Hey @surferjay 🙂
The loudbox mini is the Amp I want to upgrade to in time as well. When I got my initial setup together I couldn’t afford anything in that league and I settled for a more affordable option with similar features but a bit less quality. I did get a fishman Platinum Pro EQ Pre-Amp in the meantime though and that already really did something for the quality of my sound. I still have multiple steps planned out to level up my gear over the next 6 to 10 months though. But let me get back to the point.
For quality home recordings there are multiple things to consider. The first big category is the necessary gear and the second one would be a software (DAW or Digital Audio Workstation) to record and post-process the audio you record. This takes care of the audio portion of it all but you’ll also likely need a video editor to wrap up your audio & video into one neat package. I’ll go through everything necessary step by step.
1. The Audio Interface
As you already got a Uke you can hookup to an Amp (and quite a good one for home recordings for that matter), you don’t have much more to worry about in the gear department than the interface. As of now I am still using the Behringer U-Phoria UM2 (about 45$) which does the job and is inexpensive. If you have just a bit more monetary flexibility I do recommend to go another way on that one and that is the Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Gen (about 120$). This not only is built sturdier and has a much better sample rate than the Behringer, but also comes bundled with Ableton Lite (I’ll get to that in a minute) and a ton of Audio Editing Software Plugins for you to use. The Scarlett is a very popular interface (gold standard for home recording musicians from what I gathered) and also the one I’m going to upgrade to. Both Interfaces give you the same connection options for two channels and support Phantom Power supply, which is needed for many professional mics. Might not seem necessary to you now but at least I am already toying with the idea of simultaneously recording my Amp signal and the acoustic signal of the Uke over a mic at the same time for stereo options and thicker tracks 😉
2. The Audio Software
This is the much bigger part of the equation and something that cannot be avoided if you truly want to surpass phone recording audio quality. Please note that everything I say in this part is purely from a standpoint of Windows user by the way. Apple also has their stuff in the software department like Garage Band, but I don’t have any experience with that nor have I looked into it too much so I cannot really offer any assistance there. Anyway let’s go.
As already mentioned by Andrew and by me earlier in this post you’ll need a DAW. Up until now everything I did after leaving my phone behind for audio recording purposes was done in Audacity. Audacity isn’t technically a full fledged DAW but more of a very useful and relatively easy to grasp Audio Editor equipped with everything you need to start out with home recordings. It is also open source and thus free, which ist he main reason I started working with it. Your DAW will not only enable you to record your signal in an uncompressed or otherwise altered form, it will also hand you the tools you need for post-processing / mixing.
A much better alternative for post production would be Ableton Lite. This is the one which also comes bundled with previously mentioned Focusrite Interface. I have no firsthand experience with it yet but have already seen it do great things (or rather being done with it) and this is what I’m going to use as soon as I upgrade my interface as well. Ableton is a very powerful tool with a supposedly steep learning curve at the beginning but very much worth it. The Lite version that comes bundled with the interface is limited to four tracks per mix, but since we’re talking mostly mono (or stereo if that) recordings, that shouldn’t be much of a problem.
3. Video Editor
I can’t really offer much of an array of alternatives here but that’s only because I am very happy with the tool I’ve been using pretty much all along, and that is the VSDC Free Video Editor. Gives you a lot of professional options, is pretty self explanatory if you’re not going for anything too wild effect or transition wise and has a very handy function of splitting Video files from your phone into distinct video and audio. This is very useful because at least I am still recording video with my phone, so I have to get rid of the original audio to replace it with the much better one I recorded and post-processed in Audicity. You just have to record with your phone and your laptop at the same time with this, so you won’t get any dicrepancies between video and audio and align the two signals at the end. If you should want to use some neat editing techniques for titles,fades or whatever, VSDC themselves has tons of short and compact tutorials on YouTube to fix you up.
Finishing Up…
This might all seem like a lot but apart from getting the hang oft he whole post-processing recordings thing it really isn’t. I didn’t get into that on purpose yet because you’ll have to decide if you want to go that way and, if so, get your gear together first. Should you want to I am again more than happy to help with getting you started. Just let me know and happy playing until then! =)