Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter
tips.ariyh.com
tips.ariyh.com
(You need a standalone mic since most headsets, even really nice ones, have really bad mics because most headset buyers don't care about or even know how good their mic sounds. The one I linked is wired because wireless is evil[3] and in particular, Bluetooth will silently degrade your audio quality. If you want a pair of wired headphones, I like these[4] which are "open back" and therefore sound more natural + cool your ears better, although the open back also means they "leak" sound and are only suitable for working without people next to you. But you shouldn't be having calls with people next to you anyway!)
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/V-MODA-BoomPro-Microphone-Gaming-Comm...
[2]: https://www.benkuhn.net/vc/#get-a-better-microphone
[3]: https://www.benkuhn.net/wireless/
[4]: https://www.amazon.com/Philips-SHP9500S-Precision-Over-ear-H...
so if it's almost as good how smart does each one make you sound?
I use a chaepo Plantronics £40 for work but for my steaming I use a Focusrite claret and a separate cheap dynamic mic (plus an exciter).
I do need to upgrade that mic to a sm58b or a AT 3035.
I have thought about buying a focusrite scarlet and use a separate dynamic mic for work as well.
Also, regarding the AT3035, I've recently purchased an AT2020 on a park since the price was insane (like $90 US), and it sounds great! I used it on a remote recording session as the second mic on a guitar can and it was the perfect complement to the other mic (sm57).
I just used some 15 year old entry level Shure's I had from 15 years ago - massive self noise.
I think I was tending to the 30 as its a slightly hotter mic
In my previous life I was a recording engineer, and this microphone was what I used in just about every session. It is one of the most versatile and best bang-for-the-buck condensers on the market, and has been for a lot of years. Very highly recommend to anyone wanting a microphone that can do just about anything.
That might have nothing to do with the microphone. For a headset mic it is important that it's placed completely outside the airstream of mouth and nose, otherwise all mics will sound atrocious and full of wind and popping noises. Look at how headset mics are rigged by pros on talent, they're quite a bit back from the mouth.
Does this matter for gaming or calls? Not really, as it will definitely sound better than crappy laptop or headphone mics. But there is a marked difference. The AT2020 usb mic doesn't even go up to 20khz. Not to mention the A-D conversion from a dedicated unit and the mic preamp are going to be better than the onboard electronics of a usb mic.
In nearly every case, a dedicated usb interface is going to have better quality ADC and mic preamps. High-quality sound cards are not prioritized by consumers, so they remain rather poor quality in most laptops and pcs. Even something like a focusrite scarlett is going to improve the signal chain immensely (plus you get the added bonus of a decent DAC as well).
I did of course mean a real external sound card.
And a usb mic is not going to have as good a mic capsule at the same price point which was my point.
For other headphones you can use the various flavors of Antlion ModMic, but it’s more expensive and less convenient because you have two cables.
I'm living in a really old house with no ground for most rooms (yes, I know), with only a bootleg ground to prevent _really_ bad noise and occasional static zaps. Though I've read of many people having the same issues with properly grounded machines (as far as it goes for domestic use. I'm not talking about studio-grade grounding).
My Macbook, on the other hand, doesn't have any static, even though its charger doesn't even have a ground pin, nor does my Steelseries Arctis 1 wireless (which uses a non-bluetooth dongle. Might be because it's wireless, or just because it's an external device.
In any case, I don't feel comfortable shelling out upwards of 400$ for an audio setup.
Depends on the country. Over here protective earth is entirely separate from neutral, and there's a separate earth stake for each consumer. This is the TT system.
the problem is that you dont know if the other people are actually paying attention and human interactions need that feedback
I recently setup a camera pointing down at my keyboard/mouse instead of my face for demonstrating a keyboard that I built (analog hall effect--from scratch!) and I think that's good enough to let people know, "I'm here" without being super distracting (assuming I turn off the LEDs and the gigantic LED matrix display haha).
This is going into the realm of the kind of monitoring software that tracks your eye movement to make sure you're concentrating.
If people are not paying attention to whatever you're presenting in your meeting, maybe the meeting is not relevant for those people. Consider cancelling it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nCYWhYagqk
There are also a lot of homebrew DIY versions of the same device:
The mic even have to be that expensive. I use a cheap dynamic mic from ebay with a windscreen and a mic arm and it sounds fine.
How do you know what it sounds like?
How do you know how good you sound to other people compared to if you were speaking through a good condenser mic?
Plus multiple services now offer test calls/contacts where you can open a voice call, say things, and then listen back to how the other side hears it.
Hypercardioid "shotgun" works too as long as its back is placed far enough off a wall, however these tend to have sound coloration.
It just so happens that most microphones are the less directional cardioid. Or worse, omnidirectional.
Thanks to some people, everyone can experience speech jamming for free! https://arxiv.org/vc/arxiv/papers/1202/1202.6106v1.pdf
I don't disagree, but the results are widely variable with different TRRS I/O across different soundcards. E.g. on a MacBook, the EarPods probably sound great, with a good level of gain and plenty of headroom. On a Lenovo Thinkpad, they sound hissy and terrible because you have to turn the gain all the way up.
> I think my yeti actually sounds worse at it cost 3 times as much.
Something is probably wrong if this is the case. Which is understandable; a USB microphone that's not attached to your person requires some positioning and mic technique that you don't have to think about with the inline mic on the EarPods.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QVNXBDL
It was ~$50.
Got a wired Plantronics headset with USB-C that I'm happy with. Not sure if the above products have this feature, but I recommend checking for it.
There is a microswitch in the mic boom, so that it is disconnected when you lift it away. I mean, you can't get more simple: when it is in front of your mouth, it is on, when it isn't, it is off. No need for a LED. Also, the headset is passive, with a good old jack connector, I consider it a plus.
I had a headset with that feature, and sure enough, it failed me on a sales call. I groaned at something our salesperson said, and despite the button having been pressed and the light being on, everyone heard me.
And yes, there are many ways to avoid this problem. I think adding a resistor and capacitor to form a high-pass filter for the shorting option would work fine. If there is already a PCB for the switch, adding these two components would cost practically nothing.
XLR switches are easier, just short hot and cold, done. Works with all microphones and doesn't produce a pop, because XLR uses phantom power instead of T-power.
I'm currently using the HD58X but I might look into getting the SHPs as a "beater" pair with the VModa mic.
It baffles me that some people don't seem to care about their audio quality on calls. The most obnoxious are those who use speakers and you get echo on all your talking, and despite telling them, they still never bother to get a decent mic.
Another common offender are the Bose QC35s: they have a terrible mic - I wish people would stop using them.
