Piano-recording setup: is there a better way?

[mitya]

(This is a general video recording/editing question, not specifically about VSDC, so apologies if this isn't suitable for this forum.)

I have just started recording videos of (digital) piano playing, with the camera positioned above the piano looking down on the keys.

My setup is very shonky. I record the video on my phone which is suspended above the piano, and record the audio separately via USB into my laptop. This means I have to glue the video and audio files together in VSDC, and line them up so they align in terms of timing. This is fiddley and time-consuming.

As far as I know, I can't line-in to my phone, so is the obvious thing here to replace the phone with a proper camera that can also record audio-in, or is there some other way here? I'm very new to this sort of thing!

Thanks so much in advance.

[TreeTops]

You are doing just fine. Use a clap board to sync audio with your phone video. That's how the movie studios do it.

[mitya]

Thank you. How would that work in my setup, since I'm the one pressing record on both the phone and the laptop, then playing?

[Cornucopia]

Press record on both, then clap the clapper so it is visible to the camera and audible to both.
Clap the clapper again just before stopping record. (Good as a backup and to check against drift).

Load into your editor, putting on separate tracks and roughly (eyeball) align.
Then find the clapper image where the 2 parts come together - this is your 1st frame. You should see a spike transient in audio corresponding to the point of impact.
Adjust your nice audio timing so that both audio's waveforms match as close as possible (progressively zooming in until you get to samples).
Once A is aligned to V+A, mute the V's audio, then gang the 2 tracks together so that any subsequent edits work on both.
After all editing is done, export.

Done.


Scott

[mitya]

Ah that's clever! Thanks. It was only the clapboard bit I needed - I'm already doing the other bits you describe. Appreciate the tip.

[netmask56]

You can also use your hands to do one clap and as long as the camera can see the side of your hands, that's the way to do it quickly if the clapper loader is off with the pixies! You can also do an end clap before you button off.