Sample WAV file evaluation requested

[kozikowski]

I'm curious about your reference to your friend who records in an odd way.

He's the right-hand microphone in this two microphone shoot.



I was commissioned to shoot the Los Angeles half of a broadcast radio program, so my microphone is on the left and we double recorded it.

You can just barely see it, but his microphone is not aimed toward the performer's chair. Someone figured out that you could get tonal and timber voice variations with this microphone by not aiming it correctly. So he routinely records his material with the microphone pointed toward the credenza rather than his mouth [cringe]. Because he also has that semi-circular sound baffle and good office sound-proofing, it works. He got lucky.

a link to a sound bite.

That's the unfortunate appearance of using underscore as theatrical emphasis rather than a link.

If you have a reasonable sound system or good headphones, stop what you're doing every so often and listen to the work. It should sound natural, it should sound like you and there should not be anything obvious left when you stop talking. It's fun to dredge in exotic and hard to use filters and tools, but you should have realistic goals and the goal should not be "fun with filters." I have been known to sleep on it and take it again fresh the next day.

You should fix failures such as the peak error thing. That one is real and it's good to get a feel for how all the tools work.


If you want to be obsessive, you can exceed the ACX specifications (just not by too much). Careful reading is good.

measure between -23dB and -18dB RMS and have -3dB peak values and a maximum -60dB noise floor

Their words, but that's actually not true. The ideal RMS (loudness) really is half-way between -23 and -18, and the maximum noise is -60, but the ideal peak value is less than -3. If you try to hit the peak value exactly it will make you crazy, particularly because conversion to ACX MP3 submission format can affect peak values.

Try that once. Create a "chapter," process it, export as ACX standard MP3.

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 03#p307903

Scroll down to submission tricks.

Open the MP3 in a fresh Audacity and see what happened to ACX Test.

MP3 is a terrible production format. The volume, quality and duration of MP3 files changes.


I think ACX Test will complain if it can't find at least a half-second of room tone to test noise. It may also not like really long submissions. Does it say anything about that in the download dialog?

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyqui ... #ACX_Check

Koz

[SheilaQ]

Hi Koz,

Me again. Well, maybe the moon and stars just weren't lining up right for me to get a good recording today. Actually, I became a bit discouraged and here's why:

1) When I record "room silence" -- all is well -- no Noise Floor issues. But, several times when I recorded, the Noise Floor was out of acceptable range. (Do I need soundproofing above the mic? Right now it is only behind me, to my left, and behind the mic.)

2) If I get close enough (at least that is what appears to affect it) to the mic to get my RMS level in range, then I usually get the Peak Levels out of range -- and vice versa. My mic volume is maxed out at 1.0 and the gain knob on my Focusrite box is turned a good 3/4 the way around. Following are some of the various numbers in my "unacceptable" (raw recording - ACX Check test) recording results:

RMS results: -23.4, -23.5, -23.3, -23.1, -23.2 (You can see they are very close.)
Peak Levels results: -2.9, -2.8, -2.4 (Knew you said about using the Limiter -- but . . . is ACX OK with using that?)

Also, maybe I'm still not grasping some of the things you are recommending to me. Am I trying to hard to always get a perfect "raw" recording? If so, I don't think that's going to happen. Just hope you can give me some recommendations on what to try -- or encouragement to relax a little and be OK with some minimal "mastering/post-production" effects applied. Oh, and I suppose most importantly . . . and I do hope and trust that you will be brutally honest with me . . . even with the one little sample file I sent you, do you find my voice to even "sound" like something anyone would want to listen to? "No" is a perfectly acceptable answer, as I'm always up for brutal honesty.

Well . . . hey, it's Friday and 5:00pm somewhere (almost here - smile) . . . so perhaps I'll just step away from it, have an adult beverage, and figure that tomorrow is another day. Sorry again for all the words, but I hope I explained myself clearly. Enjoy your evening and weekend!

Sincerely,
Sheila

[kozikowski]

ACX OK with using that [the limiter]?

ACX isn't OK with doing anything. If all you need is tiny corrections, we do it and don't tell anybody. As I posted, the only people seriously burned are the performers producing actual damaged work.

But, several times when I recorded, the Noise Floor was out of acceptable range.

