Stream Critique - LTT Edition _ Mistakes to Avoid When Building a Stream Setup!

**Common Issues with Live Streaming Setups**

One common issue that many live streamers face is not knowing how to set up their equipment properly. This can result in poor audio and video quality, which can be frustrating for both the streamer and their viewers.

"I threw this together," a common phrase heard from many streamers, often indicates that they didn't put enough thought into their setup. Choosing the wrong equipment, not fine-tuning their settings, or lacking experience with their gear can all lead to subpar results. This is especially true for new streamers who may not have the time or budget to invest in high-quality equipment.

In many cases, live streamers will grab any recommended equipment from other streaming channels and throw it together without considering compatibility or quality. This approach often leads to a mismatched setup that fails to deliver on its promise. For example, using a microphone that's too powerful for the audio settings, resulting in an unbalanced sound.

**Audio Settings**

To improve their audio quality, streamers need to focus on fine-tuning their settings. This includes adjusting the gain levels, adding compression and EQ curves to smooth out the sound, and ensuring that the microphone is positioned correctly. In Linus's case, he had to deal with a high-pitched voice, which required a specific EQ curve. Additionally, he needed to balance his levels to ensure that his gameplay was audible over his audio.

A common mistake made by many streamers is not paying attention to their lighting setup. Overly bright lights can create harsh shadows and make it difficult for the viewer to see the content being presented. Turning down the lights or using a colored light to add contrast to the background can greatly improve the overall appearance of the stream.

**Camera Angles and Shutter Speed**

The camera angle is another aspect that can affect the quality of a live stream. Some viewers prefer a wider view, while others find that too much space can be distracting. Linus mentioned that he felt his camera angle was crunched in on his face, which may not be ideal for all streams.

Shutter speed is also an important consideration when it comes to live streaming. The general rule of thumb is to set the shutter speed to double the frame rate. For example, at 60fps, the shutter speed should be around 120 or 125. This helps to ensure that the footage is smooth and clear.

**Lavalier Microphones**

For those who engage in teaching or tutorial-style content, using a lavalier microphone can help improve audio quality. These microphones are designed to capture sound from the speaker's mouth without picking up background noise. They come with a wireless or battery-powered kit that allows for easy positioning and management.

**Cheaper Alternatives**

For those who want to invest in a more affordable alternative, there are options like shotgun microphones and pencil condenser microphones that can be mounted on different locations. These microphones are designed to capture high-quality sound without breaking the bank.

In conclusion, creating a successful live streaming setup requires attention to detail and a willingness to experiment with different equipment and settings. By following these tips and considering the specific needs of your content, you can create a high-quality stream that engages and entertains your viewers.

**Linus's Streaming Setup**

The article also highlights Linus's streaming setup, which was recently critiqued by the author. While Linus mentioned that he had some issues with his setup, such as audio levels and lighting, he also praised his production skills for being solid overall.

In terms of equipment, Linus uses a T6i camera, which he has upgraded from its initial version. He has also invested in a microphone arm to position the mic correctly. However, he does mention that he's had some issues with audio quality and lighting.

**Tips for Non-Game Streamers**

The author also mentions that if you're not doing game streaming, there may be specific considerations for your content. For example, using a microphone in front of the camera can make it difficult to see the presenter. In this case, using a lavalier microphone or a shotgun mic with a wireless kit can help improve audio quality without compromising video visibility.

