# I'm looking for advice on recording audio for my YouTube videos



## Reid Rosefelt (Mar 3, 2022)

I've been making YouTube videos for a year and a half, and have tried numerous approaches for using microphones, both lavs and shotguns and recording methods. Up until recently I always recorded audio separately and married it with video in post. I spent as much as 5 weeks making videos and nobody watched them.

Lately I've put together a system where I can really pump out videos a LOT faster. I used to have up to two hour setups and one hour breakdowns, but now I have most things already in place, so I can be ready to shoot quickly and break down quickly. I am not looking to change my new method, because the videos are working. People can see me. People can understand me. And they like the videos. For the first time YouTube is working for me. So if any of you want to say (which I'm sure you will), do everything differently, let me just tell you that's not happening. I'm going to keep going the way I am.

As far as sound goes, I have an audio-technica shotgun mic plugged into the right input of my Beachtek amp. The right input is the only XLR. The Beachtek outputs in stereo to my camera. With every take I can immediately watch it with married sound. This is a huge time-saver, and I love not having to use OBS, which often was wonky. Also, there were many times where I shot a beautiful take without turning the sound on. I'm not going back.

Here's the problem: when I put the stereo track into Premiere, the right side is louder than the left. So what I've done is to separate the tracks in Audacity. Then I load these two tracks in Cubase and balance them. I see balanced meters there and balanced meters in Premiere. Visually the problem is fixed.

I can only work with meters because I have very little hearing in my left ear. So... when I see the problem fixed in Cubase and in Premiere, that's what I use. Everybody is fine with the soundtracks. (After the first one, which is where the problem was pointed out to me.) Nobody has complained on this forum, for example.

But there's one guy on another forum, who says it is horrible, horrible, horrible.  It's so loud on the right that his ear is exploding, there is blood everywhere and he's peeling his right ear off the ceiling.  He's thrashing his head and screaming into the night from the anguish of my videos!!!!!

I know my videos are fine and I can solve this problem by ignoring this gentleman (who won't shut up), but I thought I would reach out to the people here, who might have some truly helpful advice. Perhaps a less complicated way for me to balance the left and right channels.

Again, I really, really know that I can solve this problem by going back to one of my old methods, but things are finally working out for me on YouTube because I am putting out a lot more content. I'm not going back. 

Sometimes I wonder if, as it's one mono mic recording, maybe I could do this in mono?

Thanks for your help!

FYI, here is my latest heinous audio assault. I take no responsibility for what it might do to your ears.


----------



## David Cuny (Mar 3, 2022)

Reid Rosefelt said:


> Sometimes I wonder if, as it's one mono mic recording, maybe I could do this in mono?


Funny how the answer can lie in the question.


----------



## Trevor Meier (Mar 6, 2022)

Reid Rosefelt said:


> Sometimes I wonder if, as it's one mono mic recording, maybe I could do this in mono?



Yes as David says - best to collapse this to mono. There are a number of methods, but you should be able to do this directly in Premiere without going out to Audacity or similar. 

Are you on Mac or PC?


----------



## aeliron (Mar 6, 2022)

Reid Rosefelt said:


> I've been making YouTube videos for a year and a half, and have tried numerous approaches for using microphones, both lavs and shotguns and recording methods. Up until recently I always recorded audio separately and married it with video in post. I spent as much as 5 weeks making videos and nobody watched them.


I feel like I'm waaaay ahead of you. It only takes me 3 weeks to create a video nobody watches!


----------



## NekujaK (Mar 6, 2022)

I realize this is a slight modification to your workflow, but I thought I'd mention it anyway, just in case...

When I record video and audio together, I send the mic signal to a portable digital recorder (I suppose if I were recording in my studio, I could send it directly to a DAW or Audacity or even my NLE). This ensures optimal audio quality. If I need to quickly preview what I just recorded, the camera's build-in mic is sufficient for me to see/hear if I got a good take - no need to fuss with the audio on the digital recorder.

As far as syncing audio to video goes, it's pretty trivial. I import both the video (with camera audio embeded) and audio file into my NLE, then nudge the audio file until the narration matches the audio recorded by the camera. Often when recording, I make a loud clap before I start narrating, which provides an easily identifalbe sync point.

After everything's synced, I mute (or delete) the camera audio, and group the video and newly synced audio file so no matter what I do with them on the timeline, they always stay synced.