All the Apple things have great mics. I always keep an old pair of 3.5mm earpods in my bag as a good, portable laptop mic.
[1]: https://www.amazon.co.uk/ModMic-GDL-1420-UNI-Mute-Switch/dp/...
I actually have both a wired (very old, wire kind of broken because I treated it poorly) and a wireless modmic, and both work fine with my QC35s.
1. It is a bunch of extra work and expense for something I probably do not really want to be on. Easy audio communication is bound to induce more audio communication.
2. I have to maintain a bunch of infrastructure for it, manage configuration, and deal with all the wires. It is far from a free and easy improvement.
3. I rarely speak in meetings anyway.
Most folks I know recommend the Samson Q2U or the Audio Technica ATR2100 instead as easy mics to deal with for untrained users; shameless plug, but I wrote an article for Mux about this not long ago which explains in some depth why one mic may be preferable to another for untrained users: https://mux.com/blog/zoom-like-you-mean-it-1/
Something like the Audio-Technica AT2005 also supports USB plug and play, is half to two-thirds the price, and is a dynamic mic so will reject a lot more of the undesirable sound before it even gets into the computer.
It's easier to not capture undesirable sounds than it is to try and clean it all up after.
Alternatively: if you you are going to be hassled with an online meeting, get it over with quickly and with the least stress. It is very slow and stressful to fumble around with “Can you repeat that?” or worse, people not mentioning that they didn’t actually understanding you and then dragging out the meeting with their misunderstanding.
“If you have to eat a shit sandwich, take big bites.”
The only real downside to it is the cable is sort of flimsy and the 3.5mm termination is not great quality. That's how my last ModMic perished, although it lasted a few years.
As an aside, it's been interesting as someone who knows things about audio to realize how much I've unconsciously internalized that most people apparently don't know. Like more gain != more better or what a plosive is.
Also, being electret capsules directly wired up to your soundcard, the soundcard has quite an influence on the quality of the audio (mostly in terms of noise and hiss). Meanwhile the digital versions don't suffer from bad microphone inputs.
I see comments along these lines here all the time, and I don't get it. I'm on zoom a majority of my day, and have maybe two colleagues that don't just use the laptop mic/speakers and have a headset. I almost never have trouble hearing or understanding or listening to background garbage. In fact, those with headsets will sometimes be worse because they're making a lot of mouth sounds close to the mic.
Maybe it's just that Zoom is good at this? TBH, when we used to use Webex on dedicated phones I felt like I couldn't ever hear or understand anything. Maybe that's where this microphone feedback comes from?
Yet one sees other people utterly convinced that using external speakers is bad, bad, bad.
That may explain it.
Some people have a hard time realizing that they're interrupting someone else because that other person's audio is getting ducked while the laptop prioritizes mic input over speaker output - with the intent to reduce echo.
Basically, of all the ostensibly unmuted mics, only the one with the loudest human is truly unmuted.
It's closer to half-duplex than full-duplex. Full-duplex with no artifacts requires no echo cancellation which requires headphones.
It's easy to have conversations with friends on discord where 3-4 people are talking at once all with headphones. However this has never worked on a zoom or hangout with less techy family members or work colleagues using ext. speakers.
I don't know of a way to check how I sound without bothering anyone.
I know in Webex you get this option before you are connected to the actual meeting, but Zoom may have it somewhere else I haven't bothered to look for. I make a habit of testing my mic every time I connect to a meeting, just in case I mucked something up or there's some other issue I wouldn't have known about. It's a minute of checking to save several minutes of embarrassment and delay later on.
Yes this also freaks me out. Also when people use headsets in a room with lots of background noise, it sounds as if they use an open mic.
I'm also quite convinced that the Mac with just the internal mic/speaker is quite good for most cases. But I definitely want to look further into the issue. Also I certainly don't want to use a dedicated external mic, that seems total overkill to me.
I'd say if you're dealing with difficult people who really don't want to do more than point at an icon on a screen and go, the most bang for the (effort) buck is to ask if they have a set of headphones. Most people still have some earbuds around from when their phones still had headphone jacks. Just getting rid of the speakers makes a huge difference when folks refuse to mute while not speaking.
I was lucky enough to have an old Shure vocal mic and a cheapo XLR-USB interface sitting in a box of electronic stuff, so I typically put on my headphones and speak into the mic (on a desk stand). For camera...I tried the phone thing and while it does look a lot nicer, the phone gets warm and has to run for an hour or two at a time. Eventually just got a Logitech C920 once they dropped back to non-scalper prices.
A couple of clamp lights with parchment paper clipped over the end made more of a difference than buying a mirrorless camera would've (and they were way cheaper). My DSLR doesn't (and wasn't meant to) run for hours as a video cam so I didn't bother with that.
Also, using OBS and its virtual camera plugin means I can tweak and color correct the cam feed without having to dig into the OS webcam configuration. Plus, real chromakey beats crappy Zoom/Webex background removal when I do just want to goof around with cool backgrounds and overlays.
Until you spend 1/2 hour talking to a certain family member, the one who calls from Burger King and sits right next to the soft drink machine so you can hear the ice being dispensed, you haven't fully lived.
It's also similar to the anti-mask problem, frankly. Even if you don't care, you should realize that others do and not abuse them for your own convenience.
Here's the thing about perception: A lot of it happens without your conscious knowledge.
One of the things about using Audacity as one's cheap studio software, is that you have to adjust for recording latency for multitrack. It's really easy to see how a part of perception is unconscious with the delay.
Almost no one is going to notice 5ms or below. At 20ms, many musicians are going to have this definite sense that something is off, but they can still hang. In between, it's a spectrum.
In order to introspect enough to notice things that are below conscious perception, some people require some training. This is also why audio snake oil works.
I use the wireless ModMic myself.
Reminded me of this article, easily one of the top 20 I've ever read (Brian Eno, Francis Crick, Italo Calvino, roller coasters, trepanation, time, death, drumming)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/25/the-possibilia...
> “I was working with Larry Mullen, Jr., on one of the U2 albums,” Eno told me. “ ‘All That You Don’t Leave Behind,’ or whatever it’s called.” Mullen was playing drums over a recording of the band and a click track—a computer-generated beat that was meant to keep all the overdubbed parts in synch. In this case, however, Mullen thought that the click track was slightly off: it was a fraction of a beat behind the rest of the band. “I said, ‘No, that can’t be so, Larry,’ ” Eno recalled. “ ‘We’ve all worked to that track, so it must be right.’ But he said, ‘Sorry, I just can’t play to it.’ ”
> Eno eventually adjusted the click to Mullen’s satisfaction, but he was just humoring him. It was only later, after the drummer had left, that Eno checked the original track again and realized that Mullen was right: the click was off by six milliseconds. “The thing is,” Eno told me, “when we were adjusting it I once had it two milliseconds to the wrong side of the beat, and he said, ‘No, you’ve got to come back a bit.’ Which I think is absolutely staggering.”
