0:00

Welcome to syntax today. We have we

0:02

on the show. Randy on the show. on this

0:04

episode. I was like, hey, Randy,

0:06

can you come on? like, and

0:08

tell us how to sound and

0:10

look good on video and

0:12

audio. good on video and I just

0:14

said 10, and I just said bucks.

0:17

bucks, meaning that as the The

0:20

professionals, we need to look good.

0:22

It amazes me that we went through

0:24

a whole pandemic. of online

0:26

conferences people talking talking to each other

0:28

on Zoom every single day. day. And

0:30

most people still look and sound

0:32

like crap. like It's not as

0:34

easy as just easy a really expensive camera. because

0:37

there are a lot more things you

0:39

can do. you can do in how you

0:41

use them that will make you you look and

0:43

sound good. this is is one for you. Randy.

0:46

thanks for coming on. on. Hey, for having

0:49

me guys. This is gonna be fun. is going

0:51

I'm stoked. Yeah, I'm stoked. I down into into three

0:53

kind of kind of So there's the audio tips, video

0:55

the video tips, and then we'll go through

0:57

some packages that people could. could purchase if

0:59

they're interested in kind of upping their game

1:01

at home. game at home. Okay, and as

1:03

far as looking good, do you have

1:05

any makeup tips or how to

1:07

dress tips? Do we have any of those?

1:09

of those? I I don't typically wear any

1:11

makeup, but I'm sure some people

1:13

would say I should probably have some

1:15

probably have some on my face because I

1:17

face because so. get pretty glossy. Oh, that's good. So

1:19

for anyone who doesn't know, Randy

1:21

is the producer of producer of He turns

1:23

the knobs the knobs and does all all kinds

1:25

of good stuff. of good stuff. He also have

1:27

a YouTube YouTube channel where you do

1:29

a lot a lot gear, right? right? Yeah,

1:32

yeah, so I So I, I review.

1:34

microphones. I was doing some I

1:36

was doing some interfaces and stuff like that. much

1:38

pretty much just a microphone, some talking audio, getting

1:40

in the weeds about really nerdy stuff. nerdy

1:42

stuff. I love it. Honestly, it's a nice

1:44

creative outlet to be able to just

1:46

like... outlet to Make videos that I would want to

1:48

watch videos that I would really nerdy stuff.

1:50

about really, really it with great presentation,

1:52

by the way. great thank you. Which

1:54

should be no surprise you. Which should be no

1:56

surprise, you to be our producer.

1:58

hired you to be our producer. a good job

2:01

on your channel that I love watching your

2:03

videos when they pop up. Let's kick it

2:05

off with the audio stuff first and foremost.

2:07

I think this is a big thing for

2:09

people still to this day is Man, you

2:11

get on a call and they're just using

2:14

their laptop mic or just in general, maybe

2:16

they're being invited to be on a podcast

2:18

and they use their laptop mic or worse

2:20

their air pod mics, which are these little

2:22

tiny little tiny diaphrams inside of here. They

2:24

even have a diaphragm in there. It's like,

2:27

it's crazy. Very small. Yeah. So let's talk

2:29

audio. Give us the rundown, man. Yeah, so

2:31

I'm a big believer in learn the tools,

2:33

learn the tips, learn the sort of the

2:35

practical component of it, and actually the physics

2:37

of it as well, and that way you

2:40

can kind of figure out what rules you

2:42

want to break. Basically, you're informing yourself with

2:44

all the evidence, so you know which rules

2:46

you can break for your setup. And if

2:48

you're looking for learning all the info that

2:50

you can to break some rules, you might

2:52

want to check out century. Scott, I'll throw

2:55

that one over to you. Yeah. If you

2:57

want to break some rules in your code,

2:59

you just may end up with some bugs.

3:01

And then that can happen. And to solve

3:03

those bugs, you want to head on over

3:05

two century dot i.o./syntax. Sign up and get

3:08

two months for free. And let me tell

3:10

you, it gives you this perfect interface for

3:12

being able to not only find your bugs,

3:14

but also solve them. It lets you step

3:16

through them and lets you understand how many

3:18

people this is affecting, who specifically it's affecting.

3:21

You can even get a replay to see

3:23

how that error happened. It's just an amazing

3:25

tool all around. We use it every day

3:27

over here at Syntax. So check it out

3:29

sentry.io. We'll have the link in these show

3:31

notes. Is this the first time that the

3:34

guest has thrown out to you? Yes. Is

3:36

it hit? Yes, the radio is supposed to

3:38

make sure we get our sentry read in

3:40

there and if we forget, then he's chasing

3:42

us around for it. So he's not going

3:44

to have that in this episode. Yeah.

3:46

was that There a guest

3:49

who came to us

3:51

beforehand and said they

3:53

wanted to do it

3:55

they wanted to it and then

3:57

do not remember who

3:59

this was. I'm so

4:02

sorry. I'll try to

4:04

look it up see

4:06

if we can find I'll

4:08

try to that was hilarious

4:10

see if we can I'll add that to

4:12

the show notes as well. Uh, but yeah, let's

4:14

jump into the that crash show notes as well. But yeah,

4:17

biggest into that I could give people today,

4:19

the one thing that I hope they can

4:21

leave this episode with give people today. The

4:23

signal to noise ratio, this is like the

4:25

one thing that fixes. that I hope. just

4:28

abundance of audio issues. fixes things things

4:30

like in issues in your space,

4:32

audio issues with your equipment. It's

4:34

kind of of like the to audio

4:36

technology principle that we really like to

4:38

that we really like to noise ratio

4:40

is basically the ratio is basically your

4:43

voice in signal being your voice in most cases

4:45

or if you're recording music or something like that,

4:47

it's the instrument. And the

4:49

noise noise is everything else. else.

4:51

dogs barking down the street. It's the

4:53

barking down the street. It's the HVAC

4:55

going by. It's house. Even HVAC

4:57

system in your house, even

4:59

things like reflections within your space

5:01

will cause noise. And

5:04

then we have things like electronic noise too.

5:06

So these are things like not enough power to

5:08

your microphone. This is a really common one,

5:10

especially people who are using like who are using like

5:12

USB tend to tend to. be pretty

5:14

bad at at powering sometimes, so So sometimes

5:16

your microphone won't get enough draw. get cause a

5:18

hum in your audio. a hum in That's kind

5:20

of annoying. kind of other issues.

5:22

other issues, power, grounding issues, issues things like cell phones, So

5:24

things like cell up by picked up by

5:27

your microphone, that happens quite a lot

5:29

as well. as well. Yeah, remember the old days

5:31

days where you were here, did, did, -de did, did, did,

5:33

did, did, you get a phone call? a phone

5:35

That was the best. With old Motorola like

5:37

candy bar the bassist the bassist in my

5:39

band found out up the noise pickups, picked up the noise

5:41

up the from the phone the cell then

5:43

ran it through a he was like, ran it

5:45

through some reverb was like, he was it sound

5:47

like outer space noises. But noises. it

5:49

was, yeah, like, he was like, he was like, he was like,

5:51

phone. was he was like, he was that. was like, he

5:53

was guy that works on like, he was like, he

5:55

was like, he was sick. was He went on

5:57

to big things. like, he was like, he was like, he was

5:59

like personally, especially because we interview a

6:02

lot of people on here. One of

6:04

the big things with noise is, like

6:06

you mentioned, like HVAC or fans, right?

6:08

I feel like people don't realize that

6:10

that's something they should be turning off

6:12

or if you can, if you have

6:14

a loud HVAC. I used to turn

6:16

off the HVAC at my last house,

6:18

which was like 100 years old because

6:20

it was super noisy. And the insulation

6:22

was so bad I would just be

6:24

roasting while I was recording. But it

6:26

was worth it for the noise, right?

