Get your Play Along takes in time with the song

In Play Along, you never set a delay or calibrate anything. FlowChord plays the song itself and keeps the time of everything it plays and records, so each take is placed on the song by your computer’s own clocks. What makes the difference is the devices you use and how you use them. This article explains both, and what to do when a take sounds early or late.

Before you start

• Have headphones. With them on, the microphone records only you, not the song.
• Use the computer’s own microphone, a wired one, or an audio interface. Keep Bluetooth earbuds for listening only.
• Most up-to-date browsers tell FlowChord the exact moment each piece of sound and picture was captured; where a browser cannot, it still records and places takes a little less exactly (which browsers work).

Steps

1. Connect your headphones and microphone before you open the recorder.
2. On the microphone’s name along the bottom of the camera picture, pick the computer’s microphone or your wired one.
3. Do the Sound check and follow what it says about the level.
4. In Headphones, press Play test sound. Answer Yes only if you heard it in the headphones and nowhere else.
5. Record a first take, playing in time with the song.
6. Press Listen back and listen to your take with the song.
7. To change a device later, open Picture and sound, pick it, and check again.

Options

Your devices

Device	What to expect
Wired headphones or earbuds	The best way to hear the song. Nothing leaks into the microphone.
Bluetooth headphones	Fine for listening. FlowChord follows the delay they add.
A Bluetooth headset’s microphone	Avoid it. The setup warns: A Bluetooth mic records like a phone call and the chords come out wrong. Use the computer's mic or a wired one; keep the earbuds for listening
The computer’s, a wired or a USB microphone	Good for recording. Place it near the guitar.
Speakers instead of headphones	The song gets into your recording, and FlowChord cannot tell where you rest, so every chord of the take is kept.

When you have not picked a microphone, FlowChord opens one other than your Bluetooth headphones’, such as the computer’s own.

How each take is placed

The song is played from a known moment, and every piece of sound the microphone captures carries the moment it was captured. FlowChord works out which moment of the song you were hearing then, including the delay of your headphones, and places the take there. A Bluetooth connection that stalls for an instant is placed exactly too.

What the clocks can’t see

A few milliseconds are left that no clock reports: extra delay inside some headphones or microphones, and how far ahead of or behind the song you play. FlowChord measures this once for each pair of headphones and microphone, and applies it to every take recorded on that pair. It learns it from:

• your takes in the session, heard together, where you play in time with the song;
• the song leaking faintly into the microphone, when it does;
• an earlier session on the same pair, remembered in this browser.

When none of these is sure, the clocks alone place the take.

The camera

The camera records in Full HD. The picture you see while recording is mirrored like a mirror, but the video is not. Where the browser says when each picture was taken, every picture is placed by that moment; otherwise the video is placed by matching its own sound to your take.

The levels after Finish

Your recording is brought to a good level, and the song is set a little under it. Change both in the editor like any project’s files (several cameras and sound files).

Tips

• Play in time with the song for at least part of each take. That is what lets FlowChord confirm the timing by ear.
• Keep the same headphones and microphone for the whole session. A new pair starts learning again.
• If the picture is dark, face a window or turn a light on before you record.
• In the editor’s preview, files are held together closely but not exactly. The exported video is exact.

Common problems

A take sounds early or late. Discard it and record it again on the same devices, playing in time with the song. The more takes FlowChord hears on one pair, the surer it is. After Finish, you can still move your recording against the song in the editor (line up files).

The song can be heard in my recording. The headphones check says The microphone heard the test sound: without headphones, the song leaks into the recording. Put headphones on, or turn their volume down, and test again.

My recording sounds thin and the chords come out wrong. You are probably recording through a Bluetooth headset’s microphone. Pick the computer’s microphone or a wired one.

The sound check says the sound distorts or is very quiet. Follow its advice — It distorts: play softer, or move the microphone further away, or It's very quiet: move the microphone closer — then record another check.

A free, out-of-time take is not placed by ear. Rubato or a solo out of time cannot be checked against the song by ear. It is placed by the clocks, and by what an earlier take on the same devices taught FlowChord.