The video stresses that clear, engaging audio is essential for effective communication and offers a low‑budget workflow to achieve it. It recommends buying a used Shure SM58 (or SM57) microphone, pairing it with an inexpensive second‑hand USB audio interface (e.g., Focusrite Scarlet 2i2), and recording close‑miked with a smartphone if needed. For editing, start with the free, lightweight Audacity for quick fixes, then move to Reaper for its powerful, cross‑platform audio‑and‑video editing, unlimited trial, and built‑in gate, EQ, and compressor plugins.
On the creative side, the speaker advises writing for yourself—craft stories you or your younger self would want to hear—while letting your personal constraints (equipment, time, experience) shape the genre, setting, and narrative form. Identify core themes (e.g., mental health, class struggle, meaning of life) that motivate you, and use one of Kurt Vonnegut’s six basic plot arcs as a scaffold if needed. Write a manageable amount each day (≈500 words), release early episodes for feedback, and iterate, accepting minor early mistakes while planning larger arcs later. Overall, the guide combines practical, affordable audio production tips with a disciplined, theme‑driven storytelling process to help anyone produce high‑quality videos or podcasts on a tight budget.
1. Tris introduces himself as the speaker in the video.
2. The video’s script, images, and all content are part of a markdown document hosted on GitHub under a public‑domain license.
3. Tris has been a music producer since typing “beep 440” on his first 8‑bit machine in the 1990s.
4. Humans primarily communicate through speech.
5. Speaking to someone is described as the most fundamental personal and effective method of communication.
6. The four‑step TLDR for good audio on a budget is: buy a second‑hand SM58, plug it into a USB sound card costing ≤ $100, use Reaper software, and practice until you sound good.
7. Tris recommends purchasing a second‑hand Shure SM58 microphone.
8. He advises that the USB sound card should not exceed $100 in price.
9. Tris recommends the digital audio workstation Reaper for recording and editing.
10. He suggests practicing repeatedly until the audio sounds good.
11. In July 2020 Tris took a week off from his programming job to clear his head.
12. By Thursday of that week he felt sufficiently decompressed to start thinking clearly.
13. He realized he could create a fiction experience using technology he had previously developed for a music video of his cover of “Still Alive” (Portal 2 credit song).
14. The 80s‑style scrolling text on a CRT display inspired the visual direction of his project.
15. This inspiration led him to brainstorm what would become his podcast “Lost Terminal”.
16. The core idea for Lost Terminal is a computer that communicates with the listener through a text terminal.
17. Before starting Lost Terminal, Tris had no video production or story‑writing experience and considered himself not very emotional.
18. He views his autism (a non‑neurotypical condition) as an asset rather than a liability for his storytelling.
19. He feels uniquely qualified to write about a computer gradually learning human emotion.
20. His advice for writers is to write for themselves, creating stories they or their younger self would want to hear.
21. When writing fiction, one should first choose a genre, which is often closely tied to the setting.
22. Tris suggests picking a genre you are familiar with and also enjoy.
23. Narration options include present or past tense, a single‑person narrator or a full cast, and the addition of bespoke background music or sound effects.
24. He recommends letting personal constraints shape the story’s setting, noting that many influential stories are told by a single person whispering into a microphone.
25. Themes and topics—not plot, location, or characters—are what a story or podcast is truly about.
26. Example themes he mentions are environmentalism, class struggle, slavery, mental health, the meaning of art, and the meaning of life.
27. According to Kurt Vonnegut, there are only six basic story arcs: “rags‑to‑riches”, “tragedy”, “riches‑to‑rags”, “man in a hole”, “Icarus (rise‑fall)”, “Cinderella (rise‑fall‑rise)”, and “Oedipus (fall‑rise‑fall)”.
28. Neil Gaiman’s writing advice is to sit at the keyboard and put one word after another until the work is finished.
29. For serialized video or podcast production, there are two approaches: write everything ahead of time then record on schedule, or write just‑in‑time for each recording session.
30. Tris completed his only novel by publicly committing to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and writing 1,600 words per day for a month.
31. He recommends a more sustainable pace of about 500 words per day for ongoing video or podcast projects.
32. His personal writing schedule is to wake up early and spend one hour on the project before his day job.
33. Motivation for him comes from the thrill of finishing a piece of work.
34. Bill Condon is quoted as saying no piece of writing is ever truly finished; you simply make it as good as you can and then stop.
35. Recording the script aloud helps catch errors that might be missed in silent reading.
36. Sharing work publicly for feedback yields far more improvement than keeping it private or relying on a single editor.
37. Early episodes can be released before later episodes are written; minor mistakes in a pilot episode are acceptable and often go unnoticed.
38. Knowing the story’s destination (ending) helps when planning the plot; he suggests writing the arc in a table and sketching what happens for each plot line.
39. A useful planning method is to start at the resolution, then work backward to the start, then to the midpoint, and finally fill in the details.
40. Dan Wells has a video on story structure that Tris recommends watching.
41. With no budget, a smartphone’s built‑in microphone can be used effectively if held close to the mouth to reduce echo.
42. The phone mic works best when held in the orientation it was designed for.
43. For a small budget, Tris’s sole hardware recommendation is to buy a second‑hand Shure SM58 microphone, ideally for ≤ $60.
44. The SM58 looks better (and cheaper) when it shows more wear.
45. The Shure SM57 can be used as an alternative; it has been used by every U.S. president since Lyndon B. Johnson (1963) for speeches.
46. Tris advises against buying a Blue Yeti or any USB microphone for serious work.
47. The SM58 features an XLR connector and requires amplification up to line level.
48. An external USB audio interface is needed to bring the SM58’s signal to line level.
49. He recommends buying the cheapest second‑hand interface with good reviews (e.g., from Scarlet, Tascam, Behringer, etc.).
50. If you prefer not to shop around, Tris uses and recommends the Scarlet 2i2 interface, which is plug‑and‑play even on Linux.
51. Audacity is an open‑source audio editor that works on all platforms, including a WebAssembly build at webassity.com, but is somewhat basic for non‑trivial tasks.
52. Reaper is presented as a powerful alternative: it includes built‑in plugins, is lightning‑fast, can edit video, and offers an unlimited free trial.
53. Reaper runs natively on Linux, Windows, and macOS, and also works on Raspberry Pi and M1 Mac hardware via Asahi Linux.
54. Reaper was created by Justin Frankel, the developer of Winamp and a contributor to Napster.
55. After trying Reaper, Tris suggests paying $60 to support its developer if you find it useful.
56. He states that only three basic plugins are essential: a noise gate set just above the room’s noise floor (e.g., –54 dB), an equalizer (starting with a male preset and tweaking), and a compressor with makeup gain to even out volume and prevent clipping.
57. Tris invites viewers to discuss audio or video topics in the audio‑production channel on his Discord server.
58. Supporters can access early ad‑free videos, tracking‑free content, and VIP Discord access via Patreon at patreon.com/no-boilerplate.
59. The Lost Terminal podcast, its transcripts, and the markdown source code are available on GitHub (links in the video description).
60. Another podcast he produces, Mode and Prometheus, also provides transcripts and markdown source on GitHub.