Alot of times i see guitar videos on youtube that people have obviously shot themselves, but the audio quality is great. And i am talking just an acoustic guitar in someone’s room. Asking around i found out that alot of times people will record the audio seperately, and then mix it with the video after the fact. I don’t know if this is obvious to some people, but it did not occur to me for some reason.
To do this you will need a video camera of some sort, be it standalone, built into your computer, or something small like the portable line of Flip cameras. I have found that all of these can capture fine picture quality for the internet, obviously a high end stand alone camera is going to give the best results. But youtube compresses it anyway, so i think whatever you have is fine. Lighting is important, as i found out when messing around with this stuff, and can make all the difference in video quality.
So the goal here is to get a decent audio recording with either a computer interface and mic, or a stand alone recorder like the Zoom H4 or Edirol R09. We will then mix the audio recording with the video after everything is recorded. The advantage is that you will get better audio quality than what the camera can pickup, and you can add some reverb or EQ to get it sounding its best.
The challenge is to keep the audio and video synced. As such, its still going to be a one take event, unless you can do multiple takes and get the audio lined up perfectly with the video. Things are rarely perfect on Youtube, so i dont fret over a super perfect take. To get the audio and video synced the rather primitive method is just to clap. That way you will have a visual representation on the video, and a loud clap will be visible on the audio wave form. Since you have this clap as your zero point there is not need to worry about starting the camera and recording setup at exactly the same time, since that is more or less impossible anyway.
So you are going to start everything, clap, and when you are ready, start playing. Hopefully you won’t screw up, and have a good audio/video representation of your playing. Next you want load the audio into your music editor and apply whatever effects and EQ you want, if you are taking that step. Don’t edit any of the beginning and ending, leave the audio as is. This is important for syncing it up with the video.
Once you get the audio file how you want it you will have to load it into a movie editor along with the video you shot. Its easiest if you have the software where its similar to an audio editor, except you few the movie clip in one row, and the audio right below it. That way its easy to line things up. Windows Movie Maker will do this, but unfortunately, it looks like the latest version of iMovie does not. There is a previous version, iMovie HD, that is still available for download. It features the movie clip on one row, and the audio right below it. For me that’s just an easier way to work.
Whatever software you choose to work with, as long as you have not altered the audio or video file, when you load them both up at the start point everything should sync up. If not make the clap on both the audio and video is lined up. With that in place the audio and video should be in the same place, and then you can trim the audio and video tracks at the same place at the beginning and end.
The latest version of iMovie does allow the mixing of video with a separate audio track, but to me it seems quite awkward. I wish there was a lay it out so you could see the video and audio at the same time. If perhaps there is and I don’t know about it please let me know in the comments.
So this whole article may have been obvious to some of you, but i hope others will put it to use. I am sure there are more technical ways of doing it, such as syncing the audio and video to a timecode, but the clap method is quick and easy, and works if you are just dealing one audio and one video file.
Anton
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