YouTube Question Face the music - or not? When talking do you add music under your voice?

[MaJ]

I'm pretty sure the is NOT a gear question

So I have videos where I am talking to camera [I know revolutionary idea for YouTube]

I have a great camera [4k], I have two great mics currently using Rode NTG5.

So my voice should sound - good

But it sounds a bit weak.

Which could just be that I am weak [as a perfomer?].

But then I saw some clips of h3h3 and MrBeast - and they aren't superstar performers [but their voice and content, is so much more 'alive']

The first clips I saw had music under the voice.

What are people's thoughts on that? As I think it kills some of the 'truth' - but then the music will lift the feel/performance.

I did then also see h3h3 often doesn't have music under.

My feeling is it may partly be - processing the recording. Maybe I need to run the vocal audio through some compression/EQ/etc - to make it less flat and more alive. I thought the mic would have made it sound closer to the successful YouTube voices....

So any advice... or just a do you, or do you not - put music under your narration/commentary [?]

[note, as at first I thought they all had music always under them... I've written a song for the next video I upload this coming weekend]

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

yeah a good mic is half the battle... the best audio requires some work through editing. Afraid i dont know enough to guide you, audio engineering isnt my strong suit. But it will make a big impact.

 

[Tito Tim]

I use music for non-speaking portions. I do not like music under the voice. I find it very annoying.
If your audio is already kind of weak, I would think adding music would make it even harder to hear you.

 

[kalaspuffar]

Hi @MaJ

I don't generally use music under my videos. And I use a Rode NTG5+ as well.

The strange part I noticed was that my audio sounds crisper with the NTG than with the Snowball I used earlier. But the snowball had a richer tone to it.

So I do some small adjustment to the sound to make it sound richer but keeping the crispness

There are radio presets you can buy for $500 so there is an industry around making good audio. And there is some sound engineers that talk about tweaks they do I watched a bunch of those videos and then made my own presets and tried them out on a sound engineer and got some great tips.

So my advice is to watch, learn, and verify with someone you trust.

I hope this helps.

Best regards
Daniel

 

[MaJ]

Thanks for that

I have studio one - with all Waves, all Izotope products... so in theory must have what I need ... just need to work out how to use it. I have a few presets - but they may not be set up to work well for a shot gun mic... as most 'podcasts'/etc will be using a close up 'normal' mic

And yes until this week I was going directly into a Rode K2 - and that was richer sounding. But filled the screen/my face - and much less flexible

I will watch some of your videos... what do you use [just the software]

Thanks again

 

[kalaspuffar]

Hi @MaJ

At the moment I use Premiere and vMix, one of the reasons is that there are so many tutorials out there. So to make it easy for myself I use the software most people use. Sadly that means that I can't switch to using Linux full time but that is a goal for the future.

I'm working fulltime and have a Youtube channel as a side project. So time is expensive for me, so I buy myself more time by adding known good software that might cost a bit to acquire. If you have more time but less money I would recommend OBS and Davinci Resolve. Things will take longer to produce and you will get less help but it's cheaper.

If you have any recommendation of isotope or waves plugins that I could add later I'm all ear

I hope that answers your question.

Best regards
Daniel

 

[MaJ]

Thanks

I use/bought a Blackmagic 4k Camera

So the full version of Davinci was indeed cheaper [free]

I have a radio show and write/produce music so have Studio One [and understand it pretty well] - so it's pathetic that I don't really know what setting or how to get it to 'pop' for spoken word.

Part of the problem is for the radio show - I can't compress too much, as the station puts their compression on anyway

Something I noticed - when I put a song on a YouTube video - the song is super loud... so I have to decrease it in the Davinci timeline. That suggests I have my [listening] volume up too high... because I have the vocals too low. I hope that makes sense.

So I think I need to really work [push] the volume - as at the moment maybe I'm no where near the limiter kicking in. Which is maybe leaving me with a much lower volume sound... argh

It's good as I am learning so much...

Each time from a mistake... I have my face out of focus, I've had a shirt that has strobed, I have had lights [exposure] poorly set up... I reckon at this rate - maybe by 2028 I will be producing the videos well

 

[DamoΓÇÖs Paintings]

I do use music, during any talking parts, itΓÇÖs turned right down so you can still hear something but it doesnΓÇÖt overpower any dialogue, but for non talking parts I ramp it up and let the music take the viewer through the video, so far no one has complained about it.

 

[Midas]

I use beats strictly so no other voices are mixing with mine while I'm talking and I'll always have the volume of the beat lowered so it's barely there but enough to give different videos and different scenes different vibes.

 

[DogsInAction]

It really depends of the vibe of the video, honestly If I were gonna do voice overs now I would go with putting some chill music in the background as it just goes with the whole video in a way, and makes it a better experience to watch.

 

[LifeOfReillyTV]

Music under Voiceover works for any type of video, if that's the style/vibe you're going for. It sounds as though you're not bringing the music down low enough/voice high enough when you're editing. Your VO should always be at -6 to -12 db, but I'll bring my music track down to -20 to -30 depending on what the song is. Good luck!

 

[BraveStar]

You guys are all awesome. What a great community we got here. Keep up the good work, all excellent comments.

 

[TanookiAlex]

I personally add lofi music under my voice, i find its chill and gets rid a lot of fish tank noises. I want my channel to be a calm enviroment and i add music which adds to that effect. Sometimes i'll add a meme song and such for a bit of flair but for discussion based channels lofi is the way to go - there's so many underrated "type beat" artists on the internet that need promotion and you can do so through crediting them
videos without music for me do a lot worse in terms of watch time and engagement, it just comes off as bland and boring considering i have a much monotone speaking voice in my videos

 

[Beanie Draws]

I pretty much add a music track under EVERY video with my voice now, depending on the mood of the video. I like going for a lowfi jazz track, a big of trumpet/sax or piano tends to go well, but I also like a bit of orchestra/action music if I want to ge dramatic. And my tracks tend to be between -17 and -26 depending on how loud or quiet my voice is.