Recording a guitar

RicksPick
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Fri Sep 17, 2010 10:24 am

Hi everyone

I have come to something of a stalling block

Ive been trying to record myself playing and debating the sound quality issue
When I look at my video cam or my stills camera the specks for audio are;video audio
PCM digital sound: 16 bit (48 kHz/2 ch); 12 bit (32 kHz/4 ch)

And when I look at a dedicated condenser microphone it says;
Specs 100-15,000Hz, output level -52Db, Impedance 600 Ohm, Max spl 10Db

obvious this is better, question is, is it the kHz thats important and there fore video cam has a poor range( cannot pick up certain ranges??)

When Neil and Matt do live broadcasts, is that just a webcam picking up the sound? or?

What sound recording do you use???

Anyone have any advice please

RicksPick


willem
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Fri Sep 17, 2010 10:39 am

Hello Rick,,i do not know anything about it,only the 16 and 12 bit on your cam as to do with mono and stereo(i believe),when you set 12 bit that's stereo,,but have to check my manual again,,hope you get great awnsers..


dennisg
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Fri Sep 17, 2010 10:43 am

RicksPick wrote:
Hi everyone

obvious this is better
Rick,

I'm confused by the above statement. What's better than what?

I'm not sure if the specs you cited are for the video camera or the still camera. But either way, the spec says nothing about frequency response, unlike the spec for the condenser mic.

A question about how you're using your condenser mic: this type of mic requires power from an outside source, either phantom power (from, say, an amp) or a battery? How are you powering the mic?


RicksPick
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Fri Sep 17, 2010 10:52 am

sorry

At the moment Im only using the vid cam, but quality seems poor to me
So looking at some mic's on internet.

RicksPick


willem
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Fri Sep 17, 2010 10:53 am

willem wrote:
Hello Rick,,i do not know anything about it,only the 16 and 12 bit on your cam as to do with mono and stereo(i believe),when you set 12 bit that's stereo,,but have to check my manual again,,hope you get great awnsers..


i checked the manual,,the 16 and 12 bit are both stereo,,but with 12 you record on two channels,with 16 on one with a higher qualty,,my thinkin and i must experiment with that myself in audacity,, lets say put the 16 sound in audacity and copy this and paste this on a second channel..,


RicksPick
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Fri Sep 17, 2010 10:59 am

Thanks Willem

Part of my question is are these video cams up to the job of recording guitar audio
Or are they good for just voice and general noise?

I know it's a big open ended question, but I need advice

Thanks

RicksPick


willem
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Fri Sep 17, 2010 11:02 am

RicksPick wrote:
Thanks Willem

Part of my question is are these video cams up to the job of recording guitar audio
Or are they good for just voice and general noise?

I know it's a big open ended question, but I need advice

Thanks

RicksPick
i don't know realy,,but recording sound is a job apart and the cam's have all diffrent qualty mike i geuss,,, maybe is the vid below where you surching at..



dennisg
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Fri Sep 17, 2010 11:08 am

Most consumer-level video cameras will deliver very mediocre audio, because audio is generally a low priority for the people who use them. The internal mics in most video cameras are about as cheap as the company can build them so as to keep the cost down on a feature most people don't care about.

When Neil records himself, I don't see an external mic in the shot anywhere, so either he's using a boom mic overhead or he's using the camera's internal mic.


wrench
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Fri Sep 17, 2010 11:32 am

Hey RicksPick,

My advice may be worth exactly what you're paying for it, but here goes...

Video camera mics are located in the camera, which for video purposes are usually too far away from the guitar to get good sound quality. Also, most mics are weighted to the human voice, and therefore have frequency responses starting at 100 Hz. Low E on the guitar is 82 Hz. Drop D is in the low 70's.

Condenser mics are awesome, but they too, are weighted for voice or instrument, so some have frequency response starting as low as 50 Hz for instrument and 100 Hz for voice. The bottom line is if you get a 100 Hz condenser mic, your guitar will still sound a little weak at the lowest notes.

Condenser mics pick up more ambient noise than I can control, such as traffic, birds chirping, neighbor's lawn mower, etc. I felt that unless I had a soundproof room, condenser was more than I could use. Dennis is also right about the phantom power issue, which leads to the next issue. you will also need preamplification. Phantom power is often supplied by the preamp device such as a mixer or interface.

I found that "good enough" for me is an inexpensive dynamic microphone 70-20,000 Hz, fed into a just-as-inexpensive stereo mixer. The output is equally adaptable to computer or amplifier. This is all Radio Shack stuff and cost about $50 USD total. It sounds FAR superior to mics in webcams or video cameras. You can certainly get higher quality stuff, but when you get into condensers, you can easily outperform your environment with it.

Dan


MarkM
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Fri Sep 17, 2010 11:54 am

RicksPick,

I have a cannon Vixia HG21 but don't use the internal mic anymore. I use a Sennheiser E835 I believe (Its not in front of me at the moment) with a USB cable directly into my computer where I record the guitar using Audacity. I find that the set up picks up the guitar pretty well.

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... sku=270825

Here is the cable that I use.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/LightSnake- ... 1391847.gc



MarkM


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