sound recording
demonstrating how to record audio using college recorders.
Sound is really important factor in media, this is because its what engages the audience and creates a better communicated piece of work. With sound you can identify the mood better than visuals can do, it can emotionally move you evoking better responses. Sound could be: soundtrack, voice over and sound effects.
what factors could impact an audio recording
- the location/environment
- quality of recording equipment
- correct choice of recording equipment
- placement of microphone
- the person using the equipment
type of mobile sound recorders
Zoom H1N
- uses micro SD to record onto
- has two microphones
- you can plug into an external microphone (tie/lavalier)
- you cant plug into a boom mic though
Zoom H4N
- uses normal size SD to record onto
- has two microphones
- you can plug in two external microphones
- can be slow loading SD card
Zoom H4
- uses normal size SD to record onto
- has two microphones
- you can plug in two external microphones
- not as user friendly as H4N/doesn't remember internal settings
journey script
Today i woke up at 6:50am and turned my alarm off and then went back to sleep till 7:00am then went back to sleep again and finally woke up at 7:10. After i finally woke up for real i went on my phone for 10 minutes. Then i got up to go to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. I then decided on what i was going to wear and got changed. i put my lanyard and shoes on and left my room to go to the kitchen. In the kitchen i made myself cereal and sat down to eat it. I then packed my bag and filled up my water. I had time to spare so i relaxed for a bit before getting a text saying Heater saying Joanna was here so i said goodbye to my dad and left the house.
This is Adobe Audition, where you can edit sound audios. On the right is what the main screen looks like after, i had edited my journey script on it already. The red buttons on the screen are how you start recording first you press the one up at the top to let the attachable recorder pick up sounds then you press the red button at the bottom to start the recording. This is where i started speaking my script out and did a whole take with mistakes at the end but left it.
on the left is where i cut my recording down and removed the parts i didn't want. I was laughing through the last part so i decided to cut it all out with the erase toll, you click the start and end sections on what you want to cut and then right click the whole section and press 'cut'. This allows you to edit down your audio, you an even add fades by dragging the grey box's further to the right for a longer fade and then closer for shorter. The fades will allow any added recordings to slot in smoother.
The start had a very long pause so i cut that out and then made a fade in so it did not start so harshly. I then exported the audio and downloaded it on here.
To record this i used a mobile sound recorder that has microphones built in, with a circle pop filter, which helps reduce or eliminate popping sounds made by mechanical devices or exterior sounds. We also connected this mobile sound recorder to the mac book that i had Adobe Audition in a quiet room.
how to video
i used the blue snowball to record the voice overs for my video. Along with that i added a pop filter over to help reduce certain sounds. This recording device is used by plugging the usb into your laptop and opening up Adobe Audition. I used the same process in recording my narrations from above.
blue snowball
- Unique two-condenser-capsule design for capturing vocals, music, podcasts, gaming and more
- Includes fully adjustable metal mic stand and USB cable
- Plug and play with Mac and PC
pop filter
- at least 4cm away from the mic
- help minimise the plosives in speech
- most filters come with gooseneck mounts you screw in to the tripods of mics.
interview audio task
I had a Zoom H4n and some questions i needed to answer. I went into a quiet room and Heather asked me the questions: what is your name, what are you studying, what do you enjoy doing the most, what are you excited to learn in the course. I answered these questions in full sentences as i needed to cut out the questions when i edited it.
First i begun by importing the audio file into Adobe Audition. Then i dragged it into the multitrack timeline and started editing. The editing process consisted of me cutting out all the bits i did not need, like Heather telling me the questions and any mistakes. After i cut certain bits i moved the clips all the together like it is bellow. I decided i wanted my voice recordings to fade in and fade out slightly in each clip, thats what each of the yellow graphs are bellow. The second clip though started really loudly as i was slightly laughing so i positioned the graph so it lasted longer.
one of my clips was louder than the others so i put it on -4 to make it quieter and the same level as all the clips in the timeline.
college tour
For this i walked around the college and recorded in certain areas to see the difference in sound quality. the locations i used are: equipment room, classroom, staircase and library. I then uploaded all these recordings and edited them in Adobe Audition.
These are the clips i imported into the software, from these i dragged in the ones i wanted to use. I cut the areas out that where not needed and left the parts with me speaking in different rooms. Bellow you can see my cut down version with graphs. I made each clip fade in and fade out because it makes a cleaner transition.
Each of my recordings ended up being different levels of sound. This could have been because i was not speaking close enough to the microphone or i was too far away. Next time i will be more consistent meaning i don't have to manually change it. To fix this i had to change the levels of sound in each clip. The first one is 15.2 the second is 10.1, third -3.2 and the fourth 5.1. This levelled out the sound overall creating a nicer experience.