6:28

Yeah, well actually I have a preset

6:30

for your mini split that you have

6:32

on during the winter. So I flick

6:34

on a preset to get rid of

6:36

that. Yeah, I don't turn it off

6:38

in here because I would, yeah, it

6:41

would be a bad situation. But that's

6:43

interesting. So you have a preset in

6:45

what like a VST specifically, which D

6:47

noise are. Yeah, I use isotopes voice

6:49

denoise and basically what I do is

6:51

capture a second a section of silence

6:53

so whenever you're not speaking I'll capture

6:55

a section of that and then that

6:57

basically runs a it trains the tool

6:59

what the noise looks like and then

7:01

it will take that out of all

7:03

the parts that are your voice interesting

7:05

I use that on a lot of

7:07

videos when I well when I hear

7:09

it but usually I'm just putting it

7:11

on sort of a base level. Yeah

7:13

we've had a couple of guests that

7:15

are like they're recording from like a

7:17

bus shelter in like yeah I don't

7:20

know it's it's wild and it sounds

7:22

a lot better once it comes out

7:24

but like if you're hopping on a

7:26

zoom call you're not you're not running

7:28

that type of thing right you're just

7:30

yeah trying to get the best possible

7:32

input from a microphone right Yeah, and

7:34

that's the thing is like real-time plugins

7:36

aren't quite there yet with the quality

7:38

like there there's some good real-time denoisers

7:40

and stuff like that but they they

7:42

often add artifacts to your voice that

7:44

you just don't want and it's something

7:46

that you can't babysit while you're in

7:48

a call or something like that so

7:50

you're in a call or something like

7:52

that so I tend to run a

7:54

pretty often. There's know things

7:56

bouncing around ends

7:58

up being a bit

8:01

of a nightmare Yeah,

8:04

that's why people like to read like

8:06

it was come into like recording closet

8:08

with t -shirts hanging down or something like

8:10

that I actually I brought an old

8:12

couch into my office specifically to absorb

8:14

some selections, yeah,

8:17

my wife is a voice actor and she,

8:19

for the first two years of her

8:21

career, had like Microphone stands

8:23

set up beside her like as high

8:25

as they would go and then patio cushions.

8:28

Draped over it, like she yes, she legitimately

8:30

in like a five and a half foot tall

8:32

vocal booth. Yeah, well blanket

8:34

for it. It's not a vocal booth. It's

8:36

a blanket for it. Let's be real blanket

8:38

it Yeah, and she spent like two years

8:40

in this like no windows no daylight I

8:42

don't know how she did it, but it

8:45

sounded great, so. and to be clear. But

8:47

that's not for soundproofing, correct? Yeah,

8:49

yeah, and we'll go through that a little

8:52

bit more in just a minute here, but

8:54

cool with the the noise sort of what

8:56

we're going on with like the the sounds

8:58

around your house The baby crying in the other

9:00

room. Really the cheapest and most

9:02

effective way to eliminate that is just to

9:04

get closer to your microphone. It's kind

9:06

of the quickest, easiest fix. You can make

9:08

a really, really cheap microphone sound great by

9:10

getting rid on the thing. Yeah,

9:12

that's that's we often have. People have

9:14

really nice microphones and they're sitting like

9:16

this far back from it yeah, it's

9:19

have to tell them like, eat

9:21

the microphone or even like you go

9:23

to like a wedding or something like

9:25

that and people don't know how to

9:27

properly hold a microphone and I'm

9:29

always I like. hey like don't want to to

9:31

be that guy, but eat the microphone. Eat

9:33

the mic, yeah. Can't hear you. Yeah, I get

9:35

of it. know, it's so funny. My wife,

9:37

Courtney, was doing our school's auction, which is like

9:39

a big deal for public schools, right? She

9:41

She was like the co -chair of the auction.

9:44

So she had to speak and she was on

9:46

stage with the chair of the auction. She

9:48

was like, do you have any tips for me

9:50

for the microphone? I was like, yeah, eat

9:52

the mic. Get like real close to the mic.

9:54

And if you see your chair holding it

9:56

out, like let her know as well. Like,

9:58

make sure she knows that. there's like

10:00

speakers all the time they hold

10:02

it way far away away the

10:04

guys got to turn up the gain then

10:06

you you get feedback or whatever or

10:09

whatever a venue in a venue trying to

10:11

speak trying to speak, and you're I just I just

10:13

want to go up to him and be be like or

10:15

that the feedback I just just want to go

10:17

up to them and be to him and just

10:19

get the bike closer. closer Yeah, well, their their

10:21

inclination is is hear the feedback, they

10:23

pull the bike even further away. It's

10:25

like, no, no, the mic even further you. like, no, Yeah,

10:27

get nice and they're Now, if

10:30

we have electrical noise, like

10:32

we're talking about get loops, power

10:34

issues, have RF in your signal,

10:36

these are way harder ground loops, power issues,

10:38

power fix I know West we had some troubles

10:40

with your not with your audio But with your camera

10:42

for a long time which we thought was coming

10:44

from a hub power down this issues, or

10:46

rabbit hole of trying to figure out

10:48

if it's getting the right power, a

10:50

if it's the right cable, from a hub,

10:52

from Amazon constantly and swapping cables,

10:54

it's just a nightmare. cables. It's just a nightmare. Yeah.

10:56

No, doing that type of stuff, but

10:58

stuff. But I'll tell I'll don't cheap

11:00

out on cables and don't cheap

11:02

out a powered hub or if you have some like

11:04

if you have some like crappy little

11:06

plug -in hub that doesn't even plug

11:08

into power get a Get a good one,

11:11

because that will eliminate a lot of

11:13

your random issues that seem to pop up.

11:15

pop up. Totally. Now the next

11:17

thing is thing is the the advantage of getting nice

11:19

and close to your microphone, which is the

11:21

proximity effect. And so this is something

11:23

that we use in audio to bring out some of that

11:25

warmth. It's kind of how you get that radio sound. that This

11:27

happens more specifically on dynamic microphones. sound. as

11:30

you get nice and close, it sounds like

11:32

that. on radio show as you

11:34

back away. you get you start to lose some

11:36

of that low end, you start to lose some of that high

11:38

end, and it sounds a little bit more thin. nice and nice and

11:40

close, you're gonna get that really, really rich tone. rich

11:42

tone. The pit falls with with proximity are

11:44

that that you often get plosives and

11:46

sibilants. And so And so are are the

11:48

annoying peas that you them on hear them on

11:50

like church all the all the time with

11:52

the big. p p p p p p p. It It sounds

11:55

absolutely awful to listen to. to. If you you

11:57

just turn the microphone a little bit off to the

11:59

side. the side to really. really good way

12:01

to avoid that as well. Oh interesting

12:03

so you're just like like kind of

12:05

to the side of your mouth is

12:07

ideal so you don't get the because

12:09

a plus of comes from the actual

12:11

the wind coming out of your mouth.

12:13

Yeah exactly yeah and it also helps

12:15

with the siblings so siblings is like

12:17

the sharp ses when you turn the

12:19

microphone off axis slightly. The audio waves

12:21

leaving, well the, yeah, the sound we've

12:24

leaving your mouth don't have enough physical

12:26

energy to bounce off the diaphragm if

12:28

the diaphragm is sideways. So if you

12:30

put it slightly to the side or

12:32

just off kilter a little bit, it

12:34

will remove some of that sharpness as

12:36

well. So I usually have my microphone

12:38

kind of just coming in from the

12:40

side just to sort of warm up

12:42

the sound a little bit. Yeah, nice.

12:44

Big believer in placement is the most

12:46

important thing that you can do. So

12:48

if you get your placement set up

12:51

of your microphone first, that's kind of

12:53

the first step before deciding do I

12:55

need to go out and invest by

12:57

acoustic panels or anything like that. So

12:59

I always try to set the placement

13:01

of the microphone first and then jump

13:03

into the sound treatment after that. And

13:05

Scott, you're chatting about this. You were

13:07

talking about this sound treatment versus sound

13:09

proofing and how they're two very, very

13:11

different things. And it's really frustrating because

13:13

if you go on Amazon and type

13:15

in sound proofing, you get all sorts

13:18

of these like little Amazon panels that

13:20

are just these little foam panels that

13:22

you just stick to your wall. Yeah,

13:24

thin foam, yeah, and they're enticing because

13:26

they're so cheap. Yeah, you get like

13:28

12 of them for 50 bucks, yeah.

13:30

Those do work because they're not sound

13:32

proofing, right? They will absorb echo and

13:34

reverb that's in your room, right? Totally,

13:36

totally, yeah. It's just tough when people

13:38

want sound proofing. This really requires construction,

13:40

it requires mass, it requires changing materials,

13:42

like the sound physically has to go

13:44

through different materials to be absorbed, so

13:47

that's why when you go to like

13:49

a movie theater, if you were to

13:51

look at a cross section of the

13:53

walls between movie theaters, they have like

13:55

brick and then metal and then drywall

13:57

and then green glue, drywall, like all

13:59

of these materials. help absorb that sound

14:01

and continuously, and then air gaps too,

14:03

to actually make little pockets where the

14:05

air will vibrate in between and dissipate

14:07

in there before going to do another

14:09

material. You need so much mass to

14:11

stop sound, especially low frequencies that these

14:14

little foam panels aren't going to do

14:16

anything. And I threw something in our

14:18

little run sheet here. This is a

14:20

bit nerdy, so buckle up. This is

14:22

called the quarter wavelength rule, which is

14:24

basically that all of sound waves look

14:26

like, we can draw them out like

14:28

sign waves, so they would look like,

14:30

you know, they go up and then

14:32

they go down. That's sort of the

14:34

cycle. If you think of like a

14:36

beach ball, sitting in the water in

14:38

the ocean, the beach ball is almost

14:40

still for about 75% of the wave.

