Hi Chris,
I think this is pretty cool, and you are a great musician with good timing and a laid-back feel, so it's very easy to listen to and enjoy. I am just starting to think about putting together a video like this for a song or two from my album, so I'm very interested in the whole process, although I think my shooting process will be somewhat different, based on the fact that you are shooting the actual tracking and I will be shooting fake video performances and trying to sync them up to a prerecorded song. I really like the approach of shooting video for all the different parts, especially for a one-man-band setup, and I'm in a very similar situation, except I do have a drummer
For nits...well, for a first try, I think it's great, but looking with a
very critical eye, I would say it could be better if there was more movement/interest in the individual frames of the video and more cuts from clip to clip within frames (hopefully that makes sense?). I've been watching a ton of tutorials on Lynda.com lately and there are some really great ones out there on Adobe Premiere, and one in particular is by a guy named Chad Perkins, and it's freaking awesome. (I don't actually own Premiere, but Adobe does 30 day free trials of almost all their software, and I'm planning to get all my video clips together and then when I'm ready, download the trial and get the editing done within the 30 day window. At some point I will buy it, but for now, it's low on the list of priorities
) Since you are starting to shoot video and stuff, I'd HIGHLY recommend grabbing a free trial from Lynda.com and watching at least Chad Perkins's Adobe Premiere CS5 class. There's a chapter/section in there about the art of video editing that I found to be really, really helpful. Anyway, in his tutorial, he mentions how in this day and age we've all become so accustomed to rapid-fire cuts in videos, so a video staying in one point of view for more than 5 - 10 seconds now seems like an eternity to most people watching. You've got frames in your video that stay on the same shot/POV for the whole video, so that would be the first thing I'd try to change. The second thing (well, actually this would probably be the higher priority if I had to choose...) is lighting. Check out a couple of YouTube vids on video lighting or three-point lighting. There are some relatively cheap DIY approaches to 3-point lighting, or you can go and buy something if you like, but either way, I think better lighting would help your vids for sure. These are nits, cause I really think you did a nice job with this, but it's always good to try to improve, right?
For the mix, I'm impressed with how it sounds, and would love to hear more about your gear...amps, preamps, mics, DAW, etc. The drums sound really nice to me (as far as I can tell from YouTube's crappy audio), but I think I'm hearing two things that I might focus in on if I were mixing it...1) the kick seems a little boomy, without much point on it, and 2) I seem to be hearing some clicks in there, and I can't tell if it's maybe you hitting the rim of the snare, or something else, but it seems odd in the mix. Other than that...I liked the mix a lot. I think you have good balance in volume and it seems pretty open and full-sounding.
Oh, one other suggestion...there's a duo out there on YouTube called Pomplamoose with a bunch of really popular videos in this same format (I think they call it a VideoSong?) I'd also watch their videos...the music is a little strange at times, and they seem to be pretty goofy, but the videos are really well done and in this same style, so you might get some additional ideas. I know I'm going to be trying to borrow a few of their tricks
Good luck to you as you go forward. I think you've got the talent and you are definitely on the right track, so I look forward to hearing/seeing more from you!
Very Best,
Dave DeWhitt
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