Some of the hardcore FPS players in the group could definitely tell!
Philosophically it is also why would you go with something big and cumbersome for a feature you seldom use? You don't carry a glass bed scanner in your laptop bag - you take a photo if you really need to get a digital copy of a printing. Plus not all are equally enthused or know how to filter through the crap without a large /in person show room/ that would be either filthy or a pain in the ass to disinfect before a pandemic.
Not helping matters are audiophiles being infamously placebo connoisseurs and walking proof that it is easier to fool someone than convince them they were fooled. That market is flooded with bullshit and specious claims so the default assumption for people claiming you need new more expensive audio equipment has been "ignore them, they are gullible idiots who think you need gold cables for digital connections to reduce low level noise for digital signals".
Exactly that. I've been working for 5 years in more or less noisy open offices. Some of them so noisy that there were regular arguments between the self-proclaimed quiet ones and the noisy phone callers. I followed this with amusement.
So yes, it is quite an exaggeration to now ask for Hifi audio quality during meetings. Apart from that, I think a little noise makes the lockdown in the home office a bit less boring, the majority of people worked on-site before the pandemic.
This is with a beyer dynamic microphone extension for a studio headphone. And I have the gain fixed.
Everyone else in our comp keys team sessions has keyboard sound, plops, distortions. But in general it pretty well understandable at the cost of having to spent effort to understand. So maybe software is doing a hell of a job here.
I would suggest recording yourself using different microphones and comparing them to see how bad Airpods mic is.
I suspect it's because the wired earbuds had a mic near my throat whereas the Airpods' mic were up near my ears. The difference is very noticeable.
Looks like I'll be keeping my wired earbuds around for future conference calls.
So, either you'll get a lot of ambient noise, the signal is quiet or Apple will do some algorithmic trickery that tries to approximate some kind of echo cancelation on the audio signal, but compared to a simple dynamic microphone that just has a more favorable position and form factor, it'll always lose.
Also, it's worth noting what the goal is here. The aim is not to capture the most accurate sound period. I've had calls with people who clearly have very expensive setups, but I end up hearing pen clicks, keyboard sounds, breathing, swallowing etc. The Airpods seem to do a great job of making my voice sound good in general. I've gotten compliments on my audio (so it can't be that bad) and the Airpods don't seem to pick up my breathing, typing, etc so I'm happy.
one more damn thing to get
one more damn thing to research
one more damn thing to fit into your budget
one more damn thing to acquire that you maybe hope to never ever use again after the Year Of Videoconferencing is over and will have cluttering up your life forever after unless you find someone to pass it off to
(if you are really passionate about it: cut the gordian knot of all those problems by convincing whoever holds the purse strings that it would make all these interminable meetings much better if everyone had a nice mic, and get the company to buy a bunch and send them out.)
I have a ModMic 4 and I am disappointed. I used it for voice calls with my Sennheiser Momentum headphones.
- Accidentally pulling on the wire will cause it to turn on the magnetic handle and create unpleasant noise for others. - It picks up signal from the phone trying to connect and transmits it to the listeners as buzzing sound. So I had to put my phone far away to avoid that. - The mute switch does not really mute, it’s more like turning the volume to 10%. Learned that the hard/awkward way. - Sound quality is mediocre, to me it always sounded like any generic mid-range headphones+mic combo.
If I could test ModMic before buying it, I would pass. I’d rather put the money towards a standalone mic (e.g. yeti) + boom arm. It’s expensive, but the quality is way better. I now use Røde PodMic with Scarlett Solo. It’s whole other price tier, but I do not regret spending that money, which I cannot say for the ModMic.
They might care but have no idea it is bad. You can’t hear yourself on a call.
(I haven't "saved you a click" because you should watch the video anyway. It's not just about how to get better sound when recording or broadcasting. About ten minutes.)
If your environment is noisy, you would likely be better off getting a shotgun or cardioid style microphone with some directionality to it.
Also important and already mentioned in the original post. Avoid any Bluetooth based mics or headphones. Avoid Wifi connections and go for cable based connections.
I have multiple professional level microphones SM57, Neumann(s), BlueYeti and also tried some of the cheaper USB mics. I spent well over 60 to 80 hours doing research on how to get good audio quality online and would like to offer the following recommendations:
DO NOT rely at all on YouTube recommendations from specialized channels, even the ones with high reputation. They have a business running, and a bad review for a product will make sure they will not get another “sample” from the same vendor. I had instances where I ordered professional level headphones in the 300 to 400 US dollars price range, reviewed by several of the high reputation channels as the best out there. Within minutes of receiving the product would realize how uncomfortable they feel, or how bad sound they offer. When I would return to re-watch some of these YouTube “reviews” I would quickly realize the reviewer had skillfully omitted to mention any of these failures within the product. If there is an issue, these reviews just “omit” any comments around problematic areas of a product. On a second though … Maybe there is a business opportunity here.
Recommendation: Choose a reliable online vendor that can offer returns on the product. Be ready to order several products and do your research.
You also have to take into account a couple of things:
- What OS are you using ? If you are using a USB mic some vendors have great mics but terrible drivers ( ex BlueYeti Windows drivers ) and they do not seem willing to put the effort in. Windows is particularly terrible out of the box, with energy-saving OS plans that pause USB ports configurations. It took me hours to get Windows 10 to sound good and reliably for online meetings. This is a good starting point: https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207355205-Op...
- Do you want to sound good while doing Podcasts, creating YouTube videos OR during via WebMeeting platforms like Webex, GotoMeeting, Zoom, Jitsi? From my experience, due to internal audio processing done by many of the online conference platforms you are going to need different solutions for each use case. Some of the Studio level Condenser mics used for podcasts do not sound very good during online conferences. Its also the case they are too sensitive and your conference participants can hear you with great audio quality but they will also hear you neighbor dog barking.
Warning: I am not associated with any of these companies in any way but I would suggest the following:
- Do you want to sound good for Web Meetings ? Get two V-MODA-BoomPro and Philips-SPH9500S . One set to use and one as backup. It will be relatively cheap compared to other solutions and the price/quality ratio of this recommendation is exceptional. The mic has good quality and the headphones are high quality. You won’t feel them if you use these for 8 hours. You can spend more if you are willing to put the research effort. Just do not settle for any first choice.
