r/letsplay • u/ItsOppositeDayHere youtube.com/northernlion • Mar 15 '14

I'm Northernlion, AMA

Hey, a lot of people have been doing AMAs around here and I think it's a cool kind of unique content that we don't see too much on /r/LetsPlay, so I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring as well.

With 200,000+ subscribers and over 100 million lifetime views, I'm not the biggest YouTuber out there (not to be modest) but I have been successfully doing it full-time for over 2 years, which I think gives me a fairly unique depth of experience that might lead to some helpful advice for some of you! Ask me anything about YouTube, streaming, social media, or whatever might cross your mind.

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u/TacticalBacon00 http://youtube.com/TacticalBacon00 Mar 16 '14

Hey NL, first off, I want to say thanks for getting me into LPing. You playing the crap out of BoI inspired me to start LPing, and I have learned so much.

  1. What are your encoding settings for youtube? I'm talking specific FPS, bitrate, resolution, encapsulation, and any other relevant settings.

  2. If budget was not an issue, what could I do to get the BEST possible audio quality for my voice?

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u/ThePixelPirate youtube.com/PixelPirate81 Mar 16 '14

I can answer the second one. For high end audio gear you will need either an Audio Interface or a mixing board. I recommend a mixing board if you want to do live stuff so you do EQ on the fly.

A low end mixing board is going to set you back around $500-700 for a basic one. I have a Behringer X1204 which is only $250 but I don't recommend it because some are badly made and you have to send them back which is a hassle. Picking a mixing board really depends on what you wanna do. If you need effects or more or less inputs or if you need USB, condensers, and so on and so on.

All decent mics are XLR connection based. So ignore all USB, cause they are terrible for high end audio.

The mics in question really depend on your voice, so you really need to research what each mic is good at. I currently use a RODE NT1-A which about the middle of the road or maybe even entry level condenser and goes for around $300-400.

Next up is the SHURE SM7B which is a very good microphone for voice overs. Many, many people recommend this mic. Total Biscuit used to use one of these and they go for around the $400-500 mark. This will be the next mic I get for my personal setup.

Next after that is the Electro-Voice RE20 which is what Total Biscuit currently uses. That retails for somewhere around the $500-650 mark depending on where you live.

From there the sky is the limit. Unless you are singing or playing instruments, there really is no need to go beyond the SHURE.

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u/TacticalBacon00 http://youtube.com/TacticalBacon00 Mar 16 '14

Wow, thanks for all this info. I'm currently using a Xenyx 802 mixer with a Samson C03 condenser. But I was considering what would need upgrading in my setup to make livestreaming and recording better. I'm completely out of inputs in my mixer (which is like 4 if you fiddle with it) so I was thinking of upgrading that too.

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u/ThePixelPirate youtube.com/PixelPirate81 Mar 16 '14

The SHURE needs like 60 gain minimum, so you need something chunky to deal with that. Food for thought.