What I used.

1. Logitech c510 webcam

2. Layla 3G audio interface

3. Reaper

4. Windows Movie Maker

5. Adobe Premiere Elements 10

6. Freemake Video Convertor

7. Adobe photoshop CS3

8. iPad + stylus and an app called Noteshelf

9. Dropbox account – saves on usb drive/stick

10. Backing Track

For a while now I’ve been toying with the idea of making simple videos to help my students get further outside of lesson time.

It’s always difficult for people to retain the rhythm and pace of a phrase without having to write it down which further complicates the learning process.

My mission was to create an online lesson that complimented a 1 2 1 lesson and something that maybe others would get something from.

So here’s how I started.

Recording the video and recording the audio was the sticking point for me.

The webcam is not a great audio recorder and also how to record over a backing track and get the levels correct was an issue.

It creates more work and the end result is not good.

So I looked around the internet and found this article: Syncing Audio to Video in REAPER

The video is enough to get you going and is a very valuable tutorial.

The trick you’ll see is getting a marker – hand claps or 4 stokes on the guitar.

This allows you to sync the audio but better still you can mix the audio of your lead playing and get a good blend between backing and solo.

So process:

1. Setup webcam and windows movie maker to capture video. (VIDEO)

2. Setup Reaper with backing track. (AUDIO)

3. Press record on VIDEO

4. Press record on AUDIO

5. Lay marker – Hand Claps or Guitar Strums.

6. Finish recording on both save AUDIO and export VIDEO to somewhere you can find it later.

A bit about recording lead guitar:

I have a Layla 3G audio interface which has guitar input and mic on the front.

I could have mic’d up the amp but decided to go in direct.

Guitar signal path.

Fender Telecaster -> Vox Cooltron Bulldog distortion – > Layla 3G – > Reaper

I then added IK multimedia Amplitube as an FX on the Guitar Solo track but only so I could use the amp settings.

This seemed to work nicely. You can get a free copy from here Amplitube Free

——————————————–::>

The next bit was to import the saved video into reaper.

Syncing Audio to Video in REAPER

Couple of tips:

1. Create new track and Insert – Media File

Or press ‘Insert’ on your keyboard – make sure you’ve selected the new track for import and that you are at the beginning of the Reaper Project.

To make sure press ‘w’ on your keyboard.

2. Go to ‘Options’ – > Snap/grid -> Enable Snapping(remove) tick or press ALT + S

This will allow to to drag the video in line with the audio.

You can do this visually or by listening – I drop the audio on the video by dragging the volume down to off.

3. Export – I then select from after the sync marker in the time frame to where the video finishes – this way I only end up with what I want.

Less editing and a smaller file to play with.

4. Render – File – > Render

• Under ‘Render Bounds’ – Time selection
• Output – > Directory(choose) – > File name(choose)
• Output format – Video (FFmpeg encoder)
• Size – match the video that you already have.
• Bitrate 6000kbps
• Render 1 file.

This may take a bit of experimenting to get what you want but take your time and always make notes of what works.

———————————->

Now here was the sticking point – the new version of windows movie maker doesn’t allow overlaying images – > I seem to remember the old version allowed this but I may be wrong.

So I decided to buy Adobe Premiere Elements 10 – $99 – it’s worth it – I couldn’t find anything else as good.

Problem though – The avi output from Reaper is not compatible with Adobe Premiere so I needed to convert the avi file I’d created.

Enter ‘Freemake Video Convertor‘ free and simple to use convert file and now you can import it into Adobe Premiere.

I’m not going to go into createing menus, titles or effects using Adobe Premiere, you can do that yourselves it’s pretty easy.

What I’m going to look at is overlaying an image – in my video this was TABULATURE of a guitar phrase I’d created.

I wanted to have this on screen while the student played along.

You’ll need to first import your images as you should have already done with your video.

Below is a galley of events

Adjusting the image position is just a case of grabbing a dragging/resizing etc.

The same goes for length of time image is on screen – to adjust this you have to grab the video(image) and drag to make clip longer or shorter.

