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Author Topic: How the me playing alongside me video is done  (Read 1416 times)

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Clive Williams

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How the me playing alongside me video is done
« on: July 20, 2020, 11:05:14 PM »

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https://youtu.be/1VPPnh5nGjs

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Nice one Clive! Sounds great and clever video too. I'd love to read a quick summary of how you recorded the tracks, synched the sound and created the vid. I keep thinking I should give Olive a go but haven't tried it yet. Maybe this isn't the right thread? Don't want to join the hijack gang.
Steve

Since you asked :-)

It's a bit of extra work to be sure, but not that much.

Setup - 1 x webcam (cheap, unbranded), and 1 x Zoom H2n USB microphone. The Zoom is a fantastic bit of kit I use it all the time. It's a standalone recorder, and also a top notch USB microphone. The webcam is a nasty, nasty, nasty generic one, and nowhere near as good as the Logitech one my wife just nicked off me.

Software - for sound, Mixcraft, which is what I've used for my recordings for some time now. It's commercial, but not very expensive. It's right in the sweetspot of functionality v ease of use for me. For editing, Olive, of which more in a minute.

So... we set Mixcraft recording the Zoom and the PC camera app recording video from the webcam at the same time.  Also, set my phone up recording from its microphone entirely separately. Sit at the back of the room, on the left (not the middle!) of the camera's field of view. Play away, until you get a decent take. Clapping a few times before each take makes synchronising later easier.

Once you've got that, leave the webcam and mixcraft recording. Stop the phone recording. Move to the right of the camera field of view. Get an earphone to use as an in-ear monitor from your phone and play back from just before the start of your decent take. Clap when the clapping from the first run comes along; try and synchronise it! Now play along with your first recording. If you want to do a retake, just replay the phone recording and try again.

Once you've got a decent second recording, stop the mixcraft and camera recording. Use mixcraft to cut up the audio track, isolating the 2 versions you want to keep. Synchronise the 2 audio takes as best you can on different tracks, and mix to taste (i.e. for me, add reverb!). Export the result as a .mp3.

Now, to Olive. Again, isolate the video of the 2 versions you want to keep, and synchronise the 2 video takes as best you can. One will totally obscure the other, so take the video of you playing on the left, and apply a crop on it off the right half of the picture. It took me ages to find it, but the setting is on video effects/distort/crop. Apply a bit of feather to avoid any difference in lighting that makes the difference between the 2 takes obvious. Now import the .mp3, and synchronise that too. Once you're happy with the synchronisation, mute the video tracks (turn audio volume down fully).

Export... and you're there.

Olive is a pretty amazing tool. Free, and capable of all manner of crazy stuff, including those grid of different people videos that are also popular at the moment. No documentation to speak of though - I had to watch some youtube tutorials to find out where crop was.

Have fun experimenting!






Mcgrooger

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Re: How the me playing alongside me video is done
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2020, 10:28:54 AM »

Thank you Clive. That's really helpful and interesting.
I record my vids on my digital 'travel' camera which gives good results. I've always mixed sound and vid on Windows Live Movie Maker but keep thinking it might be time to move to Olive.
It's interesting that you say the H2n is a good USB mic coz I keep thinking I could do with one for Zoom sessions etc. My old Olympus LS10 doesn't have that facility although it's a nice recorder.
Thanks again.  (:)
Steve
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Clive Williams

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Re: How the me playing alongside me video is done
« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2020, 12:01:46 PM »

Regrettably I've lost my Windows Live Movie Maker since I reset my laptop; it hasn't been available since 2012 apparently, and the only downloads now are from very dodgy download sites. Shame. I really liked it; did what I needed 95% of the time, and quick and simple to use. The way you could mix the imported sound and video sound together made syncing sound and video very easy. What Olive needs is an audio track mixing panel... unless of course it has one and nobody's documented it. Anyone found one?

Tone Dumb Greg

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Re: How the me playing alongside me video is done
« Reply #3 on: July 21, 2020, 01:56:50 PM »

...What Olive needs is an audio track mixing panel... unless of course it has one and nobody's documented it. Anyone found one?

I checked with those responsible for the program and the answer was "no".
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Clive Williams

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Re: How the me playing alongside me video is done
« Reply #4 on: July 21, 2020, 05:52:34 PM »

Rats. Thanks for the info though :-)

Lester

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Re: How the me playing alongside me video is done
« Reply #5 on: July 22, 2020, 09:59:05 AM »


Regrettably I've lost my Windows Live Movie Maker since I reset my laptop; it hasn't been available since 2012 apparently, and the only downloads now are from very dodgy download sites. Shame. I really liked it; did what I needed 95% of the time, and quick and simple to use. The way you could mix the imported sound and video sound together made syncing sound and video very easy. What Olive needs is an audio track mixing panel... unless of course it has one and nobody's documented it. Anyone found one?



Found this useful for syncing any out of sync sound


https://youtu.be/MSF_ZHvHxhM?t=199

Mcgrooger

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Re: How the me playing alongside me video is done
« Reply #6 on: July 22, 2020, 03:32:55 PM »

I've managed to hold onto WLMM until now.  Once, soon after Microsoft finished providing it I donwloaded it from a website that looked ok.  More recently I had to have my hard drive replaced and the nice (trustworthy) lady at the computer repairers shared a version she had.  Now I'm getting that drive upgraded and will probably lose WLMM.  In the meantime I've discoverd that it is possible to do some very basic video editing in Microsoft Photos.  I just tried it with my latest TOTM and I think I'd have got a similar result to WLMM. No split screens or anything but it did allow me to create a title screen and to synch my separate audio track and mute the camera one.

Olive clearly has loads more features and is capable of making much more sophisticated videos, but also seems to demand a fairly steep learning curve. So I'm not sure yet whether I'll keep my videos dead simple as they've been in the past by using M'soft Photo or dip my toe in the Olilve waters.
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Lester

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Re: How the me playing alongside me video is done
« Reply #7 on: July 22, 2020, 03:36:24 PM »

Mcgrooger

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Re: How the me playing alongside me video is done
« Reply #8 on: July 22, 2020, 07:25:48 PM »

I agree with you Lester. They do look good and the fella's very likeable. I've watched quite a few of the tutorials. Just never got round to putting them into practice.  :|bl
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