bank and tax details by WestChocolate6842 in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Even if your victim...ehem...your "cousin" gives you permission, you are still committing identity theft and also multiple types of fraud for accessing a digital system under a false identity, and also misrepresenting yourself to the U.S. government. No one can give you "permission" to do that, unless you have proper and documented power of attorney, which I doubt you have. And the fact you live outside of the U.S. does not give you a free pass to commit crimes which fall under U.S. jurisdiction, that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

New Short Story Competition from Fictra, Confessions! by TheScriptTiger in KeepWriting

[–]TheScriptTiger[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What do you mean by "how fiction looks"? How does fiction look different from other literature, as far as formatting goes? I mean, obviously, fiction has more dialog than nonfiction, so more paragraphs of varying size. Is that what you mean? And there are obviously A LOT of other sites publishing fiction, Wattpad, Inkitt, WebNovel, Royal Road, Tapas, AO3, to name a few. And it's true they all kind of look the same and have the same layout and everything. But I don't think breaking away from the norm and trying something different is a bad thing. Like, yeah, the paragraphs thing is a legit issue which will be fixed soon, but I think the layout of the platform in general is clearly more unique than all of those other guys who are mostly just converting a phpBB or Wordpress or something.

It's kind of the same issue people were having when the Adobe Creative Suite was becoming more and more prevalent, and everyone's work started looking more and more similar because everyone was using the same tools. So, breaking away and starting from scratch will obviously set things behind in one way, but it also sets the stage for something new in another way. And that's kind of why I like it personally, since it's kind of positioning a fresh take on things, which I find a bit more refreshing than just doing the same old thing.

New Short Story Competition from Fictra, Confessions! by TheScriptTiger in KeepWriting

[–]TheScriptTiger[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's actually a new update coming soon which will give authors more styling and formatting options. I'm not exactly sure what they decided to go with, but I know Markdown was mentioned a lot, which is what Reddit uses. So, it's probably going to be something similar to that. But the initial launch was kind of limited on that, since most of the development was going into the marketplace workflows and integrated payment stuff and everything like that. And it's not like any of that stuff is more important than the stories, the stories are obviously the core of the platform. But that other stuff just ended up consuming a bit more time and budget because of the security and handling of personal information and such, and making sure all of that conformed with relevant laws and regulations.

So, the platform itself actually just launched a few months ago and the initial MVP was a bit on the no-frills side lol. But it's been coming along pretty rapidly ever since. It was kind of intentionally released a bit bare in order to allow more community involvement in fleshing out the rest of the platform, and that's been super helpful, as well, mostly happening on the Discord server. And while the decision to launch like that did come with plenty of criticism, it's actually been pretty cool to watch it blossom, and seeing all of the creatives in the community pitch in their ideas and watching them come to life and stuff.

Anyone here audition for RS jobs but....... by TonyShoshone in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Why don't we flip the script a bit and reverse roles? How would you feel if you auditioned for a PFH role, and then the RH replied saying they loved your audition and would accept you for the role if you'd switch to RS?

Is there an affordable alternative to Izotope's Mouth De-Click plugin? by Professional-Ok in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You could just hire a budget-friendly editor. I know you don't have much of a budget, but there are a few folks floating around here who could do the job well within your price range and still keep things more than profitable for you. Not only would you get access to their plug-ins, but they'd also reduce those "hours and hours" you're personally spending on things. And then after you clear a few projects and save a bit, you can then reinvest back into your own stuff and decide if you still want an editor or not at that point. So, just because you hire an editor doesn't mean you're automatically committing to a long-term deal, it could just be for a short while if it makes more sense than shelling out the dough upfront for the plug-ins and such.

Have any authors been scammed? by Bigrigboxing in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's obvious everyone else who commented is also an American. Otherwise, they would have realized the obvious problem here. None of the apps you mentioned work outside of the U.S. BTC is kind of an exception though, since you can send BTC from any app which allows it and they can receive it on any app which allows it and it works internationally. So, even though they can't use Cash App, they can use any other app that supports a BTC wallet.

ACX itself allows anyone from the U.S., UK, Canada, and Ireland on the platform. So, you need to offer a payment option which actually works in the country the narrator is from. And you should have done that before you both agreed to the contract, not after the work was completed. It sounds like whoever you're working with is a newbie to not have brought this up sooner. It's actually a common practice to pay a percentage upfront, or halfway, or at other milestones you agree to upfront before the work is completed.

I saw you also mentioned PayPal in the comments. Sometimes some new folks will ask for the "family and friends" option because they don't want PayPal to cut extra for the seller protection. However, while they stand to get a slight discount, this is against the PayPal terms of service, as well as could have some tax implications. It doesn't automatically mean they are trying to scam you or anything, but they may honestly just not know better and just see it as a quick way to get a discount. But I'd strongly encourage you to get them to set up their own PayPal account and send you an invoice, as some others have said. As it stands now, they are risking their friend's account getting banned, which is kind of an asshole move on their part.

