My YouTube Video Creation Process: Tools & Programs I Use

Scripting, recording and editing YouTube videos has always been fun for me. At 2AM in the night when the world has slept, I start recording my next YouTube video. Here are the tools I use to make videos on my channel and the process I follow.

1. Visual Studio Code

Yes I'm a developer and I like to hangout in VSCode 🤷‍♂️

Although there are several popular rich editors, I prefer VSCode to write my YouTube video scripts. I turn on the ZenMode in VSCode so all the distractions are taken away and I get a clean text editor.

I have camera fear and I fumble badly in front of a camera, so everything in my YouTube videos is scripted in a special language which is later processed by a CLI tool built by me.

2. Adobe XD

Even before I start researching or writing the script, I start to work on the thumbnail. This lets me imagine the video and decide what should be included in the video and how it should be presented.

Adobe XD provides an easy way to create my thumbnails as they don't usually involve things like photo color correction. I mostly use vector art and simple effects to create my thumbnail.

Before selecting the color palatte for a thumbnail, I look at the recent ones to ensure every thumbnails looks interesting, vibrant and different.

3. Bandicam

Depending on the topic and the video, sometimes I record both my desktop and audio at the same time or record audio seperately and sync them up during editing.

I have been using Bandicam for 3+ years now and it feels not too complicated and not feature lacking. Videos are recorded in 60fps to output a smooth video at 1080p resolution.

Before recording the desktop is prepared, where I remove any sensitive data and switch to a fresh new wallpaper from Unsplash.

4. Hitfilim Express

It is a free video editor that is as feature rich as Adobe Suite of tools. Hitfilim lets you do video editing (like Premiere Pro) and video compositing as well (like After Effects) all in the same software 👏

My workflow starts with cutting the video and removing parts of it that I don't want while arranging the clips in the right order and syncing up the audio.

Once the first stage of editing is done, I start to add any banners, intro and outro videos and watermarks and move on to audio editing.

5. Audacity

Sound is as important as visual when it comes to making a good video. Audacity is a free software that I use to process my audio before adding it back to my video timeline.

Depending on the way I am making the video, I generally do the following processing to my audio 👇

1. Noise reduction: To remove sounds from electronic devices like electronic hums, fan sounds etc.
2. Normalization: To reduce the difference between the peek volume and low volume. This makes the entire audio clip sound even with no special surprises.
3. Bass boost: Male audio sounds better when it is bassy. So I add a little bit of bass to make it sound manly and strong.

6. Custom built CLI (nirvahaka)

Once the video is uploaded to YouTube, a self made command-line tool written in TypeScript shifts the video project onto my privateserver.

The tool can sync up descriptions of all my videos, convert the video script into YouTube's close captions and do much more.

Conclusion

Over the years I've used several other tools and processes but I always seem to somehow come back to these 6 tools.

Thank you 😊