Issues found during first testing

[BobShepherd405]

Hi Script Tiger :)
It's obvious that you're devoting a lot of time and love to this project. I did find some issues during first testing in Windows --

• Would be nice to retain Save location between launches. Currently reverts to User Documents folder each time.
• My level targets wouldn't change the defaults after Save on exit from dialog.
• Error popups could just show numbers (explanations could be moved to instructions).
• Peak of one of my test files exceeded the target level by .3 dB.
• Status during a run could be made more evident, perhaps by color changes.
  Thanks for offering this wonderful tool to audiobook producers!

[ScriptTiger]

Thanks for your interest and feedback! I'll categorize what you've said into bug reports vs. feature/enhancement requests, and try to address the bugs first.

Bug reports:

• My level targets wouldn't change the defaults after Save on exit from dialog.
• Peak of one of my test files exceeded the target level by .3 dB.

Feature/enhancement requests:

• Would be nice to retain Save location between launches. Currently reverts to User Documents folder each time.
• Error popups could just show numbers (explanations could be moved to instructions).
• Status during a run could be made more evident, perhaps by color changes.

Clarifying questions

My level targets wouldn't change the defaults after Save on exit from dialog.

I've just tested this, but I can't seem to replicate the issue. Can you ensure you are using the latest release (18DEC2024)?

And my apologies, but I may not be 100% clear when you say " Save on exit from dialog". Are you saying when you go to Settings -> Targets, and when you hit Apply, the changes you've made are not being applied? So, when you go back into the Targets dialog, the numbers are still the defaults and have not been changed after hitting the Apply button? If this is the case, you should also be getting an error dialog telling you why your targets cannot be applied, either because they are outside of the acceptable range of the loudnorm algorithm or outside of the acceptable range of ACX submission requirements. Are you not receiving any such error?

Or are you saying that when you go to Settings -> Targets, and change your targets, hit Apply, and then go to Settings -> Save Settings, the targets which you applied and saved are not being loaded after you exit and re-open the application?

Peak of one of my test files exceeded the target level by .3 dB.

Can you confirm how you are analyzing the true peak? Are you mastering it with ACX Master, and then also going back and checking it with ACX Master, and the check is giving you a different number than what it gave when you mastered it? Or is ACX itself analyzing your audio, such as the ACX Audio Lab? Or are you using a third-party tool to analyze the true peak?

In an ideal world, all of these things should give the same numbers, but sadly that won't be the case because ACX itself rounds quite a great deal internally, which is what ACX Master tries to go by, the same rounding used internally by ACX itself.

There will also be some slight variance introduced by the actual encoder. Initially, I had actually included an additional internal check to predict any such variance caused by the encoding, but found the variance to be acceptable and not worth the added wait for an additional check, especially in the case of longer audio files. However, I'd be happy to revisit this if the variance is indeed unacceptable.

It may also be the case that the dynamic range is such that it simply can't hit the targets appropriately. Have you also tried lowering the loudness range target to see if this helps meet your targets more consistently? For example, try testing it with a loudness range target of 1.0 and see if that helps ensure more consistent results closer to your desired targets.

[ScriptTiger]

Would be nice to retain Save location between launches. Currently reverts to User Documents folder each time.

I've just added this in the last commit and it will be available in the next release.

Error popups could just show numbers (explanations could be moved to instructions).

I think I'm going to wait to get a bit more community feedback on this one. I've had conflicting feedback about it in the past. The reason why the errors may seem excessively verbose at the moment is just due to the fact most people just don't read the documentation, and those that have given feedback so far have actually preferred having everything described in detail in the error message itself and it has lessened confusion about some things. I could possibly make an option for more or less verbosity in the error messages. However, again, I think I'll wait for a bit more community feedback on this one first.

Status during a run could be made more evident, perhaps by color changes.

So, right now, the status is shown as "Checking for dependencies...", "Analyzing source audio...", "Predicting problems...", "Mastering...", "Mastering complete!", "Checking audio for problems...", "Checking complete!", "Ensure the path to FFmpeg is set correctly!" Are you suggesting color changes be associated with each possible status? Or are you suggesting there be color changes/flashing or other moving elements independent of what the status text is just to show that the process is still running, and assure users the process isn't frozen on any given status? So, for example, perhaps just a repeating sequence of "", ".", "..", "..." could also work, just to show things are still moving?