I was asked by one of our members to describe my process for making multi-tracked videos, so I thought I'd go ahead and publicly post my response:
I have a pretty tried and true formula that I use that might not be right for others, and some of the things I do certainly wouldn’t be viewed as “kosher” in the recording studio world.
I should tell you that musical technology is somewhat of a specialty of mine - I have a Master’s degree in Music and Electronic Media (’86 Mills College), and spent the last twenty eight years teaching music technology classes at City College of San Francisco. I have some very advanced software tools that I use quite simply for the most part.
Where it all starts: Rehearsal rehearsal rehearsal. First off, when I do a video for UU, I want to do it in one take. Even if I can patch a good performance together from multiple takes, I like to do it in one, for a couple of reasons: 1. continuity is always better if you can do it in 1 take, 2. pride: almost every other vid you see at UU is a single take with no editing. I want people to realize I did a hard song in one take, and didn’t have to rely on the technology to make my performance good. So, like the boy scout: be prepared. Be ready to go when that recording begins. I can’t emphasize how important the quality of performance is to the process. I believe a great performance recorded with decent gear trumps a decent performance recorded with great gear every time.
Step one: Capture that good performance. If you’ve got ten professional mics, you might spend a couple of hours figuring out which one gives you marginally better results. OK I could go on and on about microphones, but I believe that workflow is improved if you limit your microphone choice. I say get one or two good mics, and use them for everything. I have an Audio Technica 4040 (
http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-AT4040-Cardioid-Condenser-Microphone/dp/B0002D0BQ8) which I can use for ukulele or vocals. I also have a Shure SM86 (great for stage vocals) which I sometimes use for vocals. Either of these mics sound good with ukulele or vocals, but sometimes I get fancy and use them both. You have probably heard that having a good USB audio interface is important - well mine is an absolute piece of crap one: (
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/det... G4CgO4tQkVQ2SRYV8Cdw68z1sR1LuhRmRRoCj27w_wcB). Because this interface has no mic preamps, I use a Mackie mixer to feed the unit with audio from my mics. Some day I would like to get a Mackie USB mixer, which combines the functions of mixer and interface, but I don’t have much extra money these days, so I work with what I’ve got.
When I record my first pass, I always use photobooth (software that comes with mac), for both video and audio. This is one of the weak aspects of my process: photobooth is not a high res video tool, but it records full bandwidth audio (in mono - mono is fine for web-destined media, IMO, though if I multitrack the final mix will usually be stereo). This is why my videos sound good, but look like s**. I don’t mind about that, though, for me it’s mostly about the music, and eliminating the attitude that it has to look good allows me to focus (no pun intended) on the sound. I don’t have good lighting and my initial video tool is low res, so I typically remove the color in post production (I think the low res image is less offensive in B&W). After recording the good take, I export the file out of photobooth (this file will be low res vid with high res monophonic audio).
Adding more tracks: I use Digital Performer, which is a professional (and expensive) DAW (Digital Audio Workstation software can record audio and also run MIDI devices). For adding more tracks, you could get essentially the same results with GarageBand or Audacity, which are free software DAWs - they just don’t have all the bells and whistles that DP or ProTools have.
Here is where I get kind of unconventional: I hate using headphones when I’m adding tracks. So I make sure my mics are pointed away from my monitor speakers when adding new tracks. Yes, there will be some background noise from previously recorded tracks in the new tracks... I live with that (I figure that material is already there and loud on another track, this background noise isn’t going to be distracting - I’ve been surprised how good the results are - I even use this monitoring technique when recording stuff for my records - the high res studio pundits will howl, but that’s what I do!).
When recording the overdubs, I use a cheap SONY digital video camera to simultaneously capture the images. The results are much higher res than photobooth, so these takes will sometimes appear in color (or muted color) when I add them to the first take vid. These video takes sit in the camera until I’m ready to import them to finalize the video. The audio recorded on the camera will be low res, and un-useful except for syncing purposes (more on that later).
I recommend that you
mix down the audio before proceeding with video editing. When I export my mix, I want it to sound great, with all parts in place. Here I could go on for about two pages about EQ, compression, effects processing, stereo sound spatialization, reverb, limiters, etc, but the bottom line is it needs to sound good when you mix down and export your audio. Once you export the audio, the video editing fun begins.
For editing video I use the free software imovie (some day I would love to get a better program, but I’m amazed at how good imovie is for free software, and am not quite ready to fork over money for something I may not really need). Imovie does picture in picture, which I love for my secondary tracks. It also lets you layer two images as well, which I use from time to time. One drawback of imovie is that you can only have two things going at once (in other words, I couldn’t have a main vid with pic in pic AND an overlayer, I have to choose two of those) - but I get around this by exporting (“sharing”) the video and re-importing THAT video to add the third to it. Hope that makes sense - for me it’s important to show at least some of the performance of the backing tracks (especially if I used a bass) - other posters just do the multi-tracking and you hear it but don’t see it... totally your call there. It’s a lot more work to add the video of the backing tracks, but that’s what I like to do.
Start with the original take. I lay the original take into imovie. Then I add the multitracked audio. With imovie, you have to make sure the multitracked mix has been imported to your itunes library. When you’ve done that, you can add that media in imovie. I drag the audio over the video track, then spend some time lining the audio up on both the original video and the new multi-tracked mix. When they are synced, I mute the original video audio, and voila, you’re video now has a high res multi-tracked audio behind it. At this point I import the other videos and either picture in picture them or overlay them.
When it all looks and sounds good, I use the share function to output an mp4 video.
I hope this has been some help, please feel free to ask questions, as I’m sure I didn’t adequately explain everything.
Here's a good example of how all the above comes together in a video. The track has an original tenor uke/vocal take, with overdubbed bass, doubling vocal, and iPhone keyboard solo:
I am sure others are in the same boat as me. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
