Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Do you video record yourself?

Do you video record yourself for YouTube/Instagram? If so do you use an iPhone/iPad/camcorder ?do you have s tripod or do you set it up on the piano ? I’d love to know !

I use a tripod and mount a DSLR camera to it to video record. I haven't actually taken any pictures with my camera...imagine that...

Not video, I just do scratch audio to check how much worse I really am than I seem to myself to be when I'm too busy playing to notice.... ;-)

I have videoed myself occasionally in recent years, when playing on some nice pianos in nice locations - mainly to remind myself of what a great time I had in those places (and I wish I had a video camera back in the days when I 'Inter-Railed' around Europe and got to play on pianos belonging to famous composers like Mozart, Beethoven and Grieg..... ). I've also videoed myself playing a few pieces on some decent grand pianos (Fazioli, Grotrian-Steinweg, C.Bechstein) in studios to send to my sister (who still lives in our tiny insignificant home country which has recently - apparently - joined the internet age) at her request.

And I've also made a few professional video recordings for a piano website, for which my 'reward' was copies of the videos to do as I liked, while they used the recordings for publicity purposes (to promote their new seven-foot grand piano). They're still on a website (or two) - I believe - but I've no idea whether they've put them on YouTube too. I'd certainly not dream of putting them on any social media myself - what would be the point, when there are far better pianists (amateur and professional) who could play the same pieces better than me? I'm not in the business of trying to 'sell' myself or my piano playing - I've never made a cent from music-making, and I intend to keep it that way. (Though I haven't said no to the odd grateful gift when I've stepped in at short notice for an indisposed professional accompanist, when they couldn't find anyone else..... ). The only person to whom I sent the links to my recordings on the website is my sister. (BTW, my sister is a lapsed pianist but far more gifted than me musically, and she's the only one in our family who's actually making a living from music, albeit indirectly).

Those professional recordings were made with a studio set-up of two microphones placed about four feet from the right side of the grand (with its lid up), so when I made my own recordings in the studio, I used a similar positioning with my own sound recorder (a Zoom H4n with stereo omnidirectional mic) on a camera tripod, which I then synched with the video from my digital camera (previously a Panasonic TZ-10 compact, now a Sony a6000) in my MacBook Pro laptop's iMovie. This provides decent sound quality with the video.

I don't own a cell phone of any sort (let alone an iPhone or iPad) so I don't know what kind of quality you'd get making a piano recording on one.....

Me too. I also don’t need to be reminded about that diet I keep starting....

I have been trying to record myself more often to try to get over the fear of it!

My setup is:

Sony A7R III with a 24-105 F4 lens
2x Rode NT55 Microphones (with the omni capsules) in AB configuration (As bennevis suggested)
Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 Audio Interface
Logic Pro X on a Macbook PRo

I have also gotten decent results with a Zoom H6 using the XY omni mics, but the stereo image is not as good as if you do an A B setup. However, you can't beat the convenience of something like a Zoom and it eliminates a lot of possible errors from inexperience that you might be prone to with a more complicated setup. The beauty of something like the Zoom is that you just turn it on and go - can't beat that.

Here is my setup:

SONY RX100 III for video
SE Electronics SE8 stereo pair condenser mic (AB setup)
Universal Audio Arrow audio interface
Zoom H5
Ableton Live 9 DAW on MacBook Pro (I switched to Logic Pro X recently)

The SE8 stereo pair sounds better but H5 is good.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/feYqVXYkazSesLLz8

youtube camcorder EOS 550 and tripod.

I just use my iPhone 6s. Its primitive but it does the job, I have videos on my YT channel, purely for self-learning/observation and of course IRL, I have friends or coworkers ask me "so is it true you actually know how to play the piano/play XX piece?" and so I just show them a clip on YouTube to prove it..

I should invest in one of those Zoom thingies, but so far I haven't really noticed the sound quality from my videos or phone to be terrible. For my purposes, it is just fine.

I use a smartphone which I position on a ladder, so that it can film my fingers, and my profile.
The sound is recorded with a Zoom h2n. I set the input level to 3 and play with a closed piano lid.
I then put sound and audio together on a computer with a film software; I'd have to look up which one.

Almost half the submissions to the ABF quarterly recitals have an accompanying video now (only an mp3 recording is required, video is optional). You can see a lot of different setups and get some info by looking through the latest recital:

ABF Recital #53

I use an old Nikon Coolpix camera for video because of battery and storage problems with my smartphone. I use a Zoom H4N for audio, then combine them using imovie and garageband.

Sam

The problem with the audio on most cameras/camcorders is that it is compressed into a constant medium-volume, with no option to do otherwise, because for typical non-musician use people don't want to hassle with setting record levels for every video. So you lose the expressiveness of your softs and louds. So for a while I was recording separate video and audio (Zoom H1 for audio), but it was a hassle to combine the two. So I got a Zoom Q2n, which is like a Zoom audio recorder with added video. After ironing out a few initial issues (which should have been addressed in the manual, but these days they don't make good manuals for anything anymore), it works terrific! An all-in-one solution without the audio compression problem.

I also use a Zoom Q2N. It really looks and sounds amazing.

My travel setup is:

GoPro 4 with Tascam DR 100 recorder using internal cardioids.

My "studio" setup is:
Canon EOS M.

Pair of Neumann KM73 omnis or AKG C426B (stereo).
Apogee Mini-Me, or Apogee Duet (not as good but can use USB power).
Audio editing in Pyramix (Windows).
Video editing in Final Cut Pro (Mac).

I have recently been looking for a small video recorder with decent microphones. I have tested my mobile phones Sony Xperia Z3, Huawei P9 and Panasonic GX7 camera. Panasonic produced best video, but I was disappointed with the audio. Mobile phones were not bad, but I wanted something with audio input to plug my Clavinova or an external microphone. Reading some of the posts above I see Zoom Q2N should do a decent job. I will give it a try.

Also consider the Zoom Q2N-4K.

A little bit, very cheap and amateurish, mostly just to share silly stuff on Facebook. I bought one of these so I can mount my cellphone to my camera tripod:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MU2U5HT/

I once made a video of myself playing to see how bad my movements really were. I was relieved to find nothing much to correct. However, I resemble a spavined polar bear at the instrument and I am sure the sight of my ursine groping would add nothing whatever to my music. Therefore I shall stick to sound only.

I don't have a piano at home. Sound recording is done with the Rec button on the keyboard at home. I would occasionally use a public piano at a community center. Sound samples are taken with a camera on low resolution VGA mode. I'd open the video file with the Mac version of QuickTime and export the file as audio. The voice memo on my smartphone works although not the best sound.

I used a Zoom stereo recorder a few years ago but decided to carry just 1 camera to do both video & audio recordings. When I need to keep a video, I'd switch to HD mode. When I'm recording audio, the device can sit on the table or chair. Video recordings are done with the camera on a tripod mounted high enough to see the whole body.