 In this video I'm gonna show you my desk setup and explain how I use this for creating the tutorial videos for this channel I'll also show you the studio give you a bit of a studio tour so that you can see what other equipment is going on in here And also I'll share sort of plans for future development because let's face it. It's never quite finished Is it there's always something more we can do to improve and add to it So I do have plans for ongoing improvement as well Incidentally the reason for this video is because I did post a photograph of my studio setup on Instagram and a few other places I need to get quite a few questions about it and specifically one came up in the discord community So if you're not already a member, it's free to join head over to take one tech i o slash family And there we continue the conversation about all the things we talk about in this in this channel So with that said let's jump over and we'll get on into having a bit of a studio tour So here's the the desk setup and let's start with the with the monitor. That is a Philips 43 inch monitor I've never done a review on it actually although it is a really great monitor And it's not it's not a TV I know a lot of people use TVs as monitors, but this is actually a monitor. Unfortunately, it's not available in the US I don't know quite why it's only available in in fact, I don't think it's available in Europe either It's only sort of seems to be Southeast Asia and Australia New Zealand places like that But I really love it because it's a 4k for a 43 inch monitor, but it's not widescreen I've never been a fan of the ultra wide monitors So this is effectively just a regular aspect ratio So think of it as you know kind of like for HD monitors in a 2x2 arrangement Which works really well for me and if you've seen all of the hype about the LG dual up monitor Which you know people are saying oh well You can have you know like an HD monitor at the top and one at the bottom Well, this is basically the same but just kind of double the width So it's basically like two LG dual ups together if you want to think of it like that But what's great about that is it means that for from a work perspective If I'm working on something like some coding or a long document or something like that I can have that in a sort of portrait down one side But then if I'm working on spreadsheet, so I do a lot of work with data Then sometimes I have you know a spreadsheet that runs the whole width of it because I need to be able to see all the columns to sort of cross-reference information and it's basically sort of You know infinitely Adjustable in terms of things that are suited to more portrait orientation or landscape So I really love the monitor from that point of view But for the screen sharing and the sort of screen demos that I do on this channel It's also great for that as well because what you can see here is The arrangement that I'll tend to have it in when I'm doing something with a screen demo And I've basically got different areas of the screen So basically six different areas three along the top and three along the bottom where I can put different Applications or things that I want to share Now when I'm doing a screen demo in on my channel in e-cam live I basically set up scenes that just crop in to those six different areas of the screen So if I just quickly come over to I suppose down here actually I can show you This is a classic sort of screen sharing view that you would see on my channel So I've got my camera up in the top corner there and then the area of the screen is here Well that particular point is just actually sharing this window over here or rather this area of the screen So I've just cropped in done a screen share of the whole screen Screen share overlay in e-cam live, and then I've cropped into that particular area of the scene What that means is when I'm doing demos where I'm showing lots of different things throughout the demo Then I can have all of those things queued up and ready to go and then just easily switch between them Without having to worry about you know swapping Swapping windows actually on the screen so it gives me lots of different places Where I can I can share different applications I do tend to only use four of them actually during the the video or the live stream So in this case now that I've moved my camera over to this side because my camera always used to be actually mounted onto the top So I've got this ball head there that I mounted I'll show you how I've got the monitor mounted in a little moment but I always used to have the camera and teleprompter on top of the The monitor but it was always just sort of looking down at me So I've recently moved it off to the side to be more at more at eye level So because I tend to be sitting more like here then the areas of the screen I want to be sharing I have the sort of primary ones are sort of here And then anything additional would be in these two areas here And then anything that's over this side is really too far to look across to it Looks a bit unnatural if I'm looking right across to the other side of the screen on the screen whilst I'm recording So this is more where I keep things like Discord so on my live stream we have the discord going and the discord back channel as well That is going to be over here Although actually the the backstage past members get access to the live stream You know live feed of the live stream Whilst it's going on and in fact the actual voice channel the video part of discord I would have down here in case I need to sort of share that or bring anyone from the back channel onto the stream as well But anyway, I digress Down here is where I've got all of my e-cam controls And this is also where I have my e-cam main window So although I do use a teleprompter to show me the output of e-cam so you can see that whatever I'm seeing here I'm also seeing up here in the This this teleprompter. I don't use teleprompters for for actual Teleprompting as such it's just literally to see the output to make sure I'm showing the the correct things that are going out Again and monitor the output, but I use the the video monitor Function on e-cam to send the the output to here and then the e-cam main window is down here Some people I know put