Maximize your Sound Quality

Good audio for your Presentation video is dirt simple:

Buy a microphone designed to plug into the microphone jack on your computer (most have this) and clip it to your lapel during recording.

The idea, here, is that the mic built into your computer is of marginal quality - ok to get away with talking to your aunt in Poughkeepsie, but  not nearly good enough to get your message over to potential clients.

Further, since you are probably not going to be sitting up close and personal with your computer while recording your Presentation, the built-in mic is going to be hard pressed to make out the difference between your voice and normal back ground noises.

Your computer microphone jack (3.5mm) can come in three flavors:

One jack accommodates the same microphone mini plug that plugs into old handheld recorders. Another jack accommodates the mic plug that is part of a headset/microphone for your old desktop computer. The third type actually accommodates the dual purpose earbud/mic from your Android or iPad smartphone (pretty much found only on the latest Laptop computers).

These are not interchangeable. If you are not sure of what you have, get the manual for your computer to see if it is specified. Otherwise, these microphones are cheap enough (under $5 ea) to buy one of each kind and try out which one works for you.

However, a good microphone (mic), alone is not going to make a big difference in your sound quality if you don't take a few precautions during recording:

• Don't let jewelry bang away on your mic - simply don't wear neckwear that doesn't stay put

• Don't let clanging earrings compete with your voice - that would the dangly, clangy ear hoops and the like

• Don't let fashion accessories drown out your message - like tapping on the table with your rings, or letting your bracelets strike the table while you're talking.

• Don't sit in a squeaky chair, or folks will remember your squeak and not your message

• Don't tap your feet out of nervousness

• Don't let Rover get more listener's attention than your message - if you cannot stifle him, then kennel him for a few hours

• Don't record with the kids at home - even the best of kids can be a loud and a largely uncontrolled distraction. And reprimanding them will take you out of the mood to make a great recording

• Don't set up your recording studio right under the air conditioner, or next to the refrigerator - their sound will not be even be noticeable, until during playback after you are through recording

• Don't develop dry mouth - keep water (or other CLEAR drink) nearby to help stay hydrated

• Don't shuffle paper - un-staple your script to keep the pages separated to easily (and quietly) slide around - which means numbering them with LARGE numbers

• Don't let your voice fade away from being nervous, but you don't have to yell, either - support & project your voice, keep it consistent

• don't let a diphthong make your mouth do crazy stuff - rewrite the phrase to take it easy on your mouth (a diphthong is a couple of vowels next to each other that is hard for humans to pronounce)

• Careful not to mis-pronounce formal names - if troublesome, spell out the name phonetically in your script in CAPs, so your eye will catch it and you will know it is coming

• Don't record loooong scripts - cut the script up into segments if at all possible, you will be fresher, and all the segments will have the same punch power

• Give your script plenty of light - squinting at text does not endear yourself to video

• Don't let your hair fall in front of your eyes - hard to read efficiently through hair

Otherwise, it is a piece of cake!