Live Streaming Tools and Toys

Chris

Hello, and welcome to the Rubber Duck Dev Show. It's week 2 of opulent October. I'm Chris.

Aaron

I'm Creston. And I'm Aaron.

Chris

Alright. Tonight, we are gonna have some fun. We are actually not talking about programming. You're gonna talk about live streaming programming and all the toys and fun tools and gadgets and stuff you get to play with when you're doing that. I love this stuff.

And I know we we had Erinn on before talking about his experiences with live streaming because he got into it, and, he's still doing it. So I'm assuming that means he enjoys it. So Thank you. We'll talk about that stuff. Hey, Daryl.

Welcome to the show from the Philippines. Alright. Awesome. Glad to have you here. So we will be talking about that in just a moment, but right before we do that, we can review.

How was your week, Kristen?

Creston

Still doing what I'm doing. Bunch of cons budget consulting. Although, actually, I have, I guess, extended contract I'm working on for a particular person, and I've actually been had no time to move forward my app that I would normally like to, but it's basically doing all consulting work through the end of the a lot of consulting work through the end of the year. And then as time allows, keeping the other plates spinning as as is possible. So that's that's kinda what I've been up to just nose down a lot of contract programming work.

What about you?

Chris

Well, I have had, I've been spending a lot of time doing getting involved in more of the PM for our enterprise clients. So I'm not getting a lot of fingers on keyboard time here of late, which is okay. I enjoyed enjoy the PM stuff. But I am gonna start doing some, Hey, Andrew. I'm gonna start doing some streaming like Aaron because, I do want to get that hands on keyboard time, and that's a good way to do it.

And and I can just do something for funsies and the way I want it, not the way it needs to be for the company or the customers. Right? So that's good. How about you, Aaron? What kind of fun stuff you had?

Aaron

Well, I have been, recovering from travel. I was in Belgium last week at a conference, and so now I am back home, and I think the jet lagged and almost back through my emails and just, you know, being gone for a whole week. There's a lot to catch up on when you get back. So that's mostly what I've been doing this week, but it's good to be home.

Chris

Yeah. And we are really glad to have you back on the show. I've been looking forward to this one for, well, since the last time you were on here, and we talked about it actually. This is my favorite part is all the toys you get to play with. So tell us a little bit about some of the stuff that you had to do initially to set up and get streaming, and and how you figured out how to do that.

Aaron

Yeah. So it's kind of, it's kind of intimidating, I feel like, or it was intimidating for me at least in the beginning, because I thought, you know, I would watch I think we talked about this last time. I'd watch some of these huge streamers and they've got, like, literal physical sets where they change and do these, you know, comedy routines almost. And I was like, I can't I can't do all of that. So I think the most important thing before we, like, talk about all the fun stuff that we love to have is that you really don't need anything.

I mean, it's nice. So I think, like, what the bare minimum I knew that I needed to have was a microphone, and I already had a microphone. And so I felt, I felt good about that. Like I think audio is probably pretty important so people can hear you clearly. So I had that.

And then honestly, like at least what I was planning on doing was streaming my screen. So I think there is a benefit to having, like, having your face on the stream because it makes it feel more human.

Chris

Yep.

Aaron

But I don't wanna, like, we can talk about how awesome all of these gadgets are. But if you have a microphone and your computer, I feel like you're pretty good to get started and don't feel like, you know, there's this huge barrier to entry, I think. Would you agree with, like, the intro stuff?

Chris

Yeah. For sure. And that's, you know, that's how I started too with I I started with gaming, but really, you don't have to spend a ton of money. You don't have to get a bunch of fancy equipment. You don't have to, you know, there's plenty of places to learn, and the stuff you need to learn is not overly complex.

It looks like it's overly complex, but it really isn't. And and you guys will see as we go through things tonight, the setup is not really that magical, you know? Yeah. It's it's that's not the hard part, but for me, it's the fun part. So

Aaron

Yeah. So first of all, thank you, Andrew, for, calling out my Laravel nest. I do appreciate that. I am a I am a Laravel developer, and, Andrew likes to make that known, and I love him for it. Okay.

So let's talk about the real question you asked me, which is like, what kind of fun stuff do I have? So with that out of the way that, like, you don't need any of this, but boy, is it fun to have? So when I when I was, like, originally getting started, I kinda wanted so I was doing 2 different things. I was like, I could do some live streaming, but I'm also going to do, some, like, video production, basically. So, like, I guess, recorded videos, Like, YouTube is what I was thinking.

And so I really spent a lot of time, like, focusing kind of on the backdrop and the lighting and stuff because my primary goal was to kind of get, like, a studio set up so that I could record this, MySQL database course, which is still in the works. I just happened to get, it got bought by PlanetScale, which is where I work now. So I'm still gonna do that database course. I'm just gonna do it under their brand, which is pretty awesome. So, I focused a lot in the beginning on, like, getting, like, getting some stuff framed back here, like, some cool rocket photos.

Why? Because rockets are awesome and stuff like that. So I got my background set up. Right? And then, like I said, I already had the microphone,

Chris

and so the next thing I needed to do was get a camera. And I

Aaron

got, I already had, like, an Elgato kinda, like, just laptop camera. I already had, like, an Elgato kinda, like, just laptop camera, and it just I don't know. It just didn't look it didn't look great, and I kept you know, no matter how much lighting and, like, tweaking I did, it just was not crisp, and it wasn't sharp. And so I went all the way, and I got I got a Canon, DSLR camera, and I run it through the Elgato Cam Link. So I have, like, a full on DSLR up here, which I can I have another camera I can show you in a second?

Yep. But that's my camera setup. So I have the camera above my monitor. It's mounted behind, my desk on an arm, and it's above my monitor. And then I have 2 lights that point right at me from the side to kinda give me that lighting and then a a ring light up here.

So that's some of that's that's some of the beginning. There's more, but I'll I'll stop there for a second.

