My (Much Improved) Desk and Workspace Mein (stark verbesserter) Schreibtisch und Arbeitsbereich Mi (muy mejorado) escritorio y espacio de trabajo Mon bureau et mon espace de travail (nettement améliorés) A minha secretária e espaço de trabalho (muito melhorados)

- So, the keen-eyed among you have noticed

that the last few videos on my channel have been filmed

in a brand new space,

and that is because in the last couple of months

I have been building a brand new workspace and studio,

and in this video, I'm gonna give you a quick tour

of that workspace.

Let's get started.

(elegant music)

Okay, so, the biggest change about the space

is actually the size of it.

I am finally out of my bedroom.

I've got a proper, I think it's 400 square foot space

to work with now,

which is so much better for the versatility,

and we've got kind of four areas I'm gonna show you here.

We've got the desk area.

There's a podcasting slash film set area

that's really versatile

and can actually have multiple different backgrounds.

We have a music area,

because I've been doing a lot more music lately

and then finally we have our storage area

where we keep lots of C-stands

and lights and lenses,

and all kinds of stuff like that,

but let's get started with the desk

since that's probably the thing

most of you are interested in.

So, the desk itself is a Jarvis Bamboo Standing Desk Het bureau zelf is dus een Jarvis Bamboo Standing Desk

which means it has this little controller over here

which lets me raise the desk

or lower the desk,

or I can actually program in different presets

so I could do a standing preset zodat ik een staande preset kon doen

or a sitting preset.

So we did a dual monitor video a little while ago

and these dual 4K monitors were featured in that video.

I won't talk too much about them.

The other kind of big thing on this desk are these monitors.

These are Yamaha HS7s I believe

and I now have them on the speaker stands

which put the Tweeters at roughly ear height. waardoor de Tweeters ongeveer op oorhoogte kwamen.

So, even though this space isn't perfectly treated

for audio production,

the monitors are at least at the correct height

for me to mix music,

which I've been trying to learn how to do recently.

Also on the desk we have

a couple of music production things.

There is a Native Instruments Maschine

which they use as a drum pad,

and a S61 Mitty Controller

which works really well for kind of composing songs

and then we have a Corsair K95 Gaming Keyboard,

a Logitech G507 Wireless,

which I have been wanting them to make for years.

They finally answered my prayers.

And a few other knick-knacks. En een paar andere snuisterijen.

We've got a wireless phone charger

which my editor, Tony, gave to me.

A few of these.

These are SanDisk.

I think they're SSDs,

but in an external enclosure form.

So, these are actually incredibly fast

and I can edit off of these just as fast

as I would off of an internal drive

which means if I have to travel,

then I can just take one of these with me,

and even if I don't have enough space on my laptop,

I can just put files on this and edit like normal

which is pretty awesome.

So, we also have, we have a Stream Deck here.

So this is the El Gato Stream Deck.

Now a lot of Twitch streamers Nu veel Twitch-streamers

and people who do game streaming,

they use this for like tweeting while they're in the game

so they don't have to Alt Tab out of it.

I do something different.

I actually use auto hotkey

to bind each of these buttons

to a different folder that I have

to open really often on my computer.

So, this button is for the current video's

main footage folder.

This one down here is for my screenshots folder,

and when I hit it,

I can automatically bring up a window on my screen.

So with all that said,

let's talk about why the desk is so messy,

because it's definitely not like

a minimalist desk,

and part of the reason for that is

I've been working on a project recently

where I had to use LogicPro to mix some audio,

but I wanted to use all of this hardware.

So, I've got a dock over here

which charges my Macbook

and allows me to plug in

all kinds of stuff into it,

and then right here is what's called a KVM Switch.

This, if I hit this button,

will allow me to switch the keyboard,

the mouse, and the speakers,

the audio interface, de audio-interface,

and the monitors over to my Macbook

which I just set in this dock here and plug in

and I'm good to go.

I can use my Macbook just like a desktop.

All right, so underneath the KVM

we have the audio interface.

This is a Scarlett 18i8 from Focusrite

and it's got I think like 18 different inputs,

but I use the main four on the front.

So, a couple of these are podcast mics

which I'll show you a little bit later

and the other two are

well, number one I have my SM7B mic right here

which I'll use for voiceovers

or for vocal practice sometimes,

since I started singing lessons about a year ago

and there's another mic over there

which is for the same purpose

but is a condenser mic.

Also going into the interface

are of course the HS7s

and then these Sennheiser HD 600s

which are my absolute favorite headphones

and I do most of the mixing for the audio in my videos

on these headphones.

Last but not least,

we have the computer on the floor.

It's a good editing computer.

It's got a Core i7 in there.

GTX1080, and it let's me get

most of my editing done,

and then the chair is an Office Master OM5

which I actually learned about from

a Linus Tech Tips video.

