Under Paris Skies - Digital Accordion

[breezybellows]

Work?

What are we talking about here? 1 minute of work for a 2-hour session?

Syncing audio/video is done by my video editor (that's what the phone's own recording is for). As long as the accordion is the predominant sound on both tracks, that should work fine. Afterwards you can decide how much of the outside track you leave for ambience, possibly ducking it.

The grunt work is then actually cutting out pieces, and even then you don't need to do more than picking start/end. I am actually doing that for pretty much every accordion rehearsal of our ensemble (only audio, but adding video would essentially require more processing power but not more work by myself), and it only gets tedious if I need to cut together a single piece from various fragments, possibly even out of order.

That's not an issue for actual performances.

I'd say there is room for something in between. But of course it depends on what relevance you assign to some recording. When you are old and gray, boasting to your grandchildren "I did things like that in the park" might come in handy. If just to show what a park was like.

That was a typo. I meant "too much work".

I don't think it's 1 min work.
When I record everything with my phone.
Play repetitions for about 15-20 minutes to get a take without mistakes.
2) use video editor on phone to trim the required section (5 mins).
3) upload to YouTube (5 mins).

Pros: entire process takes less than 30 mins.
Cons: audio quality is crap.


Anything I do to get a high quality audio recording usually makes that process a multi hour effort. The file transfer itself will only take a minute. But having to hop between devices is not any fun. It will just make me not want to record. I guess I have more than 500 videos on my YouTube. I like to document my progress. When I feel like spending extra time on a special recording, I will do it. Otherwise, "shoot it & upload it" sounds very doable.

 

[dak]

That was a typo. I meant "too much work".

I don't think it's 1 min work.
When I record everything with my phone.
Play repetitions for about 15-20 minutes to get a take without mistakes.
2) use video editor on phone to trim the required section (5 mins).
3) upload to YouTube (5 mins).

Pros: entire process takes less than 30 mins.
Cons: audio quality is crap.


Anything I do to get a high quality audio recording usually makes that process a multi hour effort. The file transfer itself will only take a minute. But having to hop between devices is not any fun. It will just make me not want to record. I guess I have more than 500 videos on my YouTube. I like to document my progress. When I feel like spending extra time on a special recording, I will do it. Otherwise, "shoot it & upload it" sounds very doable.

The only thing you need to do different is synch one long audio track with one long video track that also carries audio. My video editor does that on its own, even if necessary slightly adjusting the video speed. Then I cut up things as usual. The process is identical, just that I also import an audio track, let the editor synch it and disable the original audio. If it suddenly becomes a multi-hour effort, you may want to check why and fix that.

 

[breezybellows]

The only thing you need to do different is synch one long audio track with one long video track that also carries audio. My video editor does that on its own, even if necessary slightly adjusting the video speed. Then I cut up things as usual. The process is identical, just that I also import an audio track, let the editor synch it and disable the original audio. If it suddenly becomes a multi-hour effort, you may want to check why and fix that.

What video editor do you use? How does it automatically sync audio with a video that was separately recorded?

It takes multi hours because of all the auxiliary costs.
1) moving between rooms. I film my accordion from my piano bench. Uploading from right there is a five minute process. To transfer my files, I need to get my laptop computer from a different room.
2) move video files from phone to computer. That needs a cable. Add to this the pain called Android File Transfer (the only way I know to transfer files from my phone to a MacBook). By now, uploading from phone to YouTube will already be complete.


It might just be me, but I find working on my phone much easier.

 

[dak]

What video editor do you use? How does it automatically sync audio with a video that was separately recorded?

Shotcut. It has a function for aligning one track with another. My guess would be that it does it by matching envelopes, but I don't know. It takes a minute or two on my laptop, but then my laptop is from 2012.

It takes multi hours because of all the auxiliary costs.
1) moving between rooms. I film my accordion from my piano bench. Uploading from right there is a five minute process. To transfer my files, I need to get my laptop computer from a different room.

Well, that's the disadvantage of living in a palace.

2) move video files from phone to computer. That needs a cable.

Or a USB stick. Maybe you should store either where there also is your laptop in order to avoid having two travels through the architecture.

Add to this the pain called Android File Transfer (the only way I know to transfer files from my phone to a MacBook).

USB stick again. Worth learning how to deal with. Many phones also can record directly to a reasonably accessible micro-SD card.

