What Software Do You Use For Making Programming YouTube Videos?

I get asked that question a lot and am always glad to help out. So I wanted to share a detailed breakdown of my software setup, so I can make reference to it whenever needed. Also, it's much better than scrolling through DM trying to find the last time I shared my setup so I can forward it to someone else whose asking😂

This is going to be a two-part blog post. Here, I'll mostly talk about the software that I use and how I have it all set up. But as you can already tell, things are rarely straightforward and we’ll need to do some hardware setup too. So I'm going to share my hardware stuff next.

Alright, let's get into it!

What Software Do You Use For Screen Recording?

This is by far the most asked question, so I'll go straight to the point here. I use OBS Studio, say it with me O-B-S studio. LOL! It's the best you'll find out there.

I've been making content on YouTube for some time now, and OBS is the best of the best. I've tried almost every other software for screen recording on all operating systems, and while some might be easier to use, OBS is by far the most feature complete and robust.

True, OBS has a learning curve but it's worth it. It’s one of those things you learn once and use everywhere. OBS is cross-platform, you can record multiple devices simultaneously (screen, mic, and camera), and you can even use it for live streaming (which you’re going to do someday).

There’s really no limit to how you can customize OBS, and this makes it a compelling choice for many creators. Feel free to google around if you need some inspiration, but I’ll be putting up another post on how I have my OBS configured.

Links:

• OBS Studio

What Software Do You Use For Video Editing?

LOL, this is the second most asked question. It’s a bit difficult to answer compared to the last question because there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and you’ll have to find what works for you.

Currently, I use FinalCut Pro to edit my videos. I started using FCP because I have a Mac and saw many good reviews during my research. A little backstory, I actually switched from editing with Kdenlive which is an awesome free cross-platform video editor. I’ll always keep recommending Kdenlive to folks starting out because it's free and does a good job. But I switched to FCP because it has a better plugin ecosystem and I just happen to have a Mac around.

💡 FCP is a paid app that’s only available on macOS

My recommendation is this: If you’re starting out or don’t use a Mac or prefer to use free and open-source software, please go with Kdenlive, it’s a powerful editing software. On the other hand, if you have some cash to burn and want to use more plugins/effects, then you can take a look at FCP.

Let me know if you’d like to see a video editing crash course. Who knows, I might be able to put one together 😂. Alright, let’s move on to the next one.

Links:

• Final Cut Pro
• Kdenlive

What Software Do You Use For Audio Processing?

Now, that's a good question. If you've recorded any video in the past, you'll notice that the audio quality is not as good as you'd like. There's usually a lot of background noise, and your voice does sound as rich as it does in real life. So I've gotten a couple of questions about how I fix these issues in my videos.

I use Audacity. It's a behemoth app for everything about sound and audio processing. The best part is that it's free, open-source, and cross-platform, so you can use it anywhere. You’ll notice I have been recommending a lot of OSS apps and that’s intentional. Among other reasons, they are always cross-platform and you can use them anywhere. Also, who doesn't love free apps?

Okay, back to the question, I use Audacity for audio recording and editing. This gives me the flexibility to record high-bit-rate audio, remove any background noise, and add some manly base to my voice. Audacity can do a lot more, but I find it sufficient for my needs. Once I'm done working on the audio, I’ll have it exported for final editing in FCP.

Yeah, I use Audacity and I've been very happy with it.

Links:

• Audacity

What Else Should I Know?

There is a bunch of other helper software that I could talk about, and I'll share a few of them in a moment but there’s something more important that I wanted to touch on first.

It's good practice to make the font size of whatever you’re recording really large so that the text stays legible for your viewers. The problem is you may forget to bump up the font size of your browser or terminal window before starting to record, and unfortunately, there's no way to fix it during editing. So what I do is that I have an alternate version of apps I usually record installed on my PC and set up just for recording.

For example, use Firefox as my default browser, but I have Chromium installed for recording and set up with a very large font size so I don’t have to mess with my Firefox setup. This way, whenever Chromium is opened up, I can directly start recording without worrying about font size. I also have a second terminal emulator installed for the same reason.

Okay, I promised you more apps. Here they are:

• I use Notion for planning/scripting
• Canva for creating thumbnails
• Snapdrop for transferring footage files from one device to another on my local network
• I use Hootsuite for scheduling social media posts for distribution

It’s A Wrap!

Awesome, that's it! I hope you had fun reading this article, and maybe also learned something new. If you did let me know by leaving a like and following my blog, I have more stuff being brewed. Feel free to ask questions in the comments if you have any.

You can also check out my personal YouTube channel here https://www.youtube.com/@megaconfidence. I make professional videos here.

Thanks, take care of yourself till we meet next. Bye!