Classical guitar progress logging (Feb'15)

With many obvious mistakes... plenty to improve yet, but I want to move on... (This time I did found the webcam, but synchronizing audio and video is really tough sometimes...) :

Classical guitar progress logging (Dec'14)

After almost a year without playing the guitar. For this one, I couldn't find the webcam, so only audio, at SoundCloud:

Classical guitar progress logging (Nov'13)

Soon I'll have a decent microphone, but for the moment another recording with the crappy one. This month a very nice piece by Julio Sagreras: "Maria Luisa: Mazurka".

Maria Luisa: Mazurka (by Julio Sagreras) from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.

The video is here.

Classical guitar progress logging (July'13)

I forgot to update it in July, but this was the piece for July: Summer Souvenir (by Giorgio Signorile):

 
Summer Souvenir (by Giorgio Signorile) from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.

Classical guitar progress logging (June'13)

This month we had the Music school guitar concert, so I uploaded a part of it. The original sound recorded with my crappy camera was horrible. After massaging it a bit with Audacity it is now just audible, but couldn't get any better. Next time I will try to get a proper microphone...

Music school June'13 Concert (part) from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.

Classical guitar progress logging (May'13)

For this month I'm playing Amor Flamengo, by Laurindo Almeida. I think it is the first time that I play something non-classical. Should work on getting it a bit faster and with more rhythm, but here it is what I get so far:


Amor Flamengo, by Laurindo Almeida from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.

Classical guitar progress logging (Apr'13)

For this month I'm playing Andaluza (Danza española, n.5), by Enrique Granados (1867 - 1916), with a YouTube partner.

The video used is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suTKOmmoBtw. With the help of youtube-dl (http://angel-de-vicente.blogspot.com.es/search?q=youtube-dl) I get the mp3 file:

angelv@pilas:~/GUITAR-APRIL$ youtube-dl --extract-audio --audio-format=mp3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suTKOmmoBtw

Then I use that one for practice, with the help of audacity. With it, I can use this track nicely for practice by:

• splitting the stereo track and muting the right channel, which has mostly the sound of the first guitar, which I'm playing. I also normalize the audio, as it has some saturation in a couple of places.
• using the "Change Tempo" effect, so that I can practice slower, but maintaining the right pitch.

For creating the final video, I created a stereo track and put the YouTube recording in the left channel (after removing its right channel, which is where most of the first guitar was recorded), and myself in the right channel (so it is more or less like I'm playing a duet with Marisa Gomez). The result is here:

Andaluza (Danza española, n.5), by Enrique Granados (1867 - 1916) from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.

As an aside: For this piece I wanted to try with my Aria Silent guitar but I just found out that the line-in jack in my Dell Latitude E6530 is one of these combined in/out connections. By mistake I bought just an audio splitter where in reality I needed a Headphone and Microphone Jack Audio Splitter, so I had to do it with the Acer Aspire 1810T netbook.

Settings for recording classical guitar

A few days after I wrote Settings for recording a guitar performance I got a new computer, so those settings don't work anymore, so let's write here my present settings for recording my classical guitar in my Dell Latitude E6530, running Xubuntu 12.10.

For the moment I use the internal webcam and the internal microphone. I have the following settings in PulseAudio Volume Control:

• Output Devices: set as fallback "Built-in Audio Analogue Stereo"
• Input Devices: "Internal Microphone"
• Configuration: GF108 High Definition Audio Controller: Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output; Built-in Audio: Analogue Stereo Duplex

I follow these steps:

1. I record video+audio with VLC:
• To avoid echo when recording, we put output volume muted.  (PA Volume Control, Output Devices). 
• To avoid saturation, we put input volume at 20%.
• We "Open Capture Device", with hardware set as /dev/video0 and hw:0,0
• The video goes to /home/angelv/Videos
2. To massage the audio:
• I open the .avi file generated by VLC directly in Audacity.
• We amplify the signal (Effects -> Amplify) if needed.
• We do "Click removal" (in Effects)
• We do some reverb, using GVerb. Based on http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=GVerb I end up with these settings:
• Roomsize:  50 m²
• Reverb time:  7 s
• Damping:  0.70
• Input bandwidth:  0.75
• Dry signal level:  0 dB
• Early reflection level:  -22 dB
• Tail level: -30
• We export the audio as .ogg
3. We then create the video (with OpenShot):
• open .avi and .ogg files
• create two titles and put them on the top tracks (one for the title, with style Gold2, and another one for the date, with style Gold Bottom). The size of the text, and its position can be set to whatever suits us with the title advanced options.
• in the third track, I put the backgroupd image for the title. Right now, I'm using a picture of Mount Teide (MEDIA/Pictures/Izana/pa300001.jpg). We can set the duration of the title, by right-clicking to access their properties.
• In the fourth track we put the .avi file (muted).
• In the fifth track we put the .ogg audio file.
• We add a dissolve transition between the background picture and the .avi file.
• We add fade outs to the .avi and to the .ogg tracks.
• Once this is done, we export the video, with the following settings: profile: web; target: vimeo-SD, quality: high.
• This generates a .mp4 file, ready to upload to Vimeo.

Enjoy!

Classical guitar progress logging (Mar'13)

Again recorded with my "normal" classical guitar, directly with the internal microphone of my laptop, and afterwards just added a tiny reverb with Audacity.

The pieces for this month are Nostalgia by Julio Sagreras, and Study in E Minor by Fernando Sor, and the video is here.

Nostalgia by Julio Sagreras, and Study in E Minor by Fernando Sor from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.

Classical guitar progress logging (Feb'13)

I almost didn't make it for the February recording, but here it is. This time I recorded with my "normal" classical guitar, directly with the internal microphone of my laptop, and afterwards just added a tiny reverb with Audacity.

The piece for this month is Electric Guitar Barré, by Bryan Lester, and the video is here.

Electric Guitar Barré, by Bryan Lester from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.

Adding dynamics to MIDI files

My current setting for creating a MIDI file for practicing duets was not very good, and the resulting files were always poor in dynamics, because it was quite a long and tedious process. So I asked in LAU the following:

"[...] I'm looking for an alternative way for note input. I am hoping for something like the following:

1. I just enter the notes, regardless of the duration of each of them.
2. Then I go into a second phase, where (using the PC keyboard or a MIDI
   keyboard) I just worry about the rhythm (the note durations). Every
   time I press a new key in the keyboard the program would play the
   next note from the ones entered in step 1. and record its duration. I
   don't care about how the score will look with these durations. I just
   want an easy way to create a more musical accompaniment. This way, at
   this step I only have to worry about the durations of each note.
[...]

Is there any MIDI editor that would let me do something like this?"

I ended up following the suggestion of using Pure Data. Despite never having used it, the YouTube tutoring videos by Rafael Hernandez are great, and after viewing the first 10 (about 90 minutes), the impatient guy in me had to code something and I managed to get a proof-of-concept implementation of the above. The code is horrible, and I'm sure it can be done much more efficiently and in a more elegant way (if any reader has suggestions, they are very welcome!), but for the moment this works.

The code itself is available, and  it looks like this:

I'm sure it hurts the eyes of any PureData programmer, but bear in mind that my exposure to PureData has been about two-three hours.


So, how does it work?  First, let's get everything connected (the MIDI keyboard to Pure Data, and Pure Data both to Midi Through and to FluidSynth):

Then, in step 1 (by clicking the toggle "To get notes from keyboard") and "Initialize list", we enter the notes of a melody, without worrying about rhythm or velocities. Then, in step 2, by selecting the other toggle (without a name), the notes will be played in the order of the notes just recorded, regardless of which keys I press, but recording their rhythm and velocities. A mini-demo can be seen below (also uploaded to https://vimeo.com/57762697):

If I send that to, for example, MusE, the resulting score is quite different to the original score, but it has the rhythm and the velocities as entered in the second step:

Then, the tweaks to do are much less than for my original setting, and it involves writing chords, and perhaps changing a few note durations using the piano roll.

This is certainly a big improvement in my MIDI recording from my previous ways.

Classical guitar progress logging (Jan'13)

I restart the monthly recordings in order to see my progress with the guitar. The settings to record with my Aria Sinsonido guitar are explained in: http://angel-de-vicente.blogspot.com.es/2013/01/settings-for-recording-guitar.html

The piece for this month is September, by Robin Pearson, and the video is here.

September, by Robin Pearson from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.

Settings for recording a guitar performance

I just decided to write my current settings for recording a guitar performance in my Ubuntu Studio 12.10 distribution.

For capturing video I use a Live! Cam Chat HD de CreativeHD 720p which can manage 30 frames per second (this webcam comes with an incorporated microphone, so for simple tests, this is perfect and I can record both video/audio with vlc: open capture device (capture mode: Video for Linux 2, video device:  /dev/video0, audio: hw:1,0).

But most of the time I will want to get a different audio track, and then to post-process the video slightly. This is not very elegant but sort of works: I open Audacity and VLC at the same time. I start recording audio with Audacity (before opening the media capture with VLC, otherwise it gets stuck), then I start recording video with VLC. Once finished, I can apply one of the plugin effects in Audacity (most likely just a gentle reverb) and then export the Audacity audio to an MP3 file (the video captured with VLC goes by default to the Videos folder), and then I need to synchronize them.

To get the audio and video synchronized I use Kdenlive (0.9.2, and I set the default profile as Video4Linux). But I need to preprocess the video from my webcam, since it gets all broken when imported into Kdenlive. To get it right, when importing a new clip I first transcode it to HD720p 23.976fps (for 60 Mb/s). After this I get a .mov file, which can be loaded fine in Kdenlive.

Then I just load the .mp3 file from Audacity, the .mov file created above, and  I synchronize them (I do it manually with a visual cue, though Kdenlive has options for "Set audio reference", and "align with audio reference", which I should investigate). I apply basic effects fade-from-black, fade-to-black, fade-in, and fade-out, and I also add a basic title (any odd picture serves as background image, and nice fonts are Coolvetica).

Then I just choose the option to render to MPEG-4, which does a good job, the file created is small, and there are no audio lag issues that I notice with either Movie Player, VLC or Xine.

The resulting .mp4 file can be uploaded to Vimeo, and the result is also fine, with no apparent big audio lag issues.

Classical guitar progress logging (Apr'11)

This month I recorded the Prélude N.1 by H. Villa-Lobos: a piece that I still have to study much longer before it turns out nice, but on which I'm slowly improving. I think this is the most difficult piece that I've tried so far, and when my teacher gave me the score I thought he was just nuts... According to GuitarBurst this a difficulty 9 piece (out of 20):

The video is here.

Prélude N.1 by H. Villa-Lobos from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.

Classical guitar progress logging (Mar'11)

I missed the recording for February (way too busy) and almost the one for this month...  This one has quite a number of mistakes (it is amazing to see how stage fright kicks in even when playing alone, just in front of the video camera. Trust me that when truly alone this comes out a lot better...).

This is René Barbier, Prélude for guitar, op. 119, and the video is here.

This is my first recording with my own guitar (my own in the sense that I built it).

Prélude for guitar, op. 119 by René Barbier from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.

Classical guitar progress logging (Jan'11)

I almost missed the recording for this month...  This is Sor Op.31 N.21 (Segovia Study N. 7), and a few weeks ago it looked really difficult for my level. Still need to practice a bit more, but it is not so bad now. Here it is.

Sor Op. 31 No. 21 (Segovia Study No 7) from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.

This is my first recording with the Aria Sinsonido, and as you can see the video and the audio are not synchronized! (the battery in my camera died while recording it, and I didn't have the patience to wait until it was full again, so I mixed it with the video of a previous recording! Oh well...). Next month I'll do a better job!

The score is the following (from  http://www.muslib.se/ebibliotek/boije/pdf/Boije%20479.pdf):

Aria Sinsonido AS-100C

As a Christmas present I got an Aria Sinsonido AS-100C silent guitar

I've been playing it last few nights when the kids were sleeping, and overall I'm really happy with it. The sound is not the same as in a classical guitar, but the measures of the neck, strings, etc. are the same, so it is great for practice.  Playing alone with the supplied headphones is trivial (just need to plug them in ...).

Recording it in the computer is also very easy. With a 3.5mm male-to-male audio cable we can connect the Aria to the Microphone input in the sound card (the "Free Music Intrument Tuner" automatically detects the input, so it provides an easy way to tune the guitar).

Once it is connected, the sound is not redirected automatically (Ubuntu Studio 10.04) to the speakers (or headphones), but with Jack it is very easy to do so by connecting the "caputre" clients to the "playback" clients: 

With this in place, I can play the guitar and listen to it via the headphones, and also easily record it via, for example, Ardour.

A first test of this setting can be seen at http://vimeo.com/18801768 (the video was recorded separately and mixed with the sound with Kdenlive. For the video I was using my Pentax Optio M40 camera, which in daylight does a decent job, but at night it leaves much to be desired. Next one will be a decent recording in daylight...)

Virtual Pianola...

In my quest to try out new things related to sound and music with my Ubuntu Studio laptop, I decided to try and emulate a pianola (or player piano), as seen in this video (you can see in the following link a real piano player in action).

The first thing was to change the preferences in MuseScore (version 0.9.6.2). In the I/O preferences tab, I selected "Use JACK MIDI output":

Then I restarted, Jack, Musescore and VMPK (version 0.3.0), but in the Jack Audio Connection Kit "Connections" view, I could see "Mscore1" in the MIDI tab as a readable client, but VMPK input only showed in the ALSA tab, so I could not connect them.

With the help of the experts at the UbuntuStudio mailing list I found out that I would require a bridge between alsa midi and jack midi: a2jmidid. The best option seems to just put "a2jmidid &" in the Jack Connection Setup "Execute script after Startup" Option, so that the bridge will be in place every time I start Jack.

With this in place, and after restarting everything, I can connect the output from MuseScore into VMPK (and also into "FLUID Synth": otherwise I will see the keys in VMPK being pressed, but we will get no sound).

Now we only need some nice music to demonstrate... and I download "Lock and Key" from http://musescore.org/en/node/6707. And everything seems to work pretty well. But I don't want you to take my word for it, so I planned to record it.

I used gtk-recordMyDesktop (version 0.3.8), which is a front-end for recordMyDesktop. With it (in the Sound tab), you can click "Use jack for audio capture", but with this option enabled I always got errors like "... exited with status: 2816. Description: Improper window specification.", so I decided to record the sound (with Ardour) and the video (with recordMyDesktop) separately, and then mix it with Kdenlive.

Kdenlive is not happy with the .ogv file created by recordMyDesktop, so first I had to convert it to an .avi file with the command:

angelv@palas:~$ mencoder -ovc lavc -ofps 30 pianola.ogv -o pianola.avi

Synchronizing audio and video is not always straightforward always, but for this video it was quite easy. The resulting video can be seen at: http://vimeo.com/18783287

Choir class audition. Dec'10

When I started my studies in the Conservatoire (about three months ago), I thought that my Choir class would be quite a chore... but it has turned out to be quite enjoyable, actually. On Wednesday 22nd we took part in the yearly Christmas concert, and a video of our performance is at: http://vimeo.com/18144039

The quality of the video is horrible, but not bad given the circumstances: it was shot by a relative of mine with no prior experience with video cameras, from a bad back seat, and while she was taking care of three small children...

Classical guitar progress logging (Dec'10)

The recording for this month is still quite rough on the edges, but here it goes: http://vimeo.com/17986724

Based on Basie by Andrew Forrest from Angel de Vicente on Vimeo.

The music is a guitar trio by Andrew Forrest: "Based on Basie", available at http://www.forrestguitarensembles.co.uk/trios.html (where you can also get the PDF of the score: http://www.forrestguitarensembles.co.uk/scores/trios/T0015BasedonBasie.pdf).

I used OMR software to get a MIDI file of the music. I play the first guitar, and the computer plays the rest. The web page says that this piece should be for grades 4-5, and I'm just starting grade 3, so there is still plenty of room for improvement...

Technical issue

I found an issue with my Jack+Rosegarden+Qsynth setting: I realized that the computer was out of tune (which could be easily seen by using the "Free Music Instrument Tuner", and playing the "concert A", which should be 440Hz.

With help from some guys at the Ubuntu Studio mailing list, I figured out that the problem was with sampling rates in Jack and Qsynth. When both were at the same sampling rate (I tried with 48000), then everything was OK.