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Video Brand Infusion
The Easiest Way to Record Yourself for YouTube | Ep. 43
Wondering how to make recording yourself for YouTube feel effortless? The easiest way to record yourself for YouTube is to create a setup that works for you! In this episode, I dive into the essentials of a successful YouTube recording space, from lighting to audio equipment. I’ll also share mental tips to help you feel more at ease in front of the camera. If you've ever felt isolated while creating content, you're not alone! Join me as I explore how to talk to the camera like you're having a conversation with a friend, making your videos more engaging and authentic.
Katherine's podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speak-on-more-stages/id1638543359
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Forget that you're talking to a camera. just pretend you're talking to a friend, You know what gets me about that? You are talking to a camera. You are talking to a webcam. You are talking to a teleprompter and if recording yourself for YouTube was simply as easy as pretending you're talking to a friend,
then we'd all be ripping out videos every single day, consistently without any hesitation, without any hiccup at all.
And if that sounds like you, give us some tips down in the comments, but if you do struggle with recording yourself for YouTube, whether it's the technical aspect, the mental aspect of talking to a camera that's not actually a human being, and if you're looking for some practical tips for the easiest way to record yourself for YouTube.
This episode of video brand infusion is for you. My name is Meredith I'm here to help you infuse the best video marketing strategies into your business So that you can grow your audience with ease and generate consistent revenue in your business
And to be 100 transparent with you i'm recording this The late afternoon before it goes live tomorrow and there's a reason why
The truth is, I was actually waiting for the Amazon delivery driver.
One of the things that I was trying to do this year, in 2025, was to kind of simplify My YouTube setup. My YouTube ical, as I like to call it, because what I have here in my basement bedroom office studio is like a little cubicle for YouTube. It's where I do my work, it's where I record my videos, it's where All of the Meredith magic happens
and way back, like a year and a half ago or so, Elgato, who makes the cam link and the stream deck and this mic arm that's holding this microphone right now, all of the great gear for setting up really fantastic YouTubical, they sent me their brand new teleprompter, which is called prompter, Elgato prompter.
And I started using it. Almost right away. I loved it. It's like having a second monitor. I can put a zoom call up there I can put myself up there and see myself as I am recording and It was great until I just kind of Stopped using it part of it is because of the angle that I have to put it at because I have a monitor and I have a Teleprompter and it just wasn't working for me and it just I started collecting dust.
so I actually put it away in its box. Like I packed it up completely and put it over in my corner of tech boxes that you can't see. It's off camera.
But I can't ever just let my setup. stay set the way that it is. I'm always fiddling with it. I feel like I simplified a little too much and I actually kind of missed having the teleprompter. And so I took my teleprompter back out of the box. I set it back up on my mic stand, my Elgato Mic Arm LP, as it's called, so that I could manipulate the angle, the height, the placement of it, of the teleprompter a little more, because that's one of the weird things about a teleprompter is there's a lot of angles and a lot of fiddling that has to happen to get it just right. And since I stole the mic arm from my microphone for the teleprompter, I was without a mic arm. And this microphone right here, the Shure SM7DB is heavy. You can't just throw this on any mic stand. So I ordered the Elgato mic arm pro and Decided I couldn't record this episode until the Amazon driver delivered it. And here we are. Now, luckily my podcast episodes are so easy to edit because I use Descript and it's literally just me talking to the camera.
There's no B roll. There's nothing else that I have to throw in here. If you're hearing me talk about my teleprompter, my microphone, my setup, my YouTubicle. And you want to see what that looks like? You can go watch the videos on my channel, the Crush It On Camera series walks you through all of that, all of that gear.
And the reason why I'm going down this rabbit hole of gear is because one thing I want you to know about the easiest way to record yourself for YouTube is create a setup. That works for you to walk in to your space, open up your notes, hit record, and just do it.
Just be able to walk in and hit record. Regardless of whether you have a fancy teleprompter
or a 500 microphone that weighs almost as much as a newborn baby, or a fancy camera, or an aesthetic, colorful background.