So it's moving.....? How far out? I don't suppose you can tell what the noise is? I have a wall clock that can destroy recordings even though in real life, it's not all that loud. There are some lamps I can't turn on.

Undimmed old tungsten incandescent lamps are the quiet heros. Long-Tube Flourescent lamps are terrible, dimmed or not. Most of my compact flourescents make noise. Jury's out on the LED replacement series. They appear quiet.


Fuzzy Generality Time.

ACX stresses quality continuity between the chapters. Also between books, but they're particularly sensitive to chapters. It's possible you may need a suite of corrections, no one tool enough to be obvious, but the whole suite enough to correct the average of all the chapter errors. Noise Reduction (for example) applied to all of them even though only chapters 3, 5, and 13-15 actually need it. The compression collection (Normalize-Compress-Normalize) should solve the RMS (loudness) problem without exceeding the peak specification. If you apply it to all the chapters it should not be obvious what you're doing, but magically, the wimpy (low RMS) chapters vanish.

And this is where I go into the mud. Noise Reduction starts the process with a profile where you take a small sample of the noise by itself so Noise Reduction knows what to attack later. If your noise is moving, the sample and the chapter could be different.

Koz

[kozikowski]

I do hope and trust that you will be brutally honest with me

Voice and presenting style are between you and the client. In general, the only time I get involved is if your natural presenting style is impossible to record. And even then...

Once the recorder is working, you join the other actors looking for work. What does the Producer/Director/Client want?

Volunteer. Several participants got much good experience by volunteering voice/performance announcing.

Check with the Public Library. Ever read for a room full of kids?

Koz

[kozikowski]

There's no One Size Fitz All correction, but since you are wandering in and out of compliance with no help, you might try these. The first one is "noise reduction of the beast." If you get a good, clean noise profile at the beginning of the reading, you should be good to go without getting a fresh one for all the other chapters. I admit to being worried about your background noise changing over time.......

Noise Reduction
-- Drag-select Room Tone, silence or the flat area between spoken phrases.
-- Effect > Noise Reduction: Profile
-- Select the whole clip or show by clicking just above MUTE.
-- Effect > Noise Reduction: Settings 6, 6, 6 > OK


Followed by gentle compression (slight recommendation change from earlier).

Audio Compressor
-- Select the whole clip or show by clicking just above MUTE.
-- Effect > Normalize: [X]Remove DC, [X]Normalize to -3.5 > OK
-- Effect > Compressor: Thresh -20, Floor -40, Ratio 2:1, Attack 0.2, Release 1.0, > OK
-- Effect > Normalize: [X]Remove DC, [X]Normalize to -3.5 > OK

Test with ACX-Check. All the chapters should pass whether they needed "help" or not, and the chapters should more or less match.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Those settings require you be close to compliance at the beginning. If you're not, then you'll need more Disaster Recovery tools. That's one reason I haven't published before now.

Koz

[SheilaQ]

Hi Koz,

Understand. Thanks so much for the added details and recommendations. I also understand the need to have the raw recordings as close to "accepted" as possible. Since the last time I wrote you, I back my gain down a bit on my Focusrite box. That appears to have solved both my noise floor errors and my peak levels being out of range. All that has been left is more than not, the RMS levels slightly "unacceptable".

I had been aware of the Noise Reduction effect and how to use it, as well as the normalize and compressor too. I had watched a video done by the audio geek (smile) for ACX . . . and he provided a list of the 3 effects in the mastering process for which they deem acceptable. Plus, I had been to your website and found various settings and recommendations for some of the ones you listed above. I just completed making an MP3 file so I will do what you had recommended about bringing it back into Audacity and running the test. I do make sure on any of the raw files, that using a few effects as possible that the recording passes.

WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR OPINION ON THE ITEM BELOW:

Lastly, and I maybe should have made this a new thread. I recognize that my "S's" are quite sharp and hissy. I downloaded the "De-Esser" (spell?) plugin that Trebor used on my initial raw submission file. It does work quite nicely. Is it acceptable (to ACX) to use that? I also downloaded the De-Clicker he used and recommended. And, I have to say, it does a nice job as well. Just wondering how you feel about using either/both of those -- especially the De-Esser one.

