360 Camera Accessories 360 Camera Techniques

Adding high quality audio to a 360 video

When using a 360 camera to record live music, there is nothing more important than the audio quality. Here are some tips for capturing high quality audio using a professional external microphone.

The Winnepeg Folk Festival has a session series where they take artists backstage at their festival and film them acoustically. This year, they decided to record a session using a 360 camera. For this video, they used a Samsung Gear 360 (reviewed here).

Here’s the video, featuring The East Pointers:

Although the Samsung Gear 360’s internal microphone has surprisingly good audio quality, you still need an external mic for high quality audio required for a 360 music video.I spoke to Winnepeg Folk Festival’s Terry Proveda about tips for recording high quality audio.Mic: Great video, Terry. I loved the music and the audio quality. Can you give some tips for using an external microphone with a 360 video?

 

Terry: There’s a few key take aways for filming live acoustic music in 360. First off, mic placement – in this session I had the guys stand around a Senheiser MD 421 cardioid dynamic mic, which was recording into a Zoom H6. Setting up the guys around the mic gave a nice balanced audio mix. The East Pointers decided to play an acoustic song so I only needed to mic their instruments, which made the shoot easier. I tried to hide the microphone by placing it right under the Samsung Gear 360, so the focus is on the artists and not on mics covering their instruments.Another thing to keep in mind shooting 360 is to make sure that anything you don’t want in the shot, to be completely hidden from the camera. I had 3 people including me hiding behind the trailer while the guys performed this song and had everyone out of sight before they started recording.

Mic: Can you tell me more about the editing process?
Terry: Once you have your the audio and video files you can load and sync them in your editing software like any other video. Just make sure your project is 3840×1920 if you are shooting 4k, or else you will have black circles at the top and bottom of the footage. Also, you can play with the audio in your editing program to get the sound you want, added bass etc.Mic: Thanks, Terry! This was very helpful!


Terry: Thanks man! Let me know if you need anything else.
If you’d like to find out more or ask Terry further questions, check out Winnepeg Folk Festival on Facebook. You can also check out The East Pointers here, and their album The Secret Victory, available on iTunes.

About the author

Mic Ty

5 Comments

Click here to post a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Can I use any video editing software to add the audio to the 360 video or does it have to be one in particular

    • Any video editor will do. If the video editor doesn’t support 360, just add the 360 metadata after editing.

  • Hi, I am interested in recording from inside a small airplane and I’m looking for a 360 camera that has an external audio input so I can record audio from the intercom.
    Any suggestions?
    Thanks
    Richard R.

  • Hi Mic – thanks for all the help over the years..can i ask how you attached the zoom to your monopod? I’m after any ingenious ideas to keep the recording unit as one.

    thanks!
    Pete