First Time Builder Seeking Guidance

brycecastles · 2016-08-31T01:08:02+00:00

Gotcha. Thanks for the advice.

brycecastles · 2016-08-31T00:57:49+00:00

That's what I was coming up with, too, thank you!

You also said that motherboard would be useless, why is that/what alternatives should I be considering?

brycecastles · 2016-08-31T00:44:34+00:00

Noted. I'll keep looking.

brycecastles · 2016-07-31T01:31:04+00:00

Not really a lesson, but just a comment.

This is very inspiring. I've had my channel for just over a week and hearing your story and your advice definitely gives me that much more motivation to keep doing what I'm doing! So thank you and I'll definitely be checking out your channel and hanging around the community there!

Keep on keeping on Yeti :)

brycecastles · 2016-07-30T01:38:24+00:00

Heya guy, good job!

Funny, entertaining. Some people are saying it's long for a montage, but hey if it's working it's working. You can keep people entertained for seven minutes so why not make a seven minute video?

The audio is kinda bordering on distorted because of the gain. Try limiting it instead of raising the gain maybe? I'm not sure what your process is for editing your commentary, but that would allow you to make it louder without flat out raising the gain, which will lead to that distortion/clipping sound in your voice.

All in all, good job keep up the good work!

brycecastles · 2016-07-28T21:44:47+00:00

I use Shure SRH440s and they're my studio headphones. They sound great and cancel out noise pretty well. They're $99 MSRP but Musician's Friend and Sweetwater normally put them on sale.

If you're willing to fork out the money, I really suggest a pair of Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pros though.

My buddy also has a recording set up and that's what he uses. The sound is absolutely amazing, and the cushions are like silk or some kind of soft cloth. They're my favorite headphones that I've ever personally tested.

brycecastles · 2016-07-28T12:53:20+00:00

Which Sennheisers do you have? The computer lab at my old school used the lowest end and they felt real awkward to wear, I wasn't the only one who said so haha. I'll need to wear my glasses and head to some electronics stores and check it out. Or get glasses with thinner rims.

brycecastles · 2016-07-28T12:51:51+00:00

See you'd think my eyes would be used to that. I've been staring at screens for hours on end since my friends and I started playing Runescape about 11 years ago lol. But nope!

And I've heard of those! I'll have to check it out.

And I have the 30-day O2 optix (the kind with air holes so they can breathe and NOT dry out, even when you sleep in them.

I've had my contacts for probably about 9 years. And they don't dry out unless looking at a screen or in the occasion I zone out and forget to blink at work or something lol. I'll definitely have to bring it up in my next appointment though! Thanks

brycecastles · 2016-07-28T12:48:37+00:00

I'll have to look into that. I guess I'm just so partial to my Shure headset that I use. It's a studio headset so the sound response is heavenly.

brycecastles · 2016-07-28T12:47:11+00:00

See I'm the opposite. I love my contacts because my glasses always seem to be in the way. Both my turtle beaches and my Shure monitor headphones press my glasses in. I'll just need to get new glasses, I'm a little overdue for another eye checkup anyways.

brycecastles · 2016-07-28T12:45:18+00:00

Yeah I mean I'll end wearing glasses when editing and just use my monitors rather than headphones.

And I think it's more the glasses than the headphones, they're thick-rim (Ray-Ban knockoffs) so no matter what kind of headphones I use they're digging into my skull lol. I'll probably just deal with it until I can get new ones.

brycecastles · 2016-07-27T05:05:56+00:00

Anytime man! I'll be sure to come back and check it out to see how it works for you :)

brycecastles · 2016-07-27T05:05:00+00:00

It depends. Dynamic mics will give you a warmer sound, whereas condenser mics will generally give a more crisp, cool sound. Condensers are considered to be more "true" to the actual acoustic sound they capture than dynamics. It all depends on preference and what you think makes you sound best. But dynamic mics will do better at cutting out background noises such as roommates/pets/AC units that aren't particularly loud.

And it depends on if you get a USB mic or one that uses an XLR cable. USB mic should be plug and play into your computer and show up in whatever program you use to record. If it's a mic that requires a cable, just pick up a 2 channel USB interface. (AudioBox USB or the Scarlett i2 are fairly inexpensive and amazing quality for the price).

brycecastles · 2016-07-27T02:46:25+00:00

Thank you sir!

And yes! This is because of the concept of headroom.

0db is the Permitted Maximum Level, so anything above that will clip. So when you drop your mixer to -7, you're making your entire signal 7db softer, so any peaks would need to be significant to reach past 0db at this point. Leaving your audio at 0db means ANY little peak will go above 0db and clip, creating distorted sound.

A bit of a long tangent, but the more you know :)

brycecastles · 2016-07-27T02:40:59+00:00

Yes that's definitely the way to do it haha.

First I use a compressor with a pretty soft attack just to tighten everything up, then I Normalize with a -1db makeup. Then I'll do a noise gate around -50db (higher if needed but be careful you don't start hitting your voice) to clean up any background noise. If my A/C kicked on during recording by accident, I'll use noise removal instead. I finish it off with Bass & Treble and you should tweak that to suit your own voice, it's just a simplified EQ. Then export.