Again, thank you for the list of effects and the settings. I really do hope I can make this work, as I think doing this kind of work would really be enjoyable. I've always been an avid reader and remember in first grade (yeah, I can even remember back that far - ha! ha!) how I used to LOVE reading out loud in our "Weekly Reader" group. So, we'll see.

Hope you have a great rest of your weekend. Again, I sincerely appreciate your help! Take good care!

Sheila

[kozikowski]

Is it acceptable (to ACX) to use that?

Of course not. ACX doesn't like us using any post production filters and tools. Noise Reduction and De-Esser are specifically listed in their forbidden graph.




There's a cartoon with a monkey pulling an ostrich head out of the sand ignoring the rest of the bird (also sticking out of the sand) standing behind him. The caption works out to "Everything is connected to everything else."

The aggressive, sharp, harsh sound in some microphones is their effort to be "professional." Those sharp, punchy SSSibilants are a major contributor to you missing RMS/Peak compliance. You may easily find that after you de-sibilantize your work (to coin a phrase), you don't need the compressor step any more to make compliance. I use older dynamic (moving coil) microphones that don't have that sharp, crisp sound and I went straight to compliance. The closest I came to failing was noise, not peaks.

I think it's knee-slappingly funny that manufacturers make microphones bright like this and then the performing public made a significant industry in software to take the brightness out.

Koz

[SheilaQ]

Hi Koz,

Afraid that was the answer. I had seen the "acceptable" things that ACX mentioned in the "Mastering" video I watched (what you posted in your last reply). Again, though, I read so many places where people apparently think nothing of using multiple effect filters. Like Trebo replying about having applied the De-Clicker to my raw file. When we get replies like that, it is hard to decipher what is allowable by ACX vs. what maybe works in post processing for personal use? I truly DO desire to get a great "raw" recording. OK, so . . . what microphone do you use or recommend? Since my last post, I have done some research on the hissing S and have found some potential things to try . . . such as pointing the mic a bit down and away from my mouth (approx. 10-15 degrees) and actually being considerably back further (12-18") from it than I have been. I'll try that . . . but your point is a good one, with regard to what mic you use. So, please reveal.

Thanks, as always, for your help!

SheilaQ

[kozikowski]

Again from up the post, there's a big difference between someone in the "Mastering" phase of their work to produce a client deliverable from a perfect studio recording, and someone doing Disaster Recovery. ACX gets a lot of disasters.

I know where they're coming from. If you can't produce a good, almost perfect recording without the crutches, we don't want to hear about it (but it's bad form to say so).


Sooner or later someone was going to ask me that and I don't have a ready answer. I'm coming from broadcast and I certainly have opinions, but not necessarily recommendations. I would have no trouble making a recording with an ElectroVoice RE20. Lovely microphone somewhere in the $500 range. One of my test recordings was a Beyer M58 field microphone somewhere in the $300 range. The M58 plugged into an actual sound mixer, my Peavey PM6, not a "USB adapter device." That's why I was so excited when the Behringer UM2 showed up. It was a USB microphone adapter that wasn't terrible. I would still be leery about shooting a show with one, but there it is.

I have a Shure FP33 field sound mixer, or most of one.



I sweet-talked a friend of mine in Florida to give me his old one when he bought a new one. That's what it looks like after you shoot sound in a speeding boat on Miami's Biscayne Bay. One of the two channels still works. Those go for around $1500. Without the USB adapter.

The microphone in the voice capture pictures...



...is a Rock Band SM-58 microphone working with a Shure FP24 mixer (not an FP33). I would not do that again. The combined performance is not up to full quality standards. It's too electrically noisy and I had volume problems.

This isn't dreadful.



That's an ES58 with my mixer and USB adapter. The original microphone SM58 sounds OK but has low volume. The ES58 is louder, but doesn't sound as good.

Isn't this fun?

So no, I don't have a convenient laundry list of equipment. Most people recoil at the idea of learning how to use a sound mixer...



...but I wouldn't do it any other way. Not necessarily vastly better than other methods, but for one example, it's nice to know I have three different methods of adjusting the microphone volume. All my USB adapters have one volume control and it's almost always used full up.

And it's not enough.

Koz