Speaker 1: Hey there, I'm Andy of Kraken Media, and welcome to this comprehensive-ish guide on creating an audiobook using Audacity and ensuring it meets the technical specifications required by ACX and Audible for acceptance. If you've ever wanted to turn your written work into a captivating audiobook, you've come to the right place. In this tutorial, we'll walk you through each step using only three tools. So let's dive right in and get started on this exciting audiobook journey. Step 1. Downloading and Installing Audacity If you haven't already, the first thing you need to do is download Audacity from their official website audacityteam.org. It's available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it accessible to a wide range of users. Once the download is complete, follow the installation instructions for your operating system. After a successful installation, open Audacity and you'll be greeted with its main interface. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the various tools and menus, as we'll be using them throughout this tutorial. So before we start recording our audiobook, it's essential to configure Audacity's audio settings correctly. To do this, go to Edit in the top menu, and then select Preferences. In the Preferences window, you'll find different tabs, but we're interested in the Audio I.O. settings. In the Audio tab, set the correct playback device for your speakers or headphones. This ensures that you can hear the playback of your recording during the editing process. Next, navigate to the Recording tab under Audio I.O. Here you need to select your microphone, and the appropriate microphone channel if applicable. This may vary depending on your setup, but if you're using a USB audio interface, that should be listed here. One of the critical requirements for ACX and Audible is to have the right project settings. Let's configure this in Audacity before we begin recording. Click on File and select New to create a new project. Audacity will prompt you to choose the sample rate and format. For ACX and Audible, set the project sample rate to 44,100 Hz and the sample format to 24-bit. These settings ensure that your audio book meets the required audio quality standards. With the correct settings in place, add a mono track by right-clicking and selecting Add Mono Track. At the bottom left corner of the Audacity interface, you'll see the track settings. Make sure it matches the 44,100 Hz and 24-bit rate format that we set earlier. Before we start recording the audio book, it's crucial to ensure that your microphone level is appropriately set to achieve optimal audio quality. Click on the microphone icon in the top toolbar to enable the microphone meter, then click Start Monitoring. While monitoring, you'll see a green bar bouncing up and down on the meter. This indicates the input volume of your microphone. Adjust your microphone or audio interface settings so that the input volume stays within a range of about negative 12 to negative 18 dB while you're talking. This provides enough headroom to avoid clipping while ensuring a decent recording level. With Audacity correctly set up, it's time to start recording your audio book. Find a quiet and comfortable space to record in and make sure you have a script or manuscript ready to read from. Take a deep breath, relax, and hit the big red record button to begin recording. As you read, try to maintain a consistent pace and tone. Keep an eye on the microphone meter to make sure that your voice remains within the desired volume range. If you make a mistake or encounter any issues during recording, don't worry, we can edit and refine the recording later. After recording your audio book, it's time to enter the editing phase to polish the audio and create a seamless listening experience. Listen through the entire recording and identify any pauses or background noises that need to be removed. When you find a section you want to remove, simply click and drag over it to highlight it and press the Delete key. Always cut from the beginning or end of a sentence to maintain a seamless flow. If you cut from the middle of a gap, you might inadvertently remove breath or room tone, making the edit much more noticeable. Once you've edited the audio book, it's essential to check its audio levels to ensure it meets ACX and Audible requirements. To do this, head to the video description below and download the free ACX Check plugin from the provided link. You can also hit the Subscribe button on your way past. After downloading, install the plugin in Audacity's Nyquist plugin installer that you can find here. Simply select the location of your downloaded file and click Install. At this point, make sure you save your work and then close Audacity and reopen it to enable the newly installed plugin. With the plugin installed, select the entire track and go to Analyze and click on ACX Check. This tool will analyze your audio book's RMS value and indicate whether it meets the specified requirements. It's crucial to meet the RMS, Root Mean Squared requirements set by ACX and Audible to ensure a consistent volume throughout the audio book. If your audio book's RMS values are too low, meaning it's too quiet, you'll need to make it louder using compression. Compression is an audio processing technique that evens out the dynamic range of your recording, making soft sounds louder and loud sounds softer. To apply compression in Audacity, go to Effects, then Compressor. Just use and apply the default settings, but change the threshold to negative 20 dB and set the ratio to 2 to 1. This means that any audio above negative 20 dB will be made quieter and any audio under 20 dB will be left alone. Repeat the compression process until your audio book's RMS values are within the desired range. This may require several adjustments to achieve the optimal loudness while avoiding distortion. After each round of compression, make sure you go to Effects, and then Normalize, and normalize to negative 3.1 dB. Once your audio book meets ACX and Audible specifications, it's time to export it as an MP3 file. Go to File, then Export, and select Export as MP3. Choose the appropriate settings including mono format, constant bitrate at 192 kbps, and force export to mono. After selecting the settings, click Save and export the file to your desired location, and congratulations, your audio book file is now ready to be uploaded to ACX and Audible. So you've successfully created an audio book using Audacity and ensured that it meets all the technical requirements for ACX and Audible. Turning your written work into an engaging audio book is a fantastic way to reach a broader audience and provide them with an immersive listening experience. Remember, this guide only scratches the surface of audio book creation and audio book editing possibilities. There are countless other techniques and tips you can explore to further enhance your audio book's quality, so be sure to check out some of my other videos on that subject. Please also like this video if you found it helpful and subscribe if you want to see more. In the meantime, check out this video here to get you started on making your audio book sound absolutely amazing.