[Richard Crowley]

Yes, there are valid hybrid CD formats, but you never know how people are trying to play them on the other end. I don’t think that technology is necessarily the problem. User Error plays a big part. The more simple you can make something, the better chance you have of success at the far (uncontrollable) end.

[Richard Crowley]

Where did that disc come from? Who made it? How? For what purpose?

A disk with both “CDA” and MP3 files is not a legal Red-Book audio CD. It may be some sort of semi-standard hybrid that probably won’t play everywhere.

Note that (at least in the PC world) “CDA” is not really a file type, it is a placeholder for the Red-Book audio CD track. Standard audio CDs can be “ripped” with a “ripping” program that will convert the audio CD track (which is called a “CDA file”) into an actual computer file (like WAV or MP3, etc.)

Note that the epic conversion search engine at https://www.videohelp.com has more information about converting one file type to another (both audio and video) than you would probably ever want to know.

https://www.videohelp.com/convert Recommended.

[Richard Crowley]

“Thax is correct, but I will add that you are using unbalanced cabling. As long as your keep your cables short (15ft or less to play it safe) and keep other equipment away from them (listen for noise when recording and move one thing away at a time), I think you’ll be fine that way. Just realize that there is a much greater potential for interference due to the unbalanced connections. ”

True whether you are recording stereo or mono. It appears to be an unrelated issue.

[Richard Crowley]

LEDs are intrinsically orders of magnitude more rugged. Fluorescent tubes are in many ways even more fragile than their smaller incandescent cousins. They are physically larger (more area to get broken) and the glass tube is usually thinner as well. If you are not careful, the chances of arriving at the location with a broken tube(s) is significant. vs. LEDs which are practically indestructible, limited only by the design of the light fixture. And, as Mr. Suszko observed, LEDs are much easier to operate in portable and/or battery applications.

Neither fluorescent or LED sources have color handling (CRI) anything like traditional sources. But both have specialized (and higher-cost) versions that are designed to be far better than the mass-market (industrial, domestic) design.

[Richard Crowley]

“Is there any reason to record my narration in a program other than Final Cut Pro for this purpose? Is there anything to gain by using another program? ”

Probably nothing to gain unless you want some special processing such as gating or compression, etc. But you can apply those in post anyway.

-12 is a reasonably conservative target for regular peaks. There is no hard and fast rule because it depends on other things, not the least of which is the dynamic range of the narrator. I’m talking here about “tracking” (recording) levels, not mix levels which, of course, will be adjusted as appropriate during editing

[Richard Crowley]

Thanks for the reminder. I had checked out freesound back when it was just getting started, but it is much improved since I saw it last.

Note that freesound appears to be expressly for SFX and explicitly NOT for music. And furthermore, their charter is to host only material that is free of copyright ownership (which would exclude most music as well.)

OTOH there seem to be lots of people who post clips to YouTube which are essentially audio files with a fixed image for “video”. And YouTube apparently handles the copyright issue itself, i.e. it doesn’t exclude material which is very clearly copyright protected, and not owned by the person who posted the clip.

[Richard Crowley]

Pretty wide-open question. You can use any old camera (even a cheap security camera or perhaps even a webcam.) And monitor(s) where the performers can see it (them).

Do you already have monitor(s)? How many? What kind? (video, computer, etc.)? How far between the camera location and the monitor(s)? Is there some kind of wiring already there? Or can you lay/pull in a cable? What equipment (camera, monitors, cable, etc.) do you have access to? Do you have any kind of budget?

You could conceivably do this with zero budget given enough head-start and volunteers willing to loan/donate old equipment. Especially people getting rid of old standard-definition TV screens and replacing them with HD flat-screens, etc, etc.

You can send video good enough for cueing purposes several hundred feet over ordinary foam-core “antenna” coax from Radio Shack, etc.

[Richard Crowley]

The Sony MDR-7506 is the workhorse of the industry (at least in the western hemisphere) but the Sennheiser HD-280 is gaining on it. You wouldn’t go wrong with either of them.

The things that are important for monitor headphones for field recording are:

Accuracy – the ability to hear what you are recording, warts and all. The Sony model is criticized by some for being “too bright”, but many find that an advantage for hearing the kinds of noise that should be reduced during field production.

Comfort – in order to wear them for extended periods. Recording sound without monitoring is like framing and focusing without a viewfinder or video monitor.

Isolation – reduction of acoustic sound so you are hearing only the audio signal.

[Richard Crowley]

I concur with Mr. Ford’s advice. A lightweight headset mic would be much better for an application as you describe. The microphones you mentioned in your original question aren’t really designed for the kind of application you are asking about. If you are doing a hand-held, stand-up interview or news reporting (etc), then those mics would be great.

The reason an external sound port (such as the Centrance Mic Port Pro suggested by Mr. Ford) is that the built-in mic preamps found in computers are quite low-quality and not up to the task of quality audio recording.

OTOH, at the risk of alienating all the audio people here, I might suggest that if you are only doing a casual narration for a web video, “quality audio recording” is not really worth spending 100s of dollars on. I would personally try a cheap $5 computer headset (which DOES plug directly into your computer). See if that does what you need without all the overhead of mic stands, adapters, etc. etc.

Something like this…
https://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SP-IM942&cat=SPK
These kinds of things are a dime a dozen and available most anywhere. They are made with jellybean electret mic capsules which have better than expected performance as long as you stay within a moderate dynamic range.

[Richard Crowley]

Thanks, Ty. In my defense, a review of the record will show that I did NOT say what Mr. Watkins thinks I said. I said that “it is not rocket surgery” which was meant to imply that it probably isn’t as complex as everyone assumes it to be. Mr. Watkins is not the first to come to one of these forums assuming that sophisticated measures are required. I was caught in the same mindset before I tried it.

I have done many productions (“music videos” and otherwise) where I used a master audio track from an eternal recording of some sort. Whether it was the release mix of the song for a music video, or the program transcription from the FOH system at a live event, or the mixdown of a concert from an audio multi-track (like from my Alesis HD24).

I take that audio track as the MASTER for the production, and sync everything else to it. All the cameras are recording “scratch” audio tracks, typically from the on-camera built-in mic (which isn’t good for much else).

I then find it quite easy to lay down each video clip into the NLE timeline and slip the video to align its scratch audio track with the master audio track. In come cases, the various clips were from different cameras shooting non-switched multi-cam of a live event. And in some cases (such as a music video) the video clips were different segments that were shot in various places, and maybe not even the entire song, but only a portion of it.
Of course you mute the camera clip audio tracks once the clip has been moved into sync. The camera audio is used ony for sync. Sometimes a camera is in the right place to capture some ambient sound (like audience applause, reaction, etc.) and bits of the camera audio track might be useful in some places.

Once you have heard the song 10-20 times (shooting, editing, etc.) it is pretty easy to locate the section of the song that correlates with the video, even without timecode. And those places in the music that are ambiguous (exact repeats of the chorus, etc.) give you the option of using the video in ANY of those places, regardless of what any timecode may say.

Maybe it is just because I am musician as well as an audio and video producer that I find this pretty easy to do without any kind of timecode, or even slate and clap-sticks for sync.

Of course, this all asumes that one has already confirmed that they can take a master audio clip and successfully lay it into their NLE with whatever format and/or samplerate conversion is necessary. And then they they can take the video from the camera(s) and do the same. But this is a more fundamental prerequisite that has nothing to do with shooting a music video, or with using timecode.

I really encourage people to try it before assuming that they need sophisticated equipment and procedures to keep video in sync with pre-recorded audio. Remember that every time a video transistion is introduced to the edit is another place where you can “pull up” the video sync if necessary.