Chris

Yeah. So why don't why don't we take a look at that that, back cam that you got? And let's let's see.

Aaron

Okay. So I'll try not to move too quickly to make anyone dizzy. But, this is so this is my, Canon camera, and I have a different, lens on it. So it's it's a Sigma lens. And the reason I got that is because it has a really low, f stop, and so it makes my background really blurry.

So it keeps me sharp and then makes the background really blurry. And so that's kind of, like from my point of view, that's what I see. So I see the SLR there, and then I have this little monitor, which is kinda cool, which I can talk about in a second, and then the ring light, that points directly at me. And then I have these these Tall boxes. Boxes.

Yeah. So I have these big LED lights to the right and to the left, that point right at me and give me nice even, lighting on my face. But that's the main guy, and it just runs. Like, I have a, battery pack that is plugged into the wall, so I never change the battery, and it does HDMI out, and it runs to the Elgato, Cam Link, and then it's just, like, straight USB. So I don't have any, I don't run the Canon software because the Canon software sucks, and the Elgato software is great.

Chris

Yep. Alright. So and I just I wanna compare and contrast. So I'm gonna show you real quick if I can find the right button here. I have to turn you off for just a second there.

There we go. So this is my setup. And just to compare and contrast, I actually didn't go with a high end DSLR camera. I just got a C922, and that's also what's back here. It's just mounted.

So I'm running all this off of 9 22s, and I have a Yeti mic like like you see in front of Creston there, the exact same model of Blue Yeti. But it got in my way over here when I was trying to work. I had it mounted on an arm, but there just wasn't a good place, so I just got a good headset and a little bit of EQ and through OBS, and it works works a treat. And then we'll go into the control stuff with touchpad here in a bit. Yeah.

Aaron

We'll talk about that in a second.

Chris

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

One of the things you you mentioned just offhanded there, like, a little bit of EQ ing. That's one place I feel super, weak and newbish is, like, in the, like, audio engineering and, like, video engineering. And so I'm sure that I'm sure that all of my settings aren't quite right, but that was part of the reason that, like, I just got a nice camera with the El Gato thing because it was just really easy, and I'm not, like, a I'm not a production pro, and I can't listen to something and be like, oh, wow. That EQ is off. I need to fix that.

So Yeah. I feel pretty weak in that area.

Chris

Well, I'm not yeah. I'm certainly not a audio engineer by any stretch. I mean, everything I know, I didn't have any background, and then everything I know was just messing around in OBS and, you know, do some EQ, read a bunch of stuff, record my voice, see how it sounds, what do I need to fix, and just playing and playing and probably spent way too much time. Maddie Two Shoes, welcome to the show. Audio definitely matters a lot more than video.

Most viewers, I think, tolerate subpar video or even none, but bad audio hurts the ears. That is absolutely true, and I've heard that time and time again. Fix your audio before you fix your video. So, yeah. Now I don't think, in my opinion, that doesn't mean you need to get a $500 microphone.

It just means you need to pay attention to your mic, and make sure that you've got one that's clear, and that it's positioned well, and that you've you've done a bit of, especially compression to it. Compression is is really good for stream audio because it it helps to kinda flatten things out and keep eardrums from being blown out if you happen to yell or sneeze or something. But

Aaron

Wow. I just looked up my microphone. So my microphone is an a t so Audio Technica, a t 2,005 USB. And, of course, there are levels with everything. I just run it directly into my computer.

Like, I think it has an XLR thing on it, but I just USB directly into my computer. Right now on Amazon, it's $65. Apparently, it's a 150 originally. So, yeah, I mean, I don't feel like I went crazy, especially on the microphone. No.

But I do think having it like, having the position right, especially for a cheaper microphone, Having the position right is probably really important, and this, this Elgato arm lets me kinda swing it anywhere so I can always keep it close to my face. But, man, I didn't realize that I got such a cheap microphone. That's awesome.

Chris

Well, it's not yeah. And that's the thing. If you're gonna get started in the streaming, the first thing I would do is research microphones. Now I can tell you for sure that the Blue Yeti microphone is a great microphone, but you do not wanna cheap out on your microphone. Don't get a $20 headset from Walmart and think that you're gonna run with that microphone in a in a stream and sound worth a crap.

You're you're not. You're gonna wanna spend unless there's a good sale like like you found, like Cyber Monday is great time to shop for these things. But, you know, the spend around a $100 list on a mic at least. That's where you want most of your initial investment is in your microphone. Rest of the stuff, you know, like a C922 Logitech camera, what I don't know, $50 or something, they're not they're not expensive.

You can almost dumpster dive for them anymore, and and they work perfectly well. I've been using this this thing for well, since they came out, so it was a little more expensive when I bought it, but never had a problem with it. So

Aaron

Do you have any lighting set up in your space?

Chris

I do, actually. So if I I don't have much, but if you can see right up in this corner of the wall Uh-huh. There's one of those soft boxes you have, but I have it mounted up at a 45 up there.

Aaron

Smart.

Chris

And then the same thing at a 45 on the other side of the room in that that corner side of the wall. So, and that's all the lighting I've got in here. But I've got their 100 watt equivalent LED 5000 k daylight bulbs. Mhmm. And then I make sure to set my white balance on my cameras to 5,000 so that it matches up and looks right.

Smart.

Aaron

Yeah. I feel like lighting goes such a long way. Like, you could buy a $100 camera, and then if you buy lights, you you look amazing.

Chris

It it is. Lighting lighting is a big deal, but it's also not expensive. Like, these light these soft boxes, you can get for I think they're running like 20 or $25, maybe $30 now. Well, I just got just bought one the other day because one of mine, the cord finally crapped out after about 5 or 6 years. But, yeah, you can get them for like $30, and then you buy an LED bulb for, what, a couple pennies and throw it in there, and you're good to go.

So I've just I've got maybe a tote grand total of $70 invested in light equipment here. Wow. So it doesn't take much.

Creston

But since we're talking prices, out of curiosity, how much is a Canon d l DSLR?

