Live recording [Archive] - The Art of Sound Forum

Light Dependant Resistor

15-10-2015, 00:43

It's a while since I visited and posted here. Mostly the posts seem to be about equipment and various tweaks. Is there a part of the forum which deals with making live recordings, or using recordings in live events? I recently was asked to record and simultaneously video a concert in a church, and now I'm putting the fragments which I collected together. Hopefully things won't work out too badly, and fortunately someone else also recorded and made a video recording, and I think we will swap files and it'll be possible to make a reasonable CD and DVD of all or part of the event.

It'd be good to hear about others experiences of making recordings or using recordings in live events. If there is already a section about this please point me in the appropriate direction.

Hi Dave
Live recording has to be one one of the most exciting ways of enjoying our audio appreciation. It teaches you a lot
about how sound is achieved.

I recall doing a live recording of the Hobart Recorder Society in 2006 and it remains a great recording, not quite ECM standards, but not too far away either

Here is what I recall. The day before I used headphones to assess what was the best available mic preamp, and although I had everything ready to
go with a Yamaha mixing desk, the Yamaha was quite poor in audio quality compared to the mic pre in a DBX700. So I reconfigured to use the
DBX700. Microphones just using 2 were Behringers Condensers. Sound through the headphones was excellent. With recording like this I used two
recording devices, a Samsung DVD recorder , and a Sony minidisc as having two gives options later is always better. The DVD I think remains
the better recording. I used a DBX 150x to preserve dynamics.

During the event it was a matter of moving microphones to suit what was going on at the time, for instance a solo being quite different to the
main collection of players,

Post production involved editing out times where there was relative silence, and I think there were over 40 edits to do. The minidisc being
really good for this. Finally then expanding via the 150x I used a Quad 44 to get audio onto a CD.

Listening back to this recording today it remains one of the best I have done.

I look forward to how your recording went.

Cheers / Chris

dave2010

17-10-2015, 06:47

Hi Chris

Your recording experience sounds really good. Also your equipment could perhaps have been better than what I've been using, though 2006 is quite a long way back compared with 2015, so some consumer level equipment may now be better, or at least easier to use, than some more professional equipment from that era. However, some of the kit I used does date from around that period too.

More is about to be revealed - part 1 follows shortly.

dave2010

17-10-2015, 06:53

Sounds very interesting, Dave. Tell us all about it! :)

Marco.Here is Part 1.

A recording shaggy dog story, with an as yet uncertain outcome

Part 1: Request

Months ago, in mid summer, I received a phone call which I was not expecting. This was from a woman who said she didn't know me, but had a friend with whom she played bowls, who either knew me, or knew of me. I didn't recognise the name, however. Then she said that she had another friend who'd want to make a recording of a live concert in a church located in the western outposts of our capital city. It turned out that a group of amateur musicians and a choir did occasional performances in the church and that there was usually an annual concert around October.

Following this, I asked for more information, and was sent a DVD of a previous concert. I noted that the sound level of the DVD was rather low, though the background noise was not too terrible.
I thought that perhaps if a recording could be made with high enough levels, that it might be possible to do something better.

I also found out that someone else had made audio and video recordings in the past, but was not able to do the recording this year.

I had no idea whether my camera would be capable of recording such an event, and even if it could do the video, what would I do for the sound?

Intrigued, but perhaps foolishly, I agreed to meet them. I went to the church, taking some cameras with me. The interior was quite dark, but I was able to capture some video on one – a Canon SX1 IS which I bought years ago to go on safari. I had no idea whether any of my cameras would be capable of recording the whole concert, or what kind of quality level would be possible. I also did not know how to pick up the sounds. I suspected that the in-built microphone in my camera would not be good enough, though I did pick up some sounds, but with no control over levels. I was also told that professional levels of video or audio recording were not a requirement, though obviously it would be nice to do as well as possible.

The Canon is capable of taking full HD video at 1080x1920. I have another camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28, which can do lower resolution video HD at 720x1280 .Both cameras are essentially still cameras, but are new enough to be able to take video. I was not sure, which, if any I should use if I took on this assignment.

At the back of the church there is a balcony, and it was suggested that recording from the front of the balcony would give better results than downstairs, where the audience would sit. It sounded as though in previous years they had tried to do audio and video from downstairs, but that there was too much audience noise. I did wonder about the possible recording levels though, as perhaps the balcony would be too far from the choir and orchestra to get good results.

It was also suggested that I might want to use mains power, and if so, then a cable would be needed to run from what I think is just one power point into the balcony area. I wondered what kind of equipment had been used previously.

I also wondered if it would be possible to do a trial run, perhaps at a rehearsal. One suggestion was to go to a service a week or two later, but in the end I did not, as I was busy at the time.

I was then shown some equipment, some of which might have been used in previous years. In previous years apparently recordings had been made on video cameras – possibly the ones with the small tape cassettes, and audio had been done using DAT recorders. It seemed as though the recording history had passed through different levels of technology over the years. I was lent a small video microphone – a Zoom Q2 HD, which takes SDHC cards. For myself, I also have a consumer level Sony video camera for SD video, which is also now historic, as it takes cassettes, and I've never really explored how to transfer video and audio from it. I have adapters which should make that possible, but I've never used them. The Zoom, being somewhat more modern, is easy in this regard, as it is possible to take out the SDHC card, and transfer the video and audio files to a computer. There is no need for any real time data transfer.

I was clearly being suckered in. At first I seemed to be asked about audio recording, and then it was suggested that I might just as well do video as well, as I would be there! I said that I'd probably need at least one assistant to help, and I said that maybe I could do that – though I wasn't sure. Mentally I volunteered Mrs D, though I'd no idea if she'd cooperate. I thought that perhaps I could manage by myself if absolutely necessary, but it did seem quite a tricky task to manage both recordings.

I mentioned that I might use multiple recording devices, for safety reasons, so that if one failed there'd still be video, or audio, or both depending on the kit used, though I did wonder how I'd synchronise any audio with video if both were not recorded on the same device.

I also asked about what would happen after the recording, “what were the required deliverables, and who would they be aimed at?” Was it intended to be a product or products, for family members and friends of the choir and orchestra, or a wider audience?

Having got the basic information, and parameters, I then did nothing for quite a while, until several weeks ago.

To be continued …..

PaulStewart

17-10-2015, 09:43

Dave,

I've sent you a PM

Audio Advent

21-10-2015, 18:11

dave2010

22-10-2015, 08:37

I'd wager only about 1% of AoS have dabbled in live recordings of any form. Better places for advice from people with lots of experience is somewhere like www.gearslutz.com (a forum for people discussing recording etc).

Good to hear about your experiences here though of course.I figured that was likely, but also thought it worth trying to stimulate interest. Most people won't wan to or have a need to make live recordings, which perhaps makes this less generally interesting. Also, many people are now using devices such as iPhones and iPads to capture both audio and video. I don't know whether the sound quality from an iPad is really good enough for enthusiasts - I'd rather doubt it, but I have over several years seen one person take an iPad to a music festival in Italy, and he seems to be able to capture most of the action on his tablet. Of course it is rather obtrusive holding up an iPad during a concert, and if one really wanted (say for a commission) to use such a device, it would be good to have some form of mount, rather than using it as a hand held. That, however, would also require permission, plus suitable site for the mount, and the viewing angles might then be compromised.

Using more conventional devices - microphones and video recorders - there would still be a need to place the microphones where they would be effective, but also not too disurbing for the performers and the audience, and mounts (e.g tripods) for video might still have to be placed in awkward places. Knowing the venue and planning ahead of time will probably help, though that's not always possible.

The kinds of people who may want to make recordings are often musicians, perhaps for their own practising, small (ish) musical ensembles, both for practise and for performances, students trying to capture lectures, people who want to do live interviews. Of course bands will also want to make demo recordings to promote their work. Can you think of any others?

Audio Advent

22-10-2015, 14:40

Simply people who enjoy recreating something in their own living room, recreating a personal experience and finding pleasure in it sounding great.

I know people who have been to concerts with stereo mics on their lapels and a minidisc recorder in their pocket - so they can listen to the concert again. Just have to keep very quiet..

Audio Advent

22-10-2015, 14:45

One unobtrusive place for mics if you have access to the venue beforehand is to hang them from steel wires or string from the ceiling (as is done professionally by BBC etc) or even using boudary mics stuck to the ceiling in a low height venue can get good results.

Investigate the standard microphone crossed-pair stereo positionings if you're going to record in stereo - a number of standard configurations but which are good for capturing good stereo. Do some searching online and you'll find all the basics.

Audio Advent

22-10-2015, 14:47

Here's a good start:

https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/feb97/stereomiking.html

Audio Advent

22-10-2015, 14:52

As an aside, here's an interesting paragraph from that about what "stereo" means - it has nothing to do with 2 of anything!

The word 'stereophonic' is actually derived from Greek, and means 'solid sound', referring to the construction of believable, solid, stable sound images, regardless of how many loudspeakers are used. It can be applied to surround-sound systems as well as to simple two-channel techniques -- indeed, in the cinema, the original Dolby Surround system was called Dolby Stereo, even though it was a four-channel system! However, most people are conditioned to think of stereo as a two-channel system, and this is the definition I'll adopt in these articles.

