From Shotcut to Kdenlive

So I've been using Shotcut for a while now, for my YouTube videos... and music videos. I love the application. Slicing clips, doing fades and transitions are very fast and easy. That's the big thing for me. I do a LOT of slices in each video I do. If these tasks are cumbersome then video editing quickly becomes painful and unpleasant.

A bit ago I started using Xdotool to make slicing even quicker and easier. But in Shotcut I had to do pauses between each action in Xdotool, the app couldn't keep up. Some actions required more than one second's pause. This got me wanting to try out other editors to see if maybe there was a better option for me.

I really wanted to use Davinci Resolve but I THINK it doesn't like my hardware. I tried so many installation methods. The best ones I saw were the Distrobox options like Davincibox. Those seemed to get me the closest. But never all the way. I actually got it to run once, but it still didn't like my audio card or configuration. And I would prefer an open source editor, but I wanted to see what the editor of choice was like.

Reluctantly I gave up on DR. I ended up seeing a suggested video on YouTube about Kdenlive. I had actually tried that app way back when I knew absolutely nothing about video editing. I didn't know about proxy clips so everything was laggy. I believe the UI was kind of clunky back in those days. So I've never given Kdenlive any serious consideration. However after seeing this recent video on it I decided to give it another try.

It's really good

My first day using it, I had my xdotool script updated, and I no longer needed the pauses, the app was able to keep up. And one day later I was editing at nearly the same pace as Shotcut. It doesn't have preset zoom in's/out's etc. BUT it's key framing interface is so easy to use I actually don't miss the preset fx and tramsitions. I can manually set keyframes just as quick and easily.

There are some other incredibly useful tools in Kdenlive that Shortcut doesn't have. In future articles I'll discuss these, going into detail. So far I'm really loving nearly everything about Kdenlive, the gripes that I have are pretty minor, and I may be able to overcome them using xdotool, we'll see.

5 VST Effects I Use in Every Song

VSTs are so great. I have a massive collection of free instruments and FX that I've tracked down. There are SOO many to choose from...

But I notice it every time I'm working on a new song. I always use the same VST FX. At times I use others as well, but these five FX are used in, literally, every song I make. Here they are and why I use them so much.

Classic Compressor / Chorus

I've grouped these together, so I could get an extra VST in this list :) . Every drum sample I use gets the Classic Compressor - usually the default preset. It adds punch and just really brings the drums to life. Some of my synths get this treatment also.

The Classic Chorus gets significantly les use - but for any sound I want to be 'three dimensional' the default preset on this FX is perfect.

EasyQ

Nearly every single track in every single song I do gets the EasyQ. My only criticism is you can't automate the nodes you create. This may be a limitation in the VST guts since they are dynamically added/removed. But still. I just love this EQ. It is lightweight, I have other parametric EQs that are such resource hogs they are nearly unusable.

Now that I'm writing this, I'm thinking it may be time to see what else is out there, it has been a while since I've tried out EQs.

ReaComp

The ReaComp compressor is shipped with Reaper and it handles sidechain compression. So that is what I use it for. There is typically a need for at least one instance of this in every song. I really should explore what the plugin is really capable of but so far it's just a sidechainer for me.

TriDirt

This little beast is amazing. It is 1/2 three band distortion pedal, 1/2 two band filter. And it sounds sick! The filter on it is one of my favorites and sounds really good when you automate it. Some of the filthiest neuro-bass I've ever made utilized automated TriDirt filtering. Each band can be set to one of - I believe 5 - types of distortion and the overall output is filtered by a treble and bass value.

Classic Delay

Like the other Classic FX the delay is just so solid. I've used other delay FX that are great. One of them does super analogue style feedback (If you set it to high it begins squealing, just like a meatspace delay pedal). but just like coffee when I've tried to switch to tea, I always come back to the Classic FX.

I'm All In

Well it turns out I love video recording and editing. Having never seriously thought about trying it, I never knew. I love hearing about the artistry and super subtle nuances of editing video. I watch not only YouTube editing tips (My chosen medium) but actual movie editing insights and advice.

I've been circling between making music then making videos for the music then producing videos for my new watch nerd channel. The music videos are still patchworked clips of movies and other YouTube videos but they are a great learning arena.

I then apply what I learn there to my watch nerd videos. Although my videos are just vlog style, I want to find ways of telling stories or evoking emotions, thoughts, excitement simply by way of how I've edited my clips.

I need to improve my filming skills as well. I think part of that is equipment due to the dark setting I film in. My Pixel seems to take grainy footage in such scenarios.

