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I need to get my recording game up to scratch again

dak

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Also the playing of course, but it was already night and I am not the only one in the house. I didn't really expect the first try to deliver anything useful, but surprisingly the gear worked in spite of what it suggested to be doing.

This is (mostly) Oblivion from a Holzschuh Verlag book "Piazzolla" arranged by Hans-Günther Kölz.
 
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You're getting back "up to scratch" quite well here.
Oblivion is a piece that is actually rather ill-suited for an accordion solo performance, because the bass accompaniment tends to overpower the melody on the treble side. It works better with a duo or somewhat larger ensemble.
 
You're getting back "up to scratch" quite well here.
You are being too kind. I know I usually take hours of recording to get one good take, and this was just what I could bag in one. Don't know whether I'll manage hauling in more material these days. At least this recording was so bad that Youtube's AI did not recognize anything worth flagging as copyrighted. My accordion orchestra uploads (sorry, I have no permission for showing an example) have a hit rate of about 80% of copyright flagging instead.
Oblivion is a piece that is actually rather ill-suited for an accordion solo performance, because the bass accompaniment tends to overpower the melody on the treble side. It works better with a duo or somewhat larger ensemble.
I just compared the sound in this recording with the frontal recording from the video cam, and it would appear that even the natural frontal balance would be better than what I presented here taken with separate mics. And that's frontal rather than with the treble somewhat towards the audience, an orientation that one would prefer for solo. I probably should rebalance the audio to do my instrument better justice. Mic kind and placement and gain here were all different, so it's not like what one hears in this recording is representative for anything but my sloppy workmanship. Also the bass mic placement and kind here catches a lot more room reverb, so one likely should give the treble mic an artificial boost in that category. I'll reprocess the audio and swap it out: that should be possible without reinvesting the hours needed for AV1 video encoding on my 11-year old laptop.

P.S.: this is too stupid for words but I misinterpreted the "Balance" control in the video editor and actually worsened what I knew to be unbalanced from the outset, by emphasizing the bass side further. I have now swapped the video in the original posting and hope nobody minds that the initial responses were to a different audio edit.

Well, I said I needed to get my recording game up to scratch again...
 
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Sadly YouTube will not let you swap the audio but you will have to upload again as a new movie (and can then delete the old one) and you risk the new one being flagged for copyright...
With Piazzolla the copyright flag is justified. I don't know what else your accordion group tried to post on YouTube but when you post your own arrangement of classical music that is not copyrighted you can dispute the claim. So far I have had 100% success in disputing false claims on YouTube. Sadly I think that about 20% of the videos I posted that are in the public domain have been flagged and I had to dispute the claim. In a rare case the copyright claim goes away quickly. In almost all cases the claim just sits there until the dispute times out after 30 days and then the claim is released automatically. There appears to be no way to get YouTube to take actions against copyright holders who issue many false claims.
 
Nicely done. If you use dual mics very close (yes they get in the video. You can choose to let it bother you or not.. that was something I had to accept too... lol), then you get better side to side control and can create the sound stage and balance you wish in post production.

As to how Oblivion sounds better in a group or not, I think that in my opinion, it may be "designed" to be played in a group, but it is meant to be played alone. That feeling of emotion of "desperation", if done well, is just better sounding to my ears when one plays versus mutiple instruments competing for expression.
 
Sadly YouTube will not let you swap the audio but you will have to upload again as a new movie (and can then delete the old one) and you risk the new one being flagged for copyright...
Already did and edited the link. The video is now exchanged, but description and everything was a copy&paste job, so it looks identical. Exporting just the audio stream from the video editor with "Disable Video" is much faster (for this 5-minute clip, about a minute instead of 5 hours for the video in AV1 encoding), and using ffmpeg to swap the audio streams without reencoding takes less than a second.
With Piazzolla the copyright flag is justified.
Definitely, also because of the particular arrangement. Not that it would incentivize Piazzolla to more pieces, though. And the "but he was motivated for his heirs" excuse is pretty thin as well since Piazzolla did not really actively plan for the Internet. The system is broken in my opinion, particularly with rules like "90 years after the death of the creator". It's rather unlikely that the creative motivation are unconceived descendants.

But within the current international frameworks of music and law, yes, this would have warranted the flag that wasn't placed.
I don't know what else your accordion group tried to post on YouTube but when you post your own arrangement of classical music that is not copyrighted you can dispute the claim.
It was just for internal distribution of a concert cut under orchestra members: we have some that are peculiar about public viewing and I have to go with that. But even unpublished videos get flagged. All of the flagged material (typically arrangements of popular music) was correctly pointing out the original music, though going through Youtube's own monetizing schemes would definitely have left all arrangers out in the cold.
So far I have had 100% success in disputing false claims on YouTube. Sadly I think that about 20% of the videos I posted that are in the public domain have been flagged and I had to dispute the claim. In a rare case the copyright claim goes away quickly. In almost all cases the claim just sits there until the dispute times out after 30 days and then the claim is released automatically. There appears to be no way to get YouTube to take actions against copyright holders who issue many false claims.
The system is very much tilted towards claimants, particularly large music rights holding companies. Part of the reason is that the money flowing from such organisations to lawmakers is deliberate, while the larger amounts of regular pay flowing from voters to lawmakers cannot be contested.

