Independent Audiobook Creation Episode 4: Software Toolchain

Episode 4 of my Independent Audiobook Creation series is up, and it covers the basic toolchain that I use when I am mastering my audiobook narrations. It covers the recording, editing, and filtering steps that I use (at least, for the most part), and I offer some suggestions about things the independent author narrating her or his own audiobook can do for their own situation. I am also working on posting a Episode 5 (hopefully tomorrow) that will cover some of the multi-track things that can be done, layering audio, ducking audio, and applying specialty filters.

Here is the video:

As always, comment below or on the YouTube video directly with any comments or questions!

Episode 3 of audiobook creation videos is up

I was able to get the next episode, Episode 3: Hardware Setup done and uploaded to YouTube.

Let me know what you think!

The next episode, Editing & Filtering, will be up in a couple of days.

That video will walk you through each of the edits that I make, and the filters that I apply, and explain why I use each one and what it's for.

Upcoming hardware video

I had intended to get the video of my hardware setup done today, but I managed to put a severe hurting on my right thigh while trying to do my exercises (the ones I hope will help me get back into some semblance of fitness), and have been extremely hobbled the last few days (if you're curious, it is a grade II strain of the Right Rectus Femoris … I knew my paramedic training would come in handy someday).

So I am still working on it but it's been slow going since I can't move very well, and am in a fair amount of pain most of the time. I promise it will be up soon, hopefully by Wednesday.

Independent Audiobook Creation Episode 2: Basic Terminology

I just uploaded the second episode of my series on Independent Audiobook Creation, where I go over some of the basic terminology that might be unfamiliar to writers looking to narrate their own audiobooks.

Next video (should be up Monday evening, MST) will show the hardware setup I'm using, and go over some of the options for hardware.

Let me know what you think!

Intro video for Independent Audiobook Creation

The first video in my Independent Audiobook Creation series is up. It's a touch over 5 minutes long, and just gives a little background about where I'm going with the process.

Let me know what you think!

Tomorrow's episode 2 will cover basic terminology & sound concepts, primarily those that are used at ACX.

Episode 3 will cover my hardware setup, and suggest changes you might make in your own setup, and I intend to have that video up by Monday evening (MST).

Episode 4 will cover the software toolchain, and cover the recording and initial editing steps I use.

Episode 5 will cover the filters and engineering manipulations I use to enhance and prepare the audio files for submission.

And, finally, Episode 6 will be a basic summary of the episodes 2–5, and wrap up the process.

Hope you enjoy them, and that I'm able to help at least one of you in your process!

Audiobook Workflow & Tools, updated

So, I'm still waiting for feedback from ACX, but even if (as I suspect) their feedback is that the files do not meet their technical requirements, I do have some updates for everyone based on my trials and tribulations (if you haven't followed along, check out the first few entries in this topic posted over the last few days).

First, a slight update to the hardware. Instead of the Røde VideoMic Me, I am now using an Audio-Technica ATR-55 that I found for a steeply discounted price in a secondhand store. This is a dynamic shotgun mono microphone, with a tunable pickup pattern. It has three settings for pickup: off, cardioid, and hypercardioid (labelled "tele" on this microphone).

For the novice, the pickup pattern describes the shape of directions in which the microphone "hears," in essence. Without getting into too much technical detail, the "cardioid" pattern refers to a pickup pattern shaped somewhat like a human heart (for an excellent explanation, as well as an equally excellent diagram, check out this answer from music.stackexchange.com). Shotgun mics have a construction that tends to emphasize sounds to the front of the microphone (and, to a lesser extent, the back), and although they do also take in sounds from the sides (off-axis, if you think of it that way, with the on-axis being in the long direction of the microphone). Essentially, what happens is the microphone takes the sounds that come in from the off-axis, and then de-emphasizes them in favor of the sounds that come down the on-axis. With the "tele" setting turned on with the ATR-55, it basically makes that cardioid shape thinner, and stretches down the on-axis a little bit farther to the front (and a little bit to the back, as well).

I have also been doing some deliberate digging to find ways to not have to use Final Cut Pro X—which is still an excellent tool, don't get me wrong. It's just that it's really for video editing, and eats a lot of RAM & CPU time on my computer as a result. It may also not be your best bet, if all you want to do is narrate your own book, at home, because it is a $299 investment. It is really, really awesome, though, so if you already have it for some reason it is a great tool.

So I looked into some ways I could streamline by trying to have Sound Studio and Audacity do more work, possibly using Final Cut only for one or two steps (if at all) that couldn't be done in the other two. I have not completed this process, but I believe that I may be able to only use Audacity, and skip Sound Studio and Final Cut Pro X. When I finalize this process, I'll give more details. I am still planning to do a series of short videos as well, covering these topics:

• Basic Sound Terminology and Concepts
• This video will be a few minutes long, and will explain some of the terms used in sound editing & engineering, for the writer (who may not care other than the fact they need to have a basic grasp in order to self-publish audiobooks)
• Hardware Setup
• This will likely detail my specific setup, and point out where you might make changes or use different equipment (and why)
• Software Toolchain and Workflow
• This will show the tools I use, and then follow a single sound file from recording, to editing, to filtering & other manipulations, and finally to saving in the final format for submission.

