Audio Sounds Like Person is yelling into microphone but arent

[OSVALDO OLMOS]

I recorded video with an external microphone using my DSLR. When I was recording the video the audio sounded great but when I took it home the audio sounds terrible. Its as if the person is shouting into the microphone, but they are actually talking normally. At the same time, people who are farther away from the mic giving the subject instructions actually sound better. How can I fix this?

[Michael Grenadier · Accepted solution]

dslr's have notoriously bad sound and most professionals use a second device to record audio...  I don't know exactly what went wrong but the microphone probably did not match the necessary specs for the camera.  You can probably find a microphone that will work better, but the microphone jack and the circuitry on most dslr's as far as I know, are not up to professional standards.

There are a number of free standing digital audio recorders available some with decent built in microphones for under $200.

[Michael Grenadier]

and as far as fixing what you've already shot, if you have to use the audio, you should probably consult an audio specialist.

[Steve Griffiths · Accepted solution]

As mgrenadier suggests, your mic audio input was too high. Possibly the Mic was sending 'line' level audio (high) but camera set at 'mic' level (low).

Or simply that input level control on the camera was set too high.

There are ways to help make the sound you have better, but very unlikely to make it very good. Izotope have a de-clip filter. It does a reasonable job when you abolutely must try to improve clipped audio.