As in, channels where the presenter is laid back, calming, and the content is slower paced and chill. My go two examples are LGR for retro computer stuff, and Hainbach for experimental tape music.
LockPickingLawyer
Steve Wallis (Camping With Steve)
Math Queen
The Lock picking lawyer. Too bad the videos are so short; he has a very soothing voice.
And, of course, the OG Bob Ross. I do oil pastel drawing, and often take inspiration from his works.
I mostly watch guitar luthiers on youtube nowadays as a background for when I do stuff like washing dishes and such, so I don’t want to listen to people yelling.
My favourite channels are twoodfrd and Doug McCormack for this reason exactly: they’re laid back, constructive and politePretty much exactly Bob Ross if he were a nice Canadian lady doing nails…
Most of what I would have suggested has already been posted by others, but I can say Kruggsmash’s Dwarf Fortress stories do this for me. The Waddlesquash/Kingdom of Autumn series he did (with the pumpkin mod) is particularly laid back, but even the action-heavy series are calming to watch/listen to.
Baumgartner Restoration. I watch it like bedtime stories.
Click spring for watchmaking. It can take 6 months to do a single build and they’re insanely intricate.
Easily Brutalmoose, or his VODs at Moose2. Watching him play Nancy Drew games or old Windows 98 games is the perfect backdrop to working from home.
Another one is a James Channel. Upbeat, nice guy with insane technical experience does crazy stuff like make a SNES console run on an NES console. And it works. (Mostly)
Bill Hammack - TheEngineerGuy
All manner of engineering gadgets and phenomena explained clearly and calmly.
All licenced as CC BY.
Florian Gadsby has an amazing channel for pottery. I find it incredibly relaxing and he is an amazing potter.
I saw a lot of channels that sprung to mind already posted. But I want to strongly recommend Thomas Shahan for super chill bug photography and mellow voice overs. Worth checking out even if you’re not into macro photography.
https://www.youtube.com/@essentialcraftsman is just a guy building houses and doing iron work. Very cool.
“Tally Ho” comes to mind, where a guy turns a famous wreck into a boat.
