Inside my PRO Grading Suite and Investments for 2025 - inc. YouTube Setup
so the last time I did a tour of my grading Suite was in September 2022 and quite a lot has changed since so I thought moving forward for 2025 it's about time I showed you the new kit that I've got I'm going to show you all the old kit as well so I'm going to show you every single piece of equipment that I've got in here literally down to the last cable tie and I'm going to split it into a few different sections so I'm going to start off with the main kit that I've got to actually have a broadcast grading Suite I'm then going to look at things like the furniture we're then going to look at the extra little bits that just help me but are not essential so things like the stream deck and stuff like that and then I'm also going to do a little section where I'm going to show you what I use to make my YouTube channel so for those who are content creators you might want to have a look at the kit that I've got so hopefully there's something here for everyone I've got my good friend Jason with me who's operating a camera for me because it's a lot easier when you doing these sort of things have someone doing it for you there's a lot of it so I'll try and get through this as quick as I can so I just wanted to show you the suite under proper grading conditions so the blackout blinds are down the house lights are off the reference Monitor and the client monitor both have specific media bias Lighting on them I'm going to list all this stuff somewhere in the video so you can see exactly what make a model it is and I've got a media bias lighting desk lamp as well just to give me a little bit of ambient light we don't need to work in complete darkness now when I'm showing you the studio tour we need some lights I'm going to put the blackout blinds up they can start going up and we're going to switch all the lights back on so you can actually see what I'm talking about so let's put the lights on J um I'm going to just switch these off just to keep them my monit as good so let's first take a look at the computer comp and storage that I've got and then I'm going to show you how it's all connected together so what I've got down here is a Mac Pro 2019 this is the first of two Macs that I'm using this is connected by Thunderbolt 3 to a promise raid this is given me about 40 50 terabytes I can't remember exactly how much but this machine is now a dedicated machine a it's a backup machine should I need a backup during a during a grade but it also runs my omnis Scopes and I'm going to show you how that's connected later so this year I updated the main machine that I grade on now and what we've got is a M2 Ultra Studio this is the 128 gig version and the main reason for doing that is obviously advancements with the Silicon chips this is still running on Intel I wanted to make sure that we are future proofing it seems D Vinci resolver is running absolutely fantastic on these systems this is connected via 10 gbit ethernet to a rackman which is down the back here which I'm going to show you in a minute and this has its own storage attached to it as well so all everything is networked by 10 gig so I can access this machine can access that raid and that machine can access that raid and let's go and take a look what I've got down the back so hidden away behind the desk is this R Mount unit in here I've got a net gear 10 GB ethernet switch this is really the glue that's holding the all the suite together I've got my Mac Ultra Studio plugged into it I've got my Mac Pro 2019 plugged into it and I've also got this which is the latest addition to my Suite this is the Blackmagic Cloud stor Max 24 tbte SSD rep Mount storage this is fantastic I wanted to get off my spinning discs so the promised Pegasus raid that you're seeing down there I wanted to get ssds in here this is what I've gone for it's absolutely fantastic but this is really future proofing the suite because this is allowing me to work in the cloud and do Cloud collaboration I'm going to be doing another episode on that in some detail I've also got an ultra Studio 4K this is being fed from the main IO box which we're going to look at this is linked to the Mac Pro 2019 which feeds my omnis Scopes so how I get my signal to the Scopes is via this unit here so you'll also notice the rat Mount is precariously balanced on the top of two ups systems so if the power goes down I've got enough time to just have the computers and the storage power down safely on here I've just got a really cheap monitor with a HDMI input this allows me to read the data off the Blackmagic Cloud store Mac system that I've got down here and when I'm doing live streams and things like that I also connect the output of my ATM mini pro to it so I can see all the different inputs that I've got going on so that's just really cheap rubbish monitor so the iio box I'm using is the ultra Studio 4K extreme so this is being fed from the M2 Studio Ultra giving me a true signal out of my resolve interface to the iio box which