Equipment needed to start a YouTube channel

In this article (click here), we saw what are the essential skills you required to start a YouTube channel. In the current article, we will see the same for equipment.

Before starting your YouTube channel, it's important to understand the skills and equipment needed to run it efficiently. YouTube primarily revolves around video creation, so having the right skills and equipment is crucial. Don't worry if many of these tools are not in your possession right now. You are not supposed to invest a ton of money purchasing every instrument listed below. Just go through the article and you will know how you can also manage with a low budget.

These are the basic Equipment needed to start a YouTube channel👇

First thing first, laptop or smartphone?

This is the biggest dilemma of the majority of YouTubers when they start a new YouTube channel. Especially those who do not have a laptop. Is a smartphone enough or do I need to buy a new laptop?

I will not say that you can do everything you need to run your YouTube channel using a smartphone. At some point, a laptop will become mandatory. But if there is no way that you buy a new laptop for now, it shouldn't be the reason to ditch your dream to be a YouTuber.

Nowadays smartphones are in fact smart. You can do the basics of everything like editing, shooting, managing the channel, etc using only a smartphone. There are thousands of YouTube channels that are grown only on a smartphone. But later, when you start earning from your channel, the first thing should invest in is a laptop.

Lighting:

Lighting is the black sheep of the flock (baa baa). That is why I am writing this before camera. It is a common tendency of new video creators that they will spend 120% of their budget on camera, totally ignoring the importance of lighting. If you already have a smartphone with a good camera, like iPhone, OnePlus, or Samsung, and are still not satisfied with the quality, try adding some more light while shooting. It will definitely boost the quality of the video. But if you still want to purchase a good camera, spend at least 10-15% of your total budget on lighting.

If it is possible in your case, you can also go with natural light. But natural light comes with extra noise. Sometimes, if you have to record the video in a confined space to record clear sound, you can not keep your doors and windows open. So natural light is out of option for such channels. They will have to invest a little in lighting.

At the end of the day, it is totally up to you how much video quality value you want to provide to your video. But whenever you feel dissatisfied with your video quality, before upgrading your camera, consider upgrading your lighting.

Camera

This is similar to cinematography in this article (click here), it might not be required for everyone. Even if shooting is required, for most of the channels smartphone's camera would do more than enough. For example, If you are starting an educational channel, your phone would do suffice. When on the other hand if you are planning to start a product review or vlogging, where the video production values are important, you might want to think about investing in a good camera. But the same as a laptop, if you do not have the budget, it should not affect starting your channel.

Microphone

Under this point I will answer two questions: 1. Should you buy a mic? and 2. If yes, what kind?

Ask yourself, how much value does the sound hold in your video? Some channels do not require any kind of audio recording, or if they do, the audio quality does not matter much. For such channels, the default mic of the camera would be enough. For example, cooking channels, electronic repairing channels (unless you decide to give ASMR effect to your videos. In that case you will need a costly, studio-quality mic), etc.

Now, some channels require reasonably good quality (but not studio quality) audio. For example, education, tutorial, information, or review channels. For this kind of channel, the quality of the audio is not the main value of the channel. The audience comes to their channel for the information they provide. So for such channels, simple collar mics would be okay. You can find some good-quality collar mics here (Click here).

And at the last, there are some channels that provide so much sound quality value to their videos, for example, music channels or channels that provide ASMR effects in their videos. Such kinds of channels must consider investing in good studio-quality mics as per their requirement along with soundproofing and sound filtering accessories.

At the end of the day, it is totally up to you what kind of audio quality you want to provide to your videos.

Others:

• Different kinds of stands for camera and mic can be purchased only if you really need them. For the camera, your can purchase either a tripod or a tabletop holder based on your requirement.

• A green screen can be purchased when you need to remove/replace the background of something.

• Harddisk: when you move ahead in your YouTube journey you will understand having a good digital storage space is a boon.

Hellowwww,

I am Jaimin. I have been doing YouTube for a while. Click here to checkout. Recently I have been writing a newsletter Weekly Geekly on YouTube, Productivity and Books. If you are into any of these, get all of these stuff directly to your inbox by subscribing in the following form.