The Ultimate Guide: Achieving Professional Sound without a Mic

How to Record Good Audio Without a Microphone?

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

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Audio quality is more important than video quality on YouTube. You’ve probably heard that before – viewers might forgive sub-par video quality if they’re interested in what you’re saying, but if it’s hard to understand what you’re saying they’ll click away.

Getting an external mic (even a $10 one-off Amazon ) is one of the best ways to improve your videos. That said, maybe your budget is $0. Or, maybe you just don’t happen to have a mic now and don’t want to wait to make videos. It could even be that you just don’t want to bother with an external mic.

Luckily, there are a lot of easy, free, things you can do to protect the quality of your audio recording even if you’re not using an external mic. Here are a few tips:

• 1. Keep Your Camera Close
• 2. Shoot Somewhere Quiet
• 3. Pick a Good Room
• 4. Protect your Built-In Mic from Wind
• 5. Use a Free Audio App
• 6. Do a Sound Check

1. Keep Your Camera Close (like, really close)

The biggest problem with the mic built into any camera or phone is just that, since it’s with the camera, it’s usually too far away from you. Built-in mics can record decent audio up close, but usually, your camera will be set up farther away from you than an external mic would be.

For example, your camera’s mic might be just as good as a clip-on LAV, but that LAV is right by your mouth and the camera is a couple of big steps away.

Moving your camera/smartphone physically closer to you will make it hard to include anything besides your head and shoulders in your shot, but it will get you significantly better audio.

2.Shoot Somewhere Quiet

The best way to limit the amount of background noise you pick up in your sound recording is to shoot somewhere where there’s no background noise. That probably seems really basic, but it’s something a lot of people just don’t do. It’s easy to default to recording in your home office, even though it’s right next to the kitchen where your family is bustling around, or in your bedroom even though there’s a busy street right outside your window.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your audio is simply to scout out a quiet room in your house where the sound recording conditions are better. Speaking of recording conditions…

3. Pick a Good Room

There’s more that goes into picking a good room than how quiet it is. If you try to record in a room that’s too big your voice might sound to distant, and if you try to record in a room that’s too small your audio will be too echo-y. You need a room that’s just right.

You should also pay attention to what’s in the room you’re recording in. Avoid hard, reflective, surfaces like appliances and mirrors which your voice will bounce off of. The same conditions that make you sound great when you sing in the shower will – like recording in a small space -make your voiceover unpleasantly echo-y.

Look for a room that has a lot of soft things in it, like beds and sofas.

4. Protect your Built-In Mic from Wind

If you shoot outside, then the wind passing over your built-in mic will do terrible things to your audio. You can do a lot to counter-act this problem by physically blocking the wind.

There are a few ways to do this. If you’re doing hand-held shots you can partially cover your camera or phone’s mic with your finger. You don’t want to completely cover it/press down or your audio will be muffled. What you’re trying to do is create a barrier blocking out the wind.

On movie sets, they block out wind by covering the microphones with big fuzzy things called ‘dead cats’. You can also block out wind noise by attaching something fuzzy to your microphone. If your camera’s built-in mic is on front of it then you just need something big and fluffy you can loop around the lens. You can use a piece of a boa, a fuzzy novelty scrunchie – you can even murder a fuzzy stuffed animal! Do you have an old coat with a fuzz around the hood? That fuzz would do nicely.

The pompom used in this video cost $2, but you might already have something that would work!

If your built-in mic is on top of your camera you can get something called a ‘micromuff’. A micromuff is essentially a circular or rectangular piece of velcro with long strands of fluff on top. It’s open in the middle so it doesn’t actually cover your mic, but the surrounding fuzz blocks out the wind.

You use the adhesive backing to attach the base velcro to your camera. The other side of the velcro has your fluff attached to the back.

The only thing about a micromuff is that it costs about $30, and if you’re going to spend $30 on audio equipment then you could just buy yourself an inexpensive LAV mic. I only bring up the micromuff because it’s a very simple design you can probably DIY – you just need velcro with adhesive backing and any of the fluff-sources we just discussed.

5. Use a Free Audio App

If you’re recording on a smartphone, you can download a free app that will let you make adjustments to your audio as you record it. With the right app, you can adjust your gain (volume is how you control ‘output’ audio, and gain is for ‘input’ audio. By turning up your gain, you can make your mic more sensitive), tempo, and more. A lot of the time, your audio recording app will also let you edit your audio afterward.

Even if you’re not recording video from your smartphone, it might be a good idea to use your phone as your mic and record a separate audio file. You’ll be able to use an app to fine-tune your recording, and you can set your phone up closer to you the way you would an external mic while keeping your camera back a bit farther.

Free audio apps: Hi-Q MP3 Voice Recorder (Android), RecForge II (Android), Smart Voice Recorder (Android), Audio Memos (iOS), and Recorder Plus (iOS).

6. Do a Sound Check

Once you think you’ve got good audio set up – test it! You don’t want to do a whole video and find out when you play it back that your audio doesn’t sound good.

Do you have any of your own audio tips to pass on? Leave them in the comments!

This topic was suggested by RS Beauty over in the forums. Thanks for the idea!