allows me to feed correctly from this via SDI into the fander scientific monitor which we'll come to in a moment this is also feeding my client Monitor and it's also feeding the ultra Studio 4K that you saw earlier which feeds the Scopes so just to clarify M2 Studio Ultra D Vinci resolve out into here via Thunderbolt this then feeds my client monitor my grading Monitor and my Scopes so my favorite update to the studio this year is without doubt the Flander scientific XMP 310 so before I was only capable of doing SDR monitoring I've now got true HDR grading up to 1,000 nits and obviously I've got my settings in here as well so if I want to switch between HDR and SDR simple flick of a switch here I've got it calibrated as well to that's gamma 2.2 that's gamma 2.4 four you probably hear me talking about that a lot on YouTube 2.2 for the
web 2.4 for broadcast flick of the switch into HDR another flick of the switch I just love this monitor I've done a whole episode on how it works that'll be linked up here somewhere the other monitor that you're looking at that's a Panasonic gz2000 this is getting a little bit old now I might update this one soon but this is being fed by HDMI from the ultra Studio extreme but this one's been fed SDI so it's absolutely fantastic grading monitor I'm just love it I've been using it for months now so I'll just tell you about these two displays while I'm here this is the main guey that I use I only use one display for the gooey this is the Mac Studio display I think it's the 27 in one uh with the Nano texture screen and then this one is Adele Ultra wide I think it's a 32 whatever it is it's far too big for Scopes but I've just got used to using it I really like it and it makes a really nice backdrop for when I'm doing my YouTubes if anything so uh so that's staying in the room now and as some of you know I love playing my music when I'm color grading I've got the genc 3040a up here absolutely fantastic sound I absolutely adore these speakers and a couple of acoustic boards behind each one so I'm clearly using the advanced panel this is connected via USB to a little Hub I've got down here which will come to in a moment I absolutely love this panel I bought this about 13 or 14 years ago they didn't have the micro or the mini panel there and you had to use a third party one I started off in a little tangent wave but invested in this and have no regrets when I'm doing long days grading so I'm doing documentary work I've got a director behind me one button pressed for most functions on here and it's just I'm not sort of hunched over it's really makes the grading a really nice experience so I love my panel this updates as the software updates as well CU they just update the firmware so it's still going strong after 14 years so let's take a look at what else I've got going on on the desk you might notice that in most of my episodes and all the time while I've been doing this probably I hold a pen I don't realize I'm holding it most of the time to be honest but this is my tablet and Pen now I'm using zeny Labs I used to use wack on but I've discovered this and it's fantastic I love it this is the medium tablet and pen and this is basically replacing my mouse but the beauty of this is instead of grabbing a mouse moving it and using it and putting it down I keep this in my hand all the time and when I'm grading I can quite happily just grade like this and then I go and use my tablet and Pen whenever I need and it's also got this little quick Keys adapter as well so this is fully programmable and I've got this rotation thing here set to I can zoom in and out on here then I can press one button reset it back to where I want it so this is great to just have on the desk this is connected via USB so I've got a USB hub down the back here on here I've got my stream deck I've got the advanced panel I've got a D Vinci resolve dongle in there and I've got something else which I don't know what it is but this is switchable between the two Macs so whichever Mac I'm on I've always got the tablet and Pen I've always got the stream deck and that's all that's for really so it's just a switch so this lamp here is fantastic for when I'm grading it just spreads a little bit of light but it's critical d65 lighting this is by medial light it's called ideal Loom Pro or something similar to that and the real thing I like with this it's got a rotational Hood so I can direct the light exactly where I want it to be flexible uh neck but also you can dial it down to 2% brightness so it's really nice if you just have a very slight bit of ambient light in the grading session this is my stream deck this is a stream deck Excel I've got this programmed exactly how I want it and basically it's got my OBS settings so when I'm doing live streams it's got my D Vinci resolve settings that I want on there it's got Zoom I can mute Zoom calls it's got a little clock in here what's nice with this little clock is it's really tiny and you can actually keep an eye on the time without your client realizing