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Audio Recording Accessories

Lesson 13 from: Keep it Simple: Video for Photographers

Lindsay Adler, Jeff Rojas

Audio Recording Accessories

Lesson 13 from: Keep it Simple: Video for Photographers

Lindsay Adler, Jeff Rojas

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Lesson Info

13. Audio Recording Accessories

Lesson Info

Audio Recording Accessories

labs are great for recording people's voices if you can hide them for example um and other situations maybe having the road like just out of frame I'm having the shotgun mike just out of frame would be a really good solution if you are like one person and you're just trying to get a little bit better audio this next solution is a really good starting point so I just don't think that you saw it like that ricky has has been awesome because I'll do sessions in my studio where I'm interviewing people I can have them liked and then have that um what you're saying to about a bride in a location what you would do or whatever the subject maybe is maybe would have the love record their voice and then totally separate record the background and like he was talking about mixing it together so that is what I've done any time I don't try to make the background and the voice sound good at the same time like for me that I can't get that tow work if you want to have her walking down the aisle in the pr...

iest saying things if you get whatever is in permission to mike up the priest do so okay then if you wanna hear the music in the background then you could use something like an omni directional mic toe pick up the ambient noises around that's really up to you I mean if you want to mike up to percussionist and say okay I want a shotgun mic on him to get some of the ambient sounds where I want an omni directional mic right in the center of that room so I hear all the ambience because I want to sound like I'm a person there that's why it goes back into taste it's depending on where you wantto let the audience kind of feel for the piece itself so just that's why go back to its taste all right well I'm glad I pushed that a little bit further because you know I just when you said that I was kind of like you have bad taste and then I thought that some of the ones of her holding they like the mike here because there's actually a video that you khun watch her speaking those under good too but like most of the time this is not so practical unless it's voice over can you can you imagine we sat here all day like this hi how are you guys doing so let's discuss my really be tired all day like first seven eight hours we'll see what he's doing now that's a problem you never want people hold it cause they do exactly so I do that it was all over the place so this is why we don't use this on set because I played like that sounds wrong just put that down next scene audio listening in theirs on cameras where we are right now sorry I couldn't read all the way over there for some reason so I would generally use the on camera solutions for reference audio nothing else that's just because the quality of audio that you get even when you're using the manual levels you don't have the capabilities of switching certain where is switching certain parameters the same way that you do with an extra mater this looks like a giant bulky system now that I take this and it's the same size is this it's awesome we're gonna talk about this I love so I would only use it for reference footage I wouldn't use it for anything tonight plus that but my my argument as well as a few if you really are not going to do anything else like you really are like I'm not taking another recorder I'm not goingto buy another mike it's too much hassle for me that's that's your minimum but then you guys also heard what that sounds like a lot of camera we showed you okay this is the stereo mic on camera I don't want to hear anything else this is that that's it so it's not the best quality audio and that's unedited so that's just straight out of camera what you're getting and you have to deal with fixing so I look att yes these air seven eight hundred six hundred seven hundred dollars but he said no that one I think these are like six seven hundred bucks but at the same token how much time is it's really saving you if this is what you need in order to get clean audio and I have to edit it in post we'll have to spend the time doing so I look at every single one of these pieces is like an investment of time what is this saving me time is the same in the house what is this saving me money yes how do you find that mike is like say say you're doing a wedding video and you know you have the father speech and you you don't want to record it in the hole because it's loud and bambi in and you don't want to spend seven hundred dollars on the lovelier would you like pre record his voice in like your studio at home doing his speech with that do you think you get clear enough to overlay it over the video at a later point I would have two things that yes if he can do it twice the same way because the time that he goes up and he's emotional and he's crying you're not getting that you're getting that he's in a room reading a piece of paper like this I'm practicing right now it's not the actual actions in that case if that was your only option you don't want to spend much money you can still go with the army mike that we talked about for the iphone I mean that's that's something else that you can't do because my feeling is if dad's talking and this is his his daughter I'm just like picturing things now so his daughter you know this is your final day you know single or whatever she's getting married you wanted the whole room is going to be quiet like they're goingto listen to everyone's going hang on every word he's saying so something like the omni directional mic for the iphone might be good for you in that specific instance it's also great for concert environments rather than using your iphone recorder right out of camp um I'm gonna go ahead and skip that we've already discussed this so pre empts are goingto that game that you hear that buzzing when you record audio as you heard before that that drum that home like it's hum um you can hear every single bit of that in footage and preempts what they do I don't have the juice like today but prem's what they do is cut out all that humming noise they make it so you just get clean career a clear crisp audio just by being able to mess with the levels your gains and things like that it's not a recorder thiss won this remind you this is a request a pre amp in itself is not a recorder it basically just enhances a signal so if you are going to just record directly into camera for example it makes that mike that we had on top that we were just talking about the road video like well if you pre amp it were maybe you have a shotgun mic on top and preempt into the camera one hundred times better than just directly into the camera so again I would just take this bring into the pre empt I don't have in the mark to a microphone in or teo line out I would use that and if you look at it there's a mic out level so you