Spend $50, get $25 OFF — applied automatically.
Skip to Content Skip to Navigation Skip to Footer
Start freeJoin
Join Membership
Season 1 ·

S1E13 – How to Create Content as a Beatmaker

0:00 / 0:00
This media could not be played.

Resources

Never Miss an Episode

Get new podcast episodes delivered to your inbox.

Home/Podcast/S1E13 – How to Create Content...

This week we take a little break from creating music, and talk about how to create content to teach about music through tutorials and courses.

We cover the software I personally use and equipment to achieve high-quality videos, and the quirks that come with certain software and what to be aware of.

Branding OBS

Community

Questions about this episode

Transcript

S1E13 – How to Create Content as a Beatmaker

  1. Hey, this is Gratuitous. Welcome to Music Production Made Simple, the show that
  2. focuses on best practices about music production, which is based on FL Studio.
  3. If you're wanting to become the best producer you could be, subscribe and listen
  4. weekly. You can also check out my courses, which teach you the principles and basics
  5. of music production. They'll get you up and running quickly.
  6. In addition, I also have books on Amazon and tons of music on Spotify.
  7. Always feel free to hit me up at Hi at it'sgratuitous.com.
  8. So let's get into the episode.
  9. Alright, hey, what's everybody?
  10. Welcome to episode number 13. This episode's gonna be quite different.
  11. instead of learning about you know music production and mu or music theory or you
  12. know anything to do with actually creating the beats.
  13. This episode is gonna be talking about actually creating content.
  14. For example, if you're wanting to create tutorials or you know, create sound kits or
  15. whatever, okay. The industry has kind of gotten to that point where it's hard to
  16. sell your music for you know, for like the average person, and so most people are
  17. kind of you know trying to find like that side hustle in the sense of you know,
  18. selling courses, selling sound kits, selling templates, whatever it is, okay.
  19. So I just want to talk a little bit about my process, how I have started, you know,
  20. creating content as a beat maker when it comes to if you want to get released like
  21. tutorials on YouTube and stuff like that, okay.
  22. So the title of this episode is called How to Create Content as a Beatmaker.
  23. one thing I want to share with you is that I am releasing a new course, okay?
  24. It's gonna be releasing the beginning of September, so really really close here.
  25. I'm done recording, I just have to edit it up.
  26. It's gonna be called 10 steps to become an FL Studio Pro.
  27. And what's really really cool about this course is I just got a green screen.
  28. Okay, so you're able to see me with like no background.
  29. It gives a really really cool and personal touch to the course.
  30. In addition, I also got a Wacom tablet.
  31. If you don't know what those are, I do suggest you look them up.
  32. it's what people use to like draw and like Photoshop and stuff like that.
  33. but it's something that Khan Academy, what he has done, you know, in his tutorials
  34. when he's drawing and teaching you at the same time, and I wanted to kind of take
  35. like that same approach. And that's what I did in this course as well.
  36. So I actually draw with you and teach you you know, digital audio and stuff like
  37. that. So this is going to be a really, really cool course.
  38. Again, it's going to be called 10 steps to become an FL Studio Pro.
  39. So the first question that you may have when it comes to you know creating content
  40. and recording your screen is what software do you use?
  41. So the industry has come a really, really long way.
  42. In my early years, I used like Camtasia.
  43. It was quite, you know, it was expensive.
  44. I think it was like 300 bucks at the time, and it allowed me to create you know
  45. pretty high quality videos, but in many areas it was kind of like restrictive.
  46. and then I was introduced to OBS, open broadcast software.
  47. And that's currently what I use for my you know courses, tutorials, and it's just so
  48. flexible. And the benefit of it is first of all, it's free, it's open source, okay.
  49. It also allows you to record at 60 frames per second to give you like that really
  50. nice smooth look, especially when it comes to music production, you know, 30 frames
  51. versus 60 frames. that 60 frames in music production, it just looks super smooth,
  52. super, you know, it's just more enjoyable to watch with your eyes and learn, okay.
