{"id":9299,"date":"2016-03-22T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voicebooking.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/22\/mixing-the-sound-on-your-video-yourself-here-are-the-most-common-mistakes\/"},"modified":"2023-06-08T16:44:50","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T14:44:50","slug":"mixing-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.voicebooking.com\/en\/blog\/mixing-sound","title":{"rendered":"Do it yourself – tips on sound mixing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time…you, as a company, would have a short film made once every couple of years. A corporate video you called it back then. Quite a bit of budget went towards each one, 20, 30k\u2026 easily. For the same money you\u2019d now see a whole YouTube channel filled with great content.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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With many films you need to be a bit more careful with your budget. No one books a catering truck, fewer locations, voice overs that record from their own studio and, when the footage is finished, the video editor is often asked to mix the audio themselves. This last one is where things often go a bit wrong.<\/p>\n

For this blog, let\u2019s take a webvideo voice over<\/a> as an example that is one and half minutes long. A voice over explains, the images are supported with sound effects and to conjure up the right atmosphere you use catchy and melodramatic music. Just to be clear, using the tips below still won\u2019t make you a sound director. You will need a technician for that, but these will help point you in the right direction.<\/p>\n

Fail #1: Dirty audio<\/h2>\n

First off, make sure that the audio has been \u2018cleaned\u2019, only then can you start with the mix. That means that you take all the little \u2018clicks\u2019 and breathing noises out of the voice over audio. Be careful with making your audio too clean! Some breathing noises can benefit the voice over, and if the voice over was sitting too far from the microphone, there’s the possibility that you will hear the background noise if you edit the breathing out. In other words; a light echo that you will only notice if you create silence in the audio. In these situations you\u2019re better off reducing the volume of the breathing than cutting it out. It\u2019s also possible that you\u2019re going to hear the cuts in the form of a \u2018click\u2019. In that case, use per section of audio a little fade in\/fade out.<\/p>\n

Fail #2: What did he say?!<\/h2>\n

No matter how cool the music is that you\u2019ve chosen, conveying your message has to stay top priority. It should never be an effort (no matter how small) to hear what someone is saying. That\u2019s why the music should never be set too loud. A handy trick to determine your sound level, is to set the volume of your speakers very soft, but still just audible. Only then will you hear if you\u2019ve done a good job with the different audio levels and if the voice over can still be understood. Be careful with the level of sound effects too. If there\u2019s a dripping tap in shot, you must not get the feeling that you\u2019ve ended up in a cave with water dripping from the ceiling.<\/p>\n

Fail #3: Just a shame about the music…<\/h2>\n

You have found a fantastic, catchy little number full of drama and emotion. You\u2019ve taken Fail #2 into account (keeping the voice over audible) but because of that you’ve had to keep the music very quiet. Consequence: the cool track is now just playing in the background and sounds more like lift music from the 80\u2019s. This is because the frequency of the music gets in the way of the audibility of the voice. These frequencies are usually in the 1 – 4 Khz range. It is always a question of fine tuning, but if you gently tune these frequencies out with your equalizer, then the music can be mixed louder under the voice. In the fragment below we have imitated the effect. In fragment 1 you can hear a sample of unmixed audio and in fragment 2 the same sample but then with equalizer.<\/p>\n