How do you clean up a muffled, compressed audiobook?
Import the book into Excerpt on your iPhone and turn on Enhanced Audio. The Enhance model reprocesses the narration on the device, taking out background noise and cleaning up muffled, low-quality audio, and the original recording is kept. Hear a few moments of the book as the original and as enhanced before you enhance the whole thing.
The steps
- Add the book to your library. Import an m4b or mp3 file, or a zip of chapter tracks, or connect your Audiobookshelf server. Enhance works on books in the library.
- Hear the before and after. In Edit Book, tap Enhance Book. The preview plays a few short moments from the book, each switchable between Original and Enhanced. If the Enhance model is not on the device yet, Excerpt asks to download it once.
- Enhance the book. Tap Enhance Book in the preview, or turn on Enhanced Audio in the player’s Playback sheet. Excerpt starts with the chapter you are listening to and works onwards from there, and can carry on in the background.
- Keep listening. The original keeps playing while the enhanced chapters are prepared. The status row shows Playing enhanced or Playing the original, and a ring around the play button fills as the part you are listening to is enhanced.
- Enhance one chapter at a time. With Enhanced Audio on, tap Chapters in Playback to see each chapter’s state. Swipe right on a chapter and tap Enhance to do it now, and choose Fill the Gaps or Enhance Again if part of it is already done.
Limits
- Enhance works on books in your library, so the recording has to be one Excerpt can import. Audiobooks protected with DRM, such as Audible downloads and most Libby loans, cannot be imported.
- The original is always kept. Enhanced audio is a second copy, so it takes up storage; the Playback sheet shows how much, and Delete removes it.
- It will not turn a recording made in someone’s kitchen into a studio production. It makes a real difference to muffled and noisy recordings, and you can hear that for yourself before enhancing a whole book.
- A whole book takes a while. Enhancement pauses when the battery is below 20% and not charging, when the device is too warm, or when Excerpt is in the background with nothing playing.
- Enhance is not compression. Compress Book re-encodes the file to make it smaller, which can reduce the quality and cannot be undone.
Common questions
Does Enhance change the original recording?
No. Enhance makes a second, enhanced copy of the audio and never touches the original. Delete the enhanced copy from the Playback sheet and the original is exactly as it was.
Can I hear the difference before enhancing a whole book?
Yes. In Edit Book, tap Enhance Book to open a preview of a few short moments from the book. Each one switches between Original and Enhanced while it plays, and Shuffle picks a different set.
Does it need the internet?
Only for the Enhance model itself, a one-off download of 570 MB that every book shares. The enhancing runs on your device.
Why does enhancement say Paused?
Excerpt always enhances the five minutes ahead of your listening position, and the rest of the book waits while the device is busy: battery below 20% and not charging, the device too warm, or Excerpt in the background with nothing playing. To get a whole book done, plug the device in and leave Excerpt open.
Is Enhance part of Premium?
No. Enhance is free, like everything in Excerpt except ebook matching for every book, Whisper transcription models, Suggested Highlights and AI clean-up of transcripts.
Read more
- Enhance! Clean Up Old, Low-Quality Audiobooks: the preview, chapters, pauses, and deleting the enhanced copy or the model.
- Edit or Remove a Book: Edit Book, storage, and Compress Book.
- Find Audiobooks for Excerpt: every source, and the DRM limits.
Hear it for yourself.
Excerpt is free on the App Store for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
