Studio Setups: Behind the Scenes with Bob Gentle

[0:45] Bob: I am very well. Thank you for having me. That was a very high energy introduction. I can't quite live up to that.

[0:50] Ian: no, I think I need to go and lie down in bed. but, I'm going to have you back on the show. We're going to be talking about, confidence communication and maybe talk about what it's like being an introvert and a creator, but in this episode, we're going to focus on studio, building your studio as a creator.

[1:09] and so I'd love to know a little bit about your background. obviously I know about your background, but, the listener and the viewer may not have come across you. So, tell us a little bit about you, highlighting your background and, then maybe just go on to. What makes your studio set up unique?

[1:29] Bob: So if you'd met me, 15 years ago, you would have met a guy who was running a very much a local website design, digital marketing business. That was what I was doing. and then. Gradually over the last five years in particular, I've really pivoted into focusing on the strategic side of life, particularly for people in the expert space, coaches, consultants, authors, speakers, that kind of person, helping them sometimes grow the personal brand, sometimes monetize established personal brands.

[2:03] I I would say my journey online has come late in life. relative to some. and it's one that I probably made excuses on for a good six, seven years before I actually took action. For me, that's probably one of the key learnings that I try and help other people with is execution trumps pretty much everything.

[2:25] And I am not the poster child for that, at least historically. These days I'm much better at it. I think I've overcome a lot and yeah, I'm happy to share, but that's the short answer to your question. I could go much, deeper.

[2:40] Ian: we're gonna have you back on the show and we can maybe dig into some of that a little bit more detail because I'm fascinated by that I have a kind of a website kind of background as well building websites and all that kind of stuff And it sounds to me like you've you're you've been on a journey You've really learned a lot about yourself and the things that have held you back And you're definitely in this position to be able to help others who are in a similar position to you or who were well positioned to what you were like, maybe, three or four or five years ago, which is really cool.

[3:15] And that's I see a lot of synergy actually between our situations. Actually, let's talk about your studio as well, because one of the things I see a lot of creators, business owners, entrepreneurs, They use their studio as this kind of excuse, or their lack of studio as an excuse to stop, that they can't create the content.

[3:37] tell us about your setup and, we'll talk a little bit more about other creators, and the people that you help. But, let's do a deep dive into your studio setup. Let's, talk about your microphone because you were talking, just before we started pressing record, you was telling me the wonders of your microphone.

[3:56] I'm a little bit more, I'm quite interested in this.

[3:58] Bob: So I started off my podcast with just a £25 microphone that I got off Amazon and everybody always said. That microphone sounds amazing. I don't know what you're doing, Bob, but that mic just sounds awesome and truthfully, I wouldn't have changed it if I didn't want very specific features. So as I've grown into my use of my microphone, there are things that I knew I wanted from it.

[4:23] The main one being, a line out so I could monitor what I'm saying. So the mic I use now is this Shure MV7. I think it's about £250 and it consistently sounds awesome. What I love about it is it has two modes. So it has a distant mode and a close mode. And at the moment you're hearing it in what they would call distant mode.

[4:45] A lot of the time when you see people using expensive microphones, they have them right up against their face. That's not a look that I aspire to. And this mic, I could have it probably a good three feet away, and it would still pick me up really clearly. Now, I moved a couple of years ago into the heart of Glasgow.

[5:02] And I seem to live in a triangle between a police station, an ambulance station, and a fire station. And with this mic, they can be driving past with sirens blaring. Nobody hears it. It's awesome. so for me That wasn't what led to the choice of this mic, but it's why I recommend it all the time. It is a cheap microphone, but it's not expensive by any means.

[5:27] And with it being a USB mic, I don't have to bother with mixers or any kind of fancy setup. I just plug it straight in USB into my Mac. and that's it. It's consistently great. I never really have to mess with anything. Really like a minimal setup.