14:43

Until the wave comes by and moves

14:45

it a couple of feet, and then

14:47

it just sits there again for a

14:49

few more seconds. So as a wave

14:51

goes by, there's only a short part

14:53

of that wave that actually has velocity,

14:55

and we need velocity to turn sound

14:57

energy into heat energy with the acoustic

14:59

panels. So we basically need acoustic panels

15:01

that are about a quarter of the

15:03

wavelength that we're trying to get rid

15:05

of. which is crazy because if you

15:07

think those acoustic panels that you'd buy

15:10

from Amazon, those would be good at

15:12

stopping high frequencies like 15 kilohertz and

15:14

above. So like the top end of

15:16

the human audible spectrum, like the S's

15:18

and the T's, that's why they sound

15:20

good for like if you clap, you

15:22

don't hear as much of that like

15:24

shrill sound bouncing back and forth. Oh,

15:26

okay. But it's doing absolutely nothing for

15:28

your low end. Because if we were

15:30

to take like, let's say, 120 hertz

15:32

sign wave, so a note that's like,

15:34

kind of in the middle low end

15:37

of my voice, that wave is like

15:39

three meters long. So a quarter of

15:41

that, we'd need like a, you know,

15:43

a two and a half foot thick

15:45

acoustic panel to be able to stop

15:47

that frequency. It's just like unfeasible. Wow.

15:49

Yeah, so low end is like you

15:51

could put mattresses on your wall and

15:53

start to make a difference. It's really

15:55

really difficult to stop low end. So

15:57

if you have issues in your space

15:59

like There's a garbage truck that comes by every

16:01

Friday and it's super noisy super I can't get it

16:03

out of my microphone. out of my You're stuck

16:06

with that. with that like yeah short of

16:08

rebuilding the room, there's nothing you

16:10

can do. you can do I hate

16:12

to say that because it

16:14

sounds discouraging. As someone who did

16:16

did rebuild room, I can tell

16:18

you, tell back to to 516, syntax out

16:20

of M4 slash 516, I built this

16:22

whole office and it is essentially the

16:25

walls walls and the ceiling

16:27

the the HVAC is

16:29

everything is like decoupled. from

16:31

the with the, it's hilarious, the the exception

16:33

of the windows. We have nobody behind

16:35

us, so I don't have to

16:37

worry about outside noise, but. worry

16:39

They're working on cutting some trees down

16:42

in the forest behind us right now,

16:44

so down in might. I might

16:46

hear it, but so it's hear

16:48

all of nuts. All of the. You cannot

16:50

just buy stuff and slap it

16:52

on and make it it sound proof. You can

16:54

absorb the sounds, and I got rid of

16:56

a lot of echo that way, but I literally

16:58

had way, but I Hang the ceiling

17:00

down. ceiling and made sure that

17:02

there was not a single screw

17:05

going into the going into the above, is

17:07

it, the it, the above the... Yeah. They that

17:09

a room within a room a room you

17:12

know, there are some things

17:14

you can do, I think, do,

17:16

to reduce. reduce, like, reduce super

17:19

loud sounds. Would like if you

17:21

have an air gap right, right,

17:23

door your door has an air

17:25

gap underneath it. it. Man just coming

17:27

right in there. Or even if

17:29

you have really crappy have really thin

17:31

doors, thin you could replace those with

17:33

heavier thicker doors and put like

17:35

sweeps on that to help. to

17:37

For me, the biggest things that

17:39

I always had a trouble with

17:41

in the past was had really super

17:43

old windows that were not quiet

17:46

at all. And we had really

17:48

loud venting system. you could hear

17:50

throughout the whole house. And nothing you

17:52

could do. do about the venting

17:54

system besides building a sound trap,

17:56

the the windows you would have

17:58

to replace. But again, if going

18:00

through all these lengths. You might be

18:02

wondering, like, if it makes more sense,

18:05

just buy like a vocal booth. They

18:07

make these things like studio bricks. And

18:09

they're not cheap by any means. But

18:11

if you're professional and you need professional

18:13

sound and you can't read to your

18:15

room. Yeah, my wife has one. Which

18:17

one? We have the studio bricks vocal

18:20

addition. Oh, you do have the studio

18:22

bricks. Yeah, yeah, it's the actual studio

18:24

bricks voiceover edition. And so it's like,

18:26

I want to say five feet by

18:28

three feet. And it's yeah, it's double

18:30

walled. It's really thick like the door

18:32

is probably 350 pounds. It's just significant

18:35

chunky thing. But it looks great and

18:37

it sounds great. And it's kind of

18:39

a perfect marriage between sound proofing and

18:41

sound treatment because. It's sound-proofed really well

18:43

from the outside, like 45 decibels of

18:45

reduction, which is really nice. But then

18:47

it also has a really nice sound

18:50

treatment inside to make it not sound

18:52

like a little box. This is actually

18:54

one of the challenges with those Amazon

18:56

panels, for instance. If you were to

18:58

go buy a thousand of them, cover

19:00

your entire space with these Amazon panels,

19:02

what's going to happen is you're going

19:05

to have no top end in the

19:07

reflections only. And so a recording is

19:09

really the source plus the reflections. And

19:11

so if your reflections are coming back

19:13

and they have no top end in

19:15

them, now your recording just sounds really

19:17

woofy and muffled. Like it's going to

19:20

start to sound a little bit just

19:22

disproportionately muddy. And so it really is

19:24

about kind of balancing, understanding how they

19:26

work and then balancing that in your

19:28

space. I bought some GTK, I believe

19:30

is the brand, panels and they're not

19:32

like, they're not like foam panels or

19:35

whatever. They are boxes. They are thick

19:37

boxes, audio foam in them, hard constructed,

19:39

and the most important ones for me

19:41

are the corner ones because, well, the

19:43

corners can create some crazy reflections, right?

19:45

Yeah. I had that. Can I tell

19:47

you what my problem? Maybe I can...

19:50

my camera right here if you can

19:52

see above me you see I have

19:54

this little lip above my desk and

19:56

I would spend all this time on

19:58

my sound-proof office and when I sat

20:00

right here I got a resonance, like

20:02

a hum in my ear. I couldn't

20:05

pick it up in the thing and

20:07

it was just like, mmm, coming back

20:09

at me and it was so annoying

20:11

and it was because I was sitting

20:13

in the exact spot. So I ended

20:15

up putting, I just bought some like

20:17

really thick felt and I cut them

20:20

and put them at an angle and

20:22

it sounds so much better. Oh, that's

20:24

awesome. The ones I have were G-I-K

20:26

by the way, not G-T-K. Okay, sick.

20:28

Yeah, so Scott, you're mentioning corners are

20:30

really bad. They can be awful. Also,

20:32

direct reflections are a good spot to

20:35

start. So if you are thinking, hey,

20:37

my space sounds a little bit echoy,

20:39

a good way to think of this

20:41

is think of your mouth as a

20:43

laser pointer and all of the walls

20:45

as mirrors and whatever would be the

20:47

first bounce back from your source. So.

20:50

In my case, I have speakers on

20:52

my desk and I want to sound

20:54

proof those so that I'm not getting

20:56

reflections off my walls. So thinking of

20:58

the speakers as the laser pointer, I

21:00

want to do the first wall on

21:02

my left, the first wall on my

21:05

right, my desk even is a massive

21:07

source of reflections. The ceiling above me

21:09

is a little bit of a source.

21:11

I don't care about anything behind me

21:13

because once the sound goes back there,

21:15

it's hitting the walls, it's hitting the

21:17

things I got in the back of

21:20

the back of the room. By the

21:22

time, those reflections, those reflections get back

21:24

of the reflections get back of the

21:26

reflections get back to me. they're diffused

21:28

enough. It's just sort of these first

21:30

reflections that are really the ones that

21:32

are causing issues. So that's a good

21:35

place to start. Yeah, and there's a,

21:37

like you said, with the stuff behind

21:39

you, right, it's hitting all that stuff.