And that’s about it.

Once you’re happy you can export to disk or direct to youtube!

Note: My video has a slowed down section which works really well – if you highlight your video and right click you can use time stretch to slow or speed up. Make sure you tick the box to preserve pitch – my video was dropped down to 75% of it’s normal speed.

————————->

Creating the TABULATURE.

You can do this in a variety of ways, I chose to use my iPad – the reason being it’s quicker with a stylus and an app called Noteshelf.

The beauty of Noteshelf is that you can export to Dropbox and then import straight into Premiere or Photoshop to edit further which is what I did.

Dropbox is a great way of sharing files between PCs and iPads.

You could of course use a program like Guitar Pro or Notion Progression – on iPad they have the same export function.

Or you could draw by hand and scan them into photoshop or similar program.

This is just the quickest way for me…

——————————————–>

Now there my be flaws with this tutorial or the way I do things – I’m all for improvement and creating a quicker workflow but this was my first video that involved syncing audio and video.

Anyway I hope this helps someone.

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Guitar Lessons for Beginners: Teach yourself guitar, learn guitar chords and all guitar basics in 20 step-by-step lessons. Learn to play guitar with these easy beginner guitar lessons!

1.

Beasty – D minor jam track 3/4

Perfect for D minor pentatonic and D blues scales and phrases.

Great for improvising slow blues/rock lead and building licks and runs and perfecting bends, vibrato and hammer ons/pull offs.

Download Track – Right Click – Save as

2.

Romantika – Free D minor Jam Track

Perfect for D minor pentatonic and D blues scales and phrases.

Great for improvising slow blues/rock lead and building licks and runs and perfecting bends, vibrato and hamme ons/pull offs.

Download Track – Right Click – Save as

3.

D minor jam track – Rock 106 – with video lesson

Rock 106 – D minor

Perfect for D minor pentatonic and D blues scales and phrases.

Great for improvising slow blues/rock lead and building licks and runs and perfecting bends, vibrato and hamme ons/pull offs.

Download Track – Right Click – Save as

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Yorhost sucks.

That’s right I said it.

Yorhost formerly web-mania sucks, its sucks arse, royally.

Why?

Because they don’t do what you pay them to do.

They don’t answer emails, their call centre(cough) constantly rings through to answer machine and their live help is um well dead.

Why do I say this?

Well let’s start from when I was a satisfied customer.

I first stared using web-mania about 5 years ago without problem.

But sometime last year they switched to naming themselves yorhost.

That is when the problems started.

They took ages to answer emails and never answered the phone.

Their live help died of something or other, probably disinterest.

But then I should have seen the warning signs but I did not.

So on the 27th I paid to renew my domain name having switched all my hosting over to hostgator.

I’d thought about switching my domain over to another providor but getting a response from these idiots was painful.

So I paid my money and got..

Nothing, nada, zip, shit all and some.

They let it expire despite taking my money.

I emailed, I emailed again and again.

Nothing.

And my website got parked.

So what did I do?

I contacted the registrar http://www.onlinenic.com/support/

Who were very helpful.(you’ll have to sign up to create a ticket)

And now I have my website back.

It cost me more and I still haven’t got a refund.

So if you still have domain names and or hosting I suggest you get out now before you lose your work.

Thanks onlinenic.

And Yorhost/Web-mania – you suck balls!

More on Yorhost:

Web-Mania Insolvent

Yorhost – Spiceworks

Yorhost – PC advisor

Yorhost Webshosting Review

Yorhost Reviews

Quick n dirty recordings of simple chord progressions looped for up to 4 minutes in length.

Perfect for honing lead guitar chops, runs phrases and licks.

Rock 101

Rock 102

Rock 103

Rock 104

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Note that on Mac computers, HarmoniEQ now supports Mac OS X v10.5
and higher only, running on Intel processors. Mac PowerPC support is
not available.

Version 2.2 update includes the following changes:

* -6 dB/oct low-pass and high-pass filters added.
* Window resizing implemented.
* Native 64-bit AudioUnit and VST support on Mac OS X added.

