Creator Cafe - Brewing Ideas, Serving Inspiration
Creator Cafe Episode 1 - Studio Rebuild!
Neil: [00:00:00] Welcome to the first of whatever this is going to be. It's a Tuesday night live stream talking about camera gear, studio bills, anything related to photography and videography, and I thought I'd bring my friend Brian along to sharing the fun.
Where we can impart some of our collective knowledge on video and photography stuff and, and have a chat. And I need to turn the volume down. It didn't turn it down properly. Sorry, one sec.
Brian: It's such relaxing music though.
Neil: Don't be, I don't want to be too overpowering for the, for the first show. Yeah. So Brian, you have been doing something close to my heart and also very stressful.
So today we're going to be talking about studio builds. I'm Brian. Has been rebuilding his studio like a crazy person. Hey, and Keith has joined us. Hey Keith, thank you for [00:01:00] joining us today. How are you? Right. So Brian, first off, tell me why would you put yourself through that?
Brian: Well, I, I think it was it was my own doing.
I kind of dropped the idea to my wife. About switching, playing like musical chairs. So we have, in our house, we have we're both self employed. And, I, so I have an office, my wife has an office, and we have a guest bedroom for the, the three nights a year that someone stays with us. And, my office had has hard tile, and that's pretty common for a lot of places where we live in South Florida.
But the guest bedroom and Ashley's office are carpeted. And so I was like, what if we change things around? And I didn't know that she would call me on it. She's like, yeah, that's a great idea.
Neil: You did you call her bluff? You say, well, I'll do it one [00:02:00] time, maybe thinking it's never going to happen. And
Brian: yeah, we are.
Yep. And here we are. And several times I tried to actually. Like, say, we don't need to do this. I was just joking. You know, it's fine. And she's like, no, no, we're doing this. And so by we, it really is me moving all of the
Neil: furniture pretty much myself. Oh, so you moved all the, all the stuff around and your wife has just moved things in around her office that she wants it to look like.
I
Brian: see. She was a project manager. So that's. There you go. That's.
Neil: There you go. So I think it's one of the most stressful things to do. I think there's moving house, getting married, having children, building a studio. I think it's right up there. Especially if it's your livelihood and it's, it is effectively your baby, right?
It's the space where you want to feel comfortable. It's a space where you want to feel relaxed and be able to do your work. And if I find, and I don't know if you find this, if something's not right, if it just doesn't feel comfortable. Like, there's, there's [00:03:00] either something's out of place or your equipment isn't, isn't serving you or doing, doing what you need it to do, then I just can't get into the, the zone of actually doing something creative.
I have to fix what's wrong in order for me to, to get on. I'm glad, I'm glad it's not
Brian: just me then. No, it's not. And that's one of the, there's a lot of this simpatico and why I think it's just, it's so, these kinds of conversations flow. Like yesterday I was sending you photos throughout the day as the office kind of took more and more shape.
Yeah, I
Neil: really appreciated that. It was nice to see the evolution of the office. And I'm glad I didn't see a photograph. Of the old office saying forget this I'm going back to what I can't do anymore. I'm done that never ends. Yeah, hopefully
Brian: so No, no, no There was a point of no return that Just kind of I mean if someone were to go to our stream from last week or even when I jumped onto your stream What was it?
I just jumped I was a Friday [00:04:00]
Neil: Friday Friday. Yeah Friday. I was just messing. Yeah Friday. Yeah
Brian: So if anyone jumps on either of those two streams, you'll see my original. And if you were to watch it now, it's, I mean, for the most part, it's kind of similar. When we talk, when we did our, our live stream talking about like camera techniques and stuff I, I paid attention to that too, with like rules of third and stuff.
And even here, I'm kind of breaking a rule where I'm center frame. And then there's the, the corner is coming out of my head, but listen, these are some things that are just unavoidable. But I was really excited because I got an opportunity of, I've had these two posters here that I, of my two favorite movies of all time, and it's, it's so, I, I, I'm a huge space and sci fi guy, and so this is, interstellar and Inception. And I've always wanted to hang them and I never had the opportunity in my old office. This is a, just a, I, I took this from my wife. She wasn't using it anymore. It's just a great table. And I, part of me [00:05:00] envisioned using this as a top down, if I ever do unboxings or gear reviews.
Yeah. But the thing that stresses me out the most, two things actually. And you know, these first is the lighting. Like yesterday I spent hours just dialing, I have all these different lights and I can turn them all off and I could do that thing where we turn on one at a time. Right. Yeah, that
Neil: might be fun.
Brian: Yeah. Yeah, we could do that. And then the audio, which I've talked to you about often. I'm just, like you said, this is our, our bread and butter. Like I use this setup for the most part to create the digital content that I sell. Yeah. Cool. Bye. And I want to provide maximum value. And I, the first to admit Neil, and I've told this to you before I am, I am.
Useless with audio, like I know I bought this microphone because a buddy of mine who was a seasoned podcaster told me this is the Cadillac of microphones. And then I have a Rodecaster Pro 2, which is, [00:06:00] you know, I don't need like a audio signal processor anymore. Cause it does it all in house. I used to have like one of those DBX units.
Oh, wow. That's hardcore. I know. Story of my life, Neil, like my buddy told me to buy it. I bought it and it has all these dials. I'm like, I have no idea what any of this stuff does.
Neil: So sometimes the, the gear can, can really, I think overcomplicate things as well. Right. When you get a little bit sort of, wow, what is, what are all these settings for?
And nine times out of 10, you only need pretty much a noise gate and a little bit of compression on your, on your audio to get it right. Now I've been messing around. I, this is not my normal microphone. I had this, this is a Lewitt. 240 Pro, and I bought this from a, well, I bought it from Amazon, but I bought it on the, on the premise that it was a decent microphone for recording guitars and things.
So I do play a bit of music and I'm not very good at music, but I do dabble from time to time. And I picked up a guitar years ago and I thought, well, it'd [00:07:00] be nice to record it. And it's a condenser microphone. So it's different than a, Than a dynamic microphone, so it doesn't have as much noise rejection.
And it can pick up a little bit more of the, the room tone. So, but I thought, well, it's fine and I do like it sometimes because it needs less gain. But like you, I just get a little bit obsessed with trying to get things right. And the audio is, is a big part of that, right? So, yeah. That's that's something I was definitely worried about when it comes to changing microphone.
Is it going to sound really bad? But it is podcast right now. But that, that's something we could be doing. Could be recording this and repurposing it as a podcast. And that's something to think about in the future. But anyway, that yeah. Gear can be a little bit crazy. Crazy. And I think I will definitely help you with your microphone, but I do have to say that between this studio and the previous one, this does sound a lot more dampened.
It's not as reflective just by you talking. You can still hear a little bit, but that's room [00:08:00] noise, right? But it's nowhere near. What it was before. And I remember you saying that you weren't too, too happy about that. We have a comment from Dan. It's a question for you, actually, Brian. And this is too small.
So let me just change that real
Brian: quick. I have excellent vision and, but that was, do you consider
Neil: space?
Brian: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's sci fi comedy in, in the, of the highest order. Right. One of, one of Millbrook's finest films. Oh yeah. I don't know. Now that I think about it. Hmm. No, you know what? Cause I don't want to get it. I don't want to get assassinated by true sci fi fans. So I'm going to, I'm going to put it as, as sci fi comedy or comedy, but sci fi.
Yeah, that's an interstellar sci fi and inception. I can throw that back. And say and ask whether Inception would be considered sci fi, maybe. Oh,
Neil: definitely. [00:09:00] Anything with Christopher Nolan is great. Okay, I'm a big Christopher Nolan fan. Love Instastellar as well. And Keith. Thanks, Keith. He's saying the audio sounds good from both of us.