OR
- Do you want to sound good while creating YouTube Videos ? Always get a Pop Filter and a Mic Stand with isolation from vibrations. Get a BlueYeti ( but use the XLR port not USB ). The BlueYeti USB drivers on Windows will randomly cause distortion and I given up on the Company putting the effort to fix the issues.
You can also
Get an SM57. Sounds great for voice and its not by accident it’s the official mic of the US President. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shure_SM57
Be careful where your order, the SM57 and the SM58 are some of the most frequently counterfeited mics by Chinese or Taiwanese vendors. Then get one of the Focusrite Scarlett interfaces and you will be sorted.
If you don’t use Mac or Linux but Windows be ready to spend some effort troubleshooting driver issues. This solution will not be cheap but still manageable and save you hours. You welcome !
[Edit] Spelling
Generally speaking, there are many good condenser microphones but I'd recommend a dynamic microphone if you can get close to the mic, your room is not treated, or there is outside noise.
[1] I'm in no way affiliated with Røde, just happened to like their mics. There are many other good choices in the same price ranges.
If you don't have a dedicated microphone port then you may have to purchase an adapter because some input ports are wired tip ring ring sleeve (TRRS) and a microphone will just be tip ring sleeve (TRS).
It amazes me how, even now with so many people working remote, how few of us take audio without even a modicum of seriousness.
The pickup pattern dictates which direction(s) the microphone is sensitive to: see https://ehomerecordingstudio.com/microphone-polar-patterns/ as one example. You'd want a cardiod mic turned so that the least sensitive part of the mic faces your keyboard.
Secondly you'll need to get the microphone close to you so you don't need a ton of gain to be heard well. You can put the mic 10 feet from you and with enough amplification people will hear you, but they'll hear every chair squeak and you shuffling your feet and the ac coming on as well. Get it close and you don't have to increase gain nearly as much.
Finally the greater the distance between the mic and keyboard the less likely your tapping will be heard. But again if gain has to be used to pick you up, you're more likely to hear the keyboard even with a cardiod mic because sound still reflects and echoes. Consider something like the Blue snowball as an intro microphone or call up a supplier and have a conversation with a real audio tech, which I am not.
The issue is once you get off into mics then you have to ask yourself which input type(s) do you want, what sort of pre-processing you may want, etc.
Good luck.
Another thing people forget about is the noise canceling and other filters that are applied to your audio by default. If you're in a reasonably quiet place, it's probably reasonable to put "noise canceling" in Zoom on low. This will make your audio less garbled. If you have a really solid audio setup with headphones, you should try turning on "use original sound," which can make your audio really nice (unfortunately not available in Linux).
I highly recommend Fifine's mics. They have a USB condenser mic with a boom arm for $60 (~$35 for just the mic) [1], and a lavalier (lapel) mic for $20 [2]. The audio quality is really quite impressive.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/FIFINE-Microphone-Adjustable-Instrume...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Lavalier-Microphone-Cardioid-Condense...
Ideally, the camera is as far from you as possible, and zoomed in on your face. "Zooming in" is really just increasing the focal length, and zooming out is decreasing the focal length, producing an effect best known as "fish eye".
This is one of the first things people will tell you about photographing a human being for a portrait (which is essentially the same problem as a video conference). Get rid of distortion on the face. Use a focal length of at least 50mm (zoomed all the way in on the lenses mentioned in your article). Otherwise, the nose gets blown up and everyone looks worse.
On Zoom I look a little goofy with the phones on but better that than missing what people say and getting echoes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzGPyekZE7w
https://www.amazon.com/Sony-ECMCS3-Omnidirectional-Stereo-Mi...
You do need one of those TRRS splitters though.
One of the worst aspects of listening to a great interview is when the guest is in a space with tons of audio reflections. You want the sound of your voice, not the room.
Many podcast hosts climbed into closets with sound dampening clothes on hangers during the pandemic. It worked out reasonably well.
If you’re doing audio professionally, consider treating the recording space. If you don’t want to put panels on the walls, get free-standing panels that can be stored when not in use:
Get a pop filter:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_filter
Control sibilance:
https://urm.academy/death-to-sibilance/
No use having a great mic if you don’t control the things you don’t want it to capture.
I didn't have data to back this up before, but I bought a good microphone specifically for this purpose. People will simply like the audio, and by extension what I am saying and also me as a person, better.
Meanwhile, my ears will continue to bleed from the awful audio people broadcast into this world. I wonder, most people must notice how terrible everyone in e.g. video conferences sounds; why don't they make the connection that they themselves have it in their hand to improve the situation? Maybe it's like wearing masks.
Also consider a good external webcam and doing something about lighting if you can. I realize that not everyone has a great physical environment to work with. But I'm struck by how many people who seemingly haven't made any real effort after a year+.
At the same I haven’t updated my camera because I don’t have a nice room to work from and I feel a bit ashamed to show my tiny box with a high resolution... sounds weird, I know, but that’s how I feel
I don’t know why webcams are always so insanely wide; we don’t need to see your whole room with your head only taking up 5% of the frame. Just like audio, I wish everyone else would use this camera setup so I can see everyone clearly.
Maybe because the laptop case can only be so thick, which would limit focal length?
I guess that could be improved by reducing sensor size but then it may affect performance in realistic lighting conditions.
What do you recommend?
The quality is pretty good from the A5, but if I need even better, I use my current phone's rear camera outputting to HDMI to an El Gato CamLink using Filmic (which outputs clean HDMI on Android or IOS, but isn't cheap as DroidCam). Filmic is definitely a step up from DroidCam, but fussier in terms of getting set up.
First of all I agree that if you could only fix one thing, audio should take priority. Fortunately that's pretty easy.
I guess my context is that I'm on video a lot including with large audiences and for external consumption. So, yes, it matters to me whether my video is good. I also know people whose video is routinely terrible that they could likely improve significantly with very little effort.
Like it or not, videoconferencing is becoming more and more a professional skill, and part of that skill is being able to get decent audio and video quality.
> there's a window with bright objects visible behind it that screws with the auto balance on the webcam 2 hours a day is a distant concern
On the other hand, those are the only two hours a day where you have anything approximating in-person contact with your coworkers. Those two hours probably have an outsized effect on what your coworkers think of you.
Yes! Even a Monoprice $20 dynamic mic is probably not going to be the weak point in your audio path.
> Also consider a good external webcam and doing something about lighting if you can.
