This page contains support material for the video created for the 2021 BTS Cyberfest which was an online festival comprising videos and live events.
Here are links to some of the great trombone videos on the internet.
Dave Whitehouse, trombonist at the London Philharmonic has been creating some great videos of trombone choir arrangements of the best orchestral blockbusters. Click here.
Carol Jarvis is incredible at creating audio and video recordings featuring the trombone. This is one of her most recent and also features her lovely singing! Click here.
To make a recording of music you should seek the permission of the copyright holder if there is one. Public domain music is where the composer has been dead for more than 70 years (UK law) or is unknown.
A useful site to find copyright free music is the Petrucci Music Library: www.imslp.org
Audio recording equipment.
Audient and Focusrite do good starter bundles. You will also need a microphone stand. Studiospares is a good site for stands and accessories.
Resellers to check for best prices are: Absolute Music, Gear4music, DV247, Andertons and GAK.
Microphone. A large diaphragm condenser would be a good choice or, alternatively, a ribbon mic. At the cheaper end are the SE Electronics X1a Condenser Mic and the Audio-Technica AT2020 Condenser Mic which are about £80. Manufacturers to check out are Rode, AKG (their C214 and 414 are good – I use the latter) and Neumann. Dave Whitehouse uses a Coles 4038 although this is reasonably expensive at around £900.
Mic leads do make a difference so don’t buy the cheapest unbranded from Ebay.
Audio interface.
Most audio interfaces are connected by USB, although Firewire and Thunderbolt are also available. Check that your computer has the correct port available. The purpose of an audio interface is to get sound into and out of your computer. You need to decide how many microphones you are likely to use (one if just yourself to record, two if you want to record something in stereo and more if you want to record a band). You will need a stereo output if you want to attach speakers and a headphone output. You may need two headphone outputs if you want to record someone else and for both to be listening at the same time. Some come with a midi on/out which allows you to attach a keyboard so that you can control sounds on the computer – useful if you want to arrange or compose or if you have keyboard skills that you want to use with different sounds.
Good starter interfaces are: Audient Evo4, Focusrite Scarlett Solo, and Steinberg UR22. Higher end interfaces are made by RME. I have used interfaces from all these companies and been impressed with their quality.
For the computer, you need to consider several things. Most computers are up to the task of recording audio but you should look for 8Gb RAM and an SSD drive if buying (512GB recommended as it is easy to fill with audio and video). Check that the interface and computer have matching ports. Also check to see what noise the computer makes – some have very noisy fans when running hot that will ruin your recording. It is worth having a second external SSD drive to store your larger files as well as a traditional backup hard drive.
Apple MacBooks, iMacs and Mac Minis are all good choices, even second hand. There are specialist PC companies that make computers for music but I have no experience of these.
Digital Audio Workstation software.
Software for computers include Garageband, Logic (both Apple only), Cubase, Digital Performer, Studio One, Ableton Live and Pro Tools. They all have a slightly different look and feel as well as slightly different ways of working. It takes a few months to learn a new DAW even if you have used one before. They vary in price from £200 up and also charge for upgrades every few years. Some have lite versions that are free of charge. Garageband is free and the cut down version of Logic.
I recommend Reaper. Having used at least three of the others I found Reaper to be quick to learn, intuitive and stable. It does not have all the glittery gimmicks (samples, guitar emulators, etc.) of the more expensive DAWs but is open source – this means that users can, and do, write extra software add ons so that anything new in a competing software can be replicated if thought useful. Reaper is free for a month and you can continue to use it after that if you don’t mind waiting 30 seconds on startup for the Purchase Reminder Prompt to disappear. It is only £60 to purchase if you choose to support the developers.
I have used Reaper to record trombone quartets at home. a 200 piece orchestra with the BSO at Lighthouse, Poole and I have also written music to film with it.
There are plenty of great tutorials on YouTube on how to use Reaper. Click here for an intro.
Level or gain.
This is an important thing to try to understand as it has implications throughout the recording system and process.
- Sound pressure levels – you need to make sure that the microphone is getting a good sound source but not too strong. This can be managed with mic position relative to the player – move closer if the signal isn’t strong enough and further away if too strong. There is sometimes a switch on the mic that is labeled -10db which decreases the mic sensitivity if the source sound is too loud. There isn’t a direct way to measure how the mic is reacting to the sound source – we have to check that with the next step.
- The audio interface will have a gain control knob and may also have either a meter or lights to indicate signal strength (if not, there will be a software app). On a Focusrite interface the halo light around the knob will glow green if it detects a healthy signal and red if it is too strong. Bear in mind that it is measuring signal strength and not the reaction of the mic to the sound – it is not impossible that the mic could be distorting even if the interface thinks the signal is OK. The interface will usually have a direct monitor facility – often in a software app on the computer – to direct the sound from the microphone straight out to the headphones, bypassing the computer, so you can hear the quality of the sound.