Youtube/Google just implement policies that make operation for them reasonably safe under the existing laws.
 
Nicely done. If you use dual mics very close (yes they get in the video. You can choose to let it bother you or not.. that was something I had to accept too... lol), then you get better side to side control and can create the sound stage and balance you wish in post production.
I more or less did (treble mic is pretty close, cardioid, bass mic is an omni on the floor) and the tracks are pretty well separated (if you check both channels independently, like on a headphone, you'll hear what I mean). I then checked the audio, found that it overemphasized the bass side, and moved the balance control to emphasize it even more. Duh. Fixed now.
As to how Oblivion sounds better in a group or not, I think that in my opinion, it may be "designed" to be played in a group, but it is meant to be played alone. That feeling of emotion of "desperation", if done well, is just better sounding to my ears when one plays versus mutiple instruments competing for expression.
Well, I have to work on my face to look desperate rather than infuriated. A combo setting allows for delegating expression to the lead instrument and everybody else staying in background. With something more homogenuous like an accordion ensemble, that does get trickier, I agree.
 
Well, I have to work on my face to look desperate rather than infuriated.
I recommend smiling, and eye contact. Not always that easy to do (I, for one, have to control for grimace on tricky parts) but it makes people either be happy sympathetically or wonder what you just ate, depending on your state…..
 
I recommend smiling, and eye contact. Not always that easy to do (I, for one, have to control for grimace on tricky parts) but it makes people either be happy sympathetically or wonder what you just ate, depending on your state…..
Hey, I know that. I just have too many other things on my mind. My usual remedy is to just keep the recording equipment running and fill a time slot (cameras being able to operate on power supplies help). After a few days, you resign and stop caring about the regularly occuring blunders. You just have to avoid panicking when miraculously you get through 90% of a piece pretty well and suddenly think "this could be the one".
 
Hey, I know that. I just have too many other things on my mind. My usual remedy is to just keep the recording equipment running and fill a time slot (cameras being able to operate on power supplies help). After a few days, you resign and stop caring about the regularly occuring blunders. You just have to avoid panicking when miraculously you get through 90% of a piece pretty well and suddenly think "this could be the one".
Yup!!!! You got it. Problem is you always want to record the new stuff, not the old stuff so ingrained in your muscle memory you never falter. I’ve given up on the 100 takes to get one perfect. Look at my recent “St. Anne’s Reel.” One mistake is so glaring to me but most people won’t notice it. It’s different recording and performing. Recording you worry that the mistake will live forever. Either way the only solution, imho, is to learn to keep moving, hoping people listen for the soul of the tune, and get into the flow, rather than the notes that are a key (button) or two off. Looks like you got it down pretty good. Good luck!!!!!!!
 
Yup!!!! You got it. Problem is you always want to record the new stuff, not the old stuff so ingrained in your muscle memory you never falter.
The sad thing is that this is the old stuff. I am just not enough of a player to have "you never falter" material. My idea here was to pin down that Oblivion version I should have properly memorized long ago while I work through several others to come up with one of my own. Kölz, the arranger for this one, does pretty good work with the chords and rhythm on the left side. I have a few other variants that use straight chord/bass combinations and partially straight rhythms, and that feels like seriously lacking something. I'll likely round up one of the simpler ones of those in a while (no-one including Piazzolla appears to have anything like that fast intermezzo in the Kölz version, though). I am still rather fuzzy about what can/should sensibly appear in the left hand even though I have the ability to play single notes on my instrument. But I am not yet in the "this is it!" realm.
 
You’ll get it! You’ll end up with what sounds good to you, regardless of anything anyone else has done. I hope.
 
My usual remedy is to just keep the recording equipment running and fill a time slot (cameras being able to operate on power supplies help). After a few days, you resign and stop caring about the regularly occuring blunders. You just have to avoid panicking when miraculously you get through 90% of a piece pretty well and suddenly think "this could be the one".
January this year I finally completed an important part of my setup that is *way* better than before and permits me to stop thinking about other things and I can concentrate just on the take.

Audio:
- I built my own mini audio snake so that the connections are now within 3 feet of me.
- The separate audio goes from the accordion/arranger to the mixer and out to the PC and I have space to record for weeks nonstop at highest quality.
- Using the 8X I use the wireless transmitter, I am not tethered to one spot.
- Using an acoustic I use external mics, I am not tethered to one spot.
- I have a monitor and wireless keyboard/mouse within 2 feet of me where I can start/stop the audio recording

Video:
- I have an external 1TB SSD connected to the camera recording at high quality, I can record for 1 hour at highest quality, 4 hours if I want lower quality
- I use an old iPad to start/stop the camera from a desk that is within 2 feet of me, it's not even a big stretch.

