Making a Video Collage

[BflatBass]

I'm seeing ppl post recordings of themselves online playing an instrument where the viewer sees two or more videos spliced together to make one video where all recordings are in sync so that the person recording is playing a duet, trio, quartet, etc. by themselves. Is this making sense?
An example of this would be Christopher Bill and his YouTube channel. He has a playlist called 'Composition Competition' where he's playing quartets, octets, etc. by himself in multiple recordings, like a collage. And all in sync.

Has anyone here ever done this and if so how did you do it and what program/software/hardware or smartphone app did you use? I'd like to make some of these collages using only my phone but so far I'm having a hard time finding an app that does just what I want. And my phone is an Android.

Any help/ideas would be appreciated.

Robert

[shider]

You won't get anything comparable to the Videos of Chris Bill, but i had some fun using the app "acapella maker" on my Android. There is a free version, but i bought the "pro version" for 3 bucks or so. It comes with more "frames" and i believe you can record more tracks, but i might be wrong there...

The app allows you to record a backing track that you can play back while recording the different frames/voices. Theoretically it has the option to load in an audio track from your phone, but i have not been able to figure out what format it wants for that
When you have recorded something you can go in and listen back to a pre-mix (which might take a while to create for the app, depending on your phone and does only include audio). you can then go to the individual videos and change how loud they are.. But that feature really isn't all that great.. Again: takes a long time to process and afterwards it gives you only the one video with changed dynamics, so if you want to hear it in context you have to go and create a pre-mix which again takes a while..

Summary:
Pro:
+ it's cheap and you don't need anything apart from your phone and headphones. I have had great success with bluetooth in-ears, so you can stand a little farther away from the phone to help the poor microphone with the decibels of my playing
+ you can record basically anything: voice, trombone, percussion... but it's important where you position the phone/microphone in relation to the sound source which can be tricky if you are bound by the cable of the headphones
+ it's good practice because you have to play in tune without having a section beside you.
+ it's a LOT of fun being able to create tracks by your own! especially if you play different instruments (i have recorded quartets with tenor and bass trombone and the distinct instruments create much more contrast between the voices compared to playing everything on bass (my main instrument)
+ with a bit of distance to the bell the app gets "okay" results soundwise.

Con:
- you waste a lot of time waiting for the app to process things... all. the. time. it can get frustrating. You spend more time waiting for it than actual playing. If you have to retake recordings a lot like i do it gets tedious
- synchronisation can be tricky.. I don't know what the app uses to sync the tracks.. if it's in relation to the backing track, or if it just lines up the beginning of the sounds.. Sometimes i feel like it might be both It gets really bad when you start a recording of with a crescendo out of nothing. it can't really put a clear start to it and it all goes out of whack
- i could not figure out how to get the app to use an external microphone to improve recording quality
- the user interface is not good

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask

Greetings,
shider

[BflatBass]

I was hoping this sort of thing would be more readily used and it seems like it is for the iphone more than the Android. But for 3 bucks it might still be worth the try.
I normally us a little Tascam DP-004 digital 4 track recorder for audio which works pretty well. It'd be nice to simply add video to the recording process but I don't think it's that simple without some different dedicated equipment ($$$).

Thanks for the info

[shider]

When i got into this matter, i searched quite extensively for alternative apps with better usability, but i have to say the same: iOS seems to have more of them than Android.

I don't remember if Christopher Bill has a video on his recording process, but i know Seb Kelly has one on YouTube, though his process is special in that he plays the tuba part on a flugelhorn and shifts the pitch down 2 octaves.
they both record audio and video through seperate devices. Seb Kelly basically records the audio tracks seperately and then records another take of video where he includes some visually interesting things and goofs around a bit. But then i assume they use a professional video editing suite to patch it all together in split screen while occasianally adding visual effects and syncing it all.
This gives you the most freedom, but is of course a highly time consuming workflow even if you already know your process..