Aaron

Oh, it's expensive. It was, like, 5 or $600, and then the additional lens was maybe 2 or 300 more. And all of this needs to be, like, couched with the fact that I've used business money to buy all of this. So I use my, like, consulting money to buy all of this, and so it's a, you know, cue the Kramer gift. It's a write off, Jerry.

So I wrote all of this off as a as a tax write off, so it's, like, you know, 35% cheaper. But, yeah, the the DSLR was expensive, and the lens the extra lens was expensive. And the reason I, like I said, spent all that money was I was planning on producing a course that I was gonna sell for a bunch of money. And so I thought, like, alright. I've done some consulting this year.

I'll spend the money, and then it'll make the course look good, and I'll be able to sell more of it. And then just kinda worked out that I now get to stream with, like, this cool setup.

Chris

Yeah. And and those Canons are really, really good cameras, and they're they're certainly worth their price. I don't think they're overpriced at all, and they are a good investment if you know that you're gonna be doing this and or other stuff with that camera quite a bit. Mhmm. But if you're just getting started out in streaming, don't don't get one of those yet.

Start start with your little USB webcam and just set up and go because that's that's not the important part of the stream, really. It just has to be good enough.

Aaron

Temptation to, like, there's a temptation to play to play with gadgets and stuff as an excuse to, like, not getting started because not get like, getting started by actually pushing the start stream button is is really intimidating. And so you could fall into a trap of, like, well, I just need to get my I I just need to get my setup perfect, and I'll just buy one more thing, and then you never do it, and that's not a good use of time or money. Uh-huh.

Chris

And that is that is absolutely the most difficult part of starting streaming is pushing this the go live button. That that is the hardest part. Yeah. People love to spend a 1000 hours before even hitting that button. I I did that too.

I was absolutely guilty of that. I kept putting it off and putting it off and saying, oh, I need this this light, and I need this camera, and I need this special mic, and I need this setup, and I no. Just just needed a webcam, a light soft $20 soft box, a decent enough microphone, and OBS.

Aaron

Yeah. Let's talk OBS.

Chris

So you're

Aaron

you're OBS users, so let's talk OBS.

Chris

Yeah. So OBS, open broadcast software, is, by definition, open source, so it's free. So you don't have to pay for it, which is which is good. So, you know, if you're just trying this out, you you don't have to spend a lot on software. There are other streaming softwares that you can spend a crap ton of money on, but I've tried those.

And I keep coming back to OBS because it's better than all those that you spend money on. So, I I have zero reason to ever go to anything besides OBS. You know, if I was if I was doing some multi multi $1,000,000 production show, yeah, I probably wouldn't use OBS, but though even then, possibly.

Aaron

Yeah. There was what's what's the other main one? Because I tried the other main one before I tried OBS. It's called Is it Streamlabs?

Chris

Well, Streamlabs is like a wrapper around OBS. So it's like a version of OBS. They took the open source, and they put some stuff in it.

Aaron

No. There's

Chris

But there's another one matter of fact, there's

Aaron

another one that's paid. So I tried that at first because, OBS is kind of intimidating. What what did you say?

Chris

Xsplit is another one of the big ones.

Aaron

I think stream I think stream, elements, no. Prisma? No. I can't Streamlabs maybe. Yeah.

I can't remember.

Chris

So

Aaron

But I've opened OBS to start and was like, what am I supposed to do with all of this stuff? Like and this was this was obviously a couple months ago, and they've just recently released an update, OBS has that I feel like is a little bit makes the UI a little bit nicer to look at. And so when I first was getting started, I opened OBS, and I had no freaking clue what I was supposed to do. I couldn't get I couldn't get anything to work. I couldn't get audio because, like, you have to add everything individually.

Mhmm. And then the thing that, like, really unlocked it for me was, like, 2 or 3 people reached out or knew that I was, you know, trying to stream and was like, hey. Do you just wanna get on a Zoom and look at OBS together? It's like, yes. Can we please?

Because I literally have no idea what, like, what I'm supposed to do here. Yeah. And so I hopped on, a couple of different Zoom calls with friends, and they showed me how they did it. And it just, like, it just made it super easy. So I maybe know about, like, 15 or 20% of how to use OBS, but I know enough, and it works great.

And that's because, you know, these people were willing to to help me out. So if anyone wants to get started and needs, you know, a a 30 minute OBS Zoom, I'm happy I'm happy to help because, you know, people did that for me, and I wouldn't have gotten started if they hadn't.

Chris

Yeah. And and I I will likewise give the same offer. Just hit me up on email me, rubberduckdevshow.comrubberduckdevshow@gmail.com, or on Twitter, you can message me, and I'll be happy to to get on and help you out. Because the thing with OBS is it looks intimidating as hell.

Aaron

It does.

Chris

But if somebody can explain it to you, they can get you going in 5 minutes. It really is not that complicated if you have somebody show you what you need to do. Yeah. Totally. So and, Matty Two Shoes, same offer here for macOS users.

Alright. Thanks, Matty. That's awesome. Because we do wanna see more programmers live streaming. I think that's a it's a good format.

It's helpful, and, it's it's I just wanna see more of it. So kudos to you, Aaron, for jumping in there. It is. And it's fun to go hang out in there, you know, with programmers. I've I've found a couple, along with with Aaron, I've hung out a couple of your streams, and I found some I I go hang out at a, lady in Austria called Purple Elf.

She streams almost every day, and she's a Ruby developer, and she's fun to hang out with. Just go hang out, learn some things. You know? Ask the it it's it's nice because I'll be working. I'll ask questions in, in the chat, and then you got a whole army of people there saying, hey.

Well, what did you what about this? Did you try this? Maybe it's this, you know. And that's really, really helpful.

Aaron

Yep.

Chris

Yeah. Matty, so you see mine too. Yeah.

Aaron

Will you put me back, full screen? I wanna show you some of the the OBS stuff that I have set up. So

Chris

Absolutely.

