I was talking with my friend Kevin Koop the other day – we did a long call on Google Adwords – and he was telling me about the equipment he uses to get high quality audio in the marketing videos he produces.

There’s a world of choice out there – confusingly so – and it’s always good to get advice from someone who’s been through the selection process. We all tend to ’sell’ to our friends and family and because trust is already established (see my earlier post about Julia Roberts) it’s easier to persuade someone to our point of view.

Kevin uses an audio interface called the Edirol UA-25.

Edirol UA-25EX

It’s a USB Windows and Mac device and it has drivers for Vista – quite a rarity! I’ve heard the quality of the recordings he makes with it (he uses a Sennheiser microphone) and they’re really very high quality. That gives the impression of professionalism, which is so important in establishing credibility.

I listened to some audio on a particular website some time ago. The content of the site was excellent and the free training videos were packed with information. However, the audio quality was pretty low, quite honestly. I saw a ton of comments on marketing forums about the quality of the audio. Interestingly, not one person commented on the quality of the ‘product’.

The site owner did a good job of preparing valuable content. But poor quality sound caused his visitors to turn away. I haven’t seen that site, or had an email from the guy for quite some time so I’m guessing he’s maybe given up.

They do say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover – but people do. And as far as audio is concerned we’re even more critical. A fuzzy, hissy, low quality recording will inevitably suggest that the product behind it is low quality too.

For anyone thinking of getting into audio, ditching the built-in mike on your computer and getting a quality mike is the first step to overcome that. The second is to get a quality audio interface that transfers a clean audio image into the computer. Once you’ve got those basics your content won’t be let down by the packaging and you’ve got a better chance of making a sale, or getting a sign-up.

Now, how does that sound?

Related posts:

1. Free Adsense Sites
2. Do Google obey TOS?
3. Royalty Free Music Downloads
4. Instant Article Wizard Pro 2.0