Can you email us your postal address to the support account? We’ll take a look.
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Sure, sent that over now.
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Hey, do you think the (gravity activated) Auto-Rotate feature is making your view “letter box” like that on the phone? I can turn auto-rotate off on my phone when I don’t want stuff flipping on the screen. Just a random thought.
@Troy is that Suhr Stack in the orientation photo above my Christmas Present???
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Auto-rotate is off, so not really sure why I get the letterbox. I know very little about this though, so I’m sure it’s something obvious!
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The magnet arrived today! Wasn’t expected it so soon. Thanks a lot for that, much appreciated. AND it matches the nail polish! Haha! I did a few camera tests (again!)
Wasn’t totally sure HOW to place the phone. I had a look through a few videos and it seems you have a few different approaches.
The first one was with the phone on its side like this
and the second was with it upside down like this
I did a quick video test with both angles (first video is the side phone which keeps coming out portrait, should I rotate that in editing? second is upside down) Let me know which is best and i’ll try and get the slow motion stuff down in the New Year.
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Great to know that now you have a magnet. We will be able to get a closer at your picking now 
The video is nice but I have a comment about the second horizontal part. It looks like your hand is a bit out of focus. Maybe the CtC guys can help you with the settings. I am no iPhone owner so I don’t know how the focus works with those phones. But my assumption is that the end of your guitar neck is stealing the focus from your right hand.
By the way, nice to see the neon green Swiss Pick put to good use. It is my weapon of choice too as you can see here: Kou's picking thread. But my picking is still a mess…
Looking forward to see more!
Cheers \m/
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Yes it’s super blurry! Not sure how I missed that! I just needed to tap the phone screen and it’ll focus on my hand. I’ll make sure not to miss that next time.
I’ll be sure to check out your thread in a moment. The swiss picks are good, the sharp tip is quite comfortable to play with.
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Awesome! We sent that via the US postal service, which pains me to say isn’t always the greatest. Do you guys still get mail twice a day over there?
We use what I call the “landscape” orientation almost exclusively, as you have it in the first photo. I say landscape because when you rotate the resulting video so that it fills the screen, the fretboard looks like the “ground” and everything above that is the “sky”:
Whether the video appears “vertical” or “landscape” is just how you orient it in your video editor. If you drop these in Final Cut it might appear vertical at first. But then you head over to the inspector panel and where it says “rotate”, rotate it 90 degrees (or sometimes “-90”) to get it go horizontal. Not sure which video editor you’re using for these but that’s how you get that to work.
For focusing, yes, absolutely lock both focus and exposure in the playing position. In other words, before you start filming, place the pick on the strings in the spot where you normally play, and press and hold on the phone screen right on top of the pick until the yellow “AE / AF Lock” icon appears. At that point, the exposure, color, and focus will not change even if you stop playing, move your hand away, and then move it back, and keep playing.
Keep in mind that if you swivel away from your light source, the exposure will still not change. But that’s a good thing. It’s really hard to correct for color and exposure in video if it’s changing constantly during a single clip. Find a good lighting position where everything is well lit, and not too dark and blurry, and stick with it.
Finally, for filming of hand motions, sometimes, I like to put the Magnet a little further back, closer down to the 12th - 15th fret area, so you can get more “arm” view in addition to the pick. On rock / metal style guitars like yours, this means you won’t be on the body any more. And on top of this, the neck is pretty thin and doesn’t provide a whole lot of grip surface. There’s usually enough grip on the Magnet to keep it in place for a least a short amount of time. If not, we sent you some extra grip pads. I have these permanently stuck on mine, again, for extra grip when doing mid-neck type filming. Just keep in mind that if you do this, the Magnet might not fit on a seven-string neck any more, if you have any of those. I don’t so it’s fine.
Let us know if that helps!
No, we only get mail once a day (and we’re lucky to get that in the remote area I live in!) but I’m surprised and how quickly it got here, usually stuff from the US takes a few weeks.
