0023: Wait, What?? The LEVELATOR Now Works With Catalina?

so I just finished up a book narrating a
book for penguin Random House today from
home and as I was finishing things up
and cleaning things up and sending
today’s session audio off to the proofer
and the editor I have learned that
there’s some really good news especially
if you’re an audiobook narrator or a
podcaster and there’s even better news
that goes along with the good news and
it has to do with level ater and
Catalina and I will give you all the
details as this episode of the vo heroes
podcast continues the book today was
fantastic I got to work with one of my
favorite producers Jessica Kay who’s
just awesome the title is amazing I love
it I’m excited about it you’ll learn
more about it when it comes out I’ll
tell you about it when it comes out
later this year but when I was done with
all the sessions and I was thinking
about the fact that the ACX work that I
do and the work that I do for publishers
is really becoming almost
indistinguishable from each other in
terms of workflow I was thinking you
know I just you know III know that I’ve
created audio cupcake to take the place
of level later because level later
wouldn’t work with Catalina and then I
found out level ater does work with
Catalina
because the guy that wrote level later
Bruce came out with a 64 bit version in
like the last 15 minutes or something
last week or two days or whatever the
the point is I just found out about it
and so I went to the App Store the Mac
App Store and I downloaded it so let’s
show you how easy that is to do you just
search for a level later go down here
and choose that there it is there’s
level later so we go to the level later
page and notice there’s no price it’s
free just like it was for all the other
versions that they had so in my case the
button says open but that’s because I’ve
downloaded it and installed it yours
will say get when you first go there so
let’s open up the level later there it
is I’m going to quit out of the App
Store just
to get that off the screen and note that
I have audacity open behind here and I
also have audio cupcake because I want
to talk about this when I found out
about it I talked to a couple of friends
about it they’ve had oh you must be so
disappointed because you’ve worked so
hard you and Dave and coach Max and the
team have worked so hard on audio
cupcake and I’m like no I’m kind of
happy it’s like you know let’s give as
many people as many options as is
possible so let’s go to to audacity
first because this has just been gift
after gift after gift in the last few
weeks for people who were forced
physically to upgrade to Catalina but I
dragged a sample of a book that I did or
that I’m in the middle of doing onto the
desktop and so if I drag it into
audacity you’ll see this is the original
this is my original recording it’s about
eight minutes long and when you look at
it in that thing it’s pretty even
because you know I have pretty even
delivery in this particular part of the
book and if I play it he allowed his
mind to wander back to the night they
had met okay that is the raw WAV audio
so what I’d like to do is show you that
level eight er does exactly what level
eight er did before it’s just in a new
shiny interface so let’s go to level
eight er let’s drag that right onto
level later and let’s put it right there
on the desktop next to where it was got
a nice new nifty progression thermometer
that’s cool so if you drag that one
here’s the levelled version it says
leveled now instead of output so if we
drag that on there it looks very similar
but it’s it’s thicker it’s compressed
it’s limited and it’s normalized to
minus one DB which if we highlight some
part of this and we analyze it with a CX
check it’s going to fail because it
exceeds the minus 3db max that a CX
check once and that a CX wants and
that’s to be expected because that’s
what level ater does it normalizes to
minus one so if you don’t want to change
anything else about what you do just use
the new version of level
bring it in to audacity and make sure
that you then normalize to minus 3db
let’s do that got minus 3db setup right
here so we’ll normalize that see how it
kind of got smaller and now if we
highlight a portion of this and we go to
AC X check it’s going to pass and it
does it passes AC X so you can do that
and then you can take the file and you
can export the audio as an mp3 file etc
but that’s the process it’s exactly the
same as it was when level ater was used
with older versions of Mac OS and for
those of you that are watching in our
Windows users you’re like whoa what it
doesn’t matter because the level ater
version for Windows works just fine with
Windows 10 and and with all the other
variants of Windows so let’s see what
happens when we do audio cupcake just
why this is sure to show you kind of why
I think this is great I think now
there’s gonna be two opportunities for
people ones free this one is free as
well audio cupcake but if you upgrade to
the pro version for 20 dollars when you
drag your raw wav file on to audio
cupcake what happens is you get the mp3
file and the mp3 file is already dropped
down to minus 3 DB and it is also MPM
exported as an mp3 file and if we grab
this and we analyze it with a CX check
well that passes all the requirements as
well and the thing is this little file
right here that file is ready to upload
to AC X so you save the time it takes
you to bring it in and sometimes these
files are pretty long it’s not a lot of
time but it can be annoying and so you
bring it into audacity you normalize it
and then you export it as mp3 whereas
with audio cupcake you simply drag it on
to audio cupcake and it does all that
work for you if you upgrade to pro and
if we want to listen to it to hear how
it sounds let’s let’s play it from the
beginning
he allowed his mind to wander back to
the night they had met okay and now
let’s preview this and play it he
allowed his mind to wander back to the
night they had met at a political so
that’s compressed the RMS is between
minus 18 and minus 23 and the peak
limiting is at minus 3db
so it’s all set and ready to go and so
for that time that you’ve saved audio
cupcake is an advantage and maybe it’s
worth it to you for the 20 bucks to
never have to worry about dragging your
audio back in to audacity normalizing it
to minus 3db waiting for that to finish
and then exporting it to mp3 waiting for
that to finish and yes it is 192k mono
that’s preset in audio cupcake
automatically but the cool news is I
couldn’t be happier that level ater is
now available for Catalina look I get
that money is money and some people just
don’t want to spend an extra 20 bucks so
now you’ve got level later and now
everybody that uses a Mac is happy I
don’t know yet how far back in Mac OS
versions level later is if I find out
between now and when I published this
episode I’ll put it in the show notes
but I’m thrilled I’m not at all feeling
oh look at all that work we did on on an
audio cupcake down the drain to the
contrary I am happy for Bruce and for
his son I think his son’s name is Cody
or Corey I’m sorry I don’t remember
please don’t hurt me but I’m thrilled
for them and I’m thrilled that they’ve
done such a great service for the
audiobook community for the podcast
community anybody who needs that thick
compressed sound and importantly for
audiobooks that requirement of rms
normalization – -18 – – 23 and it’s free
so if you want to go to the Mac App
Store that’s the only way you can get it
I think they may have an installer later
on on their website but it’s in the Mac
Web Store now Mac App Store now and get
it it’s free you can do it or you can
wait for just a couple of weeks because
we’re putting the finishing touches on
things like the interface
and the the sound and so on of audio
cupcake so we’re excited about that but
I am so thrilled leva later is now
working under Catalina and it’s in the
App Store the Mac App Store I’m
wondering if I can ask you a question
I’m wondering if now that you know that
level 8 er is available and it’s free
does it make sense to you to also have
audio cupcake for 20 dollars to do those
final two somewhat time consuming steps
in the process to master for audiobooks
is that worth it to you let me know in
the comments below and be honest I you
know I got you know no no pride about
this I’d like to know if you think
that’s the case we’ve been working on it
now for about six months so we’ve got
some sunk costs in terms of time and
we’re still probably gonna go forward
with audio cupcake but I’d like to know
what you think what do you think is it
worth it to you is it something that you
think ya know just stick with level
later that’s fine do you’re commenting
on vo heroes com I’d really be thrilled
if you would do that that’s where the
conversation is sane and is moderated
and I’d love to hear what you think all
right thank you so much for watching and
for listening I’m David H Lawrence 2:17
and I’ll see you next time