Latest / DevQuestions with Tim Corey / 034 What Audio/Video Hardware & Software Do You Use To Record Videos?

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034 What Audio/Video Hardware & Software Do You Use To Record Videos? · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: What audio and video hardware and software do you use to record videos?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is a question that came in from Sid, and it's one that yeah, people are curious about.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: How do I record my videos?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: How do I record my screencast videos, these videos, um, this podcast episode, all these things.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a great question, Sid, and I think it's one we should cover in today's episode of Dev Questions.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the first thing I want to mention is that what I do right now is different than what I did six months ago, which is different than what I did two years ago.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's changed over time.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so by the end of this episode, I'm going to tell you exactly what I use right now.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: I would highly encourage you not to get that unless you are at a place where you are going to the next level.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you're just starting out, I would start out where I started out.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that is I started by using a USB microphone and Camtasia for Windows.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Camtasia is an excellent product, and it's one I highly recommend you use for recording screencasts, like I do for my my Monday YouTube videos, where you don't see my face, you just see my my screen.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Camtasia is a great product, has a lot of stuff built in to help with things like transitions, audio editing, and um video editing, and and basically just making the whole thing better.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I would start there, and like I said, a USB microphone is one that if you use the the eighth-inch jack, the uh looks like a headphone jack that plugs into a different port, um, those often have a buzz to them.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Where a USB microphone, it can be really cheap, it can be a$5 microphone, but it plugs in USB, it often has less of a background noise than an eighth-inch jack microphone will have.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd start there.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I started.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look at some of my older videos, you'll hear a little bit of a buzz in the background.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: The audio doesn't sound great, and that's okay.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And part of that is I didn't know how to use the tools, and so I had Camtasia back then, but I didn't even know how to use Camtasia effectively.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not even gonna blame the microphone for the problems there.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: The problems are really more on me not knowing how to use my tools.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: So use your tools well.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Camtasia is not a free product, it's a paid product, um, but it's worth it.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: If if you're gonna spend money on anything, I would start there if you're on Windows.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now, over time, that microphone upgraded to a Yeti.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I had a um a Yeti blackout microphone, a blue Yeti.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was the black microphone, and it it really did a great job.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: It had a a lot better features as far as what kind of pattern to listen to.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's just part of it with a microphone, is if your microphone is just listening all around to all the sounds, it's gonna pick up background sounds and things going on that that you don't want to have in your audio.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my recording studio used to be the corner of my bedroom.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my wife had to walk through my bedroom in order to get to our master bathroom, which is also where the laundry room was.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that makes for some background noise.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not something you can help in some circumstances, but getting a microphone that has a better pattern for what you're doing can be really helpful at reducing some of those noises.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And by mean that what I mean by pattern, I'm not an audio expert, but certain microphones pick up a 360-degree radius essentially.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Others will pick up right in front of the microphone and right behind.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: So for a two-person conversation, you can have a person on each side of the microphone, but the sides don't pick up a lot of sound.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Others will pick up just in the front, and then that's good for a one-person microphone environment.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I'm I'm doing most of the time.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I used on my uh Blue Yeti microphone.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now, from there, I upgrade even further and got a Rode Podcaster mic.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that microphone served me really well.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great microphone, still USB, but it it really helped improve my sound, be a little more focused on just the sound coming out of my mouth and not things around or behind it, which is helpful in a house.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I record is my house, and so I have two older boys that make a lot of noise, and that's okay.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And my in-laws live with us, and my wife lives in our house, so there's a lot of stuff going on, and that's okay, but I try not to keep that in the sound of what you're hearing because it's just distracting.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that road podcast really improved the game quite a bit.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, through all of this, I was still using Camtasia.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't change.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, to this day, I am still using Camtasia as my primary recording for all of my screencasts.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And for every video that I do, I run it through Camtasia, even if it's a live action video, which I don't record through Camtasia.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: So just note that the version of Camtasia has changed, but that is still my go-to software to this day.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I still highly recommend it for both starting and where I'm at now, production-wise.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we talked about audio and going through USB, and I didn't talk about you know XLR microphones and and um audio boards and all this complicated setup, because until you get to a certain level, that is not necessary.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's detrimental to your sound because you'd spend so much effort and so much money trying to get good sound, it actually takes you back a step.