Since the easiness of tuning was one of our goals when producing
this plug-in, HarmoniEQ features a single control surface to control
the equalizer curve. HarmoniEQ’s control surface workflow implements
our best findings in the area of “user-equalizer” interaction. Just
drag the filter control points to the right places. You can enable
up to 7 parametric filters, with the filter type freely-selectable
from peaking, low-shelf, high-shelf, low-pass, high-pass and notch
filter types.

HarmoniEQ features:

* Harmonically-enhanced equalizer
* Dynamic equalizing
* Real-time spectrum analysis
* 7 parametric filter bands
* Narrow-band sweeping
* User interface window resizing
* Stereo and multi-channel processing
* Internal channel routing
* Channel grouping
* Mid/side processing
* Up to 8x oversampling
* 64-bit floating point processing
* Preset manager
* Undo/redo history
* A/B comparisons
* Contextual hint messages
* All sample rates support
* 11 ms compensated processing latency

Voxengo HarmoniEQ is available for purchase on-line for USD 79.95.
Voxengo HarmoniEQ demo can be downloaded at the Voxengo web site:
http://www.voxengo.com/product/harmonieq/

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The Pluginboutique is a brand new venture from the team at Loopmasters which is dedicated to selling Instruments, Effects and Studio Tools from leading music software companies worldwide.

The website was designed from the ground up to provide a custom solution to sell downloadable products such as Soft Synths, Music Plugins, Studio Effects and Synth Presets – and launches with some great names already involved including Fxpansion, Ohm Force, Flux, PSP, D16, Sinevibes, Waves, Sonic Charge and G-Sonique alongside many others.

The website features product ratings, instant download and authorisation, a service to ensure all your plugins are up to date, one login to see all your plugins from different manufacturers, free plugins, trial versions, and a virtual cash scheme which rewards you with each purchase.

Matt Pelling, Director comments “With such a fantastic amount of Digital Music Software currently available, we felt we could use our experience and knowledge in this sector to create a great looking website where all the best products could be easily compared, so producers can research, purchase and download the best audio plugins for their projects, and start using them immediately”.

As an introductory offer all first time purchasers at Pluginboutique will get a Free Sample CD from Loopmasters sent to them. Plus until the end of May every additional £100 you spend entitles you to another free Sample CD.
To claim your free samples simply leave a comment on the Pluginboutique facebook page with your order number and the type of music you produce – your mystery sample CD/s will arrive in the post

The great thing about GarageBand it’s simplicity.

Especially for guitarists, beginner or expert.

Creating a quick and easy backing track can be done in a matter of minutes.

This turns the iPad into a great practicing tool and a very fine notepad for composition.

For this tutorial I’m going to use a previous project that already has drums created.

This project was created in a previous tutorial on creating a quick drum track.

Let’s get started.

Open a previous project with drums or create a new project. It’s up to you.

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Looking for an easy online storage system that can sync files between all your computers?

Well Dropbox is in my opinion the perfect solution.

As a user for over a year now I have it installed on two pcs, my laptop, iPhone and iPad.

Primarily I use it to sync files across all my devices to save on using a USB stick.

Works flawlessly on all my devices syncing chosen folders across my network.

I use it to share and as a backup for my important files.

You can also share folders with other users of Dropbox which comes in useful for collaborations and teaching.

If you get a Dropbox account you can also get added storage by inviting people to join.

If you share files with those invitees you get more storage!

The only negative is that you can’t write protect files.

This means that if someone decides to delete a file it will delete it from Dropbox.

My advice is to share only one folder and ask that users do not delete anything.

Apparently there are lots of requests for write protected folders on the Dropbox website so fingers crossed.

You can of course pay for extra storage if needed.

Brilliant service and well worth it.

Check it out.

Dropbox free online storage

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‘A capo (short for capotasto, Italian for “head of fretboard”) is a device used on the neck of a stringed (typically fretted) instrument to shorten the playable length of the strings, hence raising the pitch. It is frequently used on guitars, mandolins, and banjos. G.B. Doni first used the term in his Annotazioni of 1640, though capo use likely began earlier in the 17th-century.’ – WIKiPEDIA

Using a Capo can be quite a difficult thing to get to grips with.

