The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    When I record something on my iPhone and upload it to YouTube it isn't nearly as loud as such recordings uploaded by others.
    (I'm not talking about videos uploaded by people who mic their amps and recording with pro equipment. I'm talking about recording guitar with a iPhone's video camera at normal practice volume

    I wonder why that is.

    Normally, I have my phone on my music stand and my amp is a couple feet away. The amp is loud enough in my room.


    (I don't know why this photo is rotated this way. The amp is on the floor. Pardon the mess. I'll clean my room tomorrow. ;o)
    On the music stand is a gizmo I attach the phone to when recording.
    Attached Images Attached Images iPhone recordings and YouTube volume-img_1979-jpg iPhone recordings and YouTube volume-recording-set-up-jpg 

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  3. #2

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    So you are recording just using the built in mic in your iPhone? I might try to do one and see if I get the same reduction. YouTube does process the audio and if it is louder than a certain level they do compress it somehow or attenuate it (not sure which).

  4. #3

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    For YouTube you should master in -14 lufs. If you use a daw, use a loudness plugin to do so.

  5. #4

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    Also-how do you prep the file to upload? DO you just upload the .mov file? Convert to MP4? I just made a clip using the phone mic and will try to duplicate your upload method once I know it.

  6. #5

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    I use an app call Lumafusion which is an excellent little video editor which runs on my iPhone 8.

    Then you can increase the volume easily. (Advantage is I can do it all on my phone, so. very streamlined little procedure for uploading YT vids.)

    Got lots of comments about my vids being too quiet. Even when I use a proper mic etc.

  7. #6

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    Thanks for the input, guys. You’re all more advanced than I am in this area.
    I use nothing but the phone. Video: press record, when done, stop.
    At YouTube: upload file, hit Publish.
    No editing, no other recording software.
    (Not saying I Would Never, merely that I have not.)

  8. #7

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    Okay here's s quick clip I did, just the amp and backing track and the iPhone up on a stand, using the iPhone microphone only. No other tweaks. It sounds the same as when I play it from my computer.


  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by lawson-stone
    Okay here's s quick clip I did, just the amp and backing track and the iPhone up on a stand, using the iPhone microphone only. No other tweaks.
    Hey, Lawson, Thanks for the demo.
    That sounds fine. Backing track was overwhelmed but that’s not important here.
    Does this play back at the same volume your other videos do?
    Maybe I’m just not turning my amp up enough!
    Or maybe the recording level of my iPhone is set too low. (If I set it at all it was by accident.)

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    Hey, Lawson, Thanks for the demo.
    That sounds fine. Backing track was overwhelmed but that’s not important here.
    Does this play back at the same volume your other videos do?
    Maybe I’m just not turning my amp up enough!
    Or maybe the recording level of my iPhone is set too low. (If I set it at all it was by accident.)
    I actually play a little louder than what many might use as a practice volume. This volume is about the same as the clips I make using a mixer and all the gear. I actually do not know how to set the record level of a video on the iPhone. If you find that out I'd love to know how that's done.

    I did record in 1080p 30 fps.

    The mic end of the phone was facing the guitar amp, and so I wasn't surprised the backing track got overshadowed. I haven't found a sweet spot in the little space there for that kind of recording. I usually record direct, or with a mic on the cab and all of it going to a mixer/A-D converter, then to my laptop. I mix and master using a program called Screenflow which is what I use to record lectures for my classes when we do remote learning, so I just use it for my music clips too.

    BTW you might enjoy this, sort of an example of what Screenflow can do for teachers.


  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by lawson-stone
    I actually play a little louder than what many might use as a practice volume. This volume is about the same as the clips I make using a mixer and all the gear. I actually do not know how to set the record level of a video on the iPhone. If you find that out I'd love to know how that's done.

    I did record in 1080p 30 fps.

    The mic end of the phone was facing the guitar amp, and so I wasn't surprised the backing track got overshadowed. I haven't found a sweet spot in the little space there for that kind of recording. I usually record direct, or with a mic on the cab and all of it going to a mixer/A-D converter, then to my laptop. I mix and master using a program called Screenflow which is what I use to record lectures for my classes when we do remote learning, so I just use it for my music clips too.

    BTW you might enjoy this, sort of an example of what Screenflow can do for teachers.

