Audio Levels for Video

What are the key points that you learned about setting our audio levels from this video?

    The key points that I learned about setting audio levels from this video are how much headroom to give your levels and how loud you should make it in post. When recording, there will be an indicator of the dB levels on the recorder. On digital recorders, the highest it will go is zero while on analog it will go a little bit above zero. If you reach zero on a digital recorder or go above zero on an analog one, your audio will peak and distort, which will ruin the audio. Thus, you need to give your levels some headroom while recording. A good rule of thumb is to have it in the -20 to -12 range and the video says the -12 to -10 range is also good. In post production, you should adjust your levels further. If you will be exhibiting in more professional settings such as to streaming platforms or theaters, you should follow whatever guidelines are set by that exhibitor. If you're posting onto video platforms like YouTube or Vimeo, you should increase the level to as close to zero as possible as many people watch those on devices like phones which tend to have quieter volumes. So to ensure people can actually hear your video, you should increase the level as much as possible without distorting the audio.