Mics and masks

[Rachel]

The coronavirus has changed the industry landscape in many ways, but I never considered how face masks, especially those made out of thick cloth, would affect the audio quality of my videos. I also never expected that some people would be wholly averse to pulling the mask off, even if only for a few minutes. Has anyone found a microphone that compensates for that or a tweak in software that fixes muffled, difficult to hear speech?

 

[Paul Stevens]

You need something with built-in noise reduction. Getting closer to the subjects will also help, though I'd imagine that would pretty awkward when they're saying their vows.

 

[Rachel]

You need something with built-in noise reduction.

Well, I do have that and I've also tacked on a stipulation to my contracts that I'm not responsible for the inferior sound quality that might result from speaking while wearing a face mask or other covering over the mouth. But this event has already been filmed and I need to clean it up. It just never occurred to me that they wouldn't pull their masks off while saying their vows. I'm prepared for it in the future though.

 

[LifeCaptured]

I guess I'd try isolate the audio from the video and cleaning it up using Audacity (it's free, but not intuitive so check their forum if you need help.) It might be fun to overdub it.

 

[Mobile 5]

overdub it.

That right there might be the best course of action. You might have to change certain ways of making the videos to accommodate for the need of overdubbing, but it's worth looking into.

 

[Beck]

Give it some time before they make a mic that accommodates for this. This is a brand new thing we're going through, so no one thought to tweak a mic for this purpose.

 

[cassie]

If you are a wedding photographer, one thing to remember is that there is a limit, at least in some countries, of 30 guests at a wedding. But this includes "third party suppliers" such as photographers. When you think about it, a lot of weddings will go up to the maximum of 30, and if you are not careful, you will cause the figure to go over 30. We would not like to break any rules! Just something to bear in mind.