I've been recording videos of guitar playing for youtube and a few people asked me how I do it. You'll be pleased to know the only software you will need is all free. Here is the stuff to get and what it does for you (PC Windows based):
Software
- Virtualdub is video software that can do many, many things. I use it for video capture, editing, demultiplexing, remultiplexing and compressing. Don't worry, I'll explain in a moment.
- Audacity is audio editing software. I use it to "fix" errors in my playing, graphic equalising, effects, normalising and anything else that I feel the audio track needs.
- Xvid codec is something you load onto your system so it knows how to compress and decompress the xvid flavour of video. Xvid is complaint to the mpeg-4 standard which youtube prefers. Once loaded it is available for all Windows programs - eg Virtualdub.
- LAME ACM is something you load onto your system so it knows how to compress and decompress the mp3 flavour of audio. LAME is widely considered the best mp3 encoder and the ACM (Audio Compression Manager) version gets it loaded into your system similar to the xvid codec - so that Virtualdub can encode in mp3 too.
Hardware
You'll also need some hardware, first up a webcam. I use a Logitech 4000 - it is a bit more expensive but has a big CCD in it so it works great in low light. That is important to me - so many videos I see on youtube are poorly lit. Sure you can spend $AUD20 on a webcam, but spend $AUD50 instead and get something good! It doesn't matter what webcam you use however, so long as it works with your system. Install all of its software and drivers so that Windows recognises it as a system device - but you won't be using any of the factory software.
A lead to plug your guitar into your computer. It is a mono 7mm (1/4") jack (guitar end) and a mono 3.5mm (1/8") jack on the PC end. You can probably buy one, or get an adapter to turn a normal guitar lead 7mm jack to a 3.5mm jack, however I made one. If you are coming straight from a passive pickup (eg electric) into your PC you'll need to plug it into the microphone socket. If you are coming from an active pickup (eg acoustic electric that you put batteries in) then go for the line-in socket on the PC. Same if you are using an effects pedal between the guitar and the PC. The reason for the microphone socket is that it has a pre-amp on the soundcard which will introduce unecessary noise; an active pickup or effects pedal already has a pre-amp in it. If your PC doesn't have line-in (like my laptop) then just use the microphone socket anyway.
Right, we've got a webcam for capturing video and a guitar lead for capturing the audio. Now the hard part!
Virtualdub - capture device
Run Virtualdub. You can view and modify video here which we will do later, for now go File->Capture Avi to get into capture mode. From Device->select your recording device; it will be your webcam. Make sure Video->Overlay is selected and you should now see the feed from your webcam. If you can't, shutdown Virtualdub, go to the software the webcam came with and make sure you can get it working there. If it works there but you can't get Virtualdub to use that device it might be a webcam that doesn't have generic Windows drivers so that other software can use it. You're outta luck, perhaps try downloading new drivers for the webcam or buy a modern day webcam!
Virtualdub - capture format
From File->Set Capture File let Virtualdub know where you want it to store its capture files. C:\capture sounds good to me. Go to Video->Set Custom Format and choose the picture size. You will need to choose a format the webcam supports. I go for the highest resolution which on mine is 640x480. Leave the data format at the default Virtualdub has it set at. If you have chosen a format that the camera doesn't support Virtualdub will let you know.
Virtualdub - compression settings
Choose Video-Compression. Choose xvid, click on configure. Press "Load defaults" - unless you are a bit of a guru the default compression will be fine for you. Click on Other Options and uncheck Display Encoding Status. This stops the cute but annoying bar graph and statistic pop up it normally will show you while capturing.
Virtualdub - audio device
From Audio, at the bottom of the menu there will be all the audio recording devices listed. On my laptop there is the webcam and the soundcard, so I select the soundcard. Click on Audio Source and you get the various options for the soundcard. I select microphone, this was on my laptop. If you are using line-in then it would appear there.
Virtualdub - audio format and compression
First select Audio->Raw capture format. I stick with 44.1kHz, mono, 16 bit. Basically CD quality but mono - because your guitar *is* mono! Select Audio->Compression. Because you installed LAME you will get the option LAME mp3. Don't fall for the Windows standard "MPEG Layer-3" that one will not support the high quality mp3 we are going for. Bitrate is up to you, I wouldn't use anything less than 64kbps (ie equivalent to the old 128kbps stereo that was popular with Napster, etc). I'm still a bit olde school and stick with CBR (Constant Bit Rate) because there is still software and hardware out there that don't support VBR or ABR. 96kbps is fine; put it this way, youtube will down sample it, a lot...
