How to record Guitar Cover Videos

To record high quality guitar cover videos, you need to record the audio and video separately and sync them during post-production in your video editing software.

In this article I’ll tell you exactly how to do that and how you can record and produce professional quality guitar cover videos.

I’ll separate the article in two parts.

In the first part, I’ll tell you what equipment you need to record your guitar directly to your computer and what the procedures are.

In the second part I’ll talk about the video aspect of recording a guitar cover video.

So let’s discuss how to record professional quality audio for your guitar cover videos.

Equipment you’ll need for Audio Recording:

• Acoustic Guitar or Electric Guitar
• Audio Interface
• Microphone and Microphone Stand
• Cables
• Laptop or Desktop Computer
• DAW or Digital Audio Workstation

I assume you already have an Acoustic or Electric Guitar.

Now, what is an Audio Interface?

This is a hardware device, which receives your guitar or microphone input to record in a computer. We cannot plug in a guitar directly to the computer so we will need an audio interface to record guitar cover videos.

Most modern day audio interfaces are plug-and-play devices and require minimal setup. You can directly connect your audio interface to your computer with the provided USB cable and start recording your guitars right away.

In this article, I’ll give you the links for the best audio interfaces for beginners.

If you are on Windows, then I recommend Yamaha Steinberg UR Series Audio Interfaces

. As Yamaha makes the ASIO Drivers, so you’ll have minimal chance of driver conflicts with their audio interfaces.

I personally use a UR12 to record my guitar cover videos, which is their cheapest audio interface for both Windows and Mac and I use it with a Windows computer and I never faced any driver related issues.

Or if you want to have at least two XLR inputs and a USB-C Audio Interface, then you may also go for the UR22C.

Otherwise you may also check out a very popular range of audio interfaces of choice for a lot of people, which are the latest third generation of Focusrite Scarlett Solo which is the equivalent to the UR12 or the Scarlett 2i2 which is similar to UR22C.

As a beginner, you would not need a more expensive audio interface.

If you are playing an electric guitar, then the guitar input will be going to the interface, and it will send the input signal to the computer’s audio recording software, which can then be recorded cleanly with the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) which is simply your audio recording software. This way you can record your guitar without any external noise. In post-production you can replace the camera audio with this recorded one and can get high quality audio in your guitar cover videos.

If you are recording an acoustic guitar or a guitar amp for your electric guitar, then you will need a microphone and a microphone stand to record your guitar. In this case, instead of the electric guitar the output of the microphone will go into the audio interface.

Shure SM57 is the go-to microphone for recording both acoustic and electric guitars.

If you want the cleanest recording, always use high quality cables. Otherwise your recording may have annoying hissing noise.

I recommend D’Addario Custom Series Braided Instrument Cable for recording your guitar cover videos.

And lastly, before going onto a recording session, make sure to change your guitar strings as well. I recommend D’Addario

or Ernie Ball Strings.

Signal Chain:

Guitar / Microphone – Audio Interface – Computer – DAW

If you have a Guitar Effects Processor:

Guitar – Multi Effects Processor – Audio Interface – Computer – DAW

If your guitar effects processor has a USB out and can be used as an audio interface, then you may not need an additional audio interface and can use your guitar processor instead. So, make sure to check if your guitar processor can be used as an audio interface to record your guitar cover videos.

If you’re looking for the absolute best guitar effects processors, then you may check out either the Boss GT1000, Boss GT100 or the Line 6 POD HD500X.

For the actual recordings, you may use a free audio recording software called Audacity.

Audacity is available for both Windows and Mac.

Audacity is a simple and easy-to-use yet very powerful audio recording software. In the beginning, this will be enough to record your guitar cover videos.

You can find thousands of tutorials on YouTube on how to use Audacity. Check out a few of them and you can start recording your guitar in Audacity within a couple of minutes.

If you don’t have a guitar effects processor or a pedal or an actual amp and want to use your computer to get the tones then you may consider a more powerful DAW like Cubase, Studio One, ProTools or if you are on Mac then Logic Pro X etc.

These DAWs usually come with in-built guitar amps and effects that you can use. Otherwise you may also get dedicated software like Guitar Rig, Amplitube or BiasFX etc.

