The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    I am going to be doing a couple of worship songs for a religious service from my home studio via a zoom videoconference. I have never done anything like this before. It will be keyboard, vocals and guitar, all amplified. Keyboard and vocals through an Alto110, my guitar through a guitar amp. Computer is a Mac Mini.

    I've been using an old IceCam2 with its built in mic for business conferencing, and it's been adequate for that.

    Mic for Zoom videoconference?  (And maybe cam too?)-icecam-jpeg



    But since we'll being doing professional, amplified music, and I want it to sound a good as possible, I'm wondering if a better mic is in order? Or is the zoom conference audio so limited, that it wouldn't matter anyway?

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2
    Me too. Interested if improved equipment on the front end might help compensate for even a little bit of what seems to be lacking audio on the other end.

    I understand most teachers concerns with the bottleneck of limited equipment on the students and of things, but being in a similar situation as yours, mine would mostly be one way and a lot of contexts. I have a Scarlett 2i2 and an SM 27 large diaphragm that I need to take for a test drive.

    If you want to take it for test drive, you'd just get someone else to set up a "meeting" , even a separate account from your house , and record the meeting. you'd get a locally saved video version of your recording , if you set it to "record meeting".

    Would be a pretty good idea to take it for a test drive during highest traffic times possible , if you're planning on doing this the time when a lot of other people are going to do it, during "typical" service times for holiday or weekly events.

    One cool thing zoom DOES actually allow you to do is change audio source midsession. So you could pretty easily A/B couple of components from different sources /inputs/devices etc.

  4. #3
    Shared this with my wife who teaches voice/piano. Looks like solid info.


    Important tio disable a few default audio settings in zoom for best sound.

  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    Shared this with my wife who teaches voice/piano. Looks like solid info.


    Important tio disable a few default audio settings in zoom for best sound.
    When she said , "make sure you're connected to the internet"... I'm thinking, thank you captain obvious. Actually I'm thinking she meant to say, "make sure you're connected to the internet with an ethernet cable". It's always better if you can connect that way.

    The sound settings she mentions looks to be a good idea. I'd probably disable echo cancellations also and just wear headphones for monitoring.

    Also consider lighting and camara placement. Ideally you want the camera at eye level like she has it in the video she die, and like all the newcasters you see on tv. There's a reason they do that, you just look better.

    I think Matt has the right idea, using an external mic and an interface. Fortunately us musicians usually already have mics. For your purposes I'd want an interface with four inputs so you can have a mic on your guitar amp, a vocal mic, and stereo inputs from your keyboard. Hold on for a second, will zoom allow four inputs, not sure. You'd have to experiment with that. Good think is if you set this up you'd also have what you need to do home recording.

  6. #5

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    Thanks for posting the video. My son-in-law and I are setting up jams using Zoom starting this weekend! Helpful tips!

  7. #6

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    Woody, having done a few Zoom interactions (some of them musical), and hearing the difference in the quality of other people's equipment, I would say that almost anything is going to sound better than that ancient macally Icecam, even taking into account Zoom's highly compressed audio. Kind of amazing that it still works! Almost any modern camera would be better than the video from the Icecam, as well, and the probable poor quality of that Icecam will be noticeable on the other end.

    You'll need to have some sort of audio interface, however, to get the sound into your computer. The Scarlett 2i2 to which Matt is referring is good value for the money, if you can get it in time.

    The video, however, is problematic; with everyone in the US wanting to Zoom, Skype, or FaceTime, computer video cams are sold out almost everywhere online. If the Icecam is your only choice, it will serve in a pinch.

    You might be better off using a smartphone, if you have a relatively recent one. You won't be able to see people on the other end very well, but if you set it up right, the performers in your home studio can all be seen.

  8. #7
    OP here, sorry about the disappearing act. I had limited time to get things ready. In that time I had 3 options to test.

    1. The old IceCam by itself for audio & video.
    2. The IceCam for vid with a borrowed Yeti Blue (silver) mic for aud.
    3. The IceCam for vid with the USB direct out from the mixer for aud.

    So I tested the Yeti, it sounded better than the IceCam. So #1 was out.

    On to #3: For audio I tried going direct out USB from the mixer. It showed up as "USB Audio CODEC" in the mic selections. However, I couldn't get any signal/sound. Messed around for quite a bit, had to give up because of time constrains, and concentrated on working with the Yeti for audio.

    It ended up working well, the audience was very pleased. The next day I asked a few "musical" people how it sounded. They said the level and balance were perfect. But the overall sound was just a bit dark/muddy, but not enough to really worry about. Of course, that's not good enough for me.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Ukena
    The video, however, is problematic; with everyone in the US wanting to Zoom, Skype, or FaceTime, computer video cams are sold out almost everywhere online. If the Icecam is your only choice, it will serve in a pinch.
    Very true, been looking for another cam, very hard to find one.

  10. #9

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    You can use a smartphone connected to a PC as your webcam. Very good quality camera and suprisingly good mic on many of the smartphones.

    How to use your Android phone as a webcam for your PC | Digital Citizen

  11. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    Shared this with my wife who teaches voice/piano. Looks like solid info.


    Important tio disable a few default audio settings in zoom for best sound.
    There's some nice advice here. Should have been pretty obvious about the Advanced button, I feel a bit humbled.

  12. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Woody Sound
    There's some nice advice here. Should have been pretty obvious about the Advanced button, I feel a bit humbled.
    Yeah . To be fair though, it also has a good bit of non-obvious terminology , that you wouldn't find in a DAW. glad to hear all went well by the way. Congrats.

  13. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    Yeah . To be fair though, it also has a good bit of non-obvious terminology , that you wouldn't find in a DAW. glad to hear all went well by the way. Congrats.
    Sorry I didn't get to connect with you, just ran out of time for the Easter morning deadline. If you still want to try/test some things let me know.

  14. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Woody Sound
    Very true, been looking for another cam, very hard to find one.
    Is 1080 necessary, or is 720 ok?