Another great point. An Elgato Key Light Air is $130, and made a huge difference for me.
There are diminishing returns for sure. But something worth considering is anything priced over $200 is likely closer to "pro" than "sumer' and is priced accordingly. You don't need an SM7 if you're not making money with it... and it's priced for those folks.
It's actually remarkable how much better all-in-one USB mics have gotten in the last 5-ish years since everyone began streaming - a Blue Yeti has an integrated ADC/preamp, its own stand, and comes with a cable. A SM58 ($100) will require an XLR cable ($10-15), audio interface ($50-100), and mic stand ($10-20) to have the same experience. Granted, that 58 will outlive you and you can mic anything with it anywhere, the cable will probably last a long time and can be repaired by hand, and the cheapest USB audio interfaces have lower noise and better preamps than any USB mic. So you get what you pay for.
Or maybe not at all. Someone actually measured one against an SM57: http://www.3daudioinc.com/3db/showthread.php?17046-SM57-vs-S...
Don't look at a frequency response chart like that for insight. Anyone who has recorded a bass cab or kick drum with an SM7B would look at you sideways if you tried to use a 58 as a replacement unless you were really in a pinch.
It also has a headphone jack that you can use for monitoring.
Unfortunately the USB connection on the microphone is micro-usb, which is pretty sad for a microphone that was released in 2020. It also doesn't come with a stand.
That said, I really think some people are just immune to it. My mom for instance prefers to use the standard definition channels because the channel numbers are easier to remember and type. She says she can't tell the difference between that and full HD so :shrug:
Which one do you buy? I’m in the market for a good clip on mic
You can check the reviews for audio samples if you want to see how it sounds. It's a little bassy imo but perfectly clear.
You can check the reviews for audio samples if you want to see how it sounds. It's a little bassy imo but perfectly clear.
Pretty sure our cable box just automagically switches over to the HD channel when you tune into the SD one.
Follow up question, but once you get to a certain point of converter+preamp quality, is focusing on something that improves workflow what really matters?
In general the more something is marketed to musicians, the more it is likely to have a slight bias designed to flatter the source material, and your tastes may vary depending on what sort of music you like, eg British stuff tends to have a gentle double EQ peak, American stuff tends to be a little more punchy in the midrange, Japanese stuff slightly more flat, Swedish and German stuff has a sound of its own, and so on. These are very slight biases, and maybe they're what 'sounds good' to engineers based on linguistic and musical differences.
Stuff marketed to film/broadcast tends to emphasize accuracy and fidelity (in the marketing materials anyway...). These days anything other than bargain basement is neutral and clean enough for that sort of work. Although I owned much more bulky and expensive gear, I've done several feature films with a small portable recorder by Zoom that costs only a few hundred dollars. It sounds great, because I plug great microphones into and use great headphones to monitor (and know how to listen!), plus I work hard to control the dynamics and you generally don't need the same sort of dynamic flexibility for film work that you need for musical performance.
If I was recording music I'd say the same recorder is just adequate because for musical purposes you want some nice color and pleasing dynamics. If you're lookinga t several options in the same price bracket and not really sure which to go for, play around with the external controls. The quality feel of the front panel, knobs, and buttons/switches is a reflection of the internal engineering quality. If you like the physical feel of one unit over another, you'll probably have the same experience with the audio path and the software stack, if it's digital.
Is this referring to something on Discord or traditional TV? If the latter, is it referring to audio or video? Your replies have all assumed different answers to those questions, I believe.
(If it's audio, your mother is probably right.)
Sadly the video seems to have been removed, the only reference I could find was the last paragraph of this Wired Article, https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tomska-wired-2015.
"use any camera, but get a good microphone. 'I started with a camera that's probably about ten times worse than the one in my phone,' he said. 'Bad sound will make anyone close a video in three seconds flat. Get a good microphone before you get a good camera.'"
If Bluetooth is the wrong technology, what would you recommend?
A wired mic isn't really an option in the environment I want to film in but I want something better than the on-camera mic because I'm occasionally pretty far away from the camera.
I also don't want the hassle of recording audio on a separate audio recorder and then mixing that into my video. I want decent audio from a wireless mic recorded onto the phone video. I didn't think that was a big ask...
Yes / kind of. Bluetooth headphones can be in a few modes, but generally they're either "high quality playback" or "crap playback with crap input". As soon as you activate the mic, the playback quality will drop. But for the isolated playback of a recording, you'll get better quality.
Sennheiser has several wireless systems designed for your needs: https://en-us.sennheiser.com/wireless-systems
Audio, on the other hand, a couple hundred dollars on a good mic and preamp/recorder will be worth it 100%. It will make a noticeable difference on both good speakers/headphones and on the small speakers in phones.
They only hear the poor audio quality of other people in the conference.
And cost nothing or very little. (But do support the authors.)
Hardware has ease of setup and excellent knobs going for it, but if you're going for cheap, you should spend money on a condenser microphone, some mounting hardware (e.g. gooseneck, spider mount, maybe pop filter) and audio interface first.
$200 put there makes for professional quality audio. t.bone SC 400 and an interface that does phantom power, like one of the cheaper Focusrite or Presonus ones. (If you feel extra cheap, you can go lower price on interfaces but it's not worth it.)
$50 is about the price of the microphone.
It so happens that there's the $70 USB version of it too, but the interface in it is just acceptable, as opposed to being superb. (This microphone sounds as good as $400 RODE products, using it with bad interface is a disservice when $80 gets you a great one.)
Condenser mics are a lot more sensitive and omnidirectional. They are great in a studio to pick up every detail, but if you use them in a normal room you'll end up with lots of echo/reverb which is really hard to get rid in post.
On the other hand, one that that does matter a lot is that dynamic mics can handle a lot more sound pressure. So, yeah, you often see them recording things like drums and the likes. This on the other hand is actually intrinsic with the mic itself.
Providers of conferencing tools undervalue audio quality as well, as evidenced by the fact that they don't provide tools that have been common for audio recording for nearly a century, such as simple vu-meters.
Let me suggest instead that they shall start by not actively harming things. Microsoft Teams is an excellent study subject for "how on earth do you make something this bad while owning all of Skype's IP?".
If it is physically hurting your ears or being difficult to follow then it's understandable, but otherwise (as you mention with the masks) this sounds very superficial. Do you also complain about people wearing the wrong kind of clothes (and I don't mean tailored confederate flags)?
I hope to one day see the day when most people realise it's none of their business how others present themselves.
I’m also a teacher, so I bought a nice microphone and some acoustic panels to help my students focus on the material.
So present yourself however you want. And I'll pay attention however much I want.
