Sound quality is probably even more important for the overall effectiveness of a video production than video quality.

I firmly believe that viewers will tolerate mistakes in video quality before they will tolerate mistakes in sound recording.  If a viewer can not hear the sound portion of your video, they will shut it off.

So how do you get quality sound in your video production?

Use the right microphone in the correct way.

HOW TO GET QUALITY AUDIO FOR YOUR VIDEO PRODUCTION

Here is a basic rundown of things you have to take into consideration in order to to get good audio for your video production.

1.  DISTANCE OF SOUND

How far away from the microphone should the sound source be?  Microphones come in all varieties.  Some are meant to be spoken into at close range and others are designed to pick up from a long distance.   A hand held microphone is normally one that picks up best at close range and a shotgun microphone is the type you use to pick up sound from a distance.  Shot gun mics are long and skinny.  The announcer above is using a mic that records best if you speak within an inch or two of it.  this helps eliminate background noise.  Most standard, inexpensive digital camcorders comes with a small shot gun microphone where the optimum distance is 3-6 feet.

2.  DIRECTION OF SOUND

Some mics only pick up sounds that are directly in front of it and others also pick up sounds coming from the side.  This is called the pick up pattern and it is often described as a shape.  A carotid pick up pattern resembled a heart shape.  Carotid being the same root word found in cardio, meaning heart.

The terms omni directional and unidirectional also describe this aspect of microphones. Omni, meaning many, pick up sounds coming from all directions.  (No mic does well with sounds coming from behind it.)  Uni, meaning one, picks up sound coming from in front only.

3.  WIRELESS AND HARD WIRED

Microphones also come in wired and wireless versions.    A wired microphone is plugged directly into your camera and the on-camera person can only go as far as your cable will let you.  A wireless microphone has two main parts.  One is like a mini radio receiver and the other is a radio signal transmitter.  They do not have to be plugged together in order to transmit sound so your on-camera person has more freedom to move.

You plug the receiver portion of the wireless microphone into your camera and the person speaking on- camera wears the transmitter part.  A wireless mic allows the person speaking to be far away from the camera since there is no cable acting like an umbilical cord.

Professional Quality Audio Cables known as XLR

SO WHICH MICROPHONE DO YOU NEED?

It depends on how you are going to use it.  The single biggest audio mistake people make in video production is to rely on the microphone that comes attached to the camcorder for every purpose. This on-board mic is good for some applications but not for others.  The on-board mic on most camcorders is a small shot gun mic.  The sounds it picks up best are those about 3-6 feet away coming mostly from the front, but it also does relatively well with sounds coming from the side.  Generally speaking, a shot gun microphone is best used for ambient, or natural sound.  This is any sound that happens to be occurring while you are video taping.  Sounds of cars, birds, crowd rumble, whatever.

The on-board shot gun mic is not necessarily good for picking up a person speaking directly to the camera.  In most circumstances, using it this way will result in poor quality audio that has way too much background noise in it to be well understood.  You can fix this by eliminating all background noise, if that is possible.   Then, place the camera two to four feet from your person speaking and have them talk loudly.

The best way to record a person speaking directly into the camera is to either pin a small lavaliere microphone on their collar or to have them use a handheld just an inch or two from their lips.  A lavaliere microphone is the tiny clip-on mic no bigger than your pinky tip.  Because they are so small, they essentially disappear in your shot.  So lavs are considered more attractive than hand held mics but either will do the job.

If the camera crew pictured below is in a noisy environment, the gal should hold the mic even closer to the guy's lips.   If their location is quiet, where she is holding it just fine.

If you want to get shots where your con-camera talent is a long distance from the camera, use a wireless.  Cables can be a pain in the bejoobers, that's for sure.

But sometimes a hard wire is more practical.  It's cheaper.  if your on-camera talent is in the same room as the camera, a hard wire will be fine.  In fact it might be better because you have to get a pretty expensive wireless for it to work well, %600 or so for professional quality.   A crummy wireless is a pain in the cajoonies because you will get sound interference from competing radio signals (cell phones, walkie-talkies, etc.) and a tinny result.

In order to use a supplemental microphone when videotaping, you have to have a camera that has an input to plug it in. Many inexpensive camcorders do not have a microphone input so your only option is the on-board mic.  This is one of the major drawbacks to using a cheap camcorder.

Camcorders higher up on the quality scale will have a mic input.  There are several different kinds, mini-plugs to XLR, so you have to have a mic and camera input that are compatible.

