Mastering

[kozikowski]

Select the whole track > Analyze > ACX Check. Either post the picture—or—the three numbers (without the comments).

Koz

[TJB]

Koz, per request.

Audible Test 6.png (84.41 KiB) Viewed 116 times

FYI, I brought over another Blue Yeti thinking perhaps the problem was in the mic, but no luck .. both mics are picking up some sound. I've made sure the furnace and the pool pump were off and no lawn mowers were running outside. Then I also moved the mic away from the computer (about the length of the cord) thinking that may ID the problem, but same result.

I even turned the Gain control almost to the off position with no significant change ... the base line is thinner but it's still there.

I've also tested recording in MME and Wasapi with no discernible difference .... which leads me to the question as WHICH of these SHOULD I be using whenever we get this thing under control.

[kozikowski]

I have no idea.

Mastering is based on the idea that once you get rid of rumble and low-pitch sounds and settle on an RMS (loudness) value, any peaks and tips that stick up are relatively unimportant and may be processed without affecting the overall loudness. The Audacity RMS goal is actually slightly louder than the real audiobook median to make up for any downward changes that the limiter makes.

Except in your case.

The problem even fails an upside down analysis. If someone wrote me a big check to intentionally cause this problem, how would I do it?

I have no idea.

I will bet significant chocolate it has to do with your Bass and Treble tone boosts because I got your work to pass without those changes. But I can't give you a simple solution and still maintain your sound quality goal.

There is a brute force technique. Keep cycling between RMS Normalization and Limiter until it passes. That's not a recipe for trashy sound. Both of those tools are Go To Completion effects. If they're not needed, they don't do anything. Keep track of the number of passes you settled on.

And then, of course, you still have to deal with noise. What fun.

We can wait for the other elves.

Koz

[steve]

I've not read all of this very long topic. I've dropped in at the start of the last page with "Audible Test 2.wav".

First observation. The recording level is rather low (mostly around -20 dB FS). Ideally it should be around -6 dB, which would make the rest of this easier and probably give better sound quality at the end.


I don't understand why you are boosting the bass with the Bass and Treble effect. The raw recording has plenty of bass in my opinion, but if you want a bit more, then a better way to do that would be to get closer to the mic. Most vocal mics has a "proximity effect" which lifts (increases) the bass as you get closer to the mic. This would also help to improve the low recording level, and probably help with the noise floor.

After applying "Low roll-off for speech", then Bass and Treble (Bass=+6, Treble=+4, Volume=-3), then Amplify (default settings), ACX check says:
Peak leave: 0.0 (fail)
RMS: -19.34 (pass)
Noise Floor: -50.41 (fail)

I'll ignore the noise floor for now and focus on the levels.

I then applied Audacity's Limiter.
Type: Soft limit
Input left: 0.0
Input right: 0.0
Limit to: -3.2
Hold: 10
Make-up gain: No

ACX Check now gives:

acx.png (20.52 KiB) Viewed 78 times

Bottom Line:
I'd suggest that you get closer to the mic. but avoid speaking more quietly when you do (there's a psychological tendency to whisper when the mic is very close, so imagine you are talking to someone that is "socially distanced" )

[TJB]

SHAZAM ... somehow today Audacity works and had no problem recording an 18 min segment.

Let's hope this was some sort of gremlin which has since moved on.

In any event, I'd like to thank Koz and others for their time, comments and efforts. Stay tuned to see if the gremlin comes back (perhaps in the form of cicadas which are about to emerge)