By now, uploading from phone to YouTube will already be complete.

Uh, your claim was not "uploading from phone is faster". I won't contest that. Your claim was that it turns into a multi-hour endeavor. By the way: uploading to YouTube is not faster than uploading to something like Wetransfer.com if you don't manage to transfer the video files on physical media.

It might just be me, but I find working on my phone much easier.

Well, I don't have the comparison, but of course programs running on a phone tend to be done for the screen size and attention span of phone users and thus tend to offer very few controls to get a headache over. I don't find Shotcut hard to work with while I crashed and burnt several times trying to use Blender's video editor (Blender is an application that entire animation movies have been created with).

The question is whether it is worth the trouble. I routinely replace my audio tracks on acoustic accordion recordings; with a Roland I would imagine that the returns are better. I think that occasionally seeing whether you can lower the threshold of pain might provide reasonable returns. Could well be that there are even apps or whatever that allow you to do the whole job on the phone: it's not like this is an outlandish task.

 

[breezybellows]

Shotcut. It has a function for aligning one track with another. My guess would be that it does it by matching envelopes, but I don't know. It takes a minute or two on my laptop, but then my laptop is from 2012.

Well, that's the disadvantage of living in a palace.

Or a USB stick. Maybe you should store either where there also is your laptop in order to avoid having two travels through the architecture.

USB stick again. Worth learning how to deal with. Many phones also can record directly to a reasonably accessible micro-SD card.

Uh, your claim was not "uploading from phone is faster". I won't contest that. Your claim was that it turns into a multi-hour endeavor. By the way: uploading to YouTube is not faster than uploading to something like Wetransfer.com if you don't manage to transfer the video files on physical media.

Well, I don't have the comparison, but of course programs running on a phone tend to be done for the screen size and attention span of phone users and thus tend to offer very few controls to get a headache over. I don't find Shotcut hard to work with while I crashed and burnt several times trying to use Blender's video editor (Blender is an application that entire animation movies have been created with).

The question is whether it is worth the trouble. I routinely replace my audio tracks on acoustic accordion recordings; with a Roland I would imagine that the returns are better. I think that occasionally seeing whether you can lower the threshold of pain might provide reasonable returns. Could well be that there are even apps or whatever that allow you to do the whole job on the phone: it's not like this is an outlandish task.

Maybe I'm behaving like the TikTok generation instead of acting my age

 

[dak]

Maybe I'm behaving like the TikTok generation instead of acting my age

Frankly, I suspect that in 50 years or so, dementia will no longer be a recognizable medical condition.

 

[breezybellows]

Frankly, I suspect that in 50 years or so, dementia will no longer be a recognizable medical condition.

I wonder what grown ups from 1960s thought about the 2020s.

 

[dak]

I wonder what grown ups from 1960s thought about the 2020s.

I'll tell you once I am grown up.

 

[JerryPH]

That was a typo. I meant "too much work".

I don't think it's 1 min work.

Anything I do to get a high quality audio recording usually makes that process a multi hour effort. The file transfer itself will only take a minute. But having to hop between devices is not any fun. It will just make me not want to record. I guess I have more than 500 videos on my YouTube. I like to document my progress. When I feel like spending extra time on a special recording, I will do it. Otherwise, "shoot it & upload it" sounds very doable.

Nah, it doesn't have to be, the sound on a digital accordion can be captured directly from either a wired or wireless connection straight to the audio files of your phone from the audio interface.

There is no worse quality sound capturing device out there worse than a cellphone mic (but though I hate Apple, they have made some very nice improvements in that area over all other cell phone manufacturers... but it's still no comparison to a direct from the lines out from the digital accordion, through an audio interface straight to the phone file)... heck you can stream LIVE from the setup I used, and no one had to listen to the clacking of my keys and bass buttons.

I think that would be a great little video for me to make!

 

[losthobos]

Im nervous after reading this post about ever recording with my phone again, like BB I opt for lazy option...
Anyways I see talk of the Zoom H6 as a great tool....though outside my budget for sure....but I can source an H4 for less than a hundred....anyone know how this model stacks up against the 6....often I find newer models just have more bells and whistles that I don't need...but a cheap handheld recorder with the minimum of functions would be great for a dim o like me
Advice appreciated...

