Filming an iOS setup...

FlightManual

Thank you in advance.

I really want to film videos of my iOS setup for demos and performances. Everything is ready to go on the audio side of things, and there's lots of ideas I'd like to share, but...

I have always struggled with filming my setup and would love some ideas. I would like to record stereo audio via line in jack while filming video in (usually) dim lighting.

Not gonna lie: I hate doing this. I find film editing to be so time consuming on my old computer, and coordinating audio recordings with video is such a chore. Kills the creativity. So if I'm to do demo videos, something I'd like to throw together on a regular basis, I'd like to hit record, upload it to youtube with a bit of trimming, and be done.

I first tried the Olympus LS-20M HD, which had mediocre audio quality and a fairly inconvenient lens placement. Held a charge for a half hour. Next up is the Tascam DR-V1HD, which has incredible audio quality, low video quality, and decided to crap out this week as I finished Mission Control iOS. So I need to find a relatively inexpensive solution. Here's my hope:

Must have:
Quality stereo recording via Line In.
Be easy to record and upload.

Would be nice:
Recorded better video than my previous two recorders.
Worked in dim lighting situations.
Not too expensive.

I'm guessing a go-pro might work, but they are pretty pricey, and I'm not sure they work well in low light.

I really would welcome any opinion on the matter. I often say I shouldn't even bother with video if I hate doing it, but demos increase traffic to my website considerably, and I haven't done them in a while. Site is boring and stagnant without fresh content. I also watch demos of gear constantly, and sometimes multiple times, whereas I can't sit through an electronic performance filmed from a stationary camera for more than a few seconds!

What I really need is a camera guy. And a roadie. And fans.

What was I saying?

I don't know how TheSoundTestRoom does it. Jakob and Doug have some crazy devotion to the cause.

Mission Control iOS

Where the videos will eventually be: http://coloringpad.org/

Thanks for reading!

mgmg4871

I think Jakob has a video of his setup on the website.

obiwahnkentobi

great cockpit ;-)
like your crazy stuff esp. the big build kalimba on your site!

yeah video cutting could be time intensiv, but a video brings YOUR product, what you wanna show, to the audience and a nice accurate synced än cutted video help here a lot (a LOT!) @jakoB_haQ ;-)
and maybe you should invest here more as you like....(same here!)

maybe you found here inspirations...:

read good things about the new zoom Q4n camera, thats would be a (not cheap) solution
http://www.thomann.de/gb/zoom_q4n.htm

greetz

FlightManual

Thanks Obiwahnkentobi. The Zoom Q4N looks like it has all the features I would want. Still taking suggestions, but that is a prime candidate.

[Deleted User]

I thought that a Go-pro camera is great for that, fixed on a stand or mounted to something?

PS beautiful setup

u0421793

I’ve got a Zoom Q2HD but I wouldn’t recommend a thing like this for your usage. It sounds like you’re feeding the audio in from the desk mix, and the Zoom units are sold for their mic capabilities, which you’re not going to be using. Using external audio in (which the Q2HD can’t even do) obviates its main selling point.

If you’re using a conventional stills camera that can also do video, it’ll more than likely time out after shooting video for 29 minutes and 59 seconds. If you’re using an actual camcorder you’ll get longer run times, but unless you spend upwards a bit it’ll give you rubbish low light performance (a phone might do better) (and the really cheaper camcorders can’t take external audio in anyway).

My ‘action cam’ is a Sony AS-15, but there’s more modern ones (which don’t seem any higher quality though) and that has an external audio input 3.5mm minijack underneath. If you set it to 170° you get a very fisheye effect, but when you turn on stabilisation, it also switches to 120° field of view (a bit more sane for this sort of thing). It is limited by battery power duration, unless you fudge some sort of feed-in adaptor and strap it all to a stand. None of the input/output is reachable when the waterproof case is on. One thing about the action cam is that it is controllable from iOS or android using the app.

Since I got my action cam a few years back, there’s now a whole world of cheap chinese action cam imports, some of which seem to be not entirely rubbish. There’s a lot of online review sites separating the wheat from the chaff.

TGiG

I'd definitely need a flight manual for that mission control!
But seriously it looks awesome @FlightManual
Here are some TSTR links. There should be more but this is a start

http://thesoundtestroom.com/diy-light-box-haq-vlog-23/

http://thesoundtestroom.com/preferred-video-editing-apps/

http://thesoundtestroom.com/record-great-vocals-with-iphone-mic/

u0421793

Another approach — a good webcam! A good one, not an average one.

There are sometimes very good deals on the Logitech high-end webcams [1] that have on-board H264 video encoding. You could ignore the sound on those, instead taking your sound in separately over line input directly recording to some small off-desk computer.

[1] A few years ago I passed by the window of a secondhand shop and noticed a logitech c920 for ridiculously cheap — I didn’t even need a webcam but it was the sort of price that would be rude not to go in and effect the purchase of. Since then, I’ve noticed them reasonably cheap on Amazon etc during their periodic everyone go crazy sales.

FlightManual

Thanks for the help. Looks like I should flip some gear and make the investment.

