NFAA Advise

College Majors Music Major
1

<p>My D plans to send in a DVD for NFAA this year. Since that will make me the production team, I hoped I could get some advise from here.</p>

<p>My biggest question is about the quality of the recording. I don't trust my old VHS-C camcorder to be good enough for this duty, especially since there's no port for an external microphone on it. Then again, maybe I worry too much....or am looking for an excuse for a new toy (I'm never really sure myself anymore).</p>

<p>If anyone's dealt with this issue, I'd appreciate some advise</p>

2

<p>I bought a DVD recorder last year which does take an external mic (Sony). The sound is only okay, not very great, but it was a relatively cheap solution. My understanding is that you will only get a really good product if you spend thousands - we are unable and/or unwilling to go that far. I would be very interested in others' take on this question. More and more summer programs are requiring a DVD instead of a CD recording (probably because some people cheat and edit the CD's) so this seems to be becoming an annual issue in this household! I am thinking that we will just bite the bullet this year and hire someone with the best equipment to make a recording. It really does make a lot of difference when you get to these higher levels whether the sound quality is good since sound production is such an important factor in the musicians' performances.</p>

3

<p>Sony makes a nice external stereo microphone that will only set you back $90. Add that to a decent digital video camera, either HD or normal, and you've got a very nice solution, especially if you can tape somewhere with decent accoustics.</p>

4

<p>I was a pretty serious amateur still photographer, and sold a number of shots, but never had an interest or desire for motion/cinematogtaphy.</p>

<p>The wife tried to buffalo me into buying a dvdcamcorder so "I" could record son's undergrad senior recital. To humor her, we looked. My research indicated that you should expect to pay around $1000 or more for a dvd camcorder that was adequate for quality reproduction, particularly audio. External mic is a necessity, as is a tripod.</p>

<p>Having spent the money for son to be at a great music program, I was not going to go through the hassles and headaches of recording his recital. I was there to bask in his success and enjoy the show. I paid $300 to have it professionally recorded by the school's recording services. I also bought the missus a Sony, about $400, adequate for whatever she intends to do with it.</p>

<p>In all seriousness, I could never justify the expense of buying anything that would meet the quality required, particularly while he (and his sis) were in undergrad programs. Anything he needed done, as for festival submissions and the like, he had done through the school's services for a very minimal fee.
As a performing professional, most all of his recording needs can now be expensed against income.</p>

<p>I would suggest that unless you know someone with the know-how and expertise, or have the time and patience and acoustically acceptable place to record it yourself, consider having it done. Many high schools, community colleges and four-year institutions have recording services, all at very reasonable costs. You don't have to pay an arm and a leg. We were lucky enough to have all son's admissions recordings (cd and dvd) done at his high school. </p>

<p>Just my $.02.</p>

<p>don, there have been a number of prior threads on cd and dvd recordings. BassDad and Imperial Zeppelin are both extremely knowledgeable.</p>

5

<p>imperial - this is what we have and it really isn't good enough. i agree with violadad -- let someone else hassle with it.</p>

6

<p>The NFAA understands amateur videos, they do not expect people to go out and purchase an expensive camera or hire a studio to do this. They encourage people from all walks to life to enter and they know many families cannot afford to spend alot. But using good equipment certainly couldn't hurt! I have talked to the director and was told that they really want the kids to succeed. My son's video was less than stellar. I borrowed a camera and had never used one before. I think we did 4 or 5 takes and we timed them, picked the best and went from there. He did well.</p>

7

<p>I had fantastic results with the higher quality Sony external mics and the higher end HD cameras. The stereo separation and sound was so good that when I watched a tape for the first time and when I heard someone cough, I thought my wife had walked into the room to my far left, but it was actually the tape, much to my surprise. </p>

<p>Also, for that particular performance, I had the option of using the professionally recorded digital sound that the school had made, but quite honestly, the two sound tracks were so close, I didn't want to go through the hassle of substituting one for the other. Additionally, I liked the resonance in my sound better which was done from the balcony instead of on the stage. Sound reproduction is truly personal taste.</p>

<p>The key is microphone placement and with any of the reasonable video editing programs, you have decent mixing capabilities too which allows you to refocus the sound if necessary. Mixing mind you, not cutting, pasting or other editing, but these are also not too tough with high quality digital source material and a better than average editing program, unfortunately...</p>

<p>Like violadad said, you're looking at around $800 or better, but I think it's worth it since $800 isn't much if you're going to do this a few times since you'll burn that up in taping fees within 3 or less sessions. If you're lucky like me, you'll have A/V fanatics for friends and you can borrow theirs, but I've never borrowed a setup which couldn't be purchased for $800 - 900, including the external microphone. That sum does not include the tripod, which is also mandatory, nor the video editing program.</p>