So the use of "stereo" relating to anything other than sound is meaningless from a literal point of view.

dave2010

22-10-2015, 17:03

Hi Sam - thanks - and keep them coming!

Part 2 of the shaggy dog recording story is almost ready - probably surface tomorrow.

It's quite interesting that some recordings are made with coincident microphones, or mic with coincident modules embedded within, yet stereo does not only have to rely on amplitude differences. This was all pretty well known by 1970 or earlier, with people at Philips testing out ideas.

For myself I was not totally convinced in a practical way until one day I tried to adjust the azimuth setting on a cassette tape deck I had. I was surprised that the soloist (centre?) in a concerto recording appeared to move left to right and vice-versa as I adjusted the azimuth setting. Although the azimuth adjustment could have affected the output level of each channel, it should have done so equally. However, it would have changed the phase (timing) between the channels, and I was surprised that it had such a marked effect. I get the feeling that few engineers use a combination of amplitude and phasing (timing) methods, though I've seen various odd microphone arrangements used. I have some photos of different configurations, though how/why the sound recordists chose each method (different ones) I really don't know. Perhaps it just comes down to personal preferences,

Rothchild

22-10-2015, 17:13

Arkless Electronics

22-10-2015, 18:09

Stereo is a recording and reproduction technique.

You might want to look up Blumlein (Alan, I think) he did most of the foundational work (and indeed devised a technique that bears his name 2x Fig8 mics in an X/Y setup - I find it gives great depth to the stereo image and is one of my favourite stereo mic techniques).

Spaced pair techniques rely (mainly) on amplitude differences, coincident techniques work mainly due to phase/timing differences.

I think it would be great for more audiophiles to get their hands dirty and do some recording, I suspect it might tame some of the wilder predilictions for snake oily nonsense and would also help many folk understand why room set-up and configuration is so important.

A true genius who deserves to be far more well known he is!! Especially amongst audiophiles! Stereo recording, binaural recording and playback, ultralinear valve output stages, the "Long Tailed Pair" differential amp (used in most amps)... then theres much of the work turning Bairds crude mechanical TV into proper electronic TV... All Alan Blumlein! He died in a military air accident whilst working on top secret stuff for the government so his true impact on electronics was hidden in "national security" for too long. IIRC there is some bizarre statistic about him getting at least one patent per week over his whole career... I can't be bothered to google it but it's something on those lines...

dave2010

22-10-2015, 22:20

Spaced pair techniques rely (mainly) on amplitude differences, coincident techniques work mainly due to phase/timing differences.

Maybe. It depends on the polar response of the microphone(s). Spaced omnis would probably only have timing (phase) differences. Coincident mics shouldn't have any timing differences, but only amplitude differences. I think originally Blumlein used crossed figure of 8s, but that would give significant out of phase pickup from the rear. Vwrious techniques have been used, including the use of baffles between and behind the mics. Recording studios in some ways have it easy, as they can (if they wish) work out a lot of things in advance gaining experience over time, though some things may still vary depending on the recording and resources available. Large groups may need a different approach from small ones, or soloists. If there are soloists within an ensemble should they be spot miked? Nowadays some large studios use many mikes, and they may have a significantly large multi track recorder, so a lot can be done post production. I have seen over 30 mics used - or at least placed - in some BBC studio productions. Some very good recordings have been done in the past with very few microphones, perhaps 2 to 4. Most amateurs probably can't afford too many microphones, nor a large multi track recorder. They they may be able to manage a multi way mixing unit, feeding into a multi track recorder, to allow some post production work.

The other thing which matters is whether or not overlaying tachniques are used, which is perhaps common for pop music. Other types of music may not be amenable to that. A lot depends on what the purpose of the recording is.

I think it would be great for more audiophiles to get their hands dirty and do some recording, I suspect it might tame some of the wilder predilictions for snake oily nonsense and would also help many folk understand why room set-up and configuration is so important.I agree with this. Doing recordings does help to focus one's mind on what is wanted or required. Practical considerations may impact on whether some "sacred cows" actually get discarded depending on the requirements and desire to get a useful outcome. We'll see!

ff1d1l

22-10-2015, 22:44

You might want to try Pzm's - recording live bands, they have the advantage that the balance sounds more like close mic'd, with solidity, bass and dynamics that often eludes more distantly placed mics. This slightly at the expense of soundstage and image specificity.

Also, compression, reverbs and fades and indeed edits can be done to a pro level in Audacity, a free sound editing program. I know there's huge prejudice in the audio community against compression, but a little is often a good thing, tidying up the sound without affecting transparency - if you haven't tried applying a little as an experiment, you certainly should. Stuff sounds more together and pro with a little soft compression.
It doesn't have to sound like loudness wars...

mikmas

22-10-2015, 22:59

As an aside, here's an interesting paragraph from that about what "stereo" means - it has nothing to do with 2 of anything!

So the use of "stereo" relating to anything other than sound is meaningless from a literal point of view.

Not at all - in fact the word stereo should not really be applied to sound at all, except in the sense of creating the illusion of having 3D characteristics ... or purely metaphorically (as in a 'solid' sound)

Barry

22-10-2015, 23:10

As an aside, here's an interesting paragraph from that about what "stereo" means - it has nothing to do with 2 of anything!

So the use of "stereo" relating to anything other than sound is meaningless from a literal point of view.

What about stereoscopic? We have two eyes, to give us stereoscopic vision and allow us to judge distance.

mikmas

22-10-2015, 23:24

What about stereoscopic? We have two eyes, to give us stereoscopic vision and allow us to judge distance.

Exactly ..... although again this is bound by the physical equipment we have to perceive the solidity or 3 dimensional properties of things (we tend to have two of such things...)

struth

22-10-2015, 23:27

Used to have a stereoscope

dave2010

23-10-2015, 14:57

The shaggy story continues ....

Part 2: Preparation

Having borrowed the Zoom Q2 HD, I first checked that it could do playback. I noticed that the SDHC card already had a recording on it, so I was wary about using the same card. I bought a new one – high speed 32 Gbyte 90 Mb/s 600x from Transcend which I thought would do the job. This was faster than the original supplied, which was only 30 Mb/s 200x also from Transcend, so hopefully would avoid problems.

I checked out the recording which came on the supplied card using VideoSpec - http://videospec.free.fr/english/. The video was 720P (1280*720) and the audio was 192kbps aac. In fairness it sounded OK, but I thought it would be probably be better to use one of the PCM modes.

I also checked my camera tripod, and discovered that I'd “put aside” a vital part, the mount that fixes the camera on. I thought I'd need that. I hoped I'd find it, and even wondered about buying another tripod. This was months in advance.

Eventually, a few days before the recording I checked the manual for the Zoom – which is online -
https://www.zoom.co.jp/sites/default/files/products/downloads/pdfs/Q2HD_UserGuide_English.pdf
and I decided to test it out. It can run on batteries, so I thought that I'd test it using rechargeables, to see how long it would run on what I hoped would be fully charged batteries. The results, gathered over a few days, were variable. Some batteries seemed to run down more quickly than others. The best ones might run for over an hour, while some might only work for about 30 minutes. It's not an exact science either, as it's hard to work out whether batteries are fully charged, and I was unsure as to whether it was better to charge the batteries up slowly, or to use a fast charger.

Looking at the programme for the concert, I checked the timing of the pieces, and the longest appeared to be about 30 minutes, so I thought that it would be possible to record using several sets of batteries, with quick changes between pieces.

I also considered using a mains power supply, though I was wary of this as I wondered if that would introduce noise into the recording. The Zoom manual mentions a particular PSU, though I suspect that it's just a fairly standard 5.1 V USB supply. I didn't know whether that exact PSU was available, so in the end I decided not to try – just in case something went wrong. I did try posting on various boards to see if anyone knew whether a generic supply would do, but I didn't get any useful responses in time. After all, the Zoom is not my equipment, and will be returned to the owner.

I also experimented with the audio settings on the device. It will record up to 24 bits at 96 kHz in PCM, so I tried that, and I also set the video to the highest standard of HD. I didn't notice whether the unit took more power on some settings than others, though it may do. Somewhat annoyingly, it forgets the day and time very quickly when the batteries are taken out. I also discovered that sometimes if the batteries run out, then at least the last recording may be lost, and in the worst case the whole memory card can be wiped clean. This could spell out potential disaster in the recording stage. I was very anxious to avoid that occurrence on the day.

I also discovered how to zoom in and out, for the video recording, though I did not particularly expect to have to do that.

One particular concern was the level setting for the audio. I did not want to use Auto Gain, as I thought that would lead to unwanted effects, so I set it to manual. I tried to test this by playing CDs in my living room, and recording from the other end of the room. With what I thought was a loud level of music (mostly string quartets) I never succeeded in overloading the microphone, so I set it up to manual, with the level set at 10. I thought I would have problems in getting a strong input from the intended location in the church.

One setting option during recording was a noise reduction option. As I noticed some noise during my tests I decided to use that setting – though at the time I was unsure that it was particularly effective. I did hope that I could reduce some noise later on using Audacity, which sometimes works, though I wasn't too optimistic having made a trial run.

