Members pogo97 Posted November 17, 2012 Members Share Posted November 17, 2012 I'm setting up to record a bunch of youtube videos of my own songs and some old stuff, too. I've done about ten so far and it's getting to where I'm reasonably happy visually and sonically, but I'd appreciate some feedback from you folks on the sound and the look so I can continue to improve them. I'm aiming for "appealing" "interesting" "amusing" more than "perfect" or "astonishing." My YouTube channel is here : http://www.youtube.com/user/douglasgifford and here are a couple I put up today : Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mnewb1 Posted November 17, 2012 Members Share Posted November 17, 2012 Very nice, Man! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members keybdwizrd Posted November 17, 2012 Members Share Posted November 17, 2012 Thoroughly enjoyable - the world could use a bit more music like this. Oh, and the bird is a great touch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mediterranean Posted November 17, 2012 Members Share Posted November 17, 2012 The simpler the better.Great music, singing voice, and bird. He adds a lot of extra beauty when he sings along with youThe audio recording quality of the piano is very good (that *is* the real, natural sound of this beautiful instrument), though a bit too panned to the left on the first vid, in my earpinion. The voice is a little dry and could use a little bit of wetness (reverb). It sounds slightly "removed" from the recorded piano.You can make the videos fancier by using an HD cam (vid quality will increase dramatically) and the 2 horizontal bars disappear (more will be seen). Also, experiment with different viewing angles or add ones within the same recording. For example, the camera will show your hands, the bird, and the sheet music from time to time (not to be overdone). These things are very attractive to the human eye. I know this requires more work, but you already have what it takes, so everything else is details.Try to frame your shots so that the microphone is either not visible or completely visible (can't explain why, but seeing a tiny part of it is a little distracting, almost like some kind of artifact above your head). I would also include some text at the beginning and /or end of the video (especially if it's your own work).Are you recording the piano and your voice on 2 separate microphones? You will have a lot of followers (I'm your second subscriber)Love how your bird chirped "yes" when you asked "What do you think, Freddy? You and me?" in the first video. Beautiful ending.If we were neighbors, I'd bring my Canon 600D and Zoom H4n and help you make some tasty audiovisual recordings Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted November 17, 2012 Author Members Share Posted November 17, 2012 Originally Posted by Mediterranean The simpler the better.Great music, singing voice, and bird. He adds a lot of extra beauty when he sings along with youThe audio recording quality of the piano is very good (that *is* the real, natural sound of this beautiful instrument), though a bit too panned to the left on the first vid, in my earpinion. The voice is a little dry and could use a little bit of wetness (reverb). It sounds slightly "removed" from the recorded piano.You can make the videos fancier by using an HD cam (vid quality will increase dramatically) and the 2 horizontal bars disappear (more will be seen). Also, experiment with different viewing angles or add ones within the same recording. For example, the camera will show your hands, the bird, and the sheet music from time to time (not to be overdone). These things are very attractive to the human eye. I know this requires more work, but you already have what it takes, so everything else is details.Try to frame your shots so that the microphone is either not visible or completely visible (can't explain why, but seeing a tiny part of it is a little distracting, almost like some kind of artifact above your head). I would also include some text at the beginning and /or end of the video (especially if it's your own work).Are you recording the piano and your voice on 2 separate microphones? You will have a lot of followers (I'm your second subscriber)Love how your bird chirped "yes" when you asked "What do you think, Freddy? You and me?" in the first video. Beautiful ending.If we were neighbors, I'd bring my Canon 600D and Zoom H4n and help you make some tasty audiovisual recordings Thanks, Med. Lots of good stuff here. The mic showing was an accident but I liked the take so it will stand for now. Maybe I can crop it out once I'm better at iMovie. The single biggest technical challenge has been to get the vocal mic as close as possible to my voice without it showing: too close it shows and too far I lose a lot of vocal warmth and gain a lot of piano cross-talk and room. I've spent hours now, messing with camera placement to achieve a reasonable compromise but, as you saw, sometimes I miss. (Because I'm doing this on my own, framing means pressing record, sitting at the piano and playing, checking the result, adjusting..., accidentally