21:41

If you've ever been in an empty

21:43

room, you've moved all of your furniture

21:45

and you clap, it sounds crazy in

21:48

there. So like that is, that is

21:50

the same scenario. Yeah. You put your

21:52

stuff in, it sounds very different. It

21:54

sounds very different. when I I

21:56

built my office

21:58

at the cottage, I

22:00

put all this tongue

22:03

groove paneling in. and I

22:05

basically built a built a wooden box and

22:07

it sounds great in there. I have no

22:09

treatments at all and I'm wondering if it's

22:11

because because of the tongue and groove all these little

22:13

indentations in them, and are the

22:15

sound waves hitting that? hitting that. Yeah,

22:17

that could could help i think I

22:19

think probably the The main win with that

22:21

space would just be the fact that

22:23

it's wood, because wood is a relatively a

22:25

relatively material. material. it's

22:27

probably doing a little bit to absorb

22:29

it. bit general, it. In in the shape

22:31

are really gonna help. are really you look

22:34

at the back of a recording studio,

22:36

have, a usually on the back wall, have

22:38

what's called a usually on the back which is

22:40

like have what's called a wall? which is like a

22:42

a a how do I describe this

22:44

for the audio this for the audio listener? a

22:46

A bunch of vertical panels that are

22:48

all really thin. spaced maybe be about

22:50

an inch apart and there are varying depths, so some might

22:52

be like eight inches deep, some might be a foot deep. some

22:54

might be a might be like some might be like these

22:57

are actually built based are actually built

22:59

really specific calculations that determine... that

23:02

to properly to properly Catch the sound and

23:04

break it apart and scatter it. it. This is

23:06

is called diffusion in audio. we want

23:08

to basically take those really

23:10

high pressure sound waves and then disperse them

23:12

in the room them in the room evenly

23:14

come they don't come back as an

23:16

actual reflection. Yeah, and and they're they're really

23:18

cool But they're really really Yeah, I thought

23:20

they I thought they were just That's cool. They

23:23

look awesome, too. Yeah. Yeah yeah, irregularities definitely

23:25

help. Any sort of odd shapes,

23:27

just just to, you You just want to avoid

23:29

avoid four straight walls. That can

23:31

be really difficult for soundproofing or for sound treatment.

23:34

A question that I hear a

23:36

lot too A about the good old

23:38

too is crates. good old-fashioned work

23:40

for? egg crates work treatment. sound

23:42

treatment? They do have some

23:44

irregular characteristics to them in that

23:46

they them an interesting shape. an

23:48

So the shape may work to

23:50

do some level of diffusion. diffusion,

23:53

But the answer is answer Your

23:55

egg crates are doing literally nothing

23:57

for your sound. your sound. reasons because

23:59

of because of this. a friend in

24:01

high school that worked in a kitchen

24:03

and he would save up egg crates

24:05

from like their Sunday brunch and he'd

24:07

bring home like two or three at

24:09

a time. And he did his whole

24:11

drum shed out in his backyard. He

24:13

brought me, he's like, yo dude, look,

24:16

it's like completely soundproof. And I didn't

24:18

have the heart to break it to

24:20

them, but there are two reasons why

24:22

egg crates don't do anything. So one,

24:24

the material is pretty thin, so we

24:26

know we're only affecting, yeah, we're really

24:28

only affecting frequencies like 16 or 17K

24:30

above, which people in our, you know,

24:32

in our 30s, we probably don't even

24:34

hear 17K and above at this point.

24:37

So. If it was affecting anything, it's

24:39

such a small, small fraction. And then

24:41

if you think of the absorption coefficient

24:43

of that material, it's not very absorptive,

24:45

it's, you know, recycled cardboard, it's decent,

24:47

it's just, it's gonna do nothing for

24:49

your sound. So while it may look

24:51

cool to have egg crates plastered all

24:53

of your wall, it's just not that

24:56

effective. may look cool. You know what

24:58

we did in high school is we

25:00

got some like carpet padding from a

25:02

construction site, some thick old carpet padding,

25:04

and then we hung sheets of it

25:06

from the ceiling in my basement, which

25:08

probably did absolutely nothing. It might have

25:10

cut down on. just a tiny bit

25:12

of reflections or something who did not

25:15

do anything. But we thought it was

25:17

doing something at the time being, you

25:19

know, 16. Yeah, yeah, awesome. One last

25:21

thing before we get into the video

25:23

stuff, USB mics or an XLR mic

25:25

with an interface. I think that's something

25:27

just about a lot of people ask

25:29

us. Up until this week, my opinion

25:31

on this has been very divided. I'm

25:33

reviewing a microphone right now that I'm

25:36

really stoked about. It's the sure MV6.

25:38

I'll link that in the show notes.

25:40

So USP microphones are way more efficient.

25:42

You plug in a USBC to your

25:44

computer and you're set to go. That's

25:46

it. You can even plug your headphones

25:48

into the microphone, which is great. So

25:50

you don't need a fancy sound card

25:52

or anything like that. You plug your

25:55

microphone in, you're off to the races.

25:57

You're off to the races. especially

25:59

when you pair

26:01

that you pair that good signal -to

26:03

-noise ratio. We actually had

26:05

Taylor on this last week, this

26:07

and in his episode, he

26:10

He had a $30 microphone from

26:12

Target. and the And the things sounded awesome.

26:14

And it's because It's because he's

26:16

holding the microphone right on his

26:18

face. on He's eating the mic

26:20

and it's a and it's a microphone. microphone. I actually

26:23

I actually want to check out that microphone for my

26:25

channel my channel because I was really impressed with how

26:27

it sounded. it sounded. I to avoid try to

26:29

microphone because you get massive handheld noise get

26:31

I didn't hear it in noise, but I didn't

26:33

hear it in I'm pretty impressed with

26:35

that impressed with that $30 target I think I

26:38

think for the vast majority of people listening to

26:40

this people listening to this podcast. or listening

26:42

to this is gonna be more than

26:44

adequate for any of your needs. for any

26:46

of I don't think having a dedicated

26:48

interface is. interface is... necessary

26:50

these days, you although you will get a

26:52

slight bump in quality when you switch

26:55

to a dedicated interface. It's just the

26:57

separating the components into two different dedicated

26:59

parts. They're both doing their both doing their

27:01

get significantly better quality, but. quality.

27:03

Are you going to notice this over a Google Meet this

27:05

over a Google not. Probably not. Dope. Thanks

27:07

Let's get into the video section then

27:09

we can talk about can talk about packages

27:11

you've put together for us. for us. Sick?

27:13

Yeah, so video, it's funny, you know, funny,

27:16

you work know, when you work with they log

27:18

into they call into their call. using

27:20

they're using their webcam and it's and it's pointed

27:22

up at the sky all you all you

27:24

see is the top of their face

27:26

and then feet of headroom above them. above

27:29

them. Just take a Take a second

27:31

to - camera in the put your camera in the right

27:33

spot. So the first section I have here is

27:35

which which is just getting yourself framed nicely within

27:37

the shot. You know, You within know, you shot. want to

27:39

have sort of a medium close up, close up, of

27:41

space above your head. your head. You don't need to

27:43

go down as far as your waist or anything

27:45

like that, but just like want to look nice and

27:47

centered within your shot. centered within good

27:49

rule of thumb is to have the camera to

27:51

have relatively at eye at eye level. Some people like

27:54

to shoot from a little bit above or

27:56

a little bit below. bit below. it

27:58

does get challenging challenging as from

28:00

home setup, when you're balancing monitors. And I

28:02

know Wes, you had challenges with this, like,

28:05

where the heck does the camera go? Because

28:07

I have this monitor, I love this monitor,

28:09

I have that one, I love that one,

28:11

I love that. There's not a space for

28:14

my camera, unless it's like way up there,

28:16

just pointing straight down at me. So that

28:18

can be really, really challenging. It's gonna be

28:20

one of those things you have to do,

28:23

sort of prioritize. What's the most important thing

28:25

to you, is it, is, is, is, you,

28:27

you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you,

28:29

Yeah, it's it's a never ending like thing.

28:32

Actually, right now I'm testing out this Ben

28:34

Q monitor, which is 3-2 aspect ratio. So

28:36

it's square. And I don't know if you

28:39

notice or not, but my camera is much

28:41

more in front of me. Usually I'm a

28:43

bit more angled. And it's because like I'm

28:45

not playing the camera on top of it.

28:48

I'm not slamming my monitor down super low

28:50

so that the camera doesn't look too high,

28:52

but it, but then also it's wide as

28:54

well, you know, it's, and also some people

28:57

put the camera right in front of them

28:59

and then do two monitors on either side

29:01

and like, hmm, all day you're, you're looking

29:03

to the, the side in your, you're, yeah,

29:06

let me say Wes. So I don't have

29:08

my camera set up in the middle and

29:10

I only have one monitor. I took a

29:13

photo of it we can include in the

29:15

show notes. My camera is right here, obviously.