To be continued …..

dave2010

26-10-2015, 08:17

Part 3 Preparation – Backup Plans and familiarisation

Having spent days testing out the Zoom, and establishing a need for a lot of fully charged batteries, I then turned to what was now a backup plan. Years ago I bought a Hi-MD Minidisc recorder- Sony MZ-RH910 Hi-MD. Actually, as the first one, bought as a present, seemed to have submerged in a mass of other stuff in the house, and has never resurfaced, or been otherwise lost by mrs d, I bought another one which I have barely used -Sony MZ-RH1B. The original intention for the first of these devices was to use it for recording interviews, though in fact it was never used for that purpose. A few years ago I also bought some cheap Minidisc NetMD recorders from eBay, and quite a large quantity of regular Minidiscs. Obviously these devices are now completely out of date, and there should be much better recording devices available. However, I have noted that recordings made on the Hi-MD machine are in fact very good.

Unfortunately Sony never quite managed to get the issues with DRM and their software sorted out. Clearly they were more interested in stopping people from recording from commercial recordings than enabling people to make their own live recordings. The software supplied by Sony SonicStage was Windows only, which was not a great problem for me at the time, though some of the DRM issues were. Eventually Sony appeared to give up on the DRM things, though some problems still remained. Ideally one would wish to upload the contents of recorded MDs much faster than in real time, but sometimes the only option was/is to do it in real time. Thus a one hour MD would take an hour to upload. As a deterrent against people making illicit copies this was arguably a good thing, but for material which was recorded by the end user this was very unreasonable. Things got worse for some people who even found that they could not recover their own material, for example if they had a recorder which got lost or damaged, and they could not replay their own discs

I had also bought a Sony microphone – ECM-MS907 to go with the other MD kit.

As with the Zoom, I tried to make several test recordings in my living room, just to see if the levels could be set appropriately. I found the use of the MZ-RH1B a bit clunky, and as I'd never really used it in anger I found the small control unit in the cable fiddly and difficult to use.A major failing is the use of a very small and not terribly easy to read display. It took me a while to figure out how it all worked, and some serious reading of the manual. Also, I tried the microphone out in its two modes – with 90 degrees and 120 degree audio, though I couldn't decide which I should use for the final recording. Looking at the specs this microphone has a claimed frequency response from 100 Hz – 15kHz, though whether there is any output below or above those frequencies is not clear. There probably is some – particularly below 100 Hz, but presumably the output is somewhat attenuated. For frequencies above 15 kHz it's probably not worth worrying too much, as they are at the upper (or outer) ranges of human hearing. As with the Zoom, keeping the battery charged up seemed to be an issue – though the battery is internal to the device.

I made some test recordings using HiMD discs, and then reformatted some of the second hand ones I'd picked up from eBay. Inititally of course, as is the way of these things, I managed to record silence, and then noise. It took me several sessions over a few days of reading the manual, and trying to make this kit work before I became moderately competent at making recordings. I could barely imagine how or why Sony had made such a terrible interface, though the results seemed good enough.

I also tested out a couple of the cheaper NetMD devices, which take standard AA type batteries.

My original intention was to use the HiMD machine using HiMD formatted discs, but I discovered that for most practical purposes that the best of the ATRAC compressed settings would probably be good enough, and would enable me to use some of the pre-used and reformatted discs.

There is an old joke about seeking directions – sometimes put in an ethnic context. Basically “How do I get to X from here?” “Well, if I were you, I wouldn't start from here, but from Z you would go …. etc.”

Using the MD kit was like that too. Nobody should use kit like that nowadays, but sometimes kit is available, and provides the only way to do a job without buying newer stuff, and learning how to use it.

Unfortunately also, very few people really want equipment to make their own recordings, so it's difficult to know what would be the best kind of equipment for anyone trying this to buy right now in 2015. Manufacturers supplying appropriate devices seem to be Zoom, Tascam and Roland. Other manufacturers, such as Sony, have equipment which might be considered professional, or semi-professional. I have seen some very good equipment from Sony used to make live recordings – at the time that was in Newport Rhode Island, and the equipment cost then (about 8 years ago) was about $500 I was told. I think similar equipment is still available – perhaps costing around £500 in the UK.

A cheap option for anyone with an old iPod Touch might be to buy one of the Tascam microphone recorders – Tascam-iM2 which are currently around £22 from Amazon – though I've no idea how good that is. Tascam also do more expensive digital recorders. I might even try one of those myself for the future.

Other backup plan options.

I had seen iPads used to make video recordings, as already mentioned. I have a first generation iPad, which does not have this capability. I had almost promised myself to buy the next iPad model to replace my current one, but this is now going to be the iPad Pro, for release in November. Whether I will actually buy one is yet to be seen, but as the release date is still ahead in time, and the recordings were actually made a few weeks ago, that was not, as it happened, a feasible plan.

With hindsight – more on that later – having backup plans was definitely a good idea. The intention was that if something went wrong with the video recording device that there's still be an audio recording, and vice versa. Also, with multiple recordings, a final “product” - either audio or video, could be put together from the material captured, though that would require more work.

To be continued …..

Rothchild

26-10-2015, 08:29

dave2010

26-10-2015, 09:12

There's plenty of equipment for folk who want to make their own recordings, but yes, there's fewer 'single box' solutions - there are still a number of portastudio type products: http://tascam-ca.com/product/dp-24sd/

I reckon lots of folk will use a laptop and separate soundcard though.
Fair points, though a lot will depend on the requirements. For a studio environment (home studio?) using a laptop, or even a desktop machine could be a good idea. For recording live in public spaces where the basic event is a concert, with interested parties being the paying public, the event orgamisers and the musicians then there can be other constraints, and small but also easy to use kit may be desirable. What may also become more available would be remote controlled devices, to avoid/reduce the need for wires, which can often present hazards.

A small recorder, perhaps about the size of an older MD recorder plus microphone, might be placed on a platform, and set up to record. Zoom and Tascam devices may well be small enough. That wouldn't require wires necessarily, but the musicians need to agree, and neither they, nor the public, should move or interfere. Sometimes the musicians themselves are making the recordings, and some are technically savvy, so they have a vested interest in not ruining a recording, though often they are only recording for future rehearsals, and to inform themselves how things went, rather than making a recording for commercial release or posterity.

Managing people can be a significant part of making a live recording - more on that later.

Rothchild

26-10-2015, 10:09

Audio Advent

26-10-2015, 10:13

Wires aren't hazzards if paid attention to. I think most people use external devices connected to laptops and simply run long cables to the mics from that, the same as plugging into a desk. Thing with that is having to invest in suitable microphones and cables and before you know it, you've almost become a professional outfit!

If you're not doing anything very fancy and not recording any any crazy high sample rates (96khz is good and is about 20 years old now) then you can get away with so many external soundcards from the last 10 or 15 years and get great sound quality for cheap over firewire or even USB. Other than the digital side, the rest is all about the analogue circuitry which hasn't changed than much over the decades.

Portable recording devices are really for that purpose I think . putting one on stage or isolated where accessing it causes disturbance, when you've the space and time to set up something proper would seem a make-do scenario and introduce inconveniences and problems (like not being able to check it hasn't stopped recording!). I'd use the mini-disc for back-up in this instance whilst capturing the recording on a laptop.

Sounds like you do have some experience in recording afterall though - thought you were saying this was your first ever foray, unless you've picked stuff up from those articles already.

Audio Advent

26-10-2015, 10:27

Rehursal recording of me is a 2 channel usb soundcard in to a laptop - normally an omni mic in the room and a cardioid on the vocalist.

Beyond that, as you've found, the complication scales exponentially

My 'portable' (aka luggable) rig consists a small flight case with 2 x8 channel mic pre's feeding 2 x8 channel sound card interfaces and an 8 way headphone amplifier, an old Compaq P4 computer (one of the ones that used to be used in stores as point of sale registers) and all the cable looms that plug it together (which stay in situ).

EDIT: Of course the computer entails that I also pack a keyboard & Mouse, Monitor and all requisite cables too...

This then entails that I also have: a case with 16 microphones in it (a selection) 16 mic cables, 8 pairs of headphones + headphone extender cables and a bunch of mic stands. Often I'll just monitor on cans but if there's room left in the car I'll also throw in a pair of powered monitors (and the appropriate cabling for them) too. I'll also travel with a couple of DI boxes just in case.

Indeed, even with the portastudio solution, you still need mics, stands, cables, cans etc - the adverts they push out with just a single tidy looking box 'capture the sound in your head' nonsense is quite disingenuous when you realise how much clobber you actually have to lug about to make it work.

The serious pro rigs will have a computer in a flight case rack or something like an Otari Radar recorder

Given the conditions you've set about it primarily being a concert (not a recording) it seems that the best investment you could make would be in a really long loom / snake so you can set up the recording station well away from the players and the audience (may even give you chance to set up proper monitoring and hear what you're capturing).

Nice to see you using an old P4! I don't do any proper location recording but muck about at home with an old 12" G4 1.5GHz Powerbook and Presonus firewire err... box (not a soundcard as such but you know what I mean). It was thrown out by someone so was all free. Works a treat and was good enough for many professional musicians back in the 2000s so good enough for me today, 10 years later! Funny to me that people love old recording gear their heros used and want the sound of that for themselves... yet insist on the latest and greatest computer software and hardware despite those heros using "obsolete" computer gear perfectly well when it came out too.