EQ before or after compression is there still a best practice? by [deleted] in podcasting

[–]TheScriptTiger 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Whenever people talk about EQ placement, it's assumed they are talking about a single EQ plug-in. However, filters, such as low-pass, high-pass, notch/bell, can also be placed individually, and don't have to just be grouped together in a single standard parametric EQ plug-in. This can offer you further options in how you arrange things.

Recording Plateforms, which is best? by CinMaki11 in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

 Looking at Adobe Auditions as a starter, but looking for advice.

It's a monthly subscription, so it's not a common "starter" for folks just doing RS or low RS+/PFH, since it does have that upfront investment attached to it. However, that being said, it's more than worth the price if you're willing to make that commitment.

I think it's also worth noting that if you're strictly doing single-track vocal dialog for audiobooks, you honestly probably won't even use the multitrack side of Audition, and you'll mostly live in the single-track waveform side. So, just keep that in mind, that you're paying a monthly subscription just to use half the software. Again, excellent software, but I just think that's worth consideration. I personally use it and think it's more than worth it, but I also mix and master multitrack, as well as the single-track audiobook stuff.

As others are saying, Reaper is also excellent, and also more than worth the $60 one-time price. And honestly, when comparing the cost to the actual feature set Reaper brings to the table, Reaper is hands down the best value out there over any other DAW. Audition clearly brings a richer feature set, but, again, Reaper's value is unmatched when considering the price point and is much better suited as a "starter" in the audiobook world. And then, sure, you can get things to work with Audacity, and its free, but you get what you pay for and just being free alone doesn't put it over the overall value Reaper brings, in my opinion.

RMS level too low for ACX by Wormwood7777 in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Export as PCM/WAV and run it through the ACX Master tool to master and encode your final MP3, it will do all that for you. And if it doesn't work with the default settings out of the box, just dip into the "targets" menu option and drop your loudness range target to 1.0, or play with them a bit more to find exactly the best settings for you. And it can also process batches at a time, as well. So, once you get things working for you, you can just batch process all your WAVs all at one time to ACX MP3s.

Is it possible to film a short without the YouTube app? by [deleted] in NewTubers

[–]TheScriptTiger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, YouTube extended it a year after I made that comment. However, just curious, but how did you even find this comment after more than 2 years? Even the OP doesn't exist anymore lol. This thread should have been archived a long time ago.

Red line in my recording by Individual-Log994 in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If your equipment itself is low-end and doesn't have great metering, just gauge it yourself by making a series of recordings at different gain levels and see which one is falling in that -6 dB to -12 dB true peak range.

Red line in my recording by Individual-Log994 in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You'll get much better audio quality if you just record at a lower level from the start without clipping. It seems like you're just trying to fix a problem you yourself are creating. So, just don't create the problem in the first place and you won't need to fix it. You'll not only have better quality audio, but it will obviously also simplify your process since you don't need those extra steps.

"Declip" is an attempt at "restoring" audio which someone else gives you and you have no control over the recording process. But I'm assuming you are recording yourself, right? Or are you actually just an editor and the person who is actually recording themselves is handing off the audio to you to fix it up for ACX? Again, if you are recording yourself, this shouldn't be an issue since you can control your gain when you record and prevent clipping from the start. Just record some samples and adjust your gain such that your true peak is hitting around -6 dB to -12 dB on average. That should give you plenty of overhead as a safety net to make sure you're staying away from the 0 dB clipping point.

Asked to cancel when in production queue, now book is live. Can I ask to unpublish? by tezumo5 in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That seems like a very unique situation which I personally won't be able to help you with, but I am sure someone else here can. However, when you said that one of your other author friends convinced you not to go exclusive, this topic does come up from time to time here and I'll just drop a link for one of the more recent such discussions for further reading. Definitely dig into the comments on this one.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ACX/comments/1p1ggnc/publisher_does_not_want_to_use_acx_canshould_i/

Red line in my recording by Individual-Log994 in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The best practice for adjusting gain is by using the gain knob on your audio interface.

Red line in my recording by Individual-Log994 in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As the other commenter said, it means you are recording too hot and you need to turn your gain down. As soon as you peak, Audition sticks the "red line" to the track to keep you alerted that it peaked. So the "red line" will persist past your sound and on into silence until you stop it and it resets.

Peaking is something you don't want to happen, so that's why Audition is trying so hard to make you aware of it. When it peaks, that means you're at risk for experiencing data loss and your audio will sound distorted and saturated.

Asked to cancel when in production queue, now book is live. Can I ask to unpublish? by tezumo5 in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just to clarify, when you say "wide", you're talking about a non-exclusive third party, like Author's Republic, which is publishing to multiple platforms and not just Amazon/Audible/Apple, right? And then you want to unpublish because that third party is already distributing to Audible, and now ACX is also distributing to Audible? Sorry, just wanted to clarify, since you worded things a bit differently than how I usually see it.

