Originally Posted by finnigantodd:
Very nicely done. For context, I have roughly 30 years of film and video experience. And over the last few years am learning the art of making better audio for video.
Frankly, if you don't have much experience, then this is super amazingly well done! As far as the audio, and the separation of music vs voice and ambient sounds, and levels, well that is a deep rabbit hole indeed.
Basically the sound will sound different on every set of speakers you play it on. And turning the music down may sound fine on your speakers, but not another person's speakers. To deal with this problem, there are what are called Studio Reference Monitors, which in theory you use to mix (adjust) your sound with, and it will tell you how your video really sounds. And then again in theory, done well, your video then will play back and sound good on any speaker you then play it on (it will translate well). From car radio, to phone, to large theatre.
This is a craft in and of itself, and for some this is their career. Age is a big factor in this. I learned the hard way that younger audiences like louder music, because they have younger hearing. I'm older, and as we age, it gets increasingly harder to separate sounds. I played your video on both sets of my studio monitors. I use a set of Auratones, and a set of JBL 4208s to get an idea of what it actually sounds like.
It sounds quite good actually. But I agree there are parts where it gets hard to separate the voice and the music. But that is because I'm not young lol. I think the mix is about right for a 20 - 25 year old demographic. Younger than that would like the music a bit higher than it is I would think.
I have the reverse problem, where I have to mix music louder than I like, because I'm older than the audiences I am creating videos for. Studio monitors are not cheap, so another approach to this like you mentioned is playing it on several different sets of speakers, and adjusting it until it sounds good on all of them.
If you really want to get fancy, the approach audio folks use is not so much turning down the music, but equalising it. Basically you reduce the frequencies in the music that are competing with your voice, and making it hard to hear. Its like cutting a notch in the music for your voice. I use Reaper software to do this along with the studio monitors. I also use this to equalise and adjust my voice to be clearer and easier to understand. You can also sometimes reduce unwanted noise like your footsteps. Reaper is a flexible and inexpensive software, but it does take time to master. I'm still learning. There are other like Logic on the Mac.
As I live in Hong Kong, thought I would jump in and offer some of what I’ve learned, hoping it may be of use. I don’t run into many here that I can help out that way. Apologies if this isn’t new to you, but as a video guy it took me a long time to sort all of this out and find software and hardware that worked for me to help improve my videos sound. Hope this is of some use.