Music

[technoid]

The mic is what I'm trying to avoid. I just want to go totally digital. Play guitar along with a pre-recorded song and have them record at same time as the video. Basicly I want two tracks of sound (my guitar and one cover song) and one video that's in sync. I don't play in a band anymore, my favorite thing to do is play along with old heavy metal songs here at the house, I made some videos of me doing that using the mic on the webcam, but now I want to increase the quality of the sound by using the "m-audio fastrack usb". It allows me to plug in my guitar to the pc basically. I've tried other programs to help me with this but they are so damn hard to figure out it's not fun.  It should be easy, but so far I've been defeated.

Here is a video of me using the m-audio device:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF6SUsiyDPQ

And here is one with the webcam microphone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A3mkXW1F6I

But like I said, since I can't make the two sound recordings merge into one I had to use the windows movie maker program to literally drop the cover song into the video timeline and then move it back and forth a million times until it matched up. This sucks. I've already spent too much money, I don't want to buy a tascam or anything else really. If I do my wife will want a new car or something to balance the spending out. lol

Well, in that case Fast Track is not the best way to go, as that only captures audio as you already realize.  It's also overkill if you're only going to upload your creations to Youtube, since Youtube will dither and compress down your file to some .flv format anyway to conserve their serverspace.  You need an audio/video recorder/capture and since money is definitely an issue, just capture audio/video simultaneously in Windows Movie Maker.  I have never in my life used that program (yet), so I don't know what it's capable of, but I quickly perused through it.  It looks like you can capture audio using the Narrate Timeline. Have you tried that yet? You've got several choice of audio input.  And because of Youtube (again), superior audio quality is not going to be necessary.  Yes, FLStudio and other DAW's out there can be daunting at first because of their huge learning curves, but if you really want to get into recording stuff, you need to sit down and get into it, heh, much like you did when you started learning BZII.   

Did you say you can see Fast Track in Movie Maker??   Let's start with that, otherwise, you really will need an [analog] mic if you want to record audio/video at the same time.  Going fully digital as you said may not be the right way to go until I know what we're dealing with. 

[TheJamsh]

i pwn all of you. i have access to Pro Tools HD 8 next year, along with Logic...

Currently i have Cubase 4, Reason, Audacity (lol) etc that i can use well enough. Goldwave would be great if i had a full-lisence. really liked that program before it expired.

[VSMIT]

I've got Audacity, Traction, Garage Band and Finale 2009/Finale Allegro 2007/Finale Print Music 2004 (Think I like Finale much?  Take that, AHadley).  I'll have access to Reason, Protools, and one other program (Starts with an "A," I think), starting in the fall.

[Axeminister]

Thanks for all the help. I'm still stumped as to how to do all this digitally and may revert back to using the webcam microphone for my videos. I tried the Windows Movie Maker and it won't record the video and let the song I drop into the timeline be recorded while I play.
The Logitech program for the webcam is almost everything I need. It sees the M-audio device and records the sound of me playing for the video just fine. But it only records one audio at a time.
The funny thing I tried was to merge the cover song and the guitar with a 1/4" jack adaptor into the back of the m-audio device so they both would be recorded at the same time from the same device. Of course one cancels out the other. lol
I'll read more about the audio/video recorder/capture device Technoid was talking about.

[AHadley]

Think I like Finale much?  Take that, AHadley.

I have finale notepad 2009, but didn't mention it because Sibelius is more annoying but superior.

[VSMIT]

That's Notepad.  Full version Finale is much better.

[AHadley]

Yeah, maybe... though ive never tried it.

[technoid]

Thanks for all the help. I'm still stumped as to how to do all this digitally and may revert back to using the webcam microphone for my videos. I tried the Windows Movie Maker and it won't record the video and let the song I drop into the timeline be recorded while I play.
The Logitech program for the webcam is almost everything I need. It sees the M-audio device and records the sound of me playing for the video just fine. But it only records one audio at a time.
The funny thing I tried was to merge the cover song and the guitar with a 1/4" jack adaptor into the back of the m-audio device so they both would be recorded at the same time from the same device. Of course one cancels out the other. lol
I'll read more about the audio/video recorder/capture device Technoid was talking about.

What you need is audio/video multi track channel  capability.  Note I said audio and video, i.e. simultaneously.  I could give you a list of many audio multitrack DAW software out there (such as the ones already mentioned in this thread), but that is not what you want.  Sony Vegas would be a good candidate for A/V recording, but again that is not within your "budget".  We are trying to find something close to freeware as possible. 

I still think you should find an XLR dynamic mic and hook that up to your Fast Track, since that is the device you really want to explore.  I believe that you should be able to then record your vocal and guitar straight out of the Fast Track right into your computer, while recording video off the webcam at the same time.  You should be able to get better quality vocals than off the webcam mic. I would think that the audio off the webcam mic would produce somewhat muffled sound because you're a little farther away from it, though I don't know what webcam make/model you got though. A USB mic might also work.  Note also that when you do record the vocal and guitar from the Fast Track that this will only show up as one track, not separate tracks.  That is one limitation of the Fast Track and that is where your problem lies in that you can't layer another track (where your song is) during the recording (while recording simultaneous video as well).  An EMU 0404USB comes to mind for USB multichannel recording.

So then, if Movie Maker doesn't work, why don't you try Multiquence (from the makers of Goldwave)? It is also an A/V editor.  It is crippleware much like Goldwave, but not in the way of disabling file saves.  Find it at www.goldwave.com and read the description.  In unregistered mode, it will put up a logo on the video, but nothing big.

Other than that, you might want to expand your music recording arsenal, like say with a cheap multichannel external mixer if you dont have one.  Run vocals on one channel, another with guitar and another with your song, then take it through the mixer's Line-out into your PC's Line-in, while recording webcam video in Multiquence.  You can do the same with a digital USB multitrack recorder (like that EMU 0404USB) and this will separate tracks in FLStudio or whatever, but again these cost around $100 or more.

I'll keep looking for something. 

[sabrebattletank]

I play piano, took lessons for years. I've been off lessons for a while now, playing and creating on my own. I picked up guitar in High School, my first song was AC/DC's classic Thunderstruck. Lets see... I played baritone for a while and if I had time now I would be continuing it, but you know how that goes.

My ex-Band:
Pink Unicorns of Doon -- a parody black metal band. We rult.

My Band:
Harbingers of Cool -- Our tagline: "DC's premier band, specializing in blues, blues rock, and black metal."

[Axeminister]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gSihy1hrTM