Making Audio and Video Recordings

[Mike K]

Might not be the right place for this post, but best fit I could find.

I am looking for inexpensive ways to do audio and video recordings. I would like to post music on Facebook, YouTube, maybe even develop a web page. I am trying to come out of the closet as an accordion player and start playing commercially again. Been about 40 years since I did it and things have changed a lot.

For audio right now I am using Audacity and plugging into an old computer that still has audio inputs directly from the accordion. It is adequate although I often get clicking of the keys. For video, I tried a camera on a tripod but the audio is mediocre. The picture was kind of scary too but not a lot I guess can be done about that.

Facebook does not allow just audio file. If I make videos for a page set up for my music is there a way to put them out there as something other than a post. I have a site MKMusicVA but just have a few links to some audio files.

Cannot put the files on there directly so recommendations for good places to put the audio files would be nice.

Never posted to YouTube....any suggestions on what to do and how to do it are also welcome.

Be glad to share the links with everyone once I get something going.

Thanks

Mike

 

[JerryPH]

I am looking for inexpensive ways to do audio and video recordings. I would like to post music on Facebook, YouTube, maybe even develop a web page. I am trying to come out of the closet as an accordion player and start playing commercially again.

Well, based on the topics you want to know about, one could probably write a complete book! :lol:

For audio right now I am using Audacity and plugging into an old computer that still has audio inputs directly from the accordion. It is adequate although I often get clicking of the keys.

It is not always possible to remove all the clicking (better question is do you want to remove all the clicking? It sometimes add to the ambience), but look up noise removal and learn how to filter out certain kinds of noise. I dont use Audacity so I cant help you out there directly, I am a Reaper user for the most part, though I find myself still comfortable with Adobe Audition CS 6.

For video, I tried a camera on a tripod but the audio is mediocre. The picture was kind of scary too but not a lot I guess can be done about that.

Video is a world unto itself. If you thought that audio recording was complex, double things up and thats how complex video editing can get. Not to discourage you, but to prepare you that good results require a bit more more work.

It all depends on how good of a result you want, though you can get very nice results on the cheap, it just takes some knowledge and practice.

Facebook does not allow just audio file. If I make videos for a page set up for my music is there a way to put them out there as something other than a post. I have a site MKMusicVA but just have a few links to some audio files.

A pretty good way to do things is to first purchase a domain name (which you may already have), then purchase some webspace from places like GoDaddy. Once that is all done, you can easily put up a website like a WordPress blog and pretty it up. I have something that I am playing with HERE if you want to look for a couple of ideas. From there you can host your own audio files, but YouTube makes a better host for video files, just place the links in your pages, people can watch them on your website more effectively.

Cannot put the files on there directly so recommendations for good places to put the audio files would be nice.

As already mentioned, use YouTube, link from your website. Audio files, they are small and easy to host locally, host those from your website.

Never posted to YouTube....any suggestions on what to do and how to do it are also welcome.

Make yourself a free YouTube account, create your files on your computer, upload them to YouTube, share them from your website.

How to make good audio files depends a lot on what you have now and how well you now how to use it. Good video sometimes demands more. More lighting, a nice clean location, maybe take footage while you are performing or in a hall or stage somewhere.

Here is the trick... audio will nearly NEVER sound good captured by a video camera. Capture audio on your camera as a reference, record your audio to your computer, clean it up and over-dub your cleaned up music with your video, so that it sounds much better. This takes not only production skills but a video editing software, and again, knowledge on how to make this all work together.

Its a lot of effort, but worth it if it makes you happy and accomplishes your goals.

Start by making a few good recordings. You should have at least 5-6 songs properly recorded and edited that are clean and sound good. You place only your very best work online if your site is to promote you professionally, right? At that point, you are at least ready to build the skeleton for your concept. From there build your web site, work on at least one or more videos, properly edited, place it on YouTube, reference it on your site... and you have a great start.

