i've had a lot of people ask so today i want to walk you through my desk and editing setup
hey my name is jake and if you don't know me i create content here to help solo creators on
the go so i test and review lots of drones cameras and lenses here in alaska and i give you tips and
tutorials on how to use them so that's something interests you consider subscribing today i want
to walk you through my entire editing setup what i use to edit my videos how i set my desk up and
how i work with the footage that i shoot to start off with this desk is a desk that i made i bought
this big pizza butcher block from a hardware store and then coated it with three coatings of tongue
oil i really like the way tung oil looks and i like the wood combination with it and then i use
structural pipe steel pipe to create the legs and put those legs on wheels because a desk this big
and this heavy it's nice to be able to just roll it around if i need to adjust anything
and one thing i really love about this is the the way i built it underneath i put all my hard
drives i kind of hung this piece of uh this is shelving for a closet and i hung it there and put
all my hard drives on there i use this because it gives more airflow so my hard drives don't get hot
but having them underneath one keeps it quieter up where i'm working because i don't
hear the hard drives spinning and i just like a clean look or as clean as i can possibly get
for my desk surface and then over on the side here i have the amplifier for my speakers which i'll
talk about in a second and the power regulators the voltage regulators for all of my equipment
i also have an uninterruptible power supply a ups because power here in alaska can be kind of iffy
especially in the winter and then jumping into what i use to edit my whole entire edit station
is based around my 16 inch macbook pro m1 max from 2021 and it is fantastic it's a powerful beast
there's a whole video on it right up here where i show how much time savings i'm getting based on
my old machine which was a 2019 macbook pro and my editor of choice because i'm mac based has been
final cut pro for the last eight or nine years i really like it i'm not a big fan of monthly
subscriptions final cut pro doesn't have a monthly subscription and i'm able to do everything i need
to do in final cut pro to edit videos and photos well you need a good color accurate monitor this
monitor is from benq it's an ultrawide monitor i'm a huge fan of ultrawide monitors because
i just like having the extra space especially when i'm working with big timelines so this is a benq
2k ultra wide monitor it's uh you know really nice the color accuracy is extremely high and really
great while pretty much everything you see in this video is stuff that i've purchased and paid for
this was sent to me by benq now they're not paying for this video but they did reach out to me about
a month and a half ago and asked me if they could send me the screen bar plus to try out in the
studio the idea is that it reduces eye fatigue and eye strain by adding some ambient light in
your editing area to help your eyes just not have to work as hard it attaches to any monitor because
it uses this clamp and counterweight system it doesn't have to attach any other way and the
nice thing too is that i can take it off really quickly when i'm streaming because otherwise it
would actually get in the way of my camera where my camera sits behind my monitor it's dimmable
from 100 down to about 10 percent and it has really high quality leds they're rated at 95 cri
and it changes color temperature from 2700 kelvin to 6500 kelvin so it'll match pretty
much whatever sort of ambient lighting you have in your office or in your editing station
and one of the cool features is that it will automatically sense the amount of light in
your room and set the proper brightness level on the light bar itself with the push of just one
button the light bar plus has made a pretty big difference for me in fact just a couple of days
ago i had 24 hours to shoot to create shoot and edit an entire video ad campaign for something
and i can tell you that it made a big difference because i was able to do all those things walk
away at the end of the day after a really long day and not feel like my eyes were just wiped out
and exhausted plus i think it just makes the desk look nicer having that little bit of extra light
illuminating the desk it makes it feel warm and inviting and i have really really enjoyed it and
be able to work with footage you obviously have to get it into your computer and this is by far
one of the best investments i've made and one of my favorite pieces of tech this is by blackjet usa
my friend jevin dovey turned me on to this and basically it's this little tower you can swap
out different modules if you work with cf express cards or anything like that they've got modules
for all kinds of different memory cards and then at the bottom of mine i put a four terabyte ssd
and then the second one up has a two terabyte ssd and then of course cfxpress type a card reader and
sd card reader and it the whole thing is really fast and it's been incredibly stable like i've