I like this chair,

but I think if I were to go back in time

I wouldn't buy it,

because, at least in my opinion,

I think fancy office chairs are a little bit over rated, Ik denk dat mooie bureaustoelen een beetje overschat zijn,

and I think it's more important to just get up,

take breaks,

make sure you're exercising,

make sure you're staying flexible,

and honestly, I've worked in wooden kitchen chairs,

coffee shop chairs.

They're all kind of the same.

So, I don't know.

Some people are probably gonna hate me for that opinion

but I don't think fancy office chairs

are all that necessary.

Anyway, let's move over to the video set area

which is also used for our podcast.

So, we have this table here,

which is just from IKEA.

There are a couple of Audio-Technica AT2035

Condenser Microphones attached to it.

These are what we use for the collegeinfogeek podcast

but this table actually pulls triple duty.

We use it for the podcast.

We use it for videos on my channel.

You've probably seen the digital file organization video,

or maybe the recent one that Tony and I did on the iPad

and its note-taking abilities.

And then we also use this as

kind of the main B roll set.

We'll sometimes set up C-stands

with cameras going overhead,

so we can film stuff top down,

or we'll use it for glam footage, of we gebruiken het voor glamoureuze beelden,

and we also have these shelves from IKEA

with plenty of fun little props

and of course, the obligatory llama on it as well.

And then on this side of the space

is all the music stuff.

I've been into music for many, many years

but in 2019, my head writer, Ransom,

he introduced me to an artist

named Tash Sultana

and if you haven't heard of them

you really need to go listen to them,

but they do what's called live looping maar ze doen wat live looping wordt genoemd

where they use a looper pedal to create loops

with multiple instruments,

and that I kind of went crazy when I learned about that.

So, I've got this looper pedal over here.

It's a Boss RC 300 which allows me

to do multiple loops at the same time.

There is a Line 6 Helix for guitar tones

and base tones.

We have a Korg minilogue xd synthesizer

which is polyphonic

so it can do chords,

it can do arpeggiators, het kan arpeggiators doen,

all kinds of fun stuff.

A Roland SPD-SX drum sampler Een Roland SPD-SX drumsampler

so I can do drums.

A mixer for all of it

and then the guitars

and the pianos.

This is a Kawai, I think, CA78.

It's a fantastic digital piano.

So all this runs into the mixer

that runs into this interface

and I'm able to plug my laptop into this if I want to

so I can record,

or I can plug into this PA over here

if I want to just output the sound

and just kind of jam out.

So, I've been doing that to create some compositions

like the one that I just recently put up

on Spotify called,

"Icicle Swords." "Icicle Swords."

which sounds a bit like this.

(electric guitar playing)

And, of course, I'll have that linked

in the description down below,

but we're gonna move on to the storage area.

So, this is one of the reasons I'm really happy to be

out of the bedroom.

I have more storage for the gear that we need

to make better quality videos.

So, let's kind of start back in the corner here.

I've collected a lot of tripods over the years,

but my absolute favorite one is this Sachtler one.

MKBHD talked about this in his studio tour video

and this thing is amazing

because you can just adjust the height of it

with three little levers at the top

and that has enabled us to just en dat heeft ons in staat gesteld om rechtvaardig te zijn

take a lot more B-Roll a lot quicker

and one of the biggest things

that I try to keep in mind when building the studio

and whenever I buy a piece of gear is

is it going to reduce the amount of friction involved

in creating something.

If I can make that friction go away,

if I can make the process faster,

that means I can make better things more quickly.

One other thing that I do want to note

about most of the tripods

not all of them

because we do have a bigger camera we're working with now

for some of the shots.

But, for the camera that Tony's holding

on the gimbal right now

we usually have these GorillaPod heads

on, we have Lorex detachment on every camera we use.

I actually have an old ADD right here.

So, there's the attachment right there

and then I try to keep a GorillaPod head

on nearly every tripod

or tripod attachment that we use.

That way, instead of having to screw into a tripod plate

which, again, takes time

adds friction.

We can just click it in instantly

and we're good to go.

So, I have that on here

I have that on the overhead setup

which we're gonna talk about

in a little bit.

I have one of this C-stand here

and that just makes creating things really quick.

I wanna give a shout out to Bob Clagett at

I Like to Make Stuff for giving me that tip.

And speaking of C-stands

we do have, I think, two C-stands right now

these things have been a godsend.

I used to use the cheap light stands off of Amazon

and, well, they work for cheap lights

but when we're suspending cameras over stuff, maar als we camera's ophangen,

when we're putting heavy lights on things

the all-steel C-stands really, really help.

And for anybody who does their own video production

you're gonna want sandbags

because if you throw a sandbag on a C-stand

this thing is not gonna tip over

even if you have a good amount of weight on the C-stand.

Anybody who works in film production will tell you

these things are worth their weight in gold

even though they're just their weight in sand.

Speaking of lighting,

I'm gonna come back to this

but I do want to quickly go over here

and show you one other thing that's kind of above my desk.

So, one thing that I've tried to do

with my video production

is use better lighting techniques.

One of those techniques is to use what's called,

a hair light.

So, we have a light that's kind of above my desk

so whenever I'm sitting

and doing a regular video

I kind of have some nice lighting

on the back of me.

But, this thing is easily able to,

and if you wanna step back you can show this,

swing over zwaaien

and now we can light B-roll

that's going top-down on the table

really, really easily.

So again, it's all about versatility.

So now, let's go over to the shelves here.

These are theme of the video,

IKEA shelves

but they work really well.

Here we've just collected a lot of the film gear

that we need quick access to.

So, all of our lenses

and we've collected quite a few lenses.

We're now using a Canon C200.

Most of the A-roll that we shoot

which is pretty great

the quality on it is amazing.

We have some audio gear up here.

These are the camcorders that we actually used to use

for the podcast,

but now that we have the C200

which can film for more than thirty minutes

we don't really need these for much anymore,

so maybe I should sell them.

Another thing,

another one of these little Joby GorillaPods

on a tripod attachment.

So any tripod that doesn't have

a GorillaPod head already on it,

we can just throw this attachment on there

and we're good to go.

Same with our little sliders.

So, if we want cool slider shots

I've got a GorillaPod attachment on there.

We're good to go with that.

And then over here,

we have a pegboard we hebben een pegboard

also from IKEA

but I do wanna give a shout out to Matt D'Avella

for giving me the idea for this guy.

This is where we keep the gimbal, usually

if we're not using it,

which we are right now.

We keep SwitchPod

which my friends Pat and Caleb actually invented

and I Kickstarted. en ik Kickstarted.

Actually love this thing.

And I actually don't know how this little

Ooga Ooga got here.

I think you did that, didn't you?

(laughs)

Actually, I like it.

It's dope.

We have these little drawers, too.

So, we've got some little attachment screws, bolts

stuff like that can go in here.

And right beneath it we have a drawer unit

which also doubles as the charging station.

So, for batteries.

I want to get a label maker

so I can have a dead

and a live thing.

Right now, I've just been putting dead ones up here

and fully charged ones down here.

So, I'll just throw them in there

when I'm not using them.

They'll charge up.

And then this one is batteries for the C200.

I've got a IOS cord for iPads

and stuff like that.

And then within these drawers we have

a kind of rough organizational method

that makes sense to me.

So, tools and stuff go in here.

This drawer is gonna be for just random film things Deze la is bedoeld voor willekeurige filmdingen

like filters.

This is a random cord drawer

so HDMI cables, DisplayPort cables,

and then this is the audio drawer

which is mainly just XLR cables for microphones

and this is the microphone that we actually shoot

most of our videos on.

Down here, we've got extra extension cords,

extra plug strips,

and finally just some random stuff

that goes to the C200.

Try to keep that grouped.

That brings us to the last part of the studio

that I'll show you

which is the overhead setup dat is de overhead setup

So, sometimes we will setup for overhead

with a C-stand in the B-roll area,

but this is just for quick

and dirty overhead shots.

I can go in here

instantly turn these lights on

and then if I have a book that I'm gonna show off,

I can slide the camera into here

again, we have a Joby GorillaPod head on this arm

which I believe is from Manfrotto.

And we can just do really, really quick overhead shots.

And then I had this monitor laying around

so I thought,

well I can flip the screen out on the camera

and see what I'm doing.

But, if I wanna have a better view of what I'm doing

I can actually plug this little HDMI,

mini HDMI cord,

into the camera

and then see what I'm doing on the monitor.

And the monitor is on an arm

so it can easily be adjusted

for position.

And if you can come in close here,

the one thing I do want to mention,

I have these little sticky table holders.

These are super cheap

and you can get em at Home Depot, actually.

So, if I don't want this cable just falling back here,

I can just easily shove it in there when I'm not using it.

And these actually work really well

for phone chargers,

any kind of cable that you want on your desk

but that you want out of the way.

It's a really nice, little handy thing.

So, like I said earlier

one of the reason I set the studio up this way

was to reduce the friction involved

in creating things

as much as possible.

And when I'm actually sitting down at the computer,

one of the other tools I use that really reduces

the friction in my life

is dashlane.

Dashlane is a tool

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It automatically logs me into websites,

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works on every single one of my IOS devices

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Dashlane essentially gives me a convenient

and secure place to store

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my form data,

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that I want to do.

So, if you want to give Dashlane a try

for yourself

go over to

dashlane.com/collegeinfogeek

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And if you do like it

you can also use the code

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and to support my channel.

Big thanks, as always, to Dashlane

for sponsoring this episode

and thank you for watching as well.

Hopefully, you got something useful

out of episode

and I will see you in the next video.

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