How To Master Home Studio Setup On A Budget With Junaid Ahmed

When it comes to creating high-quality video and audio content, many people feel overwhelmed by the perceived costs of a professional studio setup. In this episode, I sit down with Junaid Ahmed, founder of Humble Zone and creator of Home Studio Mastery, to discuss how anyone can build a professional home studio without breaking the bank.

Junaid’s two decades of experience in video production and his passion for helping creators simplify the studio-building process shine through in our conversation. We dive into the essential tools and techniques to start producing content using the equipment you already own, such as a smartphone, and how to gradually upgrade as your needs evolve. Junaid also shares his insights on lighting, audio, and the importance of creating content consistently, even if it isn’t perfect right away.

We explore how podcasting and video content creation have become transformative personal development tools, allowing creators to express themselves while refining their craft. This episode is packed with actionable insights, whether you're just starting your content creation journey or looking to take your setup to the next level.


Connect with Junaid Ahmed:
 
If you're looking to take your home studio to the next level or start creating content effortlessly, connect with Junaid Ahmed at Home Studio Mastery. His practical insights and resources can help you build the perfect setup, no matter your budget.

Books Mentioned:

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Starting Your Home Studio Setup
• 5:45 The Power of Podcasting for Personal Development
• 10:30 Budget-Friendly Tips for Home Studio Mastery
• 15:20 Mastering Lighting and Audio
• 21:29 Leadership Lessons and Continuous Growth
• 26:39 The Evolution of Your Studio Setup
• 31:29 Final Thoughts and Next Steps

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:00

I'm so excited to have Junaid Ahmed here on the podcast this week. Junaid is the founder of HumbleZone and the creator of Home Studio Mastery, designed to teach you how to build your home studio. He has two decades of video production experience in designing websites and apps focused on a systematic process and seamless user experience. He provides podcasters, speakers and content creators with a comprehensive plan for their studio equipment, lighting and layout. He also enables video creators to create effortless content in a comfortable and impressive home studio setting. He's the author of Mastering iPhone Video Production, also of Seven Stages of Home Studio Evolution, and is the host of the Hacks and Hobbies podcast. He speaks frequently at national events such as PodFest, podcasting Made Simple Live and multiple virtual summits. Ahmed, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Junaid Ahmed: 1:04

Absolutely, dr William. Super excited to be here. You know we've had several conversations over the years over the past few months and I'm super, truly honored to be connected with you, and the same for me.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:17

Every time we talk, I feel like I walk away with some value that I didn't have before we started. That's just who you are, and I'm so glad you're here.

Intro/Outro: 1:27

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:43

I want to start today really with your story. I'd love for you to share a little bit of your story, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader.

Junaid Ahmed: 1:53

You know that's an excellent question, and growing up I was around leaders like my parents, you know my uncles, and they all led in one way or another and that instilled a kind of an innate nature to you. Know, you want to be as open and as clear as possible and it only exponentially helped me as I also dived in and listened to folks like Tony Robbins. As I also dived in and listened to folks like Tony Robbins, jim Rohn and their leadership journeys, and the books like Seven Effective Habits of Successful Leaders by I can't believe Stephen Covey right, stephen Covey? Yeah, so those books also instilled. And continuing to learn from the people around me is what enables me to have the leadership mindset and always coming in from the perspective of, hey, how can I help those around me?

Junaid Ahmed: 2:56

You know the problem with the society right now and you probably agree this with me and every television ad that you see, they're showing what all the cool things people have and they want to basically want you to.

Junaid Ahmed: 3:12

You know, buy into that philosophy, which is fine, right, but then you also want to look at people who are less you know, who don't have as much as we do. And if we were to look at the entire world population. Well, we are at the cream of the crop of having accessibility to literally everything that we can imagine fresh water, warm water, clean water, you know food at our disposal, but 98 to 99% of the world population don't have access to these amenities as a flip of a button. So that again, you know, helps me to realize hey, how can I give back to the community, how can I give back to the people who don't, who are less fortunate? And that, again, is that mentality of being a leader. Hopefully that kind of give you a little perspective on how I think. But what also enabled me was my curiosity into going deeper into myself and going deeper into the mindset and learning from the people around me, and it's just served me really well to have that kind of mindset.

Dr. William Attaway: 4:29

And I think that's one that would resonate with the people who are listening to this show, because we talk about that frequently here, about being others focused, and I love that. That's where you're coming from. I think this is going to be a very valuable conversation coming from that perspective. You and I have talked about the power of podcasting as a medium and the potential for growth in the days and years to come. You speak a lot about this. I would love to hear your thoughts around that, around why you think podcasting is so important, particularly for leaders.