If you are shooting low-budget video, you can get a cheap lav at places like Radio Shack for about $25 that will plug in using a mini jack.  Unless you have a fairly expensive camcorder, it will have a mini jack if it has an audio input at all.  For the price, these work well.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips

Lorraine Grula

Internet Video Gal

Technorati Tags: crummy wireless, Internet Video Gal, Radio Shack, sound for video, video production, wireless mic, wireless microphone

There’s no doubt about it, the best video scripts are well thought out and re-written multiple times.   I had a friend sell a movie script to actual Hollywood producers and they drove him NUTS asking for re-writes.

Well, that’s Hollywood.

You can narrate as you go.  Ad lib.  It’s one of the best ways to simplify your production.  Even if you end up writing a script and adding supplemental narration, narrating as you shoot is perfectly adequate for many low-budget endeavors.   Most TV news stories/documentaries are a combination of both.

With the camera held on your shoulder as you shoot, the onboard microphone will work fairly well.  This means you can use a less sophisticated camera with no external microphone inputs and still get reasonable quality audio that’s already right there on your video.

(Having said that, it’s ALWAYS better to use a microphone other than your onboard mic.  The onboard mic is good mostly for what’s called ambient, or natural sound.  Sounds of the cars, birds, chain saw or whatever.)

To narrate as you go, simply describe what you see as you shoot it.   Try to sound intelligent, but you can always edit later.  (Obviously it’s cheaper and easier if you don’t edit much.)

Also, listen to what other people are saying.  You can use their sound to add a narrative.  Listen as they speak and keep the camera rolling on a usable shot as long as they’re saying something interesting.

Walk up to people and ask them to speak to you while the camera is rolling.  That’s called an interview and most videos rely heavily on them.   You can use the interview as voice-over.

If you follow this tip, you can cut the work of scriptwriting down to a manageable size or even eliminate it altogether.

Some movies and other types of fictional stories rely on voice-over narration. Often, it's used as a way for the character to reminisce about the past.

Voice-over narration can be used to reveal what a character is thinking, but not saying. Do a voice over narration of your character’s thoughts, and intersperse it with the spoken dialogue. It’s hilarious to juxtapose the thoughts and what really get said!

Voice-over narration is also very effective for news and documentary style video production.

Narration can be as easy as an off-the-cuff commentary while you’re shooting. Or, you can write narration (before or after you shoot) and have that narration recorded separately from your video.
You can easily hire a professional narrator locally by calling audio production facilities or you can use www.
Narration doesn’t have to be done by a professional, especially if your video is for the web. That’s one of the joys of the web, people like seeing real people and don’t want to listen to an ANNOUNCER.
If you want to be your own announcer, speak slowly and clearly. Stand up and put a smile on your face. Be enthusiastic!
If you’re going to record narration separately from shooting, make sure your room is as quiet as possible. Turn off the air conditioner if necessary.
Know what kind of mic you’re using and how far you need to be away from it. A microphone that comes on board an inexpensive video camcorder should be at least two feet from your mouth.
A lavaliere microphone should be about eight inches from your mouth.
Most handheld microphones should be about eight inches as well.

• Record as many takes as you need to.
• Practice.
• The biggest mistake novices make when recording voice-over narration is speaking too quickly. Slow down and chew on every word.
• Ask someone to listen to you and don’t be embarrassed. It’s fun!

If you want truly professional sounding narration but don’t want to go to a high dollar professional studio, sound-proof a small corner of your work area. One of the biggest features of a professional voice-over recording studio is the sound proofing on the walls. All background and extraneous noise is stopped dead by the foam-covered walls.
Once you hear how extremely quiet an audio studio is you’ll be amazed. There’s tons of noise around us in even the quietest environments that we learn to ignore, but a microphone will pick it all up.
You can imitate a professional audio recording studio at home by getting some foam rubber at the fabric section of any Wal-Mart. (Check out a craft store or fabric store for a bigger selection.) Professional sound-proofing foam is cut with lots of ridges to provide a larger overall surface area and better sound absorption. This is the same concept as using egg cartons as sound proofing material. Egg cartons work well, but won't give your studio a feeling of elegance. You can also use carpet remnants on the walls for sound proofing. Get them free by asking a carpet installer for the leftovers he's planning to toss in the trash!

• Speak loudly and clearly
• Stand no further than 6-8 feet in front of, or slightly to the side of, the camera
• Minimize or eliminate background noise

If you need better audio for your production, you need to have two things:

• A different type of microphone than what comes on your camcorder
• A camcorder that accepts audio from a second input or some way to add audio later.
• Possibly multiple microphones and a mixer

For a technical explanation of the different characteristics of microphones, click here.

