Do you need to become an Audio engineer to be an audiobook narrator?

You are considering becoming an audiobook narrator and just started exploring.

Maybe you already bought a microphone and recorded something.

And now you are stuck!

How do I achieve the audio quality required for audiobooks?

I get this question a lot. Following is an excerpt from an email I received: “Audiobooks is something I really wanna do. Then I found out I basically have to be a sound producer or engineer.

That question was part of her query to determine if My Audacity Bundle would help her situation.

Of course, my Audacity Bundle would help, but that is not the main topic of this post. I wrote this post to give you an idea of how much audio editing you need to know.

It will seem too much if you think of everything you need to know for audiobook production. At the start, you need to focus on 2 things.

The first thing is the recording level. You will see a recording meter in any DAW (Audacity, Adobe Audition, etc.) you use.

You have to hit between -12 to -6 dB in that meter during your loudest talks. One simple rule, but it would ensure you are getting enough audio data to process later.

The second thing is you have to make the recording louder. The combination of Normalize and Compressor effect will give you the ideal loudness.

I will not go into the technical details in this post. I want to point you in the right direction from the start.

You may ask, what do you do after those 2 things are taken care of? If you can take care of those 2 things, the rest of the thing will become easy.

You will start understanding the ACX's requirements, and all the technical videos you find will start to make sense.

That is great, but what do you do if you do not get past those 2 things? Just a reminder, those 2 things are recording level and making that recording louder.

If you fail to meet these 2 requirements, you must make extra effort. That extra effort can be spent watching more YouTube videos and practicing. Practice what you see is the key here.

Another option is to seek help from experts. This will cost you some money, but it will be worth it.

My Audacity Bundle is one option for getting help from an expert. I am also thinking of creating a step-by-step course for audiobook narration.

Let me know at which stage you are stuck on becoming an audiobook narrator.