As a video production agency, you’d be forgiven for thinking that 100% of our attention is on the creation of dynamic and engaging visuals for businesses, but the truth is that audio is every bit as important.
This was highlighted for me recently when Dead Ready partnered with the Sick of Health Podcast and for the first time, produced media that didn’t contain any visuals at all!
If you’re a marketeer, the chances are that you’ll need to produce media to feed your content campaigns, so this recent experience led to thinking that you might might be interested in some brief tips around audio recording.
There’s very little that can be done to improve poorly recorded audio, in the same way as there’s not much you can do to save out-of-focus visuals, so whether you’re producing your own vlog, shooting an interview or recording someone speaking in any context, make sure you think about audio, just as much as you think about the visuals.
We recorded Sick of Health in a purpose-built (if not quite finished) studio in London where Dead Ready supplied the appropriate microphones and recording equipment. This was a bit of a challenge as although the studio was sound-proofed, the three presenters were all in the same space, meaning that although I’d mic’d them all up individually with personal radio mics, every mic would pick up every voice to a lesser or greater extent.
This was a bit of a shame, as I was hoping to be able to edit each voice in isolation, balancing the audio levels for a perfect mix afterwards, but this level of precision is rare to achieve and not normally something you need to worry about when producing content for your campaigns.
Ideally, you’d want to put each speaker in a separate space, where they can hear (through headphones) and see each other (through glass or a screen). This wasn’t an option for us, so we might as well have used a single mic and ensured that each speaker was equal distance away.
Being close to the microphone is essential to record quality audio, so no matter the value of your mic, make sure your subject is as close as possible and make sure you do a test recording to check the quality. If you hear any distortion or buzzing when people speak loudly, don’t move the mic away; instead, reduce the sensitivity of your recording device.
If you’re recording into a phone or similar device, the mic sensitivity will probably be controlled automatically, but doing a test recording and listening back is the best way to be sure.
We really enjoyed the being part of the Sick of Health experience and found it a really well-researched and entertaining listen, so check it out here.
The latest episode on immunotherapy went up this week, and the other episodes are all worth a listen as well. I personally found the episode on the woman who could smell Parkinsons particularly fascinating!