I'm already feeling more comfortable in front of the camera, and getting more proficient in Blender's video editor.

We'll see how it goes.

Strobe Hack

I am definitely still a Blender video editing noob. I am working on another video clip collage for the latest Neutrient song I've made. To give the video energy and movement I wanted to add a strobe effect. In Blender's video editor the Transform blocks have a strobe option along with a setting to get it to fire every X frame. So I gave this option a try.

No matter what settings I used it appeared to have no affect at all. When I tried hitting the internet I didn't see any conversations on this feature. I decided to think of a hacky way I could pull it off using the tricks I've learned so far.

I do a lot of layering in my videos. Adding one clip on top of the other and setting the top one's alpha over to < 1. So I hopped on YouTube and found a video that was just black flashing to white and back. Just the strobe I needed.

I dropped that clip over some of my other clips and turned down its alpha. Perfect. I now have a cool strobe effect I can add wherever I want.

FPS Mismatch Pain

I am dipping my toes into video production. I began with some collage-style music videos now I am starting a YouTube channel about wrist watch nerdery. One pain has become immediately apparent is the trouble of frame rate. I made the mistake of adding audio as the first component to my video, so the frame rate wasn't set to my video's FPS. To my surprise the audio was out of sync with the video. I had never encountered this, my collage videos all used an audio track and video only clips.

I tried going into VLC and saving each clip's audio as a separate file, then importing it into Blender but I wasn't aware of exactly what was going on. It was still out of sync.

I next tried manually getting the FPS to match my video but then it refused to render (I later found some other settings I could have tried that may have helped).

My projects were still set to 30FPS so I had to keep all my clips short so that the mismatch was unnoticeable. I then learned how to set my phone camera to 60FPS and figured while I'm struggling with this, I may as well get a higher frame rate.

Bad Idea.

The only camera on my phone that is capable of 60FPS is the back camera. The front camera is still 30FPS. So I ended up with some clips at 60FPS and some at 30FPS. So I went through every 60FPS clip and converted it to 30FPS using FFMPEG.

Tonight I'll be starting a new video. I'm hoping it goes smoothly. By dragging my clip into the timeline first thing I believe the project will automatically set the the FPS.

After working on the video tonight, it did indeed set a custom FPS, however there is still a little bit of drift. This will be a problem when I get better and can create longer takes but for now it works well enough.

CI/CD'ing Music

I've changed how I use Soundcloud lately. It used to be that I would work on a song, listen to it on various sound systems, do the 'car check' an so on. Then I would go back and make corrections and re-check. After many such iterations I would post it to Soundcloud and consider it done. A finished sculpture, never to be altered again.

Lately, however, I have been doing my usual iterations and posting to Soundcloud, with one major difference. I no longer view the song as a form chiseled into stone, rather it is like a software application to me. I continue to listen to it after I've posted it. If I hear something that needs improved (A 'bug' in the song), I make the tweak and replace the song on Soundcloud.

I like it. I just listened to an older song and heard all kinds of improvements I need to make. In the past I would just grumble and never listen to it again. But now, it's time to fix the bug and push out another iteration of the song.

How We've Given Up On Tomorrow

Whenever I fly, or see public transportation, Or traffic in general, the same question inevitably comes to mind.

Why have we given up on the future?

There was a time when we looked to the future with excitement and imagination. We envisioned a world full of endless possibilities. Then we just kind of gave up. I'm not talking about flying cars or cities in giant glass domes I'm talking about everyday things. Take flying. We pile into an airplane, seats packed so tightly everyone in your row has to get up if you need to leave your seat. And if you have to use the bathroom while the food cart is working its way down the walkway, too bad (And you're not allowed to use the restroom in first class).

Why have we decided that this is what air travel is, and will be forever? Where did innovation go? Yeah sure - costs. But still. What constitutes improvement in air travel? Plugins for your laptop or phone? Rentable notepads to play movies on? How about we find a way to have more room? How about we are allowed to move about, and have like minibars etc. Why is that only for private jets? Wouldn't it be worth some extra money to be able to hang out, more like a cruise ship than a crappy city bus? Surely there's some way to make such a thing accessible. We used to think outside the box. We used to be excited for the future. Now we're just cynical and complacent.

We need to find optimism again. Fun needs to be reborn. What's wrong with doing something just because it's fun and makes tasks like air travel actually enjoyable? Why can't art or books or movies exist simply to inspire and entertain? Why does there have to be some hidden agenda or politics?

We need some Neo-Futurism to make its way into meatspace!