Sound for Video Part 1: Two Secrets to Great Sound

Here are two tips to improve the sound for your video projects. The good news is that there are a lot of ways to get good sound and some of them are not expensive. But, it may require some changes to the way you capture your video and a little bit of work. But, in the end, the extra effort is definitely worth it.

This is part one where we talk about the two first considerations:

1) Microphone placement (as close as reasonably possible to your actors)

2) Using a quality microphone--in this case I'm using a Rode NTG-2 shotgun microphone. There are a lot of other great options which we'll address in future shows.

This episode was shot using the Canon 60D and sound was captured using the Zoom H1 (so that I could actually show you the Rode NTG-2 shotgun mic and the other gear I usually use to capture sound.)

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Sound
• video
• howto
• zoom h1
• zoom h4n
• rode ntg-2
• canon 60d

[aznpimpin89]

Not sure if this question was already asked, but I went out and bought two work lamps (150W/125VAC) and two 68 watt/120V CFL bulbs. They aren't working. The old 18watt/120V CFL works fine. Am I missing something here?

[aznpimpin89]

@aznpimpin89 Disregard. On the light fixture, I lifted up the metal contact point a little and now its working fine. Thanks

[curtisjudd]

@aznpimpin89 Perfect!

[curtisjudd]

@aznpimpin89 I had a similar experience with the very large bulbs. I had to unscrew the connection between the socket and metal dish just a little bit so that I could screw the bulb into the socket all of the way. This may be the same thing in your case. If the old bulbs worked and the new ones don't, most likely the bulb is not making full contact in the socket.

[jackychanelectronics]

When you record with the shotgun mic, run it through the audio interface & into the computer, what program do you use to record the audio on your computer? Do you just click sound recording? It will record the audio file as a windows media audio file? Is this the way to do it? I am thinking of getting a usb mic, would that allow me to bypass the audio interface, what do you recommend? Thank you so much for your tutorial, its really helpful, and you look awesome up there!

[curtisjudd]

@jackychanelectronics I use Reaper which costs $60 (google to find it). Another decent, but free program, is Audacity which I have also used. I would avoid using the windows sound recorder because windows media files can be difficult to merge with video--many editors just do not support it. Audacity and others support WAV which is industry standard and much easier to get into your video.  Yes, a USB mic is a mic and audio interface in one--fine solution. Thanks!

[0SKBooth0]

too much headroom! only complaint, haha

[jackychanelectronics]

@curtisjudd thanks so much! :)

[curtisjudd]

@ShadowManV3 Plugging directly into the camera will usually result in pretty poor sound partly because you have to convert to an unbalanced cable and also because you're relying on the mic's battery to power the mic.  The best way to improve the sound of the NTG-2 is to use a proper pre-amp like on a Zoom H4n or even with an audio interface. The switch is just a high-pass filter to cut out low frequency rumble from handling. You can just leave that on the angled line setting.

[ShadowManV3]

I have a Rode NTG-2 and It works pretty well i havent used it much yet. I plug it in to my Canon 7D But my question is , is there a way to make it sound better? And I got kinda confused with the switch on the mic like wat is the difference between them.

[curtisjudd]

@fotizome It would probably work but there's a big risk: The cable coming out of the Rode Videomic is unbalanced and that's not a problem since it is just a short cable run. But, adding an extension would probably introduce quite a lot of noise and a weaker signal so the final results probably won't be great. Maybe it would work if you somehow rigged the H1 up at the end of the boom with the videomic to avoid the extension cable. Then you could run an extension for the headphones.