Junaid Ahmed: 5:06

You know, back in the days when I was taking English composition in my community college. First of all, I never finished an English comp class because the teacher would ask me. You got to journal every single day. You got to free write and I sucked at writing and I was like, ah, and so, even though I took the class three times over the course of six years in a community college, I never finished that class.

Junaid Ahmed: 5:33

That makes sense to me now is that when you free write, you're basically emptying your cup. All the thoughts in your brain, you're putting them all down on paper so that your brain can function more efficiently. They were researching and they were looking through the storage and they found Einstein's notebooks. This entire storage was full of notebooks and he's like he just puts everything down on paper so that he doesn't have to keep it in his mind and worry about it. So when you put these things down on paper, it's really, really important to get it out. Now podcasting does the same thing. Once you've spoken it out, guess what it's out in the world? It's recorded on a podcast. And not only that you're enabling and you're opening up your mind for newer thoughts to arrive and newer ideas to come together, you know, when I was going to, when I was working at this company, they would tell me hey, what's your new hobby this week? That's because I would constantly talk about these things and I would constantly share this information with them the projects that I was backing on Kickstarter, or the things that I got into. And then I finally got into beekeeping and they're like you know, you should talk about queen bee on your podcast, cause I still hadn't started the podcast. I still hadn't, you know, jumped in, even though I wanted to do the podcast. So that was the tipping point, for when I started my podcast, and the first year of podcasting was just focused on documenting the journey of me becoming a beekeeper, documenting the different things that I started thinking, and I was like, wow, I do have a story to tell. I do have things to say that I've experienced over the past 40 plus years, right? So podcasting enables you to clear your mind, enables you to think of new ideas, enables you to, you know, talk through plus have a documentation of what you've already talked about. And, on top of that, it's also a personal development tool, as you've seen. You know, you're a guest on my podcast. I've interviewed over 500 guests on the podcast, which enabled me to not only learn from their storytelling Right and their stories, but also, you know, learn from them how I could be a better person.

Junaid Ahmed: 8:20

Now, we've all done dishes. We've all done dishes, and when the sink is full of dishes, I'm like, oh my God, I need some clean dishes. Well, what do you do to clean dishes? You don't just, you know, use dirty water. Instead, you use clean water and you, till that dish is clean from putting in all that clean water, will this dish was usable? Well, our brains are the same way. The more good stuff you put in it, guess what's going to happen? All the bad stuff is going to come. You come, you know, eliminate, and then now only good stuff is going to come out of you as well, kind of like garbage in, garbage out, right? So the more clean stuff you put in, the more clean stuff you're going to get out. So you know, that's what podcasting has enabled me to do personal development, and I was telling this to uh on on another podcast the other day, and he's like you, you know, I've never thought podcasting as a personal development platform.

Dr. William Attaway: 9:21

You know I have to tell you I haven't either, and I love the way you describe that. I think that's so useful. I had a guest on earlier this year, david Allen, who wrote the book Getting Things Done, and he talked about the idea that your brain is meant for having ideas, not for holding ideas, and so his system is built around getting things out of your brain right, which creates margin, and I believe creativity lives in margin, and if your brain's all cluttered, you don't have as much margin for new and fresh ideas, for the creativity that is needed, especially in leadership, when you have to be creative in solving problems and making decisions. I love the idea of podcasting as a personal development tool. That's phenomenal.

Junaid Ahmed: 10:12

Yeah, because if you see some of the amazing writers of our time, or even bloggers like Seth Godin, he's written over 19 books. He blogs every single day.

Intro/Outro: 10:24

Yes, he does.

Junaid Ahmed: 10:24

Right. So he's emptying his mind, he's creating a ton of margin in his mind for that creativity and I've started, you know, with the podcasting and with the video creation and all the notes that I'm taking. I've also done the same thing. I've opened up more capacity in my brain to do creative things. For example, when I published my children's book A to Zoo, which has animal alphabet symphony, where, you know, animals of the same letter are playing an instrument of their name, for example, an elephant playing an electric guitar or a panda playing a piano.

Junaid Ahmed: 11:07

So my new idea was like hey, what if these were in flashcards On? One side you have the animal On the other side you have the detail about the animals On one side. You have the animal, on the other side you have the detail about the animals, and these could be these little flashcards for kids to learn new things about new animals or new instruments. So that's a new project that I'm working on because why not?

