Advice for recording on iPhone

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garbeaj
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Advice for recording on iPhone

Post by garbeaj » Sun Jan 22, 2017 9:32 pm

I'm trying to get a better sound on my YouTube clips at home. I've also been experimenting with trying to get a first VH album style reverb I a wet-dry two amp setup. I've got one mic, a Sennheiser MD-429, and an adaptor that converts the xlr to fit in my iPhone 5's headphone jack, but it sounds terrible and the volume level on my resulting YouTube clips is low, even though I'm playing at a pretty loud but still bedroom level. It definitely doesn't capture the sound of both amps either...

In Googling a bit, I understand I should be using a condenser mic. And my Sennheiser is not one of those apparently. I don't know anything about mic'ing or microphones and the iPhone 5 is the only video camera that I have. It would be nice if I could capture the wet amp sound which has reverb coming from my H9 and the main sound from my Rockstah Marshall.

Any advice?!

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Re: Advice for recording on iPhone

Post by garbeaj » Mon Jan 23, 2017 4:32 pm

67 Melody Maker wrote:"Advice for recording on iPhone" Don't.

My 2 cents, Allen.

Get an interface(mic pre-amp) that goes between your mic and your PC. You're going to get a lot better results, brother.

Basically, you connect your mic cable into this device, then USB firewire into your PC, then record. They're not expensive at all these days.

Here's the one I use:


You're lookin' at an outlay of about $100 to dramatically improve your recording quality.
But the whole point is that I need video and the iPhone is the only thing I've got that shoots video. I have a Shure X2U USB interface with a preamp...but that does not plug into the iPhone. Plus I need a microphone that will pick up the sound of both the wet and dry amps...either one mic or two mics. Clearly the Senneheiser MD420 that I have doesn't work to capture both amps or even one amp effectively.

The video quality of the iPhone is great, but the audio sucks.

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Re: Advice for recording on iPhone

Post by garbeaj » Mon Jan 23, 2017 7:06 pm

67 Melody Maker wrote:
garbeaj wrote:But the whole point is that I need video and the iPhone is the only thing I've got that shoots video. I have a Shure X2U USB interface with a preamp...but that does not plug into the iPhone. Plus I need a microphone that will pick up the sound of both the wet and dry amps...either one mic or two mics. Clearly the Senneheiser MD420 that I have doesn't work to capture both amps or even one amp effectively.

The video quality of the iPhone is great, but the audio sucks.
I hear ya.

Back when I was doing lessons online I used a dedicated video camera for the video, and recorded my guitar cabinet with an SM-57 for the audio portion, then sync'ed both in Adobe Premier.

Not too much of a pain, until it came to complex edits.
I guess that's a video editing program? How do you get the audio and video in synch?!

Ideally I would like to be able to capture the sound from the two amps. My understanding is that I need a condenser mic in order to get the sound of both amps in the room? Like I said, I don't know anything about mics and even less about audio/video recording...

I used to make audio clips and massage the sound in Adobe Audition and then do a photo montage for the final YouTube clip. But frequently people want to see my fingers or they don't believe that I'm really playing because they don't see me playing.

I'd like to do some lesson clips and more playing clips, but it has been hard getting good audio on my iPhone and capturing the reverb sound of my wet amp (Super Reverb) and the main sound of my Marshall to get a decent approximation of a general first album stereo reverb sound going.

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Re: Advice for recording on iPhone

Post by garbeaj » Mon Jan 23, 2017 8:01 pm

67 Melody Maker wrote:
garbeaj wrote:I guess that's a video editing program? How do you get the audio and video in synch?!
Yeah, Adobe Premier. It's a video editing software.

You load the video and audio onto separate tracks, not unlike a digital audio recording software.

Honestly, you could probably use Windows Movie Maker, depending on your needs, production quality etc..

garbeaj wrote:Ideally I would like to be able to capture the sound from the two amps. My understanding is that I need a condenser mic in order to get the sound of both amps in the room? Like I said, I don't know anything about mics and even less about audio/video recording...
Well, there are more ways to mic a cab than to skin a cat. :lol:

If it were me I'd prolly put an SM-57 on a speaker on each cabinet and then mix them to my preference in CuBase, my digital recording software. But there's no right or wrong way to accomplish that. The only issue you're going to run into with that is phase cancellation.

There's distance miking, room mic, etc, etc.

I will say that most audio engineers frown upon recording live time-based effects like delay, reverb and prefer them added in post-production. But as I said, there's no real rule to these things. Just like music, if it sounds good, it is good.
I wonder what kind of single mic would be best to try to capture the sound of what I'm hearing in the room coming out of both amps? Would I always need a preamp for the mic?

I know putting the reverb on after the fact is the best way to do it...That is after all how the first album was done. But it still seems weird that I can't record a good sound with reverb live?

Listen to this clip that Chelsea Constable did with essentially the same setup that I have:
https://youtu.be/MtiFdyPf0BA

If I could get a sound this good with video for a YouTube clip, I would be very happy.

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Re: Advice for recording on iPhone

Post by garbeaj » Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:07 am

Oh yes...Sean, rawel34, obviously Strat78, obviously Mark...they all have amazing recorded sounds.

I'm trying to steer clear of too much post production on the audio, especially with reverb. Which is why I'm doing a wet-dry two amp setup now.

My goal is to get the sound that one would hear if you were sitting in my room and hearing what I hear as I'm playing.

