How Important is Sound Quality?

Today we are going to cover the super basics of sound. 

Not actually recording audio for your videos. But just reviewing some dos and don’ts. 

Don’t use your on camera mic 

Do invest in some kind of microphone so your voice is clear.

Don’t play music while you record

Do look for royalty free music to add in post if you want.

Sound.

Every video you watch has sound - even silent films were meant to be watched with music being played in the theater. 

When we record, we tend to focus most of our attention on the visual, on what we’re seeing and we might kind of forget about sound. But to make an impact on your audience, sound is absolutely critical. 

There was a french film director, Robert Bresson, who once pointed out how important sound is in movies. He said when you’re watching a movie and you hear a train whistle, it will make you think of an entire train station. 

The visual - what you’re watching - doesn’t necessarily do that. Unless you get into avante gard filmmaking. When you’re talking about the more straight forward videos that you and I are making, there can be a certain amount of what you see if what you get. 

But hearing a sound allows our imagination to fill in some gaps.

Ok I want to propose an idea that can be kind of surprising to you. 

Sound quality is often times more important than image quality.

I know.

But watch.

This shot is in focus but there is the sound of a fan going in the background and what I’m saying is kinda hard to understand. This is pretty annoying, right? How long are you planning on sitting there, trying to pay attention to the information I have before you decide it’s not worth it and click away?

And now here we are with really nice audio but the image is underexposed, it’s kind of dark, and a little out of focus. There isn’t any background noise and you can hear me just fine. 

Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay attention to what your image looks like. You need a well exposed, in focus shot. 

However if your audience has clicked on your video because they are interested in what you have to say and are eager to learn from you, they may put up with a less than pristine image, because to learn from you they need to actually be able to hear you, right? 

The big takeaway here, for you, is, don’t fall into the trap of spending your whole budget on a super high resolution camera, only to use the on camera mic, because it will give you truly lousy sound.