Dr. William Attaway: 11:30

I love that. When it's ready, let me know I'll get some. Absolutely, that's a great tool. Man, that's fantastic. You talk and write a lot, not just about podcasting, but particularly around one of the elements that podcasting has has yielded, which is video podcasting, and you talk about setting up a professional home studio, but on a budget. That's right. What are some components of that that are just absolutely critical, as people may be thinking about that Because they may think well, if you had, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars, you could set up all these things. But what if you're on a budget? What does that look like?

Junaid Ahmed: 12:08

I love that question because we all start at different stages, different points in our lives. When you start running like hey, I want to do a marathon, the first thing that you do is you go buy some shoes. Or, if you already have shoes, you start running them. Build a discipline, build a routine to get those muscles warmed up, get those muscles conditioned so that you can run that marathon. It doesn't cost a whole lot, but it takes a lot of your time. Well, the studio is the same way. Right, we all carry a $1,000 phone in our pocket which has four cameras. Like right, it has three cameras.

Intro/Outro: 12:52

Here, one camera here.

Junaid Ahmed: 12:53

You have so many cameras already in your pocket. Take that out of your pocket, set it on a tripod. That's very essential, because the moment you separate yourself from the equipment that's going to capture you, you're giving yourself freedom to express yourself more freely. So get your phone, put it on a tripod even if you can attach it on, you know, put it on a window sill. You're already getting nice light coming in from the window and just start riffing, start talking, because what are we doing here? We're building the reps, we're building the muscle, we're conditioning our speaking ability and getting comfortable in front of the camera. That's all you really need, right? But if you're ready to do some more investment, you want to go get a nice microphone that can capture your audio in the most authentic way possible. Authentic way possible.

Junaid Ahmed: 13:57

Not only a dedicated microphone is going to have a more dynamic range, but it'll also be more accurate and be able to, you know, do other cool things on the other side.

Junaid Ahmed: 14:07

For example, if you're using any of the smart apps I mean literally every social media app now has a video editor built in TikTok, instagram, Facebook so they'll be able to create accurate captions from that audio that you're recording.

Junaid Ahmed: 14:26

So that's where you start, that's where you get started and when you're ready to level up, well, the next stage would be a dedicated camera that sits ready to record your content, right, so that's the idea. So the recommendation is first you start with your camera, get a microphone, then get or start with your smartphone, then, if your first investment would be a microphone, second investment would be getting a good camera. Now, during all of this, you also want to see hey, where is the light coming in my room that I can utilize without spending additional money? Now, in my studio setup, I have multiple lights set up, which enables me to have the same look no matter what time of the day. I'm using this am using this. So, again, those are the simplest, cheapest ways for you to get started, because the muscle that's going to be needing development more is you, rather than the equipment and the gear that's so good.

Dr. William Attaway: 15:29

You know it makes me think of my journey with this show. You know, when I started I didn't have a lot of equipment. I had a USB microphone right and the camera that was on the computer and it slowly built, slowly, slowly, over time, exactly like you're describing, and today it's better. But that came piece at a time. You start where you are, not where you wish you were 100%.

Junaid Ahmed: 15:56

You start where you are, not where you wish you were 100%, because if you want to get to the second floor in your home, well, you need to take this one step at a time, and sometimes you might count those steps I do all the time right, oh, there's 16 steps I climbed, or 14 steps. So, again, those are the different steps, those are the tiny steps that we need to take to get to that first floor, and those tiny steps. What are those tiny steps that we need to take to get to that first floor? And those tiny steps? What are those tiny steps? Well, I gotta work on my scripting, I gotta work on my delivery, I gotta work on, uh, you know, a lot of the. A lot of it is internal and a lot less is the external, like three elements. You just need lighting, good microphone and good camera. That's it right. Everything else is inside of us already. You just need to help get it out by writing and talking, and you know having conversations like this.

Dr. William Attaway: 18:18

You know, I think, of the three that you described there, lighting has been a greater challenge for me. You know the others. You just slowly work your way up into. Lighting is difficult, maybe just for me, but I imagine for some of our listeners as well. Are there some recommendations you have as far as lighting or positioning or things like that?

Junaid Ahmed: 18:38

Absolutely so. I didn't used to wear glasses and my lighting was a little different. And as soon as I put my glasses on, I could see that my frames were casting, casting a shadow on my eye and I was like I need the light, I need my eyes to be lit up, because that shows true reflection of when you see somebody, that the eyes are reflective of the light around us, right? So most of the times people would put the light sources right in front of you, because that makes sense when you don't have glasses, but when you do have glasses you'll see the reflection of the lights around you. So you want to position the lights in such a way that the reflection is not going into the camera but instead going down. So, having the lights much higher, the reflection goes down. So you know there's like a 45 to 50 degree reflective rate on where the lights are located.