Aaron

I have my I have my Canon only. So I have in OBS, you have these different scenes, and, you know, somebody taught me all of this. So I have my canon only, but then I have my, like, I'm streaming work. You know? So, like, I'm working on something, which puts me down in this corner, and then, I would, you know, resize my monitor if I was doing, coding.

And this is this is OBS here in the middle. And then, I have one that is my starting soon screen, and it's just it's just my chair, you know, rotating. And this is what I put up. This is can you can you hear me with that starting soon screen

Chris

when

Aaron

that one's up? Yes.

Chris

Yeah.

Aaron

Okay. Good.

Chris

Because you're still coming through Zoom.

Aaron

Okay. Good. So this is what I put up when I am live, but I'm not quite ready to get started. So I'll turn this on maybe 5 minutes before and kinda let people filter in, because I usually tweet, like, hey, I'm going live, and then give it a few minutes. And this is the one that I run-in the beginning, and it has all my audio muted, which is why I, you know, kinda paused there for a second.

But this has all my audio muted, so I can kinda move around and get ready. And then when it's time to go, I just hit the button, and then I'm back. And so I don't have, like, I don't have a very sophisticated OBS setup, but I have, like, you know, 4 or 5 scenes that I use, and it that's it. And I kinda never change them. Right.

Yeah. But it works it works really great.

Chris

I I actually like, our show doesn't have like, we've got, you know, our main view that we show here with the with the folks, and then I've got a view that I show if we wanna show us with the screen, and then I just added this to show, show your stuff, and I've got my my rear camera in there. But Mhmm. This is a lot more complicated than what we normally do for the show because we were gonna be talking about, stuff, and I wanted to be able to show what I've got set up here and all that kind of stuff. Mhmm. So oh, and the very important, oil infuser here to you know, I've got my lavender.

Aaron

That was a humidifier or or what that was?

Chris

No. It's got my lavender going. Keeps me calm. Nice. So but

Aaron

yeah. Get all worked up talking about gear.

Chris

Right. Exactly. That's you know? But, yeah, it's it it doesn't have to get really complicated. And in fact, you should start simple.

And then once you've got that under control and you're comfortable with the doing the live stuff because that really is the hardest part is the first few times you go live, you're probably gonna spend a lot of time talking to nobody. Right? And just getting used to doing that is the hardest thing to do, and then, okay, I want to change the scene, so how do I do that? And you just get used to the simple stuff, then maybe a month or 2 down the line, add one more thing. Right?

Learn a new thing.

Aaron

And everyone I have found I'll be curious if you found the same. Everyone, that's watching is always extremely supportive because I'll be, like, you know, trying to change a scene, and they're like, hey, man. We can't see your screen. Make sure that you update the scene. And I'm like, oh, shoot.

Sorry. Or, hey. We can't hear you in this one. Make sure that, you know, your audio has been added, and nobody's ever, like, rude. They're always kinda in it with you to to, like, hope they want to see you succeed.

It's almost like, I don't know. It's almost like you're the person on stage and everyone's pulling for you because they're nervous that you're kinda gonna fail, and they'd like they wanna see you win, and it it creates this really, like, warm, fuzzy feeling when people are on your on your team, and that's been my experience so far.

Chris

Yeah. And you get you get this kinda tribal feeling going on your channel too, which is really nice. You get people coming in chat that you see often, and and, you know, it it becomes kind of a a tribe or a family, a clan, and it's it that's what that's the part I like best about the live streaming, is all the people I get to meet doing it. Mhmm. And that's also why I like to go hang out in streams, other programmers streams, just talking to the chat, talking to those people, it's it's just a really good, social environment.

Plus I have a bit of control over how toxic things can get to where you don't have that control in Twitter. But here Yeah. I've got a bit of control and say, no. We're not going there.

Aaron

Yep. Yeah. It is it is nice to kind of, have control over what you want to see in the world. That's a nice that's a nice feeling to be able to be like, nope. That's that is rude.

That's unacceptable. We're that's not what this channel is gonna be about. And that's Right. That's a nice feeling.

Chris

It is. Yeah. Although I have to say, I've never had to do that. I've seen some streamers have to do that, but I never have, which is nice.

Aaron

Yeah. I haven't had I've only had to boot I think I've had to boot a spam like, an honest to goodness spammer, not somebody who was being spammy. It was, like, drive by spam. Yeah. And then beyond that, really, it hasn't I don't think I've had to make any corrections or anything like that.

It's been pretty low key.

Chris

Yeah. Programmers tend to be pretty friendly people I've found.

Aaron

Most of the time, unless you say the wrong thing on Twitter. Most most of the time.

Chris

It's true. Alright. So we were talking about so you were showing us the scenes, and you're switching around the scenes. How are you switching those? I'm curious.

Aaron

So, when I am so, like, when I'm actually streaming, I only switch between 2 scenes, which is full camera and picture in picture or the, you know, me and the desktop. And I use a foot pedal to do that. So I have, I have a Elgato foot pedal underneath my desk that has 3 just giant buttons on it. And I can click the middle one to mute myself, which is really helpful because If you got

Chris

a sneeze coming on.

Aaron

Off or sneeze or something. Yeah. And I actually use that one all day, every day on Zoom calls, on podcasts, whatever. I just I'm able to mute myself immediately, which is really nice. And then the left and right pedals switch to the other scenes.

So if I was to hit one of the pedals, it would switch to the, picture in picture, and then the other one would switch it back. So and that way, I can do it I can do it hands free so I can be typing, you know, and switch over, which is really which is kinda nice. I think I have set it up for I set it up to advance slides. So right now, it's not switching scenes because I just did a presentation where I needed to advance slides, and I was able to be, like, talking and explaining things and advancing slides with my foot, and it was really it was cool. So I love I love the foot pedal.

It's totally extra and over the top, but it's so fun.