  53. So, with that said, so I use OBS Open Broadcast Software.
  54. It's an awesome program. I'm very, very grateful for it.
  55. without it, you know, my business wouldn't be as high quality when it comes to my
  56. courses as it is. So when we're talking about OBS, when you go to actually record,
  57. so you can actually be using like a CPU encoder, or you can be using like your video
  58. card. I believe that the CPU gives you a little bit higher quality, but the thing is
  59. with music production, your actual music program, your DAW, it's really CPU
  60. intensive because music production is solely based on your CPU.
  61. It's not like you know creating like video games or something where you can at
  62. least, or even like Photoshop, where you can like offload some of the processing to
  63. like a video card. Music production is all CPU based.
  64. So if you are trying to record with OBS on you know with a CPU encoder, and at the
  65. same time you have like a really large project, so that can be really hard on your
  66. CPU. So in my later years, I've started to use the video card encoding.
  67. And what this does is there's no weight on my CPU when I'm recording, which is
  68. awesome. So, therefore, if I'm gonna actually use a huge project inside the course,
  69. the video card gives you you know awesome performance and awesome results as well.
  70. Okay. the next thing I want to talk about is you know, for example, like let's say
  71. like a microphone. So when you're actually listening to you know the the instructor
  72. speak, it's really important that your microphone is nice and clear, that there's no
  73. background noise or or anything like that.
  74. Okay. So in my early years, in my early tutorials, you know, I was using like a
  75. condenser microphone, and you know, these are good microphones, like they capture
  76. really high quality, but you have to make sure that your environment isn't noisy.
  77. For example, if someone's you know cutting the lawn outside, or even like your
  78. computer fan, this microphone can pick up this noise and it's just really annoying.
  79. It it's distracting to the student and it makes you look unprofessional.
  80. So you can maybe take like the approach of like a lavalier microphone, which I just
  81. used in this course. It was a pretty cool approach.
  82. I'll talk a little bit about that in a second.
  83. There's some learning curves I had to go there because you can't just use Phantom
  84. Power on a lavalier microphone.
  85. but in my later years, I started to use a Sure SM7B, which is a dynamic microphone,
  86. so it isn't as sensitive. You have to drive it a little bit harder, which is good
  87. because that's what I'm talking to you on right now.
  88. a It gives you really high
  89. quality sound. and in addition, if I be quiet for a second, it's not
  90. picking up much noise, right? So that's this the benefit, it allows it your actual
  91. course to be really high quality.
  92. So I just want to talk about this lavalier microphone because since I was doing the
  93. green screen, if I would have had a microphone in there, it would have looked kind
  94. of weird. Like you'd see me, and then you'd see like this microphone.
  95. and my microphone cable is green as well.
  96. So, like you saw like the XL XLR connection, but you didn't see any of like the
  97. audio cable. So I was like, okay, well, I want to be able to talk to you freely and
  98. not have this microphone in the way.
  99. So I got a lavalier microphone, and you know, I thought maybe I could just plug it
  100. into like my preamp and I'd be able to use like you know, the phantom power or
  101. whatever, and just it just wasn't working, so you know I looked it up, and the
  102. problem was lavalier microphones they operate on like a super super low voltage,
  103. like I think it's like maximum like five volts, whereas the phantom power can be 48
  104. volts. So I just had some like cheap lavalier microphones I bought off Amazon and I
  105. plugged one in, and I'm pretty sure I broke it, pretty sure I wrecked it, you know,
  106. because you know I just thought it was simple, it was just like you know, apply
  107. phantom power or whatever, and you're good to go.
  108. But that's not the case. So, my work around for that was I have a zoom
  109. H4N, and I bought this a long time ago.
  110. This is a little sound recorder, and it has been probably my absolute favorite tool
  111. that I've used, and it's been so helpful in so many different areas.
  112. Like it, this is the microphone I used if I want to record into like a DSLR camera
  113. or anything like that. So you can look it up, it's called the Zoom H4N.
