Recording a video with my electric with a backing track

@jkahn Hi Jk, Iā€™m totally unexperienced with recording so far, but Iā€™m following those threads out of interest. I like your approach of a setup, just two questions:

Does the phone, set on video, automatically create a separated audio track from the video track or are any settings needed? Sorry, maybe a silly question from a non techā€¦

I know, that some editors have kind of an auto sync process. Out of your experiences, does this work reliably? Iā€™m not the one who wants to fumble a whole day to sync several tracks :see_no_evil:

The Blackstar ID Core V3 series has that option. One should be able to run a BT through the amp and to record both, guitar and BT via USB to PC or via TRRS directly back to your phone to stream or record. Thatā€™s what the manual says. Didnā€™t try it so farā€¦but itā€™s on my list.

Yeah, a phone is fine. Thereā€™s no special stuff needed for the video from a phone, you donā€™t need to record the videoā€™s audio in a special way. Just make sure it records the audio is all. Itā€™s more of an issue when recording from a webcam as itā€™s quite easy to accidentally not record the audio with webcam software (speaking from experience :rofl:).

Haha, I have fortunately (unfortunately?) spent a bunch of time testing a few different video editors for this feature. Not everythingā€¦ just affordable software that didnā€™t feel too junky to me. Thereā€™s two parts: how good does it auto-sync, and then how good is itā€™s waveform view and ease of manually syncing if that doesnā€™t work. I use PC.

Adobe Premiere Elements (which I had already): Canā€™t auto sync, reasonably easy to manually sync.
Corel VideoStudio: Says it can auto-sync but it doesnā€™t work properly. Gave up after that.
CyberLink PowerDirector: Autosyncs well, moderate difficulty manually syncing. Waveform view not good.
DaVinci Resolve: Autosyncs very well, easy to manually sync.

Iā€™m a bit of a newbie to video editing, I really only do the basic stuff, and there is a bit of learning curve. DaVinci Resolve is really, really good from what Iā€™ve seen so far, itā€™s a pro quality tool and their free version is awesome. I havenā€™t tried expensive ones like Adobe Premiere Pro, I donā€™t want to pay a subscription for something I only use occasionally for fun.

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Some video editors will separate the audio from the video into a separate audio track that you can edit, delete or replace. Sorry but Iā€™m not familiar with any of the software discussed here previously so I donā€™t know if they do.

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Auto sync is fine if the sources have identical tracks. For example if you and your partner both separately videoed a school play then the sound would be identical but the camera angles would be different. In our situation you might be trying to synch two guitar tracks one of which has had vocal added or something else overdubbed. In that case the tracks are not identical and the software has trouble synching.

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Thank you for this detailed answer! On the first one my question was more, if in a video, recorded via phone the audiotrack (not used for the process) can later be separated by video processing or if this requires certain settings on the phone camera in advance. If I got your guidance right, I record one audio track from guitar directly via audio interface into PC/DAW. Then thereā€™s a second one, recorded from the phone camera, I will not use in terms of audio, but to have the waveform for a potential manual syncronisation.

That hits the point, but I was not sure, if certain settings on the phone are needed.

@jkahn I heard, that DaVinci should be a really helpful tool, but have zero experience with video editing or music productionā€¦good to know, that you used it sucessfully. Thanks again for your time to answer!

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Thanks for that, so separating the tracks later obviously is possible.

Thatā€™s exactely the point where it becomes exhausting :joy:. Oh man, actually my intention was to learn guitar :see_no_evil:

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@SgtColon Stefan, I apologize for having captured your thread, but you have raised a really interesting question. Again, sorry for that :pray:

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To confirm, the audio and video are always separate, but synchronised, tracks regardless of how they are recorded, regardless of camera, or camera settings, or storage format, etc.

Cheers,

Keith

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:bulb: Thanks, Keith! I wasnā€™t sure about that.

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Not a problem Helen. The more input from members the better the thread.

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@Helen0609 If you are just filming yourself playing (and possibly singing) and then want to go back and put another audio track on such as a vocal or harmony vocal - that is relatively easy with some software because you can record that on to another track in the software. You donā€™t need to record that separately and synch it. So you can just really concentrate on the guitar playing which is really what we all want.

Where it gets slightly more complicated is if you want to add a second video track - then you need to synch the sound. If you look at my last AVOYP of ā€œAll Your Loveā€, I did the rhythm guitar and vocal as one take like as a backing track. I then went and did another video of the lead guitar part to add that and had trouble synching the audio with this because the second video had the lead guitar overdubbed and the audio was not identical. But I got there. NB: you need to scroll to the end of the thread to see the edited takes:

Peter, thanks for the additional information! At the moment, I tend to keep it as simple as possible and to do it step by step. Currently a simple phone recording is enough, but later on Iā€™ll experiment with other approaches. Itā€™s interesting how others do it. Iā€™m collecting all this information :slightly_smiling_face:

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I donā€™t know any better Stefan. I just plugged the rec out of my katana to the Scarlett 2i2. Fired up reaper, created a track for guitar and added the backing track as a track. Fired up OBS. Plugged the headphones into the Scarlett 2i2. Started recording on both. Then just swapped the tracks on the video with the tracks on reaper using cheap or free video editor (that da vinci is a good call). Auto sync worked well. What did you do when Fergus played the blues?

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Okay, so here is where Iā€™m at.

Iā€™ve got Reaper and OBS to talk to each other and I can now play my guitar through my amp and record it in OBS.
I have set up desktop audio in OBS and when I play the backing track you can see it playing in OBS but I hear no sound. If I record just the backing track in OBS it is recording the backing track. I can also play my guitar whilst the backing is running and that records in OBS.

So please could someone help me on how I will be able to hear the backing track to play along to, so that Iā€™m not guessing how it should be?

Iā€™ve got my Katana plugged in via USB and Iā€™m not using my 2i2 at all.

Thank you. :slight_smile:

Ignore above. I needed to plug my headphones into my laptop and the sound for the backing wasnā€™t coming out of the laptop speakers.

So the next question isā€¦ please could someone tell me how I can increase the volume of my guitar? Itā€™s quieter than the backing track and Iā€™d like to get it to around the same level.

Thank you. :slight_smile:

If you have the backing track and guitar input on separate tracks, OBS has a mixer.

Cheers,

Keith

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Thanks Keith, Iā€™ve tried adjusting the volume in there but when I play it back the backing is still drowning out my guitar? Here is a screenshot of how I have it as the moment.

The Reaper level looks high. Is the backing track in Reaper?

Cheers,

Keith

No, as far as I know my guitar is going through Reaper. I was just playing my backing track through VLC media player. Iā€™m guessing now that Iā€™m doing something wrong?

So Iā€™ve just had a look and the Reaper plugin in OBS is picking up audio from my laptop.

Which leads me to the question, if in OBS I have my Katana setting and my amp in plugged in to my laptop via USB, do I need to even use Reaper? Does OBS just pick up the tones I use on the amp because Iā€™m going via USB?