any advice/help would be appreciated! zoom q8 editing?

Hi folks,
I hope the good people of the mandolin cafe are keeping well and managing life ok in these challenging times?

I'm really missing playing with other people as I'm sure many others here are too. The only collaboration I've done since lockdown was a couple of weeks ago, when a project that I'm involved with ("Mirk on the Irk", a fusion of klezmer and Irish music https://www.klezmerirish.com/) decided to do a recording.

It was really great to do this, a friend lent me a zoom h5 to record the sound as my results on laptop weren't great. I was really pleased and inspired by the results and the quality/simplicity of zoom products. A few years ago, I flirted with the idea of getting a home studio, but as I use a computer all the time with work, I decided that I preferred my music hobby to be as "analogue" as possible - all about wood, strings and friendship, not "techie" stuff. The home recording people that I knew were all into getting obscure bits of equipment, and that world doesn't appeal to me.

Since lockdown, I've seen people putting up videos with multiple tracks recorded independently, and the recent recording has inspired me to try and give this a go and put some mando/guitar duets with myself and any other folks who want to on t'internet. I don't want to get loads of fancy gear, but I've bought a zoom q8 audio/video recorder which I'm optimistic will allow me to do this fairly easily.

My problem with this is that whilst I can create single videos of me playing, I'm presuming that I need some kind of editing software to be able to mix the sound of two recordings and video together and thought that this would be a good place to ask if other people have experience of this and could recommend simple software/tips to be able to do this effectively?

Thanks for any suggestions, and I will post the results on mando cafe when they're done!
cheers,
Paul

As a start you could check out this guide https://www.life wire.com/best-free-video-editing-software-programs-4128924 it'll give you a bit of an overview of the basic options. I use Premier, but there's no point in going down the purchasing route until you've had a go at a few projects and get a feel for what your work flow is when putting a project together.

An initial approach might be to just use the Q8 audio & focus on the sound issues initially, laying over a slide show to keep things straightforward to begin with.

I've made a few lockdown videos, which come out like this:

https://youtu.be/Op8WHIiwSO4

Apologies for the jangly mandolin - it's an old bowlback whose sunken top I recently fixed, but the tuners are so stiff that it's impossible to tune accurately!

I found the best way to do this was to record the audio separately, using Audacity (free, open source software). The most important thing is to get a decent microphone, as the built in mics on laptops are not good for recording music. A usable USB microphone is in the US$50-100 range, or if you have a decent stage mic then a Behringer interface to connect it to your computer is around $50.

Then I made videos of each part, playing and singing along to the pre-recorded audio using the built in video recording software in my Mac (Quicktime). Discard the sound tracks from these videos.

Then edit them together over the audio using the built in video editing software (iMovie). This only offers me side-by-side, cutting away from one video to another, or picture-in-picture - you can see all of these on the video. Splitting the screen into four and other more complex editing requires purchasing software.

Editing is slow and finicky, but it's very pleasing if it all fits together. A three minute video might take me 4 or 5 hours total to edit!

I believe that Windows computers also have built in video recording and video editing software, a quick web search should tell you what they are.

So getting started to the kind of video I've produced is cheap, if time-consuming. I suggest you start with that to see if you like the results you can produce, before spending money on more sophisticated editing software.

Thanks Beanzy and ProfChris!
Definite food for thought... This could be a reasonably slow burner as I have my business to run from home, and a 2 year old so not much free time. We have another addition to the family due late Sep, so lockdown aside it will become increasingly difficult to get out and make music with friends, but great to be able to produce music like this at home and collaborate with others so will definitely consider your suggestions :)

Your Q8 should work well for the audio, experiment with positioning etc.
The USB connection should allow you to record directly to the PC working as an audio interface.
So you could just record the Main video then transfer that to the edit project add audio tracks directly to the timeline with the headphones to monitor for simplicity.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Beanzy

Your Q8 should work well for the audio, experiment with positioning etc.
The USB connection should allow you to record directly to the PC working as an audio interface.
So you could just record the Main video then transfer that to the edit project add audio tracks directly to the timeline with the headphones to monitor for simplicity.

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Hi Beanzy, I recorded myself with my friend's H5 a couple of weeks ago, which as far as I can tell has the same sound recording facility as the q8. I was really pleased with the results so am reasonably confident with the sound recording side of it although it occurs to me that doing the same "take" for both audio and video wouldn't be sensible as getting the best mike placement would compromise the visual and vice verse. Your suggestion makes a lot of sense, thanks!

Actually, I've just seen this which may be the best editing software solution as it is from zoom and presumably designed to be compatible with their products.
https://www.zoom.co.jp/HandyShare