UPDATED 18.10.21

For anybody that’s interested in what kit I’m using, or who just wants to find FREE tools to express themselves with.

I’m immeasurably grateful to all the open source, freeware developers and communities for providing all the FREE tools I use.

Much respect to you all.

These days I’m mostly using a laptop which my loving fam gifted me, with Windows, Android and Linux Ubuntu.

Graphic Design/Image Editing

I’m mostly using GIMP at the moment. GIMP is a powerful, FREE open source image editor.

pixler is a FREE basic image editor that runs from your browser (no need to install).

1001 free fonts is an excellent resource, with over 30, 000 FREE custom fonts.

Giphy is was another cool little tool which runs from your browser but f***book bought it and you have to register to use it now, so I’ve been avoiding it lately.

Online-Image-Editor (OIE) runs out of your browser so no need to install and has tons of functionality, including gif creation and editing.

Video

I’ve been using kdenlive for ages now and I love it. Extremely versatile, industry standard, FREE open source video editing software.

For sourcing, I refer mostly to wikimedia, the Prelinger archives, creative commons and of course, youtube.

I use the FREE 4k video downloader and YTD Video Downloader to rip video.

OBS – Open Broadcast Studio has loads of functionality for both video livestreaming and recording, including screen capture for any video you can’t download.

Sound/Music

I’m very lucky to have been gifted an awesome DELL computer that I’m running Cubase on with a basic M-AUDIO DUO soundcard and keyboard, an SM58 and a RHODES condenser.

Greenoaks’ FREE Crystal softsynth is awesome.

For voice synthesis, I’ve been using from text to speech , which is a FREE service which runs from your browser. It creates mp3s which don’t sound too lovely, but are workable once beefed up a bit.

Livestreaming Video

I used to stream quite regularly to my bambuser channel using the giffgaff network but bambuser’s free community streaming service is sadly now offline. To their credit, I agree with their farewell statement in which they claimed to have accomplished their mission to bring live video technology to the mainstream. Well done team bambuser, thanks for everything you accomplished, I wish you well.

I’ve roadtested some of the contemporary free livestreaming services. Predictably facebook was the most reliable technically (if not politically). Youtube also works but was much more glitchy. I haven’t properly tested twitter’s live service much yet. Both facebook and youtube have a track record of redacting videos whereas bambuser had a track record of never having doing that. As far as I’m aware. Last I heard there were good reports about periscope but that was a while ago. I think there’s a way of setting up OBS to stream cross-platform, but I haven’t been motivated enough to suss it out, yet.

PHONE/DATA

Contracts? No thanks.

£25 buys you one month of ‘unlimited’* data on a giffgaff no contract, pay as you go sim.

giffgaff offer monthly ‘goodybags’ from as little as £6 with FREE calls and texts to other giffgaff phones, so long as you top up once every three months. Excellent community support with ‘payback’ – credit or cash for giffgaffers who provide that community support, or who refer friends and fam. Best network I know of.