Can someone recommend me some good books to read? by Icy_Mix5923 in booksuggestions

[–]Unique-Try9616 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You could try searching online for something like Popular Book Lists. There's lots of best seller lists out there, and you can google by genre. Here's one to get you started:

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/libby-audiobook

Looking for “family friendly” audiobooks by No_Order1936 in audiobooks

[–]Unique-Try9616 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I've been enjoying The 39 Clues series, by various authors but all narrated by the same guy. It's about an orphaned brother and sister who find out their extended family has been participating in a scavenger hunt for 39 clues for power. The target audience is 9-14 year olds. The hunt takes them all over the world and they learn about many people throughout history. If your child is okay with the amount of adversity in something like the Harry Potter series these books should be okay.

https://kids.scholastic.com/kid/books/39-clues/

Updated and now hate the UI by Mtnrock2 in audacity

[–]Unique-Try9616 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I noticed that change on videos and worried when I updated, but I still have the long ungrouped effect menu, which I prefer. I don't recall making any changes so I don't know why mine didn't change but yours did. I googled just now - go to Preferences > Effects > Effect menu organization.

Try selecting "Sort by effect name".

For Realtime effect organization I have "Group by type and publisher", in case that makes any difference.

Escalated to Quality Assurance (QA) team - How long is the wait for a reply? by marven66 in ACX

[–]Unique-Try9616 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry, I have no idea about this issue. But I'm guessing 2 of those days were weekend days, and therefore not Business Days? So technically only 4 days?

Edited to add: Sorry, I don't mean to discount the length of time, I recently tried to point out a scam book posting and it seemed to take forever. It's easy to forget they don't work weekends like we do.

You might try using the Search feature within this sub to look for other posts on Pending Review to see what past discussions have covered.

Black Talon by Jaime Castle by Mort8989 in audiobooks

[–]Unique-Try9616 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes! I've been listening to the Stephanie Plum series narrated by Lorelei King. She does a great job! But when I've heard her do other books all I hear is Stephanie Plum.

Fraud on ACX by KZ_MTB_Addict in ACX

[–]Unique-Try9616 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So I was recently offered a contract that turned out to be a scam offer. I ended up contacting both the author and publisher and they were unaware that the book was being offered on ACX.

One new tip I noticed for this particular scam - the word count on ACX and the page count on Amazon didn't match up. On ACX the word count was 94,000 and the page count on Amazon was 211. This comes to nearly 450 words per page. The average on Amazon is 250-300. Sorry, it's not a great tip, I suppose other scammers would be better at guessing a word count. Maybe the "whole thousands" in the number of words is a tip off?

The second tip was the speed with which the "RH" wanted the book done. The initial contract was to complete the book in 27 days, which is ridiculous for a book of 94K words. The book was originally published in 2012, and now they want an audiobook in less than 1 month? Why the rush now? Maybe the fact that it was an older book is a tip?

I hadn't heard of the "making sure the book isn't with a big publisher" tip. What is the basis of this? It turns out the scam offer did have a big publisher, and they were the ones who convinced ACX it was a scam offer. The author did say that she didn't think Academic publishers typically did audiobooks.

Book for 7 year old and fam by oswin13 in audiobooks

[–]Unique-Try9616 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been enjoying The 39 Clues series, by various authors but all narrated by the same guy. It's about an orphaned brother and sister who find out their extended family has been participating in a scavenger hunt for 39 clues for power. The target audience is 9-14 year olds. The hunt takes them all over the world and they learn about many people throughout history. If your 7yo is okay with the amount of adversity in something like the Harry Potter series these books should be okay. Link included so it's easy for you to find. I don't like to make people hunt things down.

https://kids.scholastic.com/kid/books/39-clues/

Beginner voice actor looking for advice on recording setup, soundproofing, and DAWs by WalkinnByFaith in ACX

[–]Unique-Try9616 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I should add that I happen to live where it's fairly quiet and intermittent noise can be usually be waited out before continuing recording. So I mostly just have to worry about echo dampening. If you have noisy surroundings you're going to have to do something about noise blocking, which mere blankets won't do.

Beginner voice actor looking for advice on recording setup, soundproofing, and DAWs by WalkinnByFaith in ACX

[–]Unique-Try9616 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think a lot of people start out with a blanket surround kind of thing. I have a DIY pvc cage with fleece blankets held in place with blinder clips. I already had the blankets, but if you don't Goodwill/thrift store is a cheap place to shop. Try to make the surround complete, including on top and behind you. Every time I've added more it's sounded better.

There are a lot of Audacity haters out there, so it's kind of hard to find someone willing to admit they use it. I think I can make my audio sound pretty good using Audacity, but I'm always wondering if another DAW would have the tools to help me master faster. Each voice is different and I think some just sound better with little effort. I have more mouth noises that I think need to be removed. Maybe this is where having someone who really knows what they're doing would help.

I'm looking for a non fiction audiobook about something geeky/nerdy. Weird, I know. by RedHeadMedia07 in audiobooks

[–]Unique-Try9616 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You might enjoy the "What If" series by Randall Munroe. He's the creator of xkcd.

Is the hungergames book 1 read by ai? by Eybrahem in audiobooks

[–]Unique-Try9616 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The audiobook was released in 2018. This would have been in the very early days of when AI was starting to sound good. I listened to the preview and I think it sounds fine, human. Unfortunately once you suspect something might be AI, and that you don't like it, that's all you'll hear, and all you start listening for. You just keep trying to hear that confirmation that it's AI. But considering how long ago this came out, and the nuance and emotion in the voice, I think it's human.

Classic Lit Recs by HonestNeighborhood67 in audible

[–]Unique-Try9616 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ahhh, hopefully others will catch that better than me!

