Sona Patel

I’ve used Soundslides Plus several times to make audio slideshows. I’ve made slideshows using Flash, but after being introduced to SoundSlides a couple years ago by Tribune photographer David Middlecamp, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to creating slideshows in Flash. Michelle Johnson from Emory University continued skills week at Maynard with a little sound editing using Amadeus. I use Adobe Soundbooth and Pro Tools at The Tribune for editing, so it was good to learn a new program.

Amadeus is free and easy to use. Besides learning how to edit audio clips in Amadeus, Michelle talked about whether it’s OK to enhance audio and the rules on altering audio. It’s an important detail that can be easily overlooked in the newsroom, especially when using high-end audio editing software that allows you to add scores of effects to your tracks. Some of those features are tempting, especially when you want to clean up that perfect clip. The Radio-Television News Directors Association published a series of guidelines to help determine whether you’re going too far with your editing. Here are a few tips for gathering audio out in the field and what you can do in case your audio doesn’t turn out as expected:

Location: Depending on what your story is about, choose a good location for capturing audio. If you’re doing a man-on-the-street interview, make sure there’s not a truck roaring in the background or a train crossing. If it happens during the middle of the interview, politely ask your subject to repeat his or her answer.

Microphone: Hold your microphone or audio recorder at a comfortable distance from your subject. Don’t hold it up too close, but just enough so that your elbow is comfortable and you can still hear the audio at a decent volume level. Make sure to watch your arm throughout the entire interview. If you let it drop, you might not be able to hear your subject clearly. Remember, try to wear headphones whenever possible!

Clean up static: It’s best practice to do whatever you can to capture good audio, but just in case you capture any annoying white noise in the background, there are features in Adobe Soundbooth, Audacity and Amadeus that allow you to clear it up to produce NPR-style audio (after all, that’s always the goal, right?)

After editing our audio tracks, we started assembling our Soundslides projects. Michelle showed us a Web site that generates embed code for your Soundslides presentation so that you can post your project directly onto your blog or site. I thought this would be a great tool for some of our Tribune bloggers such as Sarah Linn (who writes She Likes to Watch) and Pat Pemberton (author of Sidetracked) who might want to use Soundslides to create audio slideshows. Note: your Soundslides project does not need to have audio, hence, a simple slideshow with the beauty of Flash effects.

*Here are a few Web sites for royalty-free music, in case you want to add music to your presentation. Be sure to credit whomever’s music you decide to use! Most of these sites are based on Creative Commons licensing, which pretty much allows you to share audio selections in exchange for a credit. However, these licenses allow creators to specify which rights they reserve, so be sure to read the legal terms on each site*

FreePlayMusic.com

FreeSound.org

CreativeCommons.org (I learned about this site after watching the farewell video that The Rocky Mountain News posted on its Web site. They used music from CC. The video is excellent because it, in my opinion, demonstrates powerful storytelling on an emotional issue. You can check it out here.)

Here’s a short Soundslides project on my recent trip to the Pacific Northwest. I love Seattle and Portland in the fall!

What are your tips for capturing good audio?

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