Five Audio Facts Every Videographer Should Know

Daredreamer by Ron Dawson

When producing video, audio is important. Very important. If you’re just starting out, make sure to spend as much time learning about how to get good audio as you do on video. To that end, I wanted to offer five audio-related facts I think every filmmakers/videographer should know. These aren’t necessarily the most important. There just some key points that are very useful to have tucked away in your brain.

Cable Types. As I mentioned in my “Live Event Filmmaker Survival Guide,” it’s important to have various types of audio cables so that you can handle every occasion. The most common ones you’re most likely to encounter are XLR, quarter-inch and RCA.

XLR connections are the ones most desired by professional filmmakers and videographers. One key reason is because most XLR cables are “balanced.” Without getting too technical, that simply means that the cable is constructed in a way to reduce or eliminate electromagnetic interference. Longer cables are particularly susceptible to such interference. Quarter-inch cables are popular with many DJ or portable audio systems. You’ll recognize RCA cables as the ones connected to your old VCR or game consoles. Rarely have I been in a situation where I needed to use an RCA connection for recording audio.

Microphone Types. You could write an entire blog post on the topic of microphones (scratch that. You could write an entire book). It’s not the scope of this blog post to get into the specifics of each. I just want to make you aware of what’s out there and give you easy access to find out the details. read more...