<p>Back to the OPs questions, NO, your VHS-C is NOT appropriate for this. You want digital source media, so your copies are all true. This does make a great excuse for presenting a cogent case to the "Minister of Sociality and Finance" why you need some new toys, and we all know that "Boys need toys!!!"</p>

<p>If you don't want the hassle then contract it out. If you like "playing" then go for it, IMHO...</p>

8

<p>I did the one video that my daughter needed for school auditions using a consumer grade Sony digital camcorder fed by a couple of professional quality AKG microphones via a compact Mackie mixer. I transferred the video to a PC and used a free video program to select takes, put them in the desired order and add titles between selections. The audio equipment came from the sound reinforcement gear used by one of the bands I play with, and the camera was one we had purchased a year or two back to let my wife make home movies.</p>

<p>If I did not have all the gear I needed at that moment, and if I had not been unemployed at the time, I may well have let a professional do it. As it was, I could not justify the expense of hiring someone else when I had the time available to record it myself. It is not tremendously difficult to do yourself if you are reasonably familiar with the equipment, but it is a time consuming process that requires a lot of attention to detail.</p>

<p>If you are only going to need a couple of tapes (and, as violadad points out, any good music school will have someone who can do the job so she is covered once she is in college) then it may actually cost less to hire out the job than it would to buy the equipment. However, if you have been looking for an excuse to purchase some of this stuff, congratulations. You have found it.</p>

<p>(This was my turn to crosspost with Zep.)</p>

9

<p>I did not have the time or energy to figure it out myself and buy the equipment. I had a professional come do it for about $300. Much less stress on me and her. Someone who knew what they were doing made sure mike placement was correct, sound quality good for the takes.</p>

10

<p>Hey you audiophiles out there...my husband was planning to hook the Zoom H2 into the digital camcorder as a mic. Is that even possible?</p>

11

<p>We did go out and buy a new camera (got a Canon HG10 - the one that is a computer so no need for tapes anymore) for NFAA but we really needed one since our last one was 10 years old. We added a Rode external mic and the quality and sound is phenomenal! Software problems were an issue since the software had not caught up with the hardware. But since I recently purchased Nero 8, this weekend I edited, added menus and made DVD's of all her last year's performances and they all came out fantastic. I'm glad I made the investment but it certainly was not a necessity for NFAA. I saw one of the participant's video that was a finalist along with my daughter last year and it was pretty poor quality. They are adept at seeing the musician through the poor quality tape.</p>

12

<p>"..my husband was planning to hook the Zoom H2 into the digital camcorder as a mic."</p>

<p>I'm no expert, but I'm not sure what you'd accomplish. The H2 is a recording device so if you wanted to use the track it recorded, you'd need to synch that up with the pictures from your camcorder. I actually can do that with my Magix software, but it sounds like doing things the hard way. </p>

<p>I'm not sure if you can just pass the sound through the Zoom and let the camcorder record it but, unless you were sure that the mic in the Zoom was substantially better than the one on the camcorder, I'm not sure what you'd gain.</p>

13

<p>There are a number of reasons to use the H2 in this way. The mics on the H2 are likely to be a good bit better than the one on a consumer grade camcorder, plus you can position the H2 at a constant distance from the sound source and move the camera around without affecting the sound pickup. This setup would also let you turn AGC off and/or use the compression and limiting functions of the H2. Many camcorders do not have these features.</p>

<p>I do not own an H2, but if it is like most such devices you will have to put it into the recording standby mode in order for the signal picked up by the microphones to appear at the monitor (headphone) outputs. You will then need to adjust the volume carefully so that the output signal does not overload the input of the camcorder. As long as the delay through the H2 is not too great, there should not be any synch issues with the camcorder, because you are using it to simultaneously record both the audio and video. The H2 just acts like an external microphone for the camcorder in this scenario.</p>

14

<p>These posts really make me wish I understood how stuff works. I know I could figure it all out - but I want to understand it on some intrinsic level.</p>

15

<p>Well folks, I just got what I think is the solution to my problem. I found the Canon FS100 at a local Circuit City. It's a very small camcorder that records directly onto an SD card. Two features really jumped out at me:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>It has an external mic port...something just about impossible to find at it's price point</p></li>
<li><p>It has a wireless remote control so you don't jostle the camera stopping the recording when it's on a tripod.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>It was on sale at Circuit City for $369 but I decided to see if I could do better elsewhere. I found it online at Butterfly Photo for $304 with free shipping. Butterfly has great ratings and I did business with them a few years ago with great results.</p>

<p>So now I have the camcorder, a buddy of mine has a mixer and a few mics that I'll be able to use, and I booked a church for the session.</p>

<p>I figure that, however she does in NFAA, it'll be a great practice session for her auditions. Also, I plan to strip off the audio from these recordings to send as pre-screen recordings to schools that require them.</p>