I've received some flattering comments recently on the audio quality for the TLR video tutorials.

Part of that quality comes from using a high quality audio codec (there's some jargon already). When you make a video, you can choose from different methods of compressing the audio and the video. Choose wisely and you get high quality audio. Choose poorly and the audio will sound like a cheap walkie-talkie with a poor signal and no squelch. The trade-off is file size. High quality audio means a much bigger file to stream or download.

When I decided to start making video tutorials, I tried to do it on the cheap. My computer had an audio card. There was a jack for a microphone. So I went to Radio Shack and bought a small condenser microphone to attach to my shirt. Then I sat down with Camtasia Studio from Techsmith and I made a video. When I played the video, I was VERY disappointed with the audio.

There might be a person or two who does not know that I'm on the road nearly every week. I produce most of my videos in a hotel room with a laptop. So, with that first video I could hear 60 cycle hum from the desk lamp, I could hear the laptop fan, I could hear the air conditioning compressor and fan. I could even hear the maid vacuuming down the halland the maintenance man trimming grass outside. Yrrch!

OK, I know it's always smart to use a room that's covered ceiling and walls with foam egg carton tiling to deaden ambient sounds. Well, I don't have a production studio. I bring my gear on the road. I carry a Pelican case with microphone, cables, and USB mixer. I also carry a mic stand. I have both a floor stand and a desk stand. Usually I just bring the desk stand.

It was obvious that a $30 mic from Radio Shack wasn't going to work. So I bought a more expensive mic. No joy! I returned it for a wireless mic. Still, no joy!

There were several problems with my equipment choices.

• The jacks on computer audio cards are not shielded . You can buy the most expensive mic in the world with a microjack, and you can be certain of noisy audio.
• The cables on mics with microjacks are not shielded. Again, the most expensive mic in the world will be noisy with a microjack cable.
• The microphones were omnidirectional. If you want every ambient sound in a room, use an omnidirectional mic.

I sought the advice of a friend named Bill Lester. He's a musician and he mics guitars. He advised that I get a USB mixer and use a directional mic with shielded cable. That was great advice!

I started with a Tascam USB mixer. It's powered off the USB bus on a computer. Everything is shielded. I bought Monster cables, which are high quality cables. Around $10 a foot! I also bought a professional grade condenser mic: a Samson Q7. To improve the signal, I bought a tube type preamp and put that betweeen the mic and the mixer.

The audio improved a lot! It took practice with the levels and mic distance to get the signal to come in around -10db and the ambient room noise around -50db so I could easily remove the background noise. But I still spent a lot of time editing the audio. Noise reduction in audio, like with photos, is time-consuming. You need to sample quiet sections, run noise reduction, also use something like a knee-effect with a compressor. You're better off using good gear and good technique to keep as much noise off the audio as possible. I also spent a lot of time with breath puffs. Softening "s" sounds. Etc.

Here's the problem with average gear. You end up spending a lot of time compensating for its inadequacies and then you tire of all that and want to replace it. My theory with guitars, audio gear, camera gear, and video gear is the same: buy good gear and take care of it. You'll want to keep it, and it'll last forever. You always take a big hit when you sell your current gear to buy better.

I didn't like the separate preamp and mixer. Line 6 came out with a USB mixer that modeled different preamps and amplifiers. I used the Line 6 PodXT for the guitar to model different effects and different amplifiers. Their mixer offered the same capacity for voice. I bought one the day they arrived at Sam Ash Music in Tampa, FL. It's called the Line 6 Tone Port UX2.

The decision to buy the Line 6 mixer was critical to good success with audio. All of the effects I was adding during editing -- like a chorus effect to make the voice fuller, dynamic EQ, a knee compressor to keep noise levels way down and reduce the number of breath puffs -- could be done while the audio was being captured. It was like having a rack full of audio effects in a tiny plastic case that weighed just a couple of pounds. The best advice I can give you is this: don't remove during editing what you can keep out of the audio with proper gear.

I also bought a Shure Beta 87A supercardioid condenser microphone. That was expensive (from my perspective). Around $250. Supercardioid is a bit of jargon that means the mic picks up audio from right in front of the tip of the mic, very little from the sides, and virtually none from behind (the pattern looks like a very narrow heart on a graph.) The mic was designed to allow a vocalist to stand on stage and not pick up the guitar player talking to the drummer.

Unless you like fan noise from the nearby PC or laptop, you want a mic with a very tight pattern. I can set the Shure Beta 87A within 6 inches of my laptop, point it at my mouth, and the fan noise is audible. That's directional! Higher end mics like the Shure Beta 87A also have a bass roll-off. If you mic close, your voice will sound a lot fuller and deeper -- the bass sound that radio and TV announcers want.

It drives me nuts to hear scratchy audio or audio with lots of sound puffs. It's like a poorly edited text with lots of typos and misspellings. It implies a lack of respect for the listener. I know the flipped argument: it's more important what it being said than the quality of the audio. Sorry, I just don't buy that twaddle. If you're going to invest the time in making a video (and buy the software to produce it), buy good gear.

You can get started for around $250. An entry level USB mixer costs around $150. A mic like the Samson Q7 mic costs around $80. Cables will cost you $20 or $30. Now, that's a lot cheaper than say a $30 computer mic from Radio Shack, but it's less expensive than the price of one consumer grade lens for a DSLR.

(Anyone want a used Tascam USB mixer, a Samson Q7 mic, and MVP tube preamp -- I'll give you a good deal. All like new and great starting gear.)

I've saved myself hours of editing on every video just through the choice of good audio gear.

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