Video Surgeon - Highly Recommended

[matonanjin]

Many of us use a software (or hardware) tool to slow down a musical piece we are working on.  If we are working on a lick, or scales or chord changes we may use Song Surgeon or Transcribe or Amazing Slow Downer.  We hear discussions about these software packages often on the forums..  I have had Song Surgeon rattling around on my hard drive now for years but rarely use it.  If I need to slow down a song or lick I always transfer it to my Boss EBand JS-10 and slow it down (and loop it if need be).

I find it interesting that as often as we hear about audio slow down tools we rarely hear about video slow down ones.  Interesting to me because this is probably my most used software.  I use it almost daily.  The one I use is Video Surgeon. 

Below is a screen grab of Video Surgeon to help try and relay to you how I use it. I am currently in Session 13, "Playing the Blues",  and I have the video loaded into Video Surgeon.  Here we see our fearless leader, Steve, and at this point in the video he is just starting to play "C7 Blues", teaching the I-IV-V chord progression in the key of C.

Starting at the lower portion of the image, along the wave form you can see where I placed a marker, the orange marker, called "Blue Notes".  This where Steve started talking about the "flatted 5th" added to the pentatonic scale.  Then there is another marker called "I-IV-V" and it was here Steve started talking about the Blues Chord Progression.  Those are just markers to identify points that I wanted to come back to after loading the video. 

To me, where Video Surgeon really shines is with looping.  If you look over to the right side of the screen, towards the end of the video, you can see where I have three different loops selected,  "C7 Blues", "E7 Blues" and "Solo in E". (Unfortunately the titles of the loops have run into each other.) The green arrow is the start of each loop and the red the end of the loop. I worked three different areas of this video with loops, each of them playing along with Steve, and each of them probably self-evident material.  Almost everyone on this forum is probably familiar with looping.  But it you are playing a looped section of the video, when it comes to the end of the loop,  it jumps to the beginning of the loop and starts over.  And does that ad infinitum until you stop it.   Unfortunately, this screen grab shows the "Tempo" or speed, in the upper left of the photo, at 100.  When I worked these chord changes I probably actually started at about 70%.  Then I gradually increased the tempo until reaching 100.  Yes, I actually got them to 100%! 

Markers and looping barely scratches the surface of what all Video Surgeon can do.  When I was working these chord progressions I could have easily changed the key (Pitch)  to work other I-IV-V chords in other keys.   You can do all sorts of editing to a video such as cutting sections out and then exporting a new video.  Or one can just export a new video of just one of your loops.  Or combine videos.

I just don't think that I can overstate how helpful this piece of software has been in my guitar learning journey.  It isn't cheap.  About the cost of an average pedal.  But I wish that I had invested in it a lot earlier in that journey. 

btw, I am not in any way involved with Video Surgeon, which is a division of Todd, Michael and James, Inc., other than I love the product.

 

 

[Dave White]

I use Video Surgeon all the time - it is a great resource.

[fray]

I need to check that out.

[Six String]

I have found I'm using Song Surgeon more and more lately.  Its the glitchiest software I regularly use but I'm to cheap to upgrade or find something else since I can make it do what I need.

I expect mine is glitchy becuase its so old at this point.  I got a free copy doing Beta testing on a release a few years back.

[Wim VD]

Thanks for this info. I just downloaded Song Surgeon Trainer on my iPad. It's the basic version and it is for free.

Wim.

[Maybellene]

I'm going to check them out. Thank you for posting.  

[tbeltrans]

After reading the OP's review, I purchased this software today.  As a sort of tag-along, I got the discounted Song Surgeon too.  I have been using Transcribe! for a number of years, and in recent years, that software has provided the ability to also use videos.  However, compared to Video Surgeon, it is cumbersome to use for video.  Video Surgeon has several features that are quite nice too, such as the zoom feature, the ability to download youtube and other videos directly instead of having to use other software and, sometimes, having to do conversions.