Junaid Ahmed: 19:37

Number two you want to make sure that you're using light source that you have available already, for example, a large window, adding a bed sheet or adding some kind of diffuser element or maybe even tinted windows. You know that's going to help reduce how much more light is coming in. Again, that's going to be more accurate than if you were to use indoor lights. Now, a lot of times here in the US we use soft light in the rest of our homes because it's easier on the eye, but the camera doesn't want that. The camera casts this yellowish shadow or yellowish tone on you when you use those yellow lights. So you want to use daylight white lights and you can find them at any of the store. 5,600 Kelvin is the temperature that you want to look for, so that's where the lighting is.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:37

So good Again, so practical, and I'm so grateful for that. I think a lot of people struggle with video content creation because they're like, oh, it's not perfect, it's not great, I can't get this right, I can't. You know, they do 18, 20 takes trying to get a 30 second or 60 second video and part of that is the lighting. So this is this is so helpful in helping people to to take a step, and I think it's important to take action and don't let the perfect be the enemy of the done as has been said by so many people, yeah, done is better than perfect.

Junaid Ahmed: 21:09

And guess what? The first time you just mentioned 18 to 20 takes for that 30-second video.

Junaid Ahmed: 21:15

But, it's going to be for the first few times, right. Once you've got it down, then you're a one take wonder. You know, one take, you got it down, but you've got to put in those extra reps in the beginning to like, hey, what's my voice? What am I even talking about? Have those clarity questions for yourself. You know why am I doing these videos? What is it going to do for others? Am I doing it for fun? Am I doing it for you know, for business? Am I doing it to help somebody else?

Junaid Ahmed: 21:50

I was just watching an interview my friend Kevin Colby, on his channel and he interviewed a 68 year old gentleman who who's called the gig master and he goes, finds gold and whatnot because he loves going around with these metal detectors and he's posting a video almost daily on his YouTube channel. And he's 68 years old and he was like how do I start a channel on YouTube? Well, the cool part is we have these amazing technologies in our pockets that can create so much amazing content. Yeah, the key is to just go out and do it, practice and you're going to get out there so much faster. In her 60s almost 70s as well she's been teaching on a Zoom class Arabic lessons to her cousins. Wow, right, all on Zoom, all on video.

Junaid Ahmed: 22:52

I'm like, wow, mom I did not know you would do this. She's like, yeah, well, I have the passion, I love the language and I want to teach it. So there's four or five people that will come listen to me and you know I get to share. I'm like, wow, that's so cool.

Dr. William Attaway: 23:09

That's brilliant. What a great use of technology for the benefit of other people, right? Yes, so you have a book called the Seven Stages of Home Studio Evolution. Yeah, tell me about that book, and why did?

Junaid Ahmed: 23:26

you decide to put these words on paper. Dr William, that's a great question. Now, the reason for that book to come out was number one. Just like you asked me the question hey, what should I start with? What is something that people should start with? How should we get started? What's the first investment that I should be doing? So those questions keep coming to me for the past few years and as I'm helping people set up the studios, the same answers kind of resonated. So I was like, hey, what if I put it down on paper and separate it based on the different stage that anybody might be? The novice stage is anybody who's just getting started and has the desire to create content. And guess what? Everybody has that $1,000 smartphone in their pocket that they can use and create content with. In fact, the latest iPhone 16 Pro that just dropped has four microphones which can isolate your sound from the surrounding environment.

Dr. William Attaway: 24:31

Wow.

Junaid Ahmed: 24:31

So you can use like. And it's also Dolby Atmos certified, my goodness Right. So it can create content that's used, that could be used at Netflix, that could be used on TV production sets. In fact, apple has been using their iPhone 15 Pro in all of their production that they shot in the past year, my goodness Right. So that goes to show that it's not the equipment, it's your ability to go.

Junaid Ahmed: 25:05

So novice stage is the first one. Again, you're putting in the reps and then, when you're ready to upgrade, the first thing that I recommend is a microphone. Now Shure just recently came out with a brand new microphone, the MV6, which has a USB-C cable for both sides, which means you can use that microphone with your iPhone and capture really crisp audio. Wow, that always blows my mind. So those are the things I'm talking about. You're at the novice stage. Now you're the hobbyist stage. You've bought a microphone. Now you're at the enthusiast stage when you added in a dslr or a mirrorless camera and then you go to semi-pro, then you go to pro the expert and then broadcast.

