Really Useful Tips For New Online Musicians - Get The Quality You Deserve
Are you a musician that likes to enter contests on Hive? - Do you have great songs but struggle to get the traffic over to your page?
- Would you like more views and, in turn, more rewards for your content?
Well, read on my fellow creatives and I'll tell some of my top tips that I've been using since joining Hive/Steemit 3 years ago
TOP TIP -
ALWAYS INCLUDE AN ALTERNATIVE YOUTUBE VIDEO WHEN UPLOADING TO DTUBE OR 3SPEAK
Unfortunately, some visitors to your post will struggle to get them to play and will soon get annoyed and run, never to be seen again!
By including a YouTube video, you will always have that peace of mind that your hard work WILL get noticed and in return, keep those listeners engaged in your future uploads.
My first Open Mic entry in Week 69 over on Steemit back in March 2018 - recorded using the only video camera I had, my Huawei P10 smartphone which was actually very good and shot in 1080p.
But there was one really important thing that was missing and frankly, letting my songs down.
The Best Camera You Can Own Is The One In Your Pocket 📸
Now, before we get into the tech side of things and all the geeky coolness, let me start by saying YOU can succeed here, and beyond the Blockchain with your mobile phone videos etc, but, as technology moves on so quickly, more and more of us expect a certain level of quality when engaging in online media, right?
Here's a video I uploaded to my YouTube channel 9 years ago using my then (can't remember) Smartphone. It got 11,000 views and was frankly, of pretty poor quality compared to today's high standards.
It was obviously interesting to those that engaged with it though, and the subject matter is pretty cool as you can see.
A simple sound demonstration of my then, 1960s/70s Vintage Laney Super group guitar amp. It was a rare find, and I couldn't wait to get it home and show it off to the like minded guitar gear heads online.
It worked and was an absolute fluke of a video. But, that is the only one that has amassed so many views on my channel, and let's be honest here, 11k views in 2021 isn't really that impressive, is it?
The Song
The Open Mic Weeks rolled by and I was in my songwriting element. Creating my heartfelt poetic stories accompanied by my guitar, and engaging more and more within the community, but, there was still something missing!
THE SOUND QUALITY!
A very good mic option for the lower budget!
I've recorded most of my songs with this mic!
The Audio Technica At2020 is the best mic I've ever owned and used!
I've recorded vocals and guitars beautifully with this mic and highly recommend it.
This will cost you £80 which is such a great price for a condenser mic from a well respected brand.
This is what I was using with my home Porta-Studio to record ALL of my tracks that are on Spotify and SoundClound and is my vocal weapon of choice when I was researching how to get some good quality sound with my videos.
My trusty old Behringer Condenser is a great backup mic
So, I researched further into cameras and the best way I could capture performances for Open Mic - YouTube - Dtube that I wanted to create. I browsed around for a few nights and came across a nice little 1080p webcam from good ole' Amazon Which is brilliant for the Sale price of £20.69 & FREE Delivery in the UK. I now use it on certain live streams that require Windows OS.
Next was how I'd connect all this together and get it in sync for my videos. I downloaded a program that is very popular amongst online creators called OBS
It seemed very complicated when I first started using it but was in fact, pretty straight forward for what I wanted to capture. Sure, it does all kinds of amazing stuff but I'm a musician and producer and am much more at home with sound recording techniques rather than video editing.
Here's a rough tutorial I did on how I use everything together.
Lastly - I used a Behringer USB mixer as my audio interface, and now have the newer Xenyx 1204usb model which I use with my Huawei P20 Smartphone and USB-C adapter.
I'm always trying to better my sound than I was yesterday and YOU can too! Experiment with your tools that you have at your finger tips and try new things out!
Here's a few select USB audio interfaces that I'm hoping to get in the future.
I hope you found this post interesting and in some way helpful with all of your recording needs. It's a really basic set of tips to get you up and running and gaining some more exposure with your quality recordings! One important thing to remember is - You Can't Polish a Shit - That means, No matter how good your gear is, YOUR content is THE MOST important thing you can be sure of. If you are lucky enough to have quality content, audio and visual, you'll no doubt attract attention and in time, your equipment will have paid for itself.
Have a great weekend and keep creating your magic!!!
Darren
You can find my music at the following places!
Darren Claxton is a Songwriter, Musician and Producer of his own music, from Derbyshire UK. The music he writes is often heartfelt acoustic indie folk with a sprinkling of rock and country influences, with an occasional world music flavour as heard on his track ‘Dragonfly’ . But most of all, it's his passive emotive thoughts and feelings that are delivered through that soothing vocal, and intricate guitar playing of his.