So, we do try. We do try. Oh, fantastic. But we can always, we can always dial in a bit better. Hello, George, as well. Thank you for joining. Hey
Brian: George. Yeah, the, the, another nice huge benefit that you know about that with this room is that it's carpeted. So, the, the other studio office I put like, it was like a paper thin area rug.
It did nothing. I do want to get, like, I think Elgato sells the these sound proofing or sound dampening panels. They're kind of in those geometric shapes. Yeah. And you, when you and I were talking about this, last week on one of our offline chats, you'd mentioned that you know, placing it basically the targets of where I would be speaking.
So like my, my, the, the, the sound from my mouth obviously hits the microphone here, but it goes out and, and it hits those walls and it reverberates and stuff like that. [00:10:00] So, the thing that I was also worried about, you know, is I even had like a new ceiling fan installed a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of moving here.
And that's, I just always worry that I'm, that the, that low frequency motor it's, it's, it is I mean, it is quiet, but it has that low frequency kind of static sound. You can,
Neil: you can take that out though with the, the RODECast has got a low, it's called a low pass filter. So it's going to be basically filter out or high pass filters, right?
It's going to filter out the low frequencies and you can tune it basically to a particular frequency. So, and you just. Again, test it, have it on full, have it on full fan, and then start to wind down the filter to, to, to knock out that rumble. I mean, obviously it's going to be a lower rumble than your voice, so with that said, it'll probably work.
Take out most of that and you'll be fine. So there's lots of things you can tweak and tune. With audio and so on. And I think Dan, [00:11:00] who's on the call at the moment. On the call? On the stream at the moment. It's not a live call. Thanks caller. On the stream at the moment. Has got the Elgato panels as well.
Oh really? Yeah. I think Dan's got everything from Elgato, I'm convinced. I remember him saying this a long time ago. Yeah, I mean, software can be a bit iffy, but the hardware and stuff is pretty good. I've had some issues with the software, but not to Elgato. We're looking at you, Camera Hub. Camera hub, and also the, the control center for the lighting sometimes.
And that's a, that's a, that's a, sort of a, a protocol thing. And I've had some problems where they, they don't connect to Wi Fi and they drop and things like that. So I ended up hard coding the IP addresses in them, the network addresses. So they're always the same now. So, so now they work. I've not had any, touch wood, watch this now.
You know, I've had some, not too many issues with them since doing that, but overall it's been good. So, tell me about [00:12:00] the rationale behind your new layout. I know you wanted, obviously, a better space to make things, well, flow a bit better, a little bit more carpeted, dampening room and things like that.
So, yeah, let me know how you started this whole process. And I'll just say hello really quick to a tech troublemaker. Hello, Roy. Thanks for joining. We have studio bills tonight, Roy. So this could be interesting for anybody who wants to sort of Build a studio. Now we both have studios, but Brian, just to recap, had his studio, moved it over the weekend.
And didn't you, and he just did it for the show, which is really nice. I, you know, just that's what he
Brian: did for me. That's, I, I, if it, if it was successful, which it kind of is, then I give him all the credit. And if it was a failure, I was going to blame you because I remember when we, at the end of when we were on our live stream, you're like, all right, well, You know, let's get it ready for Tuesday.[00:13:00]
I was like, Oh man. All right. And that's a good thing. Cause you know, setting a deadline or a goal is always a good thing. And so, yeah, I mean, it was, it was, I was lucky because for the most part, the first couple of days were yesterday and today we're wide open. So the rationale is, I'm, I mean, I'm fortunate because I had most of everything I needed.
Like I already had my lights and that's a new thing. In my previous office, I had two of the Elgato key lights. So I had one here and one here, and then I. Replaced the, the main fill light with, or the main light with the Amaran 60D, I think it is with, with a mini light dome and just a diffuser.
So, that's my main light. And then obviously, I needed a light to fill this side of my face. And so that's one of the key lights. And then I had the other key light that I had that I used to use that I replaced with the hammer and fills [00:14:00] basically the tree and with a fake tree, I should say, and the bookshelf.
And then I have right now, a a Govee four foot light strip, a vertical light strip that's serving kind of. Also has kind of a fill slash rim, kind of gives a little bit of light on this side of my of my arm. So that's the lighting setup. The, I've always had the standing desk since like 2017 by Xdesk.
It's a Terra 2. I went to Ikea and bought like all people, like just a few weeks ago, I bought these Alex drawers that everyone has.
Neil: Yeah, I think I've, I think I've got one behind, behind me here. You probably can't see, but it's behind me. I mean, everybody has those drawers, but they're so useful. They're just the right height for a desk.
So, and they're, and they're great as a, as legs for a desk, right? That's what I use. One, because I've got an L, a sort of a U shaped desk configuration. I've got [00:15:00] IKEA legs everywhere. And then I've got the other end for a leg.
Brian: Which is good. Yeah, and I, in my previous setup, I had almost no storage, like whatsoever.
And so obviously the Alex drawers give me all the storage I need. Plus I have a closet that I didn't have in my previous office. Right. That's where I put the TV. So in my old office, I had my TV right behind me. And I put that in the closet so I can close the doors and further reduce kind of the, the, the distance that sound has to travel.
So that wall's a little bit closer to me. Now, and you see, I wish I kind of had something that I can pivot to show you. Maybe I'll, I'll do something next week. Like I'll do a quick video or something to show you if anyone even wants to see. Yeah.
Neil: I mean, I think like you, I think a lot of people are sort of.
get obsessed with getting the studio right, but I'm always keen to look at other people's studios. I think you mentioned this last, last week as well. I just love sort of doing a tour and things like that. And we have a couple of people joining as well. So, hey, Joseph, [00:16:00] so much for joining tonight, Joseph.
Joseph and I work together on different projects, so it's nice to see he, Joseph and Dan. Yeah. Camera Hub software does leave a lot to be desired. It's getting better, but yeah, we had some problems with it at the
Brian: moment. I mean, Elgato crushed it, Neil, you know, in terms of like the, the actual product launch, you remember it was on backorder for like three months, four months when it was first launched.
Oh, the prompter. Yeah. The prompter. And I, I bring it up. I camera hub is what I primarily use to drive the prompter. I don't use Elgato cameras, so I don't need it for anything else. But yeah, like, and they did improve it with that recent update. But it's still such a.
Neil: It needs to get better. Yeah, it's, it isn't the best.
And a couple of my most successful videos recently as a whole been just helping people get this thing working, right? The two of them, [00:17:00] the first one was, well, there's a lot of people that just couldn't get it working on the Mac. Cause Mike's got those security settings, but also didn't fully explain all the little nuances.
They sort of gave three steps and said, if it doesn't work, That's it. And then people came to me and after I did the video and said, just thank you so much for this, the, the two missing points from Elgato support site is the one that they needed to, to get it working. And it shouldn't be like that. It should just be pretty much plug and play, but they're using a third party software, the display link software as well, which is, which is a pain.
Dan says one over the studio, he feels a ton of people would miss out is a three dimensional space. And the ceiling do you mean around sort of the depth of the space once you've created it instead of just having like a flat wall and it just looks very flat? And I think with Brian's setup now, obviously you get that.
level of depth you can you can see how everything has been intentionally placed and yeah would you mind just yeah thank you [00:18:00] would you mind just showing me just maybe switching off a couple of your lights because you've got them all automated right now you can just you know
Brian: yeah let's do that i'm like we're gonna start put you on the spot but you
Neil: know no no no no no brian can just his fingers and the lights just
Brian: One thing you should know about me guys is I have absolutely no ego and I, I know the things I know for the most part, and I certainly know the things I don't.