Here’s a more general discussion:
If you want to record people speaking, you can get lavaliere microphones or hand held microphones. Lavaliere microphones are tiny and you pin them on your collar. Hand held microphones are….well, hand held.

Interesting diversion:
Those dopey cardboard thingies with “Channel 6 News” splattered on them are called microphone flags and I fell into the camp that said hand helds with flags were tacky and always insisted on using a lav. (Cantankerous witch that I was!)

A good omni-directional mic works if you have more than one person speaking. Hide it somewhere close to the action, like in the flower vase on the table.
A common method for 3-4 people video crews is to have an audio guy hold an omni-directional shotgun microphone on a pole and follow the action. Works great if you have that kind of crew. The pole isn’t expensive and a padded microphone won’t cause too bad a concussion!

If you’re using lavs, it’s best for each person to have one but if not, give it to the person who will speak the most. Don’t give it to the fellow with the deep voice that projects a mile, he’ll pick up ok if he doesn’t stray too far from the person wearing the mic.

Wireless Microphones and Wired Microphones
Microphones for video production can be wireless or ones that you have to hook directly into the camera. Wireless microphones give you TONS of freedom and are considered essential for a professional crew. If you can, buy a wireless. Bottom line price on a wireless that sounds better than a tuna can with string is about $200. A cheap-o wired mic can be had for $25. The more you spend, the better your mic will sound, no doubt about it.
If you can’t get a wireless, do yourself a favor and get an extension cord for your wired mic. The $25 jewel I bought at Radio Shack came with just a 6 foot cord. That’s a terrible pain when out shooting. I bought a 25 foot extension cable and my students loved it, assuming they could find it.

The name wireless microphone is a bit misleading, since it actually contains a lot of wires. Rather, a wireless microphone is one you don’t have to plug into the camera directly. So the person speaking on camera can be on the 50-yard-line of the football stadium and the camera can be in the press box.
A wireless microphone is a combination of a microphone and a radio. It has two parts, a receiver and a transmitter. The microphone itself is attached to the transmitter and is worn by the person speaking. The microphone picks up the sound and sends it to the transmitter.
The receiver portion of a wireless microphone is plugged into your camera. The transmitter sends it to the receiver and from there, it enters the camera and is recorded onto the tape.
With a wireless microphone, the people talking on-camera won't be tethered by the mic cable; they can be as far away from the camera as you want which is a joy and opens up tons of creative options. Having a microphone umbilical cord is a pain in the butt!
Another advantage with using a wireless is that people wearing them tend to forget it's there and this helps them lose any inhibitions they may feel being in front of the camera. Often, you can get much more watchable video this way.

Like music, good sound effects can be created on a computer or you can purchase royalty-free. Searching royalty free sound effects is hilarious; listening to thousands for just the right BBLOWEEIEE to use with that broken scale shot for your weight loss ad.

SPICE UP YOUR VIDEO

Do you ever watch America's Funniest Home Videos? They always spice up the vignettes people send in with the simple addition of sound effects and music. The "canned" laugh track has been working our funny bone for decades on dozens of shows. Use this technique to your advantage.

RECORD YOUR OWN
In addition to awesome royalty free sound effects, you can often create a well recorded sound effect to use in your video simply right in your own home.
When you’re recoding your video, be aware of sound effects happening all around you. Doing a video on stress reduction? Those birds tweeting might come in real handy during editing. Make a conscious effort while shooting to pick up sounds you can use later as sound effects.

If the sound you’re going for is soft– like a clock ticking– record the sound separate from the video.

In other words, take your shot of the clock from a tripod ten feet away. Then, put your microphone (or camera with the mic on it) an inch from the clock in order to pick up the tick, tick, tick.

Then you add the tick, tick, tick sound to the shot taken from ten feet while editing.

AUDIO AND VIDEO ARE SEPARATE
Remember, the audio and video are actually two separate things. You can add any audio to any video while editing.

Better video editing programs allow you to add up to one-hundred tracks of audio at once! I’ve never used more than twelve at a time.

MOVIE-MAKING SOUND EFFECTS
The next time you’re watching a movie, keep in mind that a lot of the sound you’re hearing is completely manufactured in elaborate sound studios. The director needs a scene of a herd of trampling horses? In the world of big budgets, they take helicopter shots of a herd actually stampeding. But they want sound better than what they can get with their microphones that close to the real thing.