Virtualdub - audio mix
Again under Audio, tick the Volume meter. This gives you a realtime volume meter at the bottom of the screen. Strum the guitar, you should see it go up and down. Now if it gets all the way to the right either turn down the guitar volume until you can strum as hard as you would when playing and it does not reach the right hand side. Alternatively, from Audio select Windows mixer and adjust the volume there.
Windows Mixer
Now the windows mixer is pretty dumb. Firstly check that the bottom status bar is showing you the correct input source. Select Options->Properties and make sure the Mixer device is the soundcard device. Make sure "Recording" is selected and click OK. The slider will now control the guitar input level, yah! For microphones there will sometimes be an "Advanced" button, click on it. Make sure "microphone boost" is turned off to reduce soundcard pre-amp noise. However if you can't get any volume from your passive pickup then you might have to use it.
Fiddle around with the windows mixer. You've probably looked at it before but never thought about it. There are basically *two* mixers; one for playback and one for recording. They look exactly the same, how stupid. However, if you were to adjust the *playback* microphone level then that will adjust the level of the guitar you will hear through your headphones/speakers. This has *nothing* to do with the *recording* microphone level, which is the level the soundcard will record at. Similarly for muting/selecting - if you mute the microphone in *playback* then you will hear nothing through your headphones - however it will still record the sound. Similarly if you haven't selected the microphone as the *recording* device, even though you can hear it through your headphones, nothing will be recorded during capture.
Think about this, it might help you understand why you aren't recording sound "but I can hear it in my headphones!" You change between playback and recording by selecting Options->Properties and then selecting either playback or recording. Yes, you can bring up two Windows mixers and have one showing playback and the other showing recording. Okay, I think I've gone on about this enough. Get your levels right using either the guitar volume knob or the Windows mixer. Note that it is better to have both the guitar and the Windows mixer at halfway rather than the guitar really low and the Windows mixer really high. When an amp is working up high it is creating more noise.
One last thing - make sure Audio->Enable audio capture is ticked, for obvious reasons!
Virtualdub - capture settings
Under Capture tick Autoincrement filename after capture. If you don't tick this then everytime you capture you overwrite the original file you selected. I hate this when I'm concentrating on playing guitar and not on the video capturing! When ticked, each time you capture it increments the filename and makes a new file. You can delete them all later...
Under Capture select Timing. This is pretty important - select "Sync video to audio by adjusting video timing." What is this all about you say?
When capturing video, the device is feeding frames to Virtualdub. Depending on how quick your device is, how quick your computer is, you might not get a frame exactly on the dot of your selected frame rate. By the way, the frame rate is selected by clicking on the fps button on the bottom on the screen. Your webcam might only be capable of 16fps - so what happens when you tell it 25fps? Basically, every couple of frames it will double up, two frames in a row that are exactly the same.
There are three ways of dealing with this - firstly, do nothing and hopefully the PC and the webcam will operate perfectly and neither will miss a beat. However if they occasionally miss a beat then the video and audio will come out of sync. Terrible! The second is to adjust the audio by speeding up and slowing down according to the video rate. Yuck! I dunno about you but the sound of the guitar is more important that an occasional dropped frame. The third is to adjust the video to the audio by dropping excess frames or inserting extra frames as necessary. It would be better if the devices could keep up with each other, this option is the next best bet.
If this really bothers you, especially if you PC is old and slow, then you can drop back on the format (ie use 320x240 instead of 630x480) or reduce the compression bitrate; just generally tweak the settings to be a bit easier for the PC and the webcam so they can keep up with your target framerate.
Virtualdub - capture!
Position yourself in the webcam frame, and press F5 to start capturing. Play something short first as a test! Press Esc to stop capturing. Now you can review what you have captured by File->Exit capture mode, then File->Open the file and check it out, then go back to capture and start again. To be honest I'd just have a Windows explorer in the background watching the capture directory, and double click on the video as it is created to check it with Windows media player.
When you are satisfied with your test, play your song. Now I am going to show you a few tricks in a moment so let me tell you that your tempo is the most important thing at this stage, not playing it 100% correct. If you miss a note don't stop and start again, you'll be there all night. Play on, don't let the tempo waver, we'll fix it later on. Of course the less mistakes you make the better, it is much easier to get it right the first time than to fix it later, so if you are making mistakes all over then stop and try again. When you have a take you are pretty happy with, lets fix it up eh!