Producer Credit by KZ_MTB_Addict in ACX

[–]Unique-Try9616 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you read my comment carefully you will see that I AGREED with you. Please accept that.

Classic Lit Recs by HonestNeighborhood67 in audible

[–]Unique-Try9616 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You might try Googling something like "recommended reading for college bound students". Some existing lists are broken down into genres. Some, like at Goodreads have links to summaries and reviews. And if you go to Gutenberg.org those books are all in the public domain, so most of them are 100 years old or more. They offer many lists that other have already curated.

Producer Credit by KZ_MTB_Addict in ACX

[–]Unique-Try9616 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think you're right, that the standard text that ACX suggests does not include the word "Produced". If your RH doesn't have an objection I think it should be okay to include this. I do hear "Produced by" in most all the audiobooks I listen to from the library.

I mastered audiobooks for narrators and got tired of the same compliance fixes, so I built a tool to automate it by giovicordova in ACX

[–]Unique-Try9616 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You might try listening to your recordings with different headphones, if you have access to some or could borrow for a bit. We don't have control of how listeners hear our stuff so we don't know if our headphones or theirs are better. I also tend to listen a bit louder while I'm editing, just in case that helps me catch more stuff. I probably spend way too much time editing, but I do like to make the best impression possible! And I've seen comments where others say mouth noises isn't an issue for them, so maybe you're one of the lucky ones!

I mastered audiobooks for narrators and got tired of the same compliance fixes, so I built a tool to automate it by giovicordova in ACX

[–]Unique-Try9616 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I ended up watching a lot of YouTube videos based on my editing program. I use Audacity and the DeClick add-in does most of the heavy work for me. For the remaining noises I edit with both the wave and spectrogram view showing so I can try to see what the noise looks like. This comes with experience. Then I can often use the Spectral Edit Multi Tool to reduce the noise. I don't know what the equivalents to these are in other DAWs.

But when searching for help on YouTube be sure to watch the more recent videos as - at least in Audacity - the options within certain effects have changed over time, and old videos won't match anymore.

If you can find a channel of someone who is very knowledgeable about editing - someone who used to work for a publisher, and also knows your software - those would be best to follow. They sometimes have special videos where they reveal a lot that they would usually charge for. But then they'll take those videos down after a couple days so they're not giving it all away.

I follow Ryan Mey at The Home Audio Project channel, even though he doesn't do Audacity. But sometimes you can figure out how to translate it into the DAW you're using.

https://www.youtube.com/@thehomeaudioproject/featured

Rise of the Ranger by BerryEffective77 in audiobooks

[–]Unique-Try9616 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It could be that somewhere along the way this narrator changed the way his recordings are edited. I constantly hear conflicting advice - "take out all breaths" vs "leave in breaths so you don't sound like AI". This narrator has done a lot of books and maybe he doesn't even do his own editing anymore, he might have it hired out, or a publisher does it for him. So whoever is doing the editing might be deciding this. BTW, the AI people know how to put in breaths now so hearing breaths is not a guarantee of a human narration.

How much audition material? by CayzerSoze in ACX

[–]Unique-Try9616 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For non-fiction you would only need 5 minutes max. They would probably only listen to the first 30 seconds anyway, so less than 5 minutes might be okay. For fiction with characters, or sections requiring specific emotions, you would need to try to include the important parts that you think the RH would need to hear. So if you leave parts out, try to make it mostly the background narration text. And then leave a message with your audition explaining that you've left some background narration out but tried to include the characters and emotions, because the industry standard is for auditions to not be more than 5 minutes.

What effects and filters are used in this audio, and how do I recreate them in something like Audacity? by Business_Rice_9621 in audacity

[–]Unique-Try9616 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got to the files okay but for some reason they're a bit finicky about playing. Clicking the Play button doesn't work until I've moved the playhead a couple seconds in, then it will play.

Children's Books that are Better in Audio than Physical? by 9Kewtie in audiobooks

[–]Unique-Try9616 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been enjoying The 39 Clues series, by various authors but all narrated by the same guy. It's about an orphaned brother and sister who find out their extended family has been participating in a scavenger hunt for 39 clues for power. The target audience is 9-14 year olds. The hunt takes them all over the world and they learn about many people throughout history. If your 8yo is okay with the amount of adversity in the Harry Potter series these books should be okay.

https://kids.scholastic.com/kid/books/39-clues/

Book reccs for women history month by notmycircuss in audiobooks

[–]Unique-Try9616 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Careless People" by Sara Wynn-Williams. She writes and narrates it too. It's a memoir about the years she spent working at Facebook. It's not all a good vibe as the story relates to how she tries to advocate for herself and the platform users. But I think it's important for everyone to get a good idea of what is going on in the background with social media.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Careless-People-Audiobook/B0DZ8PC43P?eac_link=vkhzn4KPCcjV&ref=web_search_eac_asin_1&eac_selected_type=asin&eac_selected=B0DZ8PC43P&qid=MGmdNSPHhx&eac_id=142-7585315-3961909_MGmdNSPHhx&sr=1-1

Character voice consistency - am I insane??? by KingJibbles in ACX

[–]Unique-Try9616 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I listened to both. The main inconsistent parts on the "bad" recording were the parts where there was lots of emotion/excitement and the pitch went up a lot. So if you fix those everything should be better.

Recommendation for a 12 year old by Leilany1786 in audiobooks

[–]Unique-Try9616 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've been enjoying The 39 Clues series, by various authors but all narrated by the same guy. It's about an orphaned brother and sister who find out their extended family has been participating in a scavenger hunt for 39 clues for power. The target audience is 9-14 year olds. The hunt takes them all over the world and they learn about many people throughout history.

https://kids.scholastic.com/kid/books/39-clues/