In this episode, I want to talk about the easiest way for you to set up your YouTubical so that it's easy for you to hit record.
Now the caveat here is that the easiest setup, the easiest way to record yourself for YouTube may not be the cheapest. If you're looking for the cheapest way to record yourself for YouTube, you probably have a webcam attached to either your computer monitor or your laptop.
But most people approaching YouTube videos for the first time or, you know, trying to get their channels established, get their audiences growing, look at YouTube as a platform where there's a certain expectation of higher quality, higher production value. And As many times as I have argued that that's not actually true, because I am sure you have watched YouTube videos for one reason or another, that the person was using their phone, not using a good microphone, the production value wasn't that great, but the content was, and you stuck around.
When it comes to you and your brand and your image and your business, you want You want your videos to look legit on camera, you want your videos to look like you put some time and effort into creating them, but you don't want to actually put the time and effort into creating them. You just want to hit record.
Am I right?
So let's talk about the easiest way to record yourself technically, tech wise, tech setup, and mentally, because I know. If you're anything like me and you weren't born knowing how to talk to a camera, there is a mental barrier to hitting record and speaking to a camera.
It's not just as easy as talking to a friend.
So let's dive into some practical ways to make it easy for you to record yourself for YouTube. A few months ago, I brought in a friend of mine as a guest expert, uh, inside a video brand Academy.
Her name is Katherine Beck and she is a voice coach, a speaking coach,
she is an accent coach. And she's a voiceover artist so as somebody like me who taught myself how to talk to a camera by just seeing what other people do and emulating that and then kind of finding my own way and finding my own voice.
I was blown away by some of the tips that Katherine shared as a professional. She didn't just teach herself. She's a professional at talking to the camera and helping and coaching and teaching people to talk to the camera. And she shared something on our call when I say it, when I give you this tip, you're going to think.
Duh. We've all heard it. We all know that.
But Katherine revealed something even deeper. That once I tried it myself, it completely changed the way that the words come out of my mouth when I do hit record.
so before we get to the mental tips and the practical tips for talking to the camera, let me just talk you through the easiest setup for recording yourself on YouTube. You heard me mention that I like to set up a u tubicle where the idea is it's a little cubicle.
It could be a big cubicle, but mine is little because it's my basement bedroom where I can walk in, turn on my camera, turn on my lights, and everything is ready to go. All I have to do is hit record.
Usually, I have to do my hair and my makeup first. But I could, in theory, just go ahead and hit record.
If I am short on time, like I am this afternoon, because I want to get this video edited and uploaded for tomorrow, I don't have to spend any amount of time setting up my lights, setting up my camera, finding the plug, making sure the SD card is in the camera, plugging in my microphone. It's all set up.
It's all ready to go. It's always. Ready to go.
Now, right now I am recording with my Canon M50 Mark II, which is a little bit of an older camera, but it's a very affordable camera. It's a crop camera. sensor, uh, like enthusiast level camera. Okay. It's not a professional camera by any means at all, but it does have a Sigma 16 millimeter lens on it, which in my personal opinion, gives me a sharp look.
It focuses on my face. It blurs out the background. I just really like the look for a talking head video for a small space. This combination works wonders and is less than a thousand dollars or maybe around 1100 depending on where you get your camera and your lens.
However, you can't just connect that camera to a computer. You have to use what's called a cam link from Elgato. It costs around a hundred dollars. It's like a little USB stick that you plug into your computer and then you use a micro HDMI to HDMI cord.
I'm getting pretty technical here for not being able to show you these things on camera. But again, I cover this in my Crush It On Camera series. All of these things are covered in that series right here on my YouTube channel.
So that Elgato cam link allows me to connect my fancy camera to my computer and use it just like a webcam. So when I go to a Zoom call or when I'm recording with Ecamm, which is what I'm recording with right now, all I have to do is select that cam link as my webcam, turn my camera on, and that's the webcam feed, so to speak.
And when it comes to recording yourself for YouTube, having some kind of an external microphone, meaning not the microphone that's built into your computer, an external microphone connected to your computer is really the only way to get decent audio for your videos.