I own a ZOOM Hand-Recording device and wanted to try editing audio from that and video from my phone with the video editing software "wondershare filmora".. It's a relatively easy to use editing suite and quite fairly priced.
I had good results with overlaying and syncing video from a camera and my hand recorder of a concert i conducted, so i believe it might be possible to use this combination
if i come around to do that i will give a resumee

[AndrewMeronek]

I just saw Chris at ATW. Great public speaker. Knew what he was doing. Pretty cool.

[kingsk1117]

Following on the reference to Christopher Bill, he answered a question during his ATW presentation where he listed exactly what equipment and software he used. Very Interesting. Check out the Day 2 presentation where he started at 5:45 EST. He played for about 20 minutes then started the Q&A.

[AuntieAmanda]

You mean like this?

Or this?

[BflatBass]

Do to things happening at home I haven't been on TC for a LONG time (sigh!). AuntieAmanda your bottom video is exactly what I'm talking about.
I'm back to doing research on this subject and have come up with some "home brewed" ideas to at least see if I can make something work with what I have.
I have an older copy of Sony Movie Studio platinum suite ver. 12 (modern versions are called Vegas) and I'm seeing if I can use it to sync video and audio. I tried recording the video below just using my phone (Samsung Galaxy S6). I had to make two separate recordings listening to my tuner metronome with the head phones to try and keep myself in sync with myself I then uploaded the two videos into the software and just tried to line them up visually in the playlist editor. Considering what I had to work with it didn't come out too bad but I'd like better quality audio. There are devices that do this for not too much $$ but I'm going to try something else first.
My next attempt will be to record all the audio on my Tascam with my Shure SM57 microphone but record the video on my phone with each track on the Tascam at the same time. So I'll have one audio recording (2 or more tracks) and 2 or more separate video recordings. I'll then try the same thing and upload them to Movie Studio and try to line them up visually. We'll see if it works.

Here's what I've done so far.

[AuntieAmanda]

That’s not bad at all!

Amanda, Amanda, Amanda and I have done this quite a bit, and learned some lessons along the way, so perhaps we can help.

You’re always going to need some feedback while you’re recording to keep in time with the other versions of yourself, and ideally, you’ll be able to hear your other selves actually playing so you can be in tune with them too. You can use headphones for this, or earbuds if you want to be more discreet. I now have a pair of in-ear monitors which are ideal for the job.

It’s very common in film and video to record the sound separately from video and then sync them up again at the edit stage. You can, as you say, record sound on your Tascam 4-track and a nice mic, but also record ‘scratch’ sound on your phone along with the video. The Tascam approach will always be way better than any sound you can capture on your phone (unless you invest in an external mic for your phone and use something other than its native video app for capturing sound).

What we tend to do is to record all the music tracks before beginning any video work. We use a click track or a metronome to set a regular tempo, and, on at least one track, count aloud for a bar, then leave a silent bar before playing the first bar of the music.

Then, when shooting the video, we have the music - and the counting - playing in headphones or earbuds. We know when to begin from the count, and we can play along with the music we hear. (We might also occasionally record dialogue prompts along with the music, if there’s dialogue - Amanda’s not very good at learning her lines).

Also, when shooting the video, for each track, we click fingers or clap along with the count-in. These clicks or claps appear as clear, clean spikes on the sound trace for each video track in our editing software, so it’s easy to zoom in close and line them up very accurately. If the clicks line up, the music should be perfectly in time.

One option is to not use the sound from when you shot the video at all, but simply use your pre-recorded sound. If you do this, you don’t have to worry about playing into a microphone while you’re performing on-camera. Effectively, you’re miming for the benefit of the video. (Just miming wouldn’t look real at all, but playing along with the music the viewer is going to hear looks real enough!)

Sony Vegas can, I believe, do all of this, although learning the details of any full-scale editing software can be a bit of a process. It’s worth it!

