Making audio sound like it's coming from ipod headphones?

Hey guys,

So audio editing isn't something I know much of - but I'm doing a uni assignment and in one of my scenes I have someone listening to a song through their headphones... There wasn't anything actually playing when we filmed, so I'm trying to figure it out now - to put a song/audio in the background where it's noticeably coming from headphones... I don't really want the song itself to be noticeable, but just the fact that there's a song coming from headphones..... any suggestions?

There are probably several ways you could do this, an easy way for me, would be to first import the music you want to use into the Media Browser. Drop it onto the timeline under the video clip you want it with. Next trim the clip to the correct length (you could have done this before you drop it into your timeline). Then roll the song forward or back inside the duration so the exact portion of the song plays for your video clip. Is your actor bobbing their head to the beat? If so you want to match that beat when you ripple roll the song inside the clip.

Next we work on the sound. First the audio level will be much lower, click the green audio clip in your timeline, zoom in grab the audio level & drag it down to a suitable level. Here's where you can become creative. To really sell the effect that this is music inside the headphones, try to match it to your camera's movement. Is the camera moving in on the talent? If so the audio should get slightly louder as we approach. Are we panning by your actor? Then the music should pan too. To directly alter the levels in the timeline you need to click right on the audio level to place an adjustment point (sorry I forget what those are called, but you'll see a little marker on the audio level). Before & after these adjustment points you can drag fade up or down to match the movement of the camera.

To alter the actual sound of the music, because its got to be some version of LowFi to make it believable from headphones, select the audio clip. Then we go over to the Effects Browser, & scroll down to Audio Effects. These are built into FCPX, as an included component of the effects palette of the program courtesy of our friends at Apple. Now you get to have some fun, auditioning or at least testing these effects on your audio clip. You can experiment by dragging your mouse over the effect to hear what that effect sounds like on your music. Of course you can adjust the level & parameters of the effect once it's selected. You might want to try a Limiter, maybe some Compression & or Distortion. You might even want to Pitch Shift the music up or down a notch. All in all you should be able to match the sound to your visuals & make your film sequence believable & realistic. Have fun.

I've done this a few times. Lower the volume level as mentioned, then go to Effect, Audio, EQ. Apply the Channel EQ. Then in it's Presets, use either the Megaphone EQ (my preferred), Phone Filter Notch, or Phone Filter Wideband preset.

How about actually recording it that way...put some earbuds on someone then record the sound with an external mic

Real life recording that way rarely translates to the screen in video/film. A mic doesn't pick up sound the way human ears actually hear it.

Besides, to get a mic to pick up something so soft, the actor will have to crank up the volume so loud, it will cause hearing damage.

Thanks for all the suggestions! About to give them a try now.

As for the mic recording, all the gear went back to my school (two hours away... I'm an external student). So I don't have access to the mic's or camera anymore.. Just gotta do the best with what I have now haha.

I'll see how it goes!

Throw on that Megaphone preset, I think you'll either have it, or be 99% there and can tweak it to what you want really fast.
Sample here.

A lot of the standard audio presets in FCPX make it super simple to tweak just about any sound you'll need, and they're fun to play around with to experiment.