kicking the tripod so I have to start over....)I'd love to use a better, higher-resolution camera, but spending money is against the rules, so my wife's Canon Powershot will have to do for now. I'm not sure what advantage the HD frame shape would be for this: the 'natural' frame of the event is probably closer to square. A wider frame would just force me to make a wider set. I'd love to have a second camera for close-ups and stuff but no money/tripod/operator. First-world problem. It would also mean learning how to work with two video streams in iMovie, which I'm completely new to.Freddie the budgie is a great help here. His presence gives me a visible audience and, of course, there's the cute factor. Freddie actually helped me write the lyrics on one song. I'm using two microphones, an AT 4033a for vocal and an AKG 451e with an omni head hanging behind the piano for the the piano and yes, I'm pretty pleased with the overall sound. The piano, especially, actually sounds better to me than it does in real life. I'll check out adding a bit more reverb to the vocal and bringing the piano a little closer to centre. [Not sure how to replace a YouTube video without disturbing its hit count and all that stuff. Can this be done?]Overall, though, this process seems to be working. The more of these I do, the less I get bogged down with techo-issues and the more generally relaxed I feel (and look). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members donaldcrunk Posted November 17, 2012 Members Share Posted November 17, 2012 these are fantastic! very well done videos, i wouldn't change a thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mate_stubb Posted November 17, 2012 Members Share Posted November 17, 2012 It's rare that I watch somebody's clips longer than 10 seconds. Yours made me relaxed, and I enjoyed them a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Paolo Di Nicolantonio Posted November 17, 2012 Members Share Posted November 17, 2012 Fantastic, Doug Great voice and great piano playing - I wouldn't change a thing.Re: the hit count: once an older version of a video is gone, so are its hits, so what people typically do is to leave the older version, but add a pop-up that says "New version - Click here!" and add a link that takes users to the newer version. Re: the mic closer to you: since you're doing a static shot, you could do a layering "trick" in iMovie like described at NeumannFilms (great resource for DIY video) in this video tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upQNo406fpE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dr.Wu Posted November 17, 2012 Members Share Posted November 17, 2012 very enjoyable to watch-definitely has viral potential! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MikeyParent Posted November 19, 2012 Members Share Posted November 19, 2012 Originally Posted by Dr.Wu very enjoyable to watch-definitely has viral potential! Agreed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ChristianRock Posted November 19, 2012 Members Share Posted November 19, 2012 Astonishing and perfect...bird! Those are some very nice performances. I really enjoyed them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Gribs Posted November 19, 2012 Members Share Posted November 19, 2012 I think that your videos are wonderful! They are very entertaining and make me smile and even laugh once or twice (inspired by your budgie's "commentary").You already answered the questions I had about what microphones where etc.I wish that I could sing :'( Every time I try, wife tells me not to give up my daytime job I subscribed to your youtube channel and am sharing these with my wife and kids. I hope you don't mind, but I am also going to share them with my former piano teacher (now in Colorado) via FaceBook.Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members shambler Posted November 19, 2012 Members Share Posted November 19, 2012 Really loving the videos Doug, thanks for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BonsoWonderDog Posted November 19, 2012 Members Share Posted November 19, 2012 I liked them too, Doug. Out of interest, why are you doing this? What are you trying to achieve? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted November 20, 2012 Author Members Share Posted November 20, 2012 Originally Posted by BonsoWonderDog ...Out of interest, why are you doing this? What are you trying to achieve? Seemed like a good idea at the time?Actually, I got started on this from a little "video yourself" challenge over at the solo/duo forum. I realized that videos are much more accessible than audio-only recordings but they exist in their own terms. I can be relatively casual in the video since it gives the impression of being live. And I can leave the bird out because his chirps etc. have a visual explanation. But it also requires that I get everything pretty much right in one take unless I want to spend hours editing images and sound, too. So, it's a different medium, really.I've wanted to record a bunch of standards (and pre-standards) for awhile, but I'm just coming into the chops