Audio Recommendations For Guitar Lesson Videos

[Colin McDonald]

Originally Posted by CJ Engel

I record my guitars direct from a preamp into a Mackie mixer.

I must admit I assumed from the above that it was electric guitar straight or DI'd into the mixer.

[Battle Vaughan]

Originally Posted by CJ Engel

I forgot to mention in the previous post that my recording room is filled with Auralex on all of the walls. I figured out a few years ago that the Auralex works great when it comes to keeping my recording room about as quiet as it can possibly get. CJ

Something to note --- there are two different sound control problems -- reflections within the room, which the Auralex will fix, and transmitted sound from outside the room, which it won't fix.

Sound isolation is an entirely different problem from room ambience, and appears to be the problem you are having. It takes mass (to absorb transmitted sound) and sealing against air infusion (air carries sound) to actually isolate against the airplanes, leaf blowers, barking dogs, etc. The foam won't do a thing for that.

[Chad Johnson]

Here's the Rode HS1 for 299.00

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/730900-REG/Rode_HS1_P_HS1_P_Headset_Microphone_Pink_.html

[CJ Engel]

Thanks for all the useful suggestions guys. I really appreciate it! Pete, you have a really great idea there that I can take a bit further. Back in the 1990's, I had a VHS instructional video featuring a French-speaking guitar player from Quebec, Canada. I had completely forgotten about this video until reading your suggestion. In order to make the video more marketable, the guitarist played everything and then an English-speaking guy did the voiceover narration. Now that I think about it, that was one of the best produced instructional videos I've ever owned or viewed. Since most of what I teach via video is technique-based, I can shoot the video and do the voiceover narration separately. This actually solves quite a few problems. First, it allows me to really isolate the video from the audio. Second, I can focus more on closeup shots of my hands rather than my face. Since all of my instructional material is produced with web viewing in mind, the closeup shots of my hands will really show people what I'm doing. If I'm just sitting there on a stool talking through the techniques, over half of the useable screen is wasted basically shooting anything above my chest and below my waist. Third, I'm not a pretty man so people don't have to look at my face which is a real bonus! Also, people won't see me reading off my television screen since I use the ProPrompter software. If I shoot the video separate of the audio, I can better isolate my voice narration with my Rode Procaster microphone while reading my script with my ProPrompter software. The more I think through this scenario, the more I really think this will be the way to go. I could always shoot a short 30-60 second intro and outro for the videos using my B3 microphone just to introduce and conclude the segments. That is a short enough span of time where I could keep everything in the environment quiet. I think I could probably pull off mixing the B3 and the Procaster in post production so that they flow well and the viewer shouldn't hear a significant difference in the vocal quality. If I could get by with using the B3, that would save me a few hundred dollars not having to buy another microphone as well.

I started recording electric guitars direct via a preamp a couple years ago. I used to place a microphone in front of a speaker cabinet, but as you guessed, it picked up too much ambient room noise. After 30 minutes or so, the fans in my power amp would kick on, and my microphone would always pick that noise up to a certain extent. With today's technology including amp modeling, etc., placing a microphone in front of a cabinet isn't entirely necessary. Going direct through the preamp to the mixer is the cleanest signal I can achieve. If I was recording a project in a real studio, I'd probably use a microphone in front of a cabinet, but for doing these videos, going direct works just fine.

Battle, you are absolutely correct regarding the two different sound control problems. The Auralex does a great job in terms of killing the room's reflections, but it does very little when it comes to eliminating sounds originating from outside the room. I really noticed this last week when I took the Auralex down to be cleaned. I would say that the Auralex does somewhat muffle the sounds from outside to a certain extent and knocks off maybe a few dB's of cars, etc., but it has such a little affect that it really isn't even worth mentioning. I could cover every inch of all the walls and ceiling with Auralex, and outside sounds are still going to be heard.

CJ