the e-cam main window actually on that second monitor I just find that then it makes it a bit tricky to make Changes because that's not the largest of monitors So I prefer to have the actual e-cam main window separate And so this is where I can do all of the controls and things like that So then the camera and teleprompter is off to the side as you can see Now one thing I found though when I moved the teleprompter Sorry the the camera and this screen off to the side during a live stream I did always like to have the chat directly below the camera so that can just glance down to have a look at the chat So what I've done at the moment is I've just moved my iPad mini. That's on sidecar from the coming from the Mac mini So it's just acting as another display. So here I can have the chat Sometimes I do have bullet points for the live stream because otherwise I get distracted a bit of a squirrel mind like that So I'll have some bullet points maybe for things to cover in the live stream Also, when I'm on zoom calls, then this is where I'd have the gallery view. That's where I'd have the speaker view Or any notes or anything that I need for the call would be down there as well This is just a temporary solution What I will be doing is getting a like a 15 inch small portable monitor And then I'll have that in portrait orientation here So it will basically be something similar to that there for the top half I'll use for Chat notes things like that I'll probably also though move my ecam controls over to the bottom of that monitor as well because whilst I don't normally make changes kind of on the fly If you are doing a live stream and then suddenly there's some overlay missing or something not right with the scenes It is always good to be able to just easily see them at a glance. I'll probably have that Down there when I do upgrade that monitor Believe it or not, even with all that space for some of the screen demos that I do I do still run out of space a little bit Now when the camera was on the top of the screen, I'd still got six areas to work with But I do find that this one over here is just a little bit too far away To use in practical purposes for demos So what I'm also going to do is add a second small monitor off to this side So I'll have one down here that will be for chat notes and things like that And then there'll be another monitor over here that will just be purely for Screen demos again, probably just a 15 17 inch something like that Just purely for screen demos and I'm not really bothered about the resolution of it I don't think I'll go with a 4k monitor Just a small hd will be fine for what I'm trying to do because ultimately it's all just sort sort of squeezed down Anyway into this kind of view So I'll probably just as I say just get something smaller for there. So the microphone now is Mounted here. So the short mv7 still going into the ROCASTER Pro 2 But I have now switched my microphone arm to the AVerMedia live streamer boom arm, which is amazing First of all, it's got such a long reach. So it means that Whilst the Elgato wave LP would have come to about here This gives you an extra sort of nine inches and it means that I can have the microphone mounted to the far side of my desk over there But when I'm not recording or live streaming it can just sort of fold out of the way And the thing that's great about this arm is it's not just a low profile arm So you can see that it's sort of low profile But because you can basically orientate it in every direction It could be a top-down arm. It could be a low profile arm. It could be a bit of a hybrid of both So it's just got full flexibility on all joints. It can all joints can move in all directions So it means I can just sort of move it out of the way there But I've also used it as a top-down camera arm at times as well But yeah, I highly recommend that it's really great And if you need a little bit of extra reach, then you can get with the Elgato wave This is really really solid and the build quality I would say is on par with the Elgato wave as well So I've been really happy with that. I have repurposed my Elgato wave arm though And that is now if I just disconnect this that is now basically holding my ROCASTER Pro 2 So I've just used the single lug in the bottom single bolt in the bottom And now the ROCASTER Pro 2 is mounted to that which means that when I'm doing demos I can just sort of pull it towards me And you know use it if I've got the top-down shot showing it off the ROCASTER Or I can just push it out of the way when I'm not I think it was just such a such a smart move of a road to add that extra Bolt in the bottom and they've also got the visa mount in the bottom as well So if you've got some sort of arm with a visa mount then that's going to be a You know possibly arguably a more stable support because it's obviously four points of Contact there as opposed to a single single bolt But certainly the Elgato wave seems to be holding up and I have managed to also if I just pull it out a little bit I have managed to use the cable routing to a point as well So I've got all the main cables going in there the microphone cable I haven't actually at the moment but probably not quite enough room for that But it does mean that I can route the cables in there and it sort of keeps it a little bit cleaner from underneath You don't end up with a load of cables hanging down there The the monitor itself is actually mounted to a sort of one of those tv stands So you can see it goes down to the floor You've got some wheels on it at the bottom there and that is basically completely separate from the desk then I was super paranoid About knocking it over because although it got some legs on it, you know that sort of sticking out I did sort of think that this was going to go over at some point if I If I just stood it on the desk I could have obviously got a monitor arm But again quite a large thing to hold up although you can get arms that will hold it But it's also the point that it was everything was connected to that So you could as I mentioned my ball head for the camera was up there. This is now the Avermedia 4k I'll leave a link to everything I'm talking about in the description obviously, but This I use for a second sort of angle. I'm still