I think I've said this before on this podcast or perhaps in a couple of other YouTube videos, but if you're looking to spend money on upgrading your YouTubicle, your YouTube setup, if you have a budget,
I would upgrade. Your microphone way before I invested in a camera or lights
with that said the microphone I'm using right now is a Shure SM7DB, which is about 500 it's connected to the computer using the Shure MVx2U, I'm looking at my notes because there are so many letters and numbers. But the MVX2U is like a little, um, it looks like a little cigarette lighter from back in the day when vehicles, you know, had those and it plugs into the computer via USB, which allows the microphone to plug into the computer and to be totally honest with you, it's probably overkill, but I'm really happy with it. I like the microphone. I like the way it sounds. I like that. It just, it sits here on the mic arm, this new Elgato mic arm.
Pro, I think it's called and it sits here and I can swing it out of the way when I'm done. I can bring it back It's always at the right height and it just always sounds pretty good. Sure, make some other really good microphones, some that plug directly into the computer and don't need the extra MVx2U, and that cost a lot less than 500.
And the main light that I'm using right now is the Elgato Key Light. It clamps to the desk. I can control it right here from my desktop. I have a lamp and I have another little light over here in the corner, which doesn't really do much except for add a little bit of extra ambiance.
So remember I said the easiest way to record yourself may not exactly be the cheapest, but you could do everything that I just described with all of these cameras, lights, microphone, mic stand, all of that with whatever you have, because you can use your phone or your webcam and sit in front of a window to have great lighting.
The point is to create a YouTubical setup for yourself so that all you have to do is come in and just hit record.
Now for software, I mentioned that I'm using Ecamm Live right now, which is a Mac only software. It's for live streaming, but I use it for recording these videos. I use it for recording my screen videos. Sometimes what I like about Ecamm Live for me is it just always works and even though I use Descript to edit my videos, I have used Squadcast, which is owned by Descript, to record videos, and it's very clunky.
I've had guests on where it just wasn't working well. And Descript now has their new, uh, Rooms feature, which allows you to record. I, I did a podcast with Rooms, and it's not 100 percent reliable enough for me to spend the You know, a half hour talking to the camera and know for sure that what I record is going to be somewhere out there in the cloud for me to use.
I've used Riverside to record before, which I've always had really good luck with Riverside. And if I am going to interview a guest, Riverside is usually my go to. And once Descript gets their rooms out of beta and figured out, I'm sure Rooms is going to work fantastic.
And another favorite for me is called Tella, Tella. TV, which is a browser based recorder where you can record your face, you can record your screen, you can do some really fantastic and easy editing. It's great for talking head videos. It's great for tutorials.
But for me, Ecam is just kind of my go to if I'm just going to Turn everything on and hit record. I just open Ecamm and hit record.
And if I didn't have any software I had no camera I had no microphone and I had no budget at all To record myself for YouTube.
I would 100 percent just use my iPhone Just set my iPhone on a tripod in front of me, line myself up, use the rule of thirds, watch Meredith's Crush It On Camera series to learn how to position everything, and what the angle should be, and what to put in the background.
Because, like I said, the easiest, easiest, way to record yourself for YouTube is to set up a YouTubeicle for yourself that works for you.
Okay. Now that was a lot of technical stuff. One thing about me, I actually love YouTube setup jargon. I love talking about microphones and cameras and lights and teleprompters and things like that.
For me the mental gymnastics of getting in front of the camera and hitting record isn't really something that I struggle with anymore. It was at first, I didn't, I didn't know what I was doing. I had no idea how my videos were going to turn out.
I was just kind of playing around and. basically pretending that I was confident and comfortable on camera. I pretended until I became that,
which is probably the best advice that I could give anybody for recording yourself on YouTube. But I mentioned that I brought my friend Katherine in as a guest expert to Video Brand Academy and she really blew my mind with a tip that's like one of the oldest tricks in the book for talking to a camera.
