- So today I wanted to try and do something
a little bit different, I wanted to show something
that I've been using as an integral part
of my workflow for the past year,
maybe year and a half, which is my audio arm setup.
So in order to do that I can't use this for audio,
so I'm actually using the little Rode microphone kit
that plugs into your phone.
So I've got my phone right here,
I did do a whole video about how this lets you
do podcasts through your phone and it's super versatile,
so if the audio sounds a little different today,
that's what I'm using, but hopefully it's okay,
and you don't get too much rubbing noise
from my sweater or anything.
But let's move this chair out of the way first.
Now that I've got a little bit more space
I wanted to share the semi DIY setup
that I've put together for sound in my videos
and the videos that I film in this room.
So this is my fully assembled audio rig.
It's fairly simple but it has some neat parts to it,
so I'm gonna take this whole thing apart right now.
(Velcro rips)
And then we will build it back up together.
So the entire rig is based around this,
you've probably seen these boom arms around,
there's all kinds of different ones.
This is the Rode PSA1, this is sort of like,
the original studio boom arm for microphones.
It's spring loaded, so it can sometimes
almost be a little bit dangerous.
But these things are really versatile.
Straight out of the box it comes with this,
I don't know what size this is,
but this mount, which then you can then put adapters on
to hold on like, SM7B's, or regular XLR microphones,
you can basically connect anything to this end
and then angle it however you want,
and the really cool part is it comes with this,
which is a little clamp,
and that's what mounts it onto a desk, a stand,
whatever you're gonna put the microphone,
this is what does it.
So normally I have this mounted over there,
kinda off camera, but for the sake of today,
I'm just gonna mount it right on the corner of my desk.
And I don't know if you can see but I did put
a little felt pad here so that way it's not
putting metal clamp marks into the bottom
of the wood on the desk.
And this boom stand usually sells for about $100,
you can find cheaper, like,
imitation ones on Amazon and stuff,
and those can be okay if you're on a budget,
but I'd really recommend just making the investment
in the original one because it is so strong,
it is so sturdy, and they last forever,
and I just pinched my hand and that hurt.
Once you've got this little mount mounted,
then you just pop in the stand and that's it.
And then you've got your boom arm here.
It's not gonna really do much without
any weight on the end of it.
So typically this is where you could just put a microphone.
For pretty much all my videos I use
the Rode VideoMic Pro Plus to do the audio
'cause I found that it's just a great all around mic.
And just by default it comes with the same size mount
on the bottom, so by itself,
the video mic can actually just be positioned
onto the boom arm, but I found that that doesn't always work
the best because you don't have the biggest amount
of flexibility in how you angle and position your mic.
So for a while I was using one of these little,
it's like a tiny ball mount,
but this is a pretty heavy duty one that can actually
support lights and cameras and stuff,
and I was putting this on the end of here,
and then mounting the mic to it
so I could position it more easily.
But for some reason that just wasn't working for me
and so what I ended up doing,
which is kind of the key to this entire setup,
is I bought this Pearstone articulating arm.
And these are really cool, if you've never used one,
you loosen up the main knob and then
everything just kind of becomes loose
and you can position it in any angle,
and when you tighten it it becomes really rigid.
Again, just like this boom arm,
there's very cheap versions of these,
I think this one ended up going for about $45,
which feels like a lot of money for something
that's so small and simple, but again,
you want something that's gonna be durable and reliable,
and this can hold a surprising amount of weight.
I've put audio recorders on it,
I've put small cameras on it, I've put monitors on it.
Now if you buy the boom arm,
when you first get it the end has basically like a
hot shoe accessory mount on it,
but I just unscrewed that and put in a little tiny adapter,
which I'll link to all this stuff if you need like,
these specific adapters,
then this fits perfectly on the end of the boom arm,
and now not only does it rotate normally with the boom arm,
but because it is an articulating arm,
now I have all kinds of other flexibility,
and even on the tip of it there's a little ball joint.
So you can position this anywhere that you want.
And so the goal is just pop the video mic
on the end of here, but now this mount is too big,
so I actually did have to use another little adapter
that just screws right in the bottom of the Rode mic,
and now it fits right on the arm.
Very important though to remember to take this adapter out
if you wanna put the Rode mic back on your camera,
'cause it sticks out just a little bit,
and it's just enough to stop the mic from
fitting into the accessory shoe on your camera.
And this is my basic audio setup that I've been using.
As you can see, with this arm here, with this joint here,
and with all of this articulation here,
the amount of flexibility that you have,
no pun intended, is enormous.
You can get the mic positioned anywhere.
But the reason that I love it the most
is because typically, my chair's not there,
I almost fell down.
So typically when I'm recording,
and again this is usually over there, off camera,
but I angle this out, 'cause I don't want it to just
lean over and be right in the middle of my shot,
so I usually angle this arm,
I didn't screw that on tight enough,
we'll just pretend that didn't happen.
And I could even edit it out to prove
that it didn't happen, but if you're watching this,
that means I didn't do that!
And so typically what I'll do is
angle this back that way so that way
it's out of the camera's field of view,
and then I can use the articulating arm
to just position the mic right out of the camera's frame,
but facing directly towards my face.
And then once I have this all set up,
all that I've done is I take the cable that
came with the video mic and I found an adapter cable
that's really long, and the Rode arm comes with a bunch of
these little Velcro thingies that make it easy to
manage all of your cables.
Keep those out of the way, 'cause you don't want your
cables to hang down into the shot.
And then the other end of that cable just goes
directly into my camera and that's how I do my audio,
and I've been really, really happy with the results.
I found this to be very fun,
because once you start playing with equipment,
and adapters, and all these little bits and pieces,
you can start creating these like,
Frankensteined together things that are very customized
to your situation and your workflow,
and it's really, really fun.
So if you're ever working with equipment
and you have questions of like,
is there a way I could do this to that, or whatever,
there's probably an adapter, there's probably a connector,
there's probably some way to get that done.
So I hope this was a helpful
behind the scenes look at that.
If you're interested to know more about how
I actually make my videos start to finish,
I did document that entire process
in a behind the scenes video that I made
as part of my 10,000 subscriber celebration,
so go ahead and click on that video
and I will see you over there.
(upbeat techno music)