Season 415: Giving (via cell phone)

Looking for some technical help if anyone comes across this, i'd greatly appreciate your advice. I've been struggling to record myself on my old phone. I've gotten access to another old phone, but it's a really nice iPhone 6 I believe. I'm having a terrible time with overwhelming the microphone and getting this terrible distortion. Are you guys using an app like iMovie to record the audio, or are you just using video mode on your cameras? Is there a way to control the microphones sensitivity internally? I've seen that there are quite a few decent sounding videos being recorded via phone, so I'd like to make another effort to meet the option one challenge without depending on someone else to use their phone, which probably creates it's own set of problems, getting the recording from their phone to mine so I can upload it directly from the phone.

Cheers, kev
 
Hi Kev! I think Brian's idea was that we should just record to a phone, warts and all ... without any additional technology. (This might just be my wishful interpretatation as I don't really "do" technology!)
 
Thanks for the quick reply Val! Yeah, I think I get the gist of warts and all, but my experimental recordings are unlistenable so far. I am not talking about warts such as a small mistake or uneven mix of vocals and uke. I'm talking extreme distortion, such as 150 mile an hour winds might sound coming through a sensitive microphone :) And this, with me playing and singing as quietly as I possibly can. I'm going to try pushing it further back and see if that helps. Cheers ~
 
Cover of another 3-chord wonder: Red Red Wine, by UB40. Uke is played through a small Vox amp off to the side, with reverb and tremolo. Recorded into my Samsung Galaxy J3 cellphone right in front of me. Recording direct into cellphone, getting the vocal/uke balance is usually the issue for me, depending on whether playing with nails (louder) or fleshy thumb (softer).

 
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Hi, pa and everyone! I choked my way through this one (third take ... ack.). I need your help on the chorus.

Feels great to be playing again. Wonderful Season. Let's strum.

 
Hi, Kev. I usually leave the volume levels pretty low on my iPhone and the phone seems to compensate. I did buy a Blue Snowball condenser mic that plugs into the phone, but most of the time I don't use it. Just sing and play straight in and use the default video camera software. Then I transfer the raw video to YouTube.

Good luck!
 
@Kevin

The few times I have recorded on my phone due to lack of time for setting up my microphone and stuff, I have just put the camera app on the phone in selfie mode video and pressed record.
I remember doing it on an IPhone 6 a few years ago, and I have done it on my current Sony XZ compact. Not super sound quality, but not as bad as you describe.
I just put it like an arms length away, so the video was framed properly.
 
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Here is my version of "Give my Love to Rose."
Recorded on a Sony Xperia Compact.

 
Thanks for the feedback guys!

I noticed I had the volume up really high, so that may have been the problem. I erased the old takes, but I may have actually had something worth keeping :)

Yeah Mikkel, I figured from watching the other videos that most of you had the phone positioned very closely, so that's what I was doing as well. I think i've got it sorted now ~
 
Season 415 of the ukulele requires either a song recorded entirely on phone or containing the word "give" in the title. I admit I didn't bother with the phone, but I've always liked the chord progression in "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)" by George Harrison, and while I've noodled with it a bit on guitar, never bothered to play it on ukulele before. Having done it, I like the way the chord progression sounds on the uke too, despite a few mistakes.



By the way, I checked the SOTU archives and found a couple of great versions of the song from Season 106. One by Linda Louden at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6zIG8JqBlQ&list=PL5fZxPLBIjrgIrnVr6-3gp7QuvDuPo-BU&index=40&t=0s and one by Rustyy at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_F596ySytY&list=PL5fZxPLBIjrgIrnVr6-3gp7QuvDuPo-BU&index=15&t=0s.

By the way, does this count as two uploads since the song title uses the word "give" twice?
 
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Sorry, Brian, this was NOT recorded on a mobile phone.

This is for a number of reasons:

1) I don't how to do that and I'd need a way to hold the mobile while filming.
2) I like to edit my videos and don't know how to do that on my mobile
3) As I have a lot of Catalan & Spanish viewers I like to add subtitles.
4) The multi-instrument nature of the arrangement of the song.

BUT - at least the theme of the song and the chorus were inspired by the theme.

Hope you like:

 
Puh, I did my very best to take the rules, directly to my iPhone and with „give“ in the title:cool: A song of my youth and I still love Suzie today :love: Best regards from Bavaria :D

 
"Just Give Me A Reason" (2012) by Alecia Moore (P!nk), Jeff Bhasker and Nate Ruess. Tabs by UkeOfCarl. Recorded with my Android phone and uploaded straight to YT. Wearing high neck sweater to hide my double chin. :)
 
Ahoy
Here is an Icelandic song called Tvær Stjörnur by Megas (Iceland's Dylan)
I did not subtitle the song but I did try and translate the lyrics and posted that in the description
 
Hello yet again, Brian! This song is a celebration of the phone (or bananas!) I uploaded it from my mobile via the video editor I use, as it was imperative to add bananas and I didn't know how to do that on the phone; nothing else was changed. The phone image I used is of a landline phone (or "ligne fixe" as it is called here.) I have found out, though, that there actually IS a "Banana" cell phone ... made by Nokia. (And, apologies, I'm still struggling with a cold (or something) and my voice just made it to the end of the song. And, more apologies ... I recorded this sitting on the bed, which is why the phone/picture is bouncing up and down!)

 
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Here is a video, recorded on an iPhone 6s, I think, and uploaded directly to YouTube as per Brian's instructions. It sounded horrible on the phone speakers, but it actually sounds ok once I got it uploaded to youtube and could listen on normal speakers. Warts and all :) Joined by my friends Marc, Chuck and Eric. Thanks again for hosting Brian. Now hopefully I can make some time to catch up with my listening and commenting ~

 
Jon (AKA The Mess Inside, AKA Eugene Ukulele, AKA Mountain Goat) had purchased the 8-episode Ken Burns documentary "Country Music" and I was interested in watching it. 40 degrees in Hobart this afternoon (and me quiclkl losing my stake at the roulette wheel at the local casino) made us change our plans abuot sightseeing, and we spent the blitering afternoon in the cool part of his Sand Bay home watching Episode 1... a good part of it was about Jimmie Rodgers... From that came this...
 
Cheers for hosting Brian. All my videos have always been recorded on my old Samsung phone, I like to enjoy the carefree portability of just pressing the record switch wherever I am and grabbing the uke. I've been laid up on steroids and anti-biotics for the past week and half so probably a couple of quickies from me before the season clock runs down...……

 
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