---
title: 'How to Record and Mix Foley Sound for Film'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=-Cj5eN_VQuc'
video_id: '-Cj5eN_VQuc'
date: 2026-09-09
duration_sec: 410
channel: 'RocketJump Film School'
---

# How to Record and Mix Foley Sound for Film

> Source: [How to Record and Mix Foley Sound for Film](https://youtube.com/watch?v=-Cj5eN_VQuc)

## Summary

Kevin explains the importance of Foley sounds in filmmaking, covering why they are needed, how to record them effectively, and how to edit and mix them for a believable result.

### Key Points

- **Definition of Foley** [00:00] — Foley sounds are subtle movements like footsteps, cloth moving, and object handling that add realism to a film.
- **Reasons for Foley** [00:30] — Foley is needed when production audio is poor due to background noise (e.g., traffic) or when dialogue is covered by directions.
- **Recording Space** [01:22] — A quiet recording space is more important than equipment; turn off AC, computer fans, and refrigerators to avoid noise.
- **Signal-to-Noise Ratio** [02:02] — Signal-to-noise ratio is the balance between the desired sound and unwanted background noise; a noisy room ruins Foley.
- **Equipment Options** [02:43] — You can use almost any decent recorder, like a cardioid condenser microphone or a portable stereo recorder (e.g., Zoom H4n).
- **Wind Protection** [03:10] — Use a windscreen when recording outdoors or with moving clothing; improvise with a star if needed.
- **Recording Techniques** [03:47] — Professional Foley is performed to playback, but you can record as a series—repeating actions 10-20 times and selecting the best takes.
- **Editing in Pro Tools** [04:35] — Edit Foley by copying and pasting the best performances and manually adjusting sync with the picture.
- **Mixing Foley** [05:08] — Mix Foley at a low, subtle level to avoid distraction and maintain believability.

## Transcript

Hey guys, I'm Kevin. Welcome to Sound Advice. Last week we talked about production sound, and this week we're going to talk about Foley. Foley sounds are all the subtle movements, like people moving, picking up objects,
all the little realistic sounds that, you know, you would normally hear in real life. It's important because this helps you even out your film and have a consistent level of believability from start to finish. There's a bunch of reasons why you may end up needing Foley in your films.
Sometimes your production audio, the sound you get off set when you're filming, just won't be very good. There might be a lot of background noise. You know, you might be filming near a freeway and all you hear is traffic. Sometimes you might be giving directions to an actor and you're talking over the take
and then you'll have to replace some of the sound. A great example of Foley in the Soundgun short is the actual Soundgun pack. Because in real life, the prop was really pretty well put together. It was pretty solid, so it didn't make any sound.
But it's important for the story that we know it's all these gadgets stuck together and you could really hear something that feels like electronic and like it's thrown together. So I took all the pieces I really wanted to hear inside the sound pack and I put them
in a box and then I stripped that and recorded that as Foley. The most important thing to recording good Foley, it's not your equipment really, it's
having a good recording space. Now professionally that means going through a Foley stage. They'll have sound treated walls, more often times be different kinds of floors that you can use to get different effects. But you can also do Foley in any room
as long as it's pretty quiet. When you doing Foley that has to be recorded outside sometimes you just can do indoors Just make sure it as quiet as possible and there not a lot of wind So whenever you recording indoors do what you can to make the space quiet And that means if you have things like air conditioning
computer fans, turn them off because they'll pollute the sound. They'll be there constantly in the background. That's something you're going to have to contend with. Foley sounds are often pretty subtle. You'll be doing things like footsteps or cloth moving. And having
a computer on in the background really can kind of mess it up. This particular balance issue is called signal-to-noise ratio. Signal is the sound or the signal you want to record, and noise is not sound that you want. So if you're recording in a noisy room, like if
you have your refrigerator on or whatever, that's going to be in there the whole time, and that's going to start competing with the sound you want. So as long as you have a quiet space to record in, you can use, honestly, almost anything
to record your phone. You can use the camera you use to shoot your short films that has a microphone built in. You can also use pretty much anything else that can record sound as long as it's halfway decent. If you have to, you can use your phone. I don't recommend
it. I would often use this guy, which is a cardiac condenser microphone. They typically have a cable, sold separately, and that goes into whatever you want to use to record. One popular option for recording is to use a portable stereo recorder. I have here a Zoom H4n.
There's other similar models that do the same thing, but what you want to find is a portable recorder, probably runs on batteries, and it'll have a cable input. In this case, it's an XLR input, and it also can say quarter-inch.
In fact, it's recording the sound right now! One thing to keep in mind if you're recording fully outdoors, or if you're doing something indoors that might generate wind like moving clothing it good to put a little windscreen on your microphone if you have one If you don it easier to get distortion from the wind hitting the microphone If you trying to deal with a situation sometimes you just might have to back up a little bit or don point the mic directly at the source
of what's making the wind. If you don't have a windscreen, you can get creative, and you can get limited success with things like a star. Your mileage will vary. Professional
The Foley will often be performed to playback, and that means they'll be playing the movie back, and they will perform the Foley live to it while recording. But you can typically get away with recording as a series, which means you just restart recording, you don't have picture playback,
and you do whatever action you're trying to get the Foley sound for, maybe 10, 15, 20 times, until you feel you have a few good choices. In the Soundgun video, I recorded as a series for pretty much everything. Here's me recording some Foley with the pillow.
So here we are in Pro Tools where I'm going to do the actual editing. Here's that original audio I recorded as a series, and when I play it back you'll hear all the individual performances.
Now let's say I like this performance here, so I'm going to copy it, paste it here, and then manually adjust the placement by hand until it finds good sync with the picture. You can do this for each foley sound, but don't worry, once you get used to it, you can do it really fast.
Now here it is played back.
Now let talk about mixing your foley The most important thing to do is to make sure your foley is at an appropriate level and that usually means pretty quiet. If your foley is super loud, it's going to be really distracting, and I know it took
a lot of effort to record it, but if you keep it subtle, it'll help your film be more believable. To show you how I mixed the foley for Soundgun, here's a scene with the original production audio. Here it is with the foley, but it's not mixed yet.
And then here's the final mix. If you're freaking out about how to mix your sound, don't worry, I'll get into that in more detail in a later sound advice video.
Thanks for watching guys and I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the Foley process. I know it may seem like this unnatural after the fact addition to your film, but it can really help your film feel much more natural and alive. Alright guys, so here's your extra credit assignment.
There's a scene available for download from the Sound Gun Short and I'd like you guys to try recording your own Foley. So keep in mind some things you saw in this video like clock movements, foot steps, the path moving and you know try recording your own stuff. And then once you got something ready, upload it, share it in the forums and I'll pick some
of the best entries. So, you know, have some fun, and keep it quiet this time.