A few days ago I mentioned the little hiccup I had with my videos going to hell and how I wanted to use it as an opportunity to improve my recording setup and process. Here’s an update!
The first things I received last weekend were the Boom Arm and the Shock Mount for my Blue Yeti. The boom arm is great, a Rode PSA-1, very sturdy and quite easy to set up, just put clamp it tight on your desk. The Shock Mount was expensive as hell, over £70 through Amazon UK—even though the product costs only fraction of that across the pond—and when I received it, it turns out the piece you use to screw the Yeti microphone to the Radius II was defective, too small to ever tighten the microphone to the mount.
Right now, I have it set up but it’s not screwed tight but wedged in place thanks to the unique shape of the Yeti and the placement of the screw. If I turn the mic, I can wedge it against the edge of the mount. But while this seems like a solution, it makes the mic’s front—and where you talk to with the cardioid setup—face away from me, making it a bit awkward to use. But thankfully, after providing Blue with the evidence of what was happening, they told me they’d send me a replacement. Hopefully it gets here soon and I’ll be able to set this up properly.
That’s it for the main setup, microphone and stuff, but not the end of the audio part of this update. You see, another issue I have to deal with is the room itself, and how the sound bounces like crazy while I speak. So, I decided to get some sound proofing foam and bass traps, to help mitigate the reverb as much as possible. Mind you I’m not an expert or anything, nor am I even remotely qualified. I’m spit-and-eyeballing this, making it all up as I go along because even if I mess it up, it’s bound to help out in some way.
Because of the…unique configuration for this room, I had to do some “modifications” to the bass traps. They were simply too big for the place, so with a trusty and very sharp cooking knife and some very precise eyeball measurements I went to town on them, cutting and hacking at them until they snuggly fit into place. Two out of four bass traps, at the time of writing this, seem solid after using the spray adhesive. The other two I’m keeping a close eye on and will most likely work on again in the coming days. There is a 5th bass, this one set up horizontally, that fell off the first time, but after reapplying the adhesive and shoving something underneath it to keep it tightly in place while it dried, it’s now perfect…or so it seems.
In terms of recording, I took the plunge and bought the Adobe Creative suite subscription. Particularly for Adobe Audition and Premiere. I’ve already cut up a video, and even added some nice text and fades to a new one, a funny Overwatch highlight. I’m still learning this stuff, so you’re not likely to see spectacular stuff from me just yet. But I’m getting there and I found out video editing is pretty fun.
I’m now a proud owner of an Elgato HD60 S capture card and I have it hooked to my Tecknet HDMI Bridge, so I can switch between my WiiU and PS4 at the press of a button without having to move cables around. I’ve already given the console streaming a go, with a bit of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE on Tuesday. It was a bit of a test run with the thing, just figuring out the right combination of options in terms of frame-rate, delays, resolution, etc. The high-action moments have a slight dip in video quality, but I’m sure I can fix that. Still, it was a pretty nice experience to stream what I was playing on WiiU.
This weekend I’m going to finish setting up the foam around the room and once the replacement comes in from Blue, I’ll be back to recoding videos with commentary. And yes, I will be editing them, to make them better experiences for all of you! The first order of business once that happens is getting you the last bit of Tales of Zestiria so we can forever be done with it!
If you have any advice on the sound stuff or would like me to tell you what exactly I bought and from where, let me know in the comments and I’ll be in touch!