All these software have free versions that you may check as well. Those include enough tones and effects for a beginner. So definitely give them a try before purchasing the full version.

Now let’s discuss how to record your videos.

For a guitar cover video, the video is not that important than that of the audio. If your audio is sounding great then your video will be watchable whereas if your video is looking great but the audio is not, then your video will not be watchable at all.

As a beginner, you may use your smartphone camera to record your guitar cover videos.

In your video editing software, just replace the smartphone audio with the one that you have recorded separately and you are done.

But if you want to level up the quality of your guitar cover videos, then before thinking about investing in a new camera, you may want to invest in more lights.

Trust me, even your smartphone videos can look professional if you have enough light in your scene. Most smartphones of today are capable of recording high quality 4K videos, so that would be enough to record your guitar cover videos.

You may buy two soft boxes for this purpose. Check out the lights that I recommend.

Here is a diagram to help you set up the lights to get the best result while recording guitar cover videos:

The most important equipment is a tripod. It will help you set up your camera from different angles to record your guitar cover videos. If you are using your smartphone to record your guitar cover videos, then make sure to get a smartphone holder for your tripod. Even a basic tripod will do.

The process of recording:

When you get to record your guitar covers, make sure the connections from your guitar to the computer are working properly and you are getting the signal in your DAW. Use the audio interface’s gain knob to adjust the input signal of your guitar properly so that it won’t clip when you play at your highest peak.

Next, load up the backing track in your DAW in a second track and set the volume accordingly. Go for a few test shots until you are happy with the sound balance and can play effortlessly with the backing track.

Once you are happy and ready to go for the final take, set up your camera in your tripod and frame your shot properly.

Now press the record button in your camera and also start the recording on your DAW.

Then play over the backing track and it will be recorded both in your DAW and in your camera. The recording in your DAW will be in high quality and the sound coming from your speakers will be recorded in your camera.

Once you are happy with your take, you can stop both the recordings.

Then mix your guitar take with the backing track and export the final audio in WAV format for maximum quality.

Copy the video file from your camera to your computer. Then open up your video editing software and import both the video and the mixed down audio files in your video editing software. You may use Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro X, Filmora, Davinci Resolve, iMovie or even Windows Movie Maker etc for this purpose.

Finally in your video editing software you’ll have to sync the final mixed down audio file with the video file by looking at the waveforms and visually matching them. Your software may have an automated synchronization option as well which will do this job for you.

Finally delete the camera audio and keep the final mixed down audio and export the video after editing it to your liking.

This way you’ll be able to produce the best quality guitar cover videos with proper video and audio.

How I record my guitar cover videos:

How I and many other guitar players record their cover videos is a slight variation of this technique.

I usually do the recording of the audio first. That way I can have multiple takes and keep the best takes in different parts of the cover. I can even record the various parts individually to give it a studio quality recording and not a live take. This way you don’t have to worry about the video when you’re recording the actual take in your pajamas.

Once I’m happy with all my takes, I mix and master my track and export a final mixed down.

Finally I get ready to record the video. I play the mixed down audio through my computer speakers and give the performance over the audio track to record the video. I take a few different shots from various angles and in the editing I switch among the various angles to keep the video engaging.

You can check out my following guitar cover videos to get an idea.

See more

See more

All these audio editing, mixing, mastering and video editing tasks may seem daunting at first, but if you invest some time to learn properly then you can easily become pretty good at all these and start producing great contents.

If you are interested in learning audio and video production properly, then you may check out SkillShare. This is an online learning community having thousands of high quality classes in various topics.

The best part about SkillShare is, it is subscription based. So, you get unlimited access to all their classes once you subscribe.

Moreover, if you click here and join now, you’ll get a free trial of SkillShare Premium. So, definitely take this opportunity to start learning and hone your audio and video editing skills on SkillShare.

And if you are interested in learning guitar or take your guitar playing skills to the next level then I’ll recommend you to sign up for JamPlay.

Check out JamPlay and you’ll know why I recommend it.

And if you want to learn how to improvise effortlessly on guitar with Pentatonic Scale, then check out this article.