iKlip A/V – A complete mobile solution for professional audio and video recording with your smartphone. is a smartphone broadcast mount that allows you to capture great sounding audio as well as the high quality video that most smart phones are capable of these days.
The audio is the piece of the puzzle where the quality of a video often falls down, so this is a step in the the direction of fixing that. I still feel that it’s important to get the mic close to the audio source. See (and hear) why in our article How To Get Good Audio On Your Videos.
A first in the industry with an integrated high-quality mic preamp with phantom power that lets you use a high quality external microphone for audio capture. There is an XLR port on the unit. The iKlip A/V also has built-in wireless receiver support.
This is a great mobile solution to ensure professional quality audio AND video recording using your very own smartphone. Just mount your phone onto the iKlip, plug your favorite microphone into the mic jack and start recording,
Read more about this here: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/iklipav/
Archives for July 2016
Tips For Recording Piano
Recording the piano can be tricky, but it isn’t as difficult as you may have been led to believe. Pianos offer certain challenges, to be sure. First there is the issue of variation in types of pianos: upright, baby grand, or grand. Then there is the fact that pianos produce such complex tones.
An article I just read identifies five common piano recording myths and misconceptions, then sets us straight about each. Some of the myths are not just limited to piano recording, but seem to apply to recording in general. One of those is the mistaken idea that you need really expensive high-end microphones to get a great sounding recording. I hope that after all the articles I’ve written and audio exhibitions I’ve provided to demonstrate the folly of this misconception (here is just one example: www.homebrewaudio.com/5-dollar-vs-500-dollar-mic), regular Home Brew Audio readers will know that it’s MUCH more about skill and knowledge than about the gear. Another idea challenged by Björgvin Benediktsson in his article is that you need to have a great room to get a great recording. Sure, in a perfect world we’d all have great acoustic spaces to record in. But what do you do when you don’t? Are you sunk? Of course not. This is yet another example of knowledge being the key. You can compensate for a lousy room in a number of ways, such as dampening echos with acoustic treatment or baffles, or close-miking, or a combination of both.
To read the full article, go here: http://www.audio-issues.com/recording-tips/piano-recording-myths/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AudioIssues+%28Audio+Issues%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Standard Order of Operations for Audio Post-Production
Anyone doing a video project knows that audio can either make or break their projects. That’s why understanding the processes involved in audio post-production is super important. Avoid getting confused in the many stages of production by learning these step by step processes, understanding what happens in each step and finding the work flow that best suits you.
Take a deeper look at each step having evolved through the years ensuring the quality of audio for movie and video productions. Whether working with a big team or doing small scale projects these steps will bring efficiency to your workplace.
Check out our own post (with video) – How To Get Good Audio On Your Videos – about how to make the narration on a talking-head (or any kind, really) video sound MUCH better than about 90 percent of videos out there.
Read more about this in the Audiotuts article here: http://photography.tutsplus.com/tutorials/understanding-the-phases-of-audio-post-production-for-video–cms-26688
Mixing Music Is Like Cooking
I’ve often felt that there were tons of similarities between mixing music and cooking. I’d probably see more similarities if I could create meals in the kitchen that didn’t involve a bag of some kind or a jar of peanut butter. But I get the concept.
One of the similarities that comes up a lot is how one thing can mask or overpower another thing. The best chefs use multiple flavors that complement each other. And if one ingredient is not as prominent as it should be, the right answer may not always be to “add more.” Sometimes a flavor can be coaxed out more by doing something with the heat, or adding a touch of another thing that makes the first thing stand out more.
If you followed any of that, you may sense where I’m going with this. In a music mix, if the acoustic guitar seems like it can’t be heard well enough, the amateur will immediately turn up the volume on the acoustic guitar channel. But the master will know to try more subtle moves, like maybe turning down just the middle frequencies of the piano – not the entire piano track, but maybe just a few key frequencies of the piano that may be masking the guitar (you’d use an equalizer [EQ] for this). Other things to try would be to use reverb to push something more to the back of a mix, or to use panning to help separate certain sounds.
The track volume (gain) sliders are like hammers. Beginners see them as the only tool for mixing, so every instrument is like a nail. Did I go awry with this simile? Eh, you get the idea.
Here is an article by Joe Gilder that uses this extended analogy to provide some tips on bringing focus to a music mix.
The full article is here: http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/in_the_studio_three_ways_to_find_focus_in_a_mix/
Tips For Using Screensets In REAPER
A “screenset” in Reaper is a customized arrangement of tools on a Reaper screen. If you want to change to something different from the default layout, you can do that and then save it as a screenset preset. For example, if you want to change the layout so that the tracks are vertical, or some other layout change that would help you in a certain kind of workflow, just rearrange the way the screen looks, then you can save that new screenset in a blink of an eye and then load that layout any time that you like. And you and create as many screensets as you want to.
Watch the video from the Reaper Blog for more details… http://reaperblog.net/2016/05/how-to-use-screensets-in-reaper/