Virtualdub - Demultiplex
What we are going to do now is strip the audio from the video so that we can play with the audio. Exit capture mode, taking you back to the main Virtualdub window. File->open to open your video ready for editing. Check it out, use the play and stop buttons down the bottom. To demultiplex the audio select File->Save WAV. Choose a place and export the file. You now have a Windows PCM raw audio file, ready for Audacity.
Audacity - Punch in
Run up Audacity and File->Open the file you just exported. It will look something like below. You can navigate and play the track by clicking on it and pressing play.
Look for any parts that you didn't like the way you played it. Put the cursor 10 seconds or so before the problem. Pick up your guitar, put your headphones in press the red record button. The track will play and you can hear it and play along, but another track will be created containing what you are playing. Since nothing has changed with the Windows mixer, all the levels should be the same so try to play it similarly to the first time. I find that I must complete a song including error fixes in a session, it wouldn't sound the same if I redid it at a later date.
Zoom in closer to the section in question by clicking and dragging a region. Press the toolbutton with the magnifying glass and two arrows point out, the "fit selection in window" button. Get close to the bit you want to fix, but not too close. Now make the final punch selection - the bit you want to remove and replace. The trick is to make your selection off the beat, at a low amplitude so the punch in start and end won't be noticeable when you playback. Once you have made you selection from Edit select Save Selection.
Click on the original track and selection Edit->Restore selection. Press the Silence Selection button and it will remove the target piece. Now click on the new track you just recorded and perform Edit->Restore selection to highlight the target section again. This time press Trim Outside Selection button, everything other than the target section will be removed. It should look as below:
Now press Edit->Select->All (or Ctrl-A) so select everything. From Project select Quick Mix. Viola, the new bit of track has been punched into the original track, correcting your error! Cick on the Fit Project in Window button to zoom back out again. Continue this process for each error you are targetting. I recommend you save a lot as you go in case you need to go back a bit.
Warning - at no time ever change the length of the track - that is, never delete a section or add a section, just punch bits in and out. If you got the tempo wrong you can't fix it - because when you put this track back with the vidio it will be out of sync!
Audacity - Clean up the track
Once you are finished, save the track as a new name first. Now play with some of the tools Audacity has. Press Ctrl-A to select all, and from Effect try some of the different sounds. Perhaps a bit of reverb or delay, use the graphic equaliser to drop some mid and boost some bass for example. Do some compression to bring some of the really loud sections down and the really soft sections up. Finally - do this one regardless - Amplify. The default number is the amplification to make the loudest selection the very peak without clipping. If your recording was very soft you can get it up to a normal level using this.
Virtualdub - Remultiplex
Back to Virtualdub, what we need to do now is make the new audio track fit with the video. Open up the capture file. Under Audio select Full Processing Mode. Under Audio again select WAV Audio. Point at you new audio file. From now on, Virtualdub will substitute that audio file instead of the audio that was recorded with the video.
Virtualdub - Edit and Final compression
Now is the time to trim anything off the front and back of the video...and if you are getting good at this, stuff out of the middle to! Lets start with trimming the front. Press the got to start button |<. Click on the <_ button on the far right of the bottom toolbar. This is the start marker. Now drag the selector up to where you want deleted. Use the left and right arrow keys to fine tune the frame. Now press the other _> end marker. You will see a section highlighted. Press delete. That section is now gone. Repeat the same for trimming the end.
Finally it is time to create the final file. Under Video make sure Full processing mode is selection. Now choose Video->Compression. Select xvid again and press configure. I normally get all smart here and do a two pass render but you're probably too excited now to finish, so I would leave single pass but click on Target Quantizer to change the video to kbps bitrate. The default of 700 is a bit crunchy for my liking, I normally use a final bitrate somewhere 900-1200 depending on how big you want the file to be.
From Audio select Compression and go back to LAME MP3 and select again say 96kbps mono. Now everything is in place, choose File->Save as AVI. Choose a new filename, sit back and wait for it to render.
Done!
Check your file. Marvel at how "professional" it has turned out. Get onto youtube and upload it for all to see.
Now I know that all seemed rather long winded and unecessary, but once you understand what you are doing at each step it becomes second nature. Lets revise:
- Use Virtualdub to capture video - choose a video recording device and an audio recording device, which is hopefully your guitar plugged into your computer.
- Choose a virtualdub video and audio format and flavour. Test the levels, record your video.
- Split off the audio, use audacity to punch in new sections where you made errors and tart up the track with some of audacitys effects.
- Recombine the audio with the video, trim the waste and recompress the video into the final product.