29:17

My monitor is right to the side of

29:19

it. So my monitor is like right here

29:22

and it isn't directly over the top of

29:24

my laptop, but it's pretty dang close. And

29:26

to me, that is not like, I'm not

29:28

turning my head, I'm like almost shifting my

29:31

whole body when I'm working. So it doesn't

29:33

like feel like I'm here to here, but

29:35

again, I don't have two monitors or whatever.

29:37

And my camera is not directly in the

29:40

middle. My camera is positioned off to the

29:42

left. My monitor is positioned slowly off to

29:44

the right. And so right now I'm like

29:47

staring into my monitor right now. It works

29:49

for me. I'll include a photo of it

29:51

in the show notes. Sweet. Yeah, I think

29:53

for a lot of people. It's just. the

29:56

last thing they think about. They get their

29:58

whole set up ready to go, they're working,

30:00

they're happy, and then they gotta get on

30:02

a call, and they're looking, or go up,

30:05

which camera am I using? Either it's the

30:07

one on their monitor, on their laptop, it

30:09

can be really tough. So just a little

30:11

bit of thought into positioning yourself nicely in

30:14

the frame, goes a really long way. And

30:16

then when we move into lighting, I would

30:18

say windows are your best friend. Definitely try

30:21

to get a window either beside you or

30:23

in front of you. I have a massive

30:25

window off to my left side here and

30:27

so if I were to not have my

30:30

light on, I would look pretty backlit which

30:32

isn't ideal because then it lowers the contrast

30:34

of the video, makes you look a little

30:36

bit washed out on camera. So I have

30:39

a massive light right in front of me

30:41

here to kind of make me pop out

30:43

a little bit from the backdrop. But if

30:45

I didn't have a light, I would probably

30:48

end up turning my desk more towards the

30:50

window just to get a bit of that

30:52

natural light coming in. So you want either

30:54

the Rembrandt lighting, which means coming in slightly

30:57

from the side, or direct flat lighting, is

30:59

another sort of easy win. And it looks

31:01

good all the time. It'll look nice on

31:04

calls. I would say just avoid the back

31:06

lighting. Is somebody, can they just like get

31:08

like a lamp or something like that or

31:10

should they be getting like a key light

31:13

or are we going to talk about that?

31:15

Yeah, we'll get into some of the stuff

31:17

that you can buy. I think like, yeah,

31:19

you use what you have. It doesn't need

31:22

to be fancy. Modern day cameras, especially cameras

31:24

built into your like computer tend to be

31:26

really good at correcting for white balance and

31:28

stuff like that. So you turn on a

31:31

bright orange lamp beside you and it's going

31:33

to make you look natural no matter what.

31:35

So definitely use what you have on hand.

31:38

I have a question. You said no backlighting.

31:40

I actually do have a backlight right here.

31:42

Is that a problem? Well you have a

31:44

$4,000 camera. Yes, I do. Yeah, you

31:46

have a super super nice camera. I actually have a

31:49

back light behind me as well. So I'm breaking my

31:51

own rule. But I'm doing it in a way that's

31:53

saying now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just giving me

31:55

this glow on the side of my face. And if

31:57

I a dark shirt, it'll

31:59

kind of separate you from

32:01

the backdrop. of separate you from the that

32:03

But I'm rule. the I wouldn't

32:05

just have a backlight. backlight. Okay,

32:07

so yeah, the same same goes along with knowing the

32:09

rules before you break them. I do feel

32:11

like like that such a big thing that people

32:13

underestimate, especially if they're if know

32:15

trying. I know, trying to have a professional

32:18

setup, but to have a have a good setup,

32:20

I think everybody underestimates have a good I

32:22

have a huge natural window here, but

32:24

I also have a light here, a

32:26

light here, a two a lights, and then

32:28

a back and then a back light. Just to to fill

32:30

this space. I know that these two

32:33

are just for color effects, back lights

32:35

to pull me off, off But one thing

32:37

that really hard because you didn't you didn't

32:39

touch on this with this with people with with glasses.

32:41

Oh if I have the light the light in front

32:43

of me it looks like this if you're

32:45

looking my eyes eyes you can't even see

32:47

my eyes the the reflections are so bad

32:49

there's even like a glass door in front

32:51

of me that I have to cover

32:53

up because otherwise so for for me I

32:55

have to do to do one key then

32:58

like one over here then then just not

33:00

turn my head in the the of

33:02

the the lights. Oh, that's great. that's great. West,

33:04

what do you have for your your

33:06

setup? For my lights, I just have

33:08

a have a single light. I don't know what it

33:10

is. It's like one of these big, one

33:12

of these big square key lights, I I guess you would call

33:14

it. call it. And I just, I have have

33:16

that on a little button right here. here.

33:19

and I hit the button and I can

33:21

turn it off right now. right now. that's off.

33:23

off. And there it

33:25

goes on. It's very It's very subtle, but

33:27

it kind of just fills out my

33:29

face. It's a little it looks good. It's a

33:31

little further back right now just because I'm playing

33:33

around with my monitors. I'm usually a bit closer. bit

33:35

I don't like it at all at all, because it

33:37

too bright. too bright. It hurts my eyes, I but I have

33:39

it on anytime I'm filming a video and then

33:41

I just hit the button to turn it off.

33:43

button to turn it off. Yeah. a treat for people on video.

33:45

I'll turn off all three of my lights at

33:47

of three is the key at my lights at once. So that's

33:50

without the the light. This is

33:52

without the fill and then this is then

33:54

this is without the light Which the backlet's

33:56

really getting a getting a lot of the of

33:58

head. this a very camera

34:01

that does very well with low light

34:03

and crap. And it's, but it looks

34:05

so much better with your lights at

34:07

it on. Yeah. And this is, I

34:09

have a full big window open right

34:11

here. Yeah. And I have like a

34:14

great low light performance camera. Yeah. And

34:16

then you turn it all back on.

34:18

Tada. It looks so much better. Yeah.

34:20

And this will make, that impact will

34:22

be tenfold on a, you know, a

34:24

worse camera. One quick thing about lighting

34:27

if you are looking into getting some

34:29

lights. We'll talk about the different packages

34:31

later. Panels are great because they're just,

34:33

it's just a box shooting light into

34:35

your space. You can use them to

34:37

sort of bounce light off your walls,

34:40

just to sort of fake a window.

34:42

I wouldn't look into ring lights because

34:44

ring lights are a weird thing to

34:46

me because they sort of got a

34:48

ton of hype. But they're really for

34:50

like macro photography. Like that's where like

34:53

macro photography. Like that's where they come.

34:55

completely lit all the way around it.

34:57

If you're putting a ring light four

34:59

feet away from you, it's not providing

35:01

the effect of a ring light. So

35:03

ring lights get so much hype on

35:05

like TikTok and stuff like that, but

35:08

a panel is going to do probably

35:10

a better job because you have more

35:12

fixtures in it generally. I wanted to

35:14

spell the hype behind ring lights a

35:16

little bit. Yeah, and it gets to

35:18

the weird eyeballs too. Yeah, you get

35:21

the weird eyeballs. I was at a

35:23

dance battle, Randy, and it was like

35:25

semi outside. It was very bright. And

35:27

a guy filming had like the whole

35:29

ring light and camera inside the middle

35:31

on this little deck. Like, bro, that

35:34

is not doing anything. Like, what is

35:36

it? What's the plan here? You're competing

35:38

with the sun. Yeah, right, yeah. Let's

35:40

chat cameras for a second. So this

35:42

is another one of those things that

35:44

is a big sort of belief in

35:46

mind is that resolution is like, it's

35:49

the it's the last thing you should

35:51

be prioritizing when you're looking for a

35:53

camera. Everybody says, hey, cotton 4K, cotton

35:55

4K, you know, oh, this guy did

35:57

this, he caught in 4K. Tiktok is

35:59

entirely 1080. So no one's on Tiktok

36:02

getting cotton, 4K. Yeah, you can. couple

36:04

of 4K video, it's going to down

36:06

sample that video to 1080. So it's

36:08

just 4K. Cotton 4K. Cotton 4K is

36:10

like a meme when somebody did something

36:12

and they've been caught doing it. People

36:15

say if it's been filmed on their

36:17

phone camera or something that they've been

36:19

caught in 4K. Yeah. Yeah, cotton 4K,

36:21

yeah, like cotton candy. Yeah, so it's

36:23

just, it's a funny thing, like everybody

36:25

really, really stresses about 4K, and we

36:27

record this podcast in 1080, and like,

36:30

1080 is totally fine. You're not hurting

36:32

anybody by filming in 1080 or getting

36:34

a 1080 webcam, especially if the price

36:36

is, is... Obviously it can be much

36:38

cheaper. So resolution, least important thing, I

36:40

always say 720P camera with really good

36:43

lighting will look way better than 4K

36:45

done poorly. And not all 4Ks are

36:47

created equally. So in one of my

36:49

first weeks working with Syntax, I went

36:51

over to Wes's house and we were

36:53

checking out different streaming services and how

36:56

they would how they would treat your

36:58

camera feed. And Codex are hugely important

37:00

in how good the image quality looks.