I hope Sean and Strat78 would chime in, but I'm certain they've got way more elaborate setups than me. It's a curious thing how hard it seems to be to get a "live" guitar sound onto a YouTube clip!

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Re: Advice for recording on iPhone

Post by garbeaj » Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:05 pm

67 Melody Maker wrote:
garbeaj wrote:Oh yes...Sean, rawel34, obviously Strat78, obviously Mark...they all have amazing recorded sounds.

I'm trying to steer clear of too much post production on the audio, especially with reverb. Which is why I'm doing a wet-dry two amp setup now.

My goal is to get the sound that one would hear if you were sitting in my room and hearing what I hear as I'm playing.

I hope Sean and Strat78 would chime in, but I'm certain they've got way more elaborate setups than me. It's a curious thing how hard it seems to be to get a "live" guitar sound onto a YouTube clip!
:lol:

Well, You've just joined the club of every electric guitar player who finally nailed the tone he's been looking for, but finds that getting that sound recorded is every bit as difficult as the road to getting the tone in the first place.

Phil is selling off his gear, this place is deader than a doornail due to all the recent forum outages and proxy issues - not to mention the moderator hijinks that went on years ago. :palm:

Spend time on mic placement. It requires a lot of patience. When I started working with that aspect of things I had a friend come over, put on a pair of shooting ear-cans and go into the room with the amp on 10, move the mic around while I played and listened thru cans in another room... until you find the sweet spot. It's tedious as hell.

Go back and read Sean's post about hiss matching using reference clips, like Ed's ISO clips or Mark's clips. That's your starting point.
Well I can't really do anything about mic placement if I have the wrong type of microphone. I think the Sennheiser MD420 is about the worst type of microphone to record electric guitar with. I use it for voice over work , but it sounds lousy with guitar amps. I think this is because everybody seems to be saying that I need a condenser mic. Everybody says that I need an SM57.

But then I'm back to my main problem...how do I get the sound of two amps into my iPhone? I don't care about "toneprinting" per se...I just want to get A reverb sound from my H9 and Super Reverb and A distorted main guitar sound from my Rockstah Marshall.

As near as I can tell, this means I need an SM57 on both amps and a mixer with a mic preamp that can take both microphones and let me raise and lower and blend the two amps to my liking.
Then this mixer with two mic inputs and a preamp for each mic should have a way to plug into my iPhone so I can get video.

Trouble is, I don't know of anyone that has done this or WHICH mixer will do what I'm trying to do.

If I have all this, then I shouldn't need any post-production or audio/video editing software and all this stuff after the fact. It seems that if I have this stuff, then I should be able to get s good live sound directly recorded with the video. Am I wrong? Does such a mixer with two mic inputs and mic preamps for both and a way to mix and output to an iPhone not exist?

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Re: Advice for recording on iPhone

Post by garbeaj » Wed Jan 25, 2017 8:41 pm

67 Melody Maker wrote:Allen, look into an iRig. That may work for you, although I think you're going to be sorely disappointed with the audio quality result of the recording.

Hell, if I can find mine, I'll sell it to you cheap. Haven't used it in a while.

Here's a clip, you can see for yourself. It has tonal limitations:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/11460610/ ... o-section/
Nope...no modeling for me. I need video and audio at the same time as well.

I think the Shure MV1 might be what I need:
http://www.shure.com/americas/motiv/mvi

It doesn't get me two mic inputs though. I'll have to see if I can find another iPhone interface that has two mics and some sort of mixer.

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Re: Advice for recording on iPhone

Post by garbeaj » Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:24 am

67 Melody Maker wrote:
garbeaj wrote:I think the Shure MV1 might be what I need:
http://www.shure.com/americas/motiv/mvi

It doesn't get me two mic inputs though. I'll have to see if I can find another iPhone interface that has two mics and some sort of mixer.
I'd not seen this device before. Looks interesting :!:

Like I said, my experience with doing this sort of thing - you'll get better results recording audio & video separately and then sync'ing them in software.

What's the purpose, Allen? Are you wanting to do more guitar lessons online?
Yes, that's the intent...and just getting better audio on my video clips in general for when I'm demonstrating a tone, a lick or an effect. I'm really trying to get my audio/video act together because of the "Eruption" transcription that Bill (wjamflan) and I are working on...I'd like to present Bill's work in the best possible light so I want to get the sound going to the best of my ability.

After seeking advice from others who have great audio on their clips, I think you are right about recording the audio and video at the same time through separate channels and syncing the two in software after mixing the audio after the fact.

I've tried it before using Windows Moviemaker but the sync didn't come out right. I guess I need to keep trying. I still need an interface with multiple mics to capture the sound of two amps at the same time if I want to get wet-dry sounds captured correctly.

I've always wanted to try to avoid doing the record, mix and sync with video method because it seemed a little phony to me, as if it wouldn't be live...but I guess that I'll have to start doing this method because of the way the technology works. All of the people I have contacted they get good audio on their video clips do it this way.

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Re: Advice for recording on iPhone

Post by Lbrown3743 » Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:41 am

you ever finish that eruption TAB?

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Re: Advice for recording on iPhone

Post by garbeaj » Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:59 pm

Lbrown3743 wrote:
Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:41 am
you ever finish that eruption TAB?
Waiting for Bill to give me a final approval on it, but it shouldn't be too much longer! I know Bill or myself will make a post on this site to let everyone know when it is done!

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Re: Advice for recording on iPhone

Post by Lbrown3743 » Sat Jan 06, 2018 10:21 pm

Awesome.

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