 

[dak]

Im nervous after reading this post about ever recording with my phone again, like BB I opt for lazy option...
Anyways I see talk of the Zoom H6 as a great tool....though outside my budget for sure....but I can source an H4 for less than a hundred....anyone know how this model stacks up against the 6....often I find newer models just have more bells and whistles that I don't need...but a cheap handheld recorder with the minimum of functions would be great for a dim o like me
Advice appreciated...

The older/newer dichotomy is between H4 and H4n. There is an older model of the H6: the current model is called the "black" model and has a few cosmetic changes, with the stick-on microphone pair having a black case rather than a silver one. The largest change is that the old model came with an additional mid/side microphone pair attachment you could swap for the X/Y one. Apparently few enough people used it that Zoom decided to stop including it.

The H4n preamps are supposed to be improved over the H4 but nowhere near the H6 quality. The H4/H4n have just two external microphone/line inputs instead of the 4 of the H6 (the H6 actually has an optional attachment replacing the two internal mics with another line/mic input pair though without phantom power). Note that the default H6 X/Y microphone attachment also has an overriding 3.5mm stereo TRS input plug where you can attach external microphones requiring "plugin power" rather than phantom power.

The H4/H4n microphones are not detachable like from the H6 and are smaller and more noisy. Accordions are not exactly quiet instruments, so for closeup recording that may not be all that relevant, but it does make a difference if you are recording from a concert-goers position in the case of ensembles.

The H6 is generally more robust, takes 4 batteries (and thus has longer battery life), has a better user interface in my opinion (making it less likely to end up with no recording at all). It feels "more serious". There is also a H5 which is pretty similar in its design to the H6 except that it has 2 external inputs (like the H4/H4n) rather than the H6's four.

I don't know the alternatives from other manufacturers like Tascam. One difference may be that all the Zoom devices can play "soundcard" for the purpose of streaming; I think at least some Tascam recorders don't do that.

 

[JerryPH]

Im nervous after reading this post about ever recording with my phone again, like BB I opt for lazy option...
Anyways I see talk of the Zoom H6 as a great tool....though outside my budget for sure....but I can source an H4 for less than a hundred....anyone know how this model stacks up against the 6....often I find newer models just have more bells and whistles that I don't need...but a cheap handheld recorder with the minimum of functions would be great for a dim o like me

The Zoom H4, H4Pro, H6 are all more consumer products. The pre-amps are fairly noisy, have lower gain levels than better units.

That said, I know many that use the H4n Pro as a recoding tool, and for accordions, it works great as long as you use external condenser mics or have an accordion with integrated mics, then the sound is surprisingly good as the signal strength is high enough to not need to stress the preamps of the unit. The integrated mics of the H4 to H4n Pro are all pretty mediocre... not much better than camera mics.

At this point, I am also going to apologize to Breezy for pulling his thread off topic.

 

[losthobos]

@JerryPH thanks ...what I'm really need to ask is ..is the sound dy amic and not compressed like a mobile phone would be

 

[dak]

@JerryPH thanks ...what I'm really need to ask is ..is the sound dy amic and not compressed like a mobile phone would be

All of those hand-held recorders have numerous volume compression options (I would guess that the default for all of them is "off" since I don't remember turning them off) and numerous file format compression options including "no compression" with various sample rates and bit depths. My original old H2 recorder allowed you to record at 96kHz sampling frequency (quite pointless since the analog circuitry bowed out at 15kHz) and 24bits (quite pointless since 16bit already covered more than the available dynamic range, so you just got 8 bits of noise). It also had fine-grained recording gain that was implemented in digital (quite pointless since it could only reduce your dynamical range but would clip at the same levels). Then there was an analog 3-level gain switch with settings L-M-H of which the H setting was quite pointless (you probably guessed as much) since it would only give you a few more bits of noise while increasing the likelihood to clip.

So the only setting you needed to worry about was whether to set the analog switch to L or M, and then use 48kHz/16bit unless you were mastering for the sake of CDs in which case 44.1kHz/16 bit might have made sense.

The H6 has more settings that have a point. Including actual analog gain pots.

 

[JerryPH]

@JerryPH thanks ...what I'm really need to ask is ..is the sound dy amic and not compressed like a mobile phone would be

It has a limited dynamic range, but that range is still more than a cell phone mic by a good amount. One has to be very careful and ride the noise/past 0db into distortion range a little carefully.