. There are postings from people determined to get it down to one tool or step and it usually doesn't go well.

Some USB microphones create errors down in thunder, earthquake and rumble sounds. Most times it doesn't make any difference to the show so nobody worries about it (and it's expensive to fix the microphone). The mastering tools do care, so Low Rolloff gets rid of rumble errors and should come first.

You have a job that doesn't fit into the audiobook format. ACX Check needs 3/4 of a second of clean room tone to measure noise. From your description of the job, that's the last thing they want. You can do all the mastering and measuring first, get a top quality show, and then cut it down to their format. Once you cut it down, measuring your quality is going to be much harder. I think you have to do that step blind.

If you do either of the De-Essing steps, they should come after mastering. DeEssers need stable quality and perfect volume to work right.

I'm not an editing genius. I can think of insanely complicated ways to cut the piece down to 1/10 of a second before the first word. I think I'm going to stand back and see how others would do it. Is there a specification for the end, too? Is it the same 1/10 second?

It's further complicated by not being able to use the first 'real life' 1/10 of a second. That's where your lip smacks happen. There's a tiny one in your NewMic.wav posting, so you have to get rid of the smack first, then produce the 1/10 second. See that tiny-teensy blue thing (red dot) just left of your larger blue waves, "Select the possessive..." .

LipSmack.jpg (106.02 KiB) Viewed 1040 times

That's a lip smack and you should cut it off before you do any other cutting. It's almost impossible to avoid a gasp or lip smack just before your first word, so whatever we decide, I think you're going to be doing a lot of it. I can't believe there isn't a shortcut or a fudge somewhere. Doing it the formal editing way is a career move....

As we go.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Please note with your revised Rag Studio, new microphone, and application of mastering we're not worried about making RMS or suppressing audible noises any more.

Koz

[kozikowski]

No. Wait. I got a better one: "Ragamuffin Studio."


I processed the phrase "Select the possessive noun below" from your posted sound file.

Drag-select just the word blue waves.

You can use the magnifier tools to zoom into the words so you don't have to hit it inside a sea of other words.

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/zooming.html

I only ever use just three tools. Zoom into a selection with Command+E. Zoom out a little bit with Command+3 and zoom out to the whole show with Command+F.


Note the selection does not include that tiny blue tick to the left. You can play just this selection with Spacebar Play to see if you hit it without cutting off any sounds.

Drag-SelectVoice.png (87.25 KiB) Viewed 1031 times

Isolate just those words from anything else on the timeline.

Edit > Remove Special > Trim
Tracks > Align Tracks > Start to Zero

There is no shortcut. I asked.

wordsIsolated.png (77.27 KiB) Viewed 1031 times

Home Key > Generate > Silence: .1 seconds > OK.

0.1Seconds.png (17.45 KiB) Viewed 1031 times

Select (on the left) > End key > Generate Silence: .1 seconds > OK.

That will give you the words with a tenth second of silence before and after.

tenthSecondBrackets.png (87.67 KiB) Viewed 1031 times

File > Export (Whatever their delivery format is.)*

Koz

[kozikowski]

Yes, that is a cheat. The 1/10 second is not Room Tone but Audacity generated Silence. I don't think they will care. It's not there long enough to hear the difference.

* I can see storm clouds. You can't submit in MP3. MP3 is not a precise editing format and will screw up the 1/10 second of silence. You can't do production in MP3 either for sound quality reasons.

WAV (Microsoft) 16-bit works. When you get a final with all the silences in the right order, Export a WAV as your production archive no matter what the client wants.

Koz

[steve]

Edit > Remove Special > Trim
Tracks > Align Tracks > Start to Zero

There is no shortcut. I asked.

As it's one track only, you could do it with shortcuts.
These are for Windows / Linux - you may need to replace "Ctrl" with "Command":
Ctrl + C (Copy)
Ctrl + A (select All)
Ctrl + V (paste)

[kozikowski]

Have you thought about how you're going to do the bookkeeping yet? Most of editing is bookkeeping.

It's nice to think of editing as applying filters and corrections, cutting things up, and making everything sound super, but the first time you lose a sound file, none of that is going to make the slightest difference. You will be looking for work with a black mark on your name.


This is bookkeeping as it appears on a movie shoot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWrEBIIU4iE

That's a clapperboard with shoot info. The camera sees the arm closing and the sound people can hear the noise. Sync up later in production.

I'm not making this up.


Do Not use common date formats. Use ISO. Today is 2019-12-25. Do not use punctuation in a filename other than -dash- and _underscore_. Yes, I know Macs are OK with mixing characters, but your client may not be.

2019-12-25_PossessiveNoun_ChapterFour_BookThree.wav

That's an obsessive filename with no spaces.

Koz