    Enjoyed the video, Lawson. Thank you.
    That recording speed you mentioned is the same as on my phone. (I just checked.)
    The iPhone has an Omni-directional mic and my amp is below and beside it. I should turn up the volume a bit and situate myself so the amp sounds goes more directly toward the phone. Maybe raise the amp up off the floor, or at least tilt it.

    I may look into more recording / editing gear later but for now I’ll be sticking with the phone because it’s so easy to do.

    I am intrigued by the things you and others have mentioned here. I’ll look further into them.

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I use an app call Lumafusion which is an excellent little video editor which runs on my iPhone 8.

    Then you can increase the volume easily. (Advantage is I can do it all on my phone, so. very streamlined little procedure for uploading YT vids.)

    Got lots of comments about my vids being too quiet. Even when I use a proper mic etc.
    Ough.... €32,99.... but you reckon it’s wirth it?

  13. #12

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    Mark, I experience the same problem when I just film and upload to YouTube. Neither my phone nor YouTube has functionality to normalize or increase the volume. The only way to get sufficient volume is to up the live volume, not always practical in an apartment late at night... Now with DAW or video-editing software on the lap- or desktop that would be easy enough but I want to keep things quick and easy.

    The solution I found is to use an external mic. In my ‘studio’ I can use a mic (SM58) in front of the amp and take the signal from my mixer. I use an iRig to feed the sound into the phone. Then I can control the recording gain but still record ‘live’ without editing. Of course it’s a bit more hustle but not as much as first uploading the movie to the computer, edit it and then upload.

    I am experimenting with a mic that plugs directly into the phone (Boya BY-BM2021) and the first results are pretty good!

    An another solution is to record directly into the mixer (I use a Joyo Anerican Sound and a Boss reverb pedal for speaker simulation and sine ambience).

    But it would be ideal to just be able to increase the volume of the recorded audio with the video from the phone. I am looking for a good app for that....


  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Little Jay
    Ough.... €32,99.... but you reckon it’s wirth it?
    it is if you do a lot of uploading

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by lawson-stone
    I actually play a little louder than what many might use as a practice volume. This volume is about the same as the clips I make using a mixer and all the gear. I actually do not know how to set the record level of a video on the iPhone. If you find that out I'd love to know how that's done.

    I did record in 1080p 30 fps.

    The mic end of the phone was facing the guitar amp, and so I wasn't surprised the backing track got overshadowed. I haven't found a sweet spot in the little space there for that kind of recording. I usually record direct, or with a mic on the cab and all of it going to a mixer/A-D converter, then to my laptop. I mix and master using a program called Screenflow which is what I use to record lectures for my classes when we do remote learning, so I just use it for my music clips too.

    BTW you might enjoy this, sort of an example of what Screenflow can do for teachers.

    there were three, three constipated men in the bible, in the bible....

  16. #15

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    I downloaded the free iMovie app on my iPad, it lets you do simple video editing, including the option to adjust volume levels, I assume you could use it on an iPhone too:

    iPhone recordings and YouTube volume-7ecdaa36-92c9-487f-be4d-c7b92aa28539-jpg

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by Little Jay
    Mark, I experience the same problem when I just film and upload to YouTube. Neither my phone nor YouTube has functionality to normalize or increase the volume. The only way to get sufficient volume is to up the live volume, not always practical in an apartment late at night... Now with DAW or video-editing software on the lap- or desktop that would be easy enough but I want to keep things quick and easy.
    Thanks, Jay. You've given me some good ideas.

  18. #17

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    I believe YouTube does have a kind of limiter that rolls down the volume if the clip goes past some threshold of theirs.

  19. #18

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    You have to have a way of Normalizing (I'm taking a guess at US spelling there with that z) the volume. That's the technical term. It gives you full available volume before distortion sets in. I imagine the aforementioned apps do that for you.

  20. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by lawson-stone
    Okay here's s quick clip I did, just the amp and backing track and the iPhone up on a stand, using the iPhone microphone only. No other tweaks. It sounds the same as when I play it from my computer.

    The volume on that is actually a bit louder than youtube will use, they knocked that volume down by 12%. You can tell with the stat for nerds see the 100%/88%, which means I had the volume slider on youtube at 100% but the volume was reduced by youtube to 88%. If I reduce the volume slider to 60% youtube normalized is 53% etc.

