Studio clinic
You own the gear. Nobody ever showed you how it goes together.
Half a day in your own room, with your own kit, fixing the things that have been quietly annoying you for years — and teaching you to run it without thinking about it.
Who it is for
The person in front of the camera, not the marketing team.
Advisers, planners, coaches, consultants, founders and authors recording to camera from an office, a studio room or the corner of a flat. You have bought the lights, the mic and probably two laptops. It works. It just isn’t right, and you have never had anyone in the room who could tell you why.
This is the one thing we sell that is designed to stop you needing us. Nothing is shot for publication and nothing is edited: the day ends with you able to do it yourself.
What is usually wrong
Five faults, and they are nearly always the same five.
Two real rooms, before and after. Press a fault to see where it is in the first frame — most of them are visible on a video call, before anyone books anything, and if yours are different you will be told on that call.
Before
@PrinciplesPersonalFinance and @DamienTalksMoney let us publish their rooms. Neither was shot for this page: they are frames from what they actually record.
Proof
Four of these rooms are on YouTube right now.
Nobody on this list hired a production company to make them look good on camera. They already had the audience. What they had was a room quietly fighting them — and in two cases, a drawer of kit better than the setup using it.
415k subscribers
Damien Talks Money
Rebuilt rather than dressed: it had to keep working as a room, and hold up on camera without being relit from scratch every recording. We filmed a before and an after of the same seat.
30.3k subscribers
Principles Personal Finance
A chartered financial planner: pensions, investments and retirement planning, filmed weekly from his own office.
10.1k subscribers
Alex M H Smith
Strategy adviser and author of No Bullsh*t Strategy. Long-form to camera, recorded on his own kit, in his own room.
Studio consulted and built
Simon Says
Simon Squibb's live spin-off show. Not a room put right — a studio worked out from nothing and built, which is the other end of the same job.
455,000
subscribers between the three of them that have been running a while. You do not have to take any of this on trust — go and watch the rooms.
Subscriber figures checked September 2026, and the total is added up from them rather than typed.
The visit
What actually happens on the day.
Half a day, one consultant, your room, your kit. You are in it the whole time — this is not an installation you come back to, it is a lesson in your own setup. Nothing is bought, drilled or committed to without asking.
0:00
Inventory
Everything out on the floor, including the camera you never use and the drawer of old phones. Photographed, listed and judged honestly — some of it is better than you think and some of it should go.
0:45
Baseline
Two minutes recorded of you working exactly as you do now. No coaching, no tidying up. This is the before.
The before
1:00
Light
You first, then the background, then whatever lamps are already in the room. Placed and locked off so it repeats tomorrow without you thinking about it.
Faults 01–02
1:45
Camera and eye line
Height, distance and lens, and where your notes go so you are reading down the barrel rather than over it.
Fault 03
2:15
Sound
The room before the microphone. Then the right mic, positioned out of shot, at a level you never have to touch again.
Fault 04
2:45
Workflow
Which machine does what, which software, where the files land, and how few steps it can be reduced to. Written down as we go.
Fault 05
3:15
The after
Two more minutes recorded, then both played back side by side on your own screen. You will not need convincing.
The after
3:45
The shopping list, out loud
What to buy, what to skip, and what you already own that does the job. Agreed before anyone leaves.
48h
The written list
The kit list arrives with current prices and links, in three budgets, so you buy at whatever level you want to.
Delivered
Which one you need
Tick what is true of your setup.
Most of it is visible on a first video call. Most of it you can see yourself, right now — and if nothing here is true of your room, that answer is on the list too.
0 of 5 ticked
Nothing ticked, so nothing to sell you. If something still bothers you that is not on this list, say what it is — that is a better first message than a booking.
Pricing · ex VAT
Three ways in.
Remote · 90 minutes
Studio review
£495
- A video call from the room itself, on the setup you already have
- A written report: what to move, what to buy, what to stop worrying about
- A kit list with prices and links, at three budgets
- No visit, so anywhere in the UK
The fee comes off a clinic booked within thirty days.
Half a day · at your office
Studio clinic
£1,500
- Everything on the run sheet: inventory, light, camera, sound, workflow
- A full inventory of what you already own, and an honest word on it
- Before and after recordings, played back side by side, kept by you
- The written kit list within 48 hours, at three budgets
- Thirty days of email afterwards
Most people start here.
Two visits
Clinic and install
£2,500
- The clinic, then a second day once your kit has arrived
- Installed, commissioned and tuned in the room it lives in
- Operating tuition until starting a recording is genuinely one button
- Ninety days of support
Or add the second visit later, for £1,000.
Quoted on top
- A travelling podcast or mobile recording rig, specified separately — £350
- Travel beyond 30 miles of St Albans — +£150
- The kit you buy yourself — minimum, recommended or full room — £300–£6,000
You buy your own equipment, direct from whoever you like: no markup, no affiliate link and no handling fee on hardware, so your warranty and your returns stay yours. The fee is for knowing what to buy and where to put it.
Included
- An assessment of the kit you already own
- Lighting, camera position, sound and workflow
- Teaching, at whatever pace you want it
- A written kit list with prices and links
- Before and after recordings
- Email support after the visit
Not included
- Finished films — nothing is shot for publication and nothing is edited
- Buying the hardware, or warranting it
- Building work, carpentry, electrics or acoustic treatment
- Ongoing production or editing — separate services, if you want them
If the films are for a company rather than for you — and somebody in-house is going to make them — the setup day is the one you want instead: a full day, two finished films, and your person trained on your room.
Questions
The ones people actually ask.
My setup is honestly fine. Is this worth it?
Probably, and that is the point. Almost nobody books this because the videos are unusable. They book it because the last ten per cent has been irritating them for years and they have run out of ways to work it out alone.
Can you just set it all up for me while I get on with work?
That can be arranged, but it is not what this is. The value here is that you understand your own room afterwards — which button, which light, why. If you would rather it were simply done for you, say so and you will be quoted for that instead.
I rent, or there are children, and I cannot drill anything.
Common, and planned for. Free-standing and clamped solutions, nothing at head height, and a version that packs away if the room has to be a room again in the evening.
Do I have to tell you what kit I own before you come?
No. Almost nobody manages it, and the inventory is built into the day for exactly that reason. Leave it all where it is.
Could I just have the shopping list?
Yes — that is the studio review, and it exists mainly to stop people buying the wrong thing. Book a clinic within thirty days and the fee comes off.
What if I need someone to keep making the videos?
A different conversation, and a separate service. This one ends with you able to do it yourself.
Send a line about the room and what you record in it. Most of what is wrong can be seen on a video call before anything is booked, and you will be told plainly if there is nothing worth paying for. Everything else we get asked
Booking
Start with a line about the room.
What you record in it, and what annoys you most. Most of what is wrong can be seen on a video call before anything is booked, and you will be told plainly if there is nothing worth paying for.