Microphone Tips For Recording Great Audio In Your Videos
Here’s another fun video tutorial for you in our Year of the Video series! This one is all about how to ensure you have excellent AUDIO when recording your videos. There’s nothing worse than coming across what appears to be an excellent video that you really want to watch… but it has terrible audio quality. Most people will click off in a nanosecond!
In fact, people will long forgive bad video quality (e.g. grainy, wobbly) but they won’t forgive bad audio. With the inexpensive microphones available today, there’s no reason not to capture top quality audio… even from your smartphone!
In the video below, Emmy award® winning director David Gumpel and his wife Catherine Hedden from Films About Me share their top microphone tips to help you record better videos. Be sure to listen to the whole video for David’s NUMBER ONE tip for audio! It’s a goodie. 🙂
Recommended microphone – for smartphones too!
David and Catherine recommend this affordable mic: the Audio-Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier Omnidirectional Condenser Microphone. It comes with little clips and a windscreen and is a mere $17 from Amazon.com!
Audio-Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier Omnidirectional Condenser Microphone. Just $17 on Amazon!
You will need an ADAPTER to use with your smartphone. David recommends this one:
Smartphone microphone adaptor
You can find links to the recommended microphone and smartphone adaptor – along with other cool gear – on Films About Me’s Pinterest page.
NEW! Video marketing training course
Learn directly from Mari, David and Catherine in our brand new online training course called Video Success Secrets – runs February 12th and 14th. More details here.
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Got video questions? Feel free to post here and we’ll do our best to answer you in a timely manner! And/or come post on Films About Me‘s Facebook fan page!
2013: The Year of the Video – free webinar, instant replay
If you missed our mega webinar on January 24th, you can still catch the replay! We had 8,500 people registered and several thousand people from around the world joined us live! The feedback was awesome. You can get instant access to the replay here.
I, like Chris Groves below, would like to know more about how you connected up the three (3) mics in your video??? The mics appear to come with a relatively short cable. So, what do they plug into? Are you using wireless transmitters? If so, what is a cost-effective approach? And, how are you mixing and equalizing the three inputs? Thanks for any suggestions.
@2e4a0542f5931bce1ac49316a01d40d9:disqus — I’ll need to ping @facebook-1205792243:disqus to ask David. This video we shot in my home studio was all wired mics.
I have this little mic! Good to know about the adapter 🙂
Sweet!
Tammy, these are not stereo mics they are called omni directional.
I use the Giant Squid lav mic, super sensitive but blocks the background noise and very inexpensive. Super stoked, use it with a Zoom H1 for the best digital audio. http://www.giant-squid-audio-lab.com
Awesome – thanks for the tip @428ef40d0e72f25995062d27ab2c0119:disqus!!
Question for David. I’ve got the lavaliere mic and adapter from the USA, I’m in the UK. I can’t get it to work with my iPhone. It keeps picking up my built in mic. I thought it might have been the battery so replaced that and still no luck. There is no light on the black casing to say its working either, so it is hard to tell if the mic is actually working or not. Well I know it is not, because I tap it and no sound gets recorded, just via the iPhone mic. I am using iPhone 4. Any ideas or suggestion, its a bit frustrating and may have to send it back, which is mighty expensive to do. Many thanks, Michael
Hi Michael, I am actually having the same problem. My phone is recording from the phone mic. I am using an android phone, though thought it should still work. Have you managed to get it all working now? Thanks Andy
Me too same problem, I’m using voice recorder HD app on my iphone. I’ve noticed there hasn’t been any response to this. Pity after buying the equipment and then it doesn’t work.
I think I have a solution for this. I’ve ordered a 3.5mm mono plug to 3.5mm stereo jack adapter. The atr3350 mic seems to have a stereo jack even though it is a mono mic. It seems that the sescom cable is only designed to take a mono signal too. I got it to work using a Y-splitter (stereo to mono L and R) cable and noticed that mic would work when plugged into one side but not the other. Hopefully that makes sense.
Just to confirm 3.5mm mono plug to 3.5mm stereo jack adapter arrived and it works.
Thanks for your reply Paolo, good to hear you have it working. Just out of interest, with Y-Splitter did you buy? I just want to make sure I have bought the correct one and it works. I think I understand what you have done. Do you still need to attach the adapter?
Thanks Mari! Excellent tips. Always love your stuff!
My question, just from looking at the picture, there is only one male end on the microphone, but two female ends on the adapter. Just off the top of my head, it seems that there should be two male ends, or you won’t get stereo. Is there any validity to this? How do you know which female end to plug the male end into?
The mic is mono.
I’m a big fan of the Blue Snowball mic. It’s very inexpensive and does great for my podcasts.
Love that Snowball! I have the Yeti, too. You’re right, great for podcasts and Skype interviews, too.
The snowball is great. I user the Yeti with a pop filter.
I have one mic jack on my camera. How do you best handle multiple microphones, like you have in this video with 3 people talking, is there a splitter for the microphone jack?
Aha – great question. I’ll ask Catherine/David to respond!
Some microphones will work with a “y” connector for 2. For 3 mic you’ll need a mixer. Here is a pretty inexpensive one. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=3631&is=REG&Q=&A=details
Hi you guys! Great that you have teamed up. I have a questions about the mic. I got it, and the adapter. I put it on my iPhone, I make video – several pieces about 3 to 4 minutes each. When I edit in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, the sound is fine at first but it does not match up with the video about a minute in. The further into the clip, the more off it is. Have you had this happen and do you have any suggestions on what I might be doing to cause that?
Ohhh excellent question @facebook-1056901614:disqus — I’ve had this happen on some of my videos, too. Sometimes they play just fine locally (on my desktop) but online they get out of sync and I’ve never understood what caused this. Hm. Hopefully David can shed some light on this for us. I’ll see if he can hop over to leave a comment!
Hi Susan, Did you check the file before you loaded it into the edit system? The original files should be in sync. Sounds like a conversion problem. What did Adobe convert them to? (from David). Be sure to back-up your files before you convert them.
Catherine Hedden – Thanks to you and to David – He’s right! I went back and viewed my original iPhone video and the video and audio are perfectly synced all the way through. I’m going to take this up with Premiere Pro now. Really appreciate your response!
@MariSmith:disqus See my response to @Catherine Hedden. It’s a Premiere Pro problem, probably.(Oh, say that 3 times fast!) I’ll take it up with them. If you use a different editing program, your problem is probably in that program, too. If you find out anything, post it here. I will too.
@facebook-1205792243:disqus @MariSmith:disqus I have good news this morning. I was able to locate the answer to my problem by going to the Adobe Premiere Pro forum. The problem is that the iPhone records with variable speed. The answer is to download the movie to my PC, open it in QuickTime and save it as a movie file, .mvp. That converts it to a file that is no longer variable. When I open it in Premiere Pro it plays synced all the way through the clip. Thanks so much for helping me spend the time to find the answer.
YAA! So glad you were able to isolate and solve the problem. Way to go!
Yep, that’s the exact same microphone I use. Both excellent and cheap.:)
Sweet!!
Aaaah, glad you like them too, Nick.