you're actually looking at the time uh that's probably my favorite widget that's on uh I've got it to do open my email all sorts of stuff going on there it controls my omnis Scopes and I can also control the settings on the Flanders XMP 310 all from this little unit so it's a stream deck XL connected via USB to the hub and and what else we got going on here I've got an iPad here so I use this just for discreetly looking at emails if I need to but sometimes I'll actually take the feed out of the Vint resolve onto there just to see what it's looking like not on my fenders but on an iPad this little unit here is connected via USB it's a wireless charger so I've currently got my airpods on the back of it I can stick my phone on it like that and the beauty of this is when I'm recording my YouTubes is I have the feed coming out of my a7s 3 to a little app that's in here and I can monitor The View and also it tells me that it's actually recording believe me there's nothing worse than recording a whole YouTube episode and you've not been recording this unit here is a Focus right Scarlet solo this is allowing me to take an XLR connection from a microphone so the mic I use for my YouTubes is the senheiser 416 and XLR straight to that box and that is a simple USB connection to my Mac so when I'm recording my voice this is kind of the preamp so the sound mix I've got here it's probably older than you Jason this is my spirit folio I've had it about 30 years this is my original editing sound desk it's far too big for the desk but I love the sound out of it I've bought smaller ones this is just a volume for the genelex it's real overkill for what I need I bought these little mini ones and I just can't get them sounding as good as that I don't know it's I'm a colorist I guess I'm not a audio engineer um I love it it's too big it's so old it actually says on there it's got Avid left and Avid right which was my original editing system but it says CD next to that and then it even says VHS so I used to actually play VHS through this and hiding on the back there I've got a cal digit Thunderbolt Hub so it's connected to the mac and this gives me different types of connectivity so I can quickly add a USBC drive so a client comes to me with a USBC drive I can plug it straight into that in fact I can plug that now straight into the Blackmagic Cloud store Max which I'm looking forward to doing but it just gives me some extra connectivity I can put SD cards in it it's it's great so but I bought a decent one the cheap ones I find they just they're just they have to break really quick or they're really slow I don't what experience you've got Jace but I I think you buy a bit more expensive than the cheap ones uh I think that's about it just before I forget I've also got the black magic speed editor I stretch over here so this is my little edit Workhorse I love this connected via Bluetooth and you just charge it up with a little USB adapter but I've done a whole episode on speed editors in fact I've done quite a few episodes on speed editor but love this this just sits there and I just grab it when I need it okay next to the 416 is a little camera this is my vlogging camera that I take out when I'm out and about but also doubles up as a really nice webcam so to give me nice quality when I'm doing my master classes or when I'm doing Zoom training this camera just gives me a much better quality than the camera on the studio display I've got that feeding out via mini HDMI and it goes into this thing which is I'm going to have to find it bear with me this thing so that takes H fulls size HDMI in USBC this end plug it straight into the front of my Mac and that just gives me a nice feed straight out of that camera into that so this is by by Pango brilliant little thing just plug and play so I think that's about it I've got a few bits and pieces on here so what we've got I've got ey drops seriously ey drops really good for long grading sessions uh I've got a few remote controls for the various lights there's a remote for the media bias lighting which is on the back of here so that's just an LED strip I don't think Jason's going to fit behind there to film that I've got a resolve dongle up there I've got a little one of these things I've got loads of this stuff but that's like USB C to USB old whatever that's called a um so that's just some bits and pieces on there and just before I forget the keyboard I'm using is this it's the Logitech MX keys I did a whole episode on which is the best keyboard in 2022 I think it was but this came out the winner I'm still using it now lots of people said to me I bet you that's not working in 12 months time this has been well used in those few years so I love this keyboard really nice tactile feel what I love about it when you're in the grade and you're in dark conditions as your hands go over it it just lights up really gently so you can see your keys a little bit better the other thing like about it is it saves me having two keyboards on the desk obviously I've got two main machines that I'm working with a lot I can just switch between them you've got one two three different function buttons here so one could be my iPad or my phone one of them is the Mac Pro 2019 and the other one is my Mac M2 Ultra studio so just flicking those and flicking between the two completely different computers so what I love about here I've got as minimalist as I can get on here only one stream deck but it's connected to two machines all via that little USB hub the USB hub by the way is by ug green might as well give that th a plug I think it's about 50p it's been it's been working for years so let's look at the furniture this desk is from AKA design I've got AKA design desk downstairs as well so I've got the media desk downstairs this one is actually an audio desk and the reason I got an audio one is because it's massive and I love having a lot of space when I'm working the advanced panel is bigger than you think in fact I've got measuring tape here so the advanced panel is if I can actually read this is about 100 20 odd CM wide so just to keep this into perspective this desk is actually I've not even got enough measuring tape hang on that's 150 still J command well let's call it it's just over 3 MERS that's my technical measurement so loads of space on this desk but the other beauty of it is it's got these 19-inch rat Mound sides so it's great for storing the computer and my storage also on this side I've got a 19in rack mount fridge this fridge is actually older than that sound desk but still keeping my drinks nice and cold for my clients so we got water in there Cokes there's Red Bull I think there's a cheeky gin and tonic in there somewhere and I think that's your lunch in there Jason if you can get rid of that before we finish and we've also got up here another little tabletop 19inch R Mount that's obviously holding my ultra Studio 4K extreme that we saw earlier little blanking plate in there behind that I've got some HDMI routers and switches I've got my Broadband box so yeah that's all it's just everything's just clean and tidy so the chair this is a Herman Miller airon chair industry standard stuff beautiful to sit on all day great Lumber support lots of different positions you can put it in I tend sit with it quite lot forward which stops me slouching we've normally got two of these in the suite taken one out just to film today so we' got a bit more room but if the director or DP or whoever wants to come up front and look at it on the reference monitor they can do so now normally I'd put people off doing that because unless the viewing angle is straight on you're not going to see the grade perfectly but with the XMP 310 the viewing angle on here is insane so I'm quite happy people sit up the front I would rather sit at the back to be honest but if they want to come and sit at the front they can so that's the chairs this is a what you call it a standup sit down desk this is the E7 Pro from flexispot absolutely solid bit of Kit this is it you can put I can't remember how many kilos you can put on it you could literally stand on there Jay no problem the nice thing with it in its lowest position it goes down really low so it actually looks like quite an incidental table to the client so they can rest stuff on here really easily but when I want to work on it sometimes it's really nice to get away from The Suite stand up and do some work so I just press this button here and listen how quiet this is It's really quiet I've got this pre-programmed into the height that I want it to go and this allows me to do work emails uh if I'm working on my master classes or training things like that I prefer to be stood up here than sat down there all day so I've got a Mac system on here running resolve it's running on the 2013 Mac trash can one I use this for testing beta builds and things like that just to see if it's stable although I think the operating system can't be updated on this much longer so I don't know how much life that's got left but to cover that just to do my admin and when I'm on the road I've got this the MacBook Pro this is the new M4 Max I've only just got this it's a 14in version so when I'm on the road this is absolutely fantastic to take so I've got Da Vinci resolve loaded on it and it's going to run at really good speed this is on a little uh adjustable height thing I also use that for my live stream so it runs over there next to my Suite uh talking of Suites the Suites for the clients here we've got a little model of my Advanced panel here so this is just stuff I've got my Premier Pro floppy discs from 1993 bit fruit biscuits scented candles all that sort of stuff is here so clients just do what they want and yeah that's this corner okay let's look at the YouTube setup now this is a working broadcast grading facility so I don't want it to look a small TV studio but after 4 years on YouTube I have casually accumulated far more kit than I need in fact Jason you saw the edit Suite downstairs it looks like what an Amazon warehouse it's it's absolutely ridiculous