About Audio Editing Software
Last week, we talked about the creative things I did to achieve good audio with a basic microphone. The things I did helped immensely, but I wish I’d known the power of audio editing software back then.
Now the word software may make you want to cringe, but just bear with me. Honestly, software is our friend. It’s designed to make our life easier and accomplish things we couldn’t otherwise.
I started out using the iMovie video editing software that comes with Apple products. It was free, and it was already a huge learning curve for me at the time.
The thing is, I learned how to use the video editing tools well, but I hardly knew about the audio editing tools.
When I discovered that aspect a couple of years later, it was a whole new world! Little did I know, iMovie contained an Auto button that normalizes all the audio. Meaning it automatically makes all the videos the same volume. Do you know how many hours I spent trying to do that manually? It has an equalizer function that reduces background noise with the flip of a switch. It also has a feature that will enhance sound for music, voice, bass, treble, etc. These discoveries were life-changing, and kept making my process easier and easier.
The really cool thing about audio software is that it’s very visual. That’s good news for creators like us! The sound is shown on the screen in green waves much like a heart monitor. You can visually see when the sound spikes and when it goes down to nothing and everything in between. That makes it much easier to relate to, and ultimately to edit.
But what if you’re not using iMovie?
The good news is, most of these editing software apps have much of the same features.
No matter what software you’re using all of these products are pretty competitive, and will give you a lot to work with. You should be able to find instructions on the manufacturers websites, in YouTube videos, and in blog posts, by doing online searches. That’s how I got this far.
I’ve done all of the above just to get different perspectives. As a creative, it really helps me to watch a video or see images of someone doing something. Plus, it seems every video or podcast creator has a bit of a different twist or tip that gives me a new edge!
You have an advantage in starting your teaching journey now, because new technology offers greatly improved audio options at a much lower cost.
That was in 2015, but since then, a lot of new options have been made available in the audio editing software arena. For example, iMovie has improved exponentially over the years. There are also brand new audio editing apps at your disposal that are not too much money.
Some of them are built into the video editing apps, and some of them are separate. If you’re just starting out, I do suggest you use the built-in features of your video editing app for now. That way, you can learn the simple features of audio editing before you dive into the more complicated stuff.
In summary, whatever video editing software you’re using, see if you can discover what the audio features are within that platform. As a creative, that was not my strong suit, and I’m betting it may not be yours either… But you can absolutely do what I did: do some research, watch YouTube videos, read blog posts with images attached, and even listen to podcasts. It will be so worth the time!
These audio features will make a huge difference in your process with very little effort!
Next week we’ll talk about microphones. Which ones are best for teaching online classes? I’ll show you the breakdown!