can actually just listening to listen to it from the premise that gives you the option to be able to listen to it because you're seeking between everything so luckily because it's two thousand thirteen at the present moment they have other options they have recorders with preemies built in which is a great alternative to you lugging around something under your camera plus a recorder plus a bunch of other things because even with the pre empt you have to bring it back into a recorder so it's it's a it's a almost a tri system people that's not a tool it's feed into from mike to preempt to recorder to headphones into your ear this plugged into the bottom of your camera you put headphones and this and this axe is a dual system sound in that it records directly to this on an sd card and feed right back into your camera to give you almost a backup system of the pre empt that this gets so I would say there's kind of almost three ways to look at your options you have you got the option to just feed it directly into your camera you've got a mic in your feet into camera not so good okay well actually four okay so that was one option all right see what will improve it a little bit two out of three m you're just trying to improve the quality boost that signal you had the pre empt can still go back in your camera all right well then you could do something totally separate where you have just an external recorder and that's it is not talking to the cameras you're going to sink it up later you've external recorder and a mike and then that is the marriage between the two because it is in and of itself and actual recorder it is a program to boost the signal and it feeds back into your camera so that everything in the price point itself is the same as the day our one hundred when we first got it this is about three hundred dollars this is three hundred dollars so this access both those systems that the juice like I think it was upto like two forty nine three fifty africa at exactly the price but it was it's like five six hundred bucks before you have good audio that's not including headphones if you decide to invest in great headphones and so you might ask okay well that's pretty darn cool why would we need an external recorder at all what that would be appropriate for is that shotgun system where you're trying to get a different angle or different type of audio so you're not gonna have the pre empt hooked up to it doesn't make sense there's no purpose plus you can get those recorders they're smaller and later and things like that and that just by the way there's another cramp beach tech is another ah popular one but we say skip it uh so we discussed the sit the love so the duel system is when you actually have an external recorder on dh then it zenon separate actually you do have other options for quarters if you want to court information if this is something whatever it is you don't decide to go with you do you have quarters like the zoom h foreign which is highly popular in the videography industry for its price point um that's next great which is great but there's no separate headline line out for going back into the d slr you have to get a splitter in order to go to the salon and here at the same time so it does have the quarter twenty inputs and it has if you look has those xlr inputs we discuss you have the task of dior forty which is the one that I had mounted to the pole itself that's the d r one hundred the d r forty is the newer version of the d r one hundred's is very similar product in that capacity they just very bulky I mean this is bulky but at least it like serves three purposes and they all give you away to monitor your audio levels it shows you right on there she can watch to make sure it's around twelve and wilson have easy dials to boost up the gain turn it down they're built into all these systems this one's called the the task emdr sixty d okay so this one is the one that acts like a pre emp and it does have the auto backup system I'm going to get into quickly headphones because headphones actually the most important part of audio believe it or not because if you can't hear it there's no point if you wouldn't if you wouldn't like shoot without looking at something don't let them record audio without listening to it I mean that's the same promise to be exact I had no idea that I had nothing until I got back so always monitor yourselves I have some awesome headphones um that I use when I purchase headphones I want noise canceling headphones that's the first thing because I don't want to hear anything else these air great cause I multipurpose them at home when I want to listen to other people so he's being totally um these are newest canceling headphones a kg makes these which is their deejay headphones the's a reference back in that they cut noise everywhere else and they don't have base like there's no gain on base so I'm listening to exactly what I'm listening to I don't have the distortion that I would if I listening if I listen to like music head phones that are meant for all that extra base I want to hear a crisp clear sound that I got right out my camera because if not everyone's hearing different things it's kind of the same interpretation of having your screen color calibrated same ordeal so in other words okay those air relatively expensive yes from that keep a simple video part just have headphones ideally something that is noise canceling is better so the other option that get out of here I purchase seasons of the lodge a tech you eased six hundreds and these were about one hundred twenty dollars which sound expensive for a little air boats but have you seen dr drazen nowadays they're about the same price and everyone owns them um these air noise canceling they don't look flashy so I've used these to listen to audio while I'm editing video and it's like if you live in a metropolis like new york city you don't anybody to try to steal your stuff this looks like you know not so expensive headphones but the's air amazing I mean their noise canceling their reference headphones they don't give you much base you listen to everything that you want to listen to so ideally what I'm trying to say is fine headphones that fit your needs everyone has different year types these air huge I have big ears that's why I used these son heizer make some they don't fit over my ears so it really depends on your ears what you're comfortable with I like the padding that this has so aiken aiken video edit for a longer period of time these start hurting after awhile but these air kind of temporary on the go headphones like if I'm in a plane I don't want to have don't want to damage these I used these so it's really depending on your specific tastes okay words noise canceling would be ideal and also referenced meaning it's not like modifying what you here to improve the sound it just it is what it is but if you have just like your iphone headphones whether you use them they're better than nothing so for improving audio it could be tricky there's like I just told you my story so let me give you a couple of tips here first of all distance all right so when you have a microphone