On the video side, be thoughtful about your framing - there’s a lot of unnecessary headroom in your video. You don’t have to use your phone vertically; you may do better with it set horizontally. You can re-size and crop each video frame in your editor to make the maximum use of the final video frame and have less of the black bars around the edges.

Be aware, too, that some cameras, or camera apps for phones, use variable frame rates, and this can cause your synchronisation between video and separately-recorded sound to drift apart. You can download and install some pretty nice camera apps which allow you to control things like this - also frame rate, shutter speed, ISO and various other things. Controlling these things yourself, rather than just using ‘auto-everything’ can fix some other problems you might otherwise encounter.

It’s a nice touch to mix down your music recording in stereo, and use your ‘pan’ controls to place the sound appropriately to the arrangements to yourselves in the final video. So, for example, in your recording of Have Mercy, the trombonist appearing on the right of the screen appears to be coming mainly from the right-hand speaker/channel/earbud, and the left-hand player from the left-hand speaker.

There are lots more videos Amanda and I made on our channel here, and we were inspired originally by Dan and Dan. The Daily Mail song is a classic, and their Palindromic Sketch is a tour de force.

(I should make it clear that if you really do have identical siblings, as of course I do, none of this is absolutely necessary. But Amanda always seems to be busy washing her hair, Amanda never seems to be able to learn her lines or hit high notes accurately, and Bass Amanda... well, she’s just mysterious. So it’s possible that from time to time, we might use one or more of these tricks to make it look as if more of us were present at the video shoot than there really were. It’s not dishonest really...)

[BflatBass]

Really good info Amanda.
I'm trying to limit the amount of "recordings" I'm doing so recording video and audio separately means recording the same thing more than once where as if I record video and audio of each track at the same time is saves me a few steps. I'll just mute the phone audio in the software. Also I take the chance of the mic being seen in the video as I have to place it very close to the bell of the horn to get a decent input level. But for now I'm willing to live with that. And thanks for tip about creating a visual cue in time with the click track on the Tascam to help line up video with audio in the software.
I'm such a novice Thanks for the tip about head room.
Also I mix the right and left on the Tascam and then justify the video of each track in the software (put each right track on the right side of the video etc.)

Is there a cool piece of technology that does the same thing a phone does but with the mixing, overdubbing and mastering capabilities of the Tascam and automatically syncs video and audio in one take? I would think there is for a lot of $$$. I just haven't found it yet.

[AuntieAmanda]

Is there a cool piece of technology that does the same thing a phone does but with the mixing, overdubbing and mastering capabilities of the Tascam and automatically syncs video and audio in one take? I would think there is for a lot of $$$. I just haven't found it yet.

Yes, there is, and you probably have one - a computer. Most current video editing software will automatically sync video and audio. I’m a Mac person; I usually edit with Final Cut Pro.

Recording can also be done on a reasonably fast computer (slow cards introduce latency which makes multi-tracking difficult); I use Garage Band (free, but Mac only).

[BflatBass]

Yes, there is, and you probably have one - a computer. Most current video editing software will automatically sync video and audio. I’m a Mac person; I usually edit with Final Cut Pro.

Recording can also be done on a reasonably fast computer (slow cards introduce latency which makes multi-tracking difficult); I use Garage Band (free, but Mac only).

So I'm guessing that you use Final Cut Pro the way I use Sony Movie Studio but then like you said the recording process is done with Garage Band. Can you overdub with Garage Band (listen while recording at the same time)?
My Movie Studio has a "capture video" selection but idk if I can overdub with that. That's the beauty of the Tascam is overdubbing. It's really an advantage being able to listen to previous tracks while recording new ones.
Would you happen to know of any programs that work like Garage Band but use Windows? I'd Google it but idk what kind of program Garage Band is called.
This has me thinking tho. All I need is a decent video camera to hook up to my computer like a web cam maybe? My computer has decent sound hardware built into the mother board and I have a pretty capable video card as well. The only other thing would be the software.
I'll do some searching online. Thanks for the help.

