One of the first things you learn when making any online content is not matter how pretty/instructive/mind blowing the images are if I can’t hear your content it really isn’t that good of a video (yes of course there are exceptions but hopefully you are following my point).

For those of the MIT community that are diving head first into DIY capture here are a few thoughts. If you are putting up laptops with wide angle camera to try and capture slides from a screen and a chalk board and are not near the internal mic you will need to think about is how is the audio going to sound. There are many ways to solve this problem but here are a few solutions starting with one you may already have. One word of advice test before you record!

Position the laptop First and foremost try to find a way to keep the laptop close to you if you can. Laptop mics are designed to be used for web conferencing. If you are further away from the laptop then a few feet it will sound roomy and the further away the more difficult it will be to hear the presenter.

Use Bluetooth headphones with mic. Most of us have bluetooth headphone whether wireless Apple Earpods or something less expensive although quality will vary. These can be selected as an audio source when doing a screen capture. In quicktime (if using a mac) just click the down arrow next to the record button and select the mic that you want to use. Not a great solution but could improve capture if you have to have the laptop further away from the person speaking. Again testing this setup as you would use it to confirm the quality of sound is there.

There are other low cost bluetooth mics out there that do a ok job and can certainly be used but will cost you some additional money.

Blue Microphone Snowball Yeti, etc, etc. This company makes great usb mics. They even make a usb mic preamp (icicle) so you can plug a mic with an xlr connection directly into your computer. Depending on what resources you have available to you may make one of these options a good choice.

Sennheiser low cost Lav setup (relatively $299) The Sennheiser xsw-d set is designed for a dslr. This means it has a 1/8” connector that can be connected into a 1/8” mic input on some laptops or through a usb sound card. This can take a little more setup with connectors, usb sound cards, wireless mic that need charging. One of the other good things about this system is that is in the 2.4 GHz so does not work in the same range as other wireless microphones so less interference and work on a different type of technology then other wireless mics. Keep in mind that 2.4 is very close to the 2.5 GHz of WiFi and never put your transmitter in the same pocket as your phone. Better yet turn your phone off when recording!

Shotgun mics Some shotgun mics for dslr also have a 1/8” connector. These can work well but have a limited pick up range that does not pick up well beyond 6 feet. That is where a lot of these smaller shotgun mics start to fall off. If you can set it up with in that 6 foot range and you or your presenter isn’t moving too much you can get some good sounding recordings from them.

Other wired mics. Use a wired mic if possible. Wired mics can give you a wonderful sound and you don’t have to worry about the battery dying while you record. Depending this may or may not be an option. And again please test the recording setup before you launch into an hour+ recording. Many many hours have been lost to records that did not have tests preformed before the start of the recording. This testing allows you to confirm that the video and audio was being captured properly. It seems so obvious in hindsight but in the rush and excitement to get captures done this often gets overlooked.

I love to talk about capture so please reach out if you have questions!