So I am open to suggestions. So I'm going to turn off the fill light, the Govee, so that will darken. that just you see was very subtle. Okay. Now we're going to get a little bit more dramatic. So I'm using the Citus link app on my desk. It's a, it's the mobile app, but it's on my desktop. And for some reason, did you know that Citus will only allow you to basically run on one You could be logged in on only one device.
So I can't use it on my phone and my desktop.
Neil: Oh, no, I didn't know that. Okay.
Brian: That's a good tip. So it'll, it'll surface a [00:19:00] little dialogue. So now, okay. So let's see. First thing I'm going to do is turn off. Ah, okay. I'll start very subtle. I'm going to turn off this light right there. That is yeah, that is the aperture, that little RGB.
Light bulb. So, gonna turn that off. So that turned off there. Okay. Now, let's start with the Now I'm switching to the Elgato stuff. So I'm gonna turn off the fill on the tree. Alright.
Neil: And that's an Elgato Keylight. You've got that
Brian: right? That's an Elgato Keylight. Okay. Then I'm going to turn off the Elgato, my, this, the fill light for this side of my head.
So that actually it's really subtle. I'm surprised. You see, it's like really. Oh yeah.
Neil: I hardly noticed it until you said it. Well, because I
Brian: can, if I could blow it out like that. Oh wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But I have it as a very subtle, like 15%. Okay. So those, let's turn that off. [00:20:00] Then we're going to go and let's see what else.
Okay. So now we're going to turn off the.
I have another, you see kind of right there. You see how it's the walls illuminated. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Another. Yeah. Yeah. So that let's see how
Neil: many lights do you have? I'm on one, two, three. You're already on four, I think. Right. Yeah. It's,
Brian: it's a lot. Let's see. That's cool. It's not turning off though, which is weird.
Let me see here. It's not turning. I'll turn everything off then. How about that? Let's just turn it all off. So boom. That's, this is what we call lit by LCD, by LED. So like, or LCD rather. That's
Neil: right, and you monitor, that's
Brian: it. Wow. Yeah. That's the other thing I did add another, I have two 32 inch displays.
So that's, what's lighting me right now. Right. So let's see here. If I turn on the main light, let's just see what happens [00:21:00] there. And I don't know if, for those of you who use CitusLink with like, Amaranth lights, oftentimes I have to toggle in the CitusLink app, the on off switch. So this is going to, like, I don't know why it does that, but eventually it'll start very slowly to ramp up.
There it is. Now it's coming. Ah, I see. So it's like a fade
Neil: more than anything.
Brian: It is, but I don't know why it does that, why it shouldn't just turn on. Then.
Neil: And then you've got it set to the percentage intensity that you want, and then it just fades up to that level, that's how it works, I guess, right?
Yep,
Brian: exactly. So, let's turn these lights back on.
Neil: It's amazing how, how sort of, one dimensional it looks without the additional lights. It's just that the light just gives it that depth, and especially the, the light. Behind you will just help you pop a little bit more in the in the scene and then obviously your practical light with you [00:22:00] which is what they tend to call them right the practical lights the little one with the lampshade and things like that so on
Brian: which i'm going to turn on right this side Yeah.
So
Neil: that's cool. That's good. And it's all controlled by obviously the, the controller. I think Roy mentions that he uses Alexa to turn on and off student. Now that's fine. If, if they're compatible or you've got. The Alexa plugs over in the UK and in Europe, they're not that common. You know, the, the plugs where they're Alexa enabled.
So they're just a mains plug and things like that. And and Dan basically says that he's surprised we don't have a clapper. And I just,
Brian: Hey
Neil: Eileen, thanks for stopping by. We're talking studio builds and all things fun, but it's an important part of the process of, of, especially if you're going to be on camera.
Present content, [00:23:00] especially if you're being a professional and asking people to support you and pay for your services and things. You want to look as professional as possible on camera and have a, have a nice, decent setup. And I spent way too much time trying to get things right and always tweaking something.
And I have every plant in here. I've only got two little plants, but they're all fake as well because nothing would grow in this. Dungeon environment because there's no windows, but there you go. And I think what you mentioned before, sorry, but controlling your lighting is really important. Sorry.
Brian: That's something I would love to jump in on as well, because that's a great point.
But before that, like if you could jump to the, my full screen for a second. So, let me see here. I'm trying to. Well, most of these things, so like the, the, these gold things that, that like a bird up on top and this little thing next to it, that round vase thing, the little weird kind of sculpture thing right there, [00:24:00] those are, and the, and the plant, I got those at Home Goods, which is like a, a it's a company I believe owned by TJ Maxx or TJX.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and you can go there and find these, all these like random tchotchkes, these random, you know, just things that you don't want to go overboard because clutter can, I mean, you can, there's like that clutter creep into your studio, but this is, it's an opportunity to show off a little bit more of your personal side and personal mementos, like for example Yeah.
You know, these two wooden things over there the B and the Brian's, yeah, my dad made those for me when I was a kid. He would do these great things with wood. And so that's very special for me. The the iPod and the two old iPhones, those are just my wife's. She saved them. So I took them. I it's just always cool to have retro gear.
There's an old Polaroid land shark camera. Then they're my older 35 millimeter film cameras. Cause I'm a photographer. So [00:25:00] That's what I do. There's two relatively newer Polaroid cameras point is one never underestimate introducing green into, you know, like a foliage or plants, even if they're fake. And two yeah, like the posters are probably the biggest departure for me because they, they're just my favorite film.
So in a way they are personal, but I think it's, it's a really great opportunity. I see a lot of studio builds that. Well, sometimes people use green screens and that's totally fine. Like I totally get that. But if you have the opportunity and you have the, the, the, the room for it, you know, that's an easy way to kind of set yourself, not necessarily set yourself apart, I think, but to let your own personality shine.
Like, I don't know. Your studio it's so distinct to me and I can I know that that is Neil's studio I you know, you've got the piano. We [00:26:00] talked about this league lines. You've got the really nice blue contrast background light And you're lit perfectly So it's just kind of I know that's your scene and I think that that's important when people can identify your own Subliminal brain, so to speak.
Neil: Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's just subtle, right? Again, like you said, I don't like a lot of clutter. I think there's a couple of things on the desk that shouldn't be there today anyway. So I'll go back and have a look at those. But yeah, I think it's, I think it's just important to just feel comfortable in your space.
Now, I like being a mushroom. I like a darker type of space. I mean, obviously you have to be well lit to be on camera, but I use quite a, a low aperture lens, as I mentioned before, to get as much light in, I like the shallow depth of field. It's not a huge room by any stretch but at least it gives that impression that there's a bit of depth there and just simple colors and things.
But I'm a bit intending to do, and there's a couple of people asked me actually about what lights to [00:27:00] use. So. I'll have to do a lighting and studio tour, so that's something else for the show at some point. I'll have to get a roving camera around it and do that. A couple of people just had some comments as well.
So Joseph has said that the latest Stream Deck Upgrade, which just came out because they've introduced a few, few new things, Elgato, but in doing so it's blown all the Ecamm show buttons, but yeah, we'll definitely have to do some reprogramming of those, Joseph. It's a pain because I, I noticed that today as well, I, I had the same upgrade, I'd just been programming my buttons for this show and boom, why, why don't they get honoured?
There's also a, an Ecamm update as well. Joseph, so just for
Brian: production, or beta for
Neil: both. For both beta and, and for, for production. So it's worth updating as well. And Eileen, to your point as mentioned about dust collectors, you, you have a lot of swifter what are swifter? Is that an American cleaning?
Utensils. Sorry, Eileen, I'm not familiar
Brian: with Swift. They're, they're a godsend, first of all. It's basically a, a, a handle and you, [00:28:00] these replaceable, they're kind of like these little fiber things that you just swipe them on surfaces and they are like magnets for dust. And then when you're done, you take them off.
take it off and you can throw it out and put a different one on. Yeah. It's, Oh yeah. Swiffers are like, they're a must.