Instead, they spend hours manufacturing the sound with anything from real horseshoes being beaten onto real dirt, to computers. They use any object they need to create whatever sound they want and it's added during editing.

HOW YOU CAN ADAPT MOVIE MAKING TECHNIQUES
You probably can’t do that. But with a relatively good sound editing program, you can take the real sound of a real horse and duplicate it and overlap it and make one animal sound like a herd.

You can also go on a fun journey around the house to see what you have that makes noise. Pots and pans? Pillows and baseball bats? Water running? Bacon sizzling? If you don't mind getting creative, you can figure out a way. We once did a swarm of insects with clacky toys.

Music is one of the best ways to guide your viewer on an emotional experience of YOUR choosing. Music is also the single easiest way to make even simple home movies look more professional.

Music is easy to add to your video and can carry your entire story.

When my baby was actually a baby, I put her life to a soundtrack of such marvelous tunes as “Isn’t She Lovely,” by Stevie Wonder, and “Here Comes the Sun,” by the Beatles. I cut out the sound recorded with the video of my husband yacking and harping at me.

Needless to say, this greatly enhanced the watchability of the video!

My baby was a star, all the relatives said, “Ohhhhh” and “ahhhhhh,” and we kept his harping to ourselves!

HOME MOVIES VS. PROFESSIONAL VIDEO

I couldn’t use music like that if I was producing a video for profit of any kind. These were home movies and I had a hunch Stevie and the Fab Four had more to worry about than a mamma snatching a freebie solely for her family’s amusement. But when you’re a business, you can't legally use any music that's licensed without paying fees to whomever it's licensed, usually ASCAP or BMI.

The fees are high and squeeze out the little guy. The fees were so high even the TV station I worked for refused to pay them when advertising dipped; we had to limit any clip length to less than six seconds.

You can get sued if you use licensed music in any way shape or form and don't pay for the privilege. Technically, Paul McCartney could’ve sued my sorry butt, but I like to live dangerously and believe in Sir Paul’s goodness. Besides, they were home movies that nobody saw except us.

HOW STRICT WILL THEY BE?

I've heard plenty of debate over whether a large company would bother a small business, but make no mistake about it. Music companies have gone after poverty-plagued school video programs. If they’ll attack a school, my guess is they'd go after an internet entrepreneur.

ROYALTY FREE MUSIC-THE ANSWER

Be safe, investigate the royalty free stuff. I guarantee you'll be amazed at the diversity and quality. You can get discs packed full of high quality music, all produced for the very purpose of video in mind.

The songs will be instrumental, perfect for putting narration on top. They come in all styles, tempos and moods. There is some royalty free music out there for any purposes you could have. You pay a small licensing fee in a one-time purchase of the discs and then use the library forever.

Royalty free music for video production has been created specifically for video production. You’ll get five versions of the same tune in a variety of lengths, :05, :10, :30, 1:00, 2:30. Perfect for producing a musically themed show with matching promos, intros and outs of all different lengths!

MUSIC IMPORTANT CHOICE 

Whatever music you add will make a huge difference in how your audience feels, so choose wisely. As powerful as music is, I'm amazed by the fact that many viewers don't even consciously hear the music, yet its tone and mood greatly influence their perceptions and enjoyment. Try watching a rough cut of a movie without the musical tract! You'd be astounded at how that one element totally changes the experience. But just try abruptly stopping a high intensity movie and ask any audience member at random what the music was that was just playing and they probably couldn’t tell you.

USE MUSIC WITH OTHER SOUNDS

Music and narration or dialogue mix nicely. Run the music under your narration (or dialogue) at about a 20% audio level. Narration and dialogue would together peak at 100%. It’s easy to drown out weak audio with music, so be careful.

Once you realize popular songs are off limits to the low-budget video maker, don’t despair, you can add music professional music without paying huge fees.

COMPUTER GENERATED MUSIC

If you want to take the time, many computer programs, like garage band or Soundtrack, enable people with little to no musical ability to create decent digital sounds by easily combining prerecorded riffs, cords and harmonies.

My high school students dabbled with it. Some of them produced amazing tunes worthy of repeat plays. Others reminded me of two-year-olds banging on everything in site and creating nothing but a nerve-grating mish-mash of noise. But who is this old lady to judge the musical tastes of the modern generation?

Dialogue is whenever the characters speak to one another to move the plot along in a work of fiction. Dialogue is usually written out and rehearsed long before the cameras roll. Dialogue is primarily used in relatively big-budget stuff since typically, dialogue has to be written, memorized and recited.