so I try and keep everything neat and tidy I don't want clients coming in here going what is all this obviously the aperture like which we'll look at in a minute is massive so that does stay here lots of stuff in cupboards but I've got a little bit of stuff out here that I use fairly regularly so here I've got my camera selection so the camera that I I filmed my main shot on YouTube is a Sony A7 S3 and on there I've got a 35 mil Prime it's not the G Master but it is a fixed Prime 35 mil Sony uh I've got another couple of lenses in there as well I've got a tamaron what's that 17 to 28 and I've got a couple of vintage Nikon lenses in there as well with a little uh adapter I've got on there so I like this I've got my Fuji xt100 in there for Stills photography that's nothing to do with YouTube that's just something that I am passionate about uh moving over here I have got uh DJI microphones these are fantastic I've got the What's this called pocket osmo 3 this is like a gimbal this is great for vlogging uh Mr Alex Tech got me on these I went to Vegas last year with a lot more kit than he had he kept pulling this out of his pocket I went out and bought one they're great so that syncs with the mics really easily I've got my drone in the background there as well so I've got my DJI Mini 3 um which I think I've used twice so want to buy a drone let me know right down here I have got a teleprompter this is from Elgato this is fantastic it is Elgato prompt I think it's called it sits on the front of the a7s 3 with a little adapter on the back and you've got a USB socket on the back you plug that directly into your Mac and it then acts as a second screen now I don't use prompt for my YouTube episodes I use this when I'm doing live streams master classes uh Zoom training because I can project anything I want here so for example if I'm doing a live stream I want to just see the comments and without looking down at a laptop all the time it's really nice to be able to look straight on the screen and I can see all the comments going so that's what I use it for but I know people who use it as a prompt as well it does voice activation all that sort of stuff fantastic bit of kit uh so that's the elg prompt uh what else have I got in here uh moisturizer uh Bulldog moisturizer this is all my vanity stuff in here now little bit of hair gel just in case for those last minute YouTube ideas just yumy hair back uh oh and here I've got uh glasses cleaner okay that's but this is what I clean my screens with so this is what I clean my actual Flanders XMP 310 with it is made by Flanders FSI it's LCD and OLED screen cleaning kit this stuff is great and the wall behind me here this is paneling from a company called the wood veneer Hub but this is acoustically treated so it just gives me a little bit of sound damping in the room when I'm creating YouTube videos just helps with a sound I've got four more acoustic panels around the room as well it's not ideal I don't want the room to be soundproof but it just helps a little bit so to keep me looking fresh and professional for you all on my YouTube episodes we've got this light here this is the aperture 120d fantastic light I can control it with a remote as well so just for record I can switch that on and it's got this softbox on it which is the light doome SE also from aperture and this just sits in the corner all time it's far too big to take in and out but it it is kind of tucked away and lastly I've got this little tripod here this is normally packed away but I'm just bring it out when I'm doing my YouTube episodes newer n284 it's not great it does the job but my a73 sits on there quite happily and that's that so I hope you've enjoyed this in-depth look at every single piece of equipment I've got in my grading Suite please remember I've built this stuff over years I've been in this room for 15 years I've had this for about 14 years I've not just gone out overnight and bought all this kit so if you're starting out now just get the best monitor that you can afford get a half decent computer computer and just start building up over time look after yourselves and I'll see you in the next [Music] episode this is the bloody stuff YouTubers have to do to get a thumbnail so much stuff are you serious there you go and also while I'm here I might as well show you the speakers that I've got going on obviously I don't need speakers for grading no that's you need to play back the actual film with the client in it so I think that's about it there's a couple of little bits and pieces lying around on the desk I've got my window key I've got so let's take a look at the furniture have I spoke about the desk I can't remember now I SW got so many let's do I'll cover the desk just in case I haven't covered it and if I have you're going to see it twice so I just want to show you one more thing over here there's normally two of these in here we've taken one out for filming it's not gone filming sorry we've taken it out so we can film [Music] [Music] h [Music]
2025-01-02 19:48