JP-08

my daily grind is a film and television camera operator in hollywood, so this is my bag.

you cant have good video in low light. the higher the ISO or gain the more you amplify the noise in the sensors output.

you must have adequate light, proper f-stop and iso to make any good recordings.

in terms of matching audio to video,
there are many computer apps (pluraleyes is what i use when i need to ) that will marry the audio automatically for you in your editor (i use sony vegas --im a pc dude).

if you are recording audio separate from the video, use a slate tone or clap your hands into the mic on the camera and make sure you can visually see your hands clapping in the video so you can match these up later if you want to marry the sound up old school (manually).

gopros work just fine and you can find a knock off thats cheaper (ambarella sensors are whats used in gopros, A9 and above if you can), or even get an earlier gopro. you dont need to shoot these demo vids you are doing in 4K so dont get caught up in that hype. shooting 4k demands a lot from the cpu/ram and gpu on your computer so keep it simple (KISS).

there are many options out there and it depends on the budget you want to spend for video production. you can go cheap and get a 30 dollar sound card from amazon and use a camera phone with diffused lightning from a light source bounced off aluminum foil or shining through a sheer curtain to get decent results.

Tarekith

I use my iPhone for video, and record the audio into my computer. From there it's pretty easy to remove the audio from the video and sync the new audio. I used to use iMovie for this, but lately I find Screenflow faster and upload to YouTube is quicker. I hate lining up the audio and video too (especially now that I use multiple camera angles for my live set recordings), but it's not too bad and it's cheap.

Will

+1 on an just using iPhone. Think the later generation iPod Touch models have the same camera. Get an interface that will accept a stereo in, a bright light to point reflect off the wall and be done with it. The Blue Digital Mikey's have a stereo input and they plug right into the phone's port. Then you get more AB remote or whatever when you're not shooting.

Also, woa at the cockpit! When do I get to ask you 100 questions about your boss looper? And is that a custom desk? And what are those monitors? And And bloody fookin And?! I guess that's what the video's for, huh? : )

enc

WIth a decent a light source.... LED light rigs (easy on power, generate less heat) can be picked up for cheap on ebay ... iphone 5 and later are quite usable for video. just remember to lock focus and exposure! there are a few decent apps out there that get deeper into trhe settings than the built in camera app (e.g Filmic Pro)..... just remember recording video tends to use up battery and memory pretty quickly !

FlightManual

@syrupcore said:
Also, woa at the cockpit! When do I get to ask you 100 questions about your boss looper? And is that a custom desk? And what are those monitors? And And bloody fookin And?! I guess that's what the video's for, huh? : )

Thanks! Ask away about the looper.

Was sitting here on a day off and decided to TRY and explain it. Here we go!:

This is one of three units I use for live performance. I used to be an "all hardware" musician before the iPads. The second rig is all vocoders, while the third is effect pedals. I mainly like to process drums live. That's what I do in æther generator, anyway.

Here's the schematic in summary for iPad mission control:

The Mackie u420 mixer is at the heart of the setup. The three iPads (all iPad 3s) feed into channels 1-3 respectively. The fourth channel is the Roland RC505 looper.

All three iPads can be fed to the RC505 via the small Rolls mixer I painted white. The RC505 then sends to an Alesis Compressor (which is sidechained to iPad 1, allowing for pumping and breathing leads) and Alesis Reverb.

The Mackie Mix5 is for external inputs. I've got an iPhone 5c sending audio to it as well as a Korg contact mic, but it's real function is injecting external signals. The iPhone is mainly there for Link to Midi and Audiobus Remote.

The neat part of the Mackie u420 mixer is that it has a STEREO PRE AUXILLIARY output. This is super hard to find in a mixer. It allows me to send audio from any channel out to the iPad 2 or 3.

MIDI: I can receive MIDI from other players and route it to everything, and I can send MIDI from iPad 1 to everything with a simple switch in the back. MIDI is mainly run out of the Beatstep Pro to the iPads.

The Behringer iStudios are awesome. The main iPad in the center is plugged into an Vestax VMIDI which has its USB connector fed into a Miditech MIDIFACE II. This gets me a powered iPad, MIDI in/out/thru, and audio out for 70 bucks total. Sadly, no audio in.

The Roland RC505 looper is great for making creative loops of various lengths. My favorite features: Each channel can be be assigned to the effects or not, allowing for some creative shuffling and stuttering of selected loops. You can shut off the input signal so it doesn't double up on the loop you create if you're trying to play live. Your first loop sets the tempo, but loops recorded afterwards can be shorter or longer, and will officially stop recording on the next beat if you press stop a bit too early. Most of all, you can set loops to run freely too, so you can create micro loops running alongside 10 minute opus loops. Ambient city.

This setup looks pricey, but I'm pretty frugal and three of the four iOS devices were previously owned by family members and were sitting around gathering dust. A sin. The rest was purchased (mostly used) by selling four pedals and a sampler. This whole setup seems over indulgent to me anyway, but I am determined to play it daily. Wish I could play out at least once in a while, but as soon as you try to describe that your music is electronica made with iPads and vocoders and effect pedals you lose them.

I like making boxes. I think I've made over 20 custom ones over the years. Some were too huge to carry, too small, too heavy, and just silly. This one was really easy and fun to build. 1/2 birch plywood and lots of measuring.

I feel like I went to a party and only talked about myself. Hope I didn't roll too many eyes.

I appreciate the advice. Looks like better lighting yields better videos. I am leaning towards the Zoom H4n and a cheap LED setup for lighting. I have some spare plexiglass that I could frost to diffuse the light.