Overall, the article provides valuable insights and tips for creating a successful live streaming setup. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, there's always room to learn and improve your skills.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni mean i'm i'm hardly a streaming expert to be very clear like i shouldn't be the one advising you in fact uh eposvox watched my streaming setup upgrade video and basically tweeted at me he's like we should talk you should yeah why didn't you talk to him first i'm sure he would have been down no no yeah i'm going there welcome to stream critique ltt edition so at the time of recording linus tech tips has just posted a video to their youtube channel that is a modified version of something they posted last week to floatplane which is linus upgrading his streaming setup as many of you have noticed there is a stark difference between the quality of the videos that i shoot in the studio with my staff and the quality of the videos that i shoot at home by myself much of the ltt staff has been working from home as have a lot of people and thus the wan show and other content that linus makes needs to be done from home and his streaming setup was nothing amazing so he said forced to upgrade it and i have access to some behind-the-scenes knowledge to clarify a couple points in that they were trying to mainly use stuff they already have or weren't using and weren't trying to go for the best but for the most part the thinking process was right but they ended up with some weird results and i think it's super important to take a look at what they ended up with in order to really learn from their experience and kind of show you what mistakes not to make this video is not obviously intended to just crap on linus or their streaming setup or anything like that or what they chose or did because that's not useful but rather to show you you know very common mistakes that i see everyone make when when it comes to setting up specific parts of your streaming setup and how that might be able to keep other people of you from making those same mistakes because i hate seeing it every time and i hated seeing some of it here but they fixed some of it in the youtube video i will say that many people's first impulse when they want to improve their video quality is to upgrade their camera but as you can see i'm getting a dramatically better feed out of the same webcam that i started this video out with just by changing my lighting so that's where we're gonna start linus started out with the right choices he's got a webcam and a mod mic and no real lighting he wanted to upgrade that experience so he went for new lighting the elgato key light airs fine a new stream deck great a new microphone new audio interface new camera with a cam link that thought process seems fine totally fine but then once he started getting set up we had lovely clips like this does this even look that much better than the webcam and this this is the mod mic and this is the broadcast mic which they then modified to change and he switched to a go xlr and then back to that interface because that was just a quick cutting clip the so let's start with the camera lighting wise was fine two elgato key light airs two sides flat lining mostly fine no complaints there his background's pretty boring i would add something to the closet doors there but you know whatever great choice getting a camera with a cam link again decent choice the problem comes in the camera that was chosen it was a canon dslr which i continuously tell people to stop trying to use canon dslrs for streaming cameras because they don't provide clean hdmi out what he ended up with was a 1080i interlaced really messy video feed at some points with weird colors with the autofocus box and all of the overlays on and in order to turn off the box in front of his face he had to turn on manual focus and then for the samples in the original flow plane video it was completely out of focus and he's questioning if it even looked better than his webcam now they went back and added in new clips and they ended up getting it to a better place once it was focused better and things like that but it's still a very cropped and not ideal camera situation because it's a canon dslr if you're picking a streaming camera and you're picking a mod you know a real camera to use for that unless it's like a 5d that you are certain has clean hdmi out or a c200 or something don't go canon they don't usually or the m500 that they showed at ces that has clean hdmi out but otherwise most canon cameras don't go with the sony go with the panasonic go with the fuji don't go with the nikon because most nikons other than the big high-end z6 and stuff completely turn off your camera after 30 minutes but most of them are fine let's talk audio he upgraded to a behringer broadcast mic which in and of itself is probably not that bad i've never used that specific one i'd love to try it but you know totally fine but then he ended up complementing the mod mic heavily because the audio quality he got out of that broadcast mic was nowhere near great or any better than the mod mic now the mod mic's a great mic i've ran ads for them forever because i believe in them they're pretty cool and they were probably the right choice for his scenario given that he apparently doesn't actually want a microphone blocking his face but the problem comes in the interface he used the behringer um2 which i have been told was the wrong choice which is why they added in the go xlr but that is a very cheap audio interface and i see this all the time people get a very expensive microphone like this sure sm7b and re20 that behringer broadcast mic and then they spend 20 on an audio interface arguably the audio interface is more important than the microphone you get makes more sense to get a big nice beefy audio hardware box that can handle any microphone you throw at it and get a cheap microphone now because it will make that cheap microphone sound good than to get a very expensive microphone and not be able to power it and that's exactly what happened here that interface could not provide anywhere near enough gain for that microphone and the audio quality was poop they added in in the youtube copy eclipse that where he added in a go