But when I tried it the way she suggested, it really changed the way that I started recording my videos. So you know how I started this episode off with the, the tip that we all know that everyone says,
Well, for the last ten years, every time I heard that tip, I would always sort of like internally roll my eyes, because talking to a camera is not like talking to a friend. It just isn't. It's an electronic device. It's a camera. And I know for me, it was really hard to, like, there was no pretending that I was talking to another human. My brain is like. Oh my God, you're talking to a camera. What are you doing? This is so weird. You're so awkward. Here's what Katherine said about this tip. She said, what if when you hit record, instead of just pretending that the camera is a person, what if you actually speak? As though you are responding to a friend.
Hear me out with this. Cause this is what I have been doing with this podcast and with my regular YouTube videos or really anything that I am recording. I imagine that I have a friend, an acquaintance, you know, a biz, a biz bestie, as they're sometimes called in this business, and they asked me a question,
how Would I open that conversation? How would I respond? What would my facial expression be? How would my voice sound? How would my head be tilted or how would I be sitting if we were having a natural conversation? And then as I open my mouth to speak. I just talk as if someone had asked me a question and I was answering them, having a conversation. and The truly mindset changing tip that Katherine gave was to actually say their name. Like, oh, hey, Katherine, da da da da da da, because you can edit that first part out.
So for every single one of my podcast episodes in the last, like, six months or so, I, I look at the topic I'm creating about, I think of somebody that I know ideally, somebody that I know in real life who has asked a question similar to this topic or a question where, uh, this topic could be part of the answer.
I think of conversations that I've had where this topic was part of that conversation. I think of that person in my head and then I say their name. Hey, Christine. Hey, Nick. Hey, Joe. Hey, Sally. Hey, Susie. I'm just making up names now.
And I start the video off as if I'm just answering their question and having a conversation with them. And then when I edit, I edit the hey Susie part out of it.
And you know what has changed for me? The facial expression that I'm making when I'm responding to a friend is totally different than trying to like be professional and present this video and You know, recite these lines from my script.
It's totally different than having a conversation. And I want my podcast and my YouTube videos and my Zoom calls and my meetings and really every interaction that I have to feel conversational and approachable and real.
So even if I have a script, even if I have specific words that I want to say in my intro, I start off. By pretending that I'm simply having a conversation and I'm responding to that specific person.
Now I can tell by the way that I'm talking right now that a lot of the words or the phrases or the way that they're, this is coming out of my mouth isn't necessarily always accurate. conversational.
But I think nailing that conversational sort of connection right at the beginning of the video is one of the easiest ways to kind of get your brain in gear for recording and get over the mental hurdle of recording yourself for YouTube.
Because I think if your videos look good with your setup, and it's easy for you to walk in and hit record, and you feel good about hitting record,
It's a lot easier to stay consistent for recording yourself for YouTube because you're breaking down the barriers that are holding you back from actually doing it.
And if we're being totally honest, creating videos like alone in your room talking to the camera who's not actually a real person can feel sort of isolating you tell me if that's true in the comments or not.
I've had a lot of people tell me that being a video creator, even like an online business owner, in this world is kind of lonely and isolating because It's not like your friend or your spouse or, uh, your neighbor is, like, doing the same thing. Um, a lot of people think it's kind of weird to talk to the camera and make videos for the internet.
And I hear this a lot from members inside Video Brand Academy that, um, the membership gives them a place where they know there's people who, like, get it when you have a question, or you're excited about something, or you have a big win, or you recorded your first video, or you published your first video.
Like, all of us inside Video Brand Academy get it. We're excited for you. Like, it's all really exciting I know I'm not the only person in there that likes nerding out over analytics and gear and stuff,
But if you are one of those people who feels kind of isolated creating your content and you want people to be able to bounce ideas off of, I invite you to join us inside of Video Brand Academy. We have over a hundred members now. There is a YouTube planner in there. This roadmap planner that I created to help you get started. We have a 90 days to 1k YouTube subscribers bootcamp. My brand new video editing made easy course, which I haven't even talked about here on my channel at all yet.
And we have multiple live group meetups every single month to talk about what's working now on YouTube to deep dive on your analytics.
It's a great place to be. So what are you waiting for?