I copied the Fingerstyle Guitar course DVDs to my Microsoft Surface, and am directly accessing the .vob files from Video Surgeon.  That works quite well.  There are alternatives, but this works well for me.  I don't want to do take the extra step of converting to.mp4 if I don't need to.  I can easily set up several loops for a .vob file and save that to a file that I set up Windows to bring up Video Surgeon when I click on the saved project file.  Very smooth and easy to keep track of where I left off and what I want to review.

As for Song Surgeon, I briefly tried it and it seems to work fine.  I can't compare it to Transcribe! because I have not put in the time, and probably won't unless there is some overriding reason to do so.  I am way too familiar with how I like to use Transcribe!.

Oh, by the way, I am new here and this is my first post.  I am working through the Learn and Master fingerstyle course, currently finishing DVD 3.  I have been in it for two or three weeks.  My main guitar is a custom 2005 Huss and Dalton 00.

Tony

 

 

[Wim VD]

Welcome to the guitargathering community, Tony.

Did you follow the main L&M guitar course before starting the fingerstyle course?

Wim.

[tbeltrans]

Thanks Wim.  I have the main course and have perused it, but felt that I have been playing long enough, and am familiar enough with the material taught in that course, to dive right into the fingerstyle course.  If I find that there is an area I need to review, I can go into the main course and study that.

I have played fingerstyle for quite some time, have played professionally in a trio that played supper clubs, Holiday Inns, and that sort of thing back in the late 1970s.  I can read music as well as figure it out by ear off recordings, and know enough music theory to understand and communicate with other musicians.  For most situations I find myself in, basic diatonic theory is plenty.

Before starting the fingerstyle course, I looked through it, watched parts of several DVDs, and decided that there was nothing in it that would baffle me.  What I am looking for is to fill in those areas that I need work on.  When self-teaching, we tend to rush through, or give little notice to, certain areas, while focusing on those areas specific to what we need to know to do some specific thing right now.

As an example, I am spending time with DVD 3 on intervals of 3rds, 6ths, and 10ths even though I have played these many times in one context or another.  Steve provides a couple of his own creations as example tunes to learn.  He presents these intervals, approaching them in ways I never considered.  These are easy enough to play, but they open up a whole world of experimentation for creating my own tunes.  To me, it is worth not rushing on to the next DVD so as to create some of my own music similar to what Steve did.

The more we know before going into a course such as the fingerstyle course, the more we will get out of it.  If I had just finished the main course, I would probably spend my time struggling with getting my fingers to play the material in the fingerstyle course and with understanding what Steve is talking about (in a sense, pretty much treading water).  Since my fingers can play this material with a bit of practice, and the subjects Steve talks about are familiar, I have the "bandwidth" to really dig in and experiment with the material, making it my own.  That can take just as long or even longer, than going through it as a relative beginner.  I think this course is worth going through more than once.

Tony

 

[matonanjin]

@tbeltrans, welcome to the Guitar Gathering forum and thank you for the posts.  I'm glad that you find Video Surgeon helpful.  I didn't realize that one could access the vob files directly as you are doing without taking the extra step of ripping the DVD to the hard drive.  Thanks for that.  As I said, I use it just about daily.

[tbeltrans]

I tried it out of curiosity, and it worked!  I was happy about that.

Prior to that, I was using VLC, which can treat a DVD copied entirely to local disk, as a DVD, even to the point that you can select an entry in the DVD menu and it will go to that.  You tell VLC to run the first .ifo file.  Come to think of it, I wonder if Video Surgeon has that ability.  I should try that too.

Thanks,

Tony

 

Edited May 4, 2018 by tbeltrans

[Plantsman13]

Tony,

Welcome.  OBTW, H&D make wonderful 00's.  I recently added a T-0014 to my inventory and love it.

Bryan

[tbeltrans]

Thanks Plantsman13.  Congrats on the new T-0014.  As I recall, that is a "traditional" model.  I watched an H&D video in which Mark talked about the different models.  He said that the traditional models have a flat top, where the other models have an arch to the top, so the tone of the respective instruments is different, with the traditional model having a more traditional sound.  

Tony

 

[Dave White]

For those of you who have considered purchasing Video Surgeon - they are currently having a half price sale.

No affiliation with the company, just a satisfied customer.