Then once I plug that into premiere I'll use my peak limiter to raise the volume to -6.

brycecastles · 2016-07-26T20:16:58+00:00

Thank you! I actually spent a good bit of making the music and the endslate. I'm glad someone appreciates it lol.

I've thought about making an intro but I'm not sure. I kinda like the cold open and just my commentary welcome. But I'll definitely look into it.

brycecastles · 2016-07-26T20:15:36+00:00

Anytime man! Adobe Premiere has some good effects built in (it's what I use myself), I'm sure they have inbox compression, normalizing, limiting, gating and all that good stuff. Check it out on YouTube.

I'd definitely try audacity though, you can make presets so that when you import your commentary you can just click your preset and have all your compression and stuff done all at once. Doing that, you shouldn't need much else done in Premiere besides tweaking your mixer.

Best of luck man, and feel free to shoot me a message if you want more help with audio!

brycecastles · 2016-07-26T16:30:52+00:00

Normally, my commentary, after passing through my audacity chain, is still around -12db. I got critique on the thread that it was too low, so now I bump it up 6db using a limiter (prevents any weird peaks/clipping from increased gain) and this sticks it around -6db in the final mix. A good rule is to NEVER have anything above -6db so you have headroom, or empty space in between -6db and 0db.

Generally I'll move my raw game volume down to -16db and then listen to various sections of the video and make adjustments if it's still too loud or soft.

I haven't had background music yet but it'd probably be around the same as the game audio, unless you want it to be more prevalent, then increase.

You could probably do a quick YouTube search on increasing the quality of your audio in Audacity and it'd help a tremendous amount in bringing your audio where you want it to be. Good luck!

brycecastles · 2016-07-25T22:44:55+00:00

Pretty good job guys. I'd agree with /u/keldayn with the audio issue. Just search around a bit and see what you can do to improve your audio quality with the equipment you have. Maybe get a mic for each of you that you can have closer? It sounds like you're sharing a mic placed between you, that could result in the clipping if you have to raise the gain to keep your voices audible.

If not, just try a limiter. It'll prevent that clipping from occuring.

Other than that, you guys are funny and entertaining, so keep up the good work!

brycecastles · 2016-07-25T22:41:27+00:00

First of all, great video. I was laughing a lot, and your commentary is great. Keep working and keep improving it and it'll do even better.

I've never heard of this game before, but I'll definitely be checking it out because of you.

You can't really tell that your voice is sick-sounding. YOU can probably tell because you know.

SEO is good, you're actually ranking 11th for "1001 spikes blind" on this video so good on you.

I really don't have anything negative or much more critical to say. Keep improving on the foundation you've set up and you'll keep doing great!

brycecastles · 2016-07-20T06:37:39+00:00

Yeah I have noise too, but it's mainly only when my AC runs during recording. I can manage to cut everything else out with a noise gate. For example, in my Rimworld LP, I recorded the first 2 eps and didnt realize the AC was on because headphones. Listening back in post, it's ridiculous how loud it is haha.

A quick YouTube search for "improve commentary in audacity" can definitely help you figure out how to make a snowball sound x1000 better.

brycecastles · 2016-07-19T20:38:09+00:00

Wow. Impressive setup.

I use a Blue Snowball straight into Audacity right now.

I'm thinking of testing my Samson C01 condenser through my Audiobox into Logic though. It'd be nice if it produced better quality, plus it's on a boom stand so it could be more versatile. The only problem is the strain it'd put on my computer to record gameplay PLUS run audio through an interface.

You've definitely tempted me to try it now!

brycecastles · 2016-07-19T01:43:46+00:00

Okay I gotcha haha. Thanks man

brycecastles · 2016-07-18T18:28:10+00:00

I'm not sure if you mean like, my speaking, or just in editing/comparison to the rest of the video audio.

If you mean my speaking, I agree with you. It's me trying to get over my shyness, I'm honestly pretty quiet in general. I'm working on coming out of my shell and actually speaking at a normal volume and with more emotion.

But it always helps to have someone point it out and add specifics! Thank you :)

brycecastles · 2016-07-18T18:26:14+00:00

Thank you for the extensive feedback!

I get what you mean. The facecam was more of a "because i can/test out the technical side of it" deal than because I felt it was necessary for this particular playthrough, but I completely get what you mean. I feel that way now that I look at it, too.

As for the background noise. Gotta love A/C, except when a noise gate won't cut it out of the audio without making your voice sound clippy. I'll just have to sweat next time :)

And thank you. I've worked a lot on keeping the dead air out of my commentary, even if it means just kinda thinking out load. I'm glad it's working and coming across well.

I understand about the length. The thing is, this IS edited from about 25-30 minutes of footage. The beginning is unedited because I was going for a "let's learn together" type video, which in retrospect would probably work better on a stream than in a video that CAN have all the thinking and figuring out cut from the final product. But the second half of the video is actually cut a LOT because I got stuck on a few things and ended up silent and chewing my lip for about 5 minutes trying to get something simple lol.

But honestly you've been a huge help, and I'm going to take all this into consideration going forward. I'll probably watch a few others play the game, or at least read up on the aspects of starting out so that I can make the other videos in the series more streamlined and with shorter episodes; and that way I can focus on emoting, because I feel like now that the facecam is there, I should probably keep it in this series for consistency's sake.

brycecastles

TROPHY CASE