How do you do sound on a video demo?

[decay-o-caster]

'Splain it to me, oh Video Demo Gurus - whenever I try to record an electric guitar (that is to say, loud-ish) performance on a camcorder, the internal mic distorts like crazy. How do you guys do it so it sounds good? I'm guessing there's a mixer and a real mic involved, but it's not obvious. Actually, you guys often do spoken introductions too. Unless it's an Ultimate Attenuator demo, I'm guessing there'd have to be a mixer to get the levels balanced.

Anyhow, just curious. And have no fear - I promise not to use this information to make any videos. I've ruined enough builders' reputations with my audio productions!

[Wilson Effects]

I have a mac book with an external blue snowball mic. I'd say most people have some sort of digital recording setup. The mac makes it nice for editing ect...

[decay-o-caster]

Do you have any issues synching the video with the audio? I do audio recording on a Mac (see my sig), but not clear about video recording/editing that way.

[Wilson Effects]

No with the Imovie application you can use an external mic source or I would think you could use your project mix. Then you can normalize the video sound to get the right levels. I use my USB snowball condenser and just edit the movie in Imovie afterwards. That way you can do the intros ect.....

[Geetarpicker]

You may have seen my "Trainwreck Amp" videos on youtube.

The early ones were with a camcorder mic, and you can tell. However I then started to record my audio using a separate computer system and a "real mic", and at the same time ran the camcorder. I then combined the video and audio using Sony Vegas, using the camcorder audio simply as a guide to check the sync and then I mute the camcorder audio for the final mix. I use the cheap $100 version of Vegas which has no time code. I just sync it all up by eye/ear.

www.myspace.com/glenkuykendall

[michael.e]

So far, my recording rig is this..

Audix CX212 large diaphragm condensor
Alesis Firewire board [only used as a board at this time]
Sony HD video cam with mic input.

The board is sending audio to the sony. I need a nicer mic preamp though and I am starting off small with a Jomeek.

So far, tests are decent, though am still overloading the input at times. Hopefully the Jomeek will smooth things out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gGIabDykk4


Emee

[decay-o-caster]

Ah, starting to get it. Thanks y'all!

[jzucker]

Another user who uses a separate mic for the audio stuff and sync the waveforms in Sonar and then delete the camcorder's audio.