How to Record Music Videos Easily?

[Boozehound]

Hi all,

I have searched the forum, but haven't stumbled upon a direct answer. I'm looking for a way to easily record acceptable quality Audio and Video simultaneously. I want to avoid recording the video and audio separately and editing them together etc. if at all possible.

What I have:
iMac
iPad Pro (USB C)
Focusrite 4i4
AKC C214
Rode NT-1A

What I have tried:

Focusrite Impact App for iPad Pro: This works OK, however I'm having intermittent noise / hiss issues. It's almost like the USB-C connection from the iPad to the Focusrite isn't consistently providing adequate phantom power

Quicktime on iMac using internal Camera: The audio quality always seems to suck for some reason when I do this.

Does anybody have a relatively easy way to do this? I know I can record the audio with garage band and edit together with video from Quicktime, but that seems like a lot of hassle and I'm not particularly patient or tech savvy.

Basically I just want to be able to hook up a Mic or two, grab a guitar, and record a quick video with decent audio. Am I on an impossible mission?

Thank you for the responses. Hopefully this isn't a repeat question.

[Brent Hahn]

With Quicktime, are you able to select your Focusrite as the audio source?

[Boozehound]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

With Quicktime, are you able to select your Focusrite as the audio source?

As a matter of fact, I can. Thank you! Using that coupled with a external webcam has improved both the audio and video quality noticeably. I thought I had tried that before, but I may not have.

I also notice I have an audio source options as 'pro tools first' which is a free version of pro tools first that I downloaded. I'm wondering if I can use that to add some EQ etc if needed.

[j3ffr0]

The problem I have with Quicktime, is I can't get it to do stereo. Neither can anyone else (as far as I can tell). I'm looking for a solution where I can use a basic webcam and the stereo signal out of my Apollo audio interface. Quick time sure enough takes the signal as Apollo... but it does so as mono. :-(. Of course it's possible to get decent tone with mono, but it's never going to sounds as good as stereo.

I'm also curious as to what people use to get videos with good sound without a lot of camera video sync hassle.

[Brent Hahn]

I have to confess, I just do it with the sync hassle. And sync is such a rabbit hole -- with things like close-up lips and guitar-fingers, theoretical "perfect sync" often looks to me like the audio's ahead, most likely due to display lag. And Facebook will often shove your audio ahead even further, but not always. It's crazy-making.

[Boozehound]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

I have to confess, I just do it with the sync hassle. And sync is such a rabbit hole -- with things like close-up lips and guitar-fingers, theoretical "perfect sync" often looks to me like the audio's ahead, most likely due to display lag. And Facebook will often shove your audio ahead even further, but not always. It's crazy-making.

My guess is that your method is probably what most of the people who get 'good' videos on youtube etc. do. That way you can use you DAW of choice to tweak the sound instead of being limited by quicktime and essentially forced to do all your EQ and effects prior to the pre-amp.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Boozehound

My guess is that your method is probably what most of the people who get 'good' videos on youtube etc. do. That way you can use you DAW of choice to tweak the sound instead of being limited by quicktime and essentially forced to do all your EQ and effects prior to the pre-amp.

In terms of sophistication I'm the Grandma Moses of video editors, but otherwise yes.

[j3ffr0]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

I have to confess, I just do it with the sync hassle. And sync is such a rabbit hole -- with things like close-up lips and guitar-fingers, theoretical "perfect sync" often looks to me like the audio's ahead, most likely due to display lag. And Facebook will often shove your audio ahead even further, but not always. It's crazy-making.

Please tell me more of this rabbit hole. Can one dip a toe in the rabbit hole without falling in?

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by j3ffr0

Please tell me more of this rabbit hole. Can one dip a toe in the rabbit hole without falling in?

I guess it's one of those "It's all fine until you start really paying attention" things. One tiny toe-dip -- at about ten seconds into this video, the drummer does a single-stroke roll going into the verse. It looks in sync, right? Compared to actual dead-sync, the audio has been slid about 3 frames later to make it look that way.