Everyone should really be able to make great recordings for virtually free these days given the lack of value given to pretty good but obsolete and unwanted computer recording gear from yesteryear.

Rothchild

26-10-2015, 10:49

Yeah the P4 is fine as I don't monitor through it (the soundcards (Echo Laylas) have a decent mixer on them) and I don't do any serious mixing or processing on it, so it works fine as a 'tape machine' and will happily chunter away playing and recording up to about 50 tracks (at 16/44). I bought a couple at the time (they were already defunct when they came to me, I think I spent £80 on it and a couple more to max out the RAM in it.

The studio machine is a whole different story though, whilst it's a beast for audio it's pretty outdated, I'd love to afford to upgrade it so I can do video too

dave2010

26-10-2015, 11:48

Sounds like you do have some experience in recording afterall though - thought you were saying this was your first ever foray, unless you've picked stuff up from those articles already.Very limited. It was always just a hobby/interest, and I never had any even moderately good equipment.

I did have a pair of "stereo" Philips mics msny years ago with a (large) jack plug to feed into my Goodmans cassette deck. There were actually separate mics on leads going into the jack, so could be used for stereo, or for two instruments. They were rather good, but decidely amateur consumer products, and I used them very occasionally for practising just to see what how bad my playing (piano, flute, recorder) really was.

They kept turning up in boxes from year to year when I was doing a sort out - not sure if I threw them away. When the Goodmans cassette deck died (or I killed it - it was getting tired), I had no way of recording as most consumber decks after that didn't have the jacks, and professional equipment used different connections. If those mics ever turn up again it might be fun to see if they still work, if I can find a way of getting them wired into something.

I did have some slight familiarity with tape decks, having first encountered one when I was much younger and at school. Just knowing how to thread them up and turn them on and off was a useful skill in those days, and I used that in a school production, and also later on.

I did once help set up a 4 channel surround sound microphone for Michael Gerzon before an experimental recording session. I found him in his room trying to put 4 microphones into a tetrahedral arrangement. He was slightly upset when I dismantled his efforts, which at the n-th attempt he'd "almost got (it) right". He was using chemistry lab retort stands and clamps. My modification was to realign the microphones in pairs, and then rotate the pairs to get the 'almost' correct angles. Trying to get the angles right for each microphone individually was hopeless. The microphones were, I think, Calrecs - and the arrangement was the predecessor of the Soundfield mic.

The other recording I did was also with Michael. my claim to fame was that I had a car - a very old (even then) Morris Minor, and we used that to go out with a large and heavy reel to reel recorder (Ferrograph?) to a church some distance - about 15 miles - away to record a choral concert. I don't remember really having much to do, other than carry the kit, but there might have been a bit more to it than that. I think the recording was OK, though I can't remember.

The replay equipment wasn't mine - virtually none of it was - but I did hear some of the recordings via Quad Electrostatics which were the favoured loudspeakers of the particular band of enthusiasts at the time. They gave a much clearer rendition than most of the other loudspeakers available at the time.

Rothchild

26-10-2015, 12:09

I think simply knowing M.Gerzon automatically upgrades your limited recording knowledge - bloke was a bit of a legend.

dave2010

26-10-2015, 12:53

I think simply knowing M.Gerzon automatically upgrades your limited recording knowledge - bloke was a bit of a legend.No comment + Indeed.

I was very sad when he died - far too young.

He was perhaps unusual, being essentially a mathematician, but also with an interest in engineering and sound recording and reproduction. According to his theoretical ideas, which he was developing for a system he then called periphonics it should have been feasible to record a complete sound field using only 4 channels. However, theory and practice don't always go together. From the 4 channel components the claim is that it is then possible to reproduce the sounds using, if necessary, many loudspeakers positioned arbitrarily in space at known locations, using suitable processing specific for each output location.

He was also convinced that it was worth trying to capture height information as well as 360 degree planar surround.

He was certainly influential, though perhaps not as much as he should have been.

Audio Advent

26-10-2015, 19:22

I've not heard of Gerzon (only the things he came up with like Ambisonics). Just googled his image and got these interesting photos:

http://www.michaelgerzonphotos.org.uk/images/surround/(1)%20Surround-Sound-1-web.jpg

And then two of them got bored/had to pee and swapped over..

http://www.michaelgerzonphotos.org.uk/images/surround/(2)%20Surround-sound-2-web.jpg

Tetrahedral Recording!

http://www.michaelgerzonphotos.org.uk/tetrahedral-recording.html

And err.... the mic set-up you dismantled along with the chemistry stands....

http://www.michaelgerzonphotos.org.uk/images/calrec/(3)%20Calrec-4-plus-RIC-good-GRAY%20web-page.png

dave2010

26-10-2015, 22:10

In the first of those photos the guy to the right of Michael is Peter Craven. I'm not sure about the one to his left, though I think I did meet him.

The pages about Michael's work mention tetrahedral recording, but there aren't any photos [see correction below]. I don't know if any other photos were taken, but there was an experimental session in Merton College chapel, with almost immediate playback which had several ground based speakers, and one I think was on a step ladder. Somebody asked whether any sound could appear to come from under the floor and said that he didn't think it could. We talked under the microphone rig and asked him where the sound appeared to come from - and he admitted that it appeared to come from below, as Michael had said that it would.

Ah - just spotted that the microphone assembly in that bottom picture is in a chapel - presumably Merton - as mentioned above. Very sorry to read about Richard and his gliding accident. I must have met him but I barely remember. I last heard of Peter working in Liverpool around 2000.

dave2010

27-10-2015, 19:18

Thinking about this a bit more, I wonder if the Merton College demo experiment actually used two stepladders for the replay session, and surely wouldn't have used Quads on the stepladders. It may have used 2 ladders, but without photos or anyone who really remembers the sessions I can't be certain. One might have concern about the orientation of the microphones, but since the arrangement was I think supposed to be in at least in some sense invariant to rotations in any direction and plane I guess it was chosen suitably, but not necessarily in what some might consider an "obvious" orientation. If the system worked as well as intended, there could/should have been a configuration for replay using only one step ladder. In any replay configuration, the optimum listening position should have been equidistant from the speakers. There would not have been any digital processing used at the time, nor any "clever" signal processing or logic processing, as far as I can recollect.

These days every man (and woman) and his (her) dog/cat would have an iPhone or an iPad, and there'd be plenty of digital photos of the event, but at the time I think few thought to take photos.

robtweed

29-10-2015, 16:13

Very interesting thread.

Recording live music has been a hobby of mine for many years. Unfortunately I don't get the opportunity to do enough of it. However that changed recently when I had the chance to record a 4-piece saxophone ensemble called Flotilla (http://flotilla.org.uk) at a concert they gave at the National Portrait Gallery in London. My brother is one of their members, playing baritone sax.

Equipment used was my now very portable kit:

- Zoom H4N
- 2 Calrec CM652D microphones (vintage, highly-regarded mics that have been my trusty companions since the 1980s)
- Mic stand with Shure adjustable stereo mic adapter.

I have Saturn custom cables that conveniently allow the Calrecs to be phantom powered, so they plugged straight into the Zoom. The mics were arranged as a co-incident pair at 90 degrees, and positioned within about 6 feet of the ensemble. The recording was made at 96k, 24 bit (WAV).

I was pretty pleased with the results. The acoustic of the room was gorgeous which helped greatly. I always like to keep the setup as simple as possible and ideally do no processing of the sound.

I've posted an uncompressed 96/24 sample here for anyone interested - basically the unaltered sound straight off the microphones:

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/robs-music-files/flotilla-sample-24-16.wav

I'm now looking for another excuse to get out there recording again!

Rob

Rothchild

29-10-2015, 19:24

I was pretty pleased with the results. The acoustic of the room was gorgeous which helped greatly. I always like to keep the setup as simple as possible and ideally do no processing of the sound.

I've posted an uncompressed 96/24 sample here for anyone interested - basically the unaltered sound straight off the microphones:

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/robs-music-files/flotilla-sample-24-16.wav

I'm now looking for another excuse to get out there recording again!

Rob

That's good! Nice and quiet, and yes the room sounds great.

dave2010

01-11-2015, 22:55

Onwards and sideways

Part 4: Live concert recording

Eventually I managed to inveigle mrs d to come along and act as a helper, though she has had virtually no experience of recording. I tried to get as many fully charged batteries for the Zoom as I could reasonably muster, and I made up a box containing "useful" stuff, such as scissors and a roll of wide grey duct tape. Also, a power extension cable, and a multi way extension socket. Unfortunately I had still not found the missing tripod part but we took the tripod anyway. I hoped and figured that if it came to it we ought to,be able to improvise some sort of support for the Zoom.

The microphone for the HiMD recorder was probably going to be easier, as I thought it could easily be secured with the duct tape. I took several spare MDs in case I needed them, and also the HiMD recorder, plus a couple of the Net MD recorders "just in case".
I also downloaded the manuals for the Zoom and the HiMD recorder, both to my aged iPad and to my MacBook Pro.

I had been told that another tripod would await me, but sadly that did not materialise,

We set off with all this stuff to the venue, and arrived just a few minutes later than planned. The choir and orchestra were getting ready - there was going to be a rehearsal before the concert. We picked up the key to the balcony area, and went up to see how to set things up. As mentioned a hoped for tripod had not arrived, so we tried to improvise a mount for the Zoom using things we had with us, and the duct tape. This was only partially successful, but mostly more stable than trying to use it as a hand held device. I also taped the microphone to the front "desk" of the balcony, which sloped upward.

