Good sound is essential for every video production. Most viewers can withstand watching a video with poor lighting but cannot stand poor sound. So, what is a good sound? Good sound means capturing clean and understandable audio during video recording. To record good sound, you must have good audio and video recording equipment.
Read on to learn more about the importance of having the right audio video equipment and how to choose the right equipment.
There are different audio and video equipment, and each is customized for a different setting. Are you shooting a wide shot? An interview? Music video? A podcast? All these setups require different audio equipment and different recording strategies.
After establishing what you are shooting, it becomes easy to select the perfect audio equipment to use. Having the right equipment for each location, indoor or outdoor, means that you will have the ability to capture good sound.
The most essential audio video equipment is the microphone. Microphones come in different shapes and sizes. Each of them has an exceptional strength at capturing quality audio in a different environment. The most common microphones used are:
A shotgun microphone is one of the most effective tools to capture sound. These microphones reject sound from the sides and rear; they only prioritize the sound coming from in front. While using the shotgun microphone, ensure that you are 3 to 4 feet away from it. The microphone is not best suited for wider ranges.
These microphones are most readily used while shooting most YouTube videos, like video blogs. They are highly versatile as you can easily attach them to your camera if it has a port for an external microphone, or put them on a mic stand. The trick of using them is always to ensure that they are as close to the subject as the camera frame will allow them.
The lavalier microphone, also known as a lav, clip mic, neck mic, collar mic, or body mic, is a small microphone mostly attached to the subject's body. The position of the microphone is mainly determined by how you are recording the sound. For example, if you are doing an interview, the best place to pin the microphone is in the middle of the subject's chest.
The lavalier microphone is also excellent for doing shoots when in a noisy location or where the subject is talking from a distance.
You can use a wireless body-mic or hardwired. While using it is wireless, you will need a transmitter and a receiver. You can clip the transmitter onto the subject's waistband or into the belt or keep it in their pocket. The receiver is usually connected to the camera or the audio recorder.
These microphones are mostly held above the frame of the scene on a long pole, a boom. A boom is a flexible and extendable arm that creators mount the microphone on. You can use these microphones when capturing dialogue for a large crowd or during wide shots that do not require directional recording.
These are very tiny microphones that you can place on the table, hall, podium, and a wall, anywhere where you might need wide coverage.
While editing, there are some tools you can use to improve the audio quality. Software Roxio Creator has a sound editor feature that helps you edit your audio tracks, enhance them and clean up noise.
Choosing the right video audio recording equipment is extremely important. Most of your viewers will only stick around if your videos have good sound. If you are on a budget, you can record using your smartphone. There are free mobile applications and low-cost, compact external microphones which you can use to capture better sound.