Total cost of this... whatever GoDaddy charges per year for your domain name and your webhosting plan, the rest is all time and effort on your part.

 

[Glenn]

Some very good tips from Jerry.

It does also depend on what equipment you already have that you feel is still worth using.
I use Cubase Elements. This is a great DAW with more than enough possibilities for us mere mortals.
Of course you then need a way of getting the sound into the DAW whch requires an interface.
I use the Steinberg basic one which is built like a brick and works perfectly for my needs.
Then you need a microphone (the list does end somewhere) or two.
Recording, even of a single instrument, is a super tricky thing to do.
As jerry says, the key clicks are not so bad if you intend to produce an intimate, close by effect.
If you want a more orchestral approach then the microphones need to be much further away but then you have the whole room acoustics issue to deal with.

My advice is to start small in any case.
The method you are using can work fine (Audacity is a great program).
The audio interface sounds a bit too basic for anything spectacular.
Your recorded file will need some compression and noise filtering to sound half-decent.
I think audacity has some simple plugins for this but it'a been a while since I used it so cannot be sure.

After you have experimented a bit you should grow progressively (eg. decent USB interface).

As for the web side of things I can only suggest that you look first at what your Internet Service Provider has as a basic site development packet.
Many have website development package (content management system) that may allow you to embed videos.
Watching videos from inside a web browser is a minefield and is not as easy as it looks from a technical point of view for a browser.

 

[JerryPH]

How times have changed in the recording world.

I started with one of those big cassette plaers and recorded myself with the tiny integrated mic, moved to a better stereo cassette recorder, then to a big 9"reel to reel, from there moved back to cassettes on a 4-track recorder using a 6 channel mini mixer.

Later, I got in to computers and with Windows 95 used the stereo line in on a Creative Audio sound card.

Today my setup is a bit more complex. The heart of my system is a Mackie 1640i mixer. It has a FireWire interface that offers me a full 16 channels in and out to my computer. The mixer inputs connect to:
- 2 outputs from Solton programmer 24 rhythm module
- 2 outputs from the Ketron X4 rhythm module
- mono input for my Hohner Morino VI N accordion
- 2 outputs from The stereo input for the Elkavox 83 accordion
- 4 outputs from the Elka's tone generator
- mono output from a vintage Yamaha FB-01 sound module
- 2 outputs from the Roland FR-8x that I picked up just a few days ago.

The mixer outputs lead to a Bose 802-E equalizer out to a 500 watt amp and out to mt Bose 802 speakers. All input can be routed to the computer, each channel of the mixer can be redirected to an individual track in the DAW of choice where any noise can be cleaned up, levels set, have any of dozens of effects applied and output to a final stereo file.

The final file can be used to create a music CD, shared in a website or used in a video.

 

[Glenn]

And where do you make the tea? :lol:

 

[JerryPH]

And where do you make the tea? :lol:

I had disable that option in the 8x, else my girlfriend got jealous... lol

 

[debra]

Many years ago I would only do audio recordings. I started off with audio cassettes, using good microphones, a low-noise microphone pre-amp, a Highcom noise reduction system (built my own unit and also had a recorder with it built in). Later I moved to DAT, and now I just use the Zoom H2 recorder to record on sd cards.
I made some videos for YouTube, still rather low quality, but to make them enjoyable you have to use the separate audio recording. A video camera will perform auto volume control so a lot of the dynamics of the sound is lost. On my computer (Macbook with iVideo) I put the separate audio and the images from the video together to end up with a (still mediocre) video with (pretty good) audio.

 

[Glenn]

That's a good startup solution Paul. I have a Zoom H4 and it is a rather nice piece of kit. You can even use it as a USB audio interface.