37:02

Like we looked at, we must have

37:04

checked up six or seven different services.

37:06

And there were really, really bad ones

37:09

and really good ones. And it was

37:11

the same feed being sent to all

37:13

of them. So Codex is definitely hugely

37:15

important. Yeah, it's crazy the bit rate

37:17

that some of them were so aggressive

37:19

with the bit rate and there would

37:21

just like specifically this blue sound panel

37:24

behind me I would have banding on

37:26

it because there's a slight ingredient on

37:28

it and the ones that were more

37:30

aggressive with the lower bit rate presumably

37:32

to save money on storage fees, but

37:34

you could you could definitely see it.

37:37

Yeah, even even tweaking my OBS setup

37:39

for, because I've been recording primarily on

37:41

OBS now, man, just turn in the

37:43

knobs on. of those

37:45

things Kodak, bitrate all

37:47

this stuff made

37:50

such a huge impact

37:52

You'd make one

37:54

small change You know

37:56

it would look

37:58

terrible Then you'd make

38:00

another small change

38:02

and ten minutes of

38:05

video would be

38:07

ten gigabytes, and you're

38:09

like what is

38:11

the FB here Yeah,

38:14

and then so, thing to think, 30,

38:17

60 frames, most people are feeling... either

38:19

30 or 60 frames right now. It doesn't really matter

38:21

for your calls or anything like that. If you're

38:23

looking for a webcam, I would just look for one

38:25

that looks good, check a lot of YouTube reviews

38:27

because that's gonna give you. a good idea

38:29

of how they perform, especially in low light

38:31

or changing light, that's another big one. if

38:34

a cloud comes over your house, is the

38:36

camera gonna auto correct to the right exposure

38:38

for you? So I would say

38:40

if you're looking for a specific camera for

38:42

your setup, you don't want to use the internal

38:44

baked webcam. definitely just do a bit of

38:46

YouTube research. It's going to be one of the best tools. Should

38:49

we to packages let's talk about these

38:51

packages. yeah. so I've yeah, Let's talk

38:53

about these packages Randy, Yes, I've been

38:55

waiting for you to talk about these

38:57

packages yeah. West titled this episode How

38:59

to look good and sound good for

39:01

ten dollars a hundred dollars and a

39:03

thousand dollars $10 is

39:05

really tough. I would say if you're trying to

39:07

look and sound good for 10 bucks, go get yourself

39:09

a coffee from Starbucks and then just get really

39:11

close to your microphone. That's

39:13

the whole tip for 10 bucks. This is not a lot

39:16

that you can do. You got

39:18

a lamp From your bedroom? You

39:20

get, hang up maybe

39:22

some t -shirts around your

39:25

desk. Yeah, yeah. Cause

39:27

like good lighting, right? Like you use

39:29

the MacBook Pro webcam. put

39:31

a couple nice lamps on your face.

39:33

How about this? Throw

39:35

a t -shirt underneath your keyboard so you don't

39:37

have the vibrations going through. How

39:39

about this instead of a couple of nice

39:42

lamps on your face, you face, can just turn,

39:44

you can open up a webpage and put

39:46

like a, a yellowish orangeish color at full

39:48

and just get your monitor nice and your

39:50

light mode. Yeah. Oh, that's great. All All

39:52

right, so like changed this a little

39:54

bit to a $50 package, $150 package,

39:57

and then you're sort of like $500,

39:59

$2 ,000, like you're, big you want

40:01

to really deck out your deck out your

40:03

the for the package, a couple couple of

40:05

different microphones that I've tested myself

40:07

and really enjoyed sort of around

40:09

the sort of $70. to $70 price point, I

40:11

should say I this say. we're not

40:13

even In this $50 package, we're not even

40:15

talking cameras. Use your webcam, use the internal one in

40:17

in your laptop, or or if you have a

40:19

external monitor that has one. that has one, cameras

40:21

bucks, they're just. just...

40:24

it's just not gonna work. going to

40:26

work. So the fieldworld is a USB and

40:28

XLR and XLR because

40:30

you can It's really great because you

40:32

can either go upgrading down the road if you

40:34

feel like upgrading down the road and getting an interface,

40:36

an you can get an audio interface with an XLR

40:38

cable and you're gonna get that sort of. of

40:40

that nice graduation into the next

40:42

step of audio quality. quality. So I

40:44

like recommending tools that won't limit

40:47

people in the long run. long run. So feel

40:49

is a good option. a good The The Phi Fine

40:51

K 68 is is another great option, it's about

40:53

70 bucks. 70 That's probably one of the

40:55

most popular. of the most popular USB

40:57

and XLR combination microphones on

40:59

Amazon's on Amazon. It looks Yeah, looks

41:01

nice. it only. nice. My only My only with

41:03

that microphone is that is that the. the

41:06

handling noise is awful, so if you are

41:08

one of the people who want to plug

41:10

in your headphones plug in the microphone into microphone you move,

41:12

if was like I was this on my channel, I was

41:14

moving my head. I was moving my head

41:16

plugged in? And you could hear every

41:18

time I every so. I shifted so Maybe

41:21

plug into your laptop with your headphones and

41:23

just use the microphone, try not to touch

41:25

it. that's going to work a lot better

41:27

for you. I was always having an issue of

41:29

just bumping you. I was desk or my

41:31

mic or anything. I had

41:33

to like my how I or my mic

41:35

or anything. I had The one thing

41:37

with the I acted. So yeah. The one thing with

41:40

the Fuel like one is it's RGB the

41:42

gamers. attract It's awful for continuity

41:44

if you want to make a

41:46

cut if your video make a cut in

41:48

your video because it does. It shows that I don't

41:50

think think that like very professional, you know, you

41:52

the same thing when you get on a

41:54

meeting with somebody on a they have like

41:56

a gamer chair, like one of those baby

41:58

chair like one of those baby car chairs. baby cars he chairs, oh

42:01

man. Yeah, I have a microphone right beside the Sure SM,

42:03

what is this, MV6? This is the one that I was

42:05

talking about earlier. There's no RGB on this thing and that's

42:07

like my my main takeaway in the video is it looks

42:09

great and it sounds great. That's actually in the next package.

42:11

So we'll get to that. But Field World and 55 microphones

42:13

are great. I would say the main thing I would look

42:15

out for is Look out for peripheral companies that are making

42:17

microphones and buy your microphones from audio companies that are making

42:19

stuff in this price point. There's a big difference between companies

42:21

that try to create high quality audio and have never done

42:24

it before versus companies that have, like sure, for instance, has

42:26

a hundred year reputation and then they're like, hey, let's make

42:28

a cheap microphone. that brings all this technology that we have.

42:30

They just, they know what compromises they can make and what

42:32

sacrifices they can make to make a really, really good product

42:34

at an affordable price. And in my experience, these peripheral companies,

42:36

I'm not gonna name them, tend to fail when it comes

42:38

to quality. They make really flashy products. They don't make good

42:40

sound. Is it Elgado? It's Algato. Algato. Okay. It's Algato. It's

42:42

Logitech with the Blue Yeti. It is Razor with their siren.

42:44

There's a few other ones that they have. There's Hyper X.

42:46

They made gaming headsets. Not a microphone company. There's a few.

42:48

Yeah. If you see bright shining colors on the microphone, like

42:51

West said, probably. It's not for you. Interesting, because I have

42:53

a high-end blue microphone that I, you know, one of the

42:55

vintage ones that I love dearly, but wow. Yeah, the Yeti

42:57

is an interesting microphone. It's like, it's like 15 years old

42:59

almost, like it's an old microphone and they haven't done much

43:01

to change it all along, so it's definitely wouldn't be in

43:03

my recommendations. But let's move into the $150 price point. So

43:05

this is where we're starting to add in some video stuff

43:07

here. in this package, I would

43:09

say, get one of the

43:11

same mics. You don't need to

43:13

upgrade the microphone from the

43:16

other ones, but we have about

43:18

80 bucks to spend now

43:20

on lighting. And I think lighting

43:22

is the next big step

43:24

here. So I would say look

43:26

for a Neewer, is it

43:28

the company? Neewer panels on company?

43:30

Yeah, that's what I have. Same.

