How To Clean-Up Audio from your iPhone or Mobile Video Clip - Clear Communication: How to Improve Speech and Pronuciation

How To Clean-Up Audio from your iPhone or Mobile Video Clip



As you may or may not know,
I shoot all these videos
on my iPhone 5.
And I'm going to show guys
today how I clean up that audio
and make it sound way better
than the audio does natively
just on the iPhone.
That's coming up.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey, guys.
My name is Tim Schmoyer.
And it's Thursday-- time
to do some more YouTube
Q&A with you guys.
One of you guys sent
me a video of yourself
asking this question.
Hey Time, my name
is Brad and I've
been following this show
for a couple months now.
My question for
you is how do you
get rid of all the
background noise?
I know you work out
of your basement
and you have a large
family, so what's
your secret to keeping all
the noise out of your videos?
So there's a couple
things that I
do with the audio that comes
straight from my iPhone
here in my basement.
One is that I make sure it's
very quiet when I record.
My kids are taking
naps right now.
I've turned off the
air-conditioning
so it's not making
any background noise.
And I'm obviously in a
room that's well-padded.
There are carpet and
couches, and just stuff
that really absorb
the sound in the room
so there's not a lot of echoing
and things like that going on.
I'm also not sitting very
far away from you guys.
It's like, what, one foot and 8
inches, so what, like 20 inches
or so away from the camera?
So I'm relatively close to
you so that the phone picks up
good audio as I'm talking.
But the iPhone and most other
mobile devices by themselves
don't capture very good audio,
just generally speaking.
So there is a
couple things that I
do to enhance it a little bit,
and the main problem I have
is actually that the levels
are just really horrible.
Even though I'm only about
20 inches away from my phone
right now, when I go to
edit this video, which
is the native audio that's
recording right now,
it's going to be
relatively quiet compared
to the volume I could be
getting out of the audio here.
Also, for another example, I
could be talking right here.
You can hear me just fine
because I'm only 20 inches away
from you, but if someone
came down the stairs
and said something
way over there,
they'll be very, very
quiet and you could barely
make out what they're saying.
And the discrepancy
between levels,
between multiple people
talking to the camera,
it's just really bad.
My old flip camera
did a way better job
at doing this than
the iPhone does, even
with all its
microphone technology.
So here's what I do to fix it.
The first thing I do is I
take all the video files
from my phone and I'm just going
to extract just the audio out
of them.
Then drag them over here.
I use this little program.
It's called Convert to AIFF.
Basically I just need to get
the raw uncompressed audio out
of it.
AIFF is Apple's
format, but you could
go to WAV, which would
be Microsoft's format.
Just to extract all
the audio from it,
and you can see here
it's going to do this
to each of these video files.
And then, it'll save just
the audio by themselves
without the video right
here in my Finder.
Now, you don't have
use this program.
This is just a
little widget-thingy
that came with Call
Recorder that I
used to record my
Skype interviews.
So you could use that, but you
could really just use anything.
There's lots of
different things that
will extract just the audio out
so you can work with the audio
by itself.
So here's the first file that
came from that movie file.
And then, we'll go ahead and
do the rest of these here.
Now that it's done, you can see
I've got all these AIFF files.
They're just the
audio files that
was extracted from
these movie files.
And I'm done with this.
I can close that.
Now, this is the Levelator tool.
This is free.
It's for Windows,
Linux, and Mac.
You can downloaded it
for free at the link
I put in the description
text below this video.
But basically, all this does
is you just drag and drop
a WAV or an AIFF file on here
and it's going to go through
and it can analyze and
level each of your files.
So I'm just going to drag
all of my audio files,
just right on to there.
And this is going to
go through and process
each and every one of these.
And when it's done--
you can see here,
it's creating output files.
These are the same as
the original audio files,
but now they've
all been levelized
so that the audio between
all the different voices
is equal so that if
one person's shouting,
they've been quieted
to be at the same level
as someone who's whispering
at the other side of the room.
And so all the audio is equal.
When it's finished, you'll see
this little thing right here.
It says Complete.
That means it's
done so we can just
go ahead and exit out of that.
Now, the audio you extracted,
not the output ones
that Leveler created, but
the ones that you extracted,
you're done with those.
So you can just go ahead
and delete all those,
so don't have to keep
those taking up this space.
Then, you go to
whatever editor you use.
I happen to use
Adobe Premiere Pro.
And I will just
take all these clips
and drag them into my project.
Now, the clips
are in my project.
I'm going to take each of
these or I'll highlight it.
I'm going to go to right here.
Automate this sequence.
And we're going by
the same order that
are sorted over
here, sequentially.
Click OK.
And it just drops all
those clips right here
into my timeline.
Now, I'm going to also then come
over, here get the audio that I
have selected from before,
drop that into my project.
And then, take all those, also
sort them the same way by name.
OK, now I have
them all selected,
I'm going to do same
thing as before.
Automate this sequence.
Make sure this Overlay Edit
is selected and click OK.
And now you can see
each of my audio clips
lined up perfectly
with each one.
So you can also see, if
I zoom out a little bit,
here's what the phone
audio looks like.
And here's what it looks like
after it's been levelized.
So you can see
that right here is
really quiet in
the original audio.
then it's like someone
shouted right here.
Let's see.
You know you already
[INAUDIBLE] [SHOUTING] See,
my kids started
yelling right there.
So you can see-- but up
here, that [INAUDIBLE]
been normalized.
It's been leveled.
So it's the same volume
as this quiet stuff.
So everything's the same.
I do that too all my videos.
So all I have to do
now is come back here.
Just select all these clips.
Just unlink them, and then I can
just delete all this audio here
because I don't need it anymore.
And now I have my new audio,
all ready to go, right in sync
with the clips.
Now, what if the audio you're
recording on your phone
or whatever happens
to be outside
and there's cars and
airplanes driving by,
or your air-conditioner
happens to be running
and you want to filter
out all that white noise?
You can do that with
the tool from Adobe
called Adobe Audition, and
it's the audio editing tool
that comes with
that whole suite.
And you can tell it to take a
blank piece of audio that just
has the white noise
in the background
that you want to filter out.
Say, listen to this.
You tell it to listen
to that portion
and then you tell it, erase
that from the whole part
of this audio clip.
And it'll go through,
analyze your clip
and remove those frequencies
from your entire clip
so you can filter out and
clean up some that audio.
I could show you how
to do that, but that'll
be a different video.
If you guys want to show you
how to do that, comment below.
Let me know.
And maybe I'll make a
video about that coming up
in the future.
Or send me another
video question
of you asking me to do that
if you happen to do that.
If you do have a
question that you
would like me to answer for
you in an upcoming video,
there's a link in
the description
text below this
video here on YouTube
or you can submit
your video to me.
I'd be happy to
put you right here
and answer your question
the best that I can.
I hope this has been helpful
for you guys a little bit today.
If this is your first here,
I'd love to have you subscribe.
Every Thursday, I take a
question from one of you guys
and do my best to
answer to help you out
with your YouTube efforts.
On Tuesdays, we take a look
at online video news and talk
about the implications it has
for the content we're creating
and the audiences
we're developing
and the communities that we're
crafting here on YouTube.
And then on
Wednesdays, I give you
guys just some YouTube
tips, ideas, suggestions,
just to help you guys
who have a message,
help you guys communicate it
as effectively as you can here
on this platform so
it changes the lives
of the people who need to
hear what you have to say.
So thank you for letting
me help you with that.
I love being a part of what
you guys are doing here.
Subscribe.
And I'll see you guys again
next week for more awesomeness.
See you then, bye.


