24th August 2012

Audio Advice: Don’t Let Bad Sound Ruin Your Video

As you’ve read on our other posts, you don’t have to be an expert to produce an informative web video, but we always encourage you to understand the basic techniques and tools that will facilitate quality video production. Here’s some sound and audio tips to get the ball rolling on your web video success.

Audio Tips for Video

Utilize Plug-in Microphones. There is practically a specialized microphone for every style of video you dream of producing. Once you choose your style of video, such as filming outside/inside or sit down interview/in-motion, finding the adjacent microphone will be a snap. Most importantly, spend the extra bucks on plug-in microphones. Your sound quality will be far greater than your equipment’s built-in microphones.

(Really don’t have the extra funds? Consider a tape recorder for simple voice overs in animated videos; they are much more advanced then let’s say your dad’s tape recorder and cost efficient.)

Always Test Your Sound. Perform sound tests for every shoot. You can easily lose a shot because of inadequate sound, so a routine sound check will eliminate frustrations and come in handy while editing.

Localize Sound to the Subject. I am sure you are wondering why I didn’t mention this above, but focusing your sound on your subject is different from just good sound. To know that you have localized your subject, use headphones, and the sound you hear through them is the sound that you’re recording.

Outline your Editing. This is one of those last, but not least, type of steps. Outline your editing process, it will save you a lot of grief when editing. Map your entire filming strategy in order to achieve the seamless edited shots for your video.

As you can tell, sound is affected by the style of video that you produce, followed by planning, which is the key element for production. Well that… and audio, so let’s just say it takes the two, to tango (and produce an awesome video).

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About the Author

Anish hails from London and holds a degree in software engineering from the University of Manchester. Following his education, he worked for several years in the financial industry as a platform administrator before founding Revolution Productions in 2008. In addition to over seven years of video production, Anish is seen as an industry professional, adding his insight in publications such as VentureBeat, ReelSEO and Wistia.

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