What was the most recent upgrade you made to your AV setup?

[MarinaT]

Hey there instructors,

It’s always exciting to upgrade your setup, and we want to hear more about it!

What was the most recent upgrade you made to your AV setup? 

Whether it's a shiny new microphone, a sleek camera upgrade, or even just a small tweak to your lighting setup, we want to hear about it!

Share your new upgrades below.

[Anonymous]

Not trying to record everything in the absolute highest possible quality possible. Most people can't see the difference between 720p60 and 4K, not even with phone and computer screens capable of it. I have found in all my years teaching that if you can take something hard that someone wants to learn and explain it in a way that makes it really easy for them to understand so that they are really getting it and are getting motivated and fired up to keep going, you can be sitting in front of them with ketchup on your shirt, your hair messed up, and smelling bad, and they'll go around telling everyone you're weird, but the best teacher they've ever had.

I think social media has led us to believe we have to be a movie star to say something valuable, and it just isn't true.

Stopping worrying about extreme levels of quality was the best tweak I ever made.

[Praveenkumar]

A pillow behind the mic works wonders. 

I recently moved to a new home, and my computer table setup leads to echo while using Blue Yeti (with boom arm). As I needed to start recording for a course quickly, I tried the simple trick of keeping a pillow behind the mic, and I was satisfied with the quick-fix result it achieved. 

[MelanieStevens183]

Great tip, thank you! I have cushions and stuffed animals all over my recording room, but I didn't think of putting a pillow or cushion directly behind the mic. I'll be testing that out!

[chrisworfolk]

I'm in the process of replacing my old lights with LED ones to give me greater control over the colour. The Rotolight ones are great.

[DiogoAlvesd487]

I got the Shure SM7dB mic to improve my audio. Love it so far 🙂

[StevanBeslac71]

As students in majority use the earphones, sound quality can make a big impact on user experience. My biggest investment was in microphone and sound mixer for this purpose. So, I can encourage anyone to invest in this piece of equipment as soon as they can.

[ExecCoachLeila]

 I recently bought the El Gato Facecam Pro. Worth every penny. So easy to use. I love it. 

[FahadMasood]

I just bought Sony zv1 camera and some lighting and a green screen to improve the quality of my videos

[JeffSharman592]

I have not made any upgrades to my AV recently. The quality is good and I use the NCH software for Audio clean up, Video recording, Still photo editing and Video editing. I find it is very effective, inexpensive and very easy to use. 

[MelanieStevens183]

Would you mind letting me know where I can get NCH software from, or what to type into the search engine to find it? I had a look online but I could only find software for streaming/listening to music rather than recording.

Thanks 🙂

[ThaMilan]

Got myself a Lumina 4k webcam. It has AI features and the video quality is really good. Before this, I was using a logitech c920 and it always did a great job, but I wanted a better webcam resolution. My entire tech stack is 4k so the change made sense. 

[Btkrausen]

I've recently added an Elgato Teleprompter which has helped with creating some intro videos and shorter videos where I'm talking to the student. I don't script my regular training videos, but the teleprompter has helped with videos that have a very specific point to make.

Additionally, I started using Audiate by TechSmith. The integration with Camtasia is awesome and is allows you to edit your videos like you're editing Microsoft Word and just deleting words and such. It syncs the changes back to the video which has really shorted the time it takes to edit a video.

[ThaMilan]

Interesting what you mention about TechSmith. I had such a bad experience with Camtasia that I requeted a refund and moved away from it. I had terrible audio/sync issues and their support was not able to help me. I am now with Movavi as a screen recorder. Did you have any sync issues with Camtasia?

[Btkrausen]

I haven't had any, but I know another creator who recently posted about this. That said, I don't record myself on camera very often, so audio-syncing issues haven't really been a problem for me.

[FahadMasood]

I had a bad experience too with Camtasia, I am using OBS Studio to record my Screen and using Filmora X to edit my videos, you can use Capcut to edit your videos ( Capcut is free, Filmora is paid but cheap and they have a lifetime license too!), you can record up to 4K using OBS Studio and it is light on your PC!! It's the best combination I've been using so far, try it! Good Luck

[MelanieStevens183]

I was using the Blue Yeti Snowball microphone but I found it was picking up all sorts of background noise from outside my house, and it was taking me forever to keep editing it out! So I've bought a Rode NT-USB Mini microphone for just under £100 GBP, it sounds loads better and I have some good software with it too. 

[Btkrausen]

In my experience, Blue Yeti mics pick up EVERYTHING in the background, so I also had to move away from them. I now use a Shure SM7B, and it's been amazing.

[FahadMasood]

I use Blue SnowBall, and it is AMAZING while recording I use a filter to reduce the noise, so it does the job, I use OBS Studio to record my Screen and it comes with a built in noise filter, Try it, much better than removing the noise while editing !! Good Luck guys