[AuntieAmanda]

So I'm guessing that you use Final Cut Pro the way I use Sony Movie Studio but then like you said the recording process is done with Garage Band.

Exactly.

Can you overdub with Garage Band (listen while recording at the same time)?

Yes. And this is true of many other ‘digital audio workstation’/DAW programs such as Cubase, Logic Pro, Protools and all the rest.

My Movie Studio has a "capture video" selection but idk if I can overdub with that.

. You should experiment and find out. My guess is that, unless you have a seriously fast computer, it will either just refuse to do it, or it’ll be very laggy.

That's the beauty of the Tascam is overdubbing. It's really an advantage being able to listen to previous tracks while recording new ones.

Multitracking without being able to hear what you’ve previously recorded is VERY tricky! I had a tape Tascam 4-track back in the day, and then a little digital one. I sold them both when I realised my Mac could do everything they did, but with more than four tracks, and better, with built-in effects, automatic click track, variable tempo and lots of other tricks.

Would you happen to know of any programs that work like Garage Band but use Windows? I'd Google it but idk what kind of program Garage Band is called.

Yes, there’s the little list above. Try beginning your search with ‘DAW’ or ‘digital audio workstation’.

The old standby for free is the surprisingly good Audacity. You can multi-track with this, BUT, even on my fairly fast Mac, there’s latency/lag, so that if you play and record along with what you hear, the new track is behind the others. You can fix this by dragging the new track back along the timeline so that it’s in time with the others again, but it makes everything harder and slower. If you have fast on-board sound, though, your mileage may vary and be better than mine.

This has me thinking tho. All I need is a decent video camera to hook up to my computer like a web cam maybe? My computer has decent sound hardware built into the mother board and I have a pretty capable video card as well. The only other thing would be the software.

Attaching cameras to computers is a whole new rabbit hole! Webcams are fine, cheap and easy, but they tend to be designed to squirt fairly low-resolution, low frame-rate video down a limited-bandwidth connection. A decent video camera generates video at a bit rate much, much faster. If your video card, processor and storage can work at the required bit rate, all fine, but you’ll still need another widget to get an HDMI or SDI signal from your camera into your computer. And if you’re asking your computer to play back one or two previously-recorded audio/video streams AND record a new one, then unless yours is a seriously whizz-bang computer, it’s probably going to struggle.

I'll do some searching online. Thanks for the help.

You’re welcome! I began messing about with this stuff four or five years ago and got drawn in, with lots of help from a video professional. Now here we are and I’ve got drawn in so much I make some of my money from shooting and editing video. You have been warned!

[BflatBass]

Since you mentioned DAW, which is what Garage Band is categorized as, I realized I own a copy of FL Studio (duh!). After doing some research, I've found that I can basically replace my Tascam with FL Studio which will have a lot more power during and after recording (not that I need it right now) but I won't be able to do the video editing that I need. I'll still have to do that with Movie Studio.
FL Studio has a Video Player plugin but it's designed to mix only a single video with audio. It has all the power I'm looking for just not for multiple videos.
So as of now I'm still at the point of mixing and mastering separate video and audio from separate sources into Movie Studio. I'll have to play around with FL Studio to see if it's any advantage over the Tascam.

[AndrewMeronek]

Are there any recommendations for decent quality wireless earbuds that won't break my bank, and also won't break themselves if I breathe on them wrong?

[BflatBass]

Are there any recommendations for decent quality wireless earbuds that won't break my bank, and also won't break themselves if I breathe on them wrong?

The wireless earbuds I use for listening to streaming music from my phone are JLabs JBuds Air Icons. Sound quality is good but controls like volume, answering calls is a little hard to use. They were $40 at Best Buy. I have not used them for any recording since all my devices require wires. I will eventually invest in a wireless in ear monitor system for recording because you have so much control over the feadback/frequency response you get from your horn. People I talk to that have extensive experience in recording recommend them but they are pretty expensive when you include the transmitter and receiver.

