Best Types of Microphones For YouTube Videos!

A lesson often repeated in the world of creating videos is that the most important part of video… is Audio.

There are a bunch of reasons for this but only one is important.

If you create a video that is visually pleasing or even just visually acceptable then the audience will go with it and remain engaged.

On the other hand, if you create a video that is awesomely awesome yet has poor audio you will lose that audience in a heart beat!

The interesting thing is that more often than not the audience themselves will not be able to identify exactly why they stopped watching that video.

In other words, they don’t identify bad audio as “a thing,” they just… switch off.

For many people having some kind of external microphone solution may be out of the question but if it is at all possible you really should use one.

The onboard mics on most cameras or video recording devices are usually designed to grab all the sounds but not necessarily in the way you may want.

Check out this video for some of the basics in microphone selection and although it is titled to suggest YouTube videos only, it all applies in a general sense.

ND Filters Explained – What are they? Do You Need Them?

One term in the field of lenses that gets kind of bandied about quite often is, “ND Filter.

Fully expressed, the term is actually Neutral Density Filter but in reality that probably doesn’t help all that much!

So in light of that check out this video from Kevin over on the Basic Filmmaker in which he explains in very simple terms what an ND Filter is, what it does and a few examples of one in use.

Edit Tip: How to Quickly Fix Audio Pops

Most video Editing software even at the most basic levels these days comes with at least some kind of noise cleaning functionality.

One common tool is what is known as a “pop filter” which detects and removes… pops!

Technically a pop is a short, sharp crackling noise that occurs most often at the beginning of an audio file.

If your editor doesn’t have anything like this you can always download and use Audacity which is a free audio editor which has a pop filter.

However I am a bit old school when it comes to stuff like this so I like to know why stuff like pops occur and how to deal with them manually.

In the video below you can get a clear understanding of what a pop is, how it occurs and a little tweak you can make to completely bypass the need for a fancy software solution.

Beyond the Beat: Editing Tips to Move Forward

I have been coming across a few tutorials over the past few weeks on the subject of when to make your cuts.

Some of those video have talked about cutting to the beat of the music and others have covered some more subtle points at which to make your cuts.

It is definitely an acquired skill but what I think a lot of those previous articles have missed is a good explanation of the “why” behind cutting where and when you do.

So I was pretty pleased this week to find the video below.

Yes it is confined to cutting to the beat but it explores this as a subject very completely and more importantly shows some great examples.

If you can watch this video, learn the reasons behind the examples given and apply it to your own projects you will be well on your way to much better videos.

The Best Way to Backup and Organize Your Footage

This is Part 5 of the series by the team at Filmora as they go through the process of creating a music video.

This one deals with one of the key concepts of any video project, getting organized.

Every pro editor I know as one of the very first things they mention when it comes to editing is the importance of getting organized BEFORE they start any editing.

It is a vital point which if not done will ultimately result in huge amounts of wasted time and endless frustration as you search around your project folders for the stuff you need.

Crop Opening Transition Effect – Filmora9

This is just a quick tutorial on how to incorporate opening black bars top and bottom at the beginning of a video sequence.

Demonstrated in Filmora9 but the concepts are the same for any video editing software.

Filmora9 Review Here

Custom Split Screens, Adjusting LUT filters, Detaching Audio and more – Filmora9

This is the (approximately) monthly Q&A video from the Filmora9 team.

In these videos they generally go through some of the questions they have received on their YouTube channel.

I always take the time to watch them because very often I find features in Filmora9 that I didn’t realize were in there.

Another good reason to watch them is that quite often they provide tips on how to do things that are not specific to Filmora.

PowerDirector – Adjust Audio Length to Match Video with AudioDirector

This is a pretty simple, “down’n’dirty” way to adjust the length of an audio track to match the corresponding video.

However it must be noted that this technique will only really work if the difference is very small.

Basically it relies on just speeding up or slowing down the audio track to suit, however if the difference is too large then the audio track will start to sound strange.

The top video is the technique as you would do it in AudioDirector from CyberLink which is a stand alone program that integrates with PowerDirector.

If you are not running that program then go to the video below that one where you can see the concept demonstrated in the free audio program Audacity.

PowerDirector Review Here

Here is a similar technique (possibly better actually) for those of you that don’t have AudioDirector.

Character Introduction Freeze Effect – Filmora9

This is a great tutorial on getting that kind of “Ocean’s 11” effect of highlighting a character with some effects to make an introduction of the person.

Very effective and really quite simple once to get to see it done step by step.

There is only one element to it that the author uses that you may not have.

That element is a special LUT that takes the “freeze frame” footage and turns it to black and white.

You really don’t need a LUT to do that.

All you need is to either use your color adjustment to strip out the color or apply a black and white effect to do the same thing.

If you do just strip out the color remember to adjust the contrast afterwards to compensate for that.

This is all done in Filmora9 but there is nothing in this effect that can’t be done in any other reasonably well featured video editing software.

Infinite Zoom Filmora Effect & Transitions

This is an old video (still relevant) that YouTube kind of randomly served up to me that I must have missed back when it was first posted.

It is a great run through using Filmora9 on creating that infinite zoom effect where the video just… well… infinitely zooms in!

In essence it is quite simply achieved but as is the case with most of these post production type effects you have to get your ducks in a row before you hit the editing stage.

Original post The Friday Roundup – Microphones, ND Filters and Editing to the Beat