These tools will be for Macintosh (since that's what I have and use), but will be conceptually identical on PCs running Windows or Linux—especially with Audacity, since it works on all of these platforms—and should be easy to understand in general.

I intend to have this workflow nailed down by about Monday evening (Mountain Standard Time, since I live in Arizona). That will likely result in a blog on the details Tuesday, and having the videos up starting probably Friday, 29 JUL 2016.

Updated Audiobook Progress

First, the bad news: I still haven't heard back from ACX about the sample files that I uploaded, but I am reasonably sure they aren't going to meet their technical requirements.

And that's actually good news. This is because I found some tools that helped me to determine with some amount of reasonableness what ACX is looking for, and whether those files meet their criteria or not. And they don't, which means I need to re-record them, but that's actually okay.

It's okay, because I have learned a few things that are streamlining my audiobook recording process.

• I hadn't been paying as much attention to the exact mic set up as I should have, such as its exact position, distance from my face when speaking, etc. Now, I have a quite precise measurement and arrangement for these, which has made the recordings much more consistent.
• I found a specific tool for analyzing against ACX's published specifications: the ACX Check plugin for Audacity. As they note in the wiki entry for the plugin, using this is not a guarantee that ACX will accept your audio, but it does provide excellent information about some of the technical requirements (noise floor, peak, and RMS levels specifically). You can find out where you stand. Fixing it, that's another show (sorry, Alton). (I do intend to do a couple of videos on how to use Final Cut Pro X's audio tools, and Audacity, to create ACX-ready audio files.)
• I have been experimenting with the filters in Final Cut Pro X, Audacity, and Sound Studio, and have come up with a pretty good workflow for that, which I will detail in an upcoming blog entry.

So, all in all, the progress has been good even if the output hasn't yet been validated (and probably won't be until I re-record those portions I'm reasonably sure will not be validated). And, in a couple of days, I'll walk you through my updated workflow.

Audiobook progress

In my last two entries, I posted my workflow and my toolset for narrating my own audiobooks. A couple of days ago, I uploaded some test files to ACX's audio QA site. They have a 10-day queue, it seems, so I won't know for several more days what the QA results show. When they do I'll have a better idea what (if any) mistakes I made in my workflow, and I'll share that.

I also had a really fantastic day bargain-shopping yesterday; I found myself at Bookman's (a local resale store here in Tucson) looking for some second-hand DVDs. I'd been visiting the Bookman's stores periodically and had noticed in the past that they also carry second-hand musical instruments and equipment. While there, I happened to notice one of their employees working in that section, and asked him about shotgun microphones. It just so happened they'd just gotten one in, and I managed to land a super-cardioid dynamic shotgun Audio-Technica microphone for about 25% of what it sold for new. That will come in handy with my Almost 22 film project, but also for recording With It or in It.

So, the take-home for me there is: scour your local second-hand shops! You may find something really awesome in there! I'll also let you all know when ACX gets back to me about the QA results.

Also, once I get Hooray for Pain! finished and uploaded, and have the workflow & toolset more finalized, I'm going to post a series of videos on what I did, and how I did it.

My Audiobook Workflow

As you may recall from my last posting, I am working on getting my two books Hooray for Pain! and With It or in It into audio book format. I promised a look at my workflow, so here it is!

So, here are the steps I've been using. Since this is a book of poetry, each file is really very short and it makes more sense to me to do each one, one at a time.