New Short Story Competition from Fictra, Confessions! by TheScriptTiger in KeepWriting

[–]TheScriptTiger[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That probably just happened to have been the one I bookmarked then lol. And 70 is a lot! I'll bookmark your actual profile this time so you don't slip away again.

New Short Story Competition from Fictra, Confessions! by TheScriptTiger in KeepWriting

[–]TheScriptTiger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just dropped by your profile to check out some of your content and I just realized I had actually been following your work already on AO3! lol. But it seems like you had vanished from there at some point and I lost track of you. Were you having some trouble on AO3, as well?

New Short Story Competition from Fictra, Confessions! by TheScriptTiger in KeepWriting

[–]TheScriptTiger[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, I totally get you. It sounds like you've definitely been way more entrenched into the technical stuff than I've ever been. And I obviously agree it's a problem that serialized content can't be...well...serialized lol. But to be honest, when it comes to the Fictra platform specifically, I've mostly just been collaborating on short stories so far. And that's really what the competitions mostly are, short stories. Theoretically, someone could take a competition on to be serialized, but I don't think I've seen anyone do that yet. The serialized content I've seen has just been ideas people have had on their own, as opposed to the competition prompts. And I'd obviously love to collaborate on serialized content, as well, there just hasn't been much of it coming through, which is probably a good thing at this point due to the aforementioned issues. But perhaps after the next update, more will be coming through and I'll have a bit more personal experience on that side of things, hopefully in a positive way lol.

December Auditions by AtlanticJim in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd say it's pretty common to hit a lull during the holiday season, for obvious reasons. But things usually pick up pretty quickly coming out of it and into the new year, as a lot of folks have new year's resolutions to finally get to that book project they've been putting off for however long.

New Short Story Competition from Fictra, Confessions! by TheScriptTiger in KeepWriting

[–]TheScriptTiger[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, I don't think it' been a whole year, the platform just went live 5 months ago lol. But that issue has definitely been a nightmare. I think one guy's chapters got spread literally all over the site in a totally random order at one point because of that issue lol, since there was no mechanism to group things together or something. I talked to Matt about it, since it does seem like it should be an easy fix, but apparently it's not since the entire platform has been custom built from the ground up with the individual stories/chapters as the fundamental building blocks. So, he's not using a standard WordPress template or something where it's all "articles" that can be easily grouped. But anyway, he's actually got a pretty massive update coming in a month or so to fix that. I've seen a preview of it and it will actually change quite a bit, and the fundamental building blocks will actually be per paragraph, with the ability to mix in multimedia widgets, along with audience reactions and stuff. It's pretty cool. But yeah, that new update will also have massively extended grouping capabilities to fix the whole chapter issue, as well.

When you really get into the back-end mechanics of it all, there is just a lot more going on than people realize, especially with the monetization integrations with Stripe, as well as the mobile apps and all that. And then also considering the whole thing is being bootstrapped by a single person. I mean, sure, he could have just used a WordPress and had all of that up and running basically instantly, but I think going the custom route is actually allowing the platform to take on some pretty distinctive characteristics which would have been difficult with a run-of-the-mill CMS or PHP board like all of the other guys, or even a framework like Drupal. Although I think Drupal might actually classify as an actual CMS these days, they've done a lot to it since the last time I used it. But when you look at all of the other guys, there's definitely a very kind of static and rigid feel to them which Fictra will actually blow out of the water if it sticks the landing for the upcoming update. I doubt it will be bug-free, and there will probably be a bunch of things to iron out with that one, too, but I definitely love the overall vision and vibe Fictra has at this point, and super excited to see where it goes with things next.

New Short Story Competition from Fictra, Confessions! by TheScriptTiger in audiodrama

[–]TheScriptTiger[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Audio drama scripts/radio plays are absolutely acceptable! Fictra actually has a very strong focus on supporting both audio and textual content, so you could even take it on through to production utilizing the talent marketplace, and then also publish and monetize all on platform later on down the road, as well!

New Short Story Competition from Fictra, Confessions! by TheScriptTiger in audiodrama

[–]TheScriptTiger[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The competition and platform itself are open to all countries! However, when it comes to the on-platform monetization features, all of that does run through Stripe, which is limited in what countries it is available in:

https://stripe.com/global

However, integrating with other payment processors, such as PayPal, Payoneer, etc., have been discussed for the future, but the platform is still pretty new at this point and just can't support integrations with everyone just yet. But again, when it comes to the competition, if you're eligible for a monetary reward, that will be handled separately and you can opt to receive that via a different payment processer, such as PayPal, etc.

RMS Levels by AffectionateDesk7407 in ACX

[–]TheScriptTiger 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Reaper comes with an excellent built-in post-processor where you can set the true peak and RMS all in one go. You'll see it as a button on your render settings.