- The interface will also send the signal to the computer to be recorded – be sure to mute the track the signal is going into as you don’t want to hear this – partly because you are already hearing the source via the direct monitor but also because once the signal has gone into and out of the computer there will be a small delay – latency – which can make it difficult to play a long with any existing tracks.
- To help you play along with any prerecorded tracks you will need to get the correct mix of sounds in your headphones. As you record more tracks, the sound from Reaper, or your sequencer of choice, will get louder so you may need to reduce the output from the DAW – you can do this from the audio interface software mixer or from the DAW. You will probably have to have the headphone output from the interface turned up quite high too. Be careful not to hurt your ears and be ready to experiment with the level settings.
- Once you have a few tracks in your DAW, you may find that the main output is too strong so bring down the track levels. If you are still getting distortion or clipping you need to check that the gain on the interface is not too high and that the sound source is not overloading the mic.
I struggled to understand and control levels when I first started recording and still don’t trust the knowledge I have! YouTube has lots of videos on this subject.
Acoustics
This is another important subject. The sound of the room you are recording in has a huge effect on the recorded sound. There are two approaches to this:
- Record in a room that gives you the sound you want.
- Record in a dry room and add ambience in your DAW.
For most of us the second option is the most practical. Flat surfaces such as windows, bare walls and hard floors reflect sound. We really need to soak up these reflections. High frequencies are inhibited by soft furnishings (carpets, curtains) whereas low frequencies are tamed by larger objects (a cloth covered box or sofa). You can buy acoustic foam panels to stick to walls and ceilings in the appropriate position and bass traps (YouTube and Google for more details!). You can get screens to go behind the mic and also foam hats to put over them (some are sold for £100 whereas I made one from a £15 foam block). However the cheapest solution is a duvet hung over a clothes horse behind the mic. I tend to play into a corner of my room where there are two bookcases with various objects to deflect the sound and also carpeting and a curtain.
I do occasionally record in a larger room with wooden floor and lots of hard surfaces which does work well depending on the musical material – this is all subjective of course! Here is an example (the piano is sampled and not recorded in the same room):
Here is a YouTube link showing the multitude of videos on home studio acoustics.
Compression and reverb
Compression is a tool used to make levels more consistent – the equivalent of manually moving a mixer fader to make the quiet parts louder and louder parts quieter. There are people who explain it far better than I ever could. Here are some good tutorials about compression – with Reaper and also in much more detail here.
Reverb tools come in a variety of forms and prices. Here is a nice tutorial.
Video recording
To hold your smart phone while filming check these out for ideas – I have no experience of these products so do your own research. Smart phone flexible mount. Smart phone stand.
Filmic Pro is an app for smart phones that allows you more control over things like focus and exposure than your built in camera app. It also allows you to use a second phone as a remote control – great if you are recording yourself.
You can use an iPhone as a webcam for an apple computer using this software.
To transfer videos from a camera or smartphone to a computer there are three methods.
- Cameras usually store their data on an SD card – many computers can read these or you can get an external reader.
- USB cable. Cameras and smart phones can communicate via a USB cable. You will need to investigate what software you need depending upon the type of device and computer.
- WiFi. Some cameras and computers can communicate over WiFi. Again, you may need third party software depending upon your flavour of computer, phone and/or camera.
Lighting
Lighting is key to getting a good video. You need to consider lighting both the subject and background. Natural light works really well but you need to be able to position camera, subject, background and light source carefully to make this work. It also needs to be daytime!
LED panels start at around £30 – there are some online DIY videos if you are handy. You can always try and experiment any standard or work lamps that you have around the house. I am experimenting with a couple of small LED panels that I have mounted on spare mic stands. In the BTS tutorial video I have clearly done a poor job with the subject lighting as it makes me even more red than normal!
Green Screen
You can make a green screen with some green muslin. I bought some from Amazon and ended up pinning it to the my studio wall as it stays flat and uncreased that way. You need to light the green screen separately from the subject – as there is limited room here I used some cardboard to reflect two ceiling lights onto the green screen while using an LED panel on a mic stand to light the subject. After some experimenting I managed to find a way to do it without casting shadows.
Video editing software
There are three main products to consider – Final Cut Pro (Apple only), Adobe Premiere Pro and Davinci Resolve. I have been using Davinci resolve as it has a free version that includes all the important tools. I previously used iMovie and found it to be more difficult than Davinci although Davinci is a little scary because of all the features. Like Reaper, there are hundreds of tutorials on YouTube so every time I need to do something in Davinci Resolve I just check a tutorial to remind myself.
Resolve works similarly to Reaper in that it has tracks. You basically do most of the work in the edit page – dragging material in and chopping and lining it up. You can add effects here and remove the green from your green screen shots. You can resize and move the videos to make multi screen. There are also paged for colour grading and fusion effects as well as an audio page. Eventually you have a deliver page where you set the parameters for rendering out your finished work.