My son is a cellist. I have wasted so much money on cheap recording options that have a wide variety of problems. I’ve tried a tiny camera by Zoom, an external microphone for my iPhone, an external mic for my MacBook… everything has issues.
Video quality on the Zoom camera was awful. For audio, it was okay but didn’t do my son any favors.
All external mics I have tried for the iPhone/MacBook sound awful. I think they are for vloggers/podcasters and don’t provide good sound quality for musicians.
I want a setup that captures that great cello sound and resonance of the performance space. I’m not looking for perfection, but everything so far makes the cello sound like a carboard box.
I’m just a parent, not an audio technician, so simplicity would be great.
What do you use? Brands, even links, would be appreciated. Thank you!
You will most likely need 3 things: mic, mic stand, and an audio interface for the Mac. Many people use Focusrite Scarlett for the interface - a basic model should be fine. It basically converts standard mic input into high quality digital audio. Focusrite also sells “bundles” that includes mics, but Shure SM57 is a very popular mic choice. Mic stand is key, because, where the mic is (aligned with the F holes vs. the bridge, etc.) will have big impact on the cello sound - you will have to experiment to see which position works best.
My son and several of his friends use Zoom Q2n-4K to record. Three of these friends are cellists currently attending Curtis, U Michigan, and Rice. They record auditions for NYSOS, PMF, and some international festivals and competitions I can’t remember the names. The better quality recordings were done in school recital halls on stage. The ones recorded in a church sound good too. The ones recorded at home are meh. Because cello projects such rich and colorful sound, it’s very hard to record with simple setup.
Most webcams are capable of HD resolution video. Zoom downsizes the resolution for web conferencing. If you capture the video using another program other than Zoom (Quicktime?) and set the “audio input” of that software to your new mic set-up with interface (instead of the mic of the Mac or the camera), it should work.
SO we used the zoom audio only device (I think it was the H1) and a video camera (digital SLR) and then used i movie to splice them together and remove the audio from the video) worked great, easy and had good sound
This. Except maybe a clip on condenser mic (google condenser mic for cello), and instead of feeding the interface output into the camera, join the video and sound in iMovie or davinci resolve.
Camera preamps are not good until you pay thousands for a camera. The Zoom camera is in fact not great, I used to use it for my son’s school or rock videos because it was cheap.
I have tried EVERYTHING to get good video with sound, and a separate audio recorder with a dslr camera is the best way to go. It’s not so bad stitching the video and sound together once you’ve done a few. There are a million YouTube videos about how to do it.
First, IMO the space matters more than anything for the sound of lower string instruments. We recorded our college prescreens in a church - wooden floor, vaulted beam ceiling, etc. That’s best.
Then, we use (1) iphone for the video with a stand (2) set of 2 mics that we set to “stereo” since the multi function never sounds as good - those mics are set on one mic stand with the dual mic attachment and (3) a zoom interface (I think like the Zoom H5) that we plug those mics into that transfers their audio onto an SD card. Then I use Camtasia on my mac to splice the video from the phone to the audio from the SD card.
The actual “dual mics” we use are fairly expensive - I literally don’t know what they are since my son figures out that stuff, but we’re talking 2-3K range. If you want to know brand, you can DM and I’ll ask him.
Overall, if that mic set up is used in a large space like recital hall or church, it sounds great. If in a living room or something, it will still sound “closed in” but still much better than the Zoom mic alone or phone audio alone.
This is what I came here to post. My son’s primary instrument is viola and my daughter’s is cello. When my kids have needed a good recording, they have arranged recording time with their school / music school in a performance space. At my daughter’s music school, it’s possible to arrange to have a performance or audition recorded by the music technology students; you might look into that, too.