Creating a Small Studio, Part 1: Sound

When I moved to Alaska recently, I was excited to finally get a room that I could use as a small studio. In the past I would always have to set up every YouTube shoot from scratch, which could take anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour. I looked forward to the day when all I had to do was walk in, turn on the lights, put on a mic, turn on the camera and press record.

That time is now, when I inherited our new laundry room as convertible studio space. My excitement was a bit dampened when I walked into the near-empty room, said a few words and heard my voice echoing all over the place. Some serious work was going to have to be done, but as usual I didn't have much money to spend and had to mostly use what was laying around. I did both and the result turned out pretty good. Watch the video to see what I'm talking about.

There is more to add, and in a future episode I will be sharing some visual elements of converting this small room into a micro-studio. This includes lighting and camera angles which not only cover shooting my talking head on screen, but also a preset method of doing my tabletop videos.

This new setup looks to be really good and fast for me, and if you are thinking of doing the same thing, there might be some valuable information here you can use as well. The best part is the complete removal of all setups starting from scratch. That alone makes me thrilled and will help me produce videos a lot more efficiently.

STUFF MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO

Acoustic foam squares (12"x12"x2")
Radio Shack clip-on mic (#33-3013)
Zoom H1 Handy Recorder (Amazon : eBay)