Adobe Elements - Audio Track
How to Make a YouTube Video

It's time to work on the audio track of your project. Audio can be just as important as video!

Start by clicking on your video clip, and "unlocking" the video from the audio. This will let you work with the audio clip entirely separate from the video, in case you want to delete or change it. If your intention is to completely overwrite the existing audio, then by all means delete the audio now.

You have multiple audio tracks available to you. This means you can put in a backgrond soundtrack of soft music, talk over it with a narration, and even include other audio feeds to liven up specific scenes. Start with the base layer - the soundtrack if you want one.

Remember, copyright is important. If you're going to use this for any public use - including websites - you really should not have any copyrighted music in this. That includes your personal band singing a song someone else wrote :) This might be a great time to showcase some original music you've written. If you're going to go with traditional folk songs, they do not have a copyright on them - just make sure you get permission from the players. Ask around to family and friends, if you're not a musician yourself, to see if someone will volunteer to play a song or two for you to use for this purpose.

Next, the narration. Elements comes with a built in narration feature. Just plug in your PC's mike, hit the start button, and the video will play for you to talk along with. You can see why it's important to have done the video part first! You want the video to be all complete before you work on the audio narration for it.

A few words of advice here. First, go into the options and turn off the 'external display' option. This will help ensure the video runs smoothly for you to talk along with it. Next, turn off all other programs. If one of them "takes focus" on your PC - perhaps a new mail message comes in - it will interrupt the video and audio process. Just have Elements running and nothing else while you record your narration. Finally, talk "over" your microphone, so your breath does not make raspy noises against the face of the microphone.

When you're talking, smile! They always say that for sales calls - that you really can hear it in someone's voice if they are smiling and happy. Think a few happy thoughts before you begin, and smile as you talk. That facial expression will carry through into how your mouth forms the words. Try to talk slowly and clearly, so that your discussion will be easily understood. Many people have a tendency to speak more quickly when they are nervous. Deliberately take your time and space out the words.

When you are happy with your narration and soundtrack, it's time to think about other sounds. Do you want any other noise to liven up your feed? You can add in audio files one by one to specific spots if you wish. There are many "audio clip art" DVDs on sale that provide collections of standard sounds - phones ringing, bells chiming, etc. Don't go overboard though! Sometimes just a single sound in one spot is very powerful - but clutter your soundtrack up with 50 different sounds and they will become a mish-mash that gets tuned out.

When your audio is all set, it's time to work on titles.

NOTE: YouTube and other public video locations will NOT let you use copyrighted material. Do not include commercial singing, band playing, movie soundtracks or other copyrighted material if you intend for the project to be displayed publicly.

As far as when copyright expires on a musical work, anything recorded before 1923 is fair game. Between 1923 and 1963, items had a maximum copyright length of 67 years. So in 2007, anything done before 1940 is now fair game to use. That means that YOU can sing it though - if you have a record or CD, the record / CD company has the rights to "their recording" of that item until around 2067, because of a loophole in how the laws were set up.

In the meantime, check out the Library of Congress for fully freely usable musical pieces. CNET's Music.download.com has musical works that have been put up for free use - check the notes and contact the artist if you have a question about a piece from here. Also check out the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Recordings.

How to Make a YouTube Video
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