Allow me to gaze upon your channel...
- Thread starter Klink
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Klink
I've Got It
@Ninja
The videos on your Rocket Ninja channel are very well edited and the channel itself is consistent (for the most part). Thumbnails are clear, well designed and easy to tell what the video will be about. If I have any major criticism it's that you're relying on a Hotline Miami design/theme to promote yourself. Don't get me wrong, the game is fun and the aesthetics are great. However, your branding should reflect you and your channel without having to rely on designs that already exist and are associated with other brands. Think about a unique style that will set your channel apart from everyone else.
To add, your channel art, Twitter and Twitch page all have the Hotline Miami style branding but the title card you use in your videos is completely different. When you think about your brand, think about thumbnails, title cards, logos, colours, the whole package. The Neon Carnival channel is much more consistent from a branding perspective. All you really need at this point is a steady stream of content and you'll find just as much success as your Rocket Ninja channel.
@chari
It's great to see you're using music licensed under Creative Commons. That alone separates your channel from others who tend to use copy written music and it ensures you channel won't get shutdown any time soon. The thumbnails for the latest 4 videos are spot on and the typeface you're using carries over to your channel art and brand as a whole.
The videos themselves are very well edited and it clearly shows you're taking this seriously. Considering you're doing make-up, lighting is absolutely important above all else. Halogen lamps, maybe a few LED lights, something to bring light to your face and separate yourself from the background. A shotgun microphone will also come in handy so viewers can clearly hear your voice.
Other than that great work. I wish you all the best with this channel.
@TheTNGMen
Sempai notices you but can't find your channel. The link in your profile/signature is broken and I can't find it through the YouTube search bar. You should probably fix the link here on YTTalk or just post the link to your channel in this thread so I can review it.
@AIDsToon
First of all, copy written music has to go, especially the Loony Tunes theme. You may have gotten away with it now but Warner Brothers will crack down on it. It's not a question of if but a question of when. Your latest few videos are definitely improved over your earlier stuff but I recommend you invest in a pop-filter for your microphone. You should also make sure that when you're recording your audio doesn't peak (go into the red) as it'll completely distort your audio.
For the videos themselves, if you want to commit to the 'bad drawing' gimmick then commit to it fully. Having bad drawings mixed together with clip art looks really amateur. I'd also suggest learning animation for your videos. It's something I learned many years ago - your drawings can be absolutely gorgeous or incredibly bad but when you mix it with great animation it'll look fantastic. It's something to consider.
@tVibes
The core concept of your channel is fantastic and the videos themselves pretty simple to create (TrapCode SoundKeys and After Effects). However as I mentioned in this thread numerous time, copy written music has to go. It'll bite you in the butt eventually.
What you should be doing is focusing your efforts on promoting or commissioning unique tracks for your channel. Become a music label or sorts and do your best to promote music artists from around the world. There are heaps to be found on YouTube, Audio Jungle, Sound Cloud, you name it. The hardest part for anyone in this industry is getting noticed. Your channel could be the channel to do just that.
The videos on your Rocket Ninja channel are very well edited and the channel itself is consistent (for the most part). Thumbnails are clear, well designed and easy to tell what the video will be about. If I have any major criticism it's that you're relying on a Hotline Miami design/theme to promote yourself. Don't get me wrong, the game is fun and the aesthetics are great. However, your branding should reflect you and your channel without having to rely on designs that already exist and are associated with other brands. Think about a unique style that will set your channel apart from everyone else.
To add, your channel art, Twitter and Twitch page all have the Hotline Miami style branding but the title card you use in your videos is completely different. When you think about your brand, think about thumbnails, title cards, logos, colours, the whole package. The Neon Carnival channel is much more consistent from a branding perspective. All you really need at this point is a steady stream of content and you'll find just as much success as your Rocket Ninja channel.
@chari
It's great to see you're using music licensed under Creative Commons. That alone separates your channel from others who tend to use copy written music and it ensures you channel won't get shutdown any time soon. The thumbnails for the latest 4 videos are spot on and the typeface you're using carries over to your channel art and brand as a whole.
The videos themselves are very well edited and it clearly shows you're taking this seriously. Considering you're doing make-up, lighting is absolutely important above all else. Halogen lamps, maybe a few LED lights, something to bring light to your face and separate yourself from the background. A shotgun microphone will also come in handy so viewers can clearly hear your voice.
Other than that great work. I wish you all the best with this channel.
@TheTNGMen
Sempai notices you but can't find your channel. The link in your profile/signature is broken and I can't find it through the YouTube search bar. You should probably fix the link here on YTTalk or just post the link to your channel in this thread so I can review it.
@AIDsToon
First of all, copy written music has to go, especially the Loony Tunes theme. You may have gotten away with it now but Warner Brothers will crack down on it. It's not a question of if but a question of when. Your latest few videos are definitely improved over your earlier stuff but I recommend you invest in a pop-filter for your microphone. You should also make sure that when you're recording your audio doesn't peak (go into the red) as it'll completely distort your audio.
For the videos themselves, if you want to commit to the 'bad drawing' gimmick then commit to it fully. Having bad drawings mixed together with clip art looks really amateur. I'd also suggest learning animation for your videos. It's something I learned many years ago - your drawings can be absolutely gorgeous or incredibly bad but when you mix it with great animation it'll look fantastic. It's something to consider.
@tVibes
The core concept of your channel is fantastic and the videos themselves pretty simple to create (TrapCode SoundKeys and After Effects). However as I mentioned in this thread numerous time, copy written music has to go. It'll bite you in the butt eventually.
What you should be doing is focusing your efforts on promoting or commissioning unique tracks for your channel. Become a music label or sorts and do your best to promote music artists from around the world. There are heaps to be found on YouTube, Audio Jungle, Sound Cloud, you name it. The hardest part for anyone in this industry is getting noticed. Your channel could be the channel to do just that.
Klink
I've Got It
@TheTNGMen
Sempai notices you again! You fixed the link in your profile so now I have gazed into your channel.
Audio mixing is all over the place. In your Perfect Dark videos, one voice is clear while the other is quite muffled (I take it you only have one microphone?). The Perfect Dark videos in general seem extremely soft compared to the Battlefield video you did, while the NFL Blitz video sounds like you used a lower quality microphone. For Let's Play channels that feature more than one person playing locally like yours, I recommend you get seperate microphones for each person. This however will become relatively expensive as you cannot use 2 USB condenser microphones of the same type at the same time without some heavy driver modification.
Ultimately the ideal setup for your videos would be to have either seperate shotgun or XLR condenser microphones for each person and a USB interface or mixer depending on how many people you expect to have in your channel. If it's just 2 people, look into something like a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 or USB interfaces similar to its kind. Anything above 4 and you might want to look into USB mixers like the Mackie ProFx series. It really all depends on how dedicated you all are to making your channel work and how much money you're willing to part with.
Thumbnails could use some work as it's difficult to tell what is written on it. Flat colours for the text is great but choose a colour that is easily distinguishable from the background and at the very least apply either a light stroke or a drop shadow to seperate it and make it clearer. Your ending title card also needs work as it's not centred.
Good luck with the channel!
@GreyHound
Right off the bat - channel art? Great! Thumbnails? Not so great. The text for some of the thumbnails have different sizing and treatments even if it's all part of the same series (Rise of the Tomb Raider, Borderlands 2 and Life is Strange to name a few). Gradients for text have to go. For thumbnails, keep them consistent between series and try to incorporate your brand - your logo and colours specifically - in them somehow.
For the videos (and no doubt you're probably going to get annoyed at me for constantly repeating myself in this thread), audio is absolutely vital. Get yourself a decent microphone, knock out the background noise and try to keep the volume leveled so it doesn't peak. As for the content, try your best to prepare the games ahead of time and try to keep the commentary about the game as much as possible. It perfectly fine to drift off into unrelated stories every now and then and it can be entertaining (more popular content creators on YouTube do this with some success). What isn't fine (looking at the Tomb Raider series as an example) is starting off the first episode with calibration and then beginning the second episode with commentary about how you started recording the episode immediately after the first one while sitting in the menu. It's boring and it's unneccessary.
People watch Let's Play content not only because they like to see someone they follow, enjoy and like playing a game but they also want to see the game itself. Be engaging with your audience but don't forget to actually play the game.
Sempai notices you again! You fixed the link in your profile so now I have gazed into your channel.
Audio mixing is all over the place. In your Perfect Dark videos, one voice is clear while the other is quite muffled (I take it you only have one microphone?). The Perfect Dark videos in general seem extremely soft compared to the Battlefield video you did, while the NFL Blitz video sounds like you used a lower quality microphone. For Let's Play channels that feature more than one person playing locally like yours, I recommend you get seperate microphones for each person. This however will become relatively expensive as you cannot use 2 USB condenser microphones of the same type at the same time without some heavy driver modification.
Ultimately the ideal setup for your videos would be to have either seperate shotgun or XLR condenser microphones for each person and a USB interface or mixer depending on how many people you expect to have in your channel. If it's just 2 people, look into something like a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 or USB interfaces similar to its kind. Anything above 4 and you might want to look into USB mixers like the Mackie ProFx series. It really all depends on how dedicated you all are to making your channel work and how much money you're willing to part with.
Thumbnails could use some work as it's difficult to tell what is written on it. Flat colours for the text is great but choose a colour that is easily distinguishable from the background and at the very least apply either a light stroke or a drop shadow to seperate it and make it clearer. Your ending title card also needs work as it's not centred.
Good luck with the channel!
@GreyHound
Right off the bat - channel art? Great! Thumbnails? Not so great. The text for some of the thumbnails have different sizing and treatments even if it's all part of the same series (Rise of the Tomb Raider, Borderlands 2 and Life is Strange to name a few). Gradients for text have to go. For thumbnails, keep them consistent between series and try to incorporate your brand - your logo and colours specifically - in them somehow.
For the videos (and no doubt you're probably going to get annoyed at me for constantly repeating myself in this thread), audio is absolutely vital. Get yourself a decent microphone, knock out the background noise and try to keep the volume leveled so it doesn't peak. As for the content, try your best to prepare the games ahead of time and try to keep the commentary about the game as much as possible. It perfectly fine to drift off into unrelated stories every now and then and it can be entertaining (more popular content creators on YouTube do this with some success). What isn't fine (looking at the Tomb Raider series as an example) is starting off the first episode with calibration and then beginning the second episode with commentary about how you started recording the episode immediately after the first one while sitting in the menu. It's boring and it's unneccessary.
People watch Let's Play content not only because they like to see someone they follow, enjoy and like playing a game but they also want to see the game itself. Be engaging with your audience but don't forget to actually play the game.
Mattaxol
Comedic Gamer and Professional... sh*t
Wow! You've really lived up to the "I'll review all your channels" not much people would like to do that much typing for free 
. *virtual high five*
Anyways I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd check out my channel. Keep in mind only my 2 most recent videos are a proper representation of what my new videos will be like. I also plan to play more epic games and more funny games (armaii/iii, gmod). Thank you so much in advance, the thing you're doing here helps youtubers improve by an unbelievable amount. Thanks
. *virtual high five*Anyways I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd check out my channel. Keep in mind only my 2 most recent videos are a proper representation of what my new videos will be like. I also plan to play more epic games and more funny games (armaii/iii, gmod). Thank you so much in advance, the thing you're doing here helps youtubers improve by an unbelievable amount. Thanks
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