I am at the point where I play through the song 1-2 times, then turn on the audio/video and do as many takes as I feel I need. I don't normally need more than 3-5 takes BUT if it ever did happen, I feel that I would want to turn things off, delete the audio/video files, take a break, come back, practice the piece for a few minutes and try again, though that has yet to happen.

One mistake is so glaring to me but most people won’t notice it.
Haha... that is what we always hope for, at least I do... LOL!
Now and then, Ed used to send me an audio file and say "hey can you hear the mistake?" I'd hear it, let him know and he would do another retake if I caught it. Some of us are really don't want to give the audience a chance to ask if that was a mistake or on purpose... haha!

I used to care a lot about the most minute error, but today don't care as much. I do my best and if I try to play like I did when I was 20, I would today both drive myself insane and never put out a recording! :D
 
January this year I finally completed an important part of my setup that is *way* better than before and permits me to stop thinking about other things and I can concentrate just on the take.

Audio:
- I built my own mini audio snake so that the connections are now within 3 feet of me.
Well, I still have a 15m audio snake hooked up to the mixer in a separate room, but my laptop is silent enough these days that it is overkill. I used to roll it out from there. The advantage, of course, is that there is a docking station for the laptop and the big mixer, so I can set up everything there in a minute by plunking the laptop in place. I use a headphone extension back: if one wanted to do that right, one would use the backfeed of the snakes and a headphone amp (several small audio interfaces have a standalone mode that would work for that at the cost of a few milliseconds of latency because of digital mixing internally).
- The separate audio goes from the accordion/arranger to the mixer and out to the PC and I have space to record for weeks nonstop at highest quality.
- Using the 8X I use the wireless transmitter, I am not tethered to one spot.
- Using an acoustic I use external mics, I am not tethered to one spot.
- I have a monitor and wireless keyboard/mouse within 2 feet of me where I can start/stop the audio recording
I got a KVM extender for that purpose but never actually used it. What I did use is a small USB MIDI controller ("nanoKONTROL 2") from Korg for starting/stopping recording and not much more (one could use it for more, but it hasn't made it into my workflow). I like working with that better than with a mouse. Matter of taste.
Video:
- I have an external 1TB SSD connected to the camera recording at high quality, I can record for 1 hour at highest quality, 4 hours if I want lower quality
- I use an old iPad to start/stop the camera from a desk that is within 2 feet of me, it's not even a big stretch.

I am at the point where I play through the song 1-2 times, then turn on the audio/video and do as many takes as I feel I need. I don't normally need more than 3-5 takes BUT if it ever did happen, I feel that I would want to turn things off, delete the audio/video files, take a break, come back, practice the piece for a few minutes and try again, though that has yet to happen.
Deleting imperfect takes before one has better is bad karma.
 
“Deleting imperfect takes before one has better is bad karma.”

🤣🤣Yup, but you won’t remember if that “almost good to go” take was number 37 or 63! Plus the fact that it’s a pain in the neck to cut out the good part of a multi take file. I almost always start recording again every take, which is a pain, but easier to deal with when I get a “good” one. Good luck!
 
“Deleting imperfect takes before one has better is bad karma.”

🤣🤣Yup, but you won’t remember if that “almost good to go” take was number 37 or 63! Plus the fact that it’s a pain in the neck to cut out the good part of a multi take file. I almost always start recording again every take, which is a pain, but easier to deal with when I get a “good” one. Good luck!
Blending audio is easy. Blending video not so much. I've considered running several full-size perspectives in parallel: then you can blend over from one into another occasionally and have a good place to hide actually blending between different takes.
 
“Deleting imperfect takes before one has better is bad karma.”

🤣🤣Yup, but you won’t remember if that “almost good to go” take was number 37 or 63! Plus the fact that it’s a pain in the neck to cut out the good part of a multi take file. I almost always start recording again every take, which is a pain, but easier to deal with when I get a “good” one. Good luck!
Actually, there is always time to do many takes, and if none are to my satisfaction, it’s not bad karma to erase the 1TB from what I do not want (this has also never happened, but no biggie for me), and it is very east to identify the “better” takes by just saying so verbally, the audio on the video camera is always on and I comment with things like “check this one, just 1 mistake here” or “use this take”, 99% of the time it is the last take for me anyway, and syncing the audio from the camera to the higher quality audio from the mixer is a 5 second process on a bad day. :)
 
syncing the audio from the camera to the higher quality audio from the mixer is a 5 second process on a bad day. :)
My video editor does it on its own, if necessary very slightly modifying the video speed. It does take longer than 5 seconds on my laptop, but it's not me that needs to wrack their brain for it. If an orchestra video has been taken from a balcony with zoom from 100 feet of distance, you might (after everything is synchronized) be tempted to bump the audio another 100ms earlier in order to match the visuals better than the video camera did from that distance.
 
My video editor does it on its own,
Interesting. What is the name of your video editor, I use Davinci Resolve Studio.
On a side note, there should not be any difference in length. If there is a difference in length from different sources recording audio of the same "performance", it could be either improper settings or a hardware issue with the audio encoder.
 
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