How I Make a Video With Good Sound

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by rmyAddison

A technical question. If you record video, vocal and guitar real time how do you avoid channel bleed between the microphones. When I first got the 414 my recordings had a click in background, turned out to be the kitchen clock two rooms away (all doors must be closed), and it easily picked up the guitar on the vocal track.

Of course the guitar track(s) will mask the phantom guitar in the vocal background once mixed. Do you have a trick to avoid microphone bleed recording everything at once??

Hi Rich,

I do get microphone bleed from one to the other -- much more than I would have imagined before doing this. And because of that, if I make a singing mistake and sing off key somewhere, I really can't fix it later in the vocal channel because the voice is also picked up in the guitar mics. So if I mess up, I just have to do it over. Sometimes I spend two or three days working on getting a song down right. It takes a lot of practice to get there.

For the vocal mic, my Audio Technika AT4050 has dual condenser diaphragms with switchable polar patterns just like your AKG 414. So to avoid noise from a clock on the wall at the other end of the studio, I set the mic in cardioid pattern, and that seems to help. The bass boost from the proximity effect on the AT4050 is not severe, only about 3db rise below 100 Hz, and since I keep the vocal mic a little back and to the side in my videos, the bass boost does not really show up.

I once tried to record the guitar and voice separately and to lip synch the video and it looked really bad. With enough practice, maybe somebody could do this, but I just decided I wasn't going to take this approach.

So yes, microphone bleed means there is no editing after the performance and you have to be careful about picking up stray sounds.

I wish there were a better answer.

- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by Stratcat77

Thanks for taking the time and sharing!!! I've wanted (and probably need) to do a nice video for promo. Yours always turn out very nice, Glenn!

Thank you Marty!

Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment here! I have certainly enjoyed your videos!

- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

This is very cool of you to do, Glenn. Thank you.

Hi Jeremy!

Thank you so much for commenting, and you are certainly welcome. I hope the video helps people pick up a little extra information they might not have known otherwise.

- Glenn

[Mr.Bill101]

That was great Glenn. I didn't know you could make such a sophisticated looking video without another person.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by Mr.Bill101

That was great Glenn. I didn't know you could make such a sophisticated looking video without another person.

Hi Bill,

Wow! You are from Poulsbo, WA! Lovely place! 40 years ago when I worked at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, I lived in Silverdale and I used to take my wife to the Poulsbo Inn for dinner. I don't know if that place is still around.

Thanks for your comments and for watching. And yes, after some learning and lots of videos and the use of the 3 cameras, I have found that a person can do a lot by themselves. Starting all this stuff up is kind of a little dance, however. Turn on the computer recording system, walk over, turn on one of the video cameras that does not have remote control, sit down at my spot, turn on the other two cameras with the remote control, then do the hand clap, then pick up my guitar and try to breath before starting on the song. There is a lot to do before I play one note on the guitar.

Then afterwards, you can do pans and fades in the video programming, making it seem like you have a camera person helping.

Thanks for your comments!

- Glenn

[markrj]

I was just about ready to start reading up on how to sync video tracks with separate audio tracks and here you come along and demystify it in a few minutes.

You know what else I learned through your video? The purpose of the Clapperboard, that has been used in movies ever since the invention of film with audio tracks. I even learned what it is called. I never really knew the entire purpose of that device except to mark scenes and takes.

I will be using this technique moving forward.

Thank you, Glen!

[jstroop]

Glenn, this is terrific. This video obviously was a huge time commitment. Your generosity with the folks on this forum is a continuing source of amazement.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by markrj

I was just about ready to start reading up on how to sync video tracks with separate audio tracks and here you come along and demystify it in a few minutes.

You know what else I learned through your video? The purpose of the Clapperboard, that has been used in movies ever since the invention of film with audio tracks. I even learned what it is called. I never really knew the entire purpose of that device except to mark scenes and takes.

I will be using this technique moving forward.

Thank you, Glen!

Hi Mark,

I am so glad you checked in on this video and that you found it helpful. And what an interesting comment on the clapperboard from movie lore! What a great observation! Very good!

Best of luck on your videos. I'm sure I haven't answered every question and I had to edit out a lot of stuff that may have been useful. If you have questions, please send me a PM, and I will be glad to help if I can!

- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by jstroop

Glenn, this is terrific. This video obviously was a huge time commitment. Your generosity with the folks on this forum is a continuing source of amazement.

Hi Joe,

You are always so supportive and generous with your comments! Thanks so much, Joe.

It did take me parts of 3 days to put this video together. I should have written out a script and made a story board for this project, but I just did this on the fly in my head. So I did this in pieces as I thought this out about how best to tell my own story about how I do this. There is so much more that could be discussed, but at least it's a start for those who would like to figure out how to make videos like this with reasonably good sound.

Thanks very much, Joe, for your comments and for recognizing my efforts to be helpful here on the forum.

- Glenn

[rmyAddison]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

Hi Rich,

I do get microphone bleed from one to the other -- much more than I would have imagined before doing this. And because of that, if I make a singing mistake and sing off key somewhere, I really can't fix it later in the vocal channel because the voice is also picked up in the guitar mics. So if I mess up, I just have to do it over. Sometimes I spend two or three days working on getting a song down right. It takes a lot of practice to get there.