Creston

And I I think we should also mention is that you can map keys because, like, when I've used OBS, I just mapped certain keys when I was changing scenes a lot.

Aaron

Yeah. And I think I think that's how actually, that's not

Creston

how it is. Essentially how it works.

Aaron

It's just Yeah. Some of the some of the functions that, like, either I use from the stream deck or I use on the the foot pedal, basically, I just program hot keys into the app and then make the foot pedal press those keys because there's no, like, direct integration for some things. That's how the mute button works. So I have a I have a Mac OS app that I think costs, like, $4 or something, and it's just like a global mute. No matter no matter what app you're using or what microphone, it just mutes everything.

And I just set up, like, a really hard to hit wonky hot key, and then I just make my foot pedal do that hot key. That's how I do that one.

Chris

So it sounds like you've got a pretty minimalist control setup, which is which is good. I mean, if you only got 2 zines, don't make things complicated. Right? Mhmm. And, you know, and Maddie says in the chat, there are essentially only 5 core layouts from what I've seen, starting, chatting, working, BRB, and ending.

Yeah. That's essentially, I'm I'll add some some things like here, you know, I had this this rear view camera, but it's a special case type of thing. It's not normal view. It's because I'm trying to show you something, something else. I wouldn't normally use that for a stream most of the time.

But yeah. So I think Yeah. You know, that's about all you need to worry about.

Aaron

And I do have I do have, a stream deck I can actually switch back to. Let's see. So this is my this is my stream deck that sits underneath my monitor. And so I have a stream deck, and I could, like, set up all my scenes on on that, but I just haven't gotten that far yet, and I feel like I only have the 2 scenes. And so what I use the stream deck for mostly is to turn off to turn on and off my lights.

So I can press a button and the light goes off, and that just makes it easy so that I can like, I have one button that I can press and all the lights come on, and I'm ready to, like, take a call or start streaming or whatever.

Chris

So Matt has got a question. Funny that you didn't map your mute button to the stream deck, do you prefer the pedal for muting? Why?

Aaron

I actually do prefer the pedal to muting because if I'm like, I can do it I I think I can do it more discreetly, and this is primarily for, I guess, calls, but also streaming. Like, if I'm typing and I'm about to sneeze or cough, I can just hit the pedal without looking away and without stopping typing. And so I think oftentimes, people don't actually know that I've ducked out. Like, I I've dropped my mic. Whereas if it were on the Stream Deck, I kinda have to reach out and, like, stop typing, and that's way more obvious in meetings as well.

So, like, I will usually hit the mic or hit the foot pedal and take a drink and then hit the foot pedal again, and it just I feel like I can do it all a lot faster without having to reach out and hit the the Stream Deck in front of me. Probably not that big of a deal, but I really like it because I always I just rest my foot on the pedal the whole time.

Chris

Use a 50 millimeter lens so your lower arm movement so obvious. See, for me, I just don't care.

Aaron

Yeah. That's the other way.

Chris

If I have to sneeze, so it's not like blowing your eardrums out, but, you know, I just don't care. And yeah. I mean, I appreciate the fact that I appreciate when streamers go to the effort of, you know, muting themselves when they have to sneeze or something, but I don't have the setup here to do it easily. So I'm just like, you know what?

Aaron

Just Yeah.

Chris

That ain't my thing. It's fine.

Aaron

Yeah. Some of it's like reverse engineering. Why do I need a foot pedal? So that that could it could be the tail wagging the dog there. I was like, oh, I really want a foot pedal.

I'll put a mute button on it and

Chris

totally But, I mean, that that's that's actually a good idea.

Creston

They might use it all the time.

Chris

If I had that, I would probably use it. Yeah. So, alright, so you had said we talked a little bit, before because you got the Elgato and the foot pedal, the Stream Deck.

Creston

Mhmm.

Chris

We talked about, I was telling you that I use touch portal, and you seem kinda interested in that.

Aaron

So Yeah. So I said Stream Deck, and you said touch portal. I've never heard of touch portal, and it looks like from your rear cam, I was taking a I was spying on it a little bit. It looks like you're running it. Is that from an iPad?

Chris

A tablet. Yeah. Well, it's a it's an Android tablet, but you can use an iPad or your phone. You could it's just an app. And then it's got

Aaron

And then yeah. So how do you program everything? And it do you have oh, you have, like, a full on editor on your

Chris

Yeah. So you can edit this stuff, and then I can show you this is an actual view of my tablet, so you can see it's actually going on. I'm pushing here. But you can see you've got an editor that's real time. So as I edit this, it'll move my tablet around.

And you can it's a soft interface. So, really like software I'm using called ATEM. It's pretty amazing. Oh, yeah. Hey.

Yeah. I'll check that out and see. But this one is, you know Each of

Aaron

the coolest thing I have ever seen.

Chris

All kinds of stuff with this, because it's completely soft based, and you can also have, different sets of stuff. So, like, if I go home, I can this is my coding with Chris setup. See, it's completely different, and I've got all kinds of different things. And this is the rubber duck setup. You can edit those individually.

And the cool thing about this is it's actually programming. So, you know, you've got global values, global variables, basically. Yeah. You've got flows that you can make so that, you know, it's like setting up a function that you can reuse in different things. And then each of the buttons, you can actually go in and do on the event.

And what value is this? When the value is this, do these things.

Creston

Good.

Chris

Yeah. So it it you can get very complex things. Like, for instance, if I'm in guest mode, these two buttons do different things than if I put it in no guest mode where it just goes to our individual stuff.

Aaron

Oh, that's cool.

Chris

So and then I've got, like, 2 banks of sounds here where I just, you know, I can switch the sound bank, and it just switches which sounds are available buttons. These buttons actually so the banks just set a global variable, and then the buttons read that and say, okay. If the variable is 1, put this set in.

Creston

So is this a Windows piece of software that you're using now? Yeah.

Chris

This this is the Windows thing. I'm pretty sure it comes on Mac and Linux as well, but I'm on with right now.

Creston

Out of curiosity, how does it tell your tablet what to do?

Chris

Your tablet connects to it. So I don't know if you can see it down here in the view, but it's connected to this k102 Android, So and it's it's just talking over a port on my IP address, my internal IP address on my network.

Creston

Okay.

Chris

And then the app just connects to that. You set it up, tell it what IP address to look for, and it goes out and finds it. But the nice thing about this is is that I can make this do completely different things. Also, there's a free version of this to play with. But do you remember what your Stream Deck cost

Aaron

roughly? A lot. Like, a $150 or more.

Chris

K. The pro version of this is $12. I was like I was looking at this and looking at the stream deck going,

Aaron

Yeah.

Chris

Yeah. I think I'll go with the $12 I can do anything with it bottle.

Aaron

Yeah. 115109. It's on sale for 109 right now.

Chris

So, I mean, you know, I'm not an Elgato basher, but I haven't yet seen anything that the stream deck gives me that this wouldn't other than the tactile stuff. Some people really like the tactile buttons, you know, rather than a

Aaron

soft interface. But buttons are nice. I'm sure that you're what's it called? Touch portal?

Chris

Touch portal.

Aaron

Touch portal has, integrations, but the Elgato integrations are nice. Like, the the first party integrations with lights and OBS and stuff. But I bet at this point, everybody else has that as well.

Chris

So Maddie says the biggest part of Stream Deck is the plug in library. Yeah. Touch portal has a huge plug in library as and it can control so. It controls I mean, it's it, of course, has the OBS, but it can do, what's called, voice meter, which is what I use for the audio processing. It's a soft mixing board virtual mixer.

So it can do a has plugins for this. It has plugins for, Adobe Suite. You know, all the all the stuff on there. I mean, it's just got gobs of plug plug ins. So yeah.

I mean, but for streaming, I haven't found much that the Elgato gives me that doesn't.

Aaron

Yeah. I don't see much that and, again, I'm not I'm not a hardcore Stream Deck user. I don't see much that this Stream Deck would give you that that doesn't do. Honestly, I basically just use the Stream Deck for for lighting at this point. I mean, I have some I have an OBS, like, folder, I guess.

But like I said, I just use the I use the foot pedal for that. So I primarily just use it for lighting, which is really nice.

Chris

It is.

Aaron

But, yeah, you could get away with much, much less than the stream deck for that. But I would say the stream deck or the, stream deck pedal is super great.

Chris

Yeah. That that I could get behind.

Aaron

Splurge if you're gonna splurge on one thing, don't get the stream deck, get the pedal. Peddle rules.

Chris

Yeah. I would, I'm I'm actually starting myself to think about getting one of those after hearing you talk about it, honestly.

Aaron

Yeah. Exactly.

Chris

That might be a thing that happens.

Aaron

Yep.

Chris

I used to use touch portal, and the app stopped working on my iPad macOS combo, and I couldn't get it to work. Stream Deck app for the iPad, but it's subscription. Luckily, I got a Stream Deck as a gift shortly after and canceled the apps. Yeah. So oh, yeah.

Also, yes, Stream Deck does have an app, but it's significantly more expensive than touch portal. I looked at that a bit. I didn't see any huge draws for me onto that over touch portal. So if you want control equipment so you you don't have to have one of these. You can just switch OBS scenes with a mouse.

You You control OBS with a mouse. Oh, good. I've done that a lot. Sometimes I actually accidentally fall back to that and forget to use my touch portal stuff sometimes. But if you wanna do that, I would highly recommend starting with the touch portal because it's not a huge investment if you're just starting out with streaming, $12.

Creston

Agreed.

Chris

Right? And you've got a you've got a smartphone already. Put the app on there. Try it out. In fact, you can do it for free.

If it just limits the number of buttons you can put on a screen.

Aaron

Yeah. So my, I wanted to show you this where my OBS is speaking of switching by so this is where my OBS lives during during my stream. It lives in this little it's just this little silly little Dell monitor, that you it's like a USB monitor, so you just plug it in via USB. I don't even think it's HDMI. But this is where my OBS lives during stream so that I can kind of look at the camera, but also still see, like, the chat is over here on the left, and then the activity feed is over here on the right.

And then really importantly, I see, like, a confidence view of myself, and this has helped me not be, like, talking about code while still showing, like, the full screen of myself. And so then here are my scenes right here, and I can just click on those and just switch back to the canon. So I got that I got that just recently because PlanetScale was gonna the the new company I started at was gonna buy me a brand new monitor, and I have a monitor that's totally fine. And I was like, I don't need a brand new monitor. So I had them get me this little I think it's like a 13 or 14 inch USB, like, travel monitor or whatever, And I just have it mounted on a little, like, a little arm up there, and it just stays up there the whole time.

And it's really great because I can it used to be over here, and so I would when I was reading chat, I would be looking like this, and it's just kinda I didn't like that as much. I liked to be able to look up here and see it right in the camera. So that's my fun that's my fun, corporate splurge that they bought for me.

Chris

Yeah. And that's that's important too. Having the confidence monitor stuff, I always have OBS up where I can see it. Gotta have that.

Aaron

It doesn't have a Visa mount. You're right. But this little goofy I think it's called, like, the influencer kit or something. It comes with let me switch. It comes with, basically, an iPad holder.

You can see the little soft feet on either end there, and this monitor is so light that I just, like, put I just put it in there. I think maybe it's actually that might be, like, the laptop holder, and I just flipped it up and used the little clamps to hold it down. But, yeah, it doesn't have a VESA mount. It's just kind of press fit in there, and it's so light because it's just such a dinky little monitor that I haven't had any any issues with it.

Chris

But if it works, it works.

Aaron

It works. Let me see if I can show you one last switch to the face cam here. So that is the little pole that I got off of Amazon, and it holds both it holds my, Canon and then the, confidence monitor over there, and it's just, like, clamped to my desk, basically. Yeah. That's how everything stays up there.

