I hope that nobody reading this thinks you HAVE to have these things to work from home. I've been WFH for the better part of a decade. Audio: A $25 Logitech H390. Video: A MS 720p webcam. Cost: Maybe $60 USD tops? I'm not in meetings all day, but really it's not that big of a deal when I am.
Webcam, Lights, and Audio for Remote Work, Podcasting, Videos, and Streaming
31–40 of 131 posts
Re: Webcam, Lights, and Audio for Remote Work, Podcasting, Videos, and Streaming
#32You can spend $700+ on his high end audio recommendations but 90% of home office style recording environments (even with acoustic panels) are going to have a noticeable amount of background hiss (computer fans, etc.) get picked up and his set up doesn't account for that. If you goto the OP's Youtube channel and listen to his recordings, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh0sTxLs9VA , there is a HUGE amount…
I'm going to disagree on a lot of this.
The Triton fethead is just a "plug it in and go" solution in a lot of setups. That dbx preamp has a lot of knobs that, for the most part, need to be set right in order for it to work at all - let alone help the situation.
Also worth noting that the fethead is tiny - it sits inline with your cable, whereas that dbx requires you to mount 19" rack gear at your desk, which is a big ask for a lot of people.
Re: Webcam, Lights, and Audio for Remote Work, Podcasting, Videos, and Streaming
#33You can spend $700+ on his high end audio recommendations but 90% of home office style recording environments (even with acoustic panels) are going to have a noticeable amount of background hiss (computer fans, etc.) get picked up and his set up doesn't account for that. If you goto the OP's Youtube channel and listen to his recordings, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh0sTxLs9VA , there is a HUGE amount…
Re: Webcam, Lights, and Audio for Remote Work, Podcasting, Videos, and Streaming
#34You can spend $700+ on his high end audio recommendations but 90% of home office style recording environments (even with acoustic panels) are going to have a noticeable amount of background hiss (computer fans, etc.) get picked up and his set up doesn't account for that. If you goto the OP's Youtube channel and listen to his recordings, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh0sTxLs9VA , there is a HUGE amount…
> home office style recording environments (even with acoustic panels) are going to have a noticeable amount of background hiss (computer fans, etc.) get picked up and his set up doesn't account for that.
You can definitely baffle a lot/all of that noise away, but you definitely need to be more mindful of your setup and not just have some wall-mounted panels and your tower right next to your mic.
I've been privy to some crafty home studio setups. It's workable—the first problem is paying attention/having an ear and the example you posted is so obvious I was surprised at it.
Re: Webcam, Lights, and Audio for Remote Work, Podcasting, Videos, and Streaming
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think OBS will do live keying.
I'm also looking for its virtual-camera plugin which is only window :(
I'm was looking (still looking actually) for a virtual camera for GNU/Linux, but all the solutions I found involve lot of hacks.
That would be awesome to be able to switch scenes from OBS inside a "corporate" video conference setup.
Re: Webcam, Lights, and Audio for Remote Work, Podcasting, Videos, and Streaming
#36You can spend $700+ on his high end audio recommendations but 90% of home office style recording environments (even with acoustic panels) are going to have a noticeable amount of background hiss (computer fans, etc.) get picked up and his set up doesn't account for that. If you goto the OP's Youtube channel and listen to his recordings, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh0sTxLs9VA , there is a HUGE amount…
> As an alternative, for $299 you can pick up the DBX 286s pre-amp[0] which also acts as a noise gate (helps filter hiss / static), de-esser, compressor and basic EQ together.
Do you know of any device with similar capabilities but in smaller form factor (even if more expensive)? Something of the size of Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 [0]. Or at least not meant to be mounted in a rack?
[0]: https://focusrite.com/en/usb-audio-interface/scarlett/scarle...
Re: Webcam, Lights, and Audio for Remote Work, Podcasting, Videos, and Streaming
#37I was a bit surprised to see the recommendation of another inline preamp in the chain with the Focusrite. He recommends a TRITON AUDIO FetHead Filter in-Line Microphone Preamp. Does anyone have further experience with this setup? I've been using my MXL Mics 770 Cardioid Condenser Microphone with a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 with nothing in-between. I know I've got the gain dialed up pretty high but it never occurred to m…
I run a Shure SM57 - which is not exactly the same mic, but it's a very similar dynamic microphone that's also VERY quiet. I run it into a Scarlett 2i4 - and it was terrible before I bought the FetHead. The preamp in the Scarlett just can't bring that microphone up to reasonable levels without picking up a LOT of hiss and noise - it sounded like garbage. Adding the FetHead totally fixed that.
You're running a condenser mic that's going to be a lot "louder" on it's own. Running the gain pretty high is fine if it doesn't seem noisey to you. It was 100% obvious I needed to do something else when I first attached my mic directly to the Scarlett.
Re: Webcam, Lights, and Audio for Remote Work, Podcasting, Videos, and Streaming
#38A little off topic: has anyone managed to have chroma key effect on Mac ? I'm also thinking to have almost same concept youtube channel. But, I also want to have chroma-key background. any ideas ?
OBS is a good solution if that works for you.
Also look at Black Magic ATEM Mini https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/atemmini - you need to connect a camera with HDMI output to it (i.e., something like a Panasonic G7) rather than a webcam, but it'll do the green screen in-device and output an HDMI signal. You can then run that into a USB3 HDMI capture device that will show up as a normal webcam.
Re: Webcam, Lights, and Audio for Remote Work, Podcasting, Videos, and Streaming
#39One item that the author didn't touch on was internet connection. I would imagine that streaming with a 4k camera, even with codecs and compression and stuff that i know little about, would both take a decent sized upload pipe as well as no capping on uploaded data. Does anyone have more info about this piece of the set up?
15-20 Mbps uplink will be enough for most situations, at 4K. It's not like you'll be streaming ProRes or some other minimal/no-compression data. You should be encoding a compressed stream and sending that to the streaming service. For 1080p, you can probably get by with 10-15 Mbps up, though it is better to have more bandwidth since you might have other things pushing data up at the same time.
Re: Webcam, Lights, and Audio for Remote Work, Podcasting, Videos, and Streaming
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would you recommend?
Shure's SM58 and SM57 have the same capsule as the SM7B for 1/3 the price and fuss. Like the Rolex Submariner, the SM58 has been cloned at lower and lower prices since its introduction. The design is solid regardless of the price point. Imitations from Pyle and Audio Technica sound great and cost less, but aren't as rugged. If you _want_ to spend money for more pleasing tone the Beta 87A from Shure is outstanding. As…
I will 100% back up the SM57 (to a slightly lesser extend the SM58, but it's still an easy make). I've also had no problems with Samson C02s[0] (though they can be bright if you don't EQ them well, but have great isolation) and the MXL 2003A[1] (much warmer—great for vox all around). All are relatively affordable.
[0] http://www.samsontech.com/samson/products/microphones/conden...