For the vocal mic, my Audio Technika AT4050 has dual condenser diaphragms with switchable polar patterns just like your AKG 414. So to avoid noise from a clock on the wall at the other end of the studio, I set the mic in cardioid pattern, and that seems to help. The bass boost from the proximity effect on the AT4050 is not severe, only about 3db rise below 100 Hz, and since I keep the vocal mic a little back and to the side in my videos, the bass boost does not really show up.

I once tried to record the guitar and voice separately and to lip synch the video and it looked really bad. With enough practice, maybe somebody could do this, but I just decided I wasn't going to take this approach.

So yes, microphone bleed means there is no editing after the performance and you have to be careful about picking up stray sounds.

I wish there were a better answer.

- Glenn

We're on the same page, bleed between microphones kills editing if you record everything in one shot, and lip syncing never worked for me either.

It's easy to lay down separate tracks with no video involved. I upgrade to Pro Tools 12 last year and added the Avid Artist Mix controller (way better than using a mouse), but back surgery pushed things back, and I "don't know what I don't know" with the upgraded gear.

I need to read the Pro Tools 12 book/tutorial, fire everything up, and spend maybe half my playing time "recording" instead of just doing sets. It's your fault.......

[lpa53]

What a great tutorial, Glenn! I doubt I'll ever be able to justify getting all that equipment or software, though. Yet it's something to dream about for sure.

A question about lining up the claps: when you cut the videos near the claps, the cut was never made at the same point prior to the clap - due to the frame snapping I assume. If that was indeed the case, how did you get perfect alignment by merely dragging them to the left? I would have thought you would have to zoom in an get yet a more granular view and drag the videos around prior to deleting the audio.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by rmyAddison

We're on the same page, bleed between microphones kills editing if you record everything in one shot, and lip syncing never worked for me either.

It's easy to lay down separate tracks with no video involved. I upgrade to Pro Tools 12 last year and added the Avid Artist Mix controller (way better than using a mouse), but back surgery pushed things back, and I "don't know what I don't know" with the upgraded gear.

I need to read the Pro Tools 12 book/tutorial, fire everything up, and spend maybe half my playing time "recording" instead of just doing sets. It's your fault.......

Hi Rich,

Yes, if a person is not going to do video recording, you can do a wonderful job of multi-track recording with the equipment you have and the skills and experience you have. You can post stuff here in Show & Tool using something like Soundcloud. I have done a few of those myself, for example, this one. And maybe half of the threads in Show & Tell on the AGF are not videos.

The idea of a video, to me, is that it really is a performance. It's a recorded live performance, at least the way I do it. It has it's limitations and challenges. For myself, I wish that I had my singing voice back from when I was 35 years old or so. But, I am grateful that at age 70 that I can still sing at all!

I was sorry about your back surgery, Rich. That is a tough thing to recover from. But I do hope you will fire up that gear now and see what you can do. And be patient with yourself. It may take a week or two of singing every day to get your singing voice back in shape. That's what it takes for me when I haven't been singing.

I have to say, that when I am really rolling on making a recording, I just love the feeling. I bet you feel that, too!

Best of luck to you, Rich!

- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by lpa53

What a great tutorial, Glenn! I doubt I'll ever be able to justify getting all that equipment or software, though. Yet it's something to dream about for sure.

A question about lining up the claps: when you cut the videos near the claps, the cut was never made at the same point prior to the clap - due to the frame snapping I assume. If that was indeed the case, how did you get perfect alignment by merely dragging them to the left? I would have thought you would have to zoom in an get yet a more granular view and drag the videos around prior to deleting the audio.

Hi Paul!

I'm very glad to hear from you!

Good microphones help greatly in getting a good recording. A lot of the Chinese mics made for AKG and similar, for example, and some of the eastern European mics (Studio Projects), make very good condenser mics for reasonable cost.

Regarding the recording gear, many people, such as Doug Young, record to something like a small Zoom digital recorder and get excellent results. You don't need the mic preamps, and you don't really need recording software, like Cubase or ProTools. I have a Tascam DR-44WL small digital recorder where I can plug two XLR cables from external mics right into it for excellent sound. I just finished a piano recording project using two Audio Technica AT4050 mics and this Tascam DR-44WL and it sounds wonderful.

The Tascam DR-44WL even has built in reverb in it. You could import a wave file from this recorder into something like Adobe Premier Elements and do the editing to the start of the handclap on Premier.

Regarding your question, if you can cut to the start or near the start of the handclap to the nearest video frame, nobody can see that it is out of synch. So I cut the video as close as I could get to the start of the handclap (that is, to the nearest video frame) and that's as close as I can get it. After deleting the stuff ahead of that, I moved that video footage on the time map back to zero so it was lined up with all the other tracks.

I hope I have answered your question adequately. If not, send me a PM, Paul.

I have enjoyed your videos over the years, Paul!

- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by T Texas

Thanks Glenn! I haven't asked you but I'll admit I have been wondering how you do such great videos for some time

Hi Tybor,

Thank you for commenting here on this thread! I do hope this video is helpful, if not right now, maybe later when you feel adventurous.

- Glenn

[richard1]

Glenn, thank you so much for the effort you went to in producing this tutorial.

I can say, honestly, that I had no idea how much work goes into your videos. No wonder they look, and sound so professional!

With the suggestions you provide here, I hope to be making my own videos when I retire in the next two years or so. It is clear that I have a lot of learning to do, but if I can produce anything like the quality you achieve, I will be a happy man.