Ambient sound
Also known as: natural sound, nat sound, room tone, ambience
The natural background sound of a place, such as waves, wind in trees, crowds or engines, recorded with the footage to make scenes feel real.
Updated
What it means
Ambient sound is the background audio of a location: surf rolling in, birds in a forest, the hum of a chairlift, chatter in a gym. Editors also call it natural sound, or nat sound, and indoors the faint background of a quiet room is called room tone.
It is what makes footage feel like a place instead of a picture. A clip of a mountain lake with music only feels like a postcard; the same clip with soft wind and distant birds feels like being there. Ambient sound also glues edits together, because a steady background bed hides the jumps between clips, a principle behind the J-cut and L-cut.
How it works in practice
Record ten to thirty seconds of pure ambience at every location, with nobody talking and the camera still. It is the most useful audio you can capture, and few people bother to do it.
Use a windscreen outdoors; even light wind spoils quiet ambience. A camera with the mic facing away from the wind, or an external mic in a sheltered spot, works best.
In the edit, lay ambience under music at a low level, and raise it during pauses or calm shots. Briefly letting a wave crash or a crowd cheer come through the music adds life, especially with ducking.
What to watch out for
Ambience recorded at speed is mostly wind rumble, not ambience. Record it while stopped, ideally a few meters from your group so nobody talks into it.
Unwanted sounds hide in ambience: traffic, music from a nearby bar, people talking. Background music in particular can trigger copyright claims, see Content ID.
Abrupt changes in ambience between clips make cuts obvious. Crossfade ambience tracks across cuts, or use one continuous ambience bed under a sequence. Keep levels modest too, since loud ambience fights the music for attention and tires the listener quickly.
How RawClip handles it
RawClip highlights are built around music, which is included, with every cut synced to the beat. If you want a version with natural sound layered in, use the 4K MP4 as a base in another editor and add your recorded ambience there.