43:32

Yeah, sick. Yeah, you can

43:34

get like a two -panel package

43:36

for 70 bucks. They come on

43:38

stands that go down to

43:40

the ground, or that you can

43:43

get ones that clip to

43:45

the back of your desk too.

43:47

If you find that you're

43:49

getting hot spots on your face

43:51

because these lights are LED

43:53

panels, you may have some like

43:55

hot spots. What you can

43:57

do is actually shoot them at,

43:59

let's say you're butted up

44:01

against a wall. Shoot that light

44:03

at the wall and use

44:05

the wall as a diffuser. It's

44:08

kind of a nice way

44:10

to make a cheap light look

44:12

a lot better. But definitely

44:14

something that's dimmable is key because

44:16

then you can dim them.

44:18

A lot of them will be

44:20

bi -color as well, which means

44:22

you can go from like

44:24

daylight to tungsten, so you can

44:26

get it a bit more

44:28

yellow if you want to have

44:30

a bit more of kind

44:32

of a moody vibe. I have

44:35

mine about mostly yellow because

44:37

I'm a somewhat pale person, so

44:39

I find that it makes

44:41

me feel a little bit warmer.

44:43

And I'm also actually like

44:45

you said, I am mostly pointing

44:47

it at the wall, diffuse

44:49

it off a little bit because

44:51

it can get a little

44:53

hot, like you said. I've had

44:55

this one for quite a

44:57

while and at my old house

45:00

I would do what you

45:02

said, which is I bounced it

45:04

off the ceiling because I

45:06

had like an angled, I was

45:08

in like the top floor

45:10

of a house and I bounced

45:12

it right off the wall

45:14

and it filled my face really

45:16

nicely. I think that has

45:18

the added benefit of it not

45:20

like blasting your eyes out

45:22

as well. Yeah, so let's move

45:24

into the sort of $502 ,000.

45:27

This is the premium package.

45:29

This is the person who wants

45:31

to look super pro when

45:33

they get on their Zoom calls.

45:35

I would recommend this microphone,

45:37

the Shure MV6. I've talked about

45:39

it a couple of times,

45:41

just really, really solid metal build,

45:43

very chunky, no LEDs and

45:45

it sounds phenomenal. So really stoked

45:47

with that. If you think,

45:49

hey, I want an interface because

45:52

maybe I want to record

45:54

music or something like that on

45:56

the side, I will link

45:58

a microphone. slash interface bundle that you

46:00

could look into, into, which is

46:02

pretty good, good. I right. know if

46:04

I don't know if it's it it to you.

46:06

because it's a that route because it's a lot more

46:08

cumbersome to have other devices on your desk, but but

46:10

to think about. about. In terms of

46:12

webcam, I don't know don't know this space

46:14

and this space changes very, very, very

46:16

quickly. So a quick quick trip to to check

46:18

out the the latest and greatest. greatest. I

46:21

saw you were looking at the Insta360.

46:23

Insta 360. Yes, yeah, they sent me. Yeah, I

46:25

Yeah, I still haven't really used

46:27

it, it's like, sorry, like I sorry, used it,

46:29

used it, but it's amazing

46:31

how much better it is because.

46:33

sent I've gotten for years and for years, and

46:35

they're always oh, that's that's kind of crappy.

46:37

This is the first one where I'm like,

46:39

ah, where I'm like, That's pretty good.

46:41

good. Yeah, and I saw that saw that they have

46:44

a second version of it, which does

46:46

not have the the moving gimble, which which, I'd

46:48

probably go for that because I don't feel like... because I

46:50

I would care to care to, like, walk I

46:52

don't know. don't know. The moving seems nice,

46:54

but it seems a bit gimmicky to me,

46:56

I guess, if you're... to me, I guess, if you're... Yeah,

46:58

yeah, great, yeah. Yeah, you could could just move the

47:00

camera and point it where you're to to

47:03

be. if you need to If you need to like

47:05

flip it down and show your desk, of nice,

47:07

yeah, but is kind of unique, I of a yeah, neck,

47:09

I think. that flip town it does that flip

47:11

down thing. Yeah, that's cool, that's cool. Yeah,

47:13

good if view, which is good if you're doing

47:15

like tutorials or something like that. that. Yeah, for sure.

47:17

I for sure. if I would say if

47:19

a looking for a webcam, make sure

47:21

you check the reviews online. Again,

47:23

as I mentioned before, de -prioritize resolution. resolution

47:26

and just look for really nice compression

47:28

and low light performance. So the best way

47:30

to do that, just through some YouTube

47:32

reviews. Another option you could go is

47:34

using an old DSLR. an old DSL. Getting a

47:36

cheap DSLR, a a used one with a cam

47:38

those are about are about $100. So that's be a

47:40

pretty good option. It'll give you a lot

47:42

more control over your image. control over think

47:44

But I In today's day and age, it's hard

47:47

to beat tethering a cell phone. That's like. phone.

47:49

That's like phone cameras look so good

47:51

for the money you spend on them

47:53

and everybody has one kicking around in their

47:55

around in their pocket. So I I would definitely

47:57

recommend recommend if for a camera. for

47:59

a camera. your phone, it might just

48:01

be the best option you have. Yeah,

48:04

I wonder at what point does it

48:06

get cheaper to buy like an old

48:08

iPhone, like a two or three year

48:10

old iPhone, for a couple hundred bucks

48:13

versus going to buy a DSLR. A

48:15

lot of people might have a DSLR,

48:17

but I always think about that, because

48:19

at a certain point, it's, it looks

48:22

good enough, you know, the cameras on

48:24

these things are really, really, really good,

48:26

and they don't get worse over time.

48:28

Yeah, they also have like incredible, they

48:31

call it computational photography or I guess

48:33

computational videography, which is that they auto

48:35

adjust to the different surroundings so seamlessly,

48:37

like it's, you turn it on, it's

48:39

gonna look great every single time, so

48:42

that is a lot of. mental relief

48:44

from having a deal like when I

48:46

have a DSLR I have to set

48:48

it up every time I turn it

48:51

on have to make it look right

48:53

for the surrounding so that that that

48:55

part kind of sucks. Yeah is there

48:57

a common DSLR that is good? I

49:00

always wondered this I'm like is there

49:02

like an old DSLR that's really good

49:04

for a webcam that's like 250 bucks?

49:06

Do you know of any that people

49:09

are like oh get this one? They're

49:11

a dime or eBay. I

49:13

don't know. It's lenses though, hey? It's

49:15

lenses for sure. It's almost all lenses,

49:17

yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would say if

49:20

you're looking at older cameras, just make

49:22

sure they have the, I think it's

49:24

called UHS support, which means they can

49:26

act as a webcam on your computer.

49:28

So you can actually get most Sony

49:30

cameras, you can just plug in a

49:32

USB cable and use it as a

49:34

webcam via a USB, which is really

49:37

nice. Oh yeah. That way you don't

49:39

have to do the whole cam link

49:41

set up with, you know, you know,

49:43

the HDMI. So that's definitely an option.

49:45

Maybe not in the price range West

49:47

was suggesting, but I know the Sony

49:49

Alpha A6,000, you can get for like

49:52

650, which is with a lens, and

49:54

that doesn't sound cheap, but as far

49:56

as like DSLRs with a lens, that

49:58

is. decently cheap for what it is.

50:00

Yeah, and then you also have a

50:02

nice camera that if you want to

50:04

do any camera stuff? Yes, yeah, totally.

50:06

Then to upgrade your lighting, I would

50:09

suggest getting a panel softbox. So you

50:11

can get like what's called a parabolic

50:13

softbox, which is like those big kind

50:15

of cone-shaped softboxes. I have one in

50:17

my space, and I wish that I

50:19

didn't get it. They're technically like the

50:21

most natural-looking light from a softbox, because

50:23

they just... they avoid hot spots really

50:26

well. If I were buying a new

50:28

setup today, I'd get like a panel

50:30

with a panel softbox, like a much

50:32

slimmer version. That way you can kind

50:34

of get it pushed closer up against

50:36

a wall. It doesn't take up quite

50:38

as much space. And it's kind of

50:40

that compromise, right? You're figuring out what's

50:43

going to work for the setup and

50:45

not be totally invasive because it's a

50:47

home office. So that would be my

50:49

suggestion there. And then for sound treatment.

50:51

Get yourself some moving blankets from Amazon.

50:53

You can buy a set of like

50:55

six or seven moving blankets for a

50:57

hundred bucks and then hang them over

51:00

things, whatever you have. Like put up

51:02

a, I don't know, put up something,

51:04

hang a moving blanket over it. That's

51:06

kind of the easiest way to do

51:08

that. Nice. That's a good tip. What

51:10

about Mike Stand? So I know like,

51:12

so we have a mic. You mentioned

51:14

holding it can cause a lot of

51:17

noise. What about stand? Are we talking?

