Tuesday 19 March 2013

Settings for recording classical guitar

A few days after I wrote Settings for recording a guitar performance I got a new computer, so those settings don't work anymore, so let's write here my present settings for recording my classical guitar in my Dell Latitude E6530, running Xubuntu 12.10.

For the moment I use the internal webcam and the internal microphone. I have the following settings in PulseAudio Volume Control:


  • Output Devices: set as fallback "Built-in Audio Analogue Stereo"
  • Input Devices: "Internal Microphone"
  • Configuration: GF108 High Definition Audio Controller: Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output; Built-in Audio: Analogue Stereo Duplex


I follow these steps:


  1. I record video+audio with VLC:
    • To avoid echo when recording, we put output volume muted.  (PA Volume Control, Output Devices). 
    • To avoid saturation, we put input volume at 20%.
    • We "Open Capture Device", with hardware set as /dev/video0 and hw:0,0
    • The video goes to /home/angelv/Videos
  2. To massage the audio:
    • I open the .avi file generated by VLC directly in Audacity.
    • We amplify the signal (Effects -> Amplify) if needed.
    • We do "Click removal" (in Effects)
    • We do some reverb, using GVerb. Based on http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=GVerb I end up with these settings:
      • Roomsize:  50 m²
      • Reverb time:  7 s
      • Damping:  0.70
      • Input bandwidth:  0.75
      • Dry signal level:  0 dB
      • Early reflection level:  -22 dB
      • Tail level: -30
    • We export the audio as .ogg
  3. We then create the video (with OpenShot):
    • open .avi and .ogg files
    • create two titles and put them on the top tracks (one for the title, with style Gold2, and another one for the date, with style Gold Bottom). The size of the text, and its position can be set to whatever suits us with the title advanced options.
    • in the third track, I put the backgroupd image for the title. Right now, I'm using a picture of Mount Teide (MEDIA/Pictures/Izana/pa300001.jpg). We can set the duration of the title, by right-clicking to access their properties.
    • In the fourth track we put the .avi file (muted).
    • In the fifth track we put the .ogg audio file.
    • We add a dissolve transition between the background picture and the .avi file.
    • We add fade outs to the .avi and to the .ogg tracks.
    • Once this is done, we export the video, with the following settings: profile: web; target: vimeo-SD, quality: high.
    • This generates a .mp4 file, ready to upload to Vimeo.

Enjoy!


Classical guitar progress logging (Mar'13)


Again recorded with my "normal" classical guitar, directly with the internal microphone of my laptop, and afterwards just added a tiny reverb with Audacity.

The pieces for this month are Nostalgia by Julio Sagreras, and Study in E Minor by Fernando Sor, and the video is here.

Nostalgia by Julio Sagreras, and Study in E Minor by Fernando Sor from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.