  114. zoom. You guys can even opt in to like the H1 because really you just need it for
  115. recording purposes what I ended up doing was I ended up plugging my lavalier
  116. microphone into the H4N, and then out of the headphone jack, I plugged that into my
  117. preamp, and then I sent that into my audio interface.
  118. I sent it into the preamp because I have a channel strip, it allows me to use EQ,
  119. compression, DS, and stuff like that, just to kind of you know fine-tune the actual
  120. recording before it goes into my computer.
  121. And then once it goes into my computer, which I'll talk to you in a moment, I use
  122. Vegas Pro, and you know, I'll actually you know, process the audio in a sense of EQ
  123. and compression and stuff like that.
  124. but see when it came to the H4N, it also came with like a power adapter, so I could
  125. literally just plug it into the wall, turn it on.
  126. I didn't have to worry about batteries, and the thing is it's like when you have all
  127. these different you know connections and hardware, it's like it's really important
  128. that you don't have tons going on because if you do, it's really easy to forget to
  129. turn something on. All of a sudden you go to start you know recording the course or
  130. recording your tutorial, and all of a sudden you realize, oh, I forgot to turn that
  131. on. Okay, which leads me into another thing I want to talk about is your camera,
  132. okay. So, with tutorials, you know, a lot of people what they'll do is they'll have
  133. a DSLR camera, they'll hit record, and then they'll use something like OBS to record
  134. their screen, and then what they'll do is they'll end up syncing their audio.
  135. And the best approach for that is you know to clap your hands in the video, like you
  136. know, like before you actually start talking and everything.
  137. That way it's easier to sync, you know, your voice with your DSLR video.
  138. but over my years, I end up getting like a clapper, right?
  139. So, for example, it sounds like this, okay..
  140. So, you know, like you're able to write like the role, the scene, and I don't write
  141. anything on there, but it's nice just to have a nice tool like this
  142. You put it in front of the camera.
  143. Again, I'll play it one more time.
  144. So, like, you know, if I actually just drop the clicker or like the clapper, that's
  145. what I would do. And then inside my video editing program, I can just simply sync
  146. them up nice and fast, okay? If you were gonna go that approach.
  147. Now, in my opinion, I've like just to use OBS and actually record my
  148. DSLR camera at the same time as I'm recording everything.
  149. It's just been the easiest way to do it because I don't have to worry about you know
  150. two separate audio, you know, two separate files.
  151. You know, for example, let's say the video ended up being a half hour long, right?
  152. And most of these DSLR cameras, they max out at half hour, so it ends up creating
  153. it, you know, two separate files for you.
  154. So let's just say it maxed out at you know, half hour.
  155. So now you actually have your DSLR file.
  156. Now you actually have your OBS screen recording file.
  157. You know, so now you have two files.
  158. Whereas if I just record it all at once, all that information is in there.
  159. now your voice can be out of sync, okay.
  160. So it is important that you do some test runs, making sure that your voice, if if
  161. you want to share yourself in the video, but really like if you if you are in the
  162. video, it's more personal for your watcher for your viewer.
  163. But one of the problems with this is when you do have your DSLR camera and recording
  164. the screen, those are two separate files, which means that you can easily remove
  165. your DSLR video out of the you know, out of the editing whenever you want.
  166. That's a nice flexibility. When I do record it all at once, I really don't have that
  167. option unless inside of OBS, you know, you're able to create like scenes and stuff
  168. like that. You can quickly kind of switch in between that stuff.
  169. but it's just kind of knowing the pros and cons and the convenience.
  170. Over the years, I've just found recording everything in OBS all at once the simplest
  171. way to approach it. Again, you just want to make sure that your voice is in sync and
  172. stuff like that. Okay. So let's talk about you know how to record your video camera
  173. a little bit further with OBS, okay?
  174. So probably the easiest way to get started with video and stuff like that to create
