Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum The Audio, Video Music Production Thread

I am starting this thread in the hope of having a central location for learning tricks to making great video/audio productions with piano being the main component.

It is to include audio, which includes microphones of all types and the recording devices that go with the mics, be it stand alone Zooms to other high end equipment. All well as techniques for better sound.

Video of all type from Flip Cameras to high end HD cameras of all types. From single camera views to multiple camera angles.

Software of all types that allow the mixing of audio and/or video and the know how to make productions of high quality.

All miscellaneous audio/video equipment that allows us to make great productions.

But most of all, I hope those who REALLY have the talent to teach us some of their tricks of the trade, to help us make these artsy audio and video productions. From simple title graphics, to adding layers of other add on instruments, to multiple camera angles, etc. I'm always amazed at some of the productions I see from the users here and elsewhere and would like to learn some of these skills.

So please feel free to jump in, and share your thoughts and ideas and even post your work to give us ideas or to just show off.

To start, I use a Flip HD camera and the software it comes with to crop my videos, Zoom H2 for a better audio (The Flip camera audio tends to be harsh), Audacity software to crop sound files and to normalize, and Sony Vegas 10 software to mix the audio and video. I bought it as an older version and does a nice job. I haven't scratched the surface on what it can really do.

This is my latest production using the above setup. (ignore the errors). I would like to add multiple camera angles as a new trick...

I think it possibly a good Idea to look what the professional recording studios use vis a vis miking a piano, once the reasoning is understood ( and it may be complex but not brain surgery) we could then work backwards so to speak... In terms of "substitutes" and cheaper alternatives without too much loss of quality, obviously.

This way, it would be helpful ( I believe) for folk to know exactly what they are aiming for.
just an idea.

That is a way to start...although I am actually pretty happy with my Zoom H2 audio, I know you can get really super good sound with high end mics and such. I saw one that was designed for a piano with multiple mics on a bar cross all the registers.

Any experts like to chime in on microphone options?

Great idea for a thread... I hope it will "stick" and have a long and useful life.

I have a question: what can one do to marry MP4 video with MP3 audio?

Background: I'm not able to move any MP4 or WAV files recorded off of my phone directly to a PC. I can move the files, but something about the formatting makes them unusable in Windows Media Player, Audacity, probably anything else. However, I can upload MP4 to YouTube successfully. I also found an Android app to convert MP4 audio to an MP3 audio file. I still can't move the MP3 directly to my PC and have it work. However, Sand Tiger helped me figure out that I can email the MP3 to myself and then it works just fine on the PC.

All that is great (well not ideal, but good enough) for recording an acoustic piano using the phone. It actually comes out much better than I would have assumed a phone could do.

When I go to record a DP though, then I have an issue because the microphones in the phone do a lousy job with recording from speakers vs. a real soundboard. It just sounds awful.

If I record the line out from the DP to my computer with Audacity, and use the phone for the video, how can I get the audio and video merged together?

I still haven't actually gotten line out from the DP into an MP3, but I'm hopeful that this can be done without too much fuss. It's an older keyboard, so it doesn't have USB or anything like that to make things simple. It does have a 3.5" floppy drive though...

I looked for an Android app that would merge MP4/MP3 (since I can email the MP3 from my PC to my phone, but can't transfer an MP4 successfully from my phone to my PC), but nothing looked like it worked all that well. I didn't try any, just going based on other user comments. There was one that might have worked well, but it was basically malware. Blech.

Any ideas?

This one is interesting, re: Mic placement on a grand:

[video:youtube]T8H15YJK61c[/video]

The comments/debate on YT are interesting too.

I have a question: what can one do to marry MP4 video with MP3 audio?

I use Sony Vegas software to add Flip camera video with audio, then I can delete the Flip camera sound and then add my Zoom H2 audio which sounds much better. Then I sync the two together, which is an art itself. Then you process them together which the software calls rendering. You can save it in any file format you want.

I'm sure there are other ways but I use these a lot. They will marry or separate almost any video or audio format (certainly your mp4/mp3). The resultant file is an mkv which youtube uploads and converts to its own preferences.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/MKVtoolnix
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/MKVExtractGUI-2

These are both free and frequently updated, bug-free in my experience. Dead simple drag and drop interface. Also, you can slide the mp3 and mp4 against each other very easily. I notice the audio on your opening clip lags the video so you can sort that out easily.

I've had this on my laptop for years so I can't remember exactly the download protocol but I believe the interface is the toolnix app. The extractGUI is under the bonnet and is required but not seen by the user interface. This latter should probably be installed first.

Mark - I'm certainly glad that you didn't promote this thread as a basic, elementary introduction to audio/video recording and production - already you guys have hit the ground running, leaving far behind the beginner/novice in your "technical dust" - this always happens, and those with the technical skills/knowledge tend strongly to show off (and not just at the piano) - which is just fine for those at the experienced, advanced level of expertise - but from the start not really helpful for the newbie - maybe another simultaneous thread with a much more gradual and basic approach where posters weren't compelled to flash their wizardry would be much more useful for the beginners in our ranks, who would be far less overwhelmed and discouraged by all the high level techie talk - maybe even with lots of pictures and diagrams and definitions of terms and links to sites where the equipment described can be seen (instead of trying to guess or imagine what is being described)...