Somehow I’d forgotten about flipping the video in editing, shows how little I know about this kind of thing! I’m using iMovie for all this. So basically a less good Final Cut! Haha! It does all I need it to though.
Yeah like I said, not sure how I missed the focusing thing. This is why i’m doing so many camera tests, to make sure this doesn’t happen with the final videos. I actually didn’t know about the AF Lock thing either, I’m learning more than just picking here, I’ve been in the dark about all this.
I actually didn’t notice the extra grip pads and had to raid my waste paper basket to find them, they’d ended up in an empty crisp packet! Glad you reminded me about that, I should check my packages better in future. The magnet actually fits pretty snug on the neck so I’ll leave them off for the time being, but will keep them (not in crisp packets) in case I need them in the future. I don’t have any 7 strings so that shouldn’t be a problem (I have an 8 string, but that’s way to fat for the magnet, grip pads or not!)
Brendan actually cut those extra pads by hand. I’ll let him know his hard work is appreciated!
Just kidding. Yes, keep them handy if you need them. They are easy to affix just by peeling off the backing and stacking on top of the ones that are already on there.
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Oh no!! Sorry @Brendan! In fairness, they were nice crisps, no cheap rubbish 
I’ll keep working on it and upload a few more camera tests before the final product!
Hopfully the final camera test. Uploaded straight from my phone so didn’t rotate it but hopfully it’ll be the right idea. Took on the comments you made and think this looks pretty good now. (oh and this time with festive coloured nail polish!)
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Awesome! Looks great. That looks like normal speed video, so just note to self, you’re going to want to test at 240 to make sure you have enough light.
Note for camera nerds: In this clip, you can see one of the reasons I often suggest that filming in high frame rates leads to better video quality, even if you only plan to watch at normal speeds. Click the YouTube gear menu and set the video into quarter speed and watch. In slow motion, you can see the hand periodically warp like a funhouse mirror. This is the effect of the camera’s rolling shutter distorting moving objects. I think there is this misconception that this only happens when the camera itself is moving, like when handheld or on a bike, or during fast pans, and the image appears to warp or stretch. The term “jello” is sometimes used to describe this. You can see here that this actually affects anything that moves in front of the camera sensor, even when the camera is on a tripod (or a Magnet).
Filming at high frame rates drastically reduces this effect, so you get a truer picture of the moving object which is not (or not as) warped.
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Yeah i was more focused on getting the right who shot than the quality so just used my own phone. Now that’s all looking right I’ll get the footage to you after Christmas.
And if you want some Christmas hyper picking, I out a silly version of a certain Mariah Carey classic, guest starring the real Santa (who definitely isn’t me doing a stupid voice) and Anna Kendrick! Just for fun! Threw some hyper picking lines into the solo, very true to the original!
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Kick ass video, Count. That babe is hot as a MF.
Merry Christmas!!!
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Hope everyone isn’t enjoying the Holiday season! Sadly Santa didn’t bring me Anna Kendrick, however I am now the owner of an iPhone 5s WITH slow motion! So I’ll get that footage ready for you once the endless family visits are over in a week or so. I could even borrow my dads again and do a slow motion wide shot!
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I took her from under your tree man. I should bring her back. This broad is too high maintenance. 
I’m going to try and record the footage either this Sunday, or Monday. @Troy, since I now have two phones capable of slow motion, would it be helpful to get both the close up and the wide angle in slow motion?
Sure, that sounds fine - thanks!
Thanks for the shoutouts during the live feed! An honour to be mentioned in the same sentence as Steve Morse and Rusty Cooley!
Shot the videos today. Currently uploading to drop box. Did a few takes of tremolo, a few more of the max speed tremolo and a short hyper picking solo with a few licks, just for a bit of fun (a nice break from the one note spasms as well!) Currently uploading to Drop Box, should be with you in an hour or so. Let me know if they’re ok!
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