The rehearsal started, and it immediately became apparent that the choir plus orchestra was substantially louder than my experiments with recordings in my living room suggested, so recalibration was required. The same was also the case with the HiMD recorder - the levels were substantially higher than my experimental trials would have suggested, and it was necessary to cut back the recording level.

At the end of the rehearsal we changed the batteries over in the Zoom, and charged up the HiMD recorder a bit more using the one available power point. I also copied the video files off the the SDHC card to the MacBook Pro.

In the time between the rehearsal and the concert a member of the orchestra appeared carrying a tripod with a video camera and also an audio recorder. We noted that he had some difficulty in setting up the tripod because there was clearly little clearance between the bench seats, and there were significant changes of level. Nevertheless, he managed to get a stable set up, and left both the video recorder and the audio running without attention.

By the time the concert started the batteries for our Zoom had been swapped over. The first piece was expected to last about 30 minutes, which should have just been sufficient to record the whole thing on the Zoom. Unfortunately the batteries ran out a few minutes before the end, though the MD recording continued right to the end. We changed the batteries in the Zoom before the next piece, which was one movement of a violin concerto.
At this point the saga degenerates slightly into something closer to one of Gerard Hoffnung's stories. The disc on the MD unit ran out - to my surprise, and then the improvised mounting for the Zoom came adrift and quick action was needed to recover the situation. I was forced to hold the Zoom for the duration of the piece, though since this was now a necessity I also took the chance to zoom in on the soloist during the cadenza. Because of these mishaps I was not sure that the video recording would be satisfactory, though it provided the only audio track due to the failure of the MD.

The orchestra member with the video and audio recorders came back at the interval to check how things were going. We agreed to swap files once we had put them on to our respective computer systems.

The second half of the concert was slightly less eventful, though my "assistant" almost managed not to turn the video recorder on on cue, which required more quick adjustments,and we managed to get almost complete audio and video recordings, with, I recall, just one, hopefully minor, glitch in the video.

There were some announcements at the end which we also recorded.

After that we packed up all our bits and pieces, and dismantled our simple set up, and discarded the used duct tape, which had nevertheless proved very useful, and headed for home.

To be continued ...

Audio Advent

02-11-2015, 01:17

A case for recording to a computer with external sound card - storage doesn't run out and you can locate it far enough away to reach a power point. Battery run devices are really only suitable for things where you are moving around in my opinon - if you're using them stationary in a building where there is power, you're just introducing a failure point for not much benefit.

If either hand-helds can be charged via USB, you could get one of those battery packs with USB outputs.

robtweed

02-11-2015, 09:33

Recording at 24/96 on my Zoom H4N, I managed to get about 1.25 hours out of a set of new AA batteries - enough for the entire concert, and it used just 3Gb of a 32Gb SDHC, so storage isn't really an issue these days for audio. As per your last suggestion, I agree - I'm hoping to get a power adaptor plug for my Anker power pack to fit the Zoom.

Sometimes the less gear you have to carry around makes the difference between a do-able and impossible opportunity to record, and not having to rely on availability of nearby power points removes further headaches. Plus battery power eliminates any risk of noise etc induced by mains power supply/adaptors into the recording chain.

dave2010

02-11-2015, 17:41

Sam

You raise some interesting points. I can't check them all right now. I already mentioned the possibility of using a power supply, but I did not have an "approved" one to hand, and since the Zoom is not mine I did not want to risk the slightest chance of damage due to a PSU. Also, I was concerned about the possible introduction of hum and interference with a PSU. Not having one to test, I couldn't plan for that in advance.

As I recall the Zoom can be used as a USB microphone, so should work with a computer. I'd need to check whether the video also works in that mode. My feeling from memory is that it doesn't - and it seemed to me that a video was hoped for.
Also, I didn't originally intend to take any computer equipment, though I have some. It's only fairly recently that I've been taking my MacBook out to venues. At over £1.5k I really want to minimse the chances of accidental damage or theft. maybe in a few years I won't care any more.

Rob

Not sure which batteries you used. Maybe they were regular non rechargeables. I used rechargeables. Also I didn't do exhaustive tests, but it is possible that setting HD plus 24 bit PCM audio at 48kHz might run batteries down quicker.Certainly there are issues regarding higher definitions for both video and audio.
I agree that files can quite easily fit on a large enough SDHC card - I used a 32 Gbyte card - 600x from Transcend. However, problems do come later on, and there will be more about that in future instalments of the saga.

Also, I am not a professional and not seeking payment for my efforts. If I were I'd probably be charging a minimum of £200, with additional charges for post production and production of CDs and DVDs, but against that I would have bought other equipment in advance. Another tripod, for example, would have been very helpful, and some of the problems could have been avoided at relatively low cost.

I am not intending to set up as a recording/video "engineer", but if I were I could imagine significant up front costs for new/better equipment, and then I'd have to be able to guarantee sufficient incoming work to recover any start up costs within, say, 1 year. I'd probably also have to employ other people, and either pay for pre-learned skills, or pay for training for any assistants, not to mention setting up business accounts and dealing with tax etc. I am unlikely to do that unless I decide it's really going to be fun, and also a lucrative source of income. The benefits would have to strongly outweigh the disadvantages. I also suspect that many amateur music groups would not want to pay what might be reasonable charges for a professional quality of work.

dave2010

02-11-2015, 17:59

Re use of the Zoom Q2 HD with USB there is the following note in the manual

NOTE

**The Q2 HD can simultaneously transmit video and audio of *up to HD720p and 48kHz/16bit WAV quality.

**Computer playback cannot be output from the Q2 HD.

A driver stored on the included SD card is necessary to use the unit as a web camera. (This driver can also be down- loaded from www .zoom.co.jp.)

**When connected as a web camera, you can use the INPUT functions, set the scene type and adjust the mic angle. You cannot, however , change settings while streaming.

dave2010

03-11-2015, 13:51

Ongoing

Part 5: Post production - data storing - preliminary editing and processing

Returning home storing the files from the Zoom was fairly easy. Also, extracting the audio from each file as a separate file was simple enough, by dragging the video file into Audacity.

The MD files took a bit longer, and required restarting an old Windows PC with Sonicstage installed. Sonicstage is now quite well known to have been one of Sony's less good efforts, but actually worked well enough, though rather slowly. Uploading the files and converting them to WAV took a while, but was not a major problem once the HiMD unit was connected with a USB cable. Preliminary checks suggested that the audio quality from the HiMD recorder was satisfactory, though perhaps a wider stereo image would have been better. There was sufficient ambience however, and apart from the first minute or so of the rehearsal the levels were about right.

Some simple editing was done using Audacity, and several pieces were split into movements, and applause removed. There is still work and experimentation to be done. Regarding applause the final version may actually include some of the final applause so as to give more of a sense of occasion. I experimented with fading out the applause, and that needs to be revisited, as it might turn out to be better to keep more of the applause, and have a longer fade out - perhaps 15-20 seconds. 5-10 seconds does feel a bit short. An abrupt hard cut doesn't sound too good, though might be acceptable.

Video editing has so far proved much more problematic. One of my most powerful machines is the i7 based MacBook Pro. I have iMacs, but not the very latest ones, so they are probably slower. As I use the MacBook a lot, and it was bought a few years ago, it "only" has 256kBytes of SSD memory. It also does not have a lot of spare working space, because of all the other activities which I get involved with. I've not quite got to the point of upgrading the laptop to have more memory, or buying a new machine - either a laptop or yet another iMac (or even a Windows PC - which I would only consider for running some legacy programs for which I should still have licenses).

I have so far investigated the stabilisation of the violin concerto video which I took using the Zoom. I checked out the technical details and feasibility with several web sites, and there are algorithms which should, in theory, be able to stabilise video - perhaps with more or less success depending on the implementation and the data supplied. Effectively the basic algorithm is to identify fixed points in successive frames, and use these to align at least the centre part of each frame across consecutive frames. Some algorithms also take into account rotations, zooming and panning. I have now run such software a few times, and discovered that firstly it's not very effective, and secondly it's very time consuming. The twelve minute concerto sequence took 12 minutes, and the results have not, so far, been good. Perhaps partly the processing time is because of my attempt to record in 1080 HD - a lower resolution SD DVD quality video might be substantially easier to handle. Also there may be some software which is significantly more effective, though I might have to pay a substantial amount for anything good enough. Conceptually it's easy to see that it ought to be possible to get really rather good results even with the unstablised videos I have captured, with sufficient brute force computer power and very good software, but practically it may turn out to be difficult,and economically infeasible. This is the area where having a good tripod, preferably suitably greased if smooth panning is desired, would avoid many problems in post production stages. I would strongly advise making sure that good tripods are ready, available and in full working order if anyone else wants to attempt video recording.

To be continued ...

dave2010

29-11-2015, 09:02

Part 6: Post production - audio CD. Video editing problems - ongoing!
Since the last post some progress has been made, particularly with the audio. Doing the audio editing on my files wasn't difficult using Audacity, though some effects caused slight problems. The longest section of audio/video was split into meaningful and relevant sections. This is helpful for the production of a CD, and also removed some of the audience noise between the sections.

