Behind the Scenes #1

Hellooo, it's me again!

Am I posting too much? 😅 I just feel like I should fill out this page you know! Maybe once I get the real stuff posted I can slow down on these?

Well, I also just feel antsy since I'm on a bit of a lockdown on using my voice, so there's not much I can otherwise do.

I thought it'd be fun to show you a bit of my set up and teach you about it!

This is my main desk (shoutout to HSR on the other screen), there's some stuff around but don't pay attention to it too much okay?

Dual monitors, decent keyboard and mouse, got my water and glass, and my streamdeck to control volumes and press buttons for funni effects. My fidget cube (very handy), my iPhone is between the two monitors and elevated a bit for face tracking. There's also some lozenge pack there and apples...eheh...

The mic here is what I use for my streams, it's an AT2020 and I've had it for already...idk, at least 2 years now. I've thought about upgrading it but it still works pretty well I think! I've got it connected to the streamdeck there and have a nice audio set up with WaveLink (this was probably a much bigger upgrade to my audio than getting a new mic would have been, allowed me to easily do EQ and other audio effects and seems like a good quality interface anyways), and it's connected to a boom arm on my other desk.

Turning to the right is my other desk, in this L shape formation I recently put together! I love the extra space I got here, I normally put up all my ASMR recording stuff there. It makes it so I don't have to clear my main desk every time I want to record and I can easily swap between recording and PC work. It's nice to just turn between things. I also have an old TV to the side there with my switch for when I want to play games.

Now, getting more into the equipment!

You've seen this already, it's my ASMR audio interface. This is the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (3rd Gen). Two channels for the binaural audio of course. Kept at 50% gain each for clear audio. Just gotta press the "48V" button to turn everything on! I'll also connect headphones to that jack on the edge so I can monitor myself and make sure everything sounds good while recording. I think this guy has worked well for me so far! I have an old one with only one input that I'm gonna have to sell eventually...

Getting closer to the ASMR setup here. First of all, these mics are Rode NT1s. They're a newer addition to my repertoire! My other mics are good too, but I wanted something made more for voice. I'll expand on this when I get to the other mics, but they're more so made for different things. I've used these a couple times already and you can hear them in some upcoming videos. They have directional sound so it's good if you want to move around and give the feeling of being behind you too. Pretty pleased with them so far but they are very sensitive to vibrations so I have to be careful.

Behind the mics is my tablet! I got this recently too, just for this set up. It's sitting on a phone stand I got a while ago. I use this to load up scripts/instructions for when I'm recording! Since, you know I can't see my monitors from this position. I also plan to use this for when I'm in bed, doing bed asmrs or whatever. I could use it to monitor chats during live ASMRs too, and there's even some space to put my iPhone stand so I can still maintain face tracking. Pretty comfy tool!

All around this setup are some sound proof panels. They're pretty sturdy and well made, very adjustable and they sit nicely on the desk. These mics are a bit tall so I don't know how much it helps with them specifically, but I think for stuff like the 3DIO it is nice. Hard for me to tell how useful or helpful they are but it's a little improvement I guess. Most relevant to my livestreams, since I can easily cut out noises in recordings and eliminate white noise with ✨fancy tools ✨. I can move these out of the way more if I want more room for triggers or whatever, but this amount of space seems to be fine.

A little note about noise, sound proofing is great and all but sometimes there's nothing you can do, it's very hard to eliminate everything. Often you just have to wait out loud noises - say there's idk cars or people being loud or pets making noise. My ideal would be some fully sound proofed room, I've seen some other streamers mentioning having this but seems like a long ways away for me, so I'll make do with this for now. I think most people don't notice these little things anyways.

You can see my door ahead there a bit, there's velcro on the walls where I attach a sound proof blanket - not too helpful for recordings but good for having my family not complain about me being loud during streams >.<

Next, these are my Rode NT5s! Popular mic in the vtubing sphere nowadays but they've actually been highly used for ASMR for a while. I'll set these up on the mic stands I have when I actually use them, but you can also just take them out of the clips here and set them on the desk. These are great and pretty cheap mics, but I will say they're designed mostly for directed noises. So, you can bring a noise really close to the mic, and it'll sound great and pick it up well. But stuff like, moving to the side, moving behind...it's not great at that. So I think these mics are best for "sounds", capturing pure triggers and whatnot. But I felt my voice was lacking a bit with these, which is why I went and got the NT1s.

Finally, the classic 3DIO. This is the one that has XLR connection; big improvement over the basic one I had before that would have its battery dying all the time, producing inconsistent and janky sound (need to sell that one too...). I like using this one the most, it's my general go-to mic. While the sound quality isn't the best, it can "do" everything. It has directionality, and the silicone ears make lots of triggers possible that otherwise wouldn't be - ear rubbing, licking, heartbeats, ear cleaning, etc etc, they're all much easier to perform with this mic. So if I have to do ANYTHING involving ears basically, I'll just use this, usually for the whole recording to make things easier (but sometimes I get fancy and use multiple mics for one video). It's why I use it for most of my livestreams too. I got a little stand for it and sometimes it's shaky but has worked well for me over the years.

I think the next step in my audio journey would be jumping to a KU100 + a better audio interface ( tho not sure what actually?). Anything else would just be minor improvements that you couldn't perceive - even the KU100 is not significantly better than anything else imo, and it's why I don't really have it as a goal and don't plan for it any time soon, but I do see it as the final step in my audio journey as you really can't get better than that, more of a symbolic thing you know?

As for my process, I will usually record 3 videos a week, though it depends on my health at the time (for example, this week I've only done 1). 1 day to record, and then it's about 1 day to edit the audio and put together the video. I think it's a pretty nice workflow, and gives me 1 day a week to be flexible (putting together scripts, ideas and such) - I record more often than I post so that I can build up a backlog if anything happens, such as getting sick (coming in useful now!)

You might wonder if I do anything to the audio to make it sound good...actually, most of the time it's just raw audio! I've found that audio effects tend to make the sound quality worse. It's better to sacrifice some white noise but have clear sounds and voice than to use whatever effects to muffle it but have the sounds get worse too. I only use lots of gain, and sometimes a compressor too (makes sure the loud noises aren't too loud). Sometimes I'll notice loud plosives in recordings, and I'll apply a small plosive remover plugin to those small sections of audio, making them sound normal. I record pretty close to the mics but like to move around as well.

For software, I record in audacity most of the time (though sometimes with OBS) and edit within there and/or in Adobe Premiere where I put together the videos!

Sooo, that's about it, was it cool? Interesting? I'd like to get back to recording soon but alas all I can do is just talk about it for now. I'm pretty happy with this set up I configured recently! ✨Do you think I'm...impressive? :3 Proud of me?

Alright I'll see you sooon~ 💙 and have a good day! I know this is probably boring, but I miss you...