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Good video (it’s here)
But I’d like to point out that you can get surprisingly good results with just a smartphone. Even 5+ year old iPhones have good microphones, and I assume it’s the same for Android phones.
I bought a cheap ($30 Cdn) phone tripod, which makes it easier to point the phone mic, and experimenting for just a few minutes usually leads to an acceptable result.
I have an interface for my iPad, but most of the time prefer to just pop the phone in the tripod and do a rough take, rather than fiddle with a more elaborate setup and maybe lose momentum or even a good inspiration.
In my experience, you can get 80% of the benefit for 20% of the effort (and 0% of the cost), with just a smartphone.
Of course, this limits what you can do - editing, overdubbing, etc - but if you are holding off on recording yourself because of the perceived cost and complexity of a full setup, give your phone a try!
Here’s one I did off the cuff last spring, on my 4+ year old iPhone XS. The guitar playing still needs some work, but I’m quite happy with the sound.
What is that new shiny silver guitar in the background!? Has Justin done any videos playing it yet? It looks awesome and would love to hear it!
Wow! This is a whole new world that I previously knew nothing about, however, I’ve been actively exploring it as a result of this lesson. I’m in the research phase, having made my initial investment purchasing Home Recording for Dummies by Jeff Strong. I’ve read approximately 25% of the book since purchasing it and would highly recommend it. I’ve also watched several excellent YouTube videos on various home studio recording topics, including home studio recording, vocal recording, recording mistakes, and mixing.
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I just came accross this lession and I find it interesting as I was already meaning to check stuff about audio interfaces…
Let’s say that I have electro acoustic guitar… I plug it directly to chanel 1 of audio interface (if I understand correctly the amp is optional), into the chanel 2 I plug the microphone for my singing. But when I sing and play at the same time, won’t he singing microphone also detect/hear the guitar? Will then guitar sound come in through both channels, is that ok?
There’s always going to be some degree of mic bleed, but you can keep it at a minimum with a few precautions.
The most important thing is the position of both mics. Turn the vocal mic as far away as you can from the sound hole of your guitar, while still maintaining a comfortable singing position. That’s why you’ll sometimes see the vocal mic pointing (slightly) towards the ceiling.
Also, mics offer different polar patterns, such as omnidirectional, unidirectional, bidirectional, and (super)cardioid. It determines how much of the sound the mic will pick up at different angles.
If you’re going to do some post-production, then you can remove some of the guitar from the vocal recording with an EQ filter.
One approach that completely eliminates this issue is to record the vocals and guitar separately, on separate tracks in your DAW…
You will also need a good pair of closed back headphones to prevent bleed through when you overdub.
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I understand the headphones, but I kind of wanted to just do the “sing and play” and get a slightly better input from audio interface then from smartphone or gopro. To record vocal and guitar separately… this adds a layer of complexity (altough I understand that in SW this is probably easy-peasy).
You are absolutely correct… but adding an audio interface and microphones also adds a lot of complexity, in my experience.
Also, note that you can get some of the advantages of a separate mic with a smart phone mounted on a photo tripod. A photo tripod with a phone mount allows you to easily experiment with the height and aiming of the phone, utilizing some of the techniques that have been noted above e.g., aiming at the ceiling to reduce bleed through from the guitar.
It’s all about trade-offs… Microphones, audio, interfaces, and DAW’s give you a lot more flexibility and quality… At the cost of increased complexity.
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