In this kind of work decisions have to be made about what to keep and what to cut out. This is particularly important for audience participation, such as applause, which may have happened before items (sometimes between) and afterwards. I produced tracks for a CD largely without applause, cutting out the noises between music sections in audacity, but I did keep the applause at the end, which presented some small issues not yet fully resolved. To produce a CD I imported all the tracks into iTunes, set up a playlist, and burnt the playlist to blank CDs. I have now done this several times - the process is really quite quick.

The as yet unsolved issues do relate to the applause at the end, and also to a short speech made a few seconds after the applause had died down which was slightly unexpected.

Each of the audio tracks is separated on the CDs by a 2 second gap. This is iTunes default for burning and it is satisfactory for all the musical items. The problem re the applause is that I thought it would be helpful if listeners could select the tracks to play, so that they could play the final musical item with, or alternatively without, applause. Ideally it would be good for the final tracks on the CD not to be separated by a 2 second gap so that the applause could run on naturally for listeners who want that, and this might be possible in some CD burning software. It may even be possible in iTunes, but I've not cracked that one yet. It is possible to set up gapless track playback, but what I've not figured is how to only do that for some tracks - most are fine with the 2 second gap.

I may have to investigate another CD burning package to solve this issue.

The other applause related issues are how much to include, and whether to fade the applause out. Simplest would be to include all of the applause, but it goes on quite a while - perhaps 30 seconds. If it's included at all, then 5 seconds seems too short, while 10-15 seconds might sound too long, so some form of fade out would be useful. It seems easy enough to do this in audacity, but the linear ramping down is arguably not ideal. An additional problem relates to the introduction of some extraneous noises at the end of the applause, which ideally need to be removed, or covered up. Trying to get this right may result in something which really doesn't sound good at all, and it's surprising that even after the tapered down applause that then going straight to silence still doesn't sound quite right. I wonder if it would make sense to mix in noise, then taper that down too. Professionals might deal with this kind of thing often enough. I did try patching in another section of applause, but it doesn't sound quite right. Perhaps that is due to the fact that I know what the problems are - casual listeners might not notice.

In the live concert which was in a church, we were packing up the equipment immediately after the applause died down, when a surprise was that the rector reappeared and made a short closing speech. This was captured in audio, but there are extraneous noises due to our attempts to dismantle the set up. The easiest solution for the CD is not to include that audio clip, but because of the nature of the occasion, some listeners might want to have that short speech included.

So far several CDs have been made, and distributed to the organisers of the concert, and it appears to be satisfactory for them, though I would like to improve it all if possible.

I probably also mentioned previously that other recordings were made, and I have now been sent the video files which a member of the orchestra made using a static camera on a tripod from a slightly different view point. My hope was that this could be somehow merged, if necessary, with the audio and video files we had captured. There is absolutely no doubt that his use of a tripod for the video was of great benefit, and those video files are a much better starting point for editing than our own, though remember that originally we thought that we were only going to be doing audio, and that the emphasis would be on getting a good audio result. It is also very interesting to note that the different view point from the static camera does provide a somewhat different impression of the event, and in fact having several such view points could lead to a better video production, but would require more cameras, and could add considerably to the complexity. This is probably not desirable in any amateur production - especially if problems with subsequent video editing can't be solved easily - read on!

It is now becoming much clearer how much more demanding video editing with audio is than simply audio editing. There are major issues re the different video clips to include, but more than that, major technical issues. The problems are several orders of magnitude larger than dealing only with audio.

Particular problems include choosing a video editing package, choosing the video clips to link into a video presentation, importing the video files, and once the whole video presentation has been put together, then burning a DVD, which may require yet further transformation to the video as the video format for DVDs (MPEG2) is perhaps not the format used internally by the video editing software. There is a particular added complication for music in that the video has to be linked to the audio - not the other way round. It would immediately be apparent if there are glitches in the audio tracks, but there could be some small leeway for video - except where vocal soloists are shown close up and lip sync problems would show up.

I suspect that often DVDs do not get produced nowadays, as many people just accept video files on hard drives or memory sticks, but the requirement here is probably to attempt to go to DVD as some people may want that. A cheat way would be to produce a divx DVD, which would probably work in a lot of DVD players, but not all, as the standard is for MPEG2. Also, not all computers have DVD writers these days, though my iMacs do. Newer ones, which might be easier to work with, don't.

So far I have not been too successful with video processing, which I've been trying to do using versions of iMovie on iMacs and my MBP. Perhaps I did pick up a bargain software package on Friday (Black Friday - under half the previous price), with Adobe Photoshop 14 and Premiere 14, and that might help to overcome some of the video editing issues when it arrives, but it's an as yet unknown quantity to me, and I won't know whether the Premiere package will help or solve the major problems for a little while.

If I can avoid it, I'd prefer not to have to go back to using Windows, though I do have copies of Movie Plus from Serif which might work for the video editing.
Apparently there isn't too much available for Linux either. This article - http://opensource.com/life/15/1/current-state-linux-video-editing - suggests Blender - and it will run on Mac OS X too, though as that article suggests the interface is odd, and it may take a lot of head scratching to make that work.

It is really important to keep control of the time line for both video and audio - and as mentioned in the article re Blender, not all packages do this, or do this well.

The work on video editing and DVD production is on going, and difficult!

To be continued.

dave2010

05-12-2015, 20:28

Part 7: Ongoing video problems.
Although ideally I would like to be able to do video editing, I now have a slightly different proposition, due to the need to get at least a partial result out fairly soon. I have received some video material from someone else, who agreed to share material with me. In some ways it is very much better than my own - at least the use of a stable platform helped enormously, though there are other issues. At least it would be good enough as a first attempt. The video appears to be in MP4 with audio in AC3. Ideally I'd like to trim the video, but if that's not possible quickly, then I would just put the video on to a DVD. It turns out that with the Apple kit I have at present - I have several machines - even that is non-trivial. I should be able to do it with the newly purchased video editor (Premiere for Mac), but that seems to require me to update the OS, which is a further not fully expected hassle. I have a choice of machines to "upgrade", but all would require some sys admin work to create space, and then do the OS install - probably to El Capitain, or maybe to one of the intermediate OS versions - Mavericks or Yosemite, which some people still recommend over El Capitain.

Video format conversions are a major problem, and finding packages which will either "just do what is needed" transparently, or using packages which do managed conversion to appropriate formats is a problem, from where I am at present. My understanding is that the video material should be converted to MPEG2 in order to create the DVD. It is frustrating to be able to view the video on screen, but not get it directly onto DVD.

A fall back position might be to go very retrograde, and see if I could do the work on an old PC machine running Win XP. I had no idea that working with video could be such a pain.

The one thing which I have found easy is to strip out the audio from the newly supplied video files - as before by drag and drop into Audacity. It pulled out the AC3 tracks easily, and when I have time I can compare the quality with the recordings I have already processed. So far, however, I don't think there is much to choose between the different audio recordings, though there might be different extraneous noises on the new material. I'd have to listen more carefully however, and I do think that there might be a higher level of background noise from the video recordings - though these were done using a separate microphone - not just an inbult one in the video camera. I also wonder, looking at the Audacity waveform envelopes, if the AC3 video material has been automatically compressed, but it's only a slight suspicion that there might be some dynamic compression. It may not have been - further work and checks needed. - and it might not matter too much anyway.

On going - work (slowly) in progress.

To be continued.

dave2010

07-12-2015, 08:05

Some success!

After posting here, and on other boards, and also consulting friends for advice, I downloaded a copy of Toast DVD from the Apple Store. I wasn't completely prepared for what happened next.

Toast exists in several versions, including one expensive one - Toast 14 Titanium is over £70 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roxio-Toast-14-Titanium-Mac/dp/B00YU368CC/ref=sr_1_1?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid=1449474600&sr=1-1&keywords=Toast+video+software

After throwing a fit about the cost, I discovered the App store version Toast DVD, and apparently it can be run on several machines within a family or household, so that's good. £14.99 is a lot cheaper! There is also an in app purchase option for a Blu Ray plug in, if anywone wants that, which almost doubles the total cost.

I have not tried any editing with Toast DVD - simply burnt a DVD with almost ready to go material on. Burning is really slow .... s l o o o w w w w w w w.

This is probably because of the conversion process of some video files to MPEG2 for the DVD.

I have made a DVD of the first three items in the concert. Now I know it's possible, I should be able to put the last item on another DVD, and if that's OK then I could probably redo the whole thing and get the whole concert on to one DVD.

I think it took around 4 hours to make the DVD - which was very scary. I left the computer with the DVD running and went to bed. At that time the burning program had already been running for a couple of hours, and it seemed to be only around half way through. The good thing is that it did end and a DVD popped out.

I could barely believe how long it took to do the DVD, and of course it's still not right - BUT I do now have a DVD which plays in a Blu Ray player (it's a DVD though, not a Blu Ray) and I can skip through it using the DVD chapters. It's really not very well laid out, or labelled, so that will probably have to be done again.

