The 10 most important points for good sound recordings

How to improve your sound recording

Filmmakers tend to focus on the images in their films and videos, and good sound recording is at least as important as the visual elements. An audience is often even less forgiving of mistakes or glitches in sound than poor video recordings. For example, imagine how uncomfortable loud background noise or difficult-to-understand voice-overs can be. To ensure that your video or film recordings are free of such errors, we have put together the 10 most important points for good sound recordings. Read the article on how to improve your sound recordings:

1. Plan the sound recording in advance

You shouldn’t leave a good sound recording to chance. You should already create a concept for the sound when planning your film or video project. Similar to the scenes and video settings in a storyboard, you can plan the audio. Ask yourself which sound is used in the individual recordings. Do you have dialogue, background noise or silence? Who takes care of the sound recording and what equipment do you need for it? In the case of professional film recordings, a sound engineer is present who concentrates entirely on the good sound recording. For smaller film or video projects such. B. teaching and learning videos or recordings of screen presentations, this is usually not possible or necessary. However, make sure to take the sound recording into account in advance.

2. Use an external microphone and headphones

Even if your video camera or computer has an internal microphone, it is usually not suitable for good sound recordings. With devices such as cameras or computers, the manufacturers have other priorities, such as image capture, screen resolution or storage space. The microphone is usually a standard solution or even the cheapest option. You should therefore always use an external microphone for good sound recordings. However, you can run the recording with the internal microphone as a backup. Especially with live recordings such as reports, things can quickly go wrong and a sound recording with an internal microphone is better than none at all. In addition, headphones are standard equipment for good sound recording. Use it to check the sound quality during sound recording and hear every detail during sound editing.

3. Record each sound source separately

In order to be able to edit the individual sounds well later and to be able to do justice to the sound type during recording, you should record the individual tones separately. For example, if you are filming a scene of dialogue in a restaurant, you must record the speakers and the background noise separately. This is the only way to ensure that the voice is recorded with the right microphone and close to the speaker. For background noises such as music, hissing or conversations, you also need your own microphone that is suitable for this purpose. The cleaner and more independent the individual tones are recorded, the easier it is for you to edit and combine them afterwards. If you record all the sounds together, it is very difficult to separate and improve the individual elements such as conversation, music or background noise.

4. The external microphone must match the type of sound

There are many different types of microphones, including all-rounders, that work well for most sound recordings. Do you often record a specific sound, e.g. B. voice-overs for tutorials or screencasts, then it is worth getting a microphone that was specially developed for this purpose. Directional microphones, for example, record the sound at a certain point and are therefore very suitable for voice recordings or dialogue. The directional microphones include the cardioid microphones, which also do not pick up background noise and attenuate side noise. Omnidirectional microphones, on the other hand, pick up the sound evenly from all directions and are therefore less suitable for voice recordings and more for capturing spatial sounds, background noise or silence.

5. Record “Silence”.

If you’re recording scenes in different locations, don’t forget to record at least 10 seconds of “silence” for each location. “Silence” does not mean the absence of any noise, but the background noise typical of the location, i.e. the sound ambience. If you combine the various recordings later during editing, you can then place these “silence” recordings under the other sounds in a scene so that the images and acoustic atmosphere create a unity and a coherent overall impression.

6. Be close to the sound source

In order to record the original sound in optimal quality, the microphone should be as close as possible to the sound source. Professional film recordings in which the speakers move therefore use either a boom boom or a clip-on microphone. Both microphone placements require a great deal of skill. For example, the audio rod must never be in the camera image, must follow the speaker’s movements and must not cast any shadows on the recorded image. Although lapel microphones are easier to hide, they must not come into contact with clothing or parts of the body such as the chin or neck, otherwise interference noise can occur. When recording a standing, i.e. immobile speaker, a fixed stand microphone is usually suitable.

7. Input equals output

The sound quality of the recording largely determines the sound quality of the produced video. Or to put it another way: If the recording is of poor quality, you usually cannot make a very good sound quality out of it, even through complex audio editing. A bad audio recording can quickly ruin an entire shoot or require a reshoot. You should therefore always check the sound quality during the recording – via your headphones and the recording display. Professionals manually adjust the audio level during recording. However, there is now also software for automatic leveling. A combination is also possible, i.e. readjusting the automatic level manually.

8. Avoid noise

Nothing is more annoying than realizing after the shoot that the audio recording is unusable due to background noise such as loud traffic, doorbells, background conversations or barking dogs. With good planning, however, you can avoid such disruptive factors. In addition, use the right microphone for outdoor recordings to automatically minimize the noise level. Wind protection is also important for outdoor recordings, e.g. B. Microphones with fur cover. When recording indoors, be sure to turn off devices that produce unwanted noise, such as air conditioners, computer or phone messages, ventilation, or street noise.

9. Observe personal rights

Just like the right to one’s own picture, there is the right to one’s own sound. So if you interview people or use sound or voice recordings from third parties, you must obtain their consent for use and subsequent distribution and publication. In Germany, sound recordings and the publication or distribution of sound recordings without consent are criminal offenses.

10. Edit the audio track afterwards

Just like video recordings, sound recordings almost never go without post-processing. You can e.g. B. remove or reduce unwanted background noise and adjust the volume of different sound sources to each other. Video editing programs like Camtasia offer many useful features for audio editing. For voice-over recordings, check out TechSmith’s Audiate, which converts voice to text and edits that text with one click. You can easily delete slips of the tongue, erms or pauses that are too long in the text editor.