Welcome to Drakhen99

[dandoolittle]

Hi @Drakhen99,

Welcome to MotoVlog.com.
Where are you from? What do you ride? Say hello, what do you like? Why are you here?

Got a photo of your bike?

 

[Drakhen99]

Hi, thanks for the warm welcome!

I ride a 2019 HD Street Glide Special. I enjoy cigars and good whisky (the former with the bike, the latter without), and generally anything motorcycle-related.

I'm here to get help and tips to start my moto vlog journey. I wear a half helmet, so audio is a tricky one. So far, I see @tmagness has a similar ride and I'm going to try some of his setup to improve my audio quality.

 

[HippoDrone]

Hi and welcome to the forum @Drakhen99 I've found myself slightly tempted recently by Harley. Got a pic of your bike?

 

[Drakhen99]

Sorry for the delay - I just saw this notification!

Here you go - 2019 FLHXS. I really wanted one in 2015, but we were just growing our family (my wife got pregnant), so I held off (reluctantly) for a year, and then the local dealer's saleslady pissed off my wife (we were gonna get TWO Harleys at once but she wouldn't talk about finding my wife's bike for her), so my wife said NO to spending Harley money, and I got a 2016 Kawi Vulcan Vaquero instead. 2 years later I wrecked that bike and never felt comfy on it again, so after 1.5yrs of trying, I threw in the towel and turned to my wife one night and said, "You know, I think I'm gonna go look at and buy a Street Glide." Surprisingly, she said sure, and went with me. Long story longer, I got this bike, and love it!

From left to right: 1979 Kawi KZ650SR, 2005 Kawi Vulcan 800 Classic (bobbed), 2013 HD Sportster 1200 Custom, 2019 HD Street Glide Special.

-John

 

[R-Rated]

Sorry for the delay - I just saw this notification!

Here you go - 2019 FLHXS. I really wanted one in 2015, but we were just growing our family (my wife got pregnant), so I held off (reluctantly) for a year, and then the local dealer's saleslady pissed off my wife (we were gonna get TWO Harleys at once but she wouldn't talk about finding my wife's bike for her), so my wife said NO to spending Harley money, and I got a 2016 Kawi Vulcan Vaquero instead. 2 years later I wrecked that bike and never felt comfy on it again, so after 1.5yrs of trying, I threw in the towel and turned to my wife one night and said, "You know, I think I'm gonna go look at and buy a Street Glide." Surprisingly, she said sure, and went with me. Long story longer, I got this bike, and love it!

From left to right: 1979 Kawi KZ650SR, 2005 Kawi Vulcan 800 Classic (bobbed), 2013 HD Sportster 1200 Custom, 2019 HD Street Glide Special.
View attachment 5261
-John

Nice! Those are some sweet looking bikes.

 

[Drakhen99]

Thanks - the KZ runs when it wants, sometimes pisses fuel or oil on the ground (currently it has a valve cover leak on both sides, and it might be getting worse - oops). The Vulcan is OK to ride but not for long distances, but it was my first bike. The Sporty has some go-fast goodies on it, so she's quick, but too loud for my ears (even with plugs in). The Glide is my daily rider Hence why I'm taking so much time to try and get the audio right.

If I can't get the audio right, I'll end up doing clip videos from my rides (mainly the corners and scenery) with music and some voiceovers over it. Not ideal, I know.

Last night I downloaded Davinci Resolve and got up and running in that ... it offers some things (namely, performance) over HitFilm Express, which just can't be ignored.

I wonder what y'all use to edit your videos?

-John

 

[R-Rated]

Thanks - the KZ runs when it wants, sometimes pisses fuel or oil on the ground (currently it has a valve cover leak on both sides, and it might be getting worse - oops). The Vulcan is OK to ride but not for long distances, but it was my first bike. The Sporty has some go-fast goodies on it, so she's quick, but too loud for my ears (even with plugs in). The Glide is my daily rider Hence why I'm taking so much time to try and get the audio right.

If I can't get the audio right, I'll end up doing clip videos from my rides (mainly the corners and scenery) with music and some voiceovers over it. Not ideal, I know.

Last night I downloaded Davinci Resolve and got up and running in that ... it offers some things (namely, performance) over HitFilm Express, which just can't be ignored.

I wonder what y'all use to edit your videos?

-John

I was using Adobe Premiere but have switched to Cyberlink Powerdirector

 

[motosera]

Hello and welcome! What a great selection of bikes!

Personally I use Lightworks for editing, but there's loads of options!

 

[HippoDrone]

Lovely collection of bikes there.
I use Filmora Wondershare 9, it is not overly expensive and it is very simple to use yet has 99% of the features a motovlogger will need.

 

[Drakhen99]

Thanks guys - good info. At this point, I've gotten everything to work in Resolve that I wanted (so far), and the experience with that editor is quite good. I am currently rendering a test video to play with the settings... and my first test did not go well. Over 8gb for <7m of video. I changed some settings and instead of doing a "quick export", I am doing a full render to see the results.

If I can, I'd rather spend my money on cameras, mounts, and mics, rather than the editing software, just my personal preference.

-John

 

[Drakhen99]

OK, now I'm playing around with Titles and transitions, and I got my file size down. For those who didn't ask, I went into the Render settings in "Delivery" mode, and changed the bitrate to a max of 30,000. That nets a 7 or 10 minute video to less than 1.5gb in size.