Having done this once, I do now wonder whether the DVD burning phase, which appears to require a massively long and slow conversion of the file formats to MPEG2 is really the dominant factor. It is possible that video editing, with good tools, might actually be relatively easier, or at least less scary. I don't know at what time the DVD burning was actually completed, but it may well have taken 4 hours for DVD with just a tad over one hours music and video, so perhaps 25% real playback time.

I also set the burning process to the highest quality level, so it may be that using a lower quality level would give significantly faster results, which could at least be useful for producing test DVDs - and that would be worth doing if the total elapsed time were reduced very significantly. Otherwise it's probably best to stick with the highest possible quality levels.

The first DVD was produced on an iMac - a few years old, with a Core Duo processor.

I do also have a significantly faster computer - my i7 MBP laptop, which might reduce the DVD burning time somewhat, though I'm uncertain whether it would like running that software. It does get hot sometimes, and I don't want to overheat it. At least I should be able to run the burning software on that as well - though I think the editing packages only have licenses for specific machines.

For the first time at least I think that one word applies to carrying out the burning process - Courage!
Another word would be - Scary - though I've already used that in a previous sentence.

DVD burning seems generally to be considered to be an overnight process, or at least that's what others are now telling me.

At least some progress has been made.

To be continued.

dave2010

10-12-2015, 08:10

Having successfully, but very slowly, created a DVD which plays in my Blu Ray player - allbeit with some navigational issues, I turned to copying the DVD. Allegedly Toast DVD will do that job, as there is a Copy tab in the interface. All that seemed to happen was that it opened up the DVD - and looked like it was playing the video. There is/was no explanation of the process, which seems very poor to me. I gave up on that.

As it happens Disk Utility within Mac OS X does the job quite well. I am slightly nervous of using Disk Utility, as in the worst case it can be used to inadvertently erase one's main system hard drive, but providing users are aware (very) of the dangers that can be avoided. Using Disk Utility a .dmg file (disk image) of the DVD is quite easy to create, and then myultiple copies of that can be burnt to blak DVDs. The process is not ultra quick, but it is not too lengthy either, and several DVDs can be made inside an hour.

As a first draft several copies of the oconcert DVD have been made, and I'll send them out shortly to the organisers. The next step is to go back to editing, and to produce a better version, now that I can see that the process is feasible. I think the first step will be to split each section of the concert video into smaller secions, and maybe do some trimming of each clip as well - though that might then force me to have to use video transitions between sections. Butt joins of sections might not look so good, so maybe fade out/fade back in video or still frames with section titles on would be the way to go.

The first thing is to get the video split up into more manageable chunks - say each movement of the music pieces.
In parallel I may revisit the DVD creation process to see if I can improve the appearance and navigational aspect of finished DVDs.

To be continued.

dave2010

03-02-2016, 18:55

It's been a while since my last post. Christmas intervened, though I did manage to make a first draft copy of the DVD, as mentioned in Part 9.

I tried various editing tools to see if any would do the kind of job I wanted. I'd already mentioned that I got a copy of Adobe Premiere Elements 14 way back in November when it was on offer, but I wasn't able to try it out as it requires Mac OS X versions 9 or 10 (Mavericks or Yosemite) and perhaps also the very recent version 11 (El Capitan). Although I have several Apple machines (don't ask!) I was reluctant to convert them all to El Capitan. I considered "updating" my MacBook Pro, but although that's probably the fastest machine I have, it does get a bit hot under load. Also I didn't particularly want to do video editing on a smallish screen.

An added complication was the rather congested file store on several of my machines. I wanted to be sure that I wouldn't lose files - certainly not the important ones, and I didn't know how much spare space would be needed for any upgrade to take place. I eventually experimented with the installation of El Capitan using a Mac Mini which happens to have an almost empty disk drive. That took a while, and that time round I missed grabbing the installer file for El Capitan. I then installed Premiere Elements, which does run OK, and I was at first rather bewildered by the user interface, though it did look as though with a bit of effort it would more or less do what I'd hoped for.

After a while I turned to an iMac, this one having very little spare space, and also a limited main memory (only 4 Gbytes). Downloading El Capitan didn't seem so bad this time round, and I also managed to capture the El Capitan installer, which gets put into the Applications folder. The latest version is 6.2 Gbytes, and it will fit on a USB stick. I did think of making a bootable system on a USB stick, though I've not done so yet, and in fact I may not bother, but as I have the file I can do that later if I want to. There were some compatibility issues with the install this time round - though seemingly nothing too serious. One or two programs were incompatible, but since I don't use that doesn't matter. I had spent days making backups using SuperDuper! and Time Machine - and I also lived very slightly dangerously by not doing a Carbon Copy Cloner copy as well, as I figured that the backups I'd made from the other install on the Mac Mini would be good enough - in the event that things went really bad.

My initial impressions of El Capitan were a bit odd. It seemed very slow at first, so I did some searches, and found others had commented on that. However, some suggested that the speed would improve over a few days, and indeed that seems to have happened. Perhaps the OS takes time to settle down - the memory management system is different, and there is time spent indexing files. One slightly annoying thing is the Time Machine icon, which does not show up properly when the machine is turned on, but it mostly does show OK if the Finder is stopped and Relaunched.

There are some moderately nice - or at least not too annoying - features of El Capitan. On a large display the split screen feature is very helpful, though can be tricky to get to work - and it can be tricky to keep the relevant windows where one wants them, or properly active. Some applications are more - or less - cooperative. It is possible to run Firefox and Chrome with side by side windows, which is sometimes useful.

OK - now back to video editing. This has been an "interesting" learning experience, but I'm now starting to put the video into the kind of format I'd originally hoped for. I can now put in titles and labels - though the easiest way seems to be to use Powerpoint, and then to make a movie from Powerpoint and import it into Premiere. The ppt video can either be put on its own video track, or merged with others. There are video merge modes which work reasonably well. This really does seem a lot easier than trying to make up titles and labels within Premiere.

I have also found out how to pan and zoom, and include still images, so the project has gotten a lot more interesting rather quickly. However, I have around 2 hours of material (more if you consider I've got a couple of different copies from different views) and it's taken hours just to find out how to get a reasonable but not finalised version of the opening intro and music, and that lasts about 7 minutes. Still, progress has been made.

More of this in the next few weeks.

dave2010

29-02-2016, 10:18

Some of this project is now falling into place, and some of the issues have now largely been resolved, perhaps not completely satisfactorily, but maybe good enough given the constraints.

I eventually figured out a way to get the different audio tracks synchronised well enough in Adobe Premiere Elements 14 (PE14), and also to link the video and audio so that they (hopefully) won't come unsynchronised again - though there does always seem to be a slight danger that this could happen due to a finger slip. Looking for spikes in the audio doesn't work quite as easily as one might hope, as the track with the most stable video also has a digitally compressed audio track. The compression does smooth out the waveforms quite a lot, so it is much harder to identify points to synchronise. To get that done I had to look for hard edges in the waveform, and expand the timeline at those points, and just hope it'd all work. It does seem to have done so.

I also wanted to switch between camera views. I'm not sure if PE14 has a multi-cam facility, which is possible in the pro versions of Premiere - almost certainly not. To see how to do multi-cam in the pro versions see tutorials such as this one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_vRTbLn4lk There are others, just look for "multi-cam Premiere".

Given that those techniques probably don't work in PE14, what to do? What seems to work is the following.

Get the videos and the sound track into PE14. Get the sound track synchronised, and link the tracks.Put the most stable video on the top track.

Then, if there's a point where there's a switch to the other camera needed, start a new clip at that point, and also at the end point. Having got the start and end points set up, select the clip for the upper video, and then from the Clip menu use Disable. An alternative might be to have the clips the other way round, then Enable the clips which are wanted, but simply disabling the top track seems to work well enough. If it's hard to find the start and end points for one clip, simply put in more clips, and then figure out which one's to enable/disable afterwards.

There are a few more tweaks to do, and a lot of the time has been spent learning how to do the various tricks in PE14.

Re my hardware, I ordered a further 8 Gbytes of memory for the iMac from Crucial, and to my surprise and delight it was delivered the next day, even though I did not pay any extra for 1 day delivery. This was installed in 2 stages due to stiffness in the contacts. I tried to follow the procedure shown in this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4UqhXIcEQ4 Originally I was just going to put the two extra modules into the machine, but this seemed very hard to do - it seemed like a lot of brute force would be needed. So what I actually did instead was to take out the original 4 Gbytes (2 x 2Gbyte modules) and then insert the new modules into the vacated slots, and then checked that the machine still worked. It did. Then I tried to put the original modules back into the previously empty slots - which was quite hard, but did work after considerable force, and the machine now has 12 Gbytes. I could expand up to 16 Gbytes if I decide this isn't enough - though it seems to be, for the moment. The rather useful Memory Monitor app (from the App store) does show that there is still around 15% of memory free, even after substantial editing and other tasks, and there is no need to use the Optimize feature of that app to change the memory state - so far!

The effect of the extra memory is to give perhaps a slight speed improvement on critical tasks, so for example video rendering doesn't go much faster than before. However, what is now possible, is that it is now feasible to do other tasks while the rendering is taking place. Before the whole operation of the machine was totally clunky. The moral of this is that if you have important tasks which are very slow on your machine, then putting more memory in probably won't make much difference, but will make your machine much easier to use.