Junaid Ahmed: 25:49

So again, different stages have different equipment, different things that you're doing in your studio. So I was like if, if I were to put this down on paper, it's much easier for people to access it and learn from it. So, no matter what stage they're in, they're like, oh my God, I can utilize this and I can start, no matter where I am. And if they need more help, I also have resources, guys, that they can download from the website. And if they need even more help, I also have resources, guys, that they can download from the website. And if they need even more help, I have the five-day home studio rehab challenge and I also offer, you know, one-on-one services as well. So, again, I just wanted to make sure that people have access to the information that's going to help them get to that next stage on their journey to creating video content or, you know, just showing up on video.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:37

I love your generosity and the stages that you have. No matter where people are in their journey, there's a next step right, there's something that they can take and they can apply based on what you've learned so far in your journey. I think that generosity is so fantastic. Let me ask you this you know you need to lead your business in a different way today than you did two or three years ago. You need to lead at a higher level, and two, three, four, five years from now, you're going to need to lead at an even higher level. How do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with the new leadership skills that you are going to need to have two, three, four, five years from now?

Junaid Ahmed: 27:20

You know, the first thing that you want to do in this but we are, we're as leaders of what we continue to do is look at the number of books you have behind you, right? We're constantly reading, we're constantly learning and, as a leader, you want to continue to do that. Yeah, I think there is a. There is a research done that most leaders read anywhere from 50 to 100 books a year. Sharp the brain sharp, and the only way to do that is to, number one, have conversations like this. Number two, have listened to podcast episodes that are talking about conversations like this, or listen to books that are also giving you tips that you might have forgotten. Maybe go back to some of the books that you read a few years ago, right, because that's going to help you see those books in a totally different and new light altogether.

Junaid Ahmed: 28:17

So it's kind of amazing what we're able to do as leaders. Now, what's cool is technology is also helping us keep us along. Just recently, openai dropped the O1 preview, the ChatGPT model, which is so much faster, and they've added thought processing in it. So as you ask it a question, it's going to think and say, hey, I'm going to give you an answer in 10 seconds or I'm going to give you an answer in 11 seconds. So it's thinking through deeply on how to answer that question properly. So, again, that gives us more tools for researching. So, as somebody who's a leader, you want to continue to sharpen that skill by learning by, and that's what I do, you know. So I'm continually reading new material, I'm continually having these conversations, five to 10 times a week with leaders like yourself, because that's going to help me keep sharp and that's going to help me keep on edge and how I can then bring that value back to my community.

Dr. William Attaway: 29:23

As you continue to learn and grow and read. Is there a book that stands out, one that's made a big difference in your journey, that you think, hey, if you're listening, you haven't read this, you got to pick it up?

Junaid Ahmed: 29:35

One of the most actionable books that enabled me to number one get my podcast started was Crushing it by Gary Vee. Now, this was the second book that he had released on the same topic. The first one was Crush it, which was released in 2008, 2009. And as I read the second book, it inspired me to get started and just start where I am. It's like just document your journey. Everybody's on a journey of one sort or another. Document that piece and that's gonna help you find your story. There's another book called Storyworthy, by Matthew Dix, and he talks about how, every single day, we have a story that we can capture from our lives, which then makes our storytelling capability, storytelling ability, much more capable. And a really powerful book that just recently came out by Gary Vee is Day Trading Attention, and this book is very powerful, especially if you're looking to use your content for marketing your business and whatnot. So it goes really deep into what are some of the things that you should be focusing on and looking at when you're creating content so good.

Dr. William Attaway: 30:49

I mean, as always, I could continue to talk to you for another hour and continue to learn and glean so much, and I'm so grateful that you have been so generous with me and with the listeners of the show in sharing from what you've learned so far. I know people are going to want to stay connected to you and continue to learn from you. What is the best way for them to do that?

Junaid Ahmed: 31:12

You know, you can find me in two different places. Either on any social media platform, at Supergenade. Whichever platform you love the best, just hit me up there. Or if you want to learn more about the book, head on over to homestudiobookcom.

Junaid Ahmed: 31:29

And you have a five-day challenge right, Absolutely so there's the five-day home studio rehab challenge that you can also go take. It is automated, there's content that's pre-recorded, so you can take that challenge, kind of get to know what you need to think about in your space and then, you know, implement it based on those lessons in there.

Dr. William Attaway: 31:50

Brilliant. We'll have all those links in the show notes. Thank you so much, Jene, for being here and for sharing so generously.

Junaid Ahmed: 31:57

Absolutely, it's been a pleasure.

Dr. William Attaway: 31:58

Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Dr. William Attaway: 32:34

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Intro/Outro: 33:18

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.