Using Audacity For Youtube Music Videos

Have people left comments about your vocals being too quiet compared to your guitar or instrument, or any other comments about your sound quality in your videos? If you are ready to promote yourself with the sound you and your songs deserve then read on.

In this hub I will explain a pretty simple straight forward way using Audacity for your Youtube music videos to give the sound in your videos that extra edge over the competition. Best part is I am not asking you to buy a single thing to achieve this. If you are like me you have to make the most of what you own already when producing new songs and videos. Even if all you have is a USB Mic and Windows Movie Maker you can achieve better sounding videos and I will show you how to make your own music for free.

I will gear most of this tutorial for use with audacity since it is a nice simple audio program for beginners that can produce great results. OK ready to start recording? Lets start with your instrument first.

The technique I am going to describe here might take a little more time on your part but it should leave you feeling impressed with your results.

First you will need an audio recording software program. If you do not have one you can install this great free program called Audacity. It is pretty simple to use and requires very little technical understanding to get started.

Next you will record your vocals and instrument at separate times using your audio recording software and mix them the way you want.

Finally you will record footage for your video then add the audio to your video. I will break down these steps into further detail below.

After installing your preferred sound recording program or choose to use Audactiy to record you will need to make sure your mic is connected to your computer and is connected to the program. You can usually do this in the settings of your program. Look for the type of device you are suing in the list and select that. For example if you are using a USB Mic then look for something that could be titled usb mic.

You should also to go into your computers sound settings (right click little speaker icon in bottom left of your screen) and select recording devices tab. Make sure your mic or other device like an audio interface shows up there and is enabled.

1. Do a test run by hitting record and then speaking or playing into the mic. You should see the time bar moving in your audio program and the wave of your audio showing up behind it. Hit stop then rewind and hit play to make sure it is recording OK.
2. Adjust your mic input levels by hitting record and watching the red meter at the top. You do not want this meter to be pegged to the right. That would mean your input is too loud.
3. Record a few bars of the louder parts of your song and watch for any red vertical lines through the wave display. The red line indicate "clipping", which basically means your input is set too high.
4. To adjust your input level you can either use the recording level option in your computers sound settings or click on the level bar in Audacity and slide it to the left.
5. Once your sound level is coming in good hit record and play the instrumental part of your song. If you make a mistake you can always start over.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 on a new track if you wish to add a different instrument.
   

If you don't have vocals to add skip ahead to Editing Your Tracks.

Now you will record just your vocals. Use the same steps 1-4 above in the Recording Your Instrumental section. To hear your Instrumental as you sing so they both match up follow these steps as well.

1. Grab a pair of headphones and plug them into your computer.
2. Go to the Transport tab in audacity and make sure there is a check mark next to "Overdub". If there is not then click on it.
3. Pick the instrumental track recording that you like best and select "solo" on the box to the left of the wave display. This option will mute all other tracks.
4. When you hit record now you should hear your selected instrumental track playing and have a new track recording that you will use for your vocals. Sing along with your Instrumental just like you would if you were playing.

You can also select certain starting points to record from by clicking on the timeline bar at the top.

After you are satisfied with your recordings you can begin to edit your tracks. There are many ways you can edit the wave files of each track. If you want to learn How to Edit with Audacity to really get a feel for editing you may. Here I will just cover lining up your vocals with your instrumental.

1. Click on the double arrow at the top of the screen (Time shift tool)
   
2. Make sure the tracks you want to hear in your song both have solo selected on them and everything else is grayed out.
3. Hit the play button to hear if your tracks are synced up properly. If they are not don't worry the next step shows you how to correct them.
4. Left click on your vocal track and hold down the button as you move the audio recording left or right to match up with where you want it on your instrumental.
5. Hit play and then stop (you can do this by pressing space bar) to continue making adjustments until you are happy with the tracks syncing.
   

This is the step where you really get to see some benefits of recording your instrumental and vocals separately, and best of all is you can mix your own music for free. You can add all sorts of effects to each track and fine tune them with equalization, panning, compression, and volume adjustments, among other things, to really polish your sound. I will cover volume adjustments and panning here.

1. Add a little reverb to your instrumental and vocals to really give them a full sound. Just be careful not to overdo it.
   
2. If you simply want to make each track as loud as you can without learning to use compression then you can select the track and go to the Effects tab and select "Normalize". This will make your audio file go to its maximum loudness according to your highest peak in the audio clip.
3. On the left of each track is the volume slider. Adjust the volume levels for each track to get the balance between instrumental and vocals that sounds good to you. I would not recommend raising the volume over 0db. Instead if a track is too loud lower its volume.
4. Panning for each audio channel is also nearby the volume slider. With panning you can adjust which speaker the sound for that track is coming from.
   

Clicking on the view tab then selecting "Mixer Board" will pop up a mixer that shows meters for each track and allows you to adjust panning and volume as well. Give it a try.

Equalization of each track can really help bring out certain sound frequencies and is worth looking into if you want to get really serious about your song.

Compression can also be very beneficial for your tracks levels but can be a bit harder to understand. Like anything the more time you spend learning something the better you will become.

How to use noise removal is also a beneficial skill to have.

After making all the little tweaks and adjustments that have your song sounding great it is now time to export it. There are many different file types you can use to export your audio files. The size of the file will depend on which format you use. Wav files are about 10 times larger than the same song exported to mp3. Since I am writing about making music videos for Internet use ill explain how to make mp3s.

1. Click on file then export.
2. Give your song a name and select a location to save it to
3. Chose mp3 from the "Save As Type" dropdown menu
4. Click save
   
5. Fill in some of the information here if you chose to then click ok.
   

Your song is now ready to be added into your video!

There are several different ways to go about this depending on the type of video you want to produce. First up will be making a video that looks like your singing and playing the song.

1. Practice playing along with your mp3 song a few times so you have the timing down.
2. Depending on how you record video you will want to setup your video recording device and something to play back your mp3 song that you created.
3. Hot record on your camera and begin playback of your song.
4. Play and sing along with your song while recording with the camera. Do not worry about the playback sound or how your playing and singing right now. Your goal is to just video footage of you singing and playing your song for now.
5. Repeat these steps until you are happy with your video performance.

Alternately if you want to make a video with multiple shots and locations all you have to do is follow the steps above and record the parts you want at each place. You can then edit the different locations to match the music later.

If you are looking for something simple you can just make a picture show to go along with your audio. The link here will open an example in a new Window.

Or you can sync your audio track with a Video like the one I will post below.

With your recorded video footage all ready to go its now time to edit and add your song. Your all most done just a few more steps left!

I will use Windows Movie Maker for my examples here since this hub article is about no cost audio and video production. Some basic video editing knowledge here is useful. If you have different video software you prefer to use then you can do that instead.

1. Import your video file into the film editor.
2. Edit the video how you prefer. Examples...light balance, fades, titles, etc...
   
3. Go into the audio settings for the video clip and mute the sound.
   
4. Add your finished mp3 to the audio channel in the editor.
5. Match up the timing of your singing and playing in the video clip/clips with your mp3 song.
6. Edit as needed.
   
7. Export your video into your favorite format for posting.
   

You are done! (and so am I ) If you made it this far give yourself a huge pat on the back. I know how time consuming this process can be especially for beginners. I'm sure your results are worth the effort though since you now know how to produce your own great sounding videos. With a little invested time and creativity you might even surprise yourself at what you can accomplish. =]

For those of you who would like to take the next step check out the hub I wrote about building an affordable and simple home studio. You can also check out my Profile for more hubs I wrote and links to my other sites. Leave a comment below, I appreciate feedback and constructive criticism.

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