7 Tips to Streamline a Small Studio Space (My YouTube Office Setup Tour)

what's up guys JD shaver here with new lair and today I'm going to give you a tour of my youtube office set up and share seven specific things that I use to simplify and streamline a small studio space [Music] if you're like me you're working in a small home office or even an extra bedroom for your YouTube studio even though I'm somewhat of a gear hoarder I do try to keep things as efficient as possible and over the years I feel like I've come up with some cool solutions to some common problems that will help you procrastinate less and create more content one of my biggest pet peeves especially in a small space is having too many cords and light stands on the ground so the first thing that I want to show you is my desk mounted light setup I got the initial idea from Caleb Pike at DSLR video shooter and customized it to fit my needs because not everyone has a dual desk setup like I do so this setup consists almost solely of an extra tall monitor mount and it contained almost everything that I needed it comes with two different styles of clamps so you can clamp it on to the lip of the desk like I have or you can even drill through a desktop and clamp it on like that to attach a light to the monitor arm I removed the monitor visa mount and I took a quarter inch bolt it was the right length and attached a spigot adapter there was no drilling necessary and after I did that I have a mount that's basically the same as the top of any light stand I've tried a few different lights on this setup including an an light 460 with a 24 inch softbox but most recently upgraded to an intelligent light Matt I use the intelligent LC 160 RGB W 2 because it's really low profile and it can fold up almost completely flat against the wall the 4 is a 60 worked pretty well but I just like how compact this light is and I also picked up the remote so I can control the brightness and the color temperature directly from my chair so I don't even have to get up this light has white and RGB capability so I can also do any kind of creative lighting that I want the setup is height adjustable and since it's made for a monitor it also comes with these nice little cable management clips to keep everything nice and tidy overall this thing takes up nearly no usable space in the room and being able to leave it set up saves me 10 or 15 minutes of setup and break down every time I film the video it's also just as annoying when you leave stuff set up to have a lot of light stands or softboxes they have to tiptoe around or duck under to get in and out of the light Matt setup is also really useful for product b-roll and product shots because I can take this light and point it almost directly down for a nice soft top light and if I want a different look I can point the light at the ceiling to bounce the light around to get a really nice soft high key look the next things I want to share might seem boring but they serve two really useful functions for me and those are my desk lamps I have our GB Wi-Fi bulbs in them so I can set them to any color and I can control that directly from my phone so they work well as accent lighting or practical lighting behind me on top of that I specifically chose these lamps because they have built-in USB charging ports I didn't think they'd be quite as useful as they are because I find myself using them every day to charge things like my deity microphone pocket lights power banks and things like that I was also using them to charge my phone until I found something even better and that is my current monitor stand I used to have a cheaper monitor stand but recently upgraded to a new one and it has been a lifesaver not only does it have 4 USB 3 charging ports but it also connects directly to the computer for data transfer as well so you can use the USB ports to plug in cameras or thumb drives or any other external peripherals it also works really well for my headset or playing call of duty I mean Skype meetings the reason I mentioned charging my phone a little bit earlier is because this stand also has a wireless charging dock right on top so if I forgot to charge my phone the night before I just come into my office and set it on there and I don't have to worry about phone power for the rest of the day it also just keeps things on my desk extra clean by housing my audio interface and my external card reader underneath this next one is more just upgrading to better gear but I am absolutely in love with my DD wireless audio system like I've decided to leave my family and start a new life with it we're moving to Colorado next week I've always left my DD v-mic d3 pro and I still think it's the best value you can get but I've always connected it directly to my cameras with a 10-foot cable that got really annoying because whether I had my mic on my desk on a mini tripod or if I was booming I still had to make sure that the cable was connected and out of the frame I picked up the didi interview connect kit specifically for the HD TX and the HD TX is absolutely amazing it's a wireless transmitter and audio recorder and a PC audio interface all-in-one it can transmit and record audio at the same time as long as you're using the right firmware that means you can record directly into the camera using one of their wireless receivers but you can also record a backup audio directly into the transmitter at the same time a little tip that I got from Tommy Calloway is to use a VPN when you're accessing the DB firmware page and it will automatically serve you the International