xlr and it sounded a little bit better but it didn't sound much better and then he made a comment about this small update i did get my issues with the go xlr sorted out so i'm using that now it might not have the most amazing reputation for audio quality either but i really like a lot of the features and it's super easy to use so this is a very common misconception about the go xlr and i really hope to dispel it as much as i can because i hate that people keep perpetuating this the go xlr has midas preamps not midas built like preamps kind of like the umc or um-204 he these are genuine midas preamps that are very expensive and incredibly high quality they can power both the re20 the uh golden hd2 the uh row or the high lp r40 and the suresm7b without a cloud lifter with clean up to 60 db of gain it has incredible preamps the best preamps you can probably get in any sort of multi-function box for the price period this is not sponsored by them say what you will about literally everything else on it but the raw audio quality you can get out of the go xlr is some of the best bang for the buck especially even in the mini that you can possibly get just the settings weren't right he probably from what it sounded like there were no like none of the post-processing processing was applied and the advantage of using high-end audio hardware hardware is you get to start to add in equalization to balance things out properly compression to make sure that your audio levels are you know consistent and that you sound you know nice and boomy over top of your gameplay or what have you and all of those things and this was just kind of plugged in and was like it don't sound good and these are a lot of the comments that i get a lot of the time it's i threw this together i chose the wrong things the initial results aren't great and both audio and video requires a lot of fine tuning if you want to improve that the go xlr needed some compression some eq specific to linus's voice because his voice is you know has a little bit of a higher pitch that could be smoothed out by a good eq curve compressor can help balance his levels a bit get him a little bit more presence over top his gameplay and overall provide a pretty great audio experience with this camera the t6i for all of the issues he ran into it all he needed to do in the original clip was just focus it and then moving on to upgrade from there uh maybe turn down the lights a bit so that they're not casting so much on the background or make sure that the overhead lights he may have just had the ceiling fan lights on in the background turn that off and you get a nice little contrast between what you have in front of you and what you have behind you you can get a 20 colored light to cast up on the backdrop sit in the city on the floor and add a little splash of color there's a lot that goes into building a streaming setup and too frequently i see people grab these things that they see recommended from people like me from other streaming channels and throw them in a completely mismatched configuration because they either don't budget accordingly or don't want to put in the time to set it up and you end up with lackluster results with what should be phenomenal hardware you should never be buying i mean granted they didn't buy pretty much well they may have bought some stuff but the idea for this setup was not to buy anything was to use what they had around but you should never be buying upgrades to your hardware and then setting it up and your immediate thought is wow this doesn't look any better if that's the case you're probably missing something there's a lot that can be done i there's there's a lot of videos on the internet i was about to recommend my own i don't actually have any videos about optimizing your in-camera settings uh learning shutter speed iso aperture for your lens things like that there's a lot that goes into that rule of thumb at least shutter speed it should be double your frame rate so at 60 fps it should be 120 or 125 at 30fps it should be one over 60 and then you optimize your iso based on how bright your scene is from there the lighting balance of having two key lights here and here works out pretty solid you may want a kicker light depending on how dark your background is audio positioning in his video was good the microphone arm positioning seemed like it would get annoying you can get microphone arms that reach up over your monitor like i have but otherwise my positioning and technique was all good it's just a matter of getting the right hardware to back up the hardware that you have all this being said the actual way in show production has actually been fairly solid from what i've seen and i don't have any major complaints there and linus brought up a specific complaint that he has that a lot of people do about this style of production and that he didn't want a big microphone in his face for the video now i just recently released a video this week about tips for non-game streamers where and i say if you're doing teaching or something like that it may not be considered appropriate to have a microphone in the frame at which point you could use a lavalier microphone for your stream you'll just have to manage the wires or battery life for wireless kits deity has a interview wireless microphone kit that i highly recommend you can go with something like that or you can get little shotgun microphones or pencil condenser microphones that you mount in different places and in that video i even have a sample of a cheaper just super basic shotgun mic mounted on my monitor just off frame and how great that sounded without needing something like this in my face so go check out that video but just wanted to provide a little bit of a critique of you know what he's got going on the due to the cropping and everything i felt like the camera angle was like super crunched in on his face i prefer a little bit of a wider view but i guess if you don't have that much like in your room if it's just an empty wall you don't really need that wide of a view so it depends on you know what your production needs are hope this was helpful to you hope you enjoyed the video go check out linus's streaming setup linked in the video description below hit the like button if you enjoyed subscribe for more stream guides and stream critique sign up form if you want your stream critiqued in the series that's what i normally do in the showi mean i'm i'm hardly a streaming expert to be very clear like i shouldn't be the one advising you in fact uh eposvox watched my streaming setup upgrade video and basically tweeted at me he's like we should talk you should yeah why didn't you talk to him first i'm sure he would have been down no no yeah i'm going there welcome to stream critique ltt edition so at the time of recording linus tech tips has just posted a video to their youtube channel that is a modified version of something they posted last week to floatplane which is linus upgrading his streaming setup as many of you have noticed there is a stark difference between the quality of the videos that i shoot in the studio with my staff and the quality of the videos that i shoot at home by myself much of the ltt staff has been working from home as have a lot of people and thus the wan show and other content that linus makes needs to be done from home and his streaming setup was nothing amazing so he said forced to upgrade it and i have access to some behind-the-scenes knowledge to clarify a couple points in that they were trying to mainly use stuff they already have or weren't using and weren't trying to go for the best but for the most part the thinking process was right but they ended up with some weird results and i think it's super important to take a look at what they ended up with in order to really learn from their experience and kind of show you what mistakes not to make this video is not obviously intended to just crap on linus or their streaming setup or anything like that or what they chose or did because that's not useful but rather to show you you know very common mistakes that i see everyone make when when it comes to setting up specific parts of your streaming setup and how that might be able to keep other people of you from making those same mistakes because i hate seeing it every time and i hated seeing some of it here but they fixed some of it in the youtube video i will say that many people's first impulse when they want to improve their video quality is to upgrade their camera but as you can see i'm getting a dramatically better feed out of the same webcam that i started this video out with just by changing my lighting so that's where we're gonna start linus started out with the right choices he's got a webcam and a mod mic and no real lighting he wanted to upgrade that experience so he went for new lighting the elgato key light airs fine a new stream deck great a new microphone new audio interface new camera with a cam link that thought process seems fine totally fine but then once he started getting set up we had lovely clips like this does this even look that much better than the webcam and this this is the mod mic and this is the broadcast mic which they then modified to change and he switched to a go xlr and then back to that interface because that was just a quick cutting clip the so let's start with the camera lighting wise was fine two elgato key light airs two sides flat lining mostly fine no complaints there his background's pretty boring i would add something to the closet doors there but you know whatever great choice getting a camera with a cam link again decent choice the problem comes in the camera that was chosen it was a canon dslr which i continuously tell people to stop trying to use canon dslrs for streaming cameras because they don't provide clean hdmi out what he ended up with was a 1080i interlaced really messy video feed at some points with weird colors with the autofocus box and all of the overlays on and in order to turn off the box in front of his face he had to turn on manual focus and then for the samples in the original flow plane video it was completely out of focus and he's questioning if it even looked better than his webcam now they went back and added in new clips and they ended up getting it to a better place once it was focused better and things like that but it's still a very cropped and not ideal camera situation because it's a canon dslr if you're picking a streaming camera and you're picking a mod you know a real camera to use for that unless it's like a 5d that you are certain has clean hdmi out or a c200 or something don't go canon they don't usually or the m500 that they showed at ces that has clean hdmi out but otherwise most canon cameras don't go with the sony go with the panasonic go with the fuji don't go with the nikon because most nikons other than the big high-end z6 and stuff completely turn off your camera after 30 minutes but most of them are fine let's talk audio he upgraded to a behringer broadcast mic which in and of itself is probably not that bad i've never used that specific one i'd love to try it but you know totally fine but then he ended up complementing the mod mic heavily because the audio quality he got out of that broadcast mic was nowhere near great or any better than the mod mic now the mod mic's a great mic i've ran ads for them forever because i believe in them they're pretty cool and they were probably the right choice for his scenario given that he apparently doesn't actually want a microphone blocking his face but the problem comes in the interface he used the behringer um2 which i have been told was the wrong choice which is why they added in the go xlr but that is a very cheap audio interface and i see this all the time people get a very expensive microphone like this sure sm7b and re20 that behringer broadcast mic and then they spend 20 on an audio interface arguably the audio interface is more important than the microphone you get makes more sense to get a big nice beefy audio hardware box that can handle any microphone you throw at it and get a cheap microphone now because it will make that cheap microphone sound good than to get a very expensive microphone and not be able to power it and that's exactly what happened here that interface could not provide anywhere near enough gain for that microphone and the audio quality was poop they added in in the youtube copy eclipse that where he added in a go xlr and it sounded a little bit better but it didn't sound much better and then he made a comment about this small update i did get my issues with the go xlr sorted out so i'm using that now it might not have the most amazing reputation for audio quality either but i really like a lot of the features and it's super easy to use so this is a very common misconception about the go xlr and i really hope to dispel it as much as i can because i hate that people keep perpetuating this the go xlr has midas preamps not midas built like preamps kind of like the umc or um-204 he these are genuine midas preamps that are very expensive and incredibly high quality they can power both the re20 the uh golden hd2 the uh row or the high lp r40 and the suresm7b without a cloud lifter with clean up to 60 db of gain it has incredible preamps the best preamps you can probably get in any sort of multi-function box for the price period this is not sponsored by them say what you will about literally everything else on it but the raw audio quality you can get out of the go xlr is some of the best bang for the buck especially even in the mini that you can possibly get just the settings weren't right he probably from what it sounded like there were no like none of the post-processing processing was applied and the advantage of using high-end audio hardware hardware is you get to start to add in equalization to balance things out properly compression to make sure that your audio levels are you know consistent and that you sound you know nice and boomy over top of your gameplay or what have you and all of those things and this was just kind of plugged in and was like it don't sound good and these are a lot of the comments that i get a lot of the time it's i threw this together i chose the wrong things the initial results aren't great and both audio and video requires a lot of fine tuning if you want to improve that the go xlr needed some compression some eq specific to linus's voice because his voice is you know has a little bit of a higher pitch that could be smoothed out by a good eq curve compressor can help balance his levels a bit get him a little bit more presence over top his gameplay and overall provide a pretty great audio experience with this camera the t6i for all of the issues he ran into it all he needed to do in the original clip was just focus it and then moving on to upgrade from there uh maybe turn down the lights a bit so that they're not casting so much on the background or make sure that the overhead lights he may have just had the ceiling fan lights on in the background turn that off and you get a nice little contrast between what you have in front of you and what you have behind you you can get a 20 colored light to cast up on the backdrop sit in the city on the floor and add a little splash of color there's a lot that goes into building a streaming setup and too frequently i see people grab these things that they see recommended from people like me from other streaming channels and throw them in a completely mismatched configuration because they either don't budget accordingly or don't want to put in the time to set it up and you end up with lackluster results with what should be phenomenal hardware you should never be buying i mean granted they didn't buy pretty much well they may have bought some stuff but the idea for this setup was not to buy anything was to use what they had around but you should never be buying upgrades to your hardware and then setting it up and your immediate thought is wow this doesn't look any better if that's the case you're probably missing something there's a lot that can be done i there's there's a lot of videos on the internet i was about to recommend my own i don't actually have any videos about optimizing your in-camera settings uh learning shutter speed iso aperture for your lens things like that there's a lot that goes into that rule of thumb at least shutter speed it should be double your frame rate so at 60 fps it should be 120 or 125 at 30fps it should be one over 60 and then you optimize your iso based on how bright your scene is from there the lighting balance of having two key lights here and here works out pretty solid you may want a kicker light depending on how dark your background is audio positioning in his video was good the microphone arm positioning seemed like it would get annoying you can get microphone arms that reach up over your monitor like i have but otherwise my positioning and technique was all good it's just a matter of getting the right hardware to back up the hardware that you have all this being said the actual way in show production has actually been fairly solid from what i've seen and i don't have any major complaints there and linus brought up a specific complaint that he has that a lot of people do about this style of production and that he didn't want a big microphone in his face for the video now i just recently released a video this week about tips for non-game streamers where and i say if you're doing teaching or something like that it may not be considered appropriate to have a microphone in the frame at which point you could use a lavalier microphone for your stream you'll just have to manage the wires or battery life for wireless kits deity has a interview wireless microphone kit that i highly recommend you can go with something like that or you can get little shotgun microphones or pencil condenser microphones that you mount in different places and in that video i even have a sample of a cheaper just super basic shotgun mic mounted on my monitor just off frame and how great that sounded without needing something like this in my face so go check out that video but just wanted to provide a little bit of a critique of you know what he's got going on the due to the cropping and everything i felt like the camera angle was like super crunched in on his face i prefer a little bit of a wider view but i guess if you don't have that much like in your room if it's just an empty wall you don't really need that wide of a view so it depends on you know what your production needs are hope this was helpful to you hope you enjoyed the video go check out linus's streaming setup linked in the video description below hit the like button if you enjoyed subscribe for more stream guides and stream critique sign up form if you want your stream critiqued in the series that's what i normally do in the show\n"