If you want your video or movie to be successful, it needs to have something to set it apart from the others in competition to it, and therefore attract viewers. Using well chosen music can certainly be of assistance in attaining this goal. Ask yourself “what is it about your particular video that will attract people to start watching it, and then ultimately watch it through to it’s completion without getting bored?” You don’t want potential viewers flicking to the next video half way through watching yours! Having a good sound track can really help to capture peoples’ attention and their imagination. Most people love music, and often half the pleasurable experience of watching a video is in the hearing of the sound.

Read the full post »

Field Recording Of Birds, Wildlife and Nature Sounds

In this brief tutorial I would like to introduce you to the concept of recording nature and wildlife sounds. This includes capturing the sounds of individual birds and animals, as well as general stereo natural ambiences. I aim to give an introduction to the type of equipment you willl need in order to get started in this field. In no way do I pretend that this will be a comprehensive article covering all angles on the subject, but it should give you some basic guidelines to get you started.

Read the full post »

Microphones: Basic Understanding Of The Different Types

Brief Introduction to How Microphones Work
Microphones convert acoustical energy or sound waves into electrical energy, thus reproducing the audio signal that we hear. They are therefore transducers, in that they convert energy from one form to another. Microphones have different ways of converting acoustical energy, but one thing that is common to all types, is that they have a diaphragm. This diaphram is a thin membrane that mimics the human ear, and is a piece of material that vibrates when struck by sound waves. The transducer elements of the microphone are housed in the mic capsule. In a typical handheld micophone the capsule is found in the microphone’s head.

Read the full post »

UNDERSTANDING AND USING COMPRESSORS

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

The compressor is often one of the least understood pieces of equipment, or software in a sound engineer or amateur sound recordist’s arsenal.
In this tutorial I intend to present a brief but broad overview on the use of compressors in the recording and mixing of audio. The principles discussed here will applicable for any sound application, whether it be in music, the spoken voice, or general sound effects and foley. For an audio engineer, the compressor is a great tool to have in your bag of tricks, but it is one of those things that can either make or break your recordings and mixes. Used right, compressors can greatly improve audio tracks, but used wrongly they can ruin them, leaving them sounding squashed, lifeless and muffled. The human ear is able to detect sounds in a wide dynamic range – from quiet whispers to a huge explosions. However, our recording and playback equipment has physical limitations which mean we have to squash or compress these sounds into a smaller dynamic range in order to reproduce them. The purpose of this article is to give you some tips to help you get started in the use of compressors and limiters for controlling the dynamics of your sound.

Read the full post »

Set Your Audio Recording Levels Using Sensible Gain Staging

Recording And Gain Staging

The old adage of recording signals as hot as possible really only applies to the analog domain, not the digital one. With analog reording this was because of the noise floor inherent in analog circuitry and tape, where you were fighting low level noise and hiss. This was also how we were taught to record when digital recording was relatively new, when the best we had was 16-bit audio. Back them everyone was trying to record as close as possible to 0 dB without clipping. However, now with 24-bit converters there is no need to record signals nearly so hot. You can get great recordings with the levels set much lower, and then you will also find it MUCH EASIER to mix later, because you are not trying to force so many loud signals into the headroom limitations of a DAW. If you have a number of tracks all recorded very loud, and approaching 0 dB, at mixdown you will find yourself running out of headroom, and will have to bring all your track levels down in order to compensate.

Read the full post »

In this tutorial I am going to attempt to give a brief outline of some of the problems we can strike when doing audio post production or sound mixing work. If you are the one responsible for the project from the outset, including both the recording aspect, and the mixing and post production work, it makes sense to try to address the issues of unwanted noises before committing to tape (ok well more likely hard drive, but I’m sure you know what I mean). If you have received someone else’s recordings, and are responsible for the final mix/master, then it is already likely too late for that, but here are a few pointers that will hopefully help you with fixing the issues already in existence, or helping to avoid future ones that you have control over.

Read the full post »

Killing Off Broadcast Royalties – A Worrying Trend

There are good royalty-free music deals and bad royalty-free music deals.
I have decided it is about time to write an article addressing a worrying trend I have been observing: namely music libraries that are not allowing composers they list to be part of Performing Rights Organisations, or the music they list to be registered with any royalty collection agencies.

Read the full post »

There often arises among people confusion over different types of audio signals and their levels. This tutorial aims to give a basic guide to the various signal levels that you are liable to encounter in the world of audio. Hopefully this will help you to understand the terms commonly used, where to plug what, and also what sort of cabling you need to carry the audio signals in their various levels.

Read the full post »

Sound For Film and Video: The Importance of Getting Good Audio

How many times have you sat down to watch a video or budget movie, only to find that the camera work and picture editing is great, but that the sound is so bad it takes your attention away from the picture? You might even stop watching it altogether, or at least turn the sound way down. Watching a TV show, video or film should be a “complete experience,” where the picture and audio combine to produce a meaningful and well balanced whole.

However, it has often been the case that in television, cinema, and especially in amateur or semi-professional productions, that the sound has been seen as secondary to the picture. I don’t believe it should be that way. People will often put up with mediocre picture if the sound is good, but good picture with poor sound may see the ‘off switch” flicked by many viewers. So let’s set about giving  a bit of an outline as to how you can go about acheiving good results with your audio.

Read the full post »

Royalty Free Music: What is it?

People often see the words “royalty free” bandied round, and they notice the number sites offering royalty-free music, but  are confused by what this actually means. My aim here is to give a brief , but hopefully easy to understand explanation as to what the term royalty-free acutually means, and how it’s use can be applied.

“Royalty free” as it applies to music, is the right to use music without having to pay a royalty fee. The use of certain intellectual properties require users to pay a royalty fee to the owner, creator or copyright holder of that property.

Royalty-free does not mean the product is free or public domain, it just means you don’t have to pay royalties.

Royalty free or buyout music, and it’s use is governed by the licensing agreement that you should receive and agree to when you purchase the right to use some specific music. The type of license will determine how  the music may be used, whether you can use it in a commercial production or only in a personal or non-commercial production, and what the limitations of use are. License agreements can vary considerably. It always pays to read the fine print.When purchasing a piece of music, you buy the rights to synchronize the song with your productions. The music and it’s copyright will however, always belong to the copyright holder of the product. Generally you pay a one-off fee to purchase the use of the music, and  no more additional fees are required. As long as you abide by the conditions of the license agreement you should have no trouble.

Read the full post »