Advice & inspiration

The importance of clean audio in multimedia presentations

UPDATE: St. Petersburg Times fixed the audio problem and updated their site. Great job!

After reading Colin Mulvany’s post on his disappointment over low-quality entries in this month’s NPPA multimedia contest, I looked through the winners and was puzzled that “A Look Back” by St. Pete Times got third for multimedia storytelling. Don’t get me wrong, the concept of four photographers looking back on their experience documenting the 2008 election is wonderful, but the audio was very poor on my machine. This brings up a good point that I think it important for all II readers: clean, crisp audio is a MUST for successful audio slide shows.

The audio in each of the four soundslides was scratchy to say the least. If it was a couple popping p’s, or uneven transition levels I would be more understanding. I am assuming that if this was award-winning work that the audio quality was hopefully better on other computers. Regardless, there is no excuse for bad audio on the web these days, and listeners do not have the patience to sit through it.

(Update: Just before publishing this post I watched this project on another computer (PC, Firefox) and although the audio was clear on two, it was inaudible on the others. On my Mac (Firefox and Safari) all of them were scratchy, but then in IE on the PC the Flash presentation doesn’t even appear. Is anybody else having quirky problems? Hopefully it is just my internet connection, although audio on Skype and YouTube worked great … Nevertheless, the discussion about the importance of clean audio is still valid!)

Mindy McAdams wrote a great piece about audio editing in her “Reporter’s Guide to Mulitmedia Efficiency” series. Brian Storm also posted a thorough guide to audio storytelling on MediaStorm’s site, titled “Gathering Audio: A Practical Guide.” Still looking to read more about how to correctly gather audio for multimedia storytelling? Hop over to Apple’s site where they feature five articles on gathering, editing and compressing audio.

Here are some tips I live by when recording audio:

1) Find a quiet location. Listen for air conditioning units, heaters and other sounds that may turn on during the interview and ruin your sound. Also find a place where people won’t walk by on the phone, or open the door. These interruptions may happen in the midst of a great sound byte and ruin everything.
2) Wear headphones! (Duh!)
3) Don’t interrupt your subject and wait several seconds before asking your next question to create buffer room.
4) Craft your questions so your subject answers in complete sentences. Listen for this throughout the interview. If they say a great quote, but it doesn’t sound good without your question as a reference, you will be in trouble.
5) Always ask if your subject has anything else to say at the end of your interview. This sometimes leads to invaluable quotes that will greatly enhance your story.

Even though there is a lot to remember when incorporating audio into your soundslide or multimedia presentation, it is imperative that it is as clean as possible. Studies have shown that nothing will make users click away more quickly than inaudible sound or poor video quality.

Other posts that might interest you:

• 20 educational (and free!) multimedia resources
• Five ways to rock an advocacy video
• Five tips for emerging video journalists

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