- [Tom] If you're looking to capture outstanding audio
with your videos and your camera allows you
to connect an external microphone,
it is always a good idea to use that option.
My name is Tom, this is the Enthusiasm Project.
And today I'm gonna give you some sound advice
for your sound settings.
And this is going to be a pretty broad overview
since I didn't wanna limit it to any specific camera model
but the basic concepts should hold true
for pretty much any camera
that has an external microphone jack.
I'll be walking through the settings using my Canon EOS R
but pretty much any relatively modern Canon camera
has almost the exact same menu system.
And if you're using a camera from a different manufacturer,
that's not Canon, your menus might look different
and some things might be called other things
but the basic concepts are going to be the same
and the basic settings are also going to be the same.
So the first thing to do is to go into your menu
and if you haven't done so already,
I am in the movie recording mode, not the photo mode.
Go into sound recording and switch that from auto to manual.
Auto sounds good because it means that the camera
is going to adjust the audio levels automatically
but unfortunately, it doesn't usually work that great
because the camera is trying to predict the sound
that it's hearing so if things get quiet
or things get loud, it increases
and decreases the gain accordingly.
I have found that that introduces a lot of gain noise
like a lot of background hiss.
And I found that, especially with Canon cameras at least
it tends to be a little too loud
which causes clipping and distortion
that you can't get rid of when you're editing your video.
And now it's time to make some adjustments
to your mic itself.
If your mic has a gain setting like my Rode VideoMic Pro+,
I recommend using the plus 20 decibel option
or something similar and that's gonna increase
the mic's overall sensitivity to sound.
Now that your audio is set to manual,
you can go to your record level and adjust it
until your audio levels hit negative 12.
This camera with these levels right here,
the microphone is actually facing the table down here.
So it's not going to be super accurate
but in general, I have found that with a Canon camera
at least I've never really gone above the one quarter mark.
And typically what I've actually found
is that I will be one to three clicks
from the lowest setting.
So it almost seems like it's not on at all
but when I plug in an external microphone,
it gets me the level that I want.
Now, not every camera is going to have an audio meter
that shows numbers.
Some of them might have some kind of marker,
like the green dot when I'm in the live
you display off my EOS R.
Either way there should be something that's telling you,
this is where you want your audio levels
to be averaging out.
And the reason you wanna set things up this way
is because then you're going to be relying
on your microphone's preamp and not your camera's preamp.
And the reason you wanna do that is because of microphone
is a one trick pony,
it's designed to capture high quality audio
whereas a camera is designed to do a whole bunch of things
and as much as us video shooters
like to think that we're the center of the world sometimes,
the reality is when it comes to especially hybrid cameras
like this that do photo and video.
Most of the customers that buy these cameras use them
for photos, not for video.
So when you think about that,
if Canon needs to make this camera
that does all these crazy things, takes great photos,
shoots all these video frame rates,
how much can they also invest in putting in
a great audio preamp that statistically probably
isn't going to actually get used that much.
I don't have anything,
I didn't thought I was gonna say another point
but that's kind of it,
how much effort are they gonna put into something
that's probably not going to be used that often
whereas your microphone it's only job
is to capture great audio,
it's probably developed by a company
that specializes in audio
which means it's audio settings
are going to be better usually.
And again, this whole setup does depend
on what specific microphone you're using.
So you might need to experiment a little bit.
The road video mic pro plus
and pretty much any microphone that has its own power source
will allow you to adjust the gain setting pretty easily
and keep your microphones level low.
But if you're using something like the rode video micro
that doesn't have its own power source,
it relies on the camera for power
which means you might have to boost the camera's gain levels
a little bit to hit the level that you want.
And of course, now that you've got your camera set up,
make sure you are using your audio meters
in whichever editing software you're using.
In final cut pro, just press Shift + Command 8
to bring up the meters and then just like with your camera,
it's usually best to keep voice levels averaging
around the negative 12 decibel mark.
So regardless of what it sounds like coming out
of your computer speakers or your headphones,
those meters are gonna tell you
what it's actually gonna sound like
across the widest variety of sound systems
and some cameras like the EOS R
also give you the option to connect headphones
to monitor your audio recording
to make sure things are sounding good
but I usually actually like to take it a step further
and record a quick test clip that I put into my computer
and I check in final cut and on my computer
before I actually start recording.
And from here, your camera should be all set
to capture some really great audio for your videos.
Of course, what I can't stress enough is make sure you know
your specific equipment,
whichever camera you're using,
whichever microphone you're using.
Spend some time, look up some tutorials
for those exact pieces of gear to learn all the ins and outs
to get the best quality you can get from them.
And while we're on the topic of great audio,
let's quickly touch on microphone placement.
Be sure to learn the pickup pattern
for your specific microphone.
The Rode VideoMic Pro+ that I'm using right now
is a directional microphone,
that means it's designed to pick up sound coming essentially
from directly in front of it while rejecting sound coming
from the sides and especially from behind the microphone.
And chances are, if you're recording video,
you're using something with a similar pickup pattern
if not the exact same microphone.
So the best thing to do is keep it as close to your subject
as possible without actually being in the frame.
If I tilt the camera up only slightly,
the microphone is just right here
and it's actually pointed down in front of my face.
I used to position the microphone more directly.
Let's see, this is the microphone.
I used to position the microphone
rather than down more directly at me
because it just kind of made sense.
So it was sort of up here more horizontal
but that didn't work well for this specific microphone
because it can still pick up quite a bit of sound
from the sides.
And so it was picking up the echo from the room
a bit more so by positioning the mic like
it is now where it's facing down in front of me,
I found that it does improve
the overall audio quality of my videos.
And also another thing I used to do
was position it kind of where I was sitting in my chair
and then I would lean forward and talking to my videos.
And now the microphone is pointing
towards the top of my head.
So I position it in front of me essentially thinking
that the sound waves are coming out of my mouth
and that's what it is picking up.
So it sort of seems strange,
you don't necessarily just want to point it directly
at the person's mouth but kind of downward in front of them.
And that's gonna help you get the best sounding audio
because these are really good microphones.
Even if we're not using this exact same one,
anything that's kind of like this is probably pretty capable
of delivering really good results.
And I do want to give the obligatory disclaimer
that I'm not an audio engineer
but these are the settings and techniques
that were great for me as a one person crew.
And if you really want to make sure
you get the best audio possible,
I really recommend getting one of these little bubbles
that mounts on the top of your camera.
That way you can always be sure that your audio is level.
(upbeat music)