- Hey, it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video.
Lots of people these days are creating their videos
in their home or their office studio setups,
and depending on the gear that they're using
and what microphones they're using,
you can often hear quite a bit of echo in their audio.
This is usually caused by the sound from your voice
bouncing around the walls and being picked up
a second time by the microphone before it's had the chance
to dissipate or be absorbed.
Typically, the louder you talk and the less furniture
that's in the room, the more prominent the echo.
In this video, I'm going to take you through some
simple ways that you can easily reduce the amount of echo
in your home or your office studio, not only for your videos
but for interviews, Skype calls and even phone calls.
We'll cover a range of options from professional
soundproofing for a permanent studio setup,
right through to DIY solutions, just using stuff
that you've got lying around the home
that you can get started with right now for free.
(upbeat techno music)
Okay, so the main goal here is to absorb any additional
audio that's going past the microphone and to stop it
at the point before it starts bouncing off the walls
and reverberating back around into the microphone.
So, whatever we're gonna do here normally is gonna be
behind the camera or behind the microphone
in order to stop that bounceback.
Okay, so the first one we're gonna cover is to use things
that you've got lying around, or that are easily accessible
and aren't gonna cost you anything.
So, in order to reduce that bounceback of the audio,
you can use things like towels, doonas, duvets, blankets,
anything that's going to absorb the sound that you can
hang up behind your camera or place behind your microphone
or where you're sitting, so that there's going to be
no bounceback of the audio.
Doonas and duvets and blankets work really well,
and they're normally pretty easy that you hang up
on your walls and then take down after you finished
your recording or after your interview,
Skype call or even phone call.
The downside, though, is that they don't look fantastic,
so I wouldn't be Instagramming any pictures of
your studio setup while you've got some blankets
hanging on the wall.
Option number two is to use some cheap foam,
and again, place it behind the camera or behind
the microphone to stop that bounceback of the audio.
By looking on Amazon, there's so many to choose from,
with all different colors, textures, thicknesses,
flexibility, there's so many to choose from,
but really, you're looking at anything from sort of
four dollars up, depending on the size and thickness
that you're looking to get.
You could also head down to your local foam dealer
or foam store, somewhere that sells foam products or bedding
or even pool supplies, like swimming pool supplies.
They typically sell a lot of foam products as well.
You may even be able to pick up some off-cuts of foam
like the one that I've got here, which was
only around five dollars Australian.
Number three is where we move to the professional
permanent solutions.
So we're looking at specific foam that was designed
just for audio acoustics and to remove any echo in the room.
Once again, there are so many options available on Amazon.
We will put some links in the description below, but really,
it all comes down to the size and how much you're after.
You can pick up acoustic foam like this one for around
thirty dollars, which is 48 by 24 inches,
and 2.5 inches thick, which works out about 60 centimeters
by 120 centimeters.
So this stuff isn't really expensive either,
but obviously it's gonna come down to how much you need.
Once again, there are so many here to choose from,
there's different patterns, you've got your eggshell type,
you've got your pyramid type, you've got your flat ones
with the grooves in them.
But at the end of the day, they're all gonna make a huge
difference to the acoustics in your home
or office studio setup.
The ones that I've got and the ones that I leave
permanently set up here are the pyramid design.
And these were around 50 dollars Australian
for a one meter by one meter sheet.
Option number four is a portable acoustic shield.
So really, it's exactly the same thing, but it's portable,
and you can actually put them onto tripods
or put them on stands to put up behind your camera
or your microphone setup.
Once again, there's heaps here to choose from,
and it always comes down to how big you need it.
But these start at around the 60 dollar US price point.
Essentially, they work exactly the same
as the professional acoustic foam that I've got set up
in the studio here.
So there's some ways that you can reduce the amount of echo
in your home, office, studio setup, whether it's for videos,
interviews, Skype calls, or even phone calls.
And if you're trying to work out which microphone
is right for you, for your video creation,
whether it's a lavaliere or a shotgun microphone,
then check out the video on screen now.
I'll see you soon.