[Greyhound]

Boozehound. I have been on a similar point and shoot journey. Just recently did a two inputs thru my interface into GarageBand on my Mac. Tweak sound to taste and then simply went live out of the headphone jack of the Mac into an iRig into the phone. My new iPhone shoots very good video and the audio is good to my ears. Add a little lighting to up the visual appeal. One important note...you need to be in the camera/video mode before you plug the iRig into the phone...otherwise it will default to the onboard mic on the phone.
Last but not least...I’ve done some simple iPhone videos using the iPhone mic in a nice sounding space and they came out pretty good...people ask...what setup are you using and are surprised to hear it’s just a raw phone video. Have fun!

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Greyhound

Last but not least...I’ve done some simple iPhone videos using the iPhone mic in a nice sounding space and they came out pretty good...

I think the "nice sounding space" part is by far the most important.

[gfirob]

Shooting separate video and sound (double system) is really the only way to genuinely control the quality of the sound and sync. It may seem like a lot of trouble, but there is a reason professionals do it that way, and syncing on any reasonable editing system is not difficult if you just clap your hands at the head of the take, once (replacing the clapsticks you see on films). Sync the sound of the clap to the first sharp frame of your hands coming together and that's it.

This way you can use a better microphone, and the sound is a separate track which can be eq'd or effects added or whatever.

There used to be a saying about production—"You can have it quick, cheap or good, pick two..."

[j3ffr0]

Nice video Brent.

So I have the audio gear and software. What do I need video gear and software wise? I assume a camera of some type... Not sure where to start with either...

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Boozehound

Hi all,

I have searched the forum, but haven't stumbled upon a direct answer. I'm looking for a way to easily record acceptable quality Audio and Video simultaneously. I want to avoid recording the video and audio separately and editing them together etc. if at all possible.

What I have:
iMac
iPad Pro (USB C)
Focusrite 4i4
AKC C214
Rode NT-1A

What I have tried:

Focusrite Impact App for iPad Pro: This works OK, however I'm having intermittent noise / hiss issues. It's almost like the USB-C connection from the iPad to the Focusrite isn't consistently providing adequate phantom power

Quicktime on iMac using internal Camera: The audio quality always seems to suck for some reason when I do this.

Does anybody have a relatively easy way to do this? I know I can record the audio with garage band and edit together with video from Quicktime, but that seems like a lot of hassle and I'm not particularly patient or tech savvy.

Basically I just want to be able to hook up a Mic or two, grab a guitar, and record a quick video with decent audio. Am I on an impossible mission?

Thank you for the responses. Hopefully this isn't a repeat question.

You might want to read everything posted on Fran Guidry's Homebrewed Music website, particularly the post of combining H2 audio with the Zoom recorder:

http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/2010/...t-the-zoom-h2/

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by j3ffr0

Please tell me more of this rabbit hole. Can one dip a toe in the rabbit hole without falling in?

Like Brent said it can be a bit frustrating if you really start paying close attention. And doubly so if ones technique (mine) creates a sot of visual slight of hand (more on that later)

On this video (below ) I use my usual technique of doing a verbal count in and using my pic to tap on the guitar body for the first 3 beats of four. To give a double visual queue ( which I edit out) , in the video the pick contacting the guitar and the waveform in the DAW has a very sharp short waveform transient spike associated with pick tap .

But I went round and round with seeing my cord hand landing on the neck(in the further away vocal camera angle) and the sound of the rhythm stroke being behind that time wise (until I realized what I was seeing and focusing on was my technique of hammering on the chord( as close as I can) on the first beat, but the downstroke with pic comes fractionally after that),,,And for some chords (like C ) it was not loud enough to heard, and visually looked to be out sync because it was before the heard sound of the rhythm down stroke with my pic hand. There are a few places where the Em hammer on (especially at about 2:50-2:55), can be easily heard and looks more correct. Now if you watch my picking hand in closer angle it generally seems more in sync

Then the was the dealing with sync-ing two camera angles but agin the pic tap helped a bunch
Any way here is the video and you may see what I am talking about...