to pull it off. And re-recording my own songs seems useful as well. I dunno. Just because. I have a hunch they'll be useful sometime.And you guys are being very encouraging too. My ego grew 36 cm just today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted November 20, 2012 Author Members Share Posted November 20, 2012 sometimes I have friends over Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members xanderbeanz Posted November 20, 2012 Members Share Posted November 20, 2012 Holy crap that lady can kazoo!Loved that mate, i'm going to subscribe to your channel, look out for me and you can subscribe back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members burster Posted November 21, 2012 Members Share Posted November 21, 2012 Originally Posted by xanderbeanz Holy crap that lady can kazoo! And a set of pipes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Plink Floyd Posted November 21, 2012 Members Share Posted November 21, 2012 Great vids! I think the audio sounds just fine, especially since the piano is being miked from behind. The standard definition pic doesn't detract from the overall pleasant vibe one bit. My inner geek, however, insists on overcoming my gentlemanly deportment to the extent of making me say that, if it were me, I'd give this a try: Record the audio directly into a DAW. This will allow you to mic the piano in stereo and record the vocals onto a different track. It's possible that flipping the phase of the vocal, then mixing the piano & vocal onto a new track, could attenuate the piano and pop the vocals a bit. At any rate, you'd have control over the individual sounds of the piano and voice, then add it into your iMovie project. Of course, this presupposes that you have a DAW with multiple audio inputs, at least one more mic, and the desire to crap around with such fiddly doings... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted November 21, 2012 Author Members Share Posted November 21, 2012 Originally Posted by Plink Floyd My inner geek, however, insists on overcoming my gentlemanly deportment to the extent of making me say that, if it were me, I'd give this a try: Record the audio directly into a DAW. This will allow you to mic the piano in stereo and record the vocals onto a different track. It's possible that flipping the phase of the vocal, then mixing the piano & vocal onto a new track, could attenuate the piano and pop the vocals a bit. At any rate, you'd have control over the individual sounds of the piano and voice, then add it into your iMovie project.Of course, this presupposes that you have a DAW with multiple audio inputs, at least one more mic, and the desire to crap around with such fiddly doings... Thank you, Plink's inner geek. Actually, I'm recording into Logic through a Saffire 6 USB with two mics, one just above my head (the one that shouldn't show but does on some vids) and one behind the piano. There's a lot of piano in the vocal mic already--not much more to be done about that except to stand on the soft pedal or reduce the mic behind the piano to almost nothing (it's pretty low right now). I've also thought about using the EQ to bring out the vocal.Here's an experiment with flipping the phase:phase Aphase BIt doesn't seem to affect the volume of the piano but there is a slight change in sound. Does one sound better to you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bernard Posted November 21, 2012 Members Share Posted November 21, 2012 It was all good so keep doing it... Birdy for the WIN ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Plink Floyd Posted November 22, 2012 Members Share Posted November 22, 2012 Originally Posted by pogo97 I'm recording into Logic through a Saffire 6 USB Ah, forgive me for assuming that you were recording directly into the cam.I was hoping that the abundance of piano in the vocal track would enable the phase cancellation trick to work well. One other thing comes to mind, if you cared to fart with it any more: since the mics are placed at different distances from the piano, one track may lag a bit behind the other. For the best cancellation, the two tracks must be exactly 180 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted November 22, 2012 Author Members Share Posted November 22, 2012 Things I should do first: put some felts in to move the keys closer to the strings and hold down the soft pedal. Play quieter. Play less.Then frig with the mics.I played with the phase and got quite a surprise when I aligned the waveforms. Just doing that cleaned up the sound a lot. A whole lot of comb filtering went away, mostly, and the 'room' sound became pleasant. I could turn off the eqs. Inverting one of them didn't make much difference: one sounded bassier than the other but that was about it. Really, there's just a bit too much piano even in the vocal mic alone and I need to frig with the mic and reduce the piano volume. (Please don't take this amiss, but the one with the Miss was my favorite.) That's why two of us cost more than one of us (if we got paid). And why we have musical friends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.