I’ve only had my Drift helmet camera a few days, and it’s been raining almost non stop since it arrived. I hear it’s okay to take it in the rain, but it’s so new and shiny I just want to keep it that way a little longer.
This video is about capturing audio inside a helmet which can be tricky for several reasons. Wind blowing in the helmet, and the small space inside the helmet can make it very difficult on your microphone. When I first started vlogging I was using a separate audio capture device. The Olympus VN-8100PC Digital Voice recorder. I hooked it up to this microphone and found it to be way to sensitive inside the helmet. This was designed to record audio in an open room. I tired many different methods to calm it down, even went to far as to stick it inside of a tampon but was never really pleased with the results.
Recently I got my hands on a Drift Innovations Stealth 170 helmet camera with the external microphone and it sounds much better. And extra bonus the Drift’s mic records in stereo so no comments saying, “I can only hear out the left channel!”
I’m still getting used to filming with the Drift and can’t wait for all the comments saying, “Your camera is crooked!” Yeah I’ve noticed guys I edit the damn video, and will fix it before the next one.
I’m the sort of person who gets really frustrated if everything isn’t perfect when I sit down to edit. When I was working with the digital voice recorder and it sounded so terrible I would just cringe while editing. I hated to hear how bad it sounded. The Drift’s mic was designed to record inside a helmet and deal with wind noise. You will notice in the video that the wind noise pretty much disappears when I switch the audio over to the Drift at the end. Nothing ruins a motorcycle video faster than screeching wind noise from a microphone.
A few people have asked me to show how I record high quality voice over when I narrate my video’s. Here I demonstrate 3 different methods I have used lately. The built in mic on my laptop. A Microsoft LX-3000 head set. And the couch fort studio, for when I’m feeling really fancy. All low budget ways to record narration, some work better than others. But a little effort can go a long way in how your final product will sound, and your viewers will thank you for it.
You can see an example of each method here:
Microsoft LX-3000 headset - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79NoX35qKlQ
Built in mic on HP Envy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHpa0kE86MA
Couch fort studio - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M12M_xWIWzY
Professional studio - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTxRR4qNCUc
And be sure to check out the collaborative effort of many different motovloggers on Mean Machines channel, I did the voice over work this video, although it may be hard to tell because my Mean Machine lowered my voice a bit so it would sound more “movie trailerish.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf1XQzw_P8E