    With a recording like this, I don't think it hurts anything that the iphone recording was too loud for youtube. Normalization doesn't change the sound it just makes it quieter, one can always turn the volume up on their speakers or headphones if they want. What this streaming normalization really does is eliminate the incentive to over-compress the recording to make it loud, that just won't make it loud anymore and you sacrifice dynamics.
    Attached Images Attached Images iPhone recordings and YouTube volume-lawson-png 

  21. #20

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    The mic on a phone is designed to pick up sound from the front for phone calls, and emphasize closer sounds over more distant ones*, and is not going to detect the same 360-degree sound field as your ears. It looks like your amp is well off to the side of the phone. I have found with my own stuff that if the amp is even a little off-axis and more than a couple of feet away, it's pretty quiet and sounds like it's at the end of a tunnel. Anything closer and more directly in front of the phone-mic comes out louder, even something very quiet, such as the "acoustic" sound of a solid-body or semi-hollow, even when the amp is pretty loud. So I would recommend experimenting with amp/phone distance and position.

    *not sure if this is done via the mics' pickup patternl, or via processing

    John

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by lawson-stone
    I believe YouTube does have a kind of limiter that rolls down the volume if the clip goes past some threshold of theirs.
    That makes sense to me.
    What I noticed is that when I upload a video to YouTube and play it, I have to move the slider from around, say, 30-33 up to 75-80 to hear it well, and there is little punch to it.
    So I'm giving YouTube less volume than they expect, I guess.

    I started to think about this last week when I was playing a blues of mine and decided to sing a couple verses. Really just wanted to see how that would come out on the phone. The amp was much louder in my room than my voice was but the voice is louder than the guitar in the resulting video. (That's actually welcome in the sense that I can record an amped guitar and do a guide vocal just to keep my place and don't have to worry about micing my voice, setting levels, all that. This makes it a fine 'scratch pad' for song ideas but it is a real disservice to the sound of the guitar.)


  23. #22

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    Did this this morning with my iPhone and a Focusrite iTrack Pocket. (See jpg below)

    No amp. Plugged right into the unit and chose the Clean sound.
    Definitely solves the volume problem, right?



    I got mine for $20 a couple years ago. (Focusrite makes much more expensive gear now and these aren't 'supported' any more.) They were marketed to singer / songwriters to make it easy to lay down a song idea. There are stereo mics in the unit's face and one can plug in a guitar and choose among a few amp settings.
    What I DON'T like about it: it is easy to tip over; one's iPhone must be removed from its case to fit into the slot; it requires a flat surface to sit on, meaning it can't really be placed on one's music stand the way the phone by itself can, via a clamp.)

    iPhone recordings and YouTube volume-focusrite-jpg

  24. #23

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    I know nothing about iPhones, but is there not a way to change input volume when recording? That would seem to be a serious limitation if there is none.

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by sgosnell
    I know nothing about iPhones, but is there not a way to change input volume when recording? That would seem to be a serious limitation if there is none.
    I have not discovered that if there is.....

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    Did this this morning with my iPhone and a Focusrite iTrack Pocket. (See jpg below)

    No amp. Plugged right into the unit and chose the Clean sound.
    Definitely solves the volume problem, right?



    I got mine for $20 a couple years ago. (Focusrite makes much more expensive gear now and these aren't 'supported' any more.) They were marketed to singer / songwriters to make it easy to lay down a song idea. There are stereo mics in the unit's face and one can plug in a guitar and choose among a few amp settings.
    What I DON'T like about it: it is easy to tip over; one's iPhone must be removed from its case to fit into the slot; it requires a flat surface to sit on, meaning it can't really be placed on one's music stand the way the phone by itself can, via a clamp.)

    iPhone recordings and YouTube volume-focusrite-jpg
    Mark, do you right click the youtube videos and select "stats for nerds" on the menu? If not give it a try, you can do it on this page. The video has to be playing for it to work.

    You'll see the 1st video was 11db under the youtube threshold in which case youtube doesn't touch it. The second one was 1db too high and youtube reduced the volume by 1db (which is something I woudn't worry about).

    I like your blues tune, very cool. The sound is good it's just a bit quiet and there is some background hiss and what not. I'm wondering, where is the mic on the Iphone and where is it pointing when you record. I know you are taking a video so the choices are limited. When I take videos my smartphone is on a small phone tripod, like the one linked below, and on my desk. So the mic or mics are not down against anything.

    https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1