[5:46] Ian: Yeah, definitely. There's a big advantage in having a minimal setup because it just means less clutter. It just hopefully just works, and you've mentioned quite a few really cool things there. First of all, the, quality that it doesn't pick up the sounds from just down the road.

[6:01] I had a blue Yeti microphone back in the day and the blue Yeti gets a bit of a bad rap because I think a lot of people, they have it too far away from them. You have to have it pretty close, but it, but you were saying with your microphone, you could have it slightly out of shot or slightly in shot.

[6:17] not right up my microphone. I have to have it pretty close to me, but you like the fact that it can be a little bit away from you and it's USB. So you just plug it in. Is, that microphone? Does it also have XLR? Can you, if you want to be fancy, can you be, or is it just USB?

[6:33] Bob: It's both. So I can plug in an XLR. I never have. I may at one point, but at the moment, There's no if I was thinking what's next for me, that's not on the list.

[6:42] Ian: Yeah. Okay. we're good. I'm gonna ask you about what's next, in a bit, but let's move on to, so microphones for me is, one of the most important. I don't know what you think about the whole setup, but I think if people can't hear you very well, then that's not a good start. Let's move on to cameras.

[6:58] so like your choice of camera, have you just got one camera? You've got a few cameras. tell us a little bit about what you've got and why you chose it.

[7:07] Bob: I have been through hell and back with cameras. Every single camera I've bought. With a view to doing content creation has been an absolute lemon. for some reason, they all look great when you watch YouTube videos, but the moment you buy the camera, someone will tell you, Oh, you probably shouldn't get that one.

[7:23] Because it doesn't have this core feature you really need. And they've not been wrong. So now I have the Canon M50, which so far so good is I'm going to say it's okay. It's not amazing. and I'll explain why a little bit. And this is, I'll qualify. I have the Canon M50 Mark I, which, and the reason I say it's not amazing is because I'm depending on a USB connection, which because of the way Canon handle things is limited to 720p, which I wouldn't be choosing if I knew that in advance. But it looks okay most of the time. the lens that I'm using is the Sigma 16 millimeter, which is awesome. It's perfect. If you saw this picture with a Canon M50 and the kit lens, it's dog food. It just, the, image is not the same. so the, Sigma 16 millimeter is great and. One thing I did notice is because I have complex lighting in here, I have a giant window here, so I need to compensate with, for that, with lots of other light.

[8:31] And so I have an ND filter on, and I was late to the party with ND filters. That really helps me control the lighting, really well. And the filter, the ND filter that I have also has a diffuser built in, which gives me a nice effect. So if you see any kind of reflections, there's always a little bit of a blur around those reflections.

[8:51] So it softens everything

[8:53] and me being, I'm not an old man, but I'm not a young man either. And there are some wrinkles and it softens those out.

[9:03] Ian: That's good. it's like the zoom and that what's that touch up your appearance, which I never use because I look, I don't know, look like a cartoon character when I do it. but but yeah, your, I think your video looks amazing. It's really good quality. Picture, I think the lighting that you've got.

[9:20] So if you're listening to the podcast, you need to have a quick look at, Bob's video on YouTube, on, on my channel. but yeah, so the fil the filter you're talking about, that's for the lens, presumably that's a, filter that you put on, on, on the front of the lens and that's something that I don't hear many people talking about.

[9:36] So that's really. Really good point. And yes, I have an M50 Mark I too. I'm not currently using it. I have that as my old camera And I yeah, totally agree with you on that It's a shame that you only get that kind of 720p if you're lucky kind of thing So if you were to upgrade have you had any thoughts about what you'd upgrade to

[10:01] Bob: part of me, whenever I see somebody using a Sony camera, the camera always looks well balanced from a color perspective. I have real problems using this camera at night because the lighting in here is completely different and it doesn't seem to matter how I set things up. I can never quite get the color looking right.

[10:26] Whereas whenever I see people using Sony cameras, the sensor seems to, or the software seems to be a little bit smarter and it just balances the light better. And I don't know if that's simply, I don't know how to use the camera properly. but if I were going for a safe bet, I'd simply go for the Canon M50 Mark II.

