Voice of Simeon

My Setup For Videos

Here's my setup for when I record videos or livestream with my camera:


I have 2 neewer lights, which I use to brighten up my face. Usually I only use one at a time, so I can choose between which side of my face I want brightened up. I also have colored filters I can cover the lights with, so then my face can brighten with any color I want. Sometimes I will use both lights if I use 2 different colors for a cool effect.

I have the 2 monitors, the left one for my main display, and the right one I use to see chat, my stream stats, and streamlabs obs.

I have an audio technica at2020 microphone on a stand that I can stretch or swing in front of me.

you can see my canon T2i camera on the right, which is on a stand I'm borrowing from my brother. I need to keep it upsidedown so it doesn't detect my face and put a weird white box overlay.

Of course I have my keyboard and mouse on the bottom. The mouse is a red dragon gaming mouse, and the keyboard is made by Phantom but with custom keycaps and brown switches.

Setting up my Canon Rebel T2i Camera

After I got the capture card to work, I then had the issue of a ton of camera settings being overlaid, like the focus, aperture, and lighting stuff in general. I googled and watched a ton of videos on how to use the settings of the camera. 

After about 15 minutes, I managed to remove all of the overlays except for one: Whenever the camera detects a face or a moving object it should focus on, it displays a white box over the the face or object. I didn't wanna have to sit completely still when taking videos or streaming with the camera, so I went back to google search and tried to find a way to fix it. 

It seemed there was no way for me to remove it in the camera settings. Some people said you could install a sort of plugin onto the SD card for the camera, but my computer doesn't have an SD card port, so that's impossible for me unless I buy a converter. I looked even further, and someone said what they did to remove it was flip the camera upside down, since it can't detect faces that way, but this only works for some cameras. I tried it myself, and it worked! Luckily, I had a good stand for the camera that can get a good camera angle upside down, and still stand up. 

Buying an $18 Capture Card from China

Lately I've been watching video tutorials on lighting, cameras, audio, and most tech stuff for making videos or for having a good looking live stream. Two years ago my aunt gave me a nice Canon Rebel T2i camera. The video quality is fantastic, and it focuses really nice on the target. Many big content creators use expensive Canon cameras for recording videos, but I soon found out I need a little converter called a capture card if I wanted to livestream with my Canon camera. Unfortunately, the only trusted brands that make capture cards sell them for well over $100. Without a capture card, I can't use my camera with my computer as a live camera, kinda like a webcam. I wasn't about to spend $100 on a capture card I've never had experience with, so on impulse I bought a random knock off capture card from some random brand for $18. It was definitely a dumb thing to do, but at the time I thought "it's only $18, why not at least try". It had mostly good reviews, but many of them said to buy it at your own risk. It arrived 2 days later in the mail, and I immediately plugged it into my computer, and the other end into my camera. Turns out it needs to be in a very specific type of USB port, but luckily my computer has 8 USB ports. The capture card worked! But it was still displaying a lot of overlay stuff from the camera, like the lighting and focus settings.

I'll be figuring out how to remove them, but so far it's looking good!

Re-Arranging my Room for Recording and Streaming

Throughout the weekend, I watched a lot of videos on how to get a good setup for recording videos and livestreaming. They talked about everything from audio, lighting, effects, and cameras. I got really interested in all of it, and decided it was time to actually clean my room! 

After moving some cords, a desk which I wasn't using, and some random equipment and trash on the floor, I vacuumed the carpet. Things were starting to look good! Next, I cleared the space in a corner in the room (where the camera would see as a background) and took down my sound panels. They were all together in one sort of square and in one place. I wanted them to be more spread out, so I put them back up, but 3 hexagon panels at a time, side by side with about a 3 inch gap. I also moved the LED Light strips I had, and aligned them along the corner of my room (vertical), and then horizontally on the bottom of the walls.

How to Sound Like a Robot!

How to sound like a robot in adobe Audition:

First, record your voice to be saying whatever you want your robot to say. After you have that done, go to Effects>Generate>Tones. You should see a panel with a ton of options and sliders pop up, which can be a bit overwhelming. Go to the Presets tab and select the Chord preset. Look further down on the panel and click "> Advanced". An extra section of the panel should drop down. Right below "DC Offset" change the "Replace" to "Modulate". Now apply the effect, and it should sound pretty robotic!