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I encourage you until you're at the point where you're doing a lot of video and a lot of work on your audio.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: I would encourage you to stay USB.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I did until about six months ago, when I upgraded again and where I am right now, which is the Rode Shotgun mic.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I got a microphone sitting at my desk.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually, if you're watching this on video, it's right there and it's pointed up at me.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And this took some work to get right.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's an XLR microphone, which means it has to go into a soundboard, which I'm using the Go XLR soundboard that's over to my left.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a great soundboard because it's simple.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to have this whole complicated setup.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, the Go XLR has got too much stuff.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've turned most of it off.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I use the four faders, and that's it.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's always other options and features and stuff.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't use any of them.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: I focus on simple and easy to reproduce.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so my audio comes into that board and goes straight to my computer where it's recorded.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I'm using now.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: But that has taken, it took about three months to get dialed in.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I was using my Rode Podcaster mic still for my videos, except for the live videos, because I really wasn't happy with the sound I was getting out of the shotgun mic.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: I actually hired a a local um music store person, a musician, and his team to come in and help me dial in the sound and help me really, you know, figure out my environment and and work with, I have a new office.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so trying to figure out how the sound echoes around and trying to reduce that.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: And they've they've been working with me and they've done a great job at changing the the audio.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not done yet.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: We're not done.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're still in the process of making changes.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess it's six months now that we're in process, but um, part of that is just you know lockdown and and that that caused for long delays and things.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, that dialing the sound that's not free.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's it takes some time, it takes some money to do right.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: But the once you get over that hump, then you have a lot more ability to dial in exactly what you want for your audio on the recording side.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to do less on the post-production side.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: So personally, I would start way back at the beginning with a USB cheap five, ten dollar mic to start and then work your way up, like I did.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the the Yeti, the blue Yeti is a great microphone.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the Rode Podcaster is even better, both USB and then finally the Rode Shotgun mic.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you can dial it in, use the Go XLR, that's a great option.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that's all from the audio side and then Camtasia for screen recording, but what about from the video side?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because now I'm doing live video.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, if this is a podcast episode, but it's also a video episode.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: So you can either watch it on YouTube or listen to a podcast.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're watching on YouTube, you can see my actual face.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: You can see me smile at you.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but how do I do that?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I started off with a cheap Sony camera, and that worked okay.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: But if you watch my first couple of episodes, the content is good, the video is not as good.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, let's put it that way.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, listen to those on podcasts instead.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: But then I worked with a friend of mine who is a really talented video uh production person, and I say, you know what?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: At this point in my career and for what we're doing, just find me what's going to work.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: It price isn't as much of a concern.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously, I don't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars, but find me something.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so he found me the Panasonic GH5S camera.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's about$1,600 all in.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: But this camera, as you can tell, it's scary good.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I say scary because maybe I don't want to be this precise in my video, but it is what it is.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can see everything about me.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's why I have to have to shave my head um in time, otherwise, you see this double.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: So really good video.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I have found that Camtasia isn't the best for bringing live video in.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had to find a different solution for that.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where I use a tool called VMix.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now you could use uh OBS, which is a free software, open source, but I have found that I pay for VMix, but with that I get um, you know, a little bit easier ease of use in this, and I also get some support and some other things that really help make my life simpler.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: I save time, and for me, saving time is saving money.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I use VMix and I record this as if it were a live stream.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now I don't live stream at this point, and I am investigating the idea of live streaming, but for now, I record this as if it is a live stream.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: I could switch back and forth my desktop, I can create a picture in a picture, I can do fades and all this kind of stuff all with this vMix tool.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: For me right now, I'm just recording my my uh video.