firmware files you need the International firmware to record and transmit audio at the same time from both the XLR and the eighth inch ports I still like to boom my mic but now I just use a little bungee tie or a bongo tire or whatever you want to call them to attach the HD TX directly to the boom pole you can also get a boom Pole with XLR jacks directly built-in for a super clean setup and I plan to do that in the future and I think I'll save that for a part two of this video I just record directly into the HD TX that way I don't have to worry about audio levels or preamps on any of my cameras I don't have any more cords hanging down now and hey I can now plug in the HD TX to my monitors stand to transfer my audio file you might be surprised to hear this next one but I rarely set up a tripod in my office anymore I saw a video by Peter McKinnon about these flexible hose clamps and I picked up a kit from dinkum Systems and don't ask me why they're called dinkum but they make some really good hose clamps these things can be used for almost anything but I adjusted the length of the one that I have with the quarter twenty thread on it that way I can stick my Canon M 50 on top and clamp it right to my desk this is the perfect setup for filming talking head videos or even some static b-roll shots for my product reviews since it's flexible it's really easy to get the framing right and when I'm done I just unclamp it and stick it on the shelf it literally takes 10 or 15 seconds to set up and take down so it's just less frustrating to work with and gets another set of legs up off the ground in a small room another bonus tip that I like these clamps for is attaching a phone adapter and clamping it on the desk right in front of me that way I can use it to fill unboxing videos or flat lathes and other things for social media really easily I could go on and on about all the uses for these things but I absolutely love them next is my most recent upgrade and that is my Synology na s or network attached storage I made it a couple years with just four terabytes of internal storage but I'm filming more often now and more often in 4k so I knew it was just a matter of time before I needed more space I picked up the Synology ds9 20 plus which has four bays and you can connect it to a network or directly to a computer I have 4 4 terabyte drive set up in a raid 5 which gives me close to about 11 terabytes of usable space you could do something relatively small like I did but if you get the right drives and set them up differently you can easily get 40 or 50 terabytes of extra space another thing I wanted to mention are my actual desks because I get tons of questions about them there's really nothing special about them except for one feature and that is the shelf on the back side the first good thing about that is obviously having the shelf itself it allows me to keep my most used equipment accessible but out of the way which actually saves me a ton of time over the course of a year not having to go in and out of my gear closet all the time is a huge time-saver the next thing is that it makes the actual top of the desk extra deep so that just gives me a lot of room for all the extra cool stuff that I mentioned earlier it also pushes back my desk mounted stuff like my light and my camera to the perfect working distance my light stays out of frame and the camera is far enough away that I don't have to use a really wide focal length lens to record my talking head video the desktop is also plenty big to put other surfaces on for product shots and b-roll for my videos I have some double-sided vinyl backdrops from HQ backdrops that I lay down on here and it just makes it really easy to get different looks in no time as stupid as this last one sounds I do want to give a bonus shout-out to my curtains these are blackout curtains and they actually do quite a lot obviously the biggest thing they do is block the outside light which gives me the option of filming during the day or at night the second thing they do is absorb sound really well so they do a good job at eliminating any extra reverb or echoes in this room lastly since they are dark gray they act as a negative fill so it just keeps light from bouncing all around the room which is especially important in a small space so what do you think is anything that I mentioned something that would help you streamline your setup in a small space leave a comment and let me know if any of these ideas helped you or if you have some better ones of your own I'll have links in the description to everything that I mentioned in this video and they are affiliate links but it doesn't cost you anything extra and it really does help me create more videos like this I do gear reviews tutorials and other videos like this every week so if that's your sort of thing make sure you hit subscribe and follow me on social media so you don't miss the next one that's it for now guys thanks for watching and I'll see you next time [Music] you [Music]

Channel: New Layer

Views: 314,096

Keywords: youtube home studio setup, youtube home studio, small office design ideas, home office youtube studio, youtube studio tour, youtube studio tutorial, youtube studio hacks, youtube office studio, youtube home studio lighting, streamline home office youtube studio, home youtube studio setup, youtube home office setup, youtube home office ideas, youtube home studio tour, my youtube office tour, youtube studio setup, youtube home studio hacks, youtube home studio tips

Id: q08F5Aerasw

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 08 2020