[Part 4] Recording Smart in Audacity 🎙️

In Part 3, we talked about how your room setup can make or break your audio. Even the best microphone in the world will sound bad if the room adds noise and echo.

Now, let’s finally hit record. But before you do, here’s how to record smart in Audacity.

If you don’t set things up the right way, you’ll spend hours trying to fix problems later. Recording correctly from the start will save you time and give you a much better chance of passing ACX checks the first time.

Step 1: Set Up Your Project in Audacity

Think of this as preparing your canvas before painting.

• Sample Rate: Set to 44.1 kHz. This is what ACX requires.

• Bit Depth: Use 32-bit float. This protects your audio and gives you safety if your voice gets too loud.

• Mono Track: While ACX accepts files in either mono or stereo (but not mixed), recording in stereo can lead to mistakes, like audio playing only on one side of the headphones. Recording in mono avoids that complexity and keeps things simple.

Step 2: Get Your Levels and Distance Right

This is about how loud and clean your recording comes in.

• Watch the meters in Audacity as you speak. Your loudest words should peak around -6 dB.

• Make sure your distance from the mic is around 6–8 inches.

  • Too far away = more reflections and a poor signal-to-noise ratio.

  • Too close (less than 4 inches) = too much mouth noise and breathing that’s harder to remove.

  • 6–8 inches is the sweet spot.

Step 3: Build Good Recording Habits

Here’s what makes recording smoother and easier to edit later:

• Stay steady. Don’t lean in and out from the mic — your volume will keep changing.

• Keep your angle consistent. You won’t record an audiobook in one sitting. Since you’ll record across multiple sessions, take note of your angle to the microphone and your seating position. Replicating the same angle later keeps your sound consistent throughout the book.

• Fix mistakes smartly. If you make an error, pause and make a clear marker in your recording. You can clap once (which shows a spike in the waveform) or even use a small dog clicker if that’s more convenient. Then re-read the line. This makes it easy to spot and edit later.

• Take breaks. Long sessions cause mouth noise and fatigue. Shorter sessions keep your energy consistent.

Why This Matters

Recording smart means:

• Less time spent editing later

• Cleaner, more natural sound

• A higher chance of your audiobook being approved by ACX on the first try

The cleaner your recording is at the start, the easier every next step will be.

Special Announcement

In less than 48 hours, the 2-Day Live Audiobook Workshop in Audacity begins!

📅 Dates: Thursday, Sept 11 & Friday, Sept 12, 2025
🕖 Time: 7 AM PT / 9 AM CT / 10 AM ET / 3 PM UK
📍 Each session is 1 hour live on Zoom (with replays included)

We’ll go step by step — microphone choice, room setup, recording smart, editing and processing, all the way to formatting and exporting ACX-ready files.

The price is only $49 for the full 2-day training. You can register for the workshop only before the first meeting. After that, entry is closed.

Reserve your seat here

In the next email (Part 5), we’ll move on to editing and processing in Audacity — the steps to turn your raw recording into a polished audiobook.

Talk soon,
Akhtar
Master Editor

P.S. Workshop link again in case you missed it: Reserve your seat here

Enrollment closes in: