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    Simple video for youtube with only freeware

    irei1as
    irei1as


    Posts : 265
    Notes : 1007
    Reputation : 40
    Join date : 2010-05-13

    UTAU Information
    UTAUloid or Project: Valen Sodebades
    Blog/Website: www.youtube.com/user/irei1as
    Status: Almost there... but kinda failed

    Simple video for youtube with only freeware Empty Simple video for youtube with only freeware

    Post by irei1as Sat Aug 28, 2010 10:13 am

    This is how I make my very simple youtube videos. They're noob level but I think it could help people with no idea how to upload your samples into youtube.
    If you have any extra hints or a better tutorial, don't fear to post them as I'm sure it'll help more (to me, too).

    You need to have already:
    -The rendered wav with the UTAU singing. It can be more than one file for things like chorus or harmonies, of course. Also, I'm going to asume the tempo and sync are right with the karaoke (but it can have some time displacement we'll fix).
    -The karaoke music.
    -The picture to show for the video (but, well, it can just be a black screen or a image with only plain text). I'll discuss later about what's the best size.

    The freewares I'll use are Audacity and Windows Movie Maker (and the browser to navigate to youtube -_-).




    1-> Mix your song to an mp3.

    For this step I'll use Audacity... just because it's the freeware option.

    If you want to use Reaper (not freeware but it hasn't expiration date for its free trial) -you'll probably will get better results using it-, I suggest you to check the tutorial made by soaa-. Once you have the song mixed with Reaper you can continue with step 2.

    If you want to use Audacity you must, if you haven't already, download and install the latest Audacity from the Audacity website.
    At the time I'm writting this post, I suggest you to get Audacity 1.3.12 Beta. Because even if it's called beta it's really stable and has a lot of nice features.

    Now, Audacity hasn't mp3 support by default. Follow this guide to add that needed mp3 compatibility.

    After installing all Audacity features, open the Audacity.exe to start to use the freeware.

    Create a new project (File->New) if you aren't in one already. We need our project to start from zero.

    Of course, you can open an already saved project if you have one, too. If you're in mid of mixing and you need to stop for a while, you can save the Audacity project (that's NOT the song) with "File->Save Project" (or "Save Project As..."). Open it later with File->Open.
    Hmm, don't move around the saved project or you'll have to check some special files... advanced stuff.
    Normally, to mix a song is very fast so you may not need to save any project.

    Now, let's import our audio files into our project. Go to "File->Import->Audio...". A window to select files will pop up.
    Just import all the audio files you may need, that may be the karaoke file and the UTAU wav/wavs (repeating "File->Import->Audio..." process or selecting some files at the same time in the opening window).

    In this image of an example of the starting point of a project I'll anote down some of the important buttons you need to use:
    Simple video for youtube with only freeware Audacitypicturesimple

    Before doing the mp3, we must check if the song is well mixed. We use "Play" and in this general example the wav from UTAU and the karaoke are not aligned.

    Important Note: Always use "Stop" before doing any change of the file. Audacity can't make changes if the files are in "Play" or "Pause".
    If you try to make something and the project refuses to change it's because you need to press the "stop" button.

    Press the solo button of the karaoke file. This will make that only this part of the project will make sound and every other part (with the solo button not pressed) will be mutted.
    Play the project again and listen to the intrumental music. Check around where the vocals should start. When you think you are around the zone where the vocals start, click with the "selection tool" that part.
    Now, uncheck the "Solo" button of the karaoke and choose now the "Move tool".
    The "Move tool" drags around an entire track. Drag the vocals around with the "move tool" until you think the vocals are in place with the music (check it with play).
    You don't need to listen to the whole music each time. With the "Selection tool" select a small zone that includes a bit of voice+intrumental to check the timing. When you "play" only that small zone will be reproduced.

    This method is the most basic but not the better by far. If you have the original (or a cover with good sync) with exatly the same karaoke you're using you can do it with more precision.
    First import that "original" audio file in our project: "File->Import->Audio...", select and open that song with good timing. I'll call that file "original" for simplicity.
    I suggest you to move tracks up and down (you see the commands in the picture) for the karaoke and the original song to be one over the other one so it's easier to check the form of the wave sounds between them (you can do this step only by ear but to be able to compare the wave representation is cool, too).
    Click the solo button for both the karaoke and the original so those two are the only that will make sound when you press play.
    Drag the original around with the "move tool" until the instrumental part of both sounds exactly at the same time. You may want to zoom in for the "move tool" to be more precise. Also remember you can use the "selection tool" to select a small zone so you don't have to listen all the song. I suggest you to select a zone with only instrumental sounding in the original or with very low vocals.

    Note: remember you have to go switching between the selection and the move tool. If you try to select with the move tool activated you'll end dragging the track. You can just undo the mistake with "Edit->Undo" or Ctrl+Z.

    Once you're sure the instrumental of both the karaoke and the original are perfectly aligned, uncheck the solo button of the karaoke file and check the solo button for the vocal track (or all the vocal tracks if you have more than one).
    Now, drag with the "move tool" the vocal track(s) until it's aligned with the vocal track of the original (it sounds like a duo). Again you may need to use the "zoom in tool" to be more precise and get the desired timing.

    Note: this part is actually funny to me. I see having your poor UTAU singing along a famous singer or a real VOCALOID is quite cool.

    Now, uncheck every solo button is on and procees to press "mute" for the original song.
    Play the project and you now will see your song aligned like in the original.

    Proceed to delete the "original" from our project as we have ended using it. Just press the "x" sign at the left of its file name.
    Note: Doing this will not delete the original file. "Import->Audio" just makes a copy without touching the originals.

    Now after we have our perfect timing. It's time to fix the volume of the whole song before exporting it to mp3.


    One of the enemies of making to sound good a song is the effect called "clipping".
    From the urban dictionary:
    "Clipping: term describing a conditon that occurs in amplifiers and mixing equipment were a signal is put through the equipment that is beyond what that equipment can handle. This results in a chopping off or "clipping" of the signal done to a manageable level, which off causes the loss of some part of the signal. Keeping a signal at a level of clipping for more than a few minutes will kick a amplifier into "protect" mode until it cools off."
    So, basically you hit over-limit with the sound.

    This clipping happens while mixing because if two waves are added together (and the waves aren't of the form that a destructive interference is going to happen) then the value of the amplitude is higher (sometimes equal but it's the weird 90º exception).
    That is if sound A has an amplitude of 0.8 and sound B has 0.7, the addition can end being 1.1, for example -it's not exatly the addition of the base amplitudes-. As 1.0 is the maximum value, that extra 0.1 is clipped and damages the quality of the sound.

    To detect if our project is clipping, "play" our well timed project without files marked with "solo" or "mute" (we already deleted the "original" sample), if the "display of the volume of the reproduction" -check image- reaches the maximum and a red zone appears then in that time of the song the mixed project clips.

    To fix clipping on the easy way (there is a more advanced and better sounding methods like using the "Enveloping tool" or the very nice "Compressor Effect", but I think those are too advanced for me to give a good explanation in this too simple guide), check under the "Solo" and "Mute" buttons and you see a button to level the volume of that track. Pull it down or up until when you play the project, the "display of the volume of the reproduction" shows no red zone anymore.

    Also with this method you have the option of adjust the ratio of the volume of the vocals and the instrumentals. What you want is to make the vocals loud enough to not seem just background. -Again, be sure to no clip the sound.-

    Once you are sure your levels of amplitude between vocals and instrumental are good enough and you're sure the file is not clipping, what we have to do is fussion all the tracks into one to make it mp3 later.

    First select all the tracks (be sure you have deleted any track you don't want): "Edit->Select->All" -or use Ctrl+A-.
    Then go to "Tracks->Mix and Render". A process will start and then all the tracks will become one.

    A last step: select all the audio (do it with Ctrl+A or to click in the zone over the "Solo" and "Mute" buttons, for example) and go to: "Effect->Amplify". Just press ok (with the "allow clipping" box NOT checked) as what it does automatically is make the file as loud as possible without breaking the sample with clipping.
    It's annoying when you have to up your speakers to the maximum because a mix ended with the song being super low.

    Once we have all the file ready to make it mp3, play it a pair of times. Are the volume levels of vocals vs. instrumentals good enough? If you think you should lower the most louder part, just start undoing all changes ("Edit->Undo" or Ctrl+Z each time) until the step you choosed the volume. With the new correct volume remake the process from that point.

    Now, to make it mp3 (assuming you followed the hint at the start on how to add mp3 compability to Audacity) you just have to "File->Export...". In the format file for the save choose "MP3 Files", also you can choose a new name and the place where you'll save this mp3.
    If you happen to not be able to save as mp3 because you missed "the adding compability" step you can just save as wav and convert it later with Audacity or even another external program.




    2-> Making the video.

    I'm a Windows XP user so I only have access to Windows Movie Maker(WMM) and that's the program I'll guide you to use (the blind leading the blind? Uh).

    VISTA users will have to use the newest version of Windows Live Movie Maker(WLMM)... that it's very different so I doubt you can use anything here.

    (I'm probably an exception) I like how WLMM looks and works. But too bad Microsoft negates me to use it... and also negates a lot of VISTA users to use WMM even if they hate the lack of the time line and some effects of WLMM.

    For WLMM users I can only suggest to check these pair of tutorials:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh82WqBQ_2c
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZZij3NNyVg
    Then you could go to step 3 if you really need it.

    If you use Mac or LINUX... I have no idea what program, you could use, sorry. -_- But I doubt an user of such advanced operating systems -read: not Windows- need these kind of "help".

    Well, if you use WMM you're in my same nice boat. And the explanation for WMM will be shorter, I promise.

    Open WMM, use "File->New" if needed. Collection zone may have images and sounds from previous projects... that's just a library. You can ignore or delete them without problems.

    As today, youtube uses 16:9 as format for its videos so we may want to configure WMM to be able to save in that format.

    Go to: "Tools->Options..." (well, I think it's called Options... my WMM is in Spanish, sorry if there are traslation errors).
    In the Options window select the "Advanced Options" tab.
    You see there a zone where you must choose between NTSC and PAL and between 4:3 and 16:9.
    As I'm European and I want my youtube videos big, I choose PAL and 16:9. But you can choose any option there really.

    Now it comes when I say you that your image for the cover is recomended to be the same size ratio that your video. If you choose 4:3 the image should be 4:3 or 16:9 otherwise.
    If you don't want to change sizes... WMM is going to do it for you and make it lose a lot of quality, ugh. It's the problem of this freeware, very easy to use but no customization in a lot of sections.

    Well, to start to make the video for the song, we need to import the images and the music. Just click each option for that in the "capture video" options at the left of the work zone.
    Now you just drag the picture and the mp3 to the time scale and resize the movie of the picture to cover the full length of the music.
    Finally save the the file as .wmv in your computer with the "3.Finish Movie->Save to PC" option.

    Simple video for youtube with only freeware WMMthingy

    When saving to PC, choose "better quality(recomended)" or choose how many MB you want the file to weight (so you can decide the quality vs size).
    There are no more options around so it's really simplistic.

    As more advanced user you can use more images, effects, transitions, etc... Just go to youtube and check the wide variety of tutorials for WMM.




    3-> Upload it to youtube.

    Really the easiest step. Just click "upload" link in youtube.com while you're logged in. Follow the guidelines to select the .wmv we just did with the step 2.
    Add the description and save changes. It's recomended to type the description in notepad (or alike) first if it's really long because if youtube ends "eating" the description we just need to copy paste from our text file.

    Also, check your whole video once youtube end processing it (it can take up to eight hours, so be patient). Sometimes youtube likes to cut the end of the video. You'll have to delete that video and re-upload it again.

    If you still need more info check this old help text and video:
    http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57924

      Current date/time is Thu Mar 28, 2024 11:34 am