April 03, 2024
Back in January 2024 I made a recording of the first in the Czech series of songs, but at the time, I wanted to do something a little different. Normally I would use the green screen, high-end camera setup and send audio to the Mackie mixer and post process it all to the max in Reaper and sync it to the video in Resolve, but in this case, I wanted to use the accordion shelf as a backdrop and make a slightly less technical video, at least from in front of the camera. In the rear, though I would still be pretty complex, but not as complex as usual.
Here is a fast video:
A couple key points:
- The mics are as close as possible to the accordion but do not obstruct me in the video (we’re talking perhaps a 4-inch gap between music stand legs and chair legs)
- The area I am capturing on video is narrow, so cannot fill a 16.9 frame, that means either adding a fake background or exporting in a custom file dimensions, but the mics don’t block any part of me as I am playing
- I record in the highest possible sample rate that the F4 can capture at (192k @24bit) for highest audio quality
The closer the mics are to the audio source the better the quality will be and the more there will be left/right separation.
Note: do not get TOO close as you can start to hear the mechanics of the accordion and that may get in to the recording or it could affect overall volume changes on the left hand as it moves from close to far from the mic… I decide how much quality I want to sacrifice in the effort to reduce mechanical sounds or volume separation, and if an accordion is mechanically very noisy, just accept that this may be part of this accordion’s personality and enjoy the little clicks and clacks.
Once I have the audio file from the iPad (usually a Prores 422HQ .MOV file), and the audio from the Zoom F4, I sync them in Resolve, do some minor video touch-ups and output the file… much easier process than when using a green screen (though I am very comfortable at this point with that process too).
Enjoy!