Online lessons setup

paulcaye

Hi All,  

Hope everyone is having a good Sunday.  I have my first online booked for this week - over zoom.  

Any tips on setting up for this for getting good sound / picture for It?  Is it better just to use your computer or external microphone for this or sound come through my interface into zoom etc.  

Has anyone got any good tips for setting up for this to ensure both the tutor and myself can get the most from it.  

Thanks

Paul

eoinzy

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Mattharrier

I had issues getting everything to work using my interface - I either couldn't get all of the audio feeds (guitar, mic, laptop audio) working at the same time, or I had an echo. It ended up being easier to just use an external mic and have all of the sound coming out of the amp.

There is a piece of software on Mac (which I can't remember the name of) that makes using an interface and USB mic really easy - on Windows, there is once called Voicemeeter which does something similar, which is what I used, but on my low end machine it wasn't entirely smooth sailing.

Lestratcaster

Most onboard PC soundcards are rubbish, Mac's are decent though I've been teaching online for 2 years now and an audio interface is the best way to get a clear clean signal from mics. I'm using the Focusrite 8i6, but also as its only got 2 analogue inputs (windows doesn't detect any other inputs on the back) I need 3 separate sounds - my talking voice, my guitar and backing track off an iPad mini. So I added a Yamaha MG10 mixer so I can mix all 3 as one sound wave to send into the interface into the computer. I know its a pain having 2 devices but its worked perfectly since covid started and I had to teach online. I know you can get mixers that are also an audio interface but I tried this with a couple of students and you can’t do 2-way monitoring - i.e both of you hearing the mix. I keep everything analogue and hardware based so I can offload any processing tasks which may slow down my computer.

I tried the software virtual mixers but found it would play music digital and my guitar signal was analogue so the 2 were never in sync. Not useful when playing along to the backing music.

Zoom is terrible for audio quality so I'm glad I don't use it anymore. I hate its audio processing (although they may have improved it in the past year). Also the latency is pretty high as its more video bandwidth heavy whereas the platform I use now (Rock Out Loud Live) priorities audio over picture and the latency is less (average 67ms).

paulcaye

Thanks for your advice all.  

I am going to try some stuff out tomorrow.   Just need to work what works best.  

Going to try using the hx stomp direct via USB into OBS to mix with external microphone via an audio interface and see how that works.  My laptop should be able to handle any processing. 

Then move onto simpler solutions in no particular order.  

1. Just a single external microphone into my audio interface. 
2.  iPhone with Bluetooth headphones (and naff microphone). With iPhone connected to an external display.  

3. Spend the next 2 three weeks building a new pedal board just for streaming with 42 pedals, 4 microphones and a built in midi system! 

Barney

Whatever setup you use it's worth recording the lesson ....ask first though....just record the screen so you can go back over things 

viz

Barney said:

Whatever setup you use it's worth recording the lesson ....ask first though....just record the screen so you can go back over things 

What software do you use for that? It’s to my eternal shame I’ve had about 100 lessons with Greg Howe and not got a single record of any of them

Danny1969

For Mac just use Quicktime - go Quicktime - New screen recording, make sure audio is set for where you want it from.

I never got on with Zoom's audio so switched to Skypt for lessons over covid 

Barney

viz said:

Barney said:

Whatever setup you use it's worth recording the lesson ....ask first though....just record the screen so you can go back over things 

What software do you use for that? It’s to my eternal shame I’ve had about 100 lessons with Greg Howe and not got a single record of any of them

It's called realrecorder I think but any will do just to record the screen ...I just use the Mac built in mic 

viz

Ta

kelpbeds

viz said:

Barney said:

Whatever setup you use it's worth recording the lesson ....ask first though....just record the screen so you can go back over things 

What software do you use for that? It’s to my eternal shame I’ve had about 100 lessons with Greg Howe and not got a single record of any of them

Hi Viz,
I use 'Bandicam' to record sessions with, works really well and have used it for years. Great bit of software.

kelpbeds

paulcaye said:

Hi All,  

Hope everyone is having a good Sunday.  I have my first online booked for this week - over zoom.  

Any tips on setting up for this for getting good sound / picture for It?  Is it better just to use your computer or external microphone for this or sound come through my interface into zoom etc.  

Has anyone got any good tips for setting up for this to ensure both the tutor and myself can get the most from it.  

Thanks

Paul

I use a 'Blue Yeti' mic for my teaching sessions. About as good quality you are going to get with USB without spending stupid amounts of money.