Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi Folks,

The next installment of the OLF Roundtable, Episode 7, will be held on May 6th at 1:00PM EST.

If you have not signed up already, please use the link below to register. Registration doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily attend but does guarantee you’ll get the invite and close out details in email. Your information is kept private and only visible to me and Lance. Note: If you've signed up already for past meets you will get the invite in your email. No need to sign up each month.

Sign up - https://forms.office.com/r/KGhpGkeLB7

If you want to provide anonymous feedback on what you would like to see / hear about or your experience from a previous meet, use the link here: https://forms.office.com/r/HHEni87fAP

Agenda:

- Meet & Greet for any new members. Take 5 minutes to introduce yourself and what you’re working on.
- Recording techniques! How do you record your instruments for sharing with others / social media? What have you learned and what works / what doesn't? Don Parker will give a demo of his setup and recommendations. Should be a nice learning experience (at least for me ).


Episode Archive:

- Episode 1 - https://youtu.be/Xadu5zsY-Ec
- Episode 2 - https://youtu.be/uvLJjLvudjU
- Episode 3 - https://youtu.be/f343sgqwMZk
- Episode 4 - https://youtu.be/pFxZjjU5MCc
- Episode 5 - https://youtu.be/oS1NM81fZE4
- Episode 6 - https://youtu.be/PZKxXb521wo

Any questions or concerns let me know. Watch your inbox for the invite to the Zoom meeting.

Thanks!
Brad

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I'm very interested to hear what folks have to say about this month's topic. I haven't tried anything more sophisticated than recording video and sound on an iphone. I did play around with using an external Rode microphone on an iphone, but I didn't hear a significant improvement in the sound quality. I have seen videos recorded on an iphone that sounded quite good so I'm wondering how that's done, particularly if it can be done without having to record the video on the iphone and the audio on a separate device and then combine them with software.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I hope everyone who can attend does and shares their experiences.

We’ve set up the zoom to support full stereo audio so if anyone wants to demo what they do, etc… it will be possible and the noise cancellation and compression will be turned off.

Come show your setups!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

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Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
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Jay (and everyone, really)—

If you could provide links to specific YouTube videos that you think sound good, that would be a huge help. I, and others, may be able to provide some answers if we know which videos you are thinking of. I’ll come to the Roundtable having watched and thought about the videos you like.

Also, if you could provide a bit more information on the Rode microphone you used, we can talk about that experience and why it was not any better than just the iPhone internal mic.

Years ago Garage Band would work for me. I used a cheap mic, a midi keyboard, and then no mic for violins, guitars. Worked fine. Didn't help my playing. I can't get it to record anything now. No volume at all. I am computer illiterate. I haven't tried my phone. It is usually turned off.

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Why be normal?

Hi folks,

Please review as prep for the upcoming Roundtable meeting. The topic this month is sharing your methods for recording of your instruments. Whether you use an old camcorder from the 80's, or a high end studio, come and share what you do! I'm hoping this will be a good experience for everyone. To that end, there is some prep that you should consider to get the best experience possible. There is also some homework, more on that below.

- Don Parker has graciously put together a document with details about setup recommendations, gear recommendations and tips & tricks for getting the best from your recordings. You can download this in advance of the meeting and review from here - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

- It is recommended to wear earbuds / headphones or connect from a PC with computer speakers if possible. For the folks joining from iPhone / iPad, a set of headphones will suffice to get some of the experience, but a desktop PC will be better as you can enable stereo audio in Zoom. Steps to enable stereo audio below.

- Enabling stereo audio in Zoom is documented here - https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articl ... ereo-audio or you can follow the steps in the video below. Note: This is for the desktop client on PC only.

Watch this video of me going through the steps if you're unsure what to do: https://youtu.be/iUc9Qa_jvu0

Any questions let me know,

Thanks!
Brad

_________________
Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

I bought a little Rode clip on mic for my Android phone and didn't notice that much of a difference either. My new phone has no 1/8th in jack, Grrrrrrr! So it rendered it useless anyway. But the new phone records pretty well on it's own. Pretty impressive how good they are.

Nonetheless I use a Rode NT-3 condenser mic and Audacity on a PC with a decent home studio sound card to record.

Jay, here is a video I did of a compare between the internal iPhone mic and a pair of Shure PGA81 mics going through an iRig Duo Pro. The mics are set up in ORTF configuration, which I recently learned about from Don.

I’ll show this setup during the meeting. It’s not just an iPhone but it does let you record video and audio at the same time and then you can use the simple video edit on the iPhone or in iMovie.

https://youtu.be/0L59LvoCD-Y

Brad


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

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Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

Hey Brad, thanks a lot for doing that video! The difference between the two setups is very clear. The sound with the iphone alone is the same as what I get from mine. Kind of muffled with no sparkle. The Sure mics and iRig setup is a big improvement. That looks very attractive to me since I'm looking for better sound quality while still keeping the equipment and sound/video recording process simple.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

JF had a good point earlier when he said that it is pretty impressive how good an iPhone is. I agree with that. It is amazing that the iPhone does all that it does. But, it does have limitations, which we can discuss during the Roundtable.

As Brad's excellent demo shows, the iPhone adequately records the guitar in mono; it sounds like a guitar. But, mic placement is necessarily tied to camera placement (they are @ 5 inches apart). So, if you want the camera in a particular spot, the mic is always @ 5 inches away from that spot. It is a tiny omnidirectional condenser microphone. Normally, an omnidirectional condenser would not be my first choice for recording an acoustic guitar, and if I did want to use it, I would probably put it closer to the guitar than would be ideal for camera placement. So, the first problem with using the internal mic on an iPhone is essentially a mic choice and mic placement problem, when it comes to recording acoustic guitar.

The second issue, as you can tell from Brad's comparison video, is that the iPhone's mic is focused on the midrange of the guitar. The Shure mics, on the other hand, provide higher highs and lower lows, in terms of the frequencies captured. It is hard to appreciate this unless you compare different recordings as Brad has. And the Shure mics are smoother, less brash, than the iPhone onboard mic, which sounds bit harsh to me. Smoother and wider frequency range just sounds better; more strident and narrow frequency range sounds not as good.

The third issue, of course, is that the iPhone mic is one mic, so the signal is mono. The comparison video shows two Shure mics set apart in an ORTF configuration, which provides a very good, phase coherent, stereo sound. There is a way to record in stereo on later model iPhones (they come with more than one mic onboard); but I still think the two Shure mics, arranged in an established way for recording in stereo, are better.

Anyway, I look forward to our discussion, and thanks to Brad for providing this comparison as a great springboard.

I have a simple Apogee Mic. It’s a pretty big improvement over my phone.


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Zoom invite has been sent. If you didn't get it you haven't signed up. Sign up here - https://forms.office.com/r/KGhpGkeLB7

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Bump a reminder - meeting is today at 1:00 PM EST!


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It’s a beautiful day and I’m going to the river instead. But, I will be back one of these months. Thank you for making these meetings happen.