Audacity Tutorials

ACX Audiobook Production Using Audacity (Free 18 Video Course)

/ Mike Adams / Leave a comment

Are you an audiobook creator who uses Audacity as your editing software of choice? This free course is centered around Audacity and only Audacity for audiobook creation. No 3rd party plugins are required or used. IMPORTANT: This free course is based on Audacity version 3.0.5. This means that if you have a later version of the program your screen may look a little different than what’s in the course but the functionality is the same.

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.

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

Each lesson 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.

Announcements: Audacity 4 and the New YouTube Courses Tab

/ Mike Adams / Leave a comment

In this video I wanted to make sure you saw the video that Audacity put out a couple of weeks ago on the progress of Audacity version 4. It’s very informative and I’ll link it here in case you haven’t seen it yet.

Also, my channel has a new tab called Courses. I put the five videos I did, called Audacity 101, into that tab. I plan on taking advantage of that tab so I’ll be placing more videos there in the future. My next video will be a walkthrough of the Audacity 4 (alpha build) interface so we can look at some things together. Stay tuned…
Audacity’s Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYM3TWf_G38&t=883s

Audacity 101 For Podcasters (5-Video Course)

/ Mike Adams / Leave a comment

This short starter course is for anyone using Audacity version 3.7.x for podcasting and is looking for a beginning course in podcast production. If that’s you and you’re looking for help getting started, this course is for you. There’s also a link to this course and my free ACX Audiobook course in the sidebar.

Audacity Tutorial: How to Backup Your Audacity Project While Working On It

/ Mike Adams / Leave a comment

In this short tutorial I show you how to make a backup copy of your working Audacity project file. Project backups were introduced in Audacity version 3.0.0 and are a convenient way to backup your work, keeping the backup copy separate from your working copy. Project backups are identical to your working project but are essentially a snapshot of your working project at the moment in time that you create it. You can give your backup copy it’s own name and save it in any folder. This is a great way to make backups of your project at critical points in your editing because it give you a convenient way to go back to a version of the project before changes were made, if needed.

Hardware I used in this video: (As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.)

  • 2017 MacBook Pro

Software I used in this video:

  • Audacity version 3.1.3
  • Camtasia version 2021.0.8
  • Auphonic Leveler version 1.8

Audacity Tutorial: How to Install a Nyquist Plugin

/ Mike Adams / Leave a comment

This is the first of my Audacity tutorial videos. My Audacity tutorials are short videos walking through one feature or process within Audacity. This video walks you through the installation of a Nyquist plugin in Audacity. For this video, I am running Audacity version 3.1.2 on a 2017 MacBook Pro.

Audacity’s Nyquist Effect Plugin Page: https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Effect_Plug-ins