One of the bottom-of-the-barrel-but-actually-still-ok interfaces might be worth a try. E.g. the Behringer UMC22 has a PCM2906 clone in it, which doesn't even have any drivers, it's just straight USB audio class, supported right out of the box in Windows.
Good audio and good lighting can really make all the difference. It pains me because it's actually a very cheap problem to solve. Lighting, an audio interface, and a decent mic could cost no more than a few hundred dollars for a starter pack.
I'm on conference calls all the time where people have overhead lighting that makes them look like a sith lord and their mic is trash and picks up way too much room sounds and echos. It makes them look and sound bad. People notice that stuff.
Absodamnlutely. Perhaps I'm over sensitive to video and audio quality issues due to my work life, but I absolutely can't believe how poor audio quality can be in the wild.
Lack of full duplex, latency on phones and conference gizmos are bad enough, but I'm always blown away by the shite quality you run into for recorded university lectures and speeches. It makes you want to shake people like a rag.
Also, people don't appreciate how much more important audio quality is then video. You can get away with a lot in video, it's true to the extent that audio data flow is used as the master clock.
note to self: I wonder how far we are from improving recorded lectures/speeches via speech->text followed by text->speech as opposed to post-processing the audio. By passing through timing information you could even keep the cadence of the talking.
As you say, people will forgive bad image quality before they will forgive bad audio.
I got both but mostly use the condenser mic and it is an absolute game changer. If you want to explain something it is so noticeable in the eyes of your conference participants how good they can hear you. And it makes a huge difference if you finally feel like what you are saying is not painful for others to endure.
Check out this very lovely video series on how to pimp up your conferencing setup. Especially this episode about mics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKOx4hZKmOs
Edit: And this is the mic I can recommend using on Linux:
https://www.amazon.com/Microphone-FIFINE-Computers-Podcastin...
Good content though, subscribed!
Also you don't have to put the mic so close to your face that it is visible in your video feed. It still has a much better quality and less noise than many other solutions like bluetooth headsets I tested before.
I have no affiliation with the company(s).
https://fifinemicrophone.com/collections/microphones/product...
I am also not afiliated in any way with Fifine but I was really impressed by the build quality of the mic.
I am also on Fedora and on the journey of improving audio I also have been playing around with Pulseeffects. Playing around with gate, compressor and limiter, etc. can certainly improve even more (and cut off some noise, etc.) but I am still figuring things out:
https://fedoramagazine.org/tune-up-your-sound-with-pulseeffe...
The kit also comes with a little tri-pod to mount the mic. So instead of having the mic hang in front of you face/camera, you can put it between your hands in front of you, the same way you can put a cup of coffee between your hands/arms while typing. Then just speak downwards toward the mic instead of stretching your neck towards the mic on the arm and looking like a podcaster/streamer.
You also don't really need the extra pop filter in the kit - the mic sock works fine enough on its own.
Then I'd recommend using a recording app (pulsecaster on fedora) and record yourself! Listen to what the mic does to your voice at different volumes (always leave the pulseaudio volume at 85%, use the knob on the mic).
If you want to loop you own voice back through your headphones (and typing noises), run the following command:
pacmd load-module module-loopback latency_msec=5
and to unload it: pacmd unload-module module-loopback
Sometimes I would just sit alone (not in a meeting), without any music and just listen to my typing while I code (looping the mic back into the headphones). Feels like you are sitting underneath the keys! It's soothing in a way.
On conference calls my headphones are usually plugged into the audio-out of the back of the mic so I can monitor my audio (and Linux can also output the system sound to that channel).
Pulsecaster is a very good tip, thanks!
Do you mean the lavalier mic from Aliexpress I mentioned? Well I first ordered one from Amazon and from knowing that and from looking at many other offers it is clear that these are pretty much all the same model. And so you pay for different marketing. When it comes to “not knowing how it’s made”: It is not even using a USB connection but rather plugs right into the microphone jack. So not sure how this could be used for surveillance. And regarding the human rights: Sure that is not ok. But most things are made in China and it is hard to escape. But if you find something good made “locally” (wherever that might be for you) then please share!
Some people just hate keeping the mic just in front of their faces, but it's often the only reasonable way to achieve tolerable signal-to-noise ratio (in noisy or/and reverberant environments).
You need to decide where are you going to use the mic, how are you going to place yourself and the mic in the room, how free in your movements do you need to be while recording, and then choose the type of the mic accordingly. After that, the budget is often the deciding factor so you can seriously narrow down the options.
Anyway, I also highly advice using separate vocal/podcasting microphone (the kind you buy at music stores) and the headphones of you choice over headsets or, god forbid, internal laptop mics.
Don't know how many times you can link you own article, but it's relevant to the topic and I think it covers most of the information one needs to understand the basic processes and techniques:
Refusing to wear headphones only spoils it for everybody else.
I don't know why this sometimes seems to be a big deal and sometimes isn't, but that does seem to be the case.
For regular in-room speakers, the amount of bleed depends on the relative placement of the speaker and microphone, the directionality of both, the volume of sound from the speaker and the sensitivity of the microphone. For most people on videoconferencing calls, the amount of bleed is going to be quite substantial.
The reason it's sometimes a big deal and sometimes not is because of echo cancellation software. But echo cancellation is a hard problem when you don't know the precise physical characteristics of the setup: the relative placement of the speakers and mic, the frequency response curves, and the amount of round trip latency. You have to attempt to detect what you think is an echo rather than a direct sound source, and then try to cancel it. That often fails.
But because it sometimes works, people who hate headphones take that as license to never wear headphones. And since it doesn't affect them, they often don't realize how much they are wrecking the experience for everyone else.
And on how much reverberation there is in the room. If there's a tile floor, a brick wall, and no furniture with upholstery, sound is going to find some path from the speakers to the microphone no matter the placement and directionality.
If you have carpet or a rug, maybe a couch or bed, etc., then some of the sound will get absorbed before it can get from speakers to microphone.
Sort of. Software can approximate good echo cancellation for most conversations just by bringing down the mic volume when someone else is talking. Most meetings aren't supposed to have people talking over each other the whole time. Add to that the fact that most laptops have decent echo cancellation now and you can frequently get away with it.
It's still something of a tragedy of the commons scenario though. If one person is creating an echo, then the speakers on the speaker's computer will play that echo while they are talking, which will get fed back it to the microphone, creating still more echo. That's when you really start to get major problems, but it's avoidable if no more than one person is using speakers.
We have a mix of the enterprise type Dell laptops and MacBooks. Both seem fine. Software is usually Teams.