----------



## Reid Rosefelt (Mar 6, 2022)

Before I read this, today I output a mono track from Premiere. Sure feel dumb.


----------



## rhizomusicosmos (Mar 6, 2022)

Hi Reid,

I had a look at the YT clip you posted. The right channel has more high frequencies while the left channel has more lower frequencies. Were you possibly inadvertently using two microphone sources, e.g. on-camera + shotgun?

Left vs Right spectrum from RX9:





EDIT: I re-read your microphone setup: does the Beachtek have some left/right filter adjustments?


----------



## Reid Rosefelt (Mar 6, 2022)

NekujaK said:


> I realize this is a slight modification to your workflow, but I thought I'd mention it anyway, just in case...
> 
> When I record video and audio together, I send the mic signal to a portable digital recorder (I suppose if I were recording in my studio, I could send it directly to a DAW or Audacity or even my NLE). This ensures optimal audio quality. If I need to quickly preview what I just recorded, the camera's build-in mic is sufficient for me to see/hear if I got a good take - no need to fuss with the audio on the digital recorder.
> 
> ...


Please read my post and you’ll see that I recorded my audio track separately for a year and a half. I know how to do it. This works better for me.


----------



## NekujaK (Mar 6, 2022)

Reid Rosefelt said:


> Please read my post and you’ll see that I recorded my audio track separately for a year and a half. I know how to do it. This works better for me.


I understand, that's why I prefaced my post with "I realize this is a slight modification to your workflow..."

My main reason for posting was simply to point out that it's sometimes preferrable to send the audio to a different destination, rather than to the camera, and that syncing the two in your NLE is a fairly quick task. It seemed like the main reason you're sending the mic to the camera is to avoid syncing issues.

As always, everyone should use the workflow that suits them best - so it's great that you have a process that works well for you


----------



## Reid Rosefelt (Mar 6, 2022)

rhizomusicosmos said:


> Hi Reid,
> 
> I had a look at the YT clip you posted. The right channel has more high frequencies while the left channel has more lower frequencies. Were you possibly inadvertently using two microphone sources, e.g. on-camera + shotgun?
> 
> ...


thanks for doing this. 

Perhaps this has something to do with what happened with the Beachtek and the camera. I can't imagine that Audacity or Cubase could have done that. Well, starting with the video I put out tomorrow this won't be an issue anymore.


----------



## Reid Rosefelt (Mar 6, 2022)

NekujaK said:


> My main reason for posting was simply to point out that it's sometimes preferrable to send the audio to a different destination, rather than to the camera, and that syncing the two in your NLE is a fairly quick task.


I agree it's quite easy to synch audio to video in my editor. But there were many dozens of times that I recorded video and the audio wasn't turned on or something happened to it. Countless perfect takes were lost, and even if I spent many more hours trying to do one as good--it never happened. And it ruined many shooting days sometimes. So I did a few hour setup, broke down and tried again another day.

I have NEVER lost a take since setting up this new way. The only thing that could happen is if the Beachtek battery wears out, but it starts blinking a long time before that can happen. 

The way I'm doing audio is just one of a few dozen things I've done to change my preparation, setup, breakdown, and post-production methods. Because of this (and the kind of videos I'm making), YouTube is finally working out for me. I don't think there's any way to succeed on YT without making a lot of videos, unless you are very lucky and go viral.

And believe me, I will keep trying to refine my system, to increase the quality and speed.


----------



## dflood (Mar 6, 2022)

I haven’t used Premiere for so long there’s no advice I can offer, and I’m not likely to ever use it as long as DaVinci Resolve remains free. The integrated mutitrack Fairlight audio mixer makes it easy to blend sound from several sources, but I have no idea if it would solve any of your audio workflow issues. I still find it hard to believe that a program of this calibre is absolutely free to use. And since I don’t ever expect to make a dime from my own YouTube videos that nobody watches, that works for me!




__





DaVinci Resolve 18 – Fairlight | Blackmagic Design


Professional video editing, color correction, visual effects and audio post production all in a single application. Free and paid versions for Mac, Windows and Linux.



www.blackmagicdesign.com


----------



## Reid Rosefelt (Mar 7, 2022)

The narration on the soundtrack of this one is mono, so hopefully it is now balanced.


----------



## Double Helix (Mar 7, 2022)

Another Jeff Bridges fan here--my favorite JB line was "I'm drawing a blank" (from_ The Fisher King_)
. . . I guess you had to be there


----------