Clear Communication: How to Improve Speech and Pronuciation


Occasionally, someone will say to me, “I
get so tired of repeating myself, why can’t
people get what I say the first time?” Remember
you had the advantage of knowing what you
are going to say before you say it, so it’s
easy to overlook the clarity of your delivery.
Communication isn't just about content, it’s
about caring for the listener and making sure
they get the message. Addressing potential
obstacles to clarity gets you understood consistently.
Fast rate is one of the most common causes
of unclear speech. Vowel sounds get shortened
and words become a jumble of consonants. Slowing
the rate of your speech gives you time to
form sounds accurately and gives your listeners
time to absorb what you’ve said. Learning
to breathe while speaking is one of the most
effective strategies for slowing down naturally.
Mumbling often goes hand in and hand with
fast speech. When you speak quickly, your
mouth doesn't have time to open very far.
Speech sounds get distorted being squeezed
through your teeth. Practicing jaw and tongue
relaxation creates more openness in your mouth
and encourages more precision in the formation
of vowels and consonants. A soft voice often
contributes to a lack of clarity. Sound is
the medium for verbal communication. When
you’re not putting enough sound out there,
your listeners have nothing to work with.
Using more breath, feeling sound vibrations
in your body, and allowing your voice to fill
a room will generate more power without straining
. Remember, your voice will seem louder to
you than it sounds to your listeners. Get
used to it. Speaking with an accent can make
it difficult for others to understand you.
Most accents lend personality and character
to communication, but sometimes they lead
to confusion and even frustration. Learning
to improve a few strategically selected language
skills will often produce dramatic improvements
in clarity. An experienced speech coach can
help you identify those critical elements
that will give you leverage for progress.
Failure to speak clearly is not a minor inconvenience.
It has serious implications for your personal
image and your professional success. Addressing
underlying causes enables you to communicate
fluently and distinctly. By effortlessly connecting
with your listeners, you increase your confidence
and make them more responsive to your message.
For some basic training that will help you
slow the rate of your speech, strengthen your
voice, and relax your jaw and tongue, go to
the products page at voiceandspeech.com and
purchase the mp3 training Your Confident Voice.