[10:44] Other than that, I'd probably come and tell you, I'm thinking about spending this money on a camera. What should I be buying?

[10:53] Ian: this is it's it is a minefield and I totally hear what you're saying, but if sometimes it's best to stick with kind of what you know, and the mark two is, it's a very good camera here. I'm using a Sony now. But a lot of these things, they do take a lot of time to set up. We had Katie on the show last week from Ecamm, and she actually uses her phone.

[11:14] She just uses her iPhone as, and so sometimes you, instead of going for these like really expensive cameras, sometimes you can get a pretty good effect with using something simple like an iPhone. Now you've, so you've mentioned lighting already. Just a quick thing, what, so what lights, at the moment you're recording during the day, and so you've got this lovely.

[11:33] natural light coming, that Glaswegian kind of lovely light coming through the window there. But you've also got some, I can see some kind of coloured lights in the background. So tell us about those, in the background lights, but also what lights you have maybe in front of you, and particularly how you cope at night time, because you can't obviously rely on that daylight.

[11:54] Bob: In the background, what you can see are little islands of light at different color temperatures. So there's an LED strip that runs around the back of the cupboard that just gives a bit of an accent color. And then on top of that, there's a fancy light bulb, which, and this is interesting, actually. So when I first, this sounds like I obsess over this.

[12:15] I genuinely don't. This is something that's been gradually built up over two years. But I have this little, they call them feature bulbs, in a little stand, and if you just go to the shop and you buy one of those, they are way too bright to use without a shade in the background. But off Amazon, I bought a little dimmer switch that you just plug in, and then you plug in your light, and you have a dimmer control.

[12:40] So that little light which you can see just here. There, that one. it's almost at its lowest setting. If you were actually in the room, you would barely see that light was on. And then up here I have a couple of LED lights that are just pointing at the wall to give a little island of color. and then there's that sort of ubiquitous on air thing that you can't really read because the background's a bit blurred.

[13:08] So that's how the background works. And for the listener slash viewer, I think that people underestimate lighting in the background. You can create quite a sophisticated effect in the background of pretty much any situation just with some creative lighting.

[13:26] Ian: Yeah, I would agree, and I think it looks great, your setup, and I love the plants as well, a bit of natural stuff going on there. we're almost out of time with this little section, and this is the exciting stuff. computer, you've already mentioned that you use a Mac. I think most people that I'm interviewing are using Macs.

[13:47] There hopefully will be a few PC users because I know some of my listeners are PC users. so tell us a little bit more about maybe your setup with your Mac. Tell us about your Mac and some essential software. Try and don't go, I know you love your tools. So let's, not get overboard on this.

[14:05] Maybe two or three of your favorite tools as well.

[14:09] Bob: But honestly, for the purposes of content creation, there's not much. The main thing for content creation is good audio. Good lighting and a good image, and I would put them in that order, really. so for the computer, I have a Mac Mini. I think it's an M1, actually. I don't know if it's an M2. I don't think so.

[14:31] And it works just fine. I have a boom arm clamped to my desk where I have a dual monitor set up side by side. I have the Elgato, camera riser. Just a straight stick with the camera on the top, so I don't have to go messing around. And I have two K lights air, which are currently bricked. I'm waiting for Elgato to come up with a way of integrating them with macOS Sonoma, because currently they just don't work at all.

[15:01] And that's pretty much it. The only piece of software, I would say tool, which has saved my bacon is Ecamm. And not for the reason a lot of people will assume. I have had terrible problems with my audio and video being out of sync when I stream or when I record. And I've tried all kinds of ways to get that fixed.

[15:20] Using Ecamm, where they pull in the audio, they pull in the video, has completely fixed that. So that's been golden for me. So I use Ecamm to create a virtual microphone and a virtual camera and I use that for everything now, even a Zoom call is going through Elgato.

[15:36] Ian: Ecamm, That's, all. It's an amazing feature in Ecamm where you. You can delay, is it delay the audio or the video? I can't remember which way round it is, but yeah, I use that too. And it's amazing. It's just so simple. And then you can just use it in all the software like zoom or whatever.

[15:53] so that's cool. Really good. I love all of that. And yeah, we can, get overly excited. I can overly excited by tools and overly complicate the setup. Yeah.

[16:08] Bob: I haven't mentioned, I have most of the lighting comes from a ring light, which is pointing at the wall in front of me. So if I turn that off, you can see that's my standard image. Then I also have a little light up here, which is pointing at me from the side.

[16:24] And I switched that off. And this is what it will look like most of the time in this room. So it's really simply to show the impact lighting has. That little light on the side now has gone purple and I'm not going to mess around with it just now.

[16:38] Ian: that's good. Like it is. It's nice. It's good. we've talked about your gear. I want to talk about like personalization, how you have, how have you made your studio space uniquely yours to help first of all, with that creativity? And maybe we could talk about branding very briefly, but also with productivity as well.

[17:00] Because one thing that I found is If my office and my studio feels like a really fun and exciting place to be, it helps with my creativity and my productivity as well.

[17:15] Bob: Like I mentioned, we moved two years ago and we moved into a flat that was bigger than we need. So my kids have left home. We have a three bedroom flat and one of those rooms is just for me in the office. so what you can see here is probably a third of the room. And it's probably about six feet to the wall behind me there.

[17:38] So this is really my playground. so I have pictures up everywhere. I think what's important for anybody watching is this may look like a studio setup, but it really isn't. This is just what my space looks like. So what you see here continues the whole way around. this is where I spend pretty much all day.

[18:02] And these days with America being America and through being a content creator. Now, 60 percent of my business is in America. I spend a lot of time in this room. I've made it a space that I enjoy being. that's, there isn't really an easy answer to that question. I'm not somebody that's putting up sort of Marvel comic prints or anything like that.

[18:27] It's really just a case of this is where I spend all my time. So it's a reflection of what I enjoy. I

[18:35] Ian: I think that's a great answer. It doesn't. So you do see a lot of people putting parts of their personality behind them. I've done a little bit of that. You can see if you're watching got my first computer ZX Spectrum in the background and things like that. But other than that, I agree with you that it's really you want to have a studio, a workspace is fun and enjoyable to work in.

[18:57] So I'd love to ask you about challenges, when it has come to building your studio or your office surrounding, what challenges or hurdles have you encountered and how do you overcome those?

[19:12] Bob: think the biggest challenges have been getting through all the false starts, buying equipment and then not just being happy with it. especially in the beginning, I probably had my Yeti mic for five years before I actually recorded anything with it. And I was really disappointed with myself. So I think the main thing I would want to tell anybody is you're only going to learn in the execution.

[19:46] You only improve in the doing, and it's only in using your equipment that you learn what you actually want and what you actually need. That I would say is the biggest learning for me. like you mentioned. You can use your phone and you can do all kinds of fancy things now, but I know I have an iPhone 15 pro max, which is, has replaced almost everything that I use for making YouTube videos and short form video cinematic mode.

[20:18] on an iPhone will make anybody look amazing. just start. the longer you put it off, the longer you, the longer the benefit. And, trust me, it's worth it. Being a content creator has changed my life.

[20:36] Ian: It is amazing thing and it's amazing that you can do it with, limited things, limited equipment. You mentioned an iPhone 15, I'm trying not to be jealous. I'm still on the 12, but it, see again, that's, just an excuse. You can, if you have a 12, if you have an older phone, you can still get started.

[20:55] And so what would be the, one piece of equipment you'd advise beginners to invest in first, because it's so tempting, isn't it? To wait until you have the perfect studio. If you've got limited budget and you're just starting off what would be that one piece of equipment?

[21:13] Bob: Ooh, it's a difficult question. and I'd probably, I'm gonna cop out because I want to give two answers to that question.