this is I mean the sister would pre match any of them but let's talk about the labs in particular for example as you know I did give everyone that's watching this cheat sheet so you guys can actually see the distances which was a couple of sides ago so it's a little a little easier for you guys okay great perfect so something to watch out for is the closer you are like where this is the better because what happens is if I pull this away the field that it's capturing to try to get his voice will pick up echo versus here it's just getting his voice distance makes a difference it is the same thing for any of these because yes this is still going to get a little bit of the ambien but if its way out here it's catching that hole field of audio so closer is definitely better unless of course I'm just trying to get the sound of the room that's a different story okay uh next one is direction so we talked about this love kind of right underneath the chin over the second here's us so this is what this is what sounds totally creeping so shotgun from above pointing a subject's chest we read that we're like we're like that sounds I don't know um I did do a little bit of audio in college and something that they taught me is if you ever doing if you were trying to do interviews of empty room with minimal furniture and nothing on the walls is awful because it is a giant space and it's echoey so one of the tips again but if you don't need to capture the visual it's just the audio cars are amazing sound boost you roll up the windows close the door it is like sound proof I mean it makes sense if you think about it those of you that into cars like if you have a mercedes or something that's made for sound to sound booth you're listeningto audio crisp clear sound so that he would sound kind of creepy if you like hey come to my car so we can in a way we're like that makes you think I have an interview but that is definitely so at minimum if you have a space that you want to record I mean even if you could just hang like a blanket over the wall that makes a big difference in the quality of audio versus everything bouncing around but to keep it simple just use these specific tools to help you so you don't have to use those blankets you could do the car thing I think that's amazing if you want to do an interview just find the way it works for you um okay I already told you watch out for how you're handling the cables uh the shock mounts we already covered so just mean for anything that you have ideally you're not actually holding onto the cable or the microphone itself just prevent that cause either you get the grip of your hands or you get the vibration so try to separate that so this one's a big one when we shot the child the baby um next thing sorry next just quickly fan we have air conditioning in there so we have to turn it off because if not we'll hear it we have refrigerator running on the opposite side of studio you can't hear it so you got to make sure that you uh even though it's hollow I mean they're just equipment everywhere but you can't hear it which is great but that happened so lindsay I was recording on her tripod and I'm listening because I'm actively listening to the audio the same way the guys in the back or listening to our rodeo and all I hear is this random squeaking and tapping and I'm looking at our interns and I'm like stop moving and they're sitting there looking at me like we're not doing anything and I'm like you guys have to be doing something cause I have my head down I'm like listeningto the audio and I realized she was moving the tripod in the way that she was moving the political head is creaking we're here it creaking from the opposite side of the studio because I stood away so I don't have to hear his voice compared to what I'm listening to want to make sure that nothing is interfering so I didn't realize what was going on and I'm like what is that noise so just be very cautious even with your photography equipment it does make noise yes so eliminate as much ambient noise as possible when you're trying to do interviews if you're not trying to capture all of the ambient noise they're so choose places it doesn't have a lot of echo then you have wind reduction so this is called it's funny this is going to sound a furry or a dead cat dead cat which isn't right and least but then there's things little form pieces that are inside so this is supposed to block a slight about amount of wind so you put that in there and then you put the fur like the dead cat furry on top every company's gonna have a different name for this every company makes a funny name for it so all right uh well see that's pretty good oh if you're shooting in a location that has ambient noise that you cannot get rid of and you're listening and you hear it and you cannot get rid of it you move the laugh closer you know whatever might you happen to have it doesn't matter you can hear that home in the background you can hear those cars whatever it isthe okay well we've got a record are you write what you want to dio is also record two minutes off just the sound of ambien not the person talking because they probably weren't into it when you're editing audio you hear it the person talk and then it goes dead silent so you noticed that home a million times more there's ways to reduce it and premier and he's going to show you this but what you want to do is at least get that ambient noise so minimum if you have to add that sound you added as another track so you don't hear home home dead silence it makes you notice that much more

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Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

This great workshop helps me to start a new experience with video, Lindsay and Jeff are so clever with a teaching very easy to follow, now I know the basics to work with movement, I got a new vision on how to take advantage of many years of photography experience, this is a new medium but image itself is the same, I recommend this to any newbie interested on getting a solid base to start.

Elly Alenka Dream
 

Fantastic class! Watching it in 2019 - and still finding relevant. Excellent way to ease photographers into the scary waters of video footage and production... and perfect for somebody who already has some basics to take it up a notch and challenge themselves quite a bit! Loved this class, very helpful.

a Creativelive Student
 

I bought this class because, I recently bought my first DSLR with filming capabilities. But when I start looking at it and after watching a couple of instructionvideos on YouTube I kinda got overwhelmed. This class broke it all down into clear pieces for me. Lindsay and Jeff have nice and clear teaching style. They covered everything but didn't get to far into the nitty gritty details. They always told how important something was and if you have to do it in a certain way or that is your artistic choice. I certainly can start off with making video with a lot more confidence now. The course is packed with information. It took me much longer then 3 days to watch and take 37 pages of notes!

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