Neil: They're a must. So Dan, Dan's not a massive fan of plants in his studio. You can't send them. I don't know why you can't send them. I mean, everybody's, everybody's different. I mean, some people don't like them.
I think there has been a, an overuse of them in, in YouTube studios. over the last sort of few years, you always, I always look at people like Peter McKinnon and he changes the studio as often as you would change your underwear, you know, he keeps moving premises and things like that. So there's a lot of things, but I like the, just the look of of a plant in a, in a room and just, it gives a different sort of [00:29:00] contrast and just everybody's different at the main thing.
Dan also had a comment around although funny enough, Costco has a sale on Lego plants.
Brian: There you go. I mean, there you go. It's, it gives you an opportunity if you're into Lego to just put a piece of your, well, no pun intended,
Neil: Lego out. Definitely. Yeah. I think it's important to have a little bit of your personality in, in your in your studio.
I mean, behind me, excuse me, behind me, I've got two, you can't really see them, but here and here, the sort coffee, which is what I like in the morning, like everybody does. And the other one says gin and tonic, because obviously I'm from the UK. Even though gin, gin and tonic was actually invented by the Dutch originally and stolen by the British.
But you know, we
Brian: like to steal things. Well, what kind of gin are we talking about? Are we talking about Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray? Like what's,
Neil: I mean, I did start with Tanqueray, but I like Brockmans. I like London gin. There's so many now. That's the problem. My wife and I took a visit to the Netherlands a [00:30:00] few years ago, and we were just Cleansing our palates with with some gin as you do and we went into one of these bars and the guy said You must try this gin without without any tonic.
I'm like, whoa neat gin. I mean, do we have a problem now? Anyway, but certain gins without the tonic tastes really nice. You just get more of the flavor without the tonic Can add that. And you know, I don't know what it's like in the US, but a lot of people, or they used to in the UK, when you used to go to gin and tonic, they'd throw some, they'd throw some peppers that not peppers, but you know, all kinds of sort of mustard seeds and all kinds of weird things to change the flavor of that and stuff.
But it's sometimes it's interesting just to just to try it. Yeah, they can get quite elaborate in the UK. If you ever come to the UK and tonic, just make sure you say, I don't want anything in it. Just the gin and the tonic. Just the gin and the tonic. garnish in there.
Brian: Yeah. No, ice is about the only garnish I would put in a gin and
Neil: tonic.
So, yeah. And that's a stretch. Definitely. Eileen [00:31:00] says that she moved her big plant from behind me, but I have a few small ones. There you go. Yeah. And her three year old son, grandson, sorry, has a Lego plant. Okay. Well maybe is he's a budding entrepreneur and getting ready to build out his YouTube studio.
Why not? Indeed. There you go. Yeah. Are there any things that you would change in your current studio environment now having just, this is probably an unfair question because you've only just finished and got it up and running, but other things that you would like to maybe tweak and change things that you're not 100 percent happy with yet?
Brian: Yes, 100%. Okay. The shade or the curtain. Okay. That was here from the previous owners of the house. We moved in here It'll be almost two years ago. And so we have done some things but not a lot That shade I want it to be blackout curtain. And I also want it to be a different color because it would be just an easy way to add a bit more contrast.
The wall color is [00:32:00] kind of earth Tony as it is, which I, I, I don't like. And you know, no offense, certainly to anyone who likes earth tones, but I could change that. We've talked about this. I could change that by using, like, I could change the color of the, the light. Right.
Neil: It's had a bit of an accent color or something like that.
Is that an RGB light you've got in there or is that just a, a single color tint? Okay, so you could, you could mix it up and mess around and see if anything would almost cascade onto the white curtain to give it a bit of a, bit of a color
Brian: cue. The problem is that it doesn't, I mean, it blocks some of the light.
When during the day, but I, we discussed this as well last week when we were talking about like white balance, for example, I really want to get a place where I can control the the, the baseline state of the studio as much as possible. So that when I close the two, cause there's another window over here off camera when I close those [00:33:00] shades.
I want it to be as close to dark as possible. And that way, you know, I could, you know, use a clapper or something, but that's, and that's a great segue. Cause that's, I texted you, I think earlier today or yesterday about that. Right. I would love to figure out a way to use a stream deck to automate this stuff.
But I don't know, on one hand, I wasn't sure, but then on the other hand, it was your video, your brilliant video that I found a while ago that helped me Mute buttons for the RØDECaster Pro for some reason, I mean, what a great. And a must have in my opinion for anyone who uses a roadcaster. Basically the long and short of it is Neil, the video Neil put out shows you how to create a macro with the stream deck to mute individual microphones on, on your stream deck, which you can't do easily.
So that was helpful, but CitusLink, the Govee app. I don't know if it's, [00:34:00] possible. So when, when, you know, saying like, use the clap or use yeah. Yeah. So I would love to though, cause it is a bit of a procedure.
Neil: You can, so I know there are with, with the Stream Deck, you have to obviously have the plugins that are either respective for the manufacturer, but there are other third party tools that you can use.
Something like what's it called now? If then this, that, or if that, then whatever it's called. Oh yeah, IFTTT. IFTTT, IFTTT. And, and that I think you can use in conjunction with other apps, like the Philips Hue app as a plug in for the Stream Deck. But for other lights that don't, I think you can have, That'd be controlled from the stream deck.
So if you set up routines and things like that, you could probably figure out something to do, but I, I wouldn't mind looking into that to see whether you could get a macro to work. Cause right now I have so my, my tube lights behind [00:35:00] me are Godox. They're the Godox TL60s, the RGB tube lights. There's one here and one, one there, and, and they're only controlled by a Bluetooth app on the phone.
They don't have any app. in Stream Deck, which is a bit frustrating. So you end up having to control it with the, I mean, it's no big deal. I mean, it's. You know, first world problems, right? Oh, I have to switch on my lights manually. How terrible. But if there was a, there was an automated way, and especially if you, if you have a studio where you want to mix up the lighting environment, I, I'm doing a video today, but maybe I don't want the, the pink and the blue that I've got behind me.
I want something else. I may want to just an all white background, whatever it might be. It's nice to just be able to press a button. And the only way you used to be able to do that was the Philips Hue lights, because they're controlled, you control them by Alexa, you can control them by the Stream Deck, but obviously as we know with, as we talked about, the Philips Hue lights can introduce flicker, banding, and all kinds of nonsense.
With that. So the, the Govia I don't think even has a plugin for [00:36:00] Stream Deck. So there must be a way of doing that, but with my lights, Elgato, yes, I can control them with the Stream Deck, of course, but that's just one light in my three light setup, so it would be nice to be able to do something similar. So if anybody's got any ideas out there, let us know, but
Brian: yeah.
I have an idea, actually. It's possible. I have to look into it, but all of the, so first I actually banished Philips Hue from my studio. I don't even have the, the. The bridge connected. I don't have anything Hue because I just, I'm sorry that the flicker was driving me crazy. And yeah, so that's gone, but what I'm wondering, I might play around with it is maybe it using Apple shortcuts.
You, you gave me the idea just now by when you talked about having to go to your phone and so yeah, Cituslink has I mean, it's an iOS app the Govee app is iOS and what is, Oh, and then the control center app
Neil: is, there's an iOS app. Yeah, so everything's iOS, so I think, well, that's a good point.
Maybe you could run a routine, [00:37:00] a shortcut within Apple. And I don't know if Apple's got any plugins for the Stream Deck, because that would be, that would be the next, next best thing. Yeah. Yeah, that would be fantastic. And talking about Stream Deck, with the latest Stream Deck update, and this is for anybody still, still here Joseph and, The guys who've got, and I think you've got an iPad as well.