BTW, I really like Resolve. I can do quick edits in "Cut" mode and then switch to "Edit" for more detailed or complex things - that's pretty cool.

-John

 

[HippoDrone]

OK, now I'm playing around with Titles and transitions, and I got my file size down. For those who didn't ask, I went into the Render settings in "Delivery" mode, and changed the bitrate to a max of 30,000. That nets a 7 or 10 minute video to less than 1.5gb in size.

BTW, I really like Resolve. I can do quick edits in "Cut" mode and then switch to "Edit" for more detailed or complex things - that's pretty cool.

-John

The current GoPro Hero 8 does 1080 at 60,000 and I render the footage from my 360 cameras at 100,000. I can't keep old footage long else my hard drives would fill in no time

 

[Drakhen99]

The current GoPro Hero 8 does 1080 at 60,000 and I render the footage from my 360 cameras at 100,000. I can't keep old footage long else my hard drives would fill in no time

That GoPro bitrate is some good info, thanks! I'll be socking that away in my notes. I agree, it'll fill a hard disk in no time!

My laptop (which I am currently typing on LOL) is only 3 years old, but the last couple of days it's had trouble waking up (must be getting older, like me!), so I'm shopping new laptops, but I ordered a 4TB external hard drive for backing up all our family's files and video from my new obsession hobby of moto vlogging.

-John

 

[HippoDrone]

Don't forget to add your social media and YT links into this linked thread:

Share Your Social Channel Here

We've got a couple of 'share your' type of threads. They pretty much do the same thing so I'm merging into the one thread, rather than a few stickies Format to post is this;copy and paste Facebook: https://facebook.com/profile.php?id=555591384462377 YouTube...

motovlog.com

 

[Drakhen99]

OH, FWIW, my wife was at CostCo and got me an 8TB external drive So now I have 12TB to play with.

I have Resolve set up to grab footage for current projects from my 4TB drive, render cache and final videos to the 12TB drive, and after 2-3 months, I'll move footage over to the 12TB drive to keep the 4TB one cleaner.

I still need a faster computer so I can render quicker. With more and more special effects going into my vids, the render times are creeping up. My 18+ min LiveWire video took over 1.5 hours to render.

-John

 

[B.Vation]

Thanks - the KZ runs when it wants, sometimes pisses fuel or oil on the ground (currently it has a valve cover leak on both sides, and it might be getting worse - oops). The Vulcan is OK to ride but not for long distances, but it was my first bike. The Sporty has some go-fast goodies on it, so she's quick, but too loud for my ears (even with plugs in). The Glide is my daily rider Hence why I'm taking so much time to try and get the audio right.

If I can't get the audio right, I'll end up doing clip videos from my rides (mainly the corners and scenery) with music and some voiceovers over it. Not ideal, I know.

Last night I downloaded Davinci Resolve and got up and running in that ... it offers some things (namely, performance) over HitFilm Express, which just can't be ignored.

I wonder what y'all use to edit your videos?

-John

I use DaVinci and have been on the quest for good audio for some time - lots of stuff on my channel re audio and the TomTom Bandit camera which is a bit long in the tooth now. Watched your last vid and thought the video quality Ok but think good audio at speed will only be achieved with a full face helmet, maybe adapt your style and only talk at 30 mph. Keep it up

 

[Drakhen99]

I use DaVinci and have been on the quest for good audio for some time - lots of stuff on my channel re audio and the TomTom Bandit camera which is a bit long in the tooth now. Watched your last vid and thought the video quality Ok but think good audio at speed will only be achieved with a full face helmet, maybe adapt your style and only talk at 30 mph. Keep it up

Thanks! I'm not interested in getting a full-face helmet, so I tend to only record on my Street Glide. I can get good audio up to about 60mph there.

I also pick roads that have lower speed limits for my recording, for at least 2 reasons: 1, they tend to have more curves, which makes the footage more interesting, and 2, I get cleaner audio without having to yell. The scenery is also better, so that helps since scenery is one of the focus elements of my videos.

My goal in setting out to vlog was to share my backroad rides with others, so highways have little interest to me. If I just want to get somewhere, I'm usually not recording AND have to get there quickly, so I don't want the distraction.

Thanks for the encouragement! After a couple of months seeing no growth, and then there are a few brand-new YouTubers I've seen who have 3 vids and thousands of views and subscribers, I get frustrated. Then, I have to remind myself why I'm doing it: to have FUN, especially in the editor, where I have been practicing special effects to increase my production quality.

-John

 

[HippoDrone]

@Moto Mengy runs an open face helmet and has clear audio, not sure if he has to raise his voice or not though

 

[Drakhen99]

@Moto Mengy runs an open face helmet and has clear audio, not sure if he has to raise his voice or not though

Yeah, he's got a 3/4 helmet, so some place nice to curve mount his GoPro to I watched some of his vids, very clean audio!

-John

 

[Moto Mengy]

Drakhen99, another unusual way to get decent audio at high speeds is to plug a cheap lav mic with a fuzzy deadcat into your phone or a voice recorder and then simply clip the mic onto your jacket or shirt as close to your chin as you can. I've been experimenting with this lately and it honestly works better than you'd think, the key is the fuzzy deadcat which does a great job blocking wind noise at speed. It does make the editing process a bit more involved though.

I just use the internal Hero 8 mic with my setup but for someone with a half helmet the above lav mic setup would be an option for decent audio. Lav mics cost like $12 off Amazon so it's cheap to try it out too.