Tag Archives: Jim Fusco Songs

Ask the Musician: “Do You Record Video & Audio Together on Your Acoustic Music Videos?”

Posted on by
Reply

By Jim Fusco:

Well, back earlier than expected for another edition of “Ask the Musician” with me, Jim Fusco!  If you’ve never seen this column before, let me give you a brief introduction.  I’m Jim Fusco of the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs and original music video series on YouTube and on our blog here at guitarbucketlist.com.  Every day, I get thousands of views on my cover songs and original music videos on YouTube.  With that popularity comes some great questions from people all around the world.  They want to know technical questions, music theory, and other great general music tidbits.  I’ve completely submerged myself into making music these past few years and I’m happy to share what I’ve learned- hundreds and hundreds of hours reading, researching, playing, writing, singing, and recording.  I’m glad to answer these questions here on “Ask the Musician”!

Tonight, we have an email from christianamagic on YouTube.  She writes:

Hi.  Just wanna ask. So when you record song, do you only record the audio? or record both audio and video??
and what did you use to edit it all together? Thanks

Well, that’s a good question.  She’s asking about the acoustic music videos I perform on YouTube.  You know, sometimes I’ve considered going back and recording the audio over the video to make a better take, but I can never bring myself to do it.  To answer your question: I record the audio and video at the same time!

That’s not to say that I don’t have to tinker with it sometimes.  I remember on a Ben Folds song, “Time”, I recorded the video with the microphone facing backwards!  So, you could hear a LOT of piano and a little of my voice.  Well, I had recorded this in a remote location, so I couldn’t go back and re-record the video.  My solution was to work some EQ magic.  I brought out the vocals in the mix.  It’s not perfect, but it made due for the video.  I guess I could’ve gone back and re-did the audio, but believe me, that would be much more of a burden than it seems.  Imagine syncing the vocals up perfectly to a live performance like that?

For hardware, I use a ZOOM H2 microphone that plugs into USB.  This thing is great.  I used to use the built-in microphone on my Macbook laptop.  It’s actually a pretty decent condenser microphone, but my computer’s fan would run so much (and SO loudly), that I had to think of a better solution.  Sometimes, you’d hear more fan than song!  So now, I keep the microphone close to me (and only turn the front mics on as to not hear the fan noise behind it) and record on the laptop.  For ease of production, I use iMovie to edit the video and audio.  If I didn’t do so many videos, I might use Final Cut Pro, but even still, it’s nice to have a simple solution to get the song out there in a nice neat package.

I hope this helps and answers your question.  Just like Peter Griffin’s advice on Family Guy is “To grow a beard,” my advice to you here is, “To get a Mac!”  It’ll make your life a lot easier when putting music videos on YouTube.

Submit your question to admin@guitarbucketlist.com and comment below to tell us how you record your videos!


“Choose Your Words (Carefully)” (Original song by Jim Fusco) – The Open Mic Sessions

Posted on by
Reply

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, everyone, to the first installment of the Open Mic Sessions, where I’ll bring you my performances of my original songs from various open mic nights.  The video will be a bit choppy, the sound won’t be perfect, and there usually aren’t too many people in the crowd, but it’s been a lot of fun for me to do these, so I wanted to share my original song performances with the world!

Today’s video is of my song, “Choose Your Words (Carefully)” from my 2012 album, “Those Around Us”.  I think I’ve received a great response to this song every time I play it live.  People either relate to the words…or just find the chorus catchy. 🙂  Either way, it’s been one of my favorites to play and is always the standby song for when someone says, “Play one more!”

This video was taken by my brother Mike at Sam Ash music store in New Haven, CT on April 3rd, 2013.  As you can probably tell, there wasn’t much of a crowd…but the staff sure seemed to like it!  Sometimes, even if there isn’t a big audience, it’s still cool to hear your original song amplified like that.  There’s something empowering about that.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s video and stay tuned each week for more videos from the Open Mic Sessions!


“Last Night” (Traveling Wilburys Cover)

Posted on by
Reply

By Chris Moore:

I recorded this one “last night”!

Okay, too cheesy?

Seriously, this is a simple but fun one from the Traveling Wilburys. A little Tom Petty-esque lead and a special guest tribute to Roy Orbison…

Martin MMV Acoustic Guitar – Jim Fusco’s Guitar Collection

Posted on by
Reply

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to my new series: “Jim Fusco’s Guitar Collection”!  I was going to go with a more search-engine friendly name like “Singer-Songwriter-Musician Jim Fusco’s Acoustic and Electric Guitar Collection”, but figured I’d go for simplicity on this one. 🙂

The first entry in my guitar collection series is my acoustic guitar.  That actually kind of sounds odd to me- my singular acoustic guitar.  Yes, I also have an acoustic-electric guitar from Seagull, but the Martin MMV is my one and only true acoustic guitar.  It doesn’t have any electronics in it, and that’s 100% fine by me.  I actually didn’t want an acoustic guitar with electronics in it because I wanted an old-fashioned heirloom type instrument that I could play for the rest of my life and pass-down to my family for generations.  I think I found the perfect guitar for that purpose!Martin MMV Acoustic Guitar

The Martin MMV acoustic guitar was originally made in 2005, though I bought mine in 2009 (and it was made in 2008, I believe). The guitar features all-wood construction with a solid Sitka Spruce top, East Indian Rosewood back and sides (that smells wonderful, by the way), a mahogany neck, and an ebony fretboard.  It has a mortise and tenon neck joint, which I know some people frown upon, but honestly, I think anyone would be hard-pressed to hear any differences between that and a set-in neck.  Plus, I think this method actually makes the guitar stronger so it’ll last in its current condition that much longer.

The guitar features a light gloss finish.  It has some very simple inlays around the sound hole and fake pearl inlays in the fretboard.  The Martin logo at the top is a stick-on gold nameplate, as opposed to the inlayed “C. F. Martin” that’s featured on the much more expensive models.

The tone of this guitar is, in my opinion, truly amazing.  It’s loud, punchy, and projects the bass very well.  The sound is very “tight”, as well.  I thought my Seagull acoustic electric sounded fantastic when I first got it.  But then I played it next to my Martin and it was no contest.  The Martin just sounds great from the start.  It almost sounds like it’s already been recorded, if that makes any sense.  The guitar’s sound is just perfectly in tune and sparkles, especially on a standard “D” chord where it’s mostly higher-pitch notes.Head of Martin MMV Acoustic Guitar

I truly believe the Martin MMV acoustic guitar to be the best overall value in higher-end acoustic guitars.  It has the high-end sound without a high-end price.  The only sacrifice is that it doesn’t look very flashy.  But, I didn’t buy it to look great.  I bought it to sound professional on all of my future recordings.  I’d be happy to field any questions on the sound, the materials, or anything else regarding the Martin MMV acoustic guitar!