Cheers,
Robert

[AndrewMeronek]

I have not used them for any recording since all my devices require wires.

I did end up finding some Skullcandy wireless earbuds. Thus far, my solution to using those earbuds is to also buy a bluetooth adapter with a USB connector, and to plug that into my PC. This way, I can choose whether to output sound to my computer speakers or the earbuds, just in the Windows system sound output options. No need to plug and unplug wires on the fly during a recording, depending on whether I want certain sounds in the recording or not. For example, a metronome click at the beginning of a take to help with syncing. Not any kind of legit studio setup, but it seems to work so far.

[shider]

When i got into this matter, i searched quite extensively for alternative apps with better usability, but i have to say the same: iOS seems to have more of them than Android.

I don't remember if Christopher Bill has a video on his recording process, but i know Seb Kelly has one on YouTube, though his process is special in that he plays the tuba part on a flugelhorn and shifts the pitch down 2 octaves.
they both record audio and video through seperate devices. Seb Kelly basically records the audio tracks seperately and then records another take of video where he includes some visually interesting things and goofs around a bit. But then i assume they use a professional video editing suite to patch it all together in split screen while occasianally adding visual effects and syncing it all.
This gives you the most freedom, but is of course a highly time consuming workflow even if you already know your process..

I own a ZOOM Hand-Recording device and wanted to try editing audio from that and video from my phone with the video editing software "wondershare filmora".. It's a relatively easy to use editing suite and quite fairly priced.
I had good results with overlaying and syncing video from a camera and my hand recorder of a concert i conducted, so i believe it might be possible to use this combination
if i come around to do that i will give a resumee

Just going to quote myself here to speak about what i have since done differently:

I am now using a decent microphone, a USB Audio-Interface, the DAW Reaper to record audio in, Filmora for video editing and all of the software is used on a Laptop running Windows10.

I started adapting the apprach of recording audio first and then recording a "staged" performance for the video after. That gives me the freedom to concentrate on my playing when recording audio and to record video without big headphones or a microphone in view..
(And also i can punch in audio takes to fix where i f*ed up while my video takes are one recording straight through..)
I currently have only done multitracks with a fixed set of frames on screen all the time. In the future i might add some takes that appear on screen and then diappear.. That would loosen up my need for having complete video recordings, but increases the time put into video editing

Most people who have seen my recordings don't even realize that video and audio were recorded at different times
By using a DAW (and an Audio-Interface) i can listen back to my previously recorded tracks while recording which improves my intonation by leaps and bounds.. What remains difficult is recording any piece with changing tempo markings (more so ritardando and accel.) and lining that up in all tracks to be the exact same on all takes.
But i guess that is one of the most difficult thing to do with a virtual ensemble of clones compared to a real ensemble

[Finetales]

I started adapting the apprach of recording audio first and then recording a "staged" performance for the video after.

Most people who have seen my recordings don't even realize that video and audio were recorded at different times

It's the way to go! As long as the real takes of improvised solos are filmed, for everything else whether the take is the real one or not makes no difference to the end result and is so much easier and more efficient.

I currently have only done multitracks with a fixed set of frames on screen all the time. In the future i might add some takes that appear on screen and then diappear.. That would loosen up my need for having complete video recordings, but increases the time put into video editing

I enjoy videos that cut between different combinations of screens...makes it a little more interesting than just a bunch of static Brady Bunch frames. It does take a lot longer to edit, but I figure if I'm already spending hours arranging, recording, and filming, what's a few more hours editing? Might as well make it fun to watch as well as listen to.

