I’m developing a line of online instructional videos for my company and am currently using Camtasia and Audacity as my video / sound programs.
I have begun recording audio using a USB headset but the audio quality leaves much to be desired.
I feel what I’ve recorded thus far is lacking the sharp, crisp clarity that one would look for in a professional video.
One step on my end I can do is work on making sure my surrounds are perfectly quiet and hopefully that will help if ambient noise is generating fuzziness.
Within Audacity can anyone recommend tips or tricks which can be used to sharpen the sound and improve quality?
I have begun recording audio using a USB headset but the audio quality leaves much to be desired.
Is that somebody wrapping Christmas presents in the background? That’s pretty obvious. You don’t need us for that.
With a headset, all you need is a quiet room, you don’t have to worry so much about room acoustics.
You sound too close to the microphone. That can produce that smashed, dense, raspy sound – although many USB headsets do that to increase the intelligibility of the voice. Remembering that Windows machines are communications and conferencing devices, not professional recorders.
I know your fingers are trembling to type the words “make me sound like an announcer.” Sorry. No filter for that. That’s acting. Once you get past making the mic work right, everything else is personal presentation. We have a bass boost filter you can try to give you better huevos – assuming you’re male.
I did an announcing job for a training video and I’m going to have to remember where I left the track.
Post a longer segment. Ignore the mic quality for a minute and just announce the text – as if you were going to submit it. Voice presentation without putting your audience to sleep is an acquired skill.
Some people can do this right out of the box with no training. I hate them all.
Many headsets have a highly directional microphone and it’s extraordinarily important to make sure it’s pointed to you and not the wall. Pull the little foam thingy off and see if you can figure out which way it’s supposed to point. We have a very high quality headset with a flex cable mount and you can point the microphone anywhere.
Probably over this weekend I will be recording several more segments and will upload.
Another question, if I record each line individually, so I can better sync it up with its corresponding video spot, do you know how I can made sure they’re all at the same volume?
Is there an Audacity feature to sync the volume levels of several tracks at once?