If file and disk accesses are still slowing your work down, then replacing drives with SSDs should speed things up, but it that doesn't help, then the only real alternative (more expensive ... !!!) is to buy a new machine with a faster processor - higher clock rate, more cores etc., and make sure that the software you use is taking full advantage of the hardware.

So - right now I've almost got a usable video of one 12 minute section - single piece - of the whole concert - so only another hour and a quarter's worth of video to go - but hopefully that will now be much more straightforward, as I now know how to switch between the cameras and do post production zoom and pan and a few other hopefully useful techniques.

I'll come back when I've got more of this done.

dave2010

01-03-2016, 10:36

A slight breakthrough this morning. Yesterday I discovered that it's possible to do Picture in Picture (PiP) effects with Adobe Premere Elements 14. I'm still not fully up to speed with the user interface (UI) so when I started on a new section of editing today, as with some of the other parts of the concert, with essentially three components - 1. good, boring, very stable video 2. rather unstable video (at times) but with some (occasionally) better close up shots, and 3. better quality sound track, I was able to synchronise these much more quickly than on earlier occasions. However, after fiddling around for a little while I noticed a blue circle with a plus sign '+' in the video display. I've still not quite fully figured that out! I think maybe it shows when two or more videos are enabled for display.

However, I then found that I could do PiP with the videos 1 and 2, and this promises to be a very useful discovery. The reason for this is that I should now be able to do much more accurate colour balancing between the videos, as it's possible to move the PiP window over different parts of the main window, and try to do fairly good colour matching. That was one major problem with the video I put together yesterday. I tried to do sensible colour matching using white balance matching, but it didn't seem to work well [whatever happened to the old technique which was in some older photo packages of selecting white areas and doing auto match? doesn't seem to be in so many packages these days ....], whereas this PiP colour match technique does seem to have a lot of promise. Let's hope it turns out that way.

I don't really need or perhaps even want PiP, but as a technique for getting the colours adjusted it may well turn out to be invaluable, for this and future videos.

dave2010

28-03-2016, 10:48

Over the last few weeks I have made a few discoveries, and some more progress. One is a realisation that colour matching is perhaps an inexact science, and that other factors may come in. Arguably changes to the recorded colours may be necessary to give a pleasant effect, though if one wants a "faithful" rendition of what was seen, then yet again a different approach may be needed. The particular concert I recorded was held in a church and the flooring under the orchestra seems to have been aa medium yellowish/green mat - which I have just noticed is like a slightly lighter version of the mustard coloured surround for this web site! This is not particularly good to look at. I can adjust the colours to get the church walls balanced between the two camera views, but getting that mat sorted - it's very hard, and not very rewarding. Also the overall perceived colour balance changes if parts of the scene are selected by zooming in. I have now worked out ways of zooming in to get closer to the action, and up to a point that does improve things quite a lot. However, I am seriously wondering whether to change the colour of the mat which could give a much easier scene to look at, but would then certainly not be faithful to the reality in the church.

Zooming in has a number of advantages. It allows some points in the action to be highlighted. It also can remove some distractions (e.g members of the audience waving their hands, foot tapping, or even getting up and walking out) from the scene. However zooming to get really close shots may introduce too much digital noise. A mistake I made with the video recording on the Zoom camera was to use the zoom on that during one of the performances to get a close up of the soloist. The mistake was that the particular camera/microphone only has digital zoom. I might just as well have kept the full scene recorded, and done the close-up zoom post production. This will be an issue for any device which has only digital zoom, such as iPads, iPhones etc. On the other hand, "live" zooming could be very useful with a camera with optical zoom, as optical zoom would achieve the (hopefully wanted) close up effect and would give a much better digital recording. Even an old SD video camera (I have one, but hardly ever used it) might be useful for close-up shots if it has a good zoom lens, as the recorded output could be added into the final mix.

This takes me on to the next few discoveries. Essentially I have been trying to do multi-cam work. If I had thought about this more beforehand I might have tried to use more cameras, though that would have presented greater logistical problems on the day, and probably also have created more issues for post production, though at least I would have captured the required "raw footage", and the final result and quality would have been better. On the other hand, if I'd thought hard enough about this beforehand I might have decided not to do the project at all :) which could have been a very sensible option.

I switched from using Adobe Premiere Elements to Final Cut Pro X - using a trial copy, as it seems that can do clip synchronisation, and also multi-cam. It took quite a long while to figure out how to use FCPX even moderately effectively. I improved my computer hardware in several ways - more memory, maybe faster backing store - including a 240 Gbyte SSD from Crucial, yet editing was still rather slow. I stumbled across a reference to proxy data - at which point I realised that some software (e.g FCPX) can generate what is known as proxy data to speed up the editing. It takes some while for the software to generate the proxy data - essentially lower quality data of the raw original data, but once that has been done editing is much faster. For my purposes this gives a greater speed improvement than trying to improve the hardware. The final target output is not compromised, as the final render is done using either the original data, or the best quality intermediate data handled by the post production software. In the case of Apple software this is usually ProRes 422 for FCPX, or may be AIC for iMovie - that's Apple Intermediate Codec (8 bit 4:2:0).

Nowadays more up to date computers can do the editing fast enough in real time (arguably) though the use of proxy data might still be very useful if 4k raw footage is to be included. Professional organisations doing this kind of thing "for a living" very probably can beat the performance issues over the head by using significantly higher performance hardware - e.g Mac Pro computers with 12 core processors, and clusters of machines on a network.

There are still some problems to sort out. This kind of production where it is required to keep the sound track in sync with the video for long periods is, IMO, significantly different from many other film productions, where the sound track can slip, clips can be shorted, lengthened etc. using some of the common editing techniques (e.g roll edit, slip edit, slide edit, ripple edit). For exact timing required in music, techniques such as ripple edit, which might work for a video of holiday sequences, just won't work.

PaulStewart

28-03-2016, 11:13

dave2010

28-03-2016, 22:33

Hi Dave,

Interesting as your trudge through video production may be to some, I have to confess I can't see the relevance to an audio forum. I know this started with audio but seems to have drifted :) BTW, unless you have proper grading software, colour grading in post is always pants. The pro approach is to balance the source lighting.Hi Paul,

This didn't start out that way. I was asked to do what I thought was going to be an audio recording.I actually did the audio recording very quickly, and produced a CD of the whole concert wtih hardly any editing. I might have tweaked it further, but there really diddn't seem any great need.

I did feel slightly inveigled into doing video. That wasn't my original intention at all. I have since been trying to overcome some of the problems which I created for myself by what now seem to be elementary mistakes. My original priority was to focus on the audio. Now I have some rather less than ideal video footage, and I'm trying to massage it all into something watchable. My own assessment is that I am partially succeeding, and of course, if I were to do it again, I'd do it all differently, though probably make other mistakes.

I have discovered a few things about video editing tools though, which might be useful for audio. Some video editing software can handle multi track software. Also, it's possible to synchronise tracks accurately and automatically with some packages, such as FCPX.

Thanks for the comment re colour grading - though I had no control over lighting at a public performance.

dave2010

01-04-2016, 09:26

Here is a short comment on the use of audio with video by Izzy Hyman - http://www.izzyvideo.com/nat-sound/#more-6675 He even mentions microphones, for those who are interested.

I have learnt quite a lot about Final Cut Pro X from Izzy's videos. The basic course is free to watch. It may be too late to benefit, but he was offering a bundle including his advanced course as well as the basic course, plus some other material very recently at a lowish price (under £30) - it may cut off today - April 1st.

Might be of interest to some, anyway.

CHeck with him if his bundle is still available. Here is the basic course - http://www.izzyvideo.com/final-cut-pro-x-tutorial/

Of course his videos are not the only training resources available, either for FCPX or Premiere, and I have looked at quite a few. Izzy's are some of the better ones, though there are many other YouTube or Vimeo resources - even text, which have useful tips about video production.

dave2010

09-10-2016, 18:33

Part 14: Another year ....
It's quite a while since I followed up this thread on live recording. The original project didn't quite get finished as I'd hoped, maybe it never will be!

However, I was getting better at doing the multi-cam editing using FCPX.

Now new events have caught up with me again, and I have now recorded a couple of very recent concerts. I'm listening to the audio of one of them just now - César Franck's violin sonata - a decent performance - any musicians who can play that well - even with a few small blemishes - deserve high praise.

As might be expected things didn't go quite as might have been hoped, but I'm beginning to expect that now. One big improvement over last year's concert was the use of tripods for cameras, and a cheap microphone stand. There was nearly a disaster today, as I realised that the camera attachment for one of the tripods was missing (since I used it on another camera very recently) - but fortunately I'd taken both tripods out, and the removable attachment was still in that one. I didn't really want to have to improvise another support again this year, though this afternoon I was only doing audio.

I've yet to review what I did yesterday. I used several cameras, and tried to capture video as well as audio. I could have done with another tripod or two!
I do wonder if there are any ways of putting more than one camera on a tripod - though the tripod would have to be a fairly solid one.

There were problems - I'll come back and explain later, when I've assessed the overall damage! Despite some significant problems, I may have enough material to put together a decent video this year.

A quick listen to some of today's recordings on headphones suggested a high degree of realism - it seemed hard to distinguish between the sound in the phones and the live sound. I am optimistic that the audio side of things at least will work out well enough - certainly good enough for the interested parties.