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February, 2025

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Tips for shooting live music +k

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JibbaTheHutt
Posts: 2132 - Karma: 1,597
so one of my good friends is hoping to get into a music college and has asked me to make 1 or 2 videos of her performing some of her own songs.

i've spoken to her about it a little and i think what she wants in terms of production is something in a similar style as this :


so what i was wondering is if anybody has any advice on achieving the best audio possible.

i currently only have a rode video mic as my means of capturing audio, but if anybody has any ways of capturing good audio on a small budget it would be much appreciated!
12 years ago
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Laurent.
Posts: 10056 - Karma: 25,311
Plug instruments directly into a Zoom H4N.

Click for larger image
12 years ago
1 1
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JibbaTheHutt
Posts: 2132 - Karma: 1,597
she is going to be singing and using an acoustic guitar so plugging directly into an audio recorder isnt really an option unfortunately
12 years ago
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Laurent.
Posts: 10056 - Karma: 25,311
Do you want to have the guitar and voice track separate?
If so get a pair of fig-8 mics and point one of them at the guitar and one at face.


But realistically speaking for that style there's so many different setups you can create for so many budgets it hard to give any advice really on what to do.
12 years ago
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maxro
Posts: 533 - Karma: 81
If you're on a budget you should just pick up an MXL 990 condenser. $80 on musicians friend and sounds plenty decent to make an audition tape, though it wouldn't sound great outdoors.
11 years ago
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Balto
Posts: 26017 - Karma: 4,521
i have one of these and have no idea how to use it or why i even have it in the first place
11 years ago
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VT_scratch
Posts: 8823 - Karma: 6,410
you can do a lot with those man
11 years ago
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Laurent.
Posts: 10056 - Karma: 25,311
Doesn't that account for 80% of the things you own? ; )
11 years ago
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panojibber.
Posts: 1041 - Karma: 683
Use your rode mic, keep your levels out of the red/yellow, set your mic gain properly, and it'll work out fine. So many people get great sound out of those things, it's all about using them properly. Bring your laptop and headphones, and do some test recordings too, then listen to them on the computer and make sure it sounds good. If its for a music school don't make any cuts in the video, they need to see the whole thing from start to finish uninterrupted.

Also, most music stores have a rental department and will rent recording gear, everything from mics to those zoom recorders like the one posted above. I think you would be better off just using your rode mic though. Maybe with one of those zoom recorders. Live recording is an art in its own, if you know how to use your rode mic it would probably yield better results than a more complex setup that you're not comfortable with.
11 years ago
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JibbaTheHutt
Posts: 2132 - Karma: 1,597
+k cheers dude! that helps alot. well like i said she is a good friend of mine so i'm sure she wont mind me playing around with different audio untill i find something that works well.
11 years ago
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SirFryanator
Posts: 11149 - Karma: 1,416
fuck man I will take that off your hands if you don't know how to use it...damn son! any piece of audio equipment with a 1/4" TS or TRS cable can be plugged into this (a guitar 'patch' cable to connect to your amp).

from what I can tell the one in the picture also has an XY microphone setup for a nice stereo image...so you should be able to capture field recordings with it as well. which is why I want it. I get back to WA in a week, and I'll be back in 2 weeks...hmu homie
11 years ago
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