SHOULD I USE DIALOGUE?

If your project is less staged than the big-budget stuff, natural dialogue can be captured and used. People who can ad lib and say something usable are a low-budget producer’s best friend! Find someone with great conversation skills and let ‘em go.

Most people will be “better” hosts if you edit out the irrelevant stuff that’s bound to occur.

RECORDING "NATURAL SOUND" DIALOGUE

To shoot decent natural dialogue, you need:

• Attentive camera operators
• Attentive sound operators
• Blabber-mouthed on-camera people

As you shoot, listen to what people are saying and keep the camera rolling during the good parts. When they stray off subject, take that opportunity to move to a new shot, then prod them to resume the conversation that you felt was good for your story.

THINK AHEAD

While you're shooting, think about how their unscripted dialogue will fit into your overall story-telling. Are they describing something relevant to your message? If so, go in for a close-up. (Remember, walk closer, and don’t rely on your zoom unless you're on a secure tripod, other wise your shot will be shaky.)

Make sure you have adequate sound recording. This will probably take more than just relying on the microphone attached to your camcorder. One of the best ways for a low-budget situation to get good sound is to have your main subject wear a lavaliere microphone.

WHAT'S A LAVALIERE MICROPHONE?

A lavalier microphone is a tiny mic that clips to your collar or lapel so it’s easy to hide. I got a decent lav for my high school students at Radio Shack for $25. It make a huge difference in their sound quality. Buy an expensive mic like this, it will undoubtably come with a short cable. Spend five bucks and get an extension cable for it so the umbilical cord isn’t too short.

GO WIRELESS
If you can afford it, a wireless lav will allow for greater freedom of movement while shooting. A wireless microphone consists of two parts. One part is the microphone/transmitter, the other part is like a radio receiver and it plugs into your camera , which puts the audio signal on your tape.

NEXT TIME YOU'RE WATCHING TV

Many professional shows will use multiple wireless lavs for each person. Next time you watch a show like the ones where they remodel houses, or anything else that captures people in off-the-cuff situations, notice they’re all wearing small black boxes, about the size of a big deck of cards, stuffed into the back of their pants. This is the wireless microphone transmitter.

They hook that onto their back belt loops, run the wires under their clothes and the microphone itself, which is smaller than the tip of your pinky, is penned onto the outside of their collar.

Tip! Never put the mic itself underneath clothing or you’ll get lots of rustling sounds. Hide the wires under clothes. Use scotch tape if necessary.

Multiple wireless mics get pricy and complicated. Wireless signals can cross. Each one needs its own input into the camera, which would probably take a portable mixer. One decent wireless will cost at least $200, an adequate one could be found for $75. Great ones are at least $500 and up.

I ONLY GOT ONE MIC

If you only have one mic, let the person who is doing the majority of the speaking wear it. If other people stand fairly close, they’ll pick up well enough and you can boost their level during editing.

Listen to everybody talk and determine who has the most powerful voice. This person probably SHOULDN’T wear the mic since a truly powerful voice can be picked up well from several feet.

Lavaliere microphones pick up incredibly well for their tiny size.

USING BOOM MICROPHONES
If you have a large enough crew, you can have one person operate a boom microphone (one that picks up sound from a distance). A boom mic used by a large crew is usually on a long pole and the operator constantly moves the pole around in order to pick up whoever starts speaking. Gotta be careful about bashing people in the head though.

ON-BOARD CAMERA MICROPHONES

One-man crews use a boom mic attached to the camera, similar to how home movie cameras are set up, the mics are just better quality.

Adequate sound for dialogue can be picked up just using the on-board camera mic, but that’s not recommended. If this is your only option, going in close has the advantage of ensuring better quality sound. If someone is speaking loudly and there's no distracting background noise, a distance of about five feet from the on-board camera microphone is optimal. Using your camera mic is easy, but unless you have the conditions just described, relying on your on-board mic probably will result in poor quality sound, perhaps even sound that is too bad to use.

AUDIO QUALITY HIGHLY IMPORTANT
When evaluating the quality of your audio, remember that poor quality audio is bound to make your viewer say, “forget it!” and quit watching long before poor quality video will. No viewer is going to strain to hear your video, they’ll simply walk away. Viewers are much more forgiving of poor quality video than crappy sound.

Evaluating the “hear-ability” of your audio is often difficult because you know what’s being said. Your viewer doesn’t. So it’s much harder for a viewer to understand the mumbled audio than it is for you to understand it. If you don’t think your viewer can understand it, either don’t use it or add subtitles.