I have made a few song videos for participating in the monthly collaborations in the Drumeo drum school. This month the parent group Musora expanded it to include their other schools for piano, guitar and singing. There is also a bass one coming soon. I do have some access to lessons in all of these, but have concentrated on drums for the last couple of years. The song for this month is The Scientist by Coldplay. It is a fairly simple song and the drum part is pretty basic, so I thought I could have a go at doing a full arrangement. I do not really play piano and did not have time to do bass this time.
I have done a couple of videos where I played two instruments, but this was a bit more complex. The guitars and vocal were recorded using Audacity with the original song as a reference. I need to synchronise with that for the Musora people to edit me in with all the others. Previously they did not seem to mind you including a drumless backing track, but this time they wanted it without to make the mixing easier. The drums were recorded on my new Yamaha EAD10 system. I did try adding some extra beats, but it may have been better without. It is actually quite hard to keep in time with such a slow song and I had to make small adjustments.
I make no claims to be a great singer, but nobody has told me to stop yet. This song goes quite high, so it was challenging. I ought to do some lessons to get more control. I messed up a few lines, but then I did not do many takes.
All the video was recorded on my phone and then had to be synchronised to the audio in the Kdenlive video editor. I could use the phone audio waveforms to line it up and then apply a transform to each video track to show them all together. The problem I found then was that playback in the preview was very choppy as the computer struggled to process it all in real time. My PC is a few years old and may need more memory. I did some searching around and learned about proxy clips where you generate lower quality video for the preview. That improved it a bit. Then it took an hour or more to render the final file. The first time I did that it would not play back, so I tried a different format.
In the end I spent a few hours putting this all together. It is a lot easier when you just record audio without worrying about video as well. I plan to do more recording with drums now that I have a decent system for it. I also have the option of my Roland e-drums, but the acoustic set sounds good. I have a new head for the snare drum that I need to fit. I have not changed one before, so I shall be looking up tips for that.
Rock on!
OMG, @steevc, you’ve got me crying!! 😭
Your Tiny Dedk Concert, as I’d like to call it, not only warms my heart but kinda breaks it, too.
Even your 2 bars of counting in express a tenderness rarely witnessed in music these days.
I loved it, sweet friend. 😘
LOL! The counting was to help me sync up the videos and also to help the Musora people do their bit. That has turned into a bit of an epic as I forgot to actually send in my video before the deadline, but one of their dedicated moderators has stepped in to help me get in. She said I needed to give them the individual videos, so I had to do some more editing for that. Working with video is such a palaver. Whoever does the big edit of the collaboration has my respect.
I know my limitations as a musician, but I am up for collaborating with others if they will have me.
Would you ever be willing to come do a tiny desk concert for CWH?
Oh, how we’d love it!! 🥰
That's a possibility. I'd have to work on something for that. Just let me know how it would work.
That’s easy. The next time you come to Cuppa Joe, the half-hour pre-CWH hangout, I’ll demonstrate how. Easy.
Everyday on CWH Discord, you’ll see the Cuppa Joe link in the “🟢 HAPPENING NOW” (upper left corner) event notice appear at 2:30 GMT.
Bring your own cuppa.
What time is that (UK)? I may be able to stop by today.
Oh, yes, 2:30pm UK & UTC.
Wow I can only imagine how much time it must have taken you to do that. I mean I know you said a couple of hours, but that is pretty impressive. Nice job!
Cheers. This is what I do for fun. I learnt a few things in the process.
Wow you are multitalented,, wow you did a nice job. I love the song too, "nobody say it was easy"
Cheers
Wow! That’s impressive and how you edited it all together looks very slick. I’ve just subbed to your YouTube channel too.
The trouble with recording music and video is that it’s resource hungry , more so than ever now.
There were some big files involved with that. I've resisted buying new computer gear for a while, but it seems to struggle lately.
If I had the time I'd have refined the performances more.
Way to stick with it ‘til you got a head of the curve. You are a cymbal of dogged persistence to us all! Seriously, very cool! Love the app and gear review.
I won't fall into your snare! I bass it all on beating my musical demons.
My god man, this reminds me of why I tend not to record much if at all these days. i used to find it so much easier when I had my 16 track studio but when you have to syn and use PCs it just starts to become a time hog!
I ought to do more of it to learn the shortcuts. I've got all the gear I need, but have to learn how to use it.
And once you perfect the setup it would be relatively easy to continue. Just that initial faff!
At least I can keep most of the gear set up, so there's not too much messing about before I start.
" Ooh take me back to the start ". Indeed nobody said it was easy .. Nice rendition!!
Cheers. It's a bit of fun to do this.
fantastic job!!
!discovery 30
Coldlay uno de mis favoritos y te quedó excelente muchas felicidades ..
@steevc, you're rewarding 9 replies from this discussion thread.
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