For example: Instead of the question about what one can do to "marry" an mp4 video with and mp3 audio, one might give some idea of what the mp4 video and mp3 audio are and why one might want to marry them.

Basically a great idea here, but needing a kinder, gentler approach for the beginner...

John, we don't have an intermediate area here on Pianoworld, so I had no choice but to post it here.

If you read my opening remarks, I want to learn and share high end video/audio tricks from the users here who wish to share their expertise. My production stuff is basic. Most who post on You Tube know this stuff. I love the artsy video production stuff that makes music that much better.

Also we can and will cover basic recording and production if some one asks.

The name of this forum "Adult Beginner" is a misnomer. It covers every kind of player and user.

If you go to the sticky "important threads" thread, they have links to basic recording.

Some useful tips, thanks aTallGuyNH. I wonder what input device they use to feed multiple microphones?

I'll give that a try. Free is good!! Thanks!

Great playing and video Mark!



I am no expert on video editing but I recently started working with multicam videos and it is so much fun! I am constantly experimenting with new things and I will monitor this thread for tips and tricks.

I think the key to making multicam vidoes is to have a video editor that supports it. Vegas 10 has support for it so you are on the right track Mark. It is a very good video editor from what I have heard.

So far I have experimented with two and three cameras but only using single takes. That is I have them record the entire performance along with the audio recording. Thus, you need to have the same number of cameras as you have angles. One thing, which I am sure you are aware of, is that video editing is VERY time consuming.

Here is my first music video in which I used three cameras (two ipods and one ipad):

[video:youtube]LKYBMUop1Yk[/video]

Believe it or not your videos are part of the inspiration for this thread. I always enjoy them in the piano bar. Hope you can teach us some of your tricks.

Like in your excellent video, when music is added to inspirational video, it makes the music that much more moving and enjoyable. Some great real movies would be so much less without their sound tracks.

Eventually I'd like to add the fade in video like it this video after I get the multi camera part working. Looks like I need more cameras...

Thanks for those kind words Mark!



So true.

You can do multicam videos with a single camera too. I might try that one day too. The trick is to have multiple takes of the same performance and make sure you play it consistently (or editing is going to be so much harder...) every time. This is how the pros do it I think. If you do a single take as I do in my videos, you automatically have a perfect match between audio and video at all angles. All you need to do is to sync and cut between angles where you think it fits with the music.

Regarding syncing, I typically play with headphones on my RD-700NX (I have no speakers for it). But for the recordings in my videos I typically connect a $5 computer speaker to the line out of the piano. The cameras will then record the performance and that makes syncing so much easier. The audio recorded by the piano (USB) is what I use in the videos as it has the best quality (pure digital recording).

One thing that I have noticed is that camera placement becomes tricky when you use multiple cameras as you don't want the cameras to be in the video. Thus you need to plan things a bit more. However, there is a neat trick you could use if you have a hard time hiding the cameras from view. It is called garbage matte. With it you kind of combine to clips in a seamless way. Here is a quick experiment I did with it that shows how it works. My tripod with one of my ipods magically disappear as I superimpose a portion of another clip (or picture) in which the tripod was removed.

[video:youtube]30UGZW4JYTs[/video]

There are so many fun things you can do with video!

That was a neat trick! What software are you using?

The video editor I am using is called Final Cut Pro X (Mac). However, it does not have this garbage matte effect built-in. Sony Vegas might have it as some editors do. Instead, I downloaded a free plug-in for my editor with this effect here:

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/news/455-free-fcpx-8-point-garbage-matte

I'll have to search for that for Sony Vegas or Windows live...

I'm impressed that you are using some phone cameras. My Android Evo has decent video, I'm going to have to try it. Just need a mount.

I agree that a more properly edited video adds to the overall enjoyment of the experience, but it really is much more time consuming and is generally just a pain in the butt to produce! (for the most part)

Most of my videos I just use windows Live Movie Maker and sync up the audio and video (I record audio and video with individual devices). Add a title, a fade out at the end, and done.

That's all Windows Movie Maker is good for, really.


For a couple of special projects, I've used Sony Vegas. It's much more powerful, but the learning curve is fairly steep as well.

The one feature of Sony Vegas that I really like and adds a lot to a video production is the ability to zoom and pan on video, which gives the effect of the camera moving slowly. You select a beginning position and the ending position for the zoom and pan, and the software does the rest, moving the frame between those two positions over the time you select.

Here's an example of the zoom and pan feature:



I had 3 cameras set up, and my Zoom H1 recorded the audio. Very time consuming, but really makes a difference. Much better than my latest batch of stationary, out of focus videos.