The Content Creator's Holiday Gift Guide: From Budget-Friendly to No-Expense-Spared

Hello, welcome to another edition of the Independent Creator Podcast. I'm your host Josh, and we've got something a little bit different today. You know, closing out the year with Christmas time just around the corner, or if you're reading this at a later date, happy holidays whatever you want to celebrate.

We're going to be going over a gift giving guide or holiday season wish list for content creators, or for family members and significant others of content creators who want to know what they might be looking for. We'll be looking at different hardware and software ideas, what to look for in the cheap stuff, and then if you have a spare no expense account, the more expensive options.

Start With Your Audio - It's More Important Than You Think

One thing that a lot of us constantly harp on about is your audio. Having good audio is pretty important because that's over half of what being a content creator is all about. You're speaking into a microphone and getting whatever you want to talk about out there to the masses or to your community.

Now microphones range the gamut of all different kinds of shapes, sizes, and price ranges. The majority of options are actually pretty affordable for a great majority of people out there. I'm not going to look at expensive options like the microphone I use, which is a Beacon mic that costs around $300. You can have a perfectly decent sounding microphone that is around 30 to 40 dollars. It's a USB mic, so as long as you have an open USB port on your computer, you can actually have good sounding production without spending a lot of money on everything else.

Avoiding Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS)

One of the big factors, and I know this is a funny name, but everyone has GAS. I know there's a joke in there somewhere. GAS is gear acquisition syndrome. When you look at other content creators and you're like, "Oh, that person has this particular microphone" or "they got the Shure SM7B, I'm going to get that microphone," then you go through the listing and see it's almost a $400 microphone. Then you need to spend another starting at $100 for an XLR input or interface to get that audio into your computer. So you're already up to $500, let's say $600 of your hard earned money, and you haven't even spent anything on like computer or software or video if you want to include that. Just the audio portion alone puts you at $600.

Budget-Friendly Microphone Options

Some people would balk at the price and say you can't get good quality at $30. Yes, you can. The Fifine TC777 is $26 on Amazon and it sounds great. Fifine is a great company. My daughter uses this particular microphone as well. It's not the best, but it gives you decent quality for someone that's just starting out.

For someone who's just saying, "Hey, I want to try this live streaming or be a content creator" and they don't want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars, this is a good option to get them into the door of getting started. If they start liking it and want to produce better content and upgrade down the line, sure, you can upgrade to a Rode PodMic for $100, which is a USB microphone with great sound. Or if you want to go even higher, get a Beacon mic like I use, or if you want to go even further, get a Shure SM7B for $400.

There is a price point for everybody out there. I would suggest if you're just starting out, get a Fifine. It's a USB microphone, and all you need is an empty USB port on your computer and Bob's your uncle, as they would say across the pond.

Video Equipment: Starting Simple

Video, I believe, and this is my personal opinion, is probably more akin to medium-stage live streams. A lot of people go to Logitech C920 type webcams because they're cheap and under 100 bucks. The C922 or 920 uses a different naming convention, but it's a very decent webcam that's been around for a decade now, probably more than that, and gives you decent results.

It's not going to give you the best results because especially in low light, it's going to suffer a lot. You want to make sure that you have decent lighting or overhead light. It's not the best, but it's going to be good enough for someone starting out.

The Reality Check About Content Creation

This is what we're trying to do for people who want to get started in the content creation live streaming space: getting started with the most low cost options available. This kind of career is hard. It's very cutthroat and it's something that you really have to work at to make a name for yourself or put yourself out there.

It's not something where you start streaming and expect to have 1000 people watching your streams within a month or two. That's never going to happen unless you are already a pro league player of Apex or League of Legends or some kind of other eSports. It's really not going to happen that way for 98% of the people who start live streaming.

It's a shame that a lot of people have that kind of mentality that if they don't have instant success and don't have hundreds of subscribers or donators or members, they're going to be a complete failure. I hate to break it to you, but that's not how it works. It'll take months, years of dedicated work of actually doing the job of being a content creator or live streamer. And success is not guaranteed.

Software Solutions: Free vs. Paid

Speaking of software, OBS is free and is used on Windows, Mac and Linux. So all three operating systems have the capability of using this free software. In the name, it's Open Broadcast Software. It's open source, pretty much, so you can take the OBS software and if you know how to work with it, you can fork it into whatever version that you want, which Streamlabs has done just that.

There are other options that are not free, but they do provide great solutions. One of those is XSplit. XSplit has been around for decades, really, since just before the dawn of OBS. They were kind of the leader of the broadcasting software for the prosumer market.

The pricing on XSplit is comparably reasonable. You can buy the broadcaster premium for $60 per year. That's not too bad, only $5 a month. It gets rid of the watermark because if you're using the free version, it puts a watermark on your content and has some limitations on the options you can use.

My Personal Setup

What I use is a program that is basically Mac only called Ecamm Live. It's essentially the same thing but geared more for content recording, Zoom calls with live recording capabilities. It also does live streaming, but it's built for the Mac ecosystem. You're not going to find this on Windows or Linux, just Mac OS.

I find that I have a better time using this on the Mac because I do two PC streaming. I have my Windows-based machine for gameplay footage and all the B-roll content, and Ecamm handles the streaming side with capability of bringing in guest interviews, up to 10 guests at a time, as long as your bandwidth and hardware can handle it.

The Bottom Line: Start Cheap and Experiment

I kind of steer a lot of people, especially if they're just starting out or thinking about getting into this creator space, to start as cheap as you possibly can. Content creation and live streaming is really experimental. There's no book or standard operating procedure for how to do things. You don't go step one, step two, step three. It's completely up to you as a content creator to find out what works for you and what works best for your audience.

You have to do a lot of experimentation because there isn't any wrong way to do it, and there's not really any right way to do it. It's just experimentation to do whatever you feel works out for you.

If you want to try things, go as cheap as possible. If you know someone who wants to do this, give them the Fifine microphone I mentioned at the beginning. It's 30 bucks, and in my opinion, it's a decent microphone that works for a large range of people. You're not going to have the stunning, beautiful, crisp, bassy tones of a Shure SM7B, but it's not a $400 microphone either.

Remember, even a $1,200 or $10,000 microphone will sound like garbage if it's not set up correctly. Take the time when you get your equipment to actually learn how to use it and set it up correctly. It might take you a couple days to figure out what the perfect sound might be, or in the case of video, different settings depending on when you do your recordings or live streams.

That's why I like the content creation community. The independent creator community is very helpful. There are some outliers that are not very helpful or downright mean, but you can quickly see who they are and ignore them. The community is generally there to help each other succeed.

As long as I can help one person, that's all that really matters. I'm not in this for getting thousands of likes or massive numbers. I'm the worst at self-promotion, but I do try. That's why I started IndieCreator.com, to help people share experiences, resources, and help each other better their experience as content creators and live streamers.

If you're just starting out, remember: start cheap, experiment often, and don't let the lack of expensive gear stop you from creating. Some of the most successful creators started with basic equipment and focused on their content and personality first. The gear upgrades can come later as you grow and figure out what works best for your style and audience.

The Independent Creator