Ok… Somewhat frustrating. I had thought that I had made two recordings with OBS and had captured them. One was a rather lengthy piano session yesterday where I played several pieces and then today a long drum practice session. Apparently they didn’t get recorded as I just went to transfer the files to the external hard drive for processing and there was nothing there. Actually, it’s extremely frustrating since I wanted to do some video editing and post them to the web site. I suppose I could turn this little rant into an entry in the practice blog since I am going to detail what it was that I did. Yesterday morning I had everything set up to record my piano practice session and so I played the Bach prelude and fugue in Cm (#2 book 1), the prelude #3, and I think I went through a little bit of fugue #3 because I didn’t know it and I was going to use it as a basis for describing how I go about practicing. The day before I worked on both the prelude and fugue for #21 in Bb but I don’t think I recorded it. When I had finished there I should have probably verified the existence of the recording but it didn’t. Instead I moved the recording setup (computer and cameras) into the main studio room to record drums and thought I did a short take just to have something with drums but didn’t follow through nor did I verify the recording. This morning I went down and started a recording session for drums using the Groove 2 as an example of material I would use for the youtube channel using the Nitro and to demonstrate the metronome on the Nitro control unit to describe how it can be used to show the player if they are playing ahead of the beat or behind the beat. I went through the basic beat and the variations and then the practice sheet I had for my second lesson to demonstrate that exercise.
I’ve got the audio recorded as a Reaper file but that doesn’t do the trick for a YouTube thing so I’ll just have to start it all over again to get what I want for positing. When I brought the laptop up to transfer the files I started looking at video systems trying to decide how I can get everything streamlined and was thinking of getting something along the lines of a multi camera security system and using that because of two considerations that I have. First, I had read somewhere that usb cameras couldn’t have long usb cables which I would need for any kind of permanent set up for recording video so I started looking at security cameras to see if they might work for my purposes and came across the Wyze Cam Pan 1080p that I can get from amazon for 37.94. While appealing in price I was trying to research whether it would allow me to continuously record directly into the computer because it represents a cost effective solution I started reading through the reviews and questions and came across a couple of acronyms I was not familiar with, NVR and ONVIF. I’m still not sure what the ONVIF means (it’s Open Network Video Interface Forum and is an open standard for the physical interface of IP-based security products) I stumbled on the website for the CCTV Camera World website which sells Network Video Recorders (NVR) which appears to have the kind of information I am looking for regarding a possible solution to my problems. I will definitely return there to further research that particular option for satisfying my video capture needs which I’m going to define in the following specification for all my studio rooms.
The main studio room currently has the Nitro, the MP5, the Behringer K450FX, and one of the UMC404HD I/O units as well as the electric guitars and bass. The piano room currently only has the Hallet Davis and usually the other UMC404HD in it while the upstairs office is the video post production room and is the current location for the violin, trumpet, and Taylor acoustic guitar as well as the HP Pavilion which is the main video editing workstation. The Dell Inspiron laptop is used as my main DAW and video capture computer and it is currently moved from location to location in the studio as the need arises. The Hammond is in the alcove at the base of the stairs and had not been used much lately but should receive some attention later this summer. Some modifications in this arrangement will likely take place over the summer or fall with the old downstairs office becoming a percussion room when I’m ready to spring for an acoustic set.
That establishes the basic layout of the entire studio and from a video capture point of view I will want to have several cameras in the main studio room including ceiling views of the MP5, Nitro and possibly the X32, and side views for each of the instruments, and views from the monitors for when I’m teleconferencing. The piano room should have at least three on the piano and the post production room should also have at least three, I will also probably want to have , possibly four, in the post production room probably three or four in the percussion room when that gets set up and it wouldn’t hurt to set up six outside the house for security purposes. I guess what that will boil down to would be a 32 channel NVR to support all my anticipated video recording needs. I’ll have to research cameras to go with that and also the nature of how each video channel records - preferably as separate files that I can later edit and merge using Premiere Pro or similar software. The other question I will need to answer is “Would I be able to select groups of channels from this system to be used for live streaming?” I suspect there would be a way to do that but I need to be sure that any system I get for this purpose would be able to fulfill that requirement as well. This pretty much defines my current video recording requirements although they will likely change over time.
Next comes the audio recording aspect of this and as things currently stand I will most likely be getting a Behringer X32 Compact to use as my main mixer in the studio. Although I will only be using around 16 channels of it I will set it up so that it will act as both a control surface for my DAW and as the permanent digital I/O unit to the computer. I anticipate that it will take me three or four weeks to get a basic understanding of how to use it and to get it configured for my needs. One of the many things I like about this mixer is that it will allow me to control it from any room in the studio using an iPad. That means I’ll have to get an iPad as well but I don’t know if I’ll need a fancy one. I may also consider mounting actual XLR jacks in all the secondary rooms so I don’t have to have cables running over the floors or ceilings to plug in my microphones in each of these rooms. I’m not sure yet what my requirements for this will be but it will be a minor enhancement once I get the board set up in the main room.
Then there is the computer for the DAW. I have been using Reaper for most of my recording needs and am generally quite satisfied with what it can do, particularly when the price of the product is considered. As I mentioned previously, I have been using a Dell Inspiron as my main recording workstation and will probably continue to use it in situations where I need to have mobility, such as for location sound recording or as a VST host when playing live. The thing I do not like is the limited screen size, particularly when I’m using it to run multiple programs like Reaper, OBS, and web browsers. I have been wanting a ‘permanent’ workstation for my DAW in the main studio room and I would like to be able to have multiple large monitors attached to extendible VESA wall mounts. Ideally, I would have a 27” or greater monitor in each of the corners of the room and a 42” in monitor over the mixer desk. I would need to have a computer capable of handling the graphics for that many monitors as well as additional monitors in the other studio rooms where those rooms would have the primary display duplicated and possibly secondary displays that could be assigned to other views as well. I would also probably use this computer to do my video editing if I had it configured the way I want it. I am currently using a copy of Adobe CS6 I installed on the HP when I was working at UGA but I’m concerned that the machine is getting old and will not be responsive enough to my needs for video editing and am not clear on how I might be able to transfer the license to another computer if I can. I don’t particularly want to have to subscribe to the Adobe Creative Cloud unless I’m making enough to offset the cost but I may end up having to do that unless I want to explore some other video editing software solutions like DaVinci Resolve. Then again, I might be able to make the HP a little more robust by putting in a separate video card but for now it’s not a priority. I had planned on building the studio desktop from scratch specifically because I was going to use it to handle several cameras with multiple PCIe USB single bus cards but I will likely opt to get an NVR for the video recording. Still, if I transfer the editing to the studio computer I will want and need a very robust system and will likely still opt to build it from parts configuring it the way I want for my anticipated future studio needs. Now, all I have to do is remember to verify my recordings as I make them and hopefully will do that over the next two days so I can get them posted.
As far as the rest of the online presence project goes I still have a good bit of configuring of the websites to continue working on. For the YouTube channel I had planned to using those videos I apparently didn’t record to build my channel trailer and I still have to make the channel artwork which will require that I spend some time doing a refresher on InDesign which I haven’t used in years and never really developed much proficiency with. Still I am making progress and will also have to do some more work with Finale to generate the score excerpts for the pieces I’ll be discussing in some of the videos. I still would like to start the live streaming program on June 2 but I’m not entirely sure I’ll meet that deadline but I’ve got almost three weeks and if I can get some of this other stuff working then I should be good to go. If someone else is working on setting up a similar system then I hope this post will be helpful but I suppose it’s time for me to go make another attempt at video recording my practice so until next time keep practicing.