So Stream Deck have just introduced the Stream Deck mobile for the iPad. Now they've always had a Stream Deck app for the phone. And if you, if you don't want to pay the, I think it's 24 a year or something for it. I don't know why they do a subscription model. You should just like, just pay once and that's it.
But I think, you know, you go back instead of paying. 300 for a Stream Deck, you can, you could pay technically 24 for the year and use your phone. So that only allows you to have, I can't remember what it is, 16 or 24 buttons. But with the, with the Stream Deck, I'm just testing it right now. I've just got a trial.
So I've got an iPad in front of me. I've been playing with it. You can have 64 buttons on your [00:38:00] iPad. So it's mind blowing. So it's like, I need to fill this up with stuff. So I've been doing. Things like that, you know, soundbites, fun stuff, I'm not even sure if you can hear those because they're probably not coming through, but all kinds of different, fun stuff.
I must, I must program it, it's the RODECaster again, RODECaster has to send it through. Never mind, I'll set that up. But now in terms of setting up scenes and different workflows, like having these and Like with your CTA and stuff like that, you know, it's, it's much easier with with a bigger Stream Deck instead of having the little ones.
I'm still going to use the other ones, of course, because you can never have too many Stream Deck buttons. In terms of automation and workflow for your studio, if you've got an old iPad lying around, because I think you can use them on older iPads as well. So if you've got one, I mean, this is my wife's old iPad that's got a, it's actually got a cracked screen.
So it's not really used for anything else, but as a very expensive Stream Deck panel, it's pretty useful,
Brian: right? Yeah, you know, it's funny, I went almost, for now, I went the opposite. I have a stream, so I've got my Stream Deck Excel over [00:39:00] here, and that's the only one that I connected. I also have the Stream Deck what's the model with the dials?
Is it the Pro?
Neil: The Plus. The Plus. Yeah. That's super useful actually. The plus.
Brian: Yeah, but I, it, so I, I'm, I actually will reconnect it. It's just in, in one of my drawers here. Because I want to develop a way to, for photographers to use the dials to quickly kind of, cull and review their photos.
The knobs like left and right, and then, yeah. So, but for the most part, I still haven't. I haven't built enough systems or enough scenes in Ecamm to have to warrant using folders, for example. I'm, I'll get there, but right now I just wanted to focus on the one show that I have and like the scenes for that.
But every time I see, that's the thing. One of the things I love about this community is watching other people's live streams. It's so inspiring to see how [00:40:00] people are leveraging Ecamm and the various ways that you can pull media into Ecamm in these creative ways. Even like what you did earlier, the kind of overlay.
Oh, you
Neil: mean this this heading thing? Yeah. I mean, I always take inspiration from Paul Dixon. He has a lot of, he's a guy in the channel who does a lot of things, but yeah, just taking inspiration like that, just subtle things, just to mix it up a little bit. It's always nice to have something like that.
Brian: Yeah. And just, so, so I will get there. I just, Sometimes I see what someone does and I'm like, Oh, your mind goes into this, like, how do I reverse engineer this to us to see what he did or what she did? So, but it's, it is the community. I've jumped onto a few other people's live streams, just kind of ad hoc.
And I mean, that's how we connected. Like I, you just happened to broadcast when I was in, in this kind of like recharge mode during the day. And I would just jump. And You talk about stuff [00:41:00] that is very near and dear to me. So it just worked out
Neil: really well. That has been, it's been great to to sort of connect with you.
And the plan for people who are listening is that we're trying to do a more regular Tuesday night live stream. I wanted to go live twice a week anyway. And the idea behind it was I have a regular stream on Thursday, but I'm always struggling to find things. And I do have some ideas about what to show, but tutorials.
Julian, live streams are never the best. They can be complex as we, as we saw when we were trying to do our previous stream, which I think turned out pretty well anyway given the fact that there was a lot of moving parts in that, but it's, it's always difficult to demo, especially software and things like that.
So I've tried. So that's, that was what I was still thinking of doing every Thursday. Then. And when Brian and I got talking, we thought, well, would it be nice to just do something a little bit more informal like this every sort of Tuesday evening, just to talk about subjects that we're interested in and hopefully other people find interesting as well.
So, [00:42:00] so that's the plan. So obviously today's all about studio bills. And I wanted to come on to your potential dilemma at the moment about having multiple cameras. And I think I was thinking about the, sort of the, not the solution, but like I have a, so if I show you real quick, so I have got the ZV 1 and it's, it's pointing down and you can tell it's pointing down.
So when you look at it, you can see it's pointing down. Right. And it's okay for like an overhead type of shot. And obviously I have another camera here, just as sort of a behind the scenes, which I, which I always like. scene peoples behind the scene stuff. But when, when were sort of doing those tutorials, you always want to be, it's it's difficult you always want a camera to be in the middle of the monitor so you can work on the monitor and show what you need to show.
But have you considered maybe having almost like a, an off, an off center side view, so we have your, we have your view at the moment, so you're talking here, you've got the prompter in front of you at the moment right? Yes. And
Brian: so [00:43:00] this
Neil: is right when you're doing,
Brian: yeah, that's my computer and the problem, again, this is where it would help to have another, like, like I said, my phone or something to show you, I have my two 32 inch displays joined together slightly at an angle.
So like, you know, it kind of for reflection and it's just easier to see, but if I were to separate them wide enough to, for a lens to shoot through. I don't know that it would, I can try, because they're both on arms, so it's easy enough for me to just pivot them around. Yeah, just try it, yeah. But here's the thing, Neil, is I will want a prompter on that camera too.
Oh.
Neil: Ah. Yeah.
Brian: Yeah. There it is.
Neil: And then that becomes a lot wider, right? Cause then, then you've got at least five inches gap between the two monitors. And it depends if you can, if you can live with that. [00:44:00]
Brian: Well, I could, yeah, it depends. I'd have to see because I, again, talk about first world problems, but I've become so spoiled with this ability to see the feed so I could see exactly what's being broadcast versus, you When I did have the, that's exactly what I had earlier in my previous setup I had, I wasn't using two 32 inch displays.
I had my one Apple display and then my laptop as a secondary display. So the laptop was off to the side and the camera was there, but it was very annoying to, I would kind of look at the lens, but then I'd have to kind of look off to the left a little bit to see the feed because I didn't have a prompter on there.
Right. And that just breaks, that just breaks kind of the, the, the flow of conversation where I'm like, my eyes are like looking left and right. And so what I think I can try to do, I have, again, I have, the camera is mounted [00:45:00] onto a tension arm that spans the 12 feet. This, these ceilings are, I do not like these high ceilings, but the camera's mounted on a tension arm.
I have another tension arm that I could use. To put behind a desk. I mean, that could, that could also be a fun, like we can do maybe a live walk around tour to set the, because here's the thing I would love to, I would be happy to do a studio tour, but for my YouTube channel, I know for a fact that my audience would not care about that.
That is just not something that talking about how to use e cam, my audience, they are photographers. They want to learn how to take and edit photos. Right. Yeah. Which is why I love this because this is allows me to, this is a creative outlet where I can have just totally geek out on the stuff that I really love, but I can't.
YouTube would, would, would penalize me if I did that. If I all of a sudden started doing a studio tour. You're almost
Neil: pivoting, aren't you? Yeah. So by all means, I mean, we can use this, this, this [00:46:00] channel, this platform to, to do whatever you want to do. And if you wanted to share anything, that that'd be great.
Cause for me, you know, it's, it's, I don't, my audience, I guess, is more about. It's more about the Ecamm community, a bit of live streaming, some video production things, trying to help and do workflows around, around that thing. So bring it on, studio tours and stuff like that, especially gear and things. I don't, I don't want to ever become a hardcore gear review channel.
