How to Record Narration on a Laptop
- 1). Purchase a pair of headphones and an external microphone. (Your built-in PC laptop microphone will not produce a high-quality audio recording.) Plan to spend anywhere from $20 to several hundred dollars on a microphone, depending on the level of fidelity you want.
- 2). Plug the microphone into the "Mic" jack on your computer. (On most laptop computers, this plug is right next to the headphone jack.)
- 3). Plug your headphones into the "Headphones" jack on your laptop.
- 4). Open your video project file in Windows Movie Maker (or the video authoring program of your choice).
- 5). Insert the cursor at the point in your time line where you want the narration to begin. (The audio track area of the time line is usually located directly below the video time line in most programs.)
- 6). Press the "Narrate Time Line" button located to the left of the time line. The narration wizard will pop up where you can select your recording device (microphone input).
- 7). Check your recording levels; watch the VU meter or audio volume slider while you're speaking. Adjust your microphone level until it is as "hot" as possible, but not peaking into the red. Position your mouth about 6 inches away from the microphone when speaking.
- 8). Record your narration. It is recommended you use a microphone stand so that your hands are free to hold a script or adjust levels while recording the track.
The narration wizard will play your movie while you're recording your voice track. - 9). Press "Stop" when you are finished recording your narration.
- 10
Save the voice track file onto your hard drive. Pick a folder where you want to file it, or let Movie Maker automatically import it into your project's main folder. - 11
Drag-and-drop the narration track into the time line. You can then work with the track by selecting it, moving it around; trimming the ends and changing the volume level in the mix. (You may want to mute the audio track on your existing video project if you don't want the sound sources "clashing" or competing with one another.) - 12
Save your movie project or use the "Save As" command if you want to retain the original movie project without the narrative track for future editing. Just give your narrated version a new and different file name.
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