Clicks not showing up on waveform

[kozikowski]

I havent published the book yet.

This is a quote from the ACX publishing page.

Screen Shot 2020-08-12 at 2.26.38 PM.png (32.79 KiB) Viewed 390 times

We can help with the technical and submission requirements.

That's from here.

https://audible-acx.custhelp.com/

Also from their help pages, there is a list of "bad" books. Scroll down to the bottom.

https://www.acx.com/help/200878270

Koz

[kozikowski]

There was a forum poster who tried to publish both at the same time. It wasn't fun. I can find the messages if you want.

Koz

[Tylertrue1]

I was actually just waiting to publish the ebook until I had recorded all of the chapters...in case there were any changes I wanted to make after reading it one more time. But there weren't, and this convo has spurred me onto publishing it, which I'm doing right now. Plus, it looks like I might have to get a producer to do this now, since what I'm doing obviously isn't working, and I'm about to lose my little studio

Thanks for your help and quick replies, Koz.

[DVDdoug]

It's just a cheap thing from China for $35. Just says professional studio condenser microphone.

What you have is an electret condenser mic. There is something like this inside and the case probably costs more than the element inside. "Real condenser mics" usually cost at least $100. Electret mics are not necessarily bad and there are some good-popular "podcast mics" and a few stage mics that are electrets. But, I don't know of any electrets that are used in pro studios.

What Is the Difference Between Electret Condenser and “True Condenser” Microphones? .

The Blue Yeti is probably the most popular podcast mic and I'm pretty sure it's an electret. The Yeti also has a reputation of being noisy, but the noise is actually coming from USB power so it will be noisier on some computers than others. And, that "bad reputation" might be because they sell a lot of them... If they sell millions of microphones and thousands of people complain about noise, that could be unfair.

Any USB powered microphone or interface can pick-up noise through the USB power. The most foolproof solution is a good analog microphone and a USB audio interface with it's own power supply, but most inexpensive interfaces are USB powered.

[Tylertrue1]

So you're saying the mic is creating the clicks? Why is it only happening in some chapters?

[kozikowski]

Why is it only happening in some chapters?

There's no good way to know. Troubleshooting is borderline magic in good times, and you apparently don't have good times.

Because there are so many Blue Yetis around, we pretty quickly discovered how the curse worked and how to prevent it. We even have a "Frying Mosquitoes" filter to get rid of most of the Yeti distortion in post production.

You are a one-off with a no-label, affordable microphone that nobody else has, and your sound damage isn't common.

I have a rule of thumb if you spend more than two weeks struggling with a bad computer microphone, stop using the computer.

I submitted a technically correct audiobook audition with that.



That's a Zoom H1n sound recorder. My to-do list has me figuring out to shoot an audiobook on my phone.

Koz

[Tylertrue1]

So, good news. After a month, 3 high end microphones, 2 different PCs, multiple DAWs, an iPhone and messing around with the buffer settings for a week, I finally figured out what the problem was - my cell phone. I was reading my book from my cell phone which was always placed right by the microphone. I finally heard a bit of interference from the phone on my headphones and put the phone in airplane mode. No more clicks. I'm not sure if I should feel like an idiot or not because I did not see this piece of advice anywhere. But after doing this I realize it was a pretty obvious solution and can't help but kick myself...many times. I think this last month just took 10 years off of my life. I hope this thread can help someone else to prevent this nightmare. Thanks for your attempted help anyway guys.

[kozikowski]

My nature is to read from paper, but I'm way in the minority there.

This started to be a problem when people showed up with all sorts of oddball sound troubles and we eventually traced them back to either the machine they were recording on, or the machine they were reading from.

We're starting to collect stories of people successfully producing books on Zoom recorders (so far, Zooms 1 through 5) as well as other stand-alone recorders connected to good quality microphones in quiet rooms. The majority of forum posters with sound damage are trying to record on a computer and the computer is fighting them every step of the way. If you really offended the sound deities, you can have multiple problems.

"OK, that whine in the background (frying mosquitoes) is USB sound damage, the random ticks in your show are sharing errors and you sound like you're talking into a milk jug because of Zoom."

Also see: studios almost universally demand everyone turn their phone off before they "roll tape."

Glad you found it. Thanks for posting back.

Koz

[Trebor]

So, good news. After a month, 3 high end microphones, 2 different PCs, multiple DAWs, an iPhone and messing around with the buffer settings for a week, I finally figured out what the problem was - my cell phone ...

The clicks on the example you posted are mechanical, rather than electromagnetic interference.

If you play them at say 1/10th normal speed their mechanical nature is clear.

[kozikowski]

I have a Zoom H1, the H2 is legendary in both of its iterations, I have an older H4 and the H5 appeared on the forum at least once.

They do make an H3. It's an ambisonic, 360 degree, Virtual Reality microphone. I would have bet there wasn't an H3. I would have been wrong.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... o-recorder

Koz