How to Meet ACX Audiobook Standards Using Audacity Exclusively
What you'll learn
- How to install the four free Nyquist plugins used in this course
- How to set Audacity Preferences for ACX audiobook recording
- How to fix narration mistakes as they happen using Punch and Roll Record
- How to apply Equalization and when
- How to apply Compression
- How to apply the Limiter effect to meet ACX standards
- How to apply the De-Clicker effect to reduce/remove mouth sounds
- How to master voice recordings to proper RMS levels for ACX using Audacity
- How to build and run a Macro to automate and speed up your work
- How to create and use macros to automate repetitive tasks and save time
- How to clean up breath sounds using Punch Copy/Paste
- How to clean up breath sounds using Attenuation
- How to add the required amount of room tone at the beginning and end of your recording for ACX
- How to meet the ACX requirements for MP3 file size and bit rate
- Understanding the ACX Requirement for Room Tone
- Understanding the ACX Standard for Noise Floor
- Understanding the ACX Standard for File Size
- Understanding the ACX Standard for RMS Loudness
- Understanding the ACX Standard for Sample Rate
Requirements
- Some experience with Audacity is helpful.
- Familiarity with navigating computer programs and screens is helpful.
Description
Are you an audiobook creator who uses Audacity as your editing software of choice?This course is centered around Audacity and only Audacity for audiobook creation. Audacity is a powerful and free audio editing software program that's used by millions around the world for music, podcast, and audiobook creation. We don't venture outside of Audacity into any 3rd party plugins, 3rd party software, or 3rd party effects during this course. This course is 100% Audacity and you'll learn the power of Audacity in editing and producing exceptional audiobooks for ACX. Our time isn't spent talking about mic placement, room treatments, vocal technique, or how to narrate an audiobook. There are plenty of great resources for those important topics on the web, YouTube, and here at Udemy, and I provide links to several of those resources in the final lecture of this course. If you're wanting to produce outstanding audiobooks for free using Audacity, this course is for you.
Are you an Audacity user who wants to know what Audacity offers for audiobook production?
The topics covered in this course will give you the skills and confidence you need so you can produce and edit your audiobook narrations with excellence. We'll record a short piece of audio and use it as a practice file through 8 individual assignments to practice the concepts we learn, turning that audio file into a produced MP3 that is ready to upload to ACX. NOTE: You'll need Audacity version 3.X or higher to open the practice file and we download that together in Section One.
What you'll learn in this course:
- How to install the four free Nyquist plugins used in this course
- The ACX Requirement for Room Tone
- The ACX Standard for Noise Floor
- The ACX Standard for File Size
- The ACX Standard for RMS Loudness
- The ACX Standard for Sample Rate
- How to set Audacity Preferences for ACX audiobook recording
- Simple definitions of Noise Floor, Sample Rate, RMS Loudness, and Bit Rate
- How to fix narration mistakes as they happen using Punch and Roll Record
- How to apply Equalization and when
- How to apply Compression
- How to level your audio using RMS Loudness to meet ACX requirements for RMS
- How to apply the Limiter effect to meet ACX standards
- How to apply the De-Clicker effect to reduce/remove mouth sounds
- The importance of running Audacity's ACX Check Plugin
- How to build and run a Macro to automate our process
- How to clean up breath sounds using Punch Copy/Paste
- How to clean up breath sounds using Attenuation
- Content editing and final MP3 export
- How to meet the ACX requirements for MP3 file size and bit rate
The 8 practice assignments in this course will give you plenty of hands-on opportunity to apply what you learn in the order it's presented. Each assignment builds on the previous one as we build a short piece of audio together, add the different effects to it, run ACX Check on it, and export it as an MP3 file that's ready to pass the ACX quality control standards. And we do all of this using only Audacity.
Who this course is for:
- Anyone wanting to learn more about Audacity and ACX audiobook requirements.
- New or existing audiobook narrators who want to use Audacity for audiobook narration.
- Audacity users exploring audiobook creation.
- Audacity users wanting to learn how to edit and master audiobooks to ACX specifications.
- Audacity audiobook creators seeking to sharpen their editing and mastering skills to meet ACX standards
- Audacity audiobook creators seeking to build their confidence using Audacity to meet ACX standards