A lot of songs on the internet will state whether a capo is used a few don’t.

But besides playing a song in the way it was intended we can us a Capo for other reasons.

transposing a song to our voice without having to change chord shapes or when trying to avoid too many barre chords.

Why avoid barre chords?

The first obvious reason is that when we start playing guitar the barre chord is a deal breaker.

It’s damn hard for new guitarists to move freely to a barre chord and sometimes dammit you just want to play that song!

The other is that when finger picking we can use open chords to play more elaborately, also the preasure needed to apply barre chords while picking can be very wearing on the fingers and hand.

Below are some tables showing the transposed open chords when the capo is applied to each fret.

The ‘Black‘ letters indicate the Original Chord, mainly Open Chords apart from the ‘F‘ and ‘Bm‘ which can be Barre Chords.

The ‘Red‘ letters indicate the new chord.

I’ve used the most common chord shapes to keep things simple.

The way to use these tables is to write out your chords on a peice of paper and then look for the best solution.

Find the chords you have in the red row and then move the capo to that fret. Using the chord shapes form the black row will now give you the transposed version.

 Capo 1st Fret

C	D	Dm	E	Em	F	G	A	Am	B	Bm	B7
C#	D#	D#m	F	Fm	F#	G#	A#	A#m	C	Cm	C7
Db	Eb	Ebm			Gb	Ab	Bb	Bbm

Capo 2nd Fret

C	D	Dm	E	Em	F	G	A	Am	B	Bm	B7
D	E	Em	F#	F#m	G	A	B	Bm	C#	C#m	C#7
			Gb	Gbm					Db	Dbm	Db7

Capo 3rd Fret

Capo 4th Fret

Capo 5th Fret

Capo 6th Fret

Capo 7th Fret

Capo 8th Fret

Capo 9th Fret

Note:

These charts show only the basic chords so as to avoid confusion.

Only one 7th chord is used and no sus chords have been used.

If you find that your chord progression has any of these follow the chart below to replace or add.

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Start up GarageBand if you haven’t already.

Look for the icon I have circled and tap it once.

This will create your new track.

First we’ll create our drum track.

To do this we will keep things simple and use smart drums.

On the main screen swipe the screen until you find ‘Smart Drums’

Now tap the drum to enter.

By tapping the screen where I have circled we can change the kit sounds.

For this example we are going to use ‘live rock kit’ – I’ve circled it in red.

Tap that part of the screen.

If you want to change kit you can tap the the icon circled in yellow/red.

You can if you want randomise a drum kit by tapping the Dice circled in green/red

For now though ignore these.

The parts we’re interested in are the arrows and the kit elements to the right of the screen.

The arrows point to 4 different style elements.

Loud, Quiet, Complex and Simple.

By grabbing a kit element eg the ‘Kick’ we can drag it onto the grid in the middle.

Placement on the screen will determine it’s volume and it’s complexity.

Take a listen and if your happy do the same with the snare and hi hat.

So now you should have a simple drum pattern, have a few listens.

If you want any element louder drag the icon up the grid, quieter drag it down.

If you’re happy with it’s complexity make sure you maintain it’s position.

If you want it more complex drag it to the right, simpler drag it to the left.

And there you have it, a drum beat created in GarageBand.

If you intend to keep it or add another instrument then you will need to record it.

To carry on you have a couple of other options,

Enter multitrack or add another instrument.

For the moment let’s check out multitrack.

Tap the multitrack button circled in red.

The screen above shows the multitrack view.

At the moment it shows a drum pattern in green.

If this is not then case something went wrong.

Pressing play will loop the pattern allowing continuous play, perfect for jamming chords out.

I’ve highlighted the instruments button again so that if you want to you can add another instrument or recording.

If you want to add another instrument look for the ones that have ‘smart’ in front, these will be easier to use.

I will be going deeper into this at some other point but for now that’s all folks.

Enjoy.

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