So come on in and watch the prep for The Lodge with the new acoustic and Beat Buddy pedals. It’s warts and all so prep your ears for some bad vocals, drum fills in the wrong spots and a lot of looking down!
The set up: Go Pro video camera so audio will never be great sounds better with headphones vs your pc or device. Unfortunately it’s under the hvac vent and the heat flipped on at the end so you will hear some hiss
Pedals left to right as you are looking at the video:(BBF) Beat Buddy Footswitch, (BB) Beat Buddy, (BF) Butterfly page turner for the scores on the iPad. Lots of Bs in this post😮. The far right is the Spark Mini that I’m using for hearing the BB. Nothing else is going through the Mini. The acoustic is unplugged. This is probably my best config live at the Lodge because i don’t have a PA for vocal. Getting the mix right live will be fiddly but sub optimal no matter what i do until i get a proper PA in the future. I’m just going with it.
The left BBF control is set up for advancing to the next song in my playlist when no song is playing. When a song is playing it goes to drum outro and ends the song. The right switch plays a cymbal crash when no song is playing and it pauses and unpauses while a song is playing. I only use the cymbal crash to intro Dirk ( my name for the BB) to the audience.
The BB in the center starts the song with one tap and once the song is playing plays a drum fill with one tap. Some of the songs have multiple drum fills and they are played in sequence with each tap. Desperado has two and one is short and one is long and i was experimenting on this rehearsal of where they came in. You will hear some are off but its part of the figuring out. I use notes on the score on when to hit them. I had to do some edits after this take.
The BF turns the pages on the scores on my iPad. It has two sides one forward and one back. I’m doing 7 songs in this set and i think 3 of them have multiple pages.
This video just jumps into the last two songs Lying Eyes and Desperado.
Hi Rod,
Cans used on my end, mixing cans to be exact. Sound to me was fine and fairly well balanced between vox, guitar and drums. Drums sounded good, so you have a good thing going there.
My thoughts are you are too hard on yourself. I don’t know if you truly feel what you do or are setting up lower expectations so others find your offering better than advertised? That said, if you have things you know are wrong in a recording, like the HVAC coming on and host of other warts. Why post it? I am not sure what you mean by “go live tomorrow”. But in my book I always try to put my best foot forward and post the best I can do. That is just me though and if your comfortable posting as is, so be it.
I found your offerings pretty good, so your doing something right mate!
New readers have no context. I have a live set at the retirement home I play at tomorrow and I had promised folks in the above thread some video of using the pedals and since I was videoing the rehearsal I just thought I would give folks an early view of the trials and tribulations of getting ready for the live set. I know what I’m shooting for and if it’s not there I’ll call it out. Part of my journey. No other agenda and sorry for the lack of context. Thanks for the reply!…Rod
to my ears, this was already pretty good considering the really short time playing around with the BB. Give it a few more weeks and it all will come together nicely.
Your new guitar sounds awesome! Nice tone even through the GoPro. Given the recording situation and the tools you have, the sound was quite balanced as LBro already mentioned.
Cool stuff, Rod. The BB surely adds to the richness of your performances (which doesn’t mean you need it, know some of your shares with just you and guitar, they were really good stuff, too!).
All the best for the live rehearsal at the retirement home!
Enjoyable performance all round. You’re doing really well managing the pedals on top of good guitar playing and singing. Hope your performance at the Lodge goes well!
@Rod58 sounded very good to my ears. I had to turn up the volume high initially to hear the drums probably because they were facing you rather than the camera. Not sure how you’ll setup for live I’d try and get your spark mini on something raised and behind you (so both you and the audience can hear the drums). I thought switching in fills etc. seemed to work well. Will be interesting to see your live recording.
Rod,
Very true. With no context your OP seemed kind of strange. I did reply in your other thread too. With the background context, your post here makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the link to your NGD.
I hope you knock them dead at the retirement home. That is a big challenge to play live in front of folks with the new gear. Nothing like throwing the feet to the fire, so to speak.
I hope 24’ is a great music year for you and it would be cool to have a family member of yours capture your performance at the retirement home on a cell or something better and share it.
This will be the next hurdle, I’m reminded of Bill Wyman being asked why did he stand where he did on stage so close to Charlie? He responded so he could hear him better. To start, I’m going with that strategy:grin:. This room is so big without a PA getting it all “right” is a tough ask. That’s why I had the drums relatively low but the amp close to me. It’s funny when I listened to this back on my iPad some drums I couldn’t hear and others no problem. That’s why I thought folks may need to listen to this with something other than pc speakers. Anyway, part of the journey!
Yeah @LievenDV throwing the fills at the right time sometimes gets me off beat, I’m learning how to recover as I don’t think that will be the only time!
Thanks @LBro for the kind comments, I’m my own worst enemy thinking structurally that the first post should be in Gear and then this video in the Live category all the while carrying the conversation string in my head and not thinking about folks dropping in on just this post😲.
The same Go Pro will grab some snippets from today the only thing it struggles with audio wise honestly is the vocal. But it’s the simplest tool for that right now. Have a super 2024 yourself!…Rod
Guitar and singing sounded good to me. Maybe it’s me but i struggled to hear the drums, on Lying Eyes I couldn’t hear any. Don’t be too negative on yourself.
No it’s an extreme sport camera, underwater, etc. I’m just taking advantage of easy deployment for my feedback only in a live setting. My closet studio is for the higher quality recording. This is a learning tool and for hopefully entertaining content for the community:grinning:. Although I definitely learn from the community in these posts too! …Rod
Thanks for the comment @skinnyt ! Not all drums are loud and the Lying Eyes fills are particularly soft. That’s why i said you may need headphones in the OP. That was also rehearsal loudness experimentation, i just shared my prep work is all. Learning curve is steep! No negative on my end I have a tendency to practice and learn in public!…Rod
Yeah,
I looked at the current Go-Pro lineup and saw no ports for mics I do believe. Sounds like enhancing the sound with the cam itself and a mic is a dead end. I can think of other ways to do this, but it would require a change in your live workflow and more gear.
You can use another microphone with a GoPro but all of the latest GoPro (9 onwards I think) require you to buy the media mod enclosure which will then allow you to attach an external microphone. If you do a search on google it’ll come up. The key thing sound wise is to turn off wind suppression in the settings just to ensure it doesn’t try to adjust your input.
Thanks @Rossco01 ! Mine is a 9 and at $80 on Amazon I may want to go that route! I really only use this for quick feedback for me so i never really worried about changing the camera or the quality of the audio. But that seems to be an easy change for upgraded audio. Thanks again!.. Rod
Thanks for the reply!…Rod
Give it a few more weeks and it all will come together nicely. 
Nice tone even through the GoPro. Given the recording situation and the tools you have, the sound was quite balanced as LBro already mentioned.
…Rod