51:19

Because like Wes and I both use

51:21

kind of, I think it minds like

51:23

a pneumatic, not like spring one. Is

51:25

there anything you recommend for on desk

51:27

mic stands? Yeah, I would say avoid

51:29

these desk mount mic stands, like the

51:32

ones that will often come shipped with

51:34

microphones. These are like the kind of

51:36

six inch articulating mic stand that would

51:38

just sit on your desk. Desks

51:40

are awful for sound transmission, especially for you

51:43

Devs who are doing all these keystrokes all

51:45

day long. That's going to go straight, Devinhard,

51:47

that's going to go straight through your microphone

51:49

if you have it on a stand. Getting

51:51

a boom arm that clips to the edge

51:53

of your desk is one step above that,

51:55

where it's more material that has go

51:58

through so likely going

52:00

to have less. to have less

52:02

sound transmission your microphone. your you wanna go one

52:04

step further, want to get a floor mount get

52:06

a stand, a traditional music stand that you'd

52:08

have for like a band. would have for like

52:10

a that beside your desk your desk and over.

52:12

mic over. That's gonna give you the most isolation,

52:15

but it's also less practical. you know, it's

52:17

one other thing to have to vacuum around. around.

52:19

Yeah, and what what about shock shock mount?

52:21

Cause mine is screwed into my

52:24

desk. but I've gotten rid gotten

52:26

rid of all dung, dung, dung, from typing,

52:28

which I typing I first I first started

52:30

making tutorials. I had major major, I

52:32

a teacher underneath my my keyboard because

52:34

I was always doing that, that but

52:37

getting a shock mount helped it

52:39

a lot Yeah, it's tough if the

52:41

It's it's tough if the microphone doesn't come

52:43

with one because it can be it can be

52:45

really difficult to retrofit those. Like a lot of

52:47

microphones a lot of have a body that would just fit.

52:49

body that would shock fit any old shock

52:51

route. Oh, yeah. Yeah, my shock is very oddly

52:53

shaped for this microphone specifically,

52:55

yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's like

52:57

the old old broadcast style too. Yeah, before

52:59

you know your like whole office is turned

53:02

into like a production studio I'm

53:04

like I I'm want that either. You

53:06

know like those huge you know, lights. huge parabolic

53:08

I don't think touching the ground

53:10

knock it over touching it. You know,

53:12

I want everything hit it. You know,

53:14

I want to my desk, it's

53:17

always like a trade -off between. like a

53:19

tradeoff between with the mic arm,

53:21

I with the mic tried six different mic

53:23

arms from this one. mic arms

53:25

from this one. And I tried all the

53:27

low low ones, but they got in the way of

53:29

my typing of I tried a lot of the high

53:31

profile ones and they were. ones weren't coming

53:33

in at the right angle and I finally, I

53:36

returned them all and I went back to finally I

53:38

returned them all and I is back to

53:40

my mic arm. here, which I have

53:42

this Mike arm. I have this is one, which

53:44

is said. like I said. But it

53:46

has has some share I'll share

53:48

this a in a second.

53:50

What's crazy about this one one

53:52

is that the stupid mic arm comes

53:54

with like, instead of a

53:56

standard threaded screw end any normal

53:58

thing, thing, it came. this stupid

54:00

mic clip and I had to like retrofit

54:03

a actual correctly threaded. Oh, it was so

54:05

dumb. I don't even know why or how,

54:07

but yeah, super obnoxious. I have their monitor

54:09

arms, pretty sure, Vivo, they're good quality, especially

54:12

the pneumatic ones that are like air. So

54:14

that's what this is, and it's great, because

54:16

when you put it somewhere, it does not

54:19

move, you know. It stays, yeah. Yeah, after

54:21

I left Wes's studio, I came home and

54:23

I bolted everything to my desk, I got

54:25

it, so I was so inspired by your

54:28

setup, because like, so you can just like,

54:30

hmm, everything goes up and it all moves

54:32

at the exact same speed. So I did

54:34

that, I got my monitors mounted on my

54:37

desk, I've got my camera clipped on to

54:39

my desk with like a friction, a massive

54:41

friction arm. Oh yeah, look at this, this

54:44

is great. Wes is disappearing underneath the desk

54:46

at the moment. I got my microphone, tether

54:48

to it, so everything can just move at

54:50

one thing. Oh Scott, you have it as

54:53

well? Oh yeah, I'm standing now. Oh yeah,

54:55

that's great. I got the presets. Let me

54:57

just sit down. Yes, I did try to

54:59

mount my camera to the same, I have

55:02

like a single post right through my desk

55:04

that my all my monitors hang off of

55:06

and my light hangs off of. And I

55:09

was like, I'm gonna also hang the camera,

55:11

but it's, it's, once you get out too

55:13

far on like a, what do you call

55:15

that, it, not a pivot point, it just,

55:18

it's too wobbly. Every little bump of the

55:20

desk makes the camera shake crazy. I have

55:22

three separate arms, yeah, three. Yeah, yeah, that's

55:24

a good call. All right, well that that's

55:27

super helpful. Hopefully there's some good tips in

55:29

there for people to up their game when

55:31

they're having meetings. It seems silly to care

55:33

about what you look like on a zoom

55:36

call, but like if you think like if

55:38

you were meeting in person, you would care

55:40

what you're wearing and how you appear and

55:43

quite honestly, it's really hard to communicate with

55:45

people when they have poor audio video over

55:47

a zoom or whatever call that you're doing

55:49

because you just don't get all of those

55:52

in-person cues and tells and whatnot. And when

55:54

somebody has good audio video, you feel just

55:56

so much more comfortable talking to them. I

55:58

wonder how many people have lost job opportunities

56:01

from bad looking cameras? Like how many people

56:03

have been between two different candidates and they

56:05

subconsciously went with the one that just looked

56:08

better? Yeah, subconsciously. There's got to be some

56:10

numbers there. Yeah, I would imagine. That makes

56:12

a lot of sense. It is funny, every

56:14

time I hop on a call with non-tech

56:17

folks or even tech folks, everybody's instantly like,

56:19

whoa, what do you do? All right, let's

56:21

move it in the last section here, which

56:23

is sick picks and shameless plugs. Randy, I

56:26

hope you came prepared as a sick pick

56:28

for us. I did come prepared. I've been

56:30

thinking about this for a long, long time.

56:32

Yeah, I can't be the one that's unprepared

56:35

here. So my sick pick is a creator

56:37

on Tik-talk, also on YouTube called etymology nerd.

56:39

And I don't know if you've seen this

56:42

guy, but he basically will take a word

56:44

and just give you the entire history of

56:46

where it came from. And he does these

56:48

really cool sort of, like a theme section

56:51

of words. So like he, for instance, he

56:53

was talking about how all these different sailing

56:55

terms exist in business cultures. So like, no,

56:57

the ropes, run his height ship on board,

57:00

all hands on deck. smooth sailing, change course,

57:02

leeway, and he's saying that this comes back

57:04

because English was spread by sailors, and so

57:07

there's a whole ton of sailing etymology in

57:09

business culture. It's so cool. And he does

57:11

these quick little 60-second hits, so well-spoken, really,

57:13

really cool creator. Yeah, if people are wondering

57:16

why you get on Tik Talk at all,

57:18

like I know some people are like, I'm

57:20

never gonna get on TikTok. This is like

57:22

the peak type of Tik. me, To

57:25

me, is this is there

57:27

for, you go there

57:29

for is this type

57:32

of thing. Plug, what would you like

57:34

to what would you

57:36

like to plug to

57:38

the audience? Plug, yeah, I'd Shameless

57:41

plug my YouTube love to

57:43

plug my YouTube channel.

57:45

It's just YouTube Rector, R-E-K-T-O-R, and

57:47

I nerd R -E -K -T -O

57:50

-R, So and I to

57:52

out hard on there. some

57:54

going to be posting

57:56

some more videos some microphone

57:59

microphone reviews. I've got

58:01

or six or six in

58:03

the queue ready to

58:06

go. want to nerd if

58:08

you want to nerd

58:10

out, learn about audio.

58:12

It's a fun place

58:15

to be. be. Awesome. Well, thank

58:17

you so much for

58:19

coming on, Randy. on.

58:21

all your knowledge and I'm

58:24

I'm glad that we

58:26

could pack this up

58:28

into an episode and

58:31

and share with everybody else.

58:33

else. Yeah, sick. Thanks for

58:35

having me, guys. This

58:37

is fun. This is fun. so

58:40

much. Thanks so much. Peace. Peace.