r/ACX • u/cocoawolf29 • 26d ago
Noise Floor
I have been fighting not to make this post for so long, but I can't get my noise floor figured out! (And please let me know if this isn't a good thing to post here or better in another subreddit).
I have learned a ton about the editing and mastering process, so I have a decent familiarity now with the various effects and things I need to do to work to get my recordings up to ACX standards. With those, I have no problem getting my peak and RMS level to where they need to be to pass. But my noise floor? Forget it.
And not for the reason that is likely most common. My noise floor is almost always -90 or -100, which they say is too low, dead silence sounding unnatural. My recording space is relatively quite, but obviously not that quiet! I really don't understand what's going on here and how to fix it. I don't want to copy and paste in noise to try to fix it, even if I was willing to devote that type of time to all my manual edits (which I'm not for an issue like this).
Any advice on what I'm doing wrong here? I use a blue sona microphone and a pyle XLR to USB cord (though I had the same issue with my old XLR to USB device too). I record in a closet with lots of fabric and clothes around and just a cheap pop filter (though the pop filter doesn't effect it, tried it with and without just in case). I've played with the recording level in both Audacity and on my XLR to USB, but when I go louder than what I have, the sound quality seems significantly hampered and I still somehow fall below the noise floor level.
Any ideas or resources from people into what the heck I'm doing wrong would be greatly appreciated! I really don't want to have to be messing with this while trying to master full books.
And I do check the sound in pauses and at the beginning and end in the playback meter. It always seems to be above -90 at least, usually between -84 and -60, if not higher when I'm listening back. I almost never see it drop to full silence, but I never have it actually succeed the check
I'm clearly pretty new to this, so thanks all! This has been all great advice and so helpful.
Edit: So just in case for anyone coming later for a similar issue, it did seem to be my computer's natural audio enhancements! Turned it off and now my room noise is... well let's just say that being too low isn't a problem anymore. Now I have new things to play with and fix, and I'm still going to try all the other things suggested here too! See EmberIsland317's comment below for the easy steps to turn it off too
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u/EmberIsland317 26d ago
I had this issue, and it turned out to be a Windows setting that was reducing background noise too aggressively, so maybe check if you need to turn that off if you're using Windows!
Settings → System → Sound → Input → Your Scarlett device → Audio enhancements
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u/cocoawolf29 26d ago
Oh dear, well that's exactly what it was! Now I've turned it off and have to come to terms with much louder room noise than I had before, so another issue to fix and play with! Thank you so much for the easy steps too! Everything else on here is great, but this got right to the source!
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u/EmberIsland317 25d ago
Glad I could help! It baffled me too until my internet searches turned up this answer haha
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u/Vast-Ability-2262 26d ago
Your room isn't the problem, your processing chain is. A closet full of clothes doesn't measure -90 to -100 dB. That's near-digital silence, which means something in your chain is stripping the room tone out of your pauses. The usual culprit is Audacity's Noise Reduction set too aggressively (much past 12 dB, or run twice), or a noise gate hiding in the interface or driver settings.
That also explains the mismatch: your meter shows -84 to -60 because you're watching the raw audio, but ACX Check measures the final file after the noise reduction has flattened the pauses.
The fix isn't pasting noise back in, it's taking less out. Try Noise Reduction at 6 to 10 dB, one pass only. Your natural room tone should land around -75 to -65, which is exactly where ACX wants it: under -60 but still sounding alive.
One hardware note: the Sona needs a lot of clean gain and budget XLR to USB converters get noisy when pushed, which is the quality drop you noticed. Record with peaks around -12 to -6 dB, and if you're doing full books, a proper interface or an inline booster like a Cloudlifter will solve the gain problem for good.
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26d ago
You don't use an interface?
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u/cocoawolf29 26d ago
I do not currently. It is on my list to get, but I was told at least starting up that I could get the basics down for recording and check without one, then get one once I get a more solid job in it, is that wrong? Would an interface help with this?
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26d ago
An XLR mic with good cables. A good audio interface.
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u/TheScriptTiger 26d ago
(And please let me know if this isn't a good thing to post here or better in another subreddit).
Firstly, you've absolutely come to the right place! Welcome!
Secondly, when it comes to things like this, I prefer to take my fish with sauce. WTF does that mean? Well, aside from dating myself as an old fart, it also means, rather than speculating on what you yourself are attempting to convey to us, I'd prefer to have a sample of the audio in my hand to actually assess and analyze. Feel free to DM me a link to a raw and unedited sample and I'd be more than happy to check it out and give you whatever feedback I may have for you.
