ARE YOU STRESSED OUT about the actual creation of your online course or vBlog videos? One of the most common fears I’m hearing from my students is I don’t have a budget for gear, and I don’t know what to do with the gear when I do get gear. As I surf the web, and hang out in groups on Facebook and other social sites I notice there are a lot of great and creative videos out there, well except for the audio. It is really annoying when you want to watch a video someone has posted and the audio is so low, or distorted you can’t hear it and if you can hear it you don’t want to listen because it is annoying. So I thought I would take a few second and address a few fears here, and help with the whole audio recording thing at the same time.
- You don’t need any budget for gear!!!! Your cell phone, pad or laptop will work just fine.
- If you do have $20.00 to spare, I would buy a lavalier (Lapel) microphone and an extension cable to go with it. That is the most important part of making videos is having great audio quality. The built in microphones are not good enough so a cheap microphone is all you really need. And if you don’t have funds for a cheap microphone then use the built in microphones and here are some tips to getting great audio with the built in or external microphones.
- If you are using an internal microphone make sure you are in the smallest room you can find that has carpet, heavy curtains that are closed, and a low ceiling. If you are doing audio only then a closet with lots of close hanging around you will work just fine.
- Make sure the air system and fans are off
- Get really quiet and just close your eyes and listen while you are in the location you want to record in, are there any noises in the room that you can get rid of, such as the laundry dryer in the next room, shut it off a TV running in ear shot. All noises eliminated will make for better audio quality. If there are too many noises you can’t get rid of maybe pick a new location.
- If the recording device has a volume knob and meter test the microphone by doing a test recording, make sure the microphone is turned up as loud as it can be without distorting or clipping as we call it in the audio world. On meters green is usually good and red is bad.
- If you are in a big room with lots of echo or outside you are going to have to have an external microphone such as a Lavalier Lepel microphone. And as I said make sure you buy an extra 10 foot extension cord for you microphone unless you purchased a wireless one then you don’t need to.
- Once you are ready to record make a few test recordings before you do your real take. Listen back to the video make sure the lighting is good and you can see everyone and everything well, make sure the audio is loud and clear. It sucks to make a 20 min video just to find out the audio was not even on or it was so low you could almost not hear it. Ask me how I know. LOL
It is very inexpensive to make recordings with today’s technology in our smart phones, but if you want to buy some gear check out this blog on inexpensive gear. If you are going to take the time to make recordings, make sure you take a few extra seconds to make sure the audio quality is the best it can be. Remember if the AUDIO S#&%s the VIDEO will S#&% and you will lose customers and will not get repeat or new customers. Reach out in the comments of this post if you have any questions about Audio I will be glad to answer them.