[Mikebmiller]

I just finished this group video of our Community Band doing Armed Forces Salute. I used Cakewalk for the audio and Power Director 18 for the video. The sync is off by a little bit, but you don't really notice unless you know what position the trombone slide is supposed to be in or you look closely at the cymbal player. I did this from about 35 videos sent in by band members. I used most of the audio and 24 videos for the final cut. This took a ton of time - probably 30 hours. I learned a lot that will be applied to the next project if we do one.

https://youtu.be/ut7TniazUkM

[harrisonreed]

I just finished this group video of our Community Band doing Armed Forces Salute. I used Cakewalk for the audio and Power Director 18 for the video. The sync is off by a little bit, but you don't really notice unless you know what position the trombone slide is supposed to be in or you look closely at the cymbal player. I did this from about 35 videos sent in by band members. I used most of the audio and 24 videos for the final cut. This took a ton of time - probably 30 hours. I learned a lot that will be applied to the next project if we do one.

https://youtu.be/ut7TniazUkM

All you need is for each person submitting a video (or if you are filming each one) to CLAP their hands and wait a few seconds before they do anything else. Or use a clapperboard ... if you just happen to have one of those for some crazy reason.

It is very easy to sync a short, percussive, clap sound to video.

[harrisonreed]

By using a DAW (and an Audio-Interface) i can listen back to my previously recorded tracks while recording which improves my intonation by leaps and bounds.. What remains difficult is recording any piece with changing tempo markings (more so ritardando and accel.) and lining that up in all tracks to be the exact same on all takes.

You need to create your performance as a click track within your DAW first. I use open back headphones, and my "click" is a light hiss sound that the microphone won't pick up. It's ok if the other tracks leak from the headphones -- audio would have leaked over in a recording with other musicians anyway.

[Mikebmiller]

I just finished this group video of our Community Band doing Armed Forces Salute. I used Cakewalk for the audio and Power Director 18 for the video. The sync is off by a little bit, but you don't really notice unless you know what position the trombone slide is supposed to be in or you look closely at the cymbal player. I did this from about 35 videos sent in by band members. I used most of the audio and 24 videos for the final cut. This took a ton of time - probably 30 hours. I learned a lot that will be applied to the next project if we do one.

https://youtu.be/ut7TniazUkM

All you need is for each person submitting a video (or if you are filming each one) to CLAP their hands and wait a few seconds before they do anything else. Or use a clapperboard ... if you just happen to have one of those for some crazy reason.

It is very easy to sync a short, percussive, clap sound to video.

Oh, we did the clap for sure. The lack of syncing of video to audio is all on me. I am still learning the Power Director software. The audio itself is synced up quite nicely I think, given that I had close to 40 individual tracks to work with. Having a clap only assures that one spot in the recording is in sync. When people are playing while listening to headphones, all kinds of things can go wrong. I spent a lot of time in Cakewalk moving short bits left or right to get to where that recording is.

[harrisonreed]

All you need is for each person submitting a video (or if you are filming each one) to CLAP their hands and wait a few seconds before they do anything else. Or use a clapperboard ... if you just happen to have one of those for some crazy reason.

It is very easy to sync a short, percussive, clap sound to video.

Oh, we did the clap for sure. The lack of syncing of video to audio is all on me. I am still learning the Power Director software. The audio itself is synced up quite nicely I think, given that I had close to 40 individual tracks to work with. Having a clap only assures that one spot in the recording is in sync. When people are playing while listening to headphones, all kinds of things can go wrong. I spent a lot of time in Cakewalk moving short bits left or right to get to where that recording is.

Ah, yeah, I just watched it now. Not so much a matter of audio sync, but people synced to the click. Hey, with that many people, you were fighting an uphill battle. That video is something that you and your band should be very proud of! Everyone played their parts and contributed, and you have a final product that sounds good. And you did it remotely during covid!

Great job!

[Mikebmiller]

For the first video we did, which was a Sousa march, we just used a click track. For this one, we made a backup track with a recording of the actual tune and people played along to that. For most, it was easier to follow, although spots where there was a slight ritard or an entrance after a break were challenging. I ended up doing a ton of editing lining up all the parts as closely as my ears could get them.

The whole goal of this little project was to keep people in the band involved and having something to do as a group more that to produce a perfect video. We got about half the band to participate.