Most of the people who come to budgetguitarist.com are looking for tips on how to make their cheap gear sound good, or which cheap gear I like or dislike, or to read a review of some piece of cheap gear they already bought.  Some come for tips on guitar maintenance.  No one comes here to read my YouTube blog.

Well, almost no one.  A few people have reached out to me and encouraged me to continue, because they’re thinking about starting a channel and they like to see someone on the trail ahead of them.

I’ve decided to just video record content every day and get my initial bad videos out of the way.  No one writes a great song on their first try, and no one makes great videos without making some bad ones first.  So I’m currently making some bad ones.  And here are a few things I’ve learned:

  • Sounds from around the house will make it into your videos.  Sometimes at low volume, sometimes not.  Right now I have a squeaky dryer, and no matter what it shows up in the microphones.  If there’s an annoying sound that happens once in a while, no problem, but the dryer is a repetitive squeak.  I’m not going to try to take it apart and fix it because I’d make it worse.  I’ll run it until it breaks and then buy a new one.  Murica!
  • I’m not happy with the sound of my AKG 214 as a substitute boom mic, but I’m also not happy with my lapel mic.  Both sound decent, though, so it is what it is.
  • I’m recording on an iPhone SE and also recording in Logic at the same time.  It’s not too bad to put them together in Final Cut Pro, but I’d like to add a second “camera angle” using my old iPhone 5.  Hey, it can record 1080p no problem and it doesn’t look too bad.  The solution is simple – I need to buy another tripod and iPhone adaptor.
  • Quicktime Pro does a good job recording my screen, but it always makes the laptop fan kick on.  I wonder if there are any programs that do the same thing without putting that much strain on the CPU.  Maybe I should look at the settings.
  • When I decide to buy something, it’s all I think about until it happens.  I bought my 2016 MacBook Pro used after spending countless hours doing research and searching for a good place to buy that I could trust and that had a warranty.  So right now, I’m dying to get my hands on the Line 6 Pod Go.  Originally it was supposed to ship in April, and some did, but now they’re saying May.  This thing is going to sell like mad.
  • I keep trying to think of a good opening phrase.  Most channels have one.  Actually most channels say “Hey GUYS!” as their opener.  I’m not doing that.  Right now I’m using: “Hey!  Richard from budgetguitarist.com here.”  We’ll see if that sticks.
  • I’m learning that there are certain times of the day and of the week when I can record different things.  If I’m recording some guitar playing through my Floor Pod Plus, I can do it any time because it’s nothing but direct audio.  If I’m using a mic, well, I can’t be doing laundry and I can’t do it when there’s a lot of noise in the house.  My family is good about keeping the noise down, though.  So mostly I can’t do it while doing laundry.  Like right now.
  • Because of that, I’m starting to storyboard out some videos to optimize my recording times.  With the dryer running, now would be a good time for me to record playing through the Floor Pod Plus.  So I’m working on a spreadsheet with all of the various scenes in it to come up with a super efficient plan for recording.

This is definitely fun.  I know that no matter what I do, my videos won’t be perfect and some people will hate them.  I’m going to need to develop the “thick skin” that YouTubers have and I’m not looking forward to it, but I can do it.