Beginning: Learning by Doing
I am a total beginner in Youtube. I am trying to get my videos to the level of a Rousseau or Patrick Pietschmann. I have been trying for a while now but am committing to releasing a piano video every week for the foreseeable future. This process for me has enforced the idea that you learn most in production and music by doing.
This video was really hard to put together but in the process I learned so much.
Here is what I learned in short:
I became more proficient in FinalCut Pro X. Through trial and error I have arrived at a template that I will be using and modifying for these videos. I balanced the color through White Balance. I think it looks good but next time I will wear darker pants and not my gray sweats!
I became more proficient at Logic Pro X. This is the audio software that I used. I did this tune in two takes. I spliced it half way through the tune. Next time, I will try and compress the audio a bit better. I noticed that there is some 'clipping' in this recording. I may have to go back and reload the video because of this. The audio is coming directly for my Yamaha N2. I was pleased with the audio but may need to explore more EQ options. The midi data is recorded separately on a track in Logic. It was surprisingly easy to splice the audio and the midi data.
iPhone placement might need to be adjusted. I used my iPhone to record the video. I had to zoom out to get a full picture of the keyboard. I placed my tripod on a nearby shelf with a weight on it. Having the tripod on the N2 piano was producing a shaky video.
Zooming out produced a little bit of 'graininess' in the final product. I am revisiting this.
4. I used the application SeeMusic. I uploaded the edited midi file to the application and then created the particles and color scheme. My daughter (6) selected the colors... lol.
I do not have LED's on the piano keyboard as you can see in the above picture. Not sure I will be able to mount an LED strip to produce the lighting of the keyboard. However, I am looking at opacity functions on FinalCut. In SeeMusic, you can create the particle video and so that's what I did and then uploaded it to FinalCut. Then I cropped and moved the two videos together to get them overlapping.
5. I worked a little with Motion to create the opening. Motion is Apple's animation application. Folks are using this application in incredible way and there is a possibility of using this application to create more effects in the particles coming from the keyboard. Much of the language used in video editing is used in the animation tutorials that I have found on Youtube. So fun!
And so - lots learned. Looking forward to working on details as we move forward.
Here is the video!