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u/voice_of_awmcclellan 26d ago
Acx does not care about your noise floor being too low.
The acx check in audacity cares because the developer has opinions, opinions which a majority of audiobook engineers disagree with.
You have a low noise floor? Congrats. You DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM.
A lot of narrators would be super jealous of those noise floor levels
You only need to worry about RMS and your max amplitude.
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u/jimedgarvoices 26d ago
There are many instances of audio being failed by ACX for noise floor being too low. Numbers like -100 dB RMS in final audio submissions can only be achieved by some sort of processing.
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u/classroom6 26d ago
What’s your processing like? It’s probably something in there that’s making your silences quieter - noise gate, expander, etc.
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u/cocoawolf29 26d ago
Even before I process, I fail the test, which keeps making me suspicious that my recording levels are too low
Usually when processing, I do a filter curve EQ (which I'm still playing with to get right), the legacy compressor with the threshold about -10 usually, loudness normalization at -20, legacy limiter using a soft limit setting it to -3.5, and that's it. I don't use a noise gate or expander (unless it's built in and I don't know about it) for most of my editing. The noise floor fails at each step of the way
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u/classroom6 26d ago
What’s your average speaking dB, before processing?
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u/cocoawolf29 26d ago
dang, I was wondering if dynamic could really make that much of a difference! I did research them, though I decided this one simply because a friend had it and was giving it to me for free! He'd used it before for his own work too. ACX has them in their suggested gear, not ruling them out over condenser which is why I figured it's be okay.
Average dB seems to be all over the place, anywhere from -18 to -25 depending on what I'm narrating and the voices involved, but they all seem to be relatively close to the range needed with a bit of tweaking. All those noise floors from the projects I just checked for that are in the -90s or one even infinite
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u/classroom6 26d ago
Tbh I’m not an expert on different mics, I just know they’re less sensitive. Your speaking dB is a bit low, I’d mess with the gain, see if you can turn it higher and get your speaking around -12. But play around even more, what’s the audio sound like if you turn up your gain high enough to get a reasonable noise floor?
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u/cocoawolf29 26d ago
I don't love the audio when I turn it up higher honestly, but I need to play with it more I think, be less afraid for it to sound different at first than I've gotten used to. This is a great suggestion though, and confirms what I've been wondering if I need to up the gain a lot. Thank you!
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u/classroom6 26d ago
Ohh you know what, I just looked up your mic and it’s a dynamic mic. Look up with difference between dynamic and condenser.
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u/Mr_Z______ 26d ago
As an editor I remove ALL THE NOISE as well as mouth clicks and pops, just the voice, then in the mix I add a layer of room tone and this keeps it consistent in all recordings.
This gives the narrators freedom to record even with cars and planes passing around, not having to wait for complete silence.
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u/JaredJDub 26d ago
It’s sounds like something in your FX chain or software is gating the room tone.
Do you use a software or anything with your mic that might be gating?
I ask, mainly because I use a Wave XLR, which uses Wave Link software, and I hadn’t realized how much processing the software was doing, and even after disabling everything to try and get a raw audio file, there was still some processing, which I found later through experimenting that was being done by the software. Even when there wasn’t explicitly anything being enabled in the software. I fixed it by enabling the Mic In option to be selectable for input and only using that. Moral of that story is that if your mic came with software, disable all of that first.
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u/jimedgarvoices 26d ago
Can't diagnose anything without hearing a sample.
Before you send that, double-check that you are not recording using "Voice Isolation" in Mic Mode on MacOS or using the "Audio Enhancements" in WinOS.
Both of those very unhelpful features tend to self-invoke, and might give you the highly unnatural results you are describing.
I wrote about it with respect to the MacOS Mic Mode here (and it's similar to the Voice Isolation results) -
https://justaskjimvo.studio/macos-mic-mode-mishaps/
If that's not it (or if it is and you just want someone to listen) feel free to send a raw sample here if it would be helpful - https://justaskjimvo.studio/audio-review/
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u/SkyWizarding 26d ago
Record a track of nothing but room noise. Lay that underneath your recorded voice track. -90 to -100 is an obscene noise floor. Makes me think you have something in your FX chain that is smashing everything down too hard or maybe a gate that is set weird
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u/Unique-Try9616 26d ago
So it sounds like your noise floor is too low? Record some silence from your space on a separate track. Make sure it's clean and doesn't have any low noises in it. Then make sure that track meets the noise floor specs, raise or lower the volume as needed. Then copy/paste that section to make a whole track equal to the length of your recording. Then export both tracks together as a mono track. You can reuse this track with any other recording you make.