[21:20] Ian: Okay.

[21:21] Bob: is, a decent, cheap microphone, and you're not allowed to spend more than 30. Or 30, whatever. And some simple lighting. Again, you shouldn't need to spend more than 30. And between those two things, and a phone, you can look amazing.

[21:41] I promise. People will forgive an image, but they will not really forgive how you sound. They will not really forgive terrible lighting. But with those two things, you can make pretty much any situation look awesome.

[21:55] Ian: That's great. That's great advice. That's great. Great advice. Love that it's time. Are you ready for this? It's time for the rapid fire round So i'm going to give you a series of questions And you have to be as quick as possible, no dilly dallying and, but as you said to me before, you're a cool, with this kind of thing.

[22:15] So let's, do it. I just need to make sure I've got the tech working, but let's give it a go.

[22:21] Bob: I'm going to fall apart.

[22:23] Ian: we're, oh, hold on a minute, we haven't got the sound working, we need the sound, okay, let's go back, let's go back, no, wait, we need, the music, here we go, first question is green screen or natural background,

[22:40] Bob: It really depends on your situation. If your situation is not optimal for this kind of background, go green screen and wait till later.

[22:48] Ian: okay, number two, Mac or PC, that's an easy one,

[22:52] Bob: for me, it's an easy one. I prefer Mac. more, there more,

[22:57] Ian: microphone in or out of shot,

[23:00] Bob: really doesn't matter.

[23:02] Ian: number four, what's best, going solo or with guests on your podcast.

[23:06] Bob: It's not binary.

[23:11] Ian: One big monitor or dual monitors. This is for you. This is for your situation.

[23:17] Bob: I love the look of one big monitor, but I think for working dual is actually a little bit simpler to use.

[23:23] Ian: Yeah. Stream deck essential or optional?

[23:28] Bob: a big stream deck is probably essential. I have a small one and it's a waste of time.

[23:33] Ian: There we go. We Are out of time. Well done. How many did you get then? I can't remember. It was like five or something.

[23:41] Bob: You should probably have a league like, a top gear where they have the, who managed to do

[23:47] the,

[23:47] Ian: we, yeah, it's a good idea. I had thought about that. we'll see how we get on. this is, a whole new thing. you know what? We're so alike, it's so funny. It's your, answer to your question and stuff, It depends! And I'm exactly the same. It could have, because I, Not, I'm not saying that you overthink things, but I definitely do.

[24:10] It's, a lot of those things, it really does depend on the situation. So I really appreciate that. Cool. that, that is, it for this episode. But, just before you are coming back, which is great. I can't wait to interview you again.

[24:25] Bob: we'll see.

[24:27] Ian: that's true, actually. It depends. you might've had enough.

[24:30] but tell listeners where, what you're up to at the moment and how people can connect with you. Across the socials and the other places on the web

[24:40] Bob: So you will find me at Bob gentle, wherever you consume content. Pretty much guaranteed. I'll be there. the website is amplify. me. agency and if you are a creator or a coach or a consultant or a speaker, then you will love the personal brand business roadmap. It's 100 percent free as a gift from me.

[25:00] Just visit amplify. me. agency forward slash roadmap.

[25:04] Ian: love that and those details will be in the show notes So just go to ieg. me forward slash podcast. thank you bob. It's been great to have you on the show You've given so many really great insights i'm particularly encouraged by the fact that you just need to get on and do it and Don't let the tech get in the way.

[25:23] You've been there You've let in a sense of those things get in the way i've been there A lot of us have if we're really honest, but, you need, we need to stop doing that. thanks, Bob. It's been great. We'll see you.

[25:34] Bob: Thank you. I have had the best time. Thank you.

[25:36] Ian: thank you. that is it for this episode. We'll be back Next time with another guest looking into the worlds of studios.

[25:45] Thank you so much But until next time I encourage you to level up your impact authority and profits through the power Of confident live videos. See you soon. Bye