If something comes up that I find interesting and I'll, I'll put it out there. And I have done a couple of those, but. Many people are much better qualified and have better videos and take more time to do those gear reviews. Plus they get sent all the gear anyway. So, but yeah, by all means, let's use this channel to talk about anything that we want.
Because there's so many subjects relating to video production, audio workflows. And what you're saying about using the Stream Deck in conjunction with maybe assigning, and I don't know whether you can assign [00:47:00] Lightroom sliders and things to the Stream Deck, so you can control like hue and saturation or maybe highlights, some sort of controls.
I know there are dedicated, Controllers for that. Right. There are dedicated consoles for doing sort of Lightroom.
Brian: Is it classic for Lightroom Classic? Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, right. Oh, because it's because light room plastic doesn't, it's a app. Yeah. Yeah. They, they, Lightroom classic has an API that you can tie into that.
So there's Loop deck. There's there are a few other companies that make, and I don't, I don. Use them. I don't necessarily recommend them to me. They're more of a hindrance than anything else. However things like reviewing your photos where you, the, as long as there's a keyboard shortcut in the new version of Lightroom, which is what I use, I can find that using Stream Deck pretty easily.
Yeah. Yeah. And so think about what does a person, a photographer reasonably need if they just took. 500 photos and they want [00:48:00] to go through them quickly to, well, let's say on the first pass, they just want to identify the photos that are out of focus or just clearly rubbish that need to be purged. Well, you just need the left and right arrow keys.
Left and right goes back and forth, and then you need something that can go to a reject flag, which is a keyboard shortcut, or a pick flag, which is another, or you can use the the dials on the stream deck, if you have that stream deck, to count up stars, so you can go from zero stars to five stars if you want.
Right,
Neil: yeah, yeah. That'd be good. Yeah. So it's just simplifying that workflow for getting rid of the photos because it is a pain and it's similar when I'm doing video editing with a final cut, there's a lot of footage that needs to be rejected. And there are a few things that you can do within the Stream Deck to, to help with that, but unfortunately it's not always easy.
And like you, I just use the keyboard and mouse and keyboard shortcuts. I'm familiar with the shortcuts now to introduce [00:49:00] another. Tool something that's more tactile. There's some things that might be useful, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know It depends and there's somebody's just starting out with a product It's almost a muscle memory getting them then used to using that third party product a stream deck or whatever it might be Might help them, but when you're coming from a product that you've learned and you know the shortcuts introducing something else is a bit It's a bit.
Yeah a bit tricky. I don't know. There's lots of people that use them. But again, it's your preference, right? Absolutely, do you use them? So do you just use a keyboard a mouse to use a tablet or anything? You know the the Wacom tablet or anything like that for your work
Brian: Funny enough, I actually worked at Wacom for a little over a year.
When I lived in Portland, their U S headquarters is in Oregon. And so I do have one back where is, Oh, it's, it's in this bookshelf behind the camera. No, I don't. I used to use it more [00:50:00] often, and I've just become more proficient. I use an Apple keyboard, the, the, just the mini keyboard with a touch ID, and I use an Apple Magic Trackpad, and that is pretty much all I use.
You know, I can see the case for someone who is doing a lot of either obviously illustration or graphic design. A Wacom pen tablet would be instrumental. Or even if you're a photographer and you do a lot of very fine selection work in Photoshop, let's say you're doing composites. But for the most part you, you kind of hit the nail on the head where If you were, my goal is to see whatever I'm doing to my photo.
I want to see that effect. And if I'm looking at the, the, you know, the loop deck, or if I'm kind of like focused on the, the medium, the tool that I'm using, I'm not focusing on the photo or the effect on the photo which is why I advocate for just [00:51:00] whatever the the lowest barrier to entry, the lowest friction point, just stick with that.
Neil: Yeah, that makes sense. So in terms of your studio now, where you, where you're at obviously your sound sounds a lot better as we, as we mentioned. So maybe the microphone is something to, to dial in. What's your, and this is a bit of a bone of contention, particularly when it comes to doing videos. And I've thought about this as well.
What's your view about having the microphone in the shot? Great question. As we both have right now.
Brian: Well, I noticed in your rear shot. Was there a shotgun mic?
Neil: So I do have this shotgun mic here that I have used from time to time. When I, what I tend to do is when I'm doing tutorial videos, I tend not to use a microphone like this.
I have done in the past. It's just spent, it's all to do with laziness. And what I would tend to do is move this out of the way and use the shotgun mic. Now it's not going to be as, as good as this, [00:52:00] as a close proximity to the mic. Obviously, the closer you get to microphone, the less reflections, less noise, and you get that proximity effect where it sounds nice on your voice.
But because I'm retentive when it comes to audio, I'll throw this through a, in post production, I'll throw it through a, like a noise gate or some voice isolation, where it'll just reduce the amount of reflections. And I get it to a point where it's good enough for me. Anyway people can still hear.
It gets it, it gets this microphone out of the shot and it just feels a little bit more, I don't know, engaging, if, if there's no microphone in the way. That, that's what I feel. I think people, I mean, I like to see videos without microphones, especially if they're tutorials, live streams and things like that.
It doesn't really matter. But if only this would sound just as good. And then I wouldn't use this at all. And I have used it for live streams as well. And You may see me use it from time to time on our live streams and then, but it's difficult because it's not always going to sound as good. So anyway, what's your thoughts on the [00:53:00] whole thing?
Brian: I mean, I have a Sennheiser, I can't remember the model, shotgun mic. Yeah. It's a nice one. It is. I got it years ago and it's still in a bin. Just cause you, you hit the nail on the head. I can never get it to sound as good. As good as I believe this is a dynamic mic. I have to, I don't think it's a condenser mic.
It's dynamic, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah. 'cause it doesn't require phantom power, if I remember correctly. Right. And so it's interesting you bring this up 'cause I was thinking about this when I was setting everything up and I, I. Asked myself whether I should, you know, make more of an effort to try to get the Sennheiser shotgun mic because I have it.
I have an XLR cable. I have a Rodecaster 2 that supports multiple inputs. But you know, it's funny, even though this is a very obviously it's, it's in the frame [00:54:00] here. It takes up a chunk of the frame and you know, it's, it, it, it is a thing that you can hit, you know, tap stuff. I find it to be more of a security blanket.
I like having this thing here. I it's, it's become second nature. Like if I lean back, for example, I know to bring this closer to me or, you know, if I'm going to go to the, the Editing, I'm going to move it here. And yeah, like also aesthetically. I kind of like this, the champagne gold color of this mic and.
Neil: No, I think it, I think it looks good. Yeah. I, I, yeah. I don't know. I've got to.
Brian: You're not a fan though.
Neil: No, I, I, I do. I like them, but I think there's a place for them. And sometimes I'd rather. Not have them. I just want the best of both worlds, but you can't I'm with you I've got a I've got a tip as well that I might might try a second.
So so Davey's joined us. Hello, David He says he's not seen you for hey a long time [00:55:00] in
Brian: Foster. Oh, yeah Yeah, we hung out when I lived in Portland. There
Neil: you go. Well Yeah. I've watched a few, quite a few of David's streams over the years through all the shows he's been on, whatever, so I still, still catch up from time to time.
It's really funny. I mean, everybody's, everybody knows everybody in this industry, right? It's such a small world. It is a small world. It's, it is a small world. So, so a tip that I saw somebody else use, and it's a bit, and I have to use your, I'm going to draw on you in a minute. So just stay where you are.
So, so what somebody was doing is they were, they were taking a shot like this and I'd try this as well and they'd, and I'll just have to move it to my iPad. So they put a microphone, your shotgun microphone would be, let's say it's, let's say it's there, right? I don't want this, dodgy. That can get very dangerous.