1. Record the audio using the Røde VideoMic Me attached to my iPad or iPhone (using GarageBand with the Monitor setting enabled)
1. The Audio Genie II is plugged into the monitor jack in the back of the microphone.
2. Using Sound Studio's visual VU meters, adjust the gain on the Audio Genie to get mostly green levels.
3. Start recording in Sound Studio, switch over to the Kindle app on my mac (I read directly from the version of the book I uploaded to KDP), and sit quietly for a moment
4. Read the poem. I position the Kindle app and Sound Studio so that I can see the VU meters below, and it will alert me if I'm getting into the yellow levels.
5. Finish recording, sit quietly for a count of three, and then switch back to Sound Studio and stop recording.
2. Listen to the captured audio as-is. If I don't like it, re-record.
3. Click "Normalize" on the toolbar in Sound Studio, with a peak setting of -3 dB (this will give it a little headroom)
4. Listen to the Normalized file. If it sounds good, save the file.
1. I save my files at this point as AAC files with a 320 kbps bit rate. For a really long file I might choose a slower bit rate, but for these files (which are < 1 minute, mostly) it's not a big deal.
2. When I save it, I learned a trick from Izzy Hyman (of http://www.izzyvideo.com/ ) to make it easy to import into Final Cut. In Final Cut Pro X, you can drag a folder into the Music and Sound Browser and it will add it to the sources you can use directly in Final Cut. So I save the files from Sound Studio into a subfolder I created for this project, under the folder I dragged into Final Cut.
5. Make the edits in Final Cut Pro
1. Add the saved file to my working library in Final Cut, create a new Event for it, and add the sound file to the new event in the Timeline
2. After much experimentation, I saved an Effects Preset that combines my starting point for a Noise Gate, Noise Reduction, Doubler, and Volume. I saved the preset and made it my default audio effect through the Final Cut interface, and then I drag the effect onto my audio track. Here are what the settings are/mean:
1. Noise Gate will essentially drop all sound below a decibel threshold. I start with a default of -48 dB and adjust it by listening to the clip all the way through. You'll need to find a decibel setting that doesn't clip your softest speaking parts.
2. Final Cut has outstanding Audio Analysis, and I use their Noise Reduction on top of the Noise Gate. By default, I use a setting of 50%, but occasionally need to bump it up a little higher … especially in Tucson, during the Summer, when it's 110° F and the A/C kicks on every few minutes.
1. There is also an option to de-hum, to adjust for AC electrical current, so if you are using a mic that is connected to electrical (this one is not) you might consider fiddling with that setting as well. 
3. I leave the EQ flat, and I don't add any of the reverb settings from Final Cut, but instead use the Doubler effect with about a 1.05 setting. In essence, this fills out the voice sound by simply repeating it, 0.05 seconds later. It's kind of a cheater's reverb but without some of the obviousness of reverb. If that makes any sense. You could get the same effect by duplicating the audio track, turning off the snap-to-magnet setting on the Timeline, and play around with exactly where the two tracks line up, but I think Doubler is just simpler.
4. Then I listen to the clip in its entirety, watching the VU meter to make sure I don't have any peaks above -3 dB (which is what ACX, Audible's version of KDP, requires) and if I do, adjusting the clip volume down until all peaks are -3 dB or lower. I also listen for clipping of my voice, and if there is any I adjust the Noise Gate appropriately. If there is no clipping, but there is still any background noise, I adjust the Noise Reduction setting under Audio Enhancements.
5. I also listen for "mouth noise" like lip smacking, obvious breaths, and so on. If I find any that sneak through the Noise Gate (which happens), I use the Range Selection tool of Final Cut, zoom way in on the Timeline (down to a few frames, usually), and then put a range around the noise. Once selected, I can pull the volume on that range down to -∞ dB, which eliminates the noise without affecting the timing. If you're careful about how you breath when you are reading, you should be able to isolate these without affecting any actual speaking. It will help to read very deliberately. My prior experience as an actor and singer (when I was younger) helps!
6. Finally, I find the beginning of my actual narration, backtrack two frames less than 1 second, and use the blade tool to remove everything before that. I then repeat this at the end, but with a 2-ish second tail. ACX requires a 0.5–1-second head, and a 1–5-second tail on every file.
6. Once I have the edited sound the way I want it, I do a Share->Master File on the current Project. I set it to be Audio Only, and output as an AAC file. You can output it as an MP3 directly from here, but I take one additional step because Final Cut doesn't give you any options to set the bit rate mode or quality settings.
7. Open the AAC file in Audacity. Using Audacity to convert the AAC file to an MP3 gives more options for the saved MP3 file.
1. Once opened, I Export Audio… and use the following settings:
1. Format: MP3
2. Options: Bit Rate Mode: Constant, Quality: 192 kbps, Channel Mode: Stereo
3. Then I fill out Metadata tags as appropriate

And that's my workflow. I haven't finished yet, so I can't guarantee that this will get approved by ACX. If it does, I'll post a blog entry confirming that; if not, I'll post a blog with the changes I needed to make. Also, I expect I may need to make changes when I start recording With It or in It, since the chapters can be their own files (and will be considerably longer than 1 minute, I suspect!). For doing one poem at a time (which is what ACX wants), this workflow ensures that I get each file done to the standards as best I can right now, and once done I can move to the next poem.

A couple of points: I use Final Cut Pro because my entire original plan was (and remains) to do filming, film/video editing, and it's unquestionably an excellent tool for that. I learned how to use it quite a while ago, when I first started the process of learning video & film editing, and I am very familiar with how to use it. It's expensive ($299 on the Mac App Store). I can certainly dig if you don't want to shell out scratch like that to edit audio; I didn't buy it for the audio. It just so happens that it is as excellent at audio editing as it is at video editing, and since I already had it, and knew how to use it, I adapted it to my workflow. If you're using something else, comment below so everyone can benefit from your experience as well!

Audiobook progress

I have been working really hard on getting some crowdfunding for a film project (Almost 22, a film about the risk of suicide with veterans and first responders), and now am starting with the process of tackling the audiobook versions of both Hooray for Pain! and With It or in It.

As a follow up in a day or so, I will also be posting a breakdown of the process and tools I've been using to produce the audio files for these two audiobooks, so hopefully other authors who wish to produce their own audiobooks can do so simply.