never had issues with it disconnecting or doing weird things like that um it's just it has been
great so all my footage gets dumped on both the two terabyte and the four terabyte ssd and then
all my edit files everything i work with in final cut pro is based on that four terabyte ssd that's
my edit drive so once a project is done there i'll move it off of that drive onto my backup hard
drives which are under the desk and yeah it's been great when i'm mobile and when i'm working mobile
i take lots of these little sandisk ssds with me they're fast they've been really reliable and
they've performed great for me for years so all my footage will get dumped on a couple of those so
i've got backups because backups are good and then i can also edit off of them when i'm out and about
or when i'm traveling next to that because i do live stream this is my mic preamp and it has a usb
interface straight to the computer which is great but this is made by universal audio universal
audio has been on the field of studio electronics for you know decades and decades and they make
some really great stuff these just came out and i'm going to try it because it has a built-in
compressor it's got a single or you can get a double mic preamp and then some monitor out so
this basically controls my studio monitors and my mic for when i'm live streaming or you know studio
monitors from what i'm just editing and it's awesome especially because it includes a really
nice high quality emulation of a really fantastic studio compressor from universal audio and while
we're at it let's talk about my studio monitors these are incredibly rare and really high quality
studio monitors that were made by a mastering engineer from capitol records he hand built
these in pairs so they're like precisely matched these are super phase accurate they're really
natural sounding and i've used these for decades now um i really really like these studio monitors
and for my mic of choice when i'm live streaming or if i'm doing voiceover work i use the dds mic
2s so it's the short version i found this mic to be fantastic for stuff inside and outside
and then continuing on with the streaming stuff i use the blackmagic atem mini not the mini pro not
the mini super not the mini extra super large or anything like that it's just the regular ita mini
and it switches basically between four different video sources so i can plug my phone in and play
stuff really quickly if i need to or i can have a couple different cameras plugged in
and play from them to get different angles but i can do it all live and it works great
for live streaming and then next to that is my stream deck which i use to be able to trigger
like clips of video i'm gonna play or the countdown or the intro or the outro all
those kinds of things i trigger from there and even mute and unmute my microphone from there i
want it because i stream with obs and um yeah so this is a great setup for me it's really simple
and really straightforward and gives me a lot of versatility for when i'm live streaming for me
i don't use anything fast fancy with a keyboard and a mouse or anything like that i use an apple
wireless keyboard and the apple trackpad they work great i have no complaints um yeah and this
really has nothing to do with editing but ifootage sent me this timber pod and i really love the way
this thing looks it's this nice oiled wood it i think it looks really nice on my desk and it just
the whole like bronze sort of finish uh antique looking thing that they've got going on is really
cool and honestly this thing is way better than i thought it i kind of thought it would be gimmicky
when i got it but then actually after trying it out it's a really nice little tripod and of course
i have things like a charging station for my phone i also keep a pen and paper notebook on my desk
because if i got an idea or something strikes me at the moment or when i'm talking with clients and
they want notes or changes or anything like that i can just scribble notes down really fast and i
like actually using pencil and paper pen and paper for that kind of stuff and for the light my key
light here what you see is in amaran which is by aputure 200d great light lots of power not super
expensive but very accurate very good color and then light dome 2 from aputure because the light
dome 2 is really nice it doesn't shift the color of the light at all and gives you nice beautiful
looking soft diffused light and helps to hide some of my wrinkles because i'm getting older of course
all the stuff is linked in the description with affiliate links they don't cost you anything
extra they do help me out and i will be doing more videos about how i edit videos how i color grade
work with sound all that stuff in the future so subscribe and stay tuned if that's something that
interests you and in the meantime if you want to learn how to improve your videos and photos
click or tap right there put together a small playlist i'll see you in one of those videos
as always if you have questions ask me in the comments below or you can join my live stream
wednesday nights at 4 pm alaska time 8 pm eastern i'll see you again soon in the next video cheers