How to Do a Voiceover on a Mac
If you have a digital video on your Mac, you might realize that you need to add a voiceover to it. For example, you shot some footage during a recent family vacation, nobody in the video says anything about the location, and you want to provide some details for your viewers. Apple installs the free iMovie application on every recent Mac, which you can easily use to do a voiceover on your video. Mac laptops and iMacs have a built-in microphone. If you are using a desktop Mac, you'll need to plug in a microphone to do your voiceover.
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Instructions
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Plug an external microphone into the audio input jack on your Mac if it doesn't have a built-in microphone or if you don't want to use the built-in microphone.
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Click the Apple logo at the upper left of the screen if you are using an external microphone. Choose "System Preferences," and then click "Sound." Select the "Input" tab. Press "External Microphone." Click the red circle at the top of the preferences window to close it.
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Click "iMovie" on the Dock of your Mac to launch Apple's native video-editing application.
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Select "File" from iMovie's menu, and then click "Import." Click "Movies." A dialog box appears. Click the folder on your Mac that has the video to which you want to add a voiceover. Click the video file to select it, and then select "Import." A thumbnail of your imported video appears in the bottom pane of the iMovie window. Drag the thumbnail into the "Project Library" pane in the upper left of the iMovie window.
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Click the "Voiceover" button, which has a microphone icon. Click the "Record From" pull-down menu, and then click a microphone to select it, such as "Built-In Microphone." Start speaking, and drag the "Input Volume" slider to the right until the "Input Volume" meter starts flashing in the middle of the range, remaining green. Yellow is too soft, and red is too loud.
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Select the "Voice Enhancement" check box if you want iMovie to improve the sound quality of your recorded voice automatically. Click the "Play Project Audio While Recording" check box if you want to hear audio playing in the video while you do your voiceover. Plug in a pair of earphones into the audio input port on your Mac if you opt to play the video's audio back while you record.
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Click the thumbnail of your video in the Project Library at the point where you want to start recording your voiceover. The video opens in the upper right pane of the iMovie window. Wait for the countdown to appear superimposed over the video, and when it reaches "0," start speaking.
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Press the spacebar on your Mac's keyboard when you are finished recording. Click the "X" button at the top of the "Voiceover" window to close it. The voiceover recording appears as a purple soundtrack bar below the video. Click the purple marker and drag it to the left or the right if you want to change when it starts playing in the video. If you don't like the voiceover, click the purple bar, and then press the "Delete" key on the Mac's keyboard.
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