Adapt and Overcome. I Sure Did lol

byEricCantu

13.5K followers

2 years ago

Ok, picture this.

You have an expert class to give, you're ready to go, you've got your agenda all lined up, you've got plenty of time as it's only 8 am and the class doesn't broadcast till 7 pm...

And then it happens. Things start going south.

Your mic starts acting up. It's like it's not connected even though everything shows it is. When you test it, it works fine. Then when you record, it doesn't work at all.

You can hear the audio but that's because it's coming from the built in mic on the Mac, which isn't near your mouth, so it sounds echoed and not nearly as crisp.

Ok, you troubleshoot...
Then your camera starts acting up. It's going offline for no reason.

This can't be happening right now.

Let's unplug and restart everything. That's usually a quick fix.

Unplug. Restart.

Now your mic doesn't even show up in your computer's inputs. It's not even recognizing it. Wait! There it is, it's there.... nope, it's gone.

How about plugging in that other mic you have...

Great! Works fine.

Let's record with it.

Nope. NOTHING. Pure silence.

And just when you think it's all going nowhere, suddenly, like a miracle, everything starts to work!

Okay! It's working!
Let's go ahead and record and get this done and then I'll come back to figure out what went wrong.

I record the ENTIRE CLASS.
Read that again.

The ENTIRE class. About 50 minutes. All in one take. It's fun, it goes smoothly, I make myself laugh a few times. I'm happy.

So the recording stops, and...

...wait... where'd the recording go? Why isn't it showing up on the screen?

I just recorded an ENTIRE CLASS and it's nowhere.

(It's now 3 pm.)

I don't panic. But trust me, Batman intensifies.

Dude, tonight's class might not happen...
No, I know I can figure this out.

Maybe it's the Screenflow program just messing up. I'll delete it and re-download it.

I do that and restart my Mac just to be thorough. Now I'm noticing my Mac is taking forever to come back online.

WHAT. IS. GOING. ON. HERE.

It finally comes back on and now it won't let me download Screenflow.

It says the file can't be downloaded.

I'M GOING TO PUNCH A WALL.

So obviously, at this point, I realize it's not the mics or the camera, it's gotta be my Mac which I've NEVER had any issues with until right this second.

It's now 4:30.

I go to my laptop. Download screenflow.
This is going to have to work.

This brand new laptop in all its awesomeness has no USB ports (why Apple?) so I can't plug in the mics without an adapter which I don't have.

Let's just try a sample take using the built in mic and camera.

Good god the audio is HORRIBLE.

TONS of echo. Harsh on the ears. What am I gonna do????

I finally give in that it's my only option. I need to record this class which will take an hour, then edit it very quickly, then export the file, then upload it to WA, then watch it encode...

Do I have time???

Long story short: it somehow worked.
The audio sounded totally fine in my opinion. The built in camera on the laptop is good quality. I used the same green screen I always used. My office is a COMPLETE WRECK (but guess what, you can't see that on a green screen), and somehow I got the class finally uploaded and ready to go with 15 minutes to spare.

Adapt and overcome.

Now if you're Premium Plus GO WATCH THAT CLASS I ALMOST DIED MAKING.

YouTube Blogger Start Up Series, Class 2: On-Page and Off-Page Optimization of your YouTube Videos

:)