Polish Your YouTube Videos with Filmora

As one of the most widely used video editing software in YouTube video editing, Filmora allows you to record voiceover and edit the recorded audio with mixer, equalizer and provides lots of templates and effects with an intuitive interface, which saves much time. Download the free trial version and get started now.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Simple Screen-Capture Techniques to Grab YouTube Soundtracks

How to Record Audio from YouTube

Max Wales

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

It happens several times when we are watching some videos on YouTube and the background music of the videos appeal us the most. We go online and start searching for that unknown but heart touching song. Unfortunately, the song is not available online. But it doesn’t mean that you cannot add that song to your playlist. The great news is that there are so many advanced audio recording software tools that allow users to record audios directly from YouTube videos.

Sometimes, we are interested to play our favorite music during a long hour journey, but the missing internet connectivity does not allow us to stream it online. In such a situation also, you can get your free music easily on your iPad, iPhone, or any handheld device and it can be later burnt into CD as well. Now you might be interested to know how all this can happen without the “Record Audio” button on YouTube. Don’t worry! Below we have highlighted three simple methods to do this task:

• Method 1: Capture Audio from YouTube with Online YouTube2MP3 Converter
• Method 2: Recording YouTube Audio with Audacity
• Method 3: Recording Sound with Streaming Audio Recorder
• Method 4: Record Audio with Filmora

Note: We resolutely oppose all forms of copyright-infringing downloads. This tutorial is only for downloading YouTube videos/audio materials from your own channel.

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Method 1: Capture Audio from YouTube with Online YouTube2MP3 Converter

The simplest technique to record audio from YouTube videos is to use a trustworthy online application that can perform the conversion from video to MP3 file . In this article, I am going to show you how to capture audio from YouTube with the assist of a free online convert tool named YouTube to MP3. To do this, simply follow these simple steps:

• Visit the YouTube video page and copy the URL of the video whose audio you want to get in form of an MP3
• Go to the internet and open the online YouTube to MP3 converter tool.
• Paste your video URL in the text field available at the top of the website page.
• Choose your output file format as mp3.
• Hit the Convert conversion button.
• When the conversion is done, you will get a download button on the screen. Hit the Download button and soon your file will be saved to your device.

If you think using YouTube to MP3 Converter to capture audio from YouTube meets your needs, you can visit this online converter: youtubetomp3music.com . While, if you find need a better solution, then keep reading.

Method 2: Recording Sound from YouTube with Audacity

In case if you are interested to record yourself or want to capture just a small portion of the video’s sound, it is good to start with the Audacity program. Following simple steps will assist you to complete your recording process with this handy tool:

• First, download the Audacity program on your system. Note that it is available for free, so anyone can get it easily from the internet.
• Run the setup to begin the installation process and follow on-screen guidelines to finish the process.
• Open Audacity software on your system and from the top menu bar hit the Edit option and then go to Preferences.

• In the Device section of Preferences window, switch to the Recording section.
• Choose Stereo Mix option. In case if it is disabled by default, you may need to enable it first. To do this, go to the control panel of your computer, go to Hardware and Sound section and then switch to Sound section. Now go to Recording tab and right click with the mouse on the blank space of the screen. From the drop-down menu choose Show Disabled Devices option. You will find Stereo Mix Device option on the screen; right click on this device and hit Enable option.

• Hit Ok to save the new sound settings. After these settings, you will have to open the Audacity program again to work with Stereo Mix option.
• It is time to open your YouTube video and hit the record button. Make sure the connection is fast enough to play video without any interruption, otherwise keep it loaded in advance. Play the video and when done, hit the stop button on Audacity program.
• This file can be exported and saved to a device with the MP3 file format.

Method 3: Recording Sound with Streaming Audio Recorder

The third choice for recording YouTube audios is using Streaming Audio Recorder . The great news is that this software cannot only record audios for you rather at the same time it is loaded with advanced editor tool that allows easy cutting and splicing of sounds for the creation of customized videos. With Streaming Audio Recorder, you can also convert your videos into various file formats.

You will be happy to hear that this recorder is not just dedicated to YouTube platform only rather it can also work perfectly with Grooveshark, Jango, and Spotify. Below are few simple steps that you can use to complete the audio recording task with Streaming Audio Recorder:

• Go to the internet and download Streaming Audio Recorder. Install and open the program.
• Hit gear icon on the main interface and then move to settings. Set source of the audio input as System Sound.
• Start playing your desired YouTube video and on recorder, hit the record button instantly.
• As soon as the recording task is complete, hit the Stop button and your recorded audio will be soon saved to the targeted folder.

Recommended: Record Audio and Save to MP3 Format with Wondershare Filmora

You can also use Filmora to record your YouTube audio and then save the recorded audio or the video to MP3 format at exporting and then you can listen to the recorded audio and music even when there is no network connection.

With these advanced tools, the audio recording task becomes quite simple and easy. Even beginners can handle with without any trouble. If you are interested to capture your favorite tracks from online videos, it is right time to choose any of the above suitable methods and start recording your audio.

You can change the voice in audio , or add fade in and fade out effects, or edit the recorded audio file with more tools. The recorded media files can be further customized as well as shared on other social media platforms. It is a great idea for today’s creative young generation. These handy tools can make your audio recording task quite easier and resultant files can be saved in a variety of file formats for further sharing.

If you want to edit the record audio further, like adjust the audio pitch, remove background noise, mix the audio balance, equalize the audio, you can also try Filmora. It allows you to record the audio, webcam and desktop screen automatically . And it works on 64-bit Windows7/8/10, and Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan and late.

Max Wales

Max Wales is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Max Wales