Old 05-16-2017, 10:58 PM   #1
easton1
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Default ACX setup

I am a neophyte broadcast engineer trying to up his game, by going from Audacity as a DAW to Reaper. I am an old dog trying to learn new tricks, and it's doubly hard because learning Reaper seems a lot like trying to learn Chinese! You've got 6000 characters each of which has a different meaning in a different context. Despite all the wonderful videos (tutorials) out on the web, including Kenny Gioia's, it's a hard task.
What I am – in earnest – is a previously published author, commercially published in the last century by New York City publishers (no vanity publishers) now trying to survive in exactly that realm with Amazon's kindles and paperbacks. That part of my effort is all done.
I'm wanting to do Audiobooks and I wanted to make them grander and better than what's already out there in terms of production values. That is why I'm trying to move to Reaper.
Attached to this message are two screenshots of a third party plug-in that I am obliged to run my end-product through before uploading it to ACX, Amazon's audiobook arm.
My hearing isn't the best, even through some expensive Sennheiser headphones, but my mixing and balance sounds right to me, but it can't pass that damn plug-in's screening. And I can't upload until it does. I've tried equalization, normalization, leveling, high and low pass filters,and The limiter in Audacity. I can't get any combination that will satisfy that plug-ins parameters and still sound okay.
PLEASE, PLEASE, can anybody send me a screenshot of a Reaper's project properties menu that will help me do the job? I would like to be able to record edit and mix in Reaper and then import into Audacity to take advantage of that plug-in's test before I upload.
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Last edited by easton1; 05-17-2017 at 02:12 PM. Reason: fixing no-sow uploads
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Old 05-17-2017, 12:59 AM   #2
ivansc
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Originally Posted by easton1 View Post
I am a neophyte broadcast engineer trying to up his game, by going from Audacity as a DAW to Reaper. I am an old dog trying to learn new tricks, and it's doubly hard because learning Reaper seems a lot like trying to learn Chinese! You've got 6000 characters each of which has a different meaning in a different context. Despite all the wonderful videos (tutorials) out on the web, including Kenny Gioia's, it's a hard task.
What I am – in earnest – is a previously published author, commercially published in the last century by New York City publishers (no vanity publishers) now trying to survive in exactly that realm with Amazon's kindles and paperbacks. That part of my effort is all done.
I'm wanting to do Audiobooks and I wanted to make them grander and better than what's already out there in terms of production values. That is why I'm trying to move to Reaper.
Attached to this message are two screenshots of a third party plug-in that I am obliged to run my end-product through before uploading it to ACX, Amazon's audiobook arm.
My hearing isn't the best, even through some expensive Sennheiser headphones, but my mixing and balance sounds right to me, but it can't pass that damn plug-in's screening. And I can't upload until it does. I've tried equalization, normalization, leveling, high and low pass filters,and The limiter in Audacity. I can't get any combination that will satisfy that plug-ins parameters and still sound okay.
PLEASE, PLEASE, can anybody send me a screenshot of a Reaper's project properties menu that will help me do the job? I would like to be able to record edit and mix in Reaper and then import into Audacity to take advantage of that plug-in's test before I upload.
You old farts are useless at technology, arent you? I am only 73 but dreading when I get too old to remember things like attaching files to a post that I say are attached.

P.S. Welcome to the forums - happily not everyone on here is a teenager bangin` out slammin beats in his bedroom studio... and FWIW I hate my hearing aids!
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Old 05-17-2017, 02:14 PM   #3
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Default Sorry about that..Ivansc

GO back and look again-PLEASE...

The first image is a fail, the second succeeds... I have no idea why I'm all the way up to Chapter Nine before I ran into the first one.
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Old 05-18-2017, 12:09 AM   #4
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Looking at the numbers, that is really odd.
Have you contacted the Amazonians about it?

After all it is in their interests as much as yours that people can *easily* upload successful conversions to their preferred audio format.

I am pretty sure you would find their tech support pretty helpful. FWIW I have had similar issues with Youtube videos a while back & found THEIR tech guys eager to help.
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Old 05-19-2017, 12:18 PM   #5
easton1
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Originally Posted by ivansc View Post
Looking at the numbers, that is really odd.
Have you contacted the Amazonians about it?

After all it is in their interests as much as yours that people can *easily* upload successful conversions to their preferred audio format.

I am pretty sure you would find their tech support pretty helpful. FWIW I have had similar issues with Youtube videos a while back & found THEIR tech guys eager to help.
The ACX guys and dolls have not been helpful at all with tech matters...Contrary to their web site guidelines page, they don't really appreciate any stereo files there as an upload. They STRONGLY suggest uploading only mono files. Preferably mono files that are virgin as far as any processing goes. Call them up and all you get are sales people who don't know beans about any tech issues, and I've never been able to break through the screen to their tech people to have useful speech. And of course the emails from that dept have not been helpful at all and not timely in their responses. And with emails you never get the same person twice in an individual call and response.

I've tried also to connect with Kenny Gioia, even offering to buy any videos of his he's selling that would offer specific instructions to set up Reaper for such purposes as mine. His website is flawed in that his contact page refuses any message to him unless and until you've read his FAQ page--and then hit "submit" you get the same message AGAIN to read the FAQ page. So no one can connect directly with Gioia on his website.And your completed message just disappears into the cyberworld ether.

Last edited by easton1; 05-19-2017 at 12:49 PM.
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Old 05-19-2017, 01:20 PM   #6
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I've tried also to connect with Kenny Gioia, even offering to buy any videos of his he's selling that would offer specific instructions to set up Reaper for such purposes as mine. His website is flawed in that his contact page refuses any message to him unless and until you've read his FAQ page--and then hit "submit" you get the same message AGAIN to read the FAQ page. So no one can connect directly with Gioia on his website.And your completed message just disappears into the cyberworld ether.
You could try sending a PM to him here. It has worked for me in the past.
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Old 05-19-2017, 08:43 PM   #7
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yes, I've tried the PM route, about a month ago – to no avail. I sent a message to Kenny and is still in his inbox unread.I can understand with all his videos he's a very busy fellow. But if he wants to sell certain of his videos, he should look out for his website. I would definitely buy one of them myself if it showed me how to set up reefer step-by-step for audiobook production.
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