8 replies to this topic

[RAc]

https://youtu.be/JvHv0ISitUc

 

I've long shied away from going visual for several reasons (major one being that videos require single take recordings which I'm not very good at). Anyways, why not give it a try. This is a lovely piece I found on the internet. I plan on learning it in F, G, A and Bb to be able to play it in various ensembles.

 

Thanks for watching!

 

 

[Hereward]

Thanks for posting this: nice tune and playing I think.

[RAc]

Thank you Hereward, much appreciated!

[Paul_Hardy]

Volume level is very low. I had to turn up my speakers a long way.

Nicely played though.

[RAc]

Thanks to you as well, Paul.

This is actually another reason why I prefer audio only recordings: I have two high quality condensor micorophones hanging off an external sound card (Tascam US-600). My audio processing software allows me full control over the inputs. I see the resulting wave form on every channel in real time and can adjust the volume until I have exactly the right level. For a video in which the sound obviously is more important than the visual, I thought it would be a poor choice to replace the high quality mikes with the microphone built into the camera (which the video software understands).

Since the camera software I use does not know anything about the underlying audio hardware and the control panel for the external sound card is not very comfortable, I don't have many options to control the sound as I record. Feeding the camera software from the output of Cubase may be an option but it means I'd have to run two sets of software concurrently, one for the video recording and the other one for the audio.

On the first take, I had the microphone levels turned up apparently too high (the first video attempt came across distorted beyond acceptability). So I turned down the volume on the sound card a wee little bit for the second attempt (there are physical knobs on the Tascam) - but apparently too much. Point is, one doesn't know until the recording is finished.

Should I attempt more video recording, I'll see if I can find a more satisfying solution. Thanks for the input, again!
 

[RAc]

Well, I experimented a little bit with sound options following Paul's remark. May be of interest to others trying to release videos themselves:

 

My research yielded that apparently there is no one stop shopping software that can generate videos with high quality sound compatible with audio software (though a lot of others have asked for it). My guess is that a) audio and video expertise is so highly spezialized and complex that any company focussing on one would be at loss trying to do the other as well and the computing power needed to render both audio and video recording simultaneously would make a single piece of software for both unattractive.

 

Whichever, here's what most people recommend and what I ended up doing: I recorded the sound just as usual w/ Cubase and my audio setup (exactly the same thing as when recording audio only) and exported the sound file. At the same time, I recorded the video with the low quality built-in microphone.

 

This yielded two files: A video file and a sound file. Using video processing software (in my case, Microsoft Video Maker), I added the sound file to the video and aligned it until the sound of the built-in micro and the "good" sound file completly overlapped. Then I muted the built in sound track and exported the entire thing as a new video which I then uploaded.

 

Here's an unlisted video (quick and dirty style) generated with this process:

 

https://youtu.be/Vdr_WfO461o

 

I'm fairly satisfied with the result (at least w/ respect to the sound quality and video/audio synchronization). An additional bonus is that the sound file can also be used separately from the video. The workflow is more cumbersome compared to a desireable single recording, but the entire process was surprisingly simple and intuitive (I got done with the video in less than half an hour which included figuring out the workflow).

Edited by RAc, 06 April 2018 - 07:12 AM.

[alex_holden]

Interesting how much difference it makes turning each side towards the mics.

[Mikefule]

Nice.

[RAc]

Interesting how much difference it makes turning each side towards the mics.

 

Very true, Alex. This is a point about Duets that Geoff Wooff has made several times: The bass side tends to overpower the treble side. I hadn't realized this until I played for a family circle where my mother in law got very irritated and said something to the amount of "that sounds good except for... those notes." I didn't realize what she meant by "those notes" until it figured that she was sitting to the left of me. When recording the concertina, I try to position the mics so they pick up both sides equally, sometimes even mainly the right hand side.

 

Now I try to turn the left hand side away from any audience member. Must be very annoying at sessions to have a duet player sitting right from you...

 

Thanks, Mike!