Yeah, I'm just going to leave it at that. So you'd have it as close, Thank God I'm not, I'm not great at drawing. So you'd have it there, and if you didn't move to your [00:56:00] right the microphone would be in shot. And then what they would do is they'd, you'd move out the way, they'd take a clean plate, A clean shot of the background, everything that you have right now without you in the frame.
And then they would simply in post-production mask, mask that out. So you get the proximity way too convoluted. I know, I know, right? Yeah. You'd get, you get the proximity effect of having the microphone close to you, but, but so on as well. So
Brian: yeah. I mean, but they would have to, they would have to 'cause the, when I'm in frame, and I'm using an F two lens at F two, right.
Background. Ha. They ha they would have to take the, a photo of the back of the. Yeah. Oh, they'd have to manual focus. That's all they'd have to do. Nevermind. I'm, I'm working this through in my head. Right. Here's the problem though with the shotgun. Also, again, let's, we were talking about two camera solutions.
If I had the shotgun mic up here and then I start [00:57:00] talking to you here, which is my primary camera, you're going to have if, if it's,
and I mean, the camera would be off to my right. So you'd, the, the audio, if it's a stereo feed would kind of, you'd only hear it. More on the right side, Kurt. Oh, I mean, or the reverse.
Neil: Yeah, I mean, you do have to have it pointed directly. And the rule is that you have it like, you know, like doing a loser sign.
You have it just, yeah, just above your head. So David's saying, is the stream buffering from anybody else? I don't
Brian: know, David. I mean, I'm It chopped up for you. Your audio chopped up for two seconds, but that's it. Okay.
Neil: I'm not sure. Because, I mean, I am using Starlink, so as we know, and I'm using Restream to multistream, but I'm hoping it's not
Brian: terrible quality and buffering.
No, I see. I have it on YouTube right here, and it's flawless. Oh, is it? Okay.
Neil: Maybe it's, maybe it's something else. Oh, so David's saying he's actually getting ready to test a shotgun mic for his setup. Out of shot, but still on my boom arm. Yeah, so I've seen is it Harris Elliott? They have a, like a, [00:58:00] it's, it's like down here.
It's just out of frame, pointing up. So there's lots of different Thoughts around microphones. I'm, I'm still there to test. Now, the other option, of course, is to use a lavalier, or a sort of a very small microphone. And here's, here's what he made earlier.
Brian: I mean, there's, this is the Rode Wireless pro you know, wireless mics with 11.
I was thinking about that as well.
Neil: Yeah. I mean, that's an option. They're not going to get, I think it's a matter of experimenting. Maybe what we should do on when we're doing our subsequent live streams, we should, we should both agree that, that this Tuesday, we're just going to use. the lavalier mics and try and live stream like that.
And then the next week we'll try and use a shotgun and just, it's about testing. And the thing is that the only way to play with it is, you know, to, to mess around with it. So David is asking, is that the Lewitt 44? A hundred? No, it's a two 40 [00:59:00] Pro. I don't have the 44. Hundred. Oh, sorry. The 4, 4 0. But I've had this, I was saying to Brian before, I've had this microphone for many years, and I just love the LUT sound.
I like the, the quality of them. And I do have the SM seven B. You know, you spend a fortune for it, but I just like mixing microphones up. That's my problem. Like mixing audio and things. What, what can I tie? You know, it's just a, who's that? Just a passion
Brian: that it was a Tom Buck. Yes. He, he ha has several videos he has of them, doesn't he?
Yeah, it is wild. Yeah. And he does a great job of I like that he has his road caster too, on a kind of one of those vase amounts on like a, on an arm. Yeah. Like a,
Neil: yeah. Was it round? Yeah. Yeah. I, I like mine being out the way. Mine's you can probably see it. Where am I? It's just, it's just outta shot.
It's just there, right. You can probably see it just a little bit litter, but it's, it's just there typically. And yeah. I don't need it now because using the Rodecaster stuff, you know, I can, I can mix up sound and things like that. So I, I don't, I don't need that at all. David said he's [01:00:00] got the 240 pro in white.
That's his current mic. I don't know the main differences between them, actually, they all, they all look pretty good and sound good. So, microphone of choice at the moment, Brian, so you have the, is it the Heel? Is that the name of the
Brian: microphone? I can't, I never know if it's Heel or Heil, but it is Heel PR40.
This is the same mic that I believe Pat Flynn uses from Smart Passive Income. And like I said, the, it was recommended to me from my buddy Sharky James. He was the host of the Petapixel Photography Podcast. Now he has his, he's moved to kind of his own podcast. self branded photography podcast, but he's been doing this for a very long time.
And he recommended that I get this and I bought this back in like 2017. And I've used it since. Yeah, it's a great concert. Yeah, no, no, not at all. It's just that was he also recommended getting the I think it was a Mackie [01:01:00] mixer. And but this was like an older mixer. And the dbx something maybe 26 I can't remember the model, but, and I had it in a rack and everything and yeah,
Neil: it's like a home studio.
Brian: Definitely. Exactly. For a podcast.
Neil: I remember Leah Laporte and the Twit team when I used to watch that years and years ago, they all had those microphones as well. And I think, what did David say? All the students have, I don't know what that is, but Ravenscroft started with that as well. . Okay.
Brian: Yeah, I mean, I I think I told you Neil or I can't remember if I did, but I, I had actually purchased the road pod, mic USB, the one that has XLR and USB on it.
Ah, right. I used it for a couple of days and I couldn't, I, I blamed partly myself for not maybe I, I thought [01:02:00] because the road caster Proi has a preset for. The pod mic, I thought maybe I would hear some notable improvement and I had both mics connected and I did not hear anything improved. So I stuck with this.
Neil: I think, I think the problem with, with the RODECaster is that you do have to tweak and play around with it. I know people, a lot of people have had problems with them. A lot of people have moved on to the other interfaces and it just depends on your use case, right? I mean, I got the RODECaster Pro 2 because I do music and things.
So I have. Multiple microphones plugged in, a couple of instruments plugged in, and so on. So it, and it's really convenient instead of having to plug everything in and out. And I used to have the Focusrite what's it called? Scarlett 2 2, 2i2. And it was just two, two inputs, two outputs. That was it. And it was simple enough for me, but they didn't have any, Processing.
And I didn't want to use software processing, that was my biggest issue. Having software processing on your machine, when you're doing live streaming, when you're using it for other things, it just starts to [01:03:00] put unnecessary CPU cycles on there. So I wanted something outboard that would do all the heavy lifting from an audio processing perspective and then The Rodecaster came out and it was, it was the, it was the best choice.
Brian: Well, let me ask you this because here's my thing. I bought the Rodecaster Pro 2 and this is something Rode does and some other companies do this too. And it, it, I understand it from a product development and product marketing cycle. Then they released the Duo, if I remember correctly, like, which would have been perfect for me because the Rodecaster Pro 2 is not a cheap device.
Especially when you compare it to the Rodecaster Pro 1. And. Right. And then they had the Duo, which had most of it, I believe it's the Duo,
Neil: the Duo is the same as the Pro too, it's just got two less inputs. That's
Brian: it. Which is all I needed. Like, I'm not even using, right now I'm just using, what I will use.
one. Exactly. I will use, one of the nice things is the, the wireless Pro [01:04:00] pairs wirelessly, like, to the, to the Roadcam. Yeah. So I have that as a second input if I, you know, wanted to use this table here to do a top down you know, unless I used a shotgun mic, for example, and I ran an XLR cable it is kind of nice to just have that freedom.
Or if we did like a live studio tour, I would switch to the, to the wireless pro. So yeah. Yeah.
Neil: Lots of options. Dave is asking you a question did Brian download the, did Brian download the Rode software and set up the mic in there? Because once you get it dialed in, it saves directly to the mic.
