Record a screen walkthrough with narration

For: a walkthrough that explains itself: you talk through the steps while you do them, and the video that comes out has your voice on it.

Captions and title cards are work, and a silent walkthrough leaves the viewer guessing why you clicked what you clicked. Narration recorded as you go is the cheapest explanation there is, as long as it stays lined up with the picture after you trim and cut. In Studio it does, because the audio is on the same clock as the frames.

The flow

1. Turn on Record microphone in the tray's Studio section, once. It stays on until you turn it off.
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+R, drag the region, and press Record or Enter. Start talking after the three-second countdown.
3. Do the walkthrough. Press Ctrl+Space to zoom in on what you are describing, and again to zoom out.
4. Press Ctrl+Shift+R to stop. The studio opens with the narration on the preview.
5. Trim and cut as usual, then press Export….

What you get

An MP4 in the recording's folder with your narration encoded as AAC alongside the H.264 video. In the studio, the preview plays the composited video with the narration, so you hear exactly what the export will carry.

The narration is recorded on the same clock as the frames. When you set Start here and End here, or Cut a stretch out of the middle, the audio goes with the picture: playback skips removed material, and the words stay on the moments they were said.

Tips

• The setting is remembered. If next week's demo should be silent, turn Record microphone off first; the narration is recorded whenever it is on.
• Umms and pauses are just stretches of the timeline. Cut at the start of one and again where you resume, and the words on either side stay in sync.
• Add a zoom after the fact with Add zoom here at the playhead, so a sentence like "look at this field" has the field on screen large.
• Turn on Record camera as well for a walkthrough with a face on it; the camera bubble and the narration are composited together in the export.

Related

• Record polished screen recordings with zooms and click effects, the studio from the top.
• Add your camera to a screen recording, for the face to go with the voice.
• Brand a screen recording with your logo and title, for the finished look.
• Organize screenshots into a document and export it, when the steps should be read rather than watched.
• Polished screen recordings in the docs.

How it works in detail · Download QACut