testing that out a little bit But it's I've been really impressed with the the quality I've got out of it as a sort of secondary 4k angle even though all of my videos tend to be HD anyway, but It's been it's been pretty good But as you can see it's actually mounted onto the the tv stand as well So those are the kind of the two poles coming up from the tv stand and then this is just mounted to the top of them I've also used one of these boom arms here these sort of cheap Mic arms to use to mount an iphone and then I'm using camo by reincubate To use the camera from the phone as a top-down camera I'll probably replace that at some point with an actual camera But it's been it's been working all right for me so far So I digress the point was all of this is mounted off the the monitor or the monitor stand So what that means is it's isolated from from the desk So as I'm you know banging the desk if I do occasionally then it doesn't transmit through to the the top-down camera or the camera on the top So I really like the fact that it's the monitor is completely separate The the camera though and the teleprompter now that I've moved them off the top of the monitor I have now got that that tripod behind there that is Is not the most attractive of things so what I was thinking of doing was actually Getting a second desk that is sort of taller than this desk and slightly wider I'm putting that behind because I've got quite a gap there just to sort of house all of this stuff So I could almost have a second second desk running behind there Maybe like you know a foot and a half wide something like that that basically everything else mounts off So then I would get an actual arm to mount the the main display I'd also get an arm to mount that one and then as I've said you know getting these other Two displays for the screen sharing and the notes and things like that down here Then they would all mount off that desk as well And what that would mean is that I would still have that sort of isolation of my desk from all of those different things I could mount the algato wave arm with the rocaster onto there as well Only thing I couldn't do which is probably the most important is this particular one Although maybe I could figure out a different way to have that coming in from somewhere else as well Other things just briefly that are on the the desk in case you're interested The stream deck of course and the loop deck often get people asking about how those are mounted This is just a little yulanzi tablet stand and the Stream deck sits on top of that and the stand actually only holds the loop deck So this one you can just literally lift it off. But uh whilst it's there It's pretty stable stays where it is and that's what I use for ecum So I have all my controls for ecum here and here as well So I only really use the loop deck for ecum where stream deck I use for absolutely everything But having the dials on the loop deck is useful for For using with with ecum to control levels and things like that I've also got the ava media live stream in nexus here, which I've been testing out So I'm still in the testing process to see how that's going to sort of fit into To everything although with the stream deck and loop deck and with the rocaster It's not actually adding a huge amount of functionality to what I'm doing right now But it is a really interesting device in itself I've got the stream deck pedal down below as well. So I do use the stream deck pedal and also my third party Pedal that I use as well before the stream deck pedal came out Also on the desk is my black whiteboard. So I use this for writing things down maybe little notes So it's just a whiteboard with a black whiteboard whatever you call it Blackboard, but it's made glass So it's just useful for Well for all sorts of times actually for before zoom meetings or something like that If I want to write something down on it often if I've got a meeting and I'd Worried that I might forget the person's name. I'll write their name down on it Or during live streams to just jot things down You know if I need to remember some particular facts or figures or something like that Then I'll often just write them on that and then wipe them off afterwards. So that's pretty pretty handy Also on here. We've got to obviously the Logitech MX Master 3 the best mouse in the world And I suppose just quickly since we are talking about studio The behind there is an acoustic panel I've got another acoustic panel from hanging from the roof there to sort of totally generic Lights there that just they actually just use regular light bulbs So I can change the temperature and brightness if I change the bulb. It's as simple as that Another acoustic panel there that's actually covering the a window So that one I've put on a slider so that I can slide it to actually get access to the window Although I've put a sort of shelf unit there to which cunningly blocks that out A couple more acoustic panels on the back a few more And around this side as well I do have a green screen which is a sort of homemade job That just sort of rolls down So I've got this steel tube that's running across the top and then I can just lower that down and then down there we've got the Nanolite pavo tube six C's that I give in this sort of wash on the back wall And then that sort of backlighting effect that we've got is just from these led strips I'll replace these with something better at some point. I mean, there were these really sort of Cheap lighting strips that you see on amazon and the like and then they just have a a little remote Like this so we can change the color of them But if there is a power cut they do default to the just multi-colored flashing lights So something like this if I can there you go So if if ever there is a slight drop in power Then they just default to like that which is not entirely ideal But anyway, I will change those to something that give me a little bit more control at some point And then the the acoustic panels carry on around this side I got a little shelving unit there and obviously you need to have a place to have a nap It's quite tiring being a content creator sometimes in case you're interested I did do a full video all about the studio build and you can find that video right over here