  175. tutorials is to use OBS and get like a webcam.
  176. that way, you know, you can record yourself and OBS at the same time.
  177. Again, just make sure that your audio is in sync.
  178. You also want to set it up that your microphone is a different audio source than
  179. your desktop audio. You're able to do this inside of OBS so that when it records
  180. into MP4 format. Some people also use like the MKV because if your actual
  181. software crashes, the MKV is still retrievable, whereas MP4 is not.
  182. but anyways, you want to make sure that your voice is on one audio insert, and then
  183. as well as the desktop audio is also on an audio insert.
  184. And the reason for this is that again, if your voice is out of sync with the video
  185. or whatever, you can simply kind of nudge it over, or if you want to kind of mute
  186. your voice. for example, if the background audio is playing, like let's say the beat
  187. or whatever, you know, you can easily just kind of mute out background noise, it's
  188. just more flexibility. Okay. So the webcam is probably the easiest approach.
  189. the DSLR is a step up, but again, you'd use the DSLR and the OBS at the same time,
  190. but you just got to make sure you hit record.
  191. You would just clap into the video, and you know, that's a good way to get started.
  192. over my years, I have actually started to use a capture card.,
  193. Okay okay? So the DSLR camera plugs into this capture card inside of my computer
  194. and, it plugs. in with a PCI Express slot, okay
  195. And that allows me to capture my camera into my computer.
  196. So I'm able to get the nice DSLR image right into my computer.
  197. Therefore, I can record my camera and OBS at the same time.
  198. So, you know, oh sounds simple, right?
  199. Well, there's always little downfalls like this, no matter what you're doing.
  200. I'm sure, and probably no matter what industry, there's always these little kind of
  201. gotchas, and it's kind of annoying, okay.
  202. So, when it comes to this capture card, the audio sync really is a problem.
  203. So, like I was saying, you really have to test, and there's an option for you to
  204. kind of like delay audio and stuff like that.
  205. So, you're gonna have to play around with this.
  206. And the thing is, from what I've discovered, is even if you set it up perfect for
  207. one recording, for the next recording, sometimes it can trail or like you know, kind
  208. of lag a little bit. So, as long as it's in like the ballpark, and then again, I'll
  209. just use like the little clapper into the video, even with OBS and the capture card,
  210. just it's just a nice little confirmation, and then again at the beginning of the
  211. video, I make sure that everything's lined up.
  212. I can just kind of nudge over my voice if I need to, and then that is easy.
  213. And now, even to put even a little further twist on this.
  214. So, over my years, I was always using a camcorder.
  215. Okay, a camcorder doesn't allow you to get that kind of like bouquet effect, that
  216. kind of depth of field, whereas a DSLR you're able to, you know, change out the lens
  217. and you're able to get you know allow like more light in, or you know, the lens
  218. allows you for way more flexibility, a better image and stuff like that.
  219. So the reason why I'm telling you that is the camcorder was really awesome in a
  220. sense of you were able just to turn on the camera, it would do autofocus without
  221. showing on the actual screen. Like for example, these DSLR cameras, when it does
  222. autofocus on your face, it actually kind of follows you around, right?
  223. the
  224. with DSLR camera, I haven't been able to figure out how to remove it.
  225. I've done lots of research. currently I use a Canon M6, it's a mirrorless camera.
  226. And so what I have to do for this is I actually have to set it to manual mode.
  227. I'll put the microphone where my head is about, and then I'll just kind of manually
  228. focus, and then therefore I'm able to get the nice Canon with an I have a nice lens
  229. and I'm able to get a good picture, but I'm not able to autofocus, and that's
  230. sometimes annoying because when you're talking, sometimes you may want to share
  231. something into the camera or something.
  232. and yeah, so that's just kind of annoying that way.
  233. But with the camcorder, I had a Canon HFR40, I think.
  234. and that was great in a sense of it was able to autofocus stuff like that, but I
  235. wasn't able to kind of get like that depth of field, and you know, it just didn't
  236. like it looked high quality, don't get me wrong, but with the M6, it's even higher
  237. quality, it looks a little bit cleaner.
  238. But now, from the mirrorless camera, the Canon M6 to the camcorder,
  239. here's the problem. The Canon M6, I can make it so that the screen never turns off,
  240. but this camera, it will always just kind of shut down temporarily every 30 minutes,
  241. okay. So, what I have to do is as soon as I'm kind of getting to like 20 minutes
  242. kind of time, I'll just press like the okay button twice.
  243. That way, this camera doesn't shut down on me.
  244. So that's kind of been an inconvenience with this DSLR camera.
  245. So, as you can as you can see, you know, it's not just as simple as buying gear to
  246. get you know high quality results with this camera again.
  247. So, you know, after 30 minutes, the camera actually kind of shuts down.
  248. But if I press okay, you know, it comes back to life.
  249. So when I'm recording my courses, you, you know, I might just be kind of like look
  250. at like the time, and I'd be like, Okay, know, maybe I should stop talking here,
  251. reset the camera, and it's like, okay, I'm good to go.
  252. so that's just kind of been like a workaround.
  253. Whereas the camcorder, I never had to do that, so it was just a matter of hit
  254. record, it autofocused for me and it never shut down.
  255. So those are two pretty big pros, really, right?
  256. So the other way, which I did this course, this 10 steps to become an FL Studio Pro,
  257. I used the Canon M6, so it looks super high quality, but as I was recording, there
  258. was just these little kind of gotchas in a sense of the camera would shut down, it
  259. didn't autofocus, so like I was always in focus, don't get me wrong, but having that
  260. autofocus is just that convenience of knowing no matter where you're sitting, you
  261. know, no matter where you're moving your head, you're always in focus.
  262. Okay. So that's just some things to think about when you if you're gonna be
  263. recording your tutorials and stuff like that.
  264. Okay. I'd also suggest typing into Google, check out Vimeo's
  265. compression guidelines, and they're gonna share with you, you know, what you should
  266. be like recording at and stuff like that, in a sense of like your bitrate, just to
  267. give you an idea. Okay, I'll just quickly talk about you know editing videos in a
  268. sense of you know how to prepare yourself.
  269. and I think that'll be it for this episode.
  270. but so to edit videos, I use Sony Vegas.
  271. in all honesty, it's been an okay program.
  272. I would probably suggest I or I probably recommend you guys to go to like Adobe
  273. Premiere. Vegas has its quirks.
  274. don't get me wrong, it's a pretty good program.
  275. But what I don't like about Vegas is like, hey, so let's say I bought Vegas 14
  276. Pro. Now, let's say, you know, all of a sudden they come up with 15, they actually
  277. start putting pop-ups on your desktop and say, oh, like 15's here..
  278. And like even if you go into the settings and disable stuff, these pop-ups still
  279. come So like I really feel that that's really unprofessional.
  280. And so for myself, I don't always upgrade software.
  281. when I like, you know, like when a new version comes out.
  282. Many times I'll wait like two or three years, I'll wait for all these new features
  283. to kind of come out, and then when I upgrade, now it's like I'm getting a big
  284. upgrade, right? So I actually upgraded from 14 to 16.
  285. You know, they had a deal going on.
  286. I was like, okay, let's upgrade.
  287. and now 17 is coming out, and again, they're giving me like these pop-ups, and it's
  288. just like that's so unprofessional.
  289. I find it very rude to a customer.
  290. So that's one down thing about Vegas.
  291. I find that really annoying. Another reason why I suggest going to Premiere is just
  292. it just seems way more fluid and way more efficient in their process.
  293. Vegas, like I said, it has a lot of quirks and stuff like that.
  294. especially when it comes to like exporting video and working with different file
  295. formats and stuff. don't get me wrong, every software always has its quirks.
  296. Vegas works, I'm able to get high quality out of it.
  297. I've just had to kind of learn the software to make it work for me.
  298. Okay. The last thing I want to say about editing your video, especially for like a
  299. course or even like your tutorials, is it's really important to set your levels in a
  300. sense of your microphone. Okay.
  301. So right now I've had I I have like my setup, you know, set up.
  302. So if I come here and talk, you know, my volume is always gonna be pretty
  303. consistent. For example, from podcast to podcast, I hope my volume has kind of been
  304. consistent from you know, episode to episode, because that's really annoying.
  305. You know, if one episode's loud, one episode's quiet, right?
  306. and the reason for that is because now inside of your video editing program, you
  307. want to create a template where you EQ, compress, DS your voice and everything..
  308. And that's it Like that's your voice.
  309. And then the thing is, you know, maybe I've talked a little bit louder or a little
  310. bit quieter in this episode, but now, you know, I'll be using like a meter inside of
  311. the video editing program. But since I have this template, okay, set up, it's just
  312. super simple. now just to take it even a little bit further.
  313. So for each course, I will take a template and then I will save a new template just
  314. for that course. So, in other words, all the videos for that course, I'm gonna keep
  315. running through this template.
  316. For example, if I'm on, you know, let's say video three, I drag that video into the
  317. template, I'll hit file, save as, and I'll create a new copy and I'll name it like
  318. the actual file name. and again, this just keeps the volume consistent,
  319. it keeps your EQ consistent. And, you know, just from a listener standpoint from the
  320. course, if everything's consistent from video to video, it makes it much more
  321. enjoyable. Whereas, you know, let's say I recorded a video today, and then you know,
  322. a month later, I kind of change my volume settings and EQ settings or whatever or
  323. whatever a little bit, and then now I go to edit the video to add to that course.
  324. You know, if the voice starts changing and stuff like that, in my opinion, it's just
  325. a little bit distracting. So, you know, these are just things that I have learned
  326. over the years, which I want to pass on to you, you know, if you want to get
  327. involved in this stuff. one last point I want to share with you is please do
  328. not be teaching or sharing if you don't know.
  329. Okay. This is a big thing for you and your brand, as well as for just the producer
  330. community. It's really important that you understand, you know, I'm not saying you
  331. have to understand it in depth.
  332. You can give things like you know, a general process of how it works, but never
  333. pretend like you know something that you don't..
  334. Okay, it's really, really important
  335. especially for your brand, okay.
  336. So, anyways, that's just a little wrap-up of you know if you want to get started
  337. creating content as a beat maker.
  338. that's kind of how I started, you know, creating these courses.
  339. OBS has been, you know, again, open broadcast software has been an amazing software
  340. for me. A huge shout out to all the developers that work on it.
  341. it's open source, so it's free.
  342. You're able to get that 60 frames per second.
  343. looks butter smooth. but again, you guys can check out the course.
  344. It's called 10 steps to become an FL Studio Pro.
  345. Again, I have that green screen, it looks super super cool.
  346. I'm really impressed how it turned out, as well as we get into some hand drawing, me
  347. sharing with you how digital audio works.
  348. So, if you guys like the the podcast here, you know, come to the page, leave a
  349. review, all that kind of stuff.
  350. Or if if you have questions, reach out to me.
  351. I also have an option there. if you want to support the podcast for five dollars a
  352. month, I'd really, really appreciate that.
  353. And again, you know, if you guys want to learn about a certain topic, you guys can
  354. always reach out, and I can always make a podcast, you know, about your questions or
  355. or whatever. If not, I'll just be creating episodes on just things I want to talk
  356. about and things I want to get across to you, okay.
  357. Thanks for checking out the episode.
  358. If you had any questions, visit it'sgratuitous.com/slash podcast, select an episode
  359. and submit your question at the bottom of the page to the contact form.
  360. If you'd like to take my FL Studio courses, see my current studio and podcasting
  361. gear, read my books or are interested in lessons.
  362. Visit the link it's gratuitous.com/slash learning.
  363. That page will redirect you to more info and resources.
  364. I hope the best with your productions.
  365. I'm gratuitous, and I'll see you in the next
  366. episode.
GratuiTous Radio Start free Join Membership 0:00/0:00