I experience this problem all the time: Zoom, Whereby, Google Meet, Slack etc. If people are disciplined about muting their mic when they aren't speaking, that helps. But as soon as you have one participant listening in without headphones and an unmuted mic, if the echo cancellation doesn't work then whoever else is speaking will sound bad.
And I've never used Teams. Combination of Bluejeans, Google Meet, and Zoom mostly.
If I were this rogue speaker person ruining things for everyone else wearing headsets, I'd maybe accept that I was a general problem. But that's just not what I see.
- Multiple-speakers (like a call): The key here is to wear headphones. Otherwise you are subject to whatever noise-cancellation the platform offers, and any noise that other participants make will destroy your audio quality temporarily as it plays though your speaker and into your mic.
- Background noise or echo: In this case you want a directional mic. You want something that gets close to your face and cuts out the each or background noise.
If you don't have any of these problems (For example you are giving monologues in a quiet non-echoey room) than any decent mic will do the job. Many higher-end laptops even have sufficient mics on them (for example Macs will pick up everything in your house, but they will pick it up at fairly good quality)
You can always play with the angles to get the mic closer to you. Usually, it means miking from slightly below and shooting from a higher point.
It all depends on your particular situation so if you have further questions contact me or drop by #mixing:matrix.org
1) I bought a reasonably nice Logitech C920 Webcam. At the time, it was a $100 on AliExpress, which seemed like a crazy markup over the MSRP of $70. This turned out to be a great investment, given how much higher the prices went. Most people will probably still be working from home for at least 3-5 months, and you can buy one now for $70!
2) I bought a cheap USB condenser mic with a boom arm. This was a $70 package deal, and from a cheap Chinese brand Fifine, but the audio quality is truly amazing, and having the mic close to your mouth makes a huge difference. Probably my best investment. Seriously. Go buy a podcast mic and a boom arm. Now. If you want something more portable, the same company also makes very decent lavalier mics (lapel mics) for ~$20. Those are more omnidirectional, so they pick up more background noise than condenser mics, but they are imminently more portable.
3) I wired my bedroom with Ethernet. This was a bit of a hassle, since I had to run the cable down the side of the house and then underneath, and it also required crimping my own cables. However, it was totally worth it, since I knew connection issues were never my problem. I don't understand how other people suffer through constant drops over WiFi. I guess they're just accustomed to dealing with it, and don't think of switching to Ethernet as an option.
For anyone else reading: do it. Buy it. You'll sound more real on teleconference calls and.
As for (1), I'm not bothered about video too much so use 720p webcam.
Either way, thanks again!
Some people have basically created a tv studio at home with a nice set, good lighting, nice background, quality camera, and mic. Having a video call with these people is a nice and smooth.
And somehow we still have people that think sitting in a noisy, messy room with the sun at their back and using their laptop's built-in mic/speakers is fine. Calls with these people are torture!
I agree with the basic point that there is low-hanging fruit that many people can address for not much time and money.
It's a case of empathy. Do you have enough empathy to check how your video looks and do simple changes?
Nowadays I have to switch to Windows (dual boot) when I have an important presentation or call, which is really annoying. But I've literally had people spontaneously tell me my audio is crap (on Linux) or great (on Windows).
Though I went to the trouble recently to configure builtin pulseaudio noise cancellation and got quite good results as well.
I actually had the opposite situation with Ubuntu 20.04 on my desktop, got a lot less noise from my mic port under Ubuntu for some reason.
Oh. Just a driver issue on Linux. Well then, problem solved.
Solutions are calling your manufacturer and filing a support request, or voting with your wallet and picking another manufacturer next time.
I have been looking for one since ages.
I had a Matebook X Pro and it worked really well with Ubuntu but the battery life was terrible in Linux. Maybe it's something that's been fixed or can be tweaked.
For the record, I'm trying to use Google Meets and it seems to be the culprit in what is doing the "push it to 100%".
I've been using a Blue Yeti with Debian for several years now and have no problems at all with that. (It is annoying how often video conferencing problems are solved by reloading a web page or restarting the browser, though.)
On PopOs 20.10 I'm currently getting good audio from a ModMic USB. This[2] review is what made me buy the ModMic USB, although I know next to nothing about audio and audio quality.
The Audio Technica ATGM2[3] was also considered, but the mounting options for the ModMic USB as well as lower cost in my area won me over.
For me a headset mounted mic was a requirement due to space considerations and slightly lower cost, although next time I'm probably buying a very high quality free standing microphone.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1v1jtHz4C0 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qquo2GpSQo4 [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIeJMdv5jxs
I've not had any issues with external mics and usb interfaces. Onboard mics aren't really that good to begin with; you'll want to get some sort of external lavalier mic, or a condenser or cardioid dynamic. Onboard mics and other omnidirectional mics aren't great because they pick up sounds from all over. A cardioid polar pattern helps a lot with cutting down on sound.
It doesn't take a lot, but it will take a bit more cash outlay than improving your audio. You can get a cheap camera capture card for ~$15, a tripod for ~$50, a quality camera that supports running indefinitely on power with clean HDMI out (I use a Nikon Z5), and of course a compatible lens (I use a Nikon 50mm/f1.8 Z). The camera and lens you use will vary considerably in cost and quality, so you'll need to do some research to see if it will work for this. The result is amazingly clear video.
Any dating website will have this as basic advice. Thats evidence enough for me. Higher quality images are associate with better looking people -- however this is counter intutive, you would think that a lower quality image would leave more to the imagination.
Canon at least released a couple "Webcam Accessories Starter Kits" that include a little tripod and an AC adapter to work around the USB charging limitation. I'm surprised the manufacturers didn't jump in even more but perhaps they were hampered by the pandemic. There have been significant supply chain disruptions in photography/videography industries for the past year.
There are really only three things that matter for image in video calls: lighting, exposure, and background.
Lighting is by far #1. Then some kind of exposure adjustment to lock it in during your call at the brightest level that won't blow out any areas of your face.
As long as you've got those, there will then be zero difference between a cheap Logitech webcam and a fancy Nikon by the time the image has been downsampled and compressed.
(And make sure you've got the focus and white balance set correctly as well of course.)
That said, a webcam can only do so much even with proper lightning and a clean background. They're never going to be as sharp, or as bright, as a nice fast lens on a quality camera.
If you've got decent lighting, that's not true.
My Logitech C920 -- the most popular webcam of all time -- outputs a fully sharp 1080p. With normal front lighting, it handles 30 fps perfectly without visible noise, i.e. full brightness. There's zero quality difference versus using my DSLR. It's as sharp and as bright.