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm not doing a special there, but I'll take the video, the raw video that vMix creates, and I will then put it into Camtasia to edit the audio and kind of clean it up.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then I even turn that over to my um my director of marketing and design, and he puts the the bumpers on it and changed it over for podcasts and all that kind of good stuff.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: But the initial preparation I still do, and that's all through vMix and then into Camtasia.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Camtasia I use for editing the audio, especially.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's a really neat tool in there where it if you leave like five to ten seconds of dead air at the beginning of your video, then it can learn from that and then take out any background sounds for the rest of the episode based upon that dead air.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it does it automatically.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: I could use a tool like Audacity, which is free.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have before you export the audio, do the work, then re-import the audio.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is it just takes so much time.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: And whenever possible, I try to cut down the amount of time that I work on things because time is money.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the more time I can save means the more videos I can produce.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that means more content for you on a more regular basis.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what it means for you.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: So optimizing my process is important.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: I would encourage you to do the same.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: People ask me often about how long it takes to edit a video, whether it be a Monday video, which is a screencast, or a Thursday video, which is the podcast slash uh YouTube episode.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: My answer is the same for both of them.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: It takes about three minutes, maybe less, because I I manage the audio, I trim it up a little bit, and I put transitions at the end and a bumper at the end for Monday videos, and the rest I just hand over to Dan.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: But Dan's my marketing design person.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: But that's all I do.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't worry about, oh I mean, I said I said um, I need to cut that out.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: I used to, but not anymore because it just takes too much time.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you can deal with the fact that I'm a real person and I talk like a real person and I make mistakes, and it's okay.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a real person.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't deal with that, then yeah, yeah, this isn't from for you.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: But because of that, I can edit a video in three minutes, which means I can create another whole video or two in the time it would have taken me normally to post-produce one video.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: It used to take me twice as long as the video itself.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: So a video was an hour long, it'd take me three hours total to record the video and then edit at least.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now I can produce three hours of content and from record to being done in about three hours and 15 minutes.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that means I have three times the content coming out to you as I would if I stressed out over things.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I do.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's kind of what I do for my setup here.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: I have you know a progression of audio mics, and I'll put those down in either the YouTube description or the show notes for the podcast.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: You want to check those out.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Also, the um the video stuff that I do, I'll put links down for that as well.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I've progressed over time from free and cheap to more expensive stuff as I needed, as it benefited what I did.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't start the expensive stuff.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: I encourage you, I highly encourage you, don't start expensive.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Your content is what is important.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Focus on that.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Then as you grow in popularity, you'll get YouTube ad revenue.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: You'll get revenue from other sources, and you can put that towards improving your content.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I do.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: I tell you, when you buy a course from me, what you're really doing is helping to contribute to more content, whether it be better equipment, and I am going to buy more equipment for a standing step.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: I want to have more of a lecture spot uh that I'm actually building, um, you know, and or whether it is more courses or it's more free YouTube stuff, or paying for more people to do cool stuff, like you know, Dan creates a whole bunch of nice uh handouts for people and and really makes my content a whole lot easier to understand and and view.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's some cool stuff there that he's done.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: We're creating a book.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: How about that?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's coming soon.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: So don't get too excited, it's a small one.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, that's kind of stuff we can do because I get more content.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't start off by saying I'm gonna do all this stuff and self-fund it, or goodness, ask for a loan from don't do that.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Start small, start free or cheap, and grow as your content grows.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: All right, that's my encouragement to you.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for the question, Sid.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was a great question.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was happy to answer it.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you'd like your question answered, go to the I amtimcorey.com podcast page and ask it there or leave a comment in the YouTube video.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you listening.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you hanging with me.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you have other things you want to ask, let me know.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for watching, and as always, I am Tim Corey.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Def Questions.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Dev Questions.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimcorey.com.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcore.com and enroll in a course.