Even when plugging it in. Okay. So depending on what road you've got, you can, you can save to the, to the mic as well. So yeah, but you don't have the road bike anymore anyway, do you? So no, I returned it after
Brian: a couple of days. Yeah.
Neil: I think you just have to stick with what, what you like and, and your voice sounds really good on that microphone as well.
So that that's the main thing. The [01:05:00] only thing I would say is have you thought about moving your arm Not your physical arm, your low profile arm to the opposite side. So it's a bit more out of shot. So no, I meant to your left.
Brian: Like printed here. Yeah. That's how, where it was before. And so I can easily test it out.
That's a great, yeah.
Neil: I just think because it looks, it looks, it looks less intrusive if it's, if it's not, if it's, if it's not on your right hand side. I don't know, you've only just set your studio. So it's probably unfair of me to say. Have you considered doing that? You know, so.
Brian: But that's the kind of stuff that I like to, I maybe didn't think about.
I put it here for two reasons. One, I thought it was something different, because like I said, it was on the left side in the previous studio. And two, you remember I was telling you how there was a point where I was getting this weird feedback. When I was recording and I realized it was because the, so this is like, I think like a 20 foot XLR cable [01:06:00] and I had it all, you know, I, I ran it to the roadcaster and then I bunched the excess up and I tied it together with like one of these little red whips.
Oh yeah. Love those. And so that, even though this is a shielded cable, I don't know if it was because I bunched it all up together or because it was near the UPS that I was using, the, the, the, the power supply. Yeah, probably. But I would get this weird feedback. And so the point is the reason why I have it on this side is because basically I ran the, the length of the 20 foot cable, like snaking around the desk to the Rodecaster, which is right here.
This is a shielded cable. That would fix it. Exactly. As God is my witness, Neil, I went onto Amazon and the earliest it would get here's, would be tomorrow. And I wanted this ready for tonight. So
Neil: I do really appreciate you sort of busting your gut to get it ready and you show me the updates. It is really nice because I mean, it's, I mean, it's a great it is a good motivator though.
When you've got, when [01:07:00] you've got a goal, I was the same, like I've got to get stuff ready for a live stream. And I don't want to not go live, and it's just about being a little bit more consistent when you're going live now and things like that. So that's why I'm really looking forward to our, Multiple series of shows and this could, this could go and go because there's so many topics to talk about.
One topic I was going to ask you to talk about at some point when you feel like it is analog photography versus digital. Oh, sure. You know, there's a lot of people going back to, sorry, switching again. There's a lot of people going back. I say going back. I mean, it's, I mean, photography has been around for hundreds of years as, as you know, but it's like everybody's ditched their old analog camera and DSLRs came out and then the mirrorless came out.
And I was like, yeah, digital. I remember speaking to a photographer years and years ago when DSLRs just came out and she said to me, you know, all these digital photographers, they think they know what they're [01:08:00] doing now because the camera's doing everything for them. But. But I know what I'm doing because I shoot on film.
So it was a really interesting point that doesn't matter what you're using. If you don't have the, the skills with composition and the technical, what, what are you doing in your camera to get the image that you want, irrespective of what you're using. A lot of people just buy stuff, shoot on, shoot on auto and you're good to go.
And I guess when you're getting a brand new camera, I know we're going off tangent a bit now, but when you're getting a brand new camera, It's always tempting, just put it in auto and shoot, shoot, shoot. And I think it's a nice way of just getting the feel of your camera, but, but playing with the settings and knowing what you're doing from a manual perspective is always best.
So something along those lines of digital versus analog and do you actually still shoot anything in analog? And do you, do you do your own prints and stuff like that? I've always been fascinated by that.
Brian: Do I shoot in film? Yes, I still do. I have. [01:09:00] Three SLR cameras there that I've used two Pentax and one Ricoh.
I cannot find my Canon. I had my, I started on a Canon AE 1 and I cannot find it. But so there, there's a lot to unpack there. And actually I, I do, I do need to, I do need to jump in a bit.
Neil: Yeah, of course. Yeah, no problem. I wasn't sure what time you had, but yeah, I mean, just say this from the show, but just, just to plant the seed analog versus digital.
Maybe we can talk about that as a, as a completely separate show, just to get you, get your teeth into
Brian: that. I'll just, my one point I will make just to, or maybe we could do as a cliffhanger, but no, no, I'll do, I am all for. democratizing art or the pursuit of art. So your friend is a hundred percent correct.
100%. I agree. The, the, the beauty of film is you know, a lot of it is in terms of the end result is [01:10:00] in your hands as the photographer like. newer film cameras had more improved meters. So it would help you kind of adjust your exposure to make sure that the photo wasn't over or underexposed.
And if you don't know what that means, watch our live stream from last week, cause we went into exhaustive detail. It's a, it's a masterclass in, in, in just basics of photography. But I can, I remember when I was in, University and the Bursar bill that I ran up for film development was obscene. Oh, so I think digital is an amazing, amazing thing.
to help people just learn the basics of composition of exposure, the exposure triangle, without having to destroy their wallets by one buying film, which is still quite expensive because it's not being mass produced. Right. And two, the development costs to answer your question. I used to [01:11:00] develop my own film.
Absolutely. But I don't have the space for that here. And I just. Can't stand the smell of the, the developing agents. But we can talk about there's, I think 100 percent there's, there's a lot that we can talk about on that topic just because it's, it's so near and dear to me.
Neil: Well, yeah, and I thought, well, why not?
I know I've always been fascinated about. Developing film, but I've never tried. I used to, we all started on, you know, film cameras, and I've always been fascinated, like, well, how is it done? And what's the results? And is it a lot of trial and error? And can you really mess things up and stuff like that?
So, so that, that's, that's really interesting for me to, to, to learn about. And obviously it's near and dear to your heart. And Roy has said that we'll need an old Firewire cable. To connect our on the cameras. Oh man. To our computer. FireWire, my goodness
Brian: me FireWire 400 or 800.
Neil: Well, there you go.
Remember those big, weird, connected so much. Do you remember scuzzy? I do, yeah. I'm from an IT background, [01:12:00] so yeah, there you go. Yeah. Then there was sd I'm, I'm going way back to. Oh God, multi drop connectivity and back in the Unix days when people used to connect dumb terminals to to a big AltOS Unix system and they were just teletyping, you know, the green screens.
Yeah, it goes way back. We've come a long way. That's right. We've come a long way, haven't we? Yes. So I know you have to drop off pretty much so we can wrap up anyway because we've been, we've been cracking on for, I don't know how long. Is it an hour? Something like that? Hour and a half almost, I think.
But it's fun because this is, this is a great sort of time. And, but just for those who are still, still hanging in there with us. So the plan is that we're going to be going live. Brian and I are going to have this Tuesday show every week, starting in Anger the week after next. It's my birthday next week.
So there's, there's, there's lots of stuff to talk about. And I really enjoy our time together and having fun, chill, geek out. And it's good to talk to another creator with, with a different perspective, who's from a photography background and I'm [01:13:00] learning stuff all the time about this thing. So it's, really good.
And I really appreciate you getting your studio ready and just in time for the show and you've done an amazing job. I would have still been at it basically, just the cable management and messing around with the cables alone. But you know, what you don't see under the desk. That's right. Nobody's gonna get offended about it, right?
It's still there.
Brian: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Neil: I know. That's right. Yeah. You just don't see anything. It's all smoke and mirrors. Anyway, so thanks a lot, people, for joining. If you want to hang around for two minutes, Brian, when I close the show, and we'll just have a quick chat before you disappear.
Thanks for stopping by, David. And we will see you in the next show. Hopefully my end screen works and I'll see you soon. Take it easy, everybody.