 

[Mike K]

Thanks for the input.....though I admit most of it is still over my head. I have never tried video editing of any type and do not own anything yet. Guess I am still used to the old days when to get a good recording you had to play well, now it appears you have to know how to make it sound good after you play it. I will give some basic videos a shot and see how poorly they sound. If they are "terrible" looks like I will have to start studying editing software. May have to wait until I retire. Right now, I would rather spend the time relearning how to play the accordion and piano then learning how to be a studio technician. Should have more free time in another year.

BTW Jerry, your web page looks nice. Look forward to more on it. I posted some audio files months ago in the board for those. Maybe put some more out I did recently. Did you study under Joe Macerollo? I met Joe a few times, we both shared an Aunt and when he came to visit he sometimes stopped by our house. I was a youngster at the time.

 

[JerryPH]

Right now, I would rather spend the time relearning how to play the accordion and piano then learning how to be a studio technician. Should have more free time in another year.

I totally understand. I was going to make a video a while ago about the basic process, maybe after I finish with the gig on Dec 10th, I will make that my next small project, a mini how-to for video and audio, nothing pro, just lots of good tips.

BTW Jerry, your web page looks nice. Look forward to more on it.

Its coming along fine. This is more about my stories and the path back to music, nothing commercial or outstanding.

Did you study under Joe Macerollo?

From the beginning it was mostly with Glen Sawich, near the end with Joseph Macerollo. Glen was certified under Joe, as I understand it. He was an awesome accordionist.

I met Joe a few times, we both shared an Aunt and when he came to visit he sometimes stopped by our house. I was a youngster at the time.

Wow, youre related to Joe! I wish I had gotten the chance to know him on a more personal level, he was always really nice... but I was just a young kid at the time, and he was, well... Joseph Macerollo, god of all that was Free Bass at the time! :lol:

 

[Mike K]

NO, not related to Joe. We "shared" an aunt. He was blood related to my aunt, while I was blood related to my uncle. So related by marriage sort of.

He was always very nice to me, listened to my crude playing as I grew up. Not sure what he really thought listening to a 10 year old playing some Palmer Hughes song.

 

[Glenn]

He was 10 once. Probably brought back fond memories.

 

[JeffJetton]

How about SoundCloud? Its like YouTube, but for audio-only.

You can easily embed SoundCloud tracks and playlists in your blog and such. Maybe even Facebook, I dont know.

 

[JerryPH]

NO, not related to Joe. We shared an aunt. He was blood related to my aunt, while I was blood related to my uncle. So related by marriage sort of.

Still very cool and that is a relation. Not many people can say that they played for Joseph Macerollo, at any age. Joe was the embodiment of patience and desire to motivate, I am sure he enjoyed listening to you.

 

[JerryPH]

How about SoundCloud? Its like YouTube, but for audio-only.

You can easily embed SoundCloud tracks and playlists in your blog and such. Maybe even Facebook, I dont know.

If you have a blog, it is easy to embed a link to a SoundCloud link, but I prefer to just save the file locally on the same server that hosts my blog and embed the file in a blog post. Both work, it just depends on where you started placing your music online to first and should continue to use it just for the sake of simplicity. I never used SoundCloud except to make a demo, and I already had a couple files on the server, so it was easier for me to keep everything local (my web server is my NAS in my home, all I pay are yearly fees for a domain name and in the case of my music blog, not even that).

 

[EMan]

Just a note on audio sound quality. This is a relatively inexpensive way of improving the sound quality that you get on cam corder mics. I have been working on getting a recording up on you tube, since I bought my new(to me) Borsini. I have a Fender Champion 40 amp that I use and a Zoom Q4 cam corder. The amp has a "headphones" 3.5 mm jack and mated by a double male cord to the mic input on the Q4, it creates a path for the audio direct to the camcorder. A - it cuts out any background noise and B- its quality is far superior to the built in mics on the Q4. I'm not sure if a better set of microphones would improve the quality yet a bit more, but the cord set up is far better than the results I was getting with the built in mics on the Zoom and right now far less expensive than some of the mics that I've seen.