Chris

And, again, like we started out with, we we wanna point out that you don't need all that stuff to stream. That's just No. Make your life a little better things as you go. Yes. It's Yeah.

Not

Aaron

It's like, what do you need to be a runner? Well, you need to go running. Right. That that that's kind of the the deal here.

Creston

Like Acceptable shoes.

Aaron

Yeah. You need to wear shoes, and you need to run. And that's kinda how it is with streaming. Like, you need to have a microphone, and you need to stream. And then you can have a lot of fun with the other stuff if you want.

Chris

Maddie, 2 shoes could probably tell us something about that.

Creston

And I've streamed before without a second monitor. All I had was the yeah.

Chris

Yeah. Yep.

Creston

Of course, I felt like I was speaking out into the void. But

Aaron

Right. Yeah.

Chris

Yeah. Because you can't be so

Creston

You can't really see what else is going on. You just you know, you know, you're broadcasting.

Chris

A second monitor, I would highly recommend you have, because it it helps keep you it there's a a few things you gotta keep track of when you're streaming, and being able to see your OBS and your chat is helpful. Maddie, have a good night, man. 3 AM. Well, thanks for sticking with us. Glad you came.

Aaron

Thanks for hanging out.

Chris

But, yeah, it's in something you were talking about there. I want I just wanna show real quick that, so this is my OBS here, and I usually have this over on my other monitor. Just drag it over here so you could see it. But one of the things that I learned to do is I've actually got chat actually docked in OBS, so it's all in one place so everything I need to monitor is right here. So I actually use restream because we we stream to both YouTube and Twitch.

So we go through Restream, so this is the Restream chat. But I'm pretty sure if you connect to YouTube or Twitch, you can pull their chats in here. Oh, dockable windows. If not, there's a way to set up docs window docs here just to web stuff. OBS, you can just set those Yeah.

Aaron

That's one of the cool things about OBS is that you can basically put anything in there if you have a little if you have a little time and energy to do it, you can get anything into OBS, including into your scenes, into your into your, like, video. Like, it's you wanna throw a a web source in there. I actually did one the other day. It was a pair programming stream, And to get my pairs video into OBS, I used a service called ping, ping.gg. And it like, the way that they integrate is they give you a URL, and you just drop it into, like, a scene in OBS, and then you can resize their video and everything.

And I was just blown away by how easy it was. It turned out really fun. Pair programming streaming Yep. Was was a new experience for me, and it was a lot of fun.

Chris

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, like this the, chat that you're seeing up here Yeah. That's just a web web view. So it's just got a chatrestream.io link in here, and that's what shows on the screen.

So you can put all kinds of stuff in this.

Aaron

I've seen a lot of streamers spend a lot of time building out their own custom overlays. Like, it it becomes this, like, meta recursive thing where they are spending much time streaming, and the stuff that they're working on is stuff for their stream. And it just kinda, like, goes and goes and goes, and it seems it seems fun. I haven't really gotten I haven't gotten into that higher plane of streaming yet, but it seems it seems like a lot of fun. I could see tinkering on that for a long time.

Chris

Oh, yes. I I did a lot of that.

Aaron

You've been there?

Chris

I spent way too many hours dicking around with overlays and graphics and, you know, special effects and all kinds. And it is. It's it's just fun. For me, anyway, I find it just incredibly fun to set this stuff up. You know, like, one of my one of the things that I really enjoy doing, and I just did this the other day, and maybe I enjoyed it so much because it's new, is being able to show my actual tablet in here, you know, so that people could see what was going on.

And I set this up for my code with Chris setup that I'm I'm gonna be doing, because I wanted people to be able to see what I'm doing in the OBS. But, you know, just figuring out how to set that up is really cool. And then doing all the automations, like, the my other setup needs to have a lot of programs open pretzel and and touch portal and let's view and snap camera and you know, there's all kinds of programs. So I've just got a button on the touch portal. I hit the button, and it goes and opens everything, and connects all the stuff.

And oh, my god. That's so much easier than me clicking a bunch of icons all over the place.

Aaron

Yep.

Chris

So, but, yeah, it's I I love messing with this stuff and figuring out all the little bits and bobs.

Aaron

Yeah. It's a lot of fun. It's it's, it's it's like most other hobbies. You can you can sink as much time and energy and, importantly, money into it as you want. I feel like it's let let's see.

Like, photography, cycling is probably the same way, RC cars. Like, there's an entry level, and then it just goes forever, and you could just keep going forever.

Chris

Yeah. And, you know, it's it is something that when I started streaming, gosh, 4 or 5 years ago, I didn't know anything about it. I just decided I wanted to do it. So I just started eating about it and reading about it and learning about it and then I figured out that this stuff looks terribly intimidating but it's really super simple once you figure it out, and if you can have somebody who knows it explain it to you, you can get going really fast for not much money. You've probably already got most of the stuff you need to start streaming.

Aaron

Oh, yeah. If you're taking Zoom calls, you're probably you're probably set.

Chris

Yep. I mean, just download OBS. It's free.

Aaron

Get get a account is free. Yep. YouTube account is free.

Chris

Yeah. And you can do restream for free too. Just wanna stream to Twitch and YouTube. Yep. I don't pay for that.

Oh, I

Aaron

know that.

Chris

Yeah. Only if you wanna look into that. Yeah. Only if you wanna stream to a, Facebook page. They they've got a lot of interfaces

Aaron

think my my my programming friends are on Facebook watching livestream. So So I think I'm okay there.

Chris

I've never had a need to to do any of the other stuff. So Yeah. You know, but, yeah, Restream has been working great. Plus, it's got the chat aggregator here that that we use that pulls and sends chat to both YouTube and Twitch. So cover both audiences and let them interact

Aaron

with each other. That. I think the only the only drawback to, doing both is you I feel like you have to put the chat on your video because then you're you might be replying to a YouTube comment that somebody in Twitch didn't see, and so you have to have a setup like you have here, which I guess they make pretty easy, because you said that's just a Restream web view, so they do that for you, I guess.

Chris

That is true. Yeah. It's just a it's just a web view, but you actually don't have to have this because Restream will, propagate the chats across.

Aaron

No way. Into the native chat. So, like, if I'm on YouTube and I say hello, Restream will take that and put it into the Twitch chat?

Chris

It can. Yeah. Wow. So Hot dang.

Aaron

I did not know that. That's very cool.

Chris

So it can get a little squirrelly sometimes if you start replying in the chat, because it sometimes will duplicate your messages, because it's trying to send them both places. But I don't I don't type directly into the chat. I'm usually just talking to chat.

Aaron

So Right. Same.

Chris

It's not really an issue for me.

Aaron

Oh, I didn't know that. That's super cool. Yeah. Because I've always felt like I know that most, programming streamers do keep the chat on screen, but I like having the editor full screen and not having to mentally remember, like, don't use the right 10% or 15% of the screen because it'll be covered by chat. But I didn't know that.

That's very cool.

Chris

Yeah. And the the usually, people the only reason I put the chat in here is because this is more like a talk show type format. Right. And it it gives it gives chat a a it lets them feel like they're part of the show. Right?

Sure. Which is what I'm trying to do here. But when you're just streaming, I for my code with Chris, I actually set this up so that I've still got the chat over there, but it's tilted a little more, little more out of the way, and it's a little more, the alpha's a little higher, so you can see through it pretty well. So but there's a lot of things you can do to to arrange things and move things. Some OBS plug ins that are really fun.

Aaron

Yeah. That makes sense. It is fun to see your name and face on a streamer's video and then see them respond. Like, I totally get it. I'm not immune to that effect at all.

I'll say something in chat, and they'll be like, oh, hey, Aaron. And I'm like, yeah. This is awesome.

Chris

I'm a real boy.

Aaron

Yeah. Exactly. They noticed me. It's it totally makes sense.

Chris

But yeah. So, once again, here I am talking to somebody and having so much fun that I don't want the time to be 9 o'clock, but it is. So

Aaron

Yeah. This is fun. I'm, I'm glad I'm glad we got to, like, nerd out on all the the minute details that don't matter, but sure are fun.

Chris

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's it's good to have those kind of shows.

Aaron

Yeah. Totally.

Chris

And like I said, I really was looking forward to this because this was more of a toys show than a serious talk show type of thing. Not that we ever get really serious, but, you know, it's it's just fun to play with the toys and have some new new things to show the audience too. And I'm I'm sure they like a a little break from programming now and then.

Aaron

Yeah. It's programming adjacent. It's still it's still in the nerd universe, so that's probably fine.

Chris

And there was a point to this, and that is one of the reasons I wanted to do this show is to try to get more people into live streaming programming. Maybe if they see, okay, that's really not that difficult, I I could try that. And I've got people that have offered to help me get set up and get started so I don't have to be intimidated. I could give that a shot. Right?

And I'm hoping that we'll get a few more programmers because I think I think the the people doing the streaming and can probably back me up here, will really enjoy it. It's it's a fun experience to be the streamer.

Aaron

Yeah.

Chris

But it's also very valuable for the programming community to have those resources to go to. Talk to other developers.

Aaron

I think it is a lot of fun. I mean, if you like kind of the rush of being on stage, it's just so much fun to, like, be out there practicing your craft in front of people. I think that's really great. I think I I agree that it's good for the community because I think we have, in most communities, a few people that are public, and so we all take our opinions from those few people. And it would be better to have that more evenly distributed across a lot of different ways of thinking and a lot of different styles and a lot of different editors and, TDD and DDD.

And, like, the more people that we have out there being public, the broader and probably more accurate and better view of, like, the universe of possibilities would be. So, yeah, I think it's it's a lot of fun, selfishly. Like, I enjoy doing it, and it's a lot of fun. Yeah. But I also think more people doing it is better for, like, we'll say democratization, like, seeing what is available in the programming world.

Chris

Right. And learning different ways of thinking about programming and approaching problems, and, you know, because if we were both given the same problem, I guarantee you we'd come up with different solutions for it, and I think it's valuable to see both of those solutions. Yep. So, anyway, I've really enjoyed this. Thank you so much, Aaron, for coming in and

Aaron

Yeah. Sure.

Chris

Sharing your love for for the toys here and,

Aaron

thanks for letting me talk about it all.

Chris

Yeah. Yeah. It's fun. We'll we'll have to we'll have to find some other reason to get you on the show soon again too. Yeah.

We'll have to. You on here. So,

Aaron

It's so fun.

Chris

I hope hope you guys enjoyed that. Thank you for being here and being active chat. It's always always enjoyable when you guys pitch in as well. If you did enjoy that, please like, subscribe, follow. If you're on Twitch or YouTube, just mash all the buttons and ding all the bells.

You know how that goes. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you do that, so, know, just do it. You can find our podcast version of this, though I'm not sure that this is a good one to just listen to. You need to see this one, but you can find it as a podcast anywhere the podcasts live. You can find the videos on YouTube, for a little while on Twitch till the VODs run out.

So just go look at it on YouTube, or you can go to our website rubberduckdevshow.com and see all the stuff there. If you have questions, comments, or need some help with your live streaming setup, you can email us at rubberduckdevshow@gmail, or you can message us on Twitter. I almost said Twitch. No. Twitter, at ducky dev show.

Please reach out. We'd love to hear from you. Hope you guys enjoyed that. We'll be back next Wednesday with I forgot to look again. I always forget to look.

What have we got? We've got Joel Draper on next next week.

Aaron

Oh, nice. So Flex guy.

Chris

Yep. So we will talk some about flex and other things that he's been doing. And I think, well, you'll see. It's gonna be a lot of fun. So be there next Wednesday, 8 o'clock PM EST.

We will see you guys then, and until then, happy programming.

Creston

Happy programming. Happy programming.