Now sure it can't do low-light conditions well or do 4K or depth of field or a fisheye lens or the other million things a DSLR can do... but for videoconferencing purposes it's literally indistinguishable in quality.
I'm sorry but you're just incorrect here. It might be minimal at Zoom resolution but it's absolutely there.
The sensor size, the resolution, the aperture, the optics -- they're all sufficient. There's nothing to improve upon that will yield a measureable difference. There's no distortion, no chromatic abberation, no noise with decent lighting, nothing.
Everything you're talking about matters if you're dealing with low light, or zooming in, or you want depth of field, or 60fps, etc etc etc.
But what precise detail do you claim is better at 1080p with the DSLR? Because from your list, it's not resolution. You don't want a larger aperture because you don't want depth of field on videoconferencing. And "quality optics" means nothing -- if there's already no distortion, no blurring and no aberration at 1080p, then there's no more quality to be found.
It's just the physics of photography and sensors. Photographic equipment is designed around thresholds of quality. If your equipment is already above the threshold you need, even better equipment makes zero difference.
Note that since they create a custom webcam device, these programs don't always work with native videoconferencing apps (check their websites for a list of supported apps). A common workaround is to use the platform's browser-based call interface, where the virtual webcam usually shows up without issues.
It covers everything from general tips to room layouts to hardware / software suggestions.
It really doesn't take a lot to get pretty decent sounding audio. At minimum a $50-70 USB dynamic mic and following the tips will work well enough as a baseline, along with picking up a decent pair of headphones to make sure you can hear yourself properly.
This is based on having recorded over 400+ screencast videos and 75+ group podcast episodes over the years.
I subsequently set up my DSLR as a webcam but, while it worked, it's more trouble than it's worth for most purposes. (I do use it for video sometimes but the webcam is just more foolproof for day-to-day conferencing use.)
... now that I'm typing it out I guess she might have meant that deciding to go for a more expensive camera was unnecessary.
My choice for audio is a Shure headworn XLR dynamic microphone. These are the type used by professional singers, public speakers, etc. Being headworn means that you don't have to worry about talking directly into the mic; you can move around a bit.
This type of mic also has great noise rejection. We use it for livestreaming from our workshop which is VERY noisy, with compressors, waterjet cutters, and other loud machines running. Voice audio is quite clear despite all this.
To complement this, I got a Shure XLR to USB adapter. It turns out that the DAC in my Thinkpad is TERRIBLE, so upgrading to a USB adapter was a no brainer.
For video, I got an Osbot Tiny, which was great for a while, but seems to be broken now.
In my bag, I keep a USB lavalier mic, which is smaller, but not quite as good quality.
This phenomenon does kind of seem obvious in retrospect. I was at a Socialhour[2] event recently where they had a few presentations happening simultaneously and you could bounce between them, or just move from table to table in a newnetworking lounge -- and thinking back, the presenters with the biggest audiences did sound like they had superior audio.
[1]: https://krisp.ai
I have had a sneaking suspicion I cannot shake since once about 5 years ago I was listening to an interview with a pop musician on my local NPR affiliate that I may have been wrongly biasing my sense that their guests were smarter as compared to talk show guests on more right leaning radio stations on the AM dial. Not even as a matter of their political beliefs; just when it's subject matter experts or non-political celebrities. They always sound more intellectually deep or thoughtful on NPR than on those AM stations. Wonder if it's this effect...
Ideally, that portable setup would have no boom arm, no pop screen, no huge microphone.
The best candidate I've found so far is the Audio Technica ATH-G1 Gaming headset (reviewed by the excellent Podcastage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMgyh7Ne5ng).
In my opinion, the sound quality isn't quite comparable to high quality condenser microphones like the Blue Yeti (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2BNAF3u5lc) or dynamic microphones like the Samson Q2U (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjCJbhjFYiA&t=6s), but it's 90% of the way there and significantly more portable.
This StackOverflow seems to agree — but it also offers suggestions to help find the actual culprit (a lot of third-party software seems to auto-level the mic volume), and also offers a further suggestion of configuring an Aggregate Audio Device (using the default Audio MIDI Setup app) which doesn't have a mic-level control that apps can mess with.
Perhaps one of the solutions discussed here might help you.
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/97810/mac-osx-micr...
In lack of better information (and even in presence of) our minds use a lot of shortcuts (biases) to guess some important information that you can't get directly. Almost all people will instinctively think about well groomed, well clothed people as more professional and trustworthy.
I think the same goes for how we present on a remote call and so I invested a little bit into making my audio/video setup and a more professionally looking office/background. Pretty sure it will pay for itself over time.
The best thing we can do when communicating is make it easy -- in both message and medium (with apologies to McLuhan) -- for the folks we want to consume it to consume it.
I have seen those.
https://linuxunplugged.com/401
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/releases/... ("Make it possible to use an A2DP source as an input device. You can then use your phone as an A2DP microphone, for example.")
https://wolicheng.com/womic/wo_mic_linux.html
although it is proprietary.
Like what other people have said, if you're having issues, get a decent wired microphone (with a cardioid pattern if available), and possibly some good noise cancelling software like Krisp, nvidia RTX, etc.
And totally optional, but VoiceMeeter on Windows can be a kind of equalizer for an input which can give a bit more clarity and bass if desired.
Namely, it can be expected that no man would find a speaker dumber with superior audio, so let us assume that only 1% of the sample found the speaker more intelligent with superior audio, and for 99% it makes no difference, then the “average result” is still that “people” as a collective average find a speaker with better audio more intelligent, even though 99% of people don't.
This is my problem with such research. — I am far more interested in the percentage of “people” onto whom this has an effect or how large the effect is in distribution. It goes without saying that this effect exists with some “people”, but I would like to know what percentage.
It's entirely possible that the effect only exists with 20% of “people” and 80% are not biased, but the research is incapable of showing this.
Such research, which does not, and cannot due to it's methodology make any claim as to the percentage of “people” it applies is often taken to apply to all “people”.
But I'm sure the simplest thing you can do before getting better equipment, soundproofing, acoustics and hiring a sound engineer is simply to get louder. Just up the volume, and if you are feeling fancy, use a compressor. It is well known that louder sounds higher quality, and for ABX tests, great care is taken so that the levels are equal since the bias appears even when the difference is minor. Extreme compression is also the secret behind the booming voice of radio presenter, and that effect also started what is known as the loudness war.
https://dockyard.com/blog/2021/02/08/improve-your-audio-to-b...
Although I do suggest the Shure MV7 mic, which I use, there are example of