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Permalink Reply by Evo Terra on May 7, 2008 at 6:55pm

A very good start. I like the mix. Well done.

But something is "wrong" with the VOX. It sounds like artifacting, or maybe it's just being present in a really low bit rate? I'm not nearly enough of an engineering geek to help diagnose, but there's a strange "mist" at the end of your words, most noticeable before the bed music comes in.

And you can call it what you like. I like "Promo-[title]-01.mp3"

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Permalink Reply by H.E. Roulo on May 8, 2008 at 4:45pm

I'm not sure what would be causing that. I checked in my preferences in Audacity and my bit rate is set at 128, which should be acceptable.

I'll keep looking. If anyone has ideas let me know.

The one minute promo is easy to re-record once I resolve this. I'm mainly concerned that my other files may be similarly distorted.

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Lowell on May 8, 2008 at 6:40pm

yea - i hear that artifact, too.

It *almost* sounds like a "noise reduction" artifact gone bad. It's like there's a kind of audio "splash" effect round the narration.

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Permalink Reply by H.E. Roulo on May 13, 2008 at 2:59pm

I ran a test to make SURE I hadn't accidently done noise reduction on the file. Nope, I get the same effect when I export my clean file as an MP3. Noise reduction gives me a nasty tinny sound, not a fuzzy splashy sound. All the many ways to sound bad. . .

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Permalink Reply by Karell on May 13, 2008 at 10:16am

May be a crazy idea, but try saving the MP3 at a high bit rate (256) and then reducing it using iTunes or another tool than Audacity's LAME encoder.

I've heard some stories and it may be why it's called LAME.

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Permalink Reply by H.E. Roulo on May 13, 2008 at 2:59pm

I'm testing this now.

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Permalink Reply by H.E. Roulo on May 13, 2008 at 4:12pm

Wow, what an improvement when I exported the MP3 at 256 in Audacity.

Now I've opened it in iTunes with my import preferences set to 128 and converted the iTunes file. Here it is. What do you think?

As a bonus, I forced my husband to record it so I could test. I can judge the quality of his voice better than my own. Anyway, just for fun here's the same thing with a more typical male voice-over.

Attachments:

• FH-Promo-128.mp3, 1.1 MB
• Fractured Horizon D Promo-128.mp3, 1013 KB

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Lowell on May 13, 2008 at 4:48pm

Yay!! Now THAT's a promo!

I think you've got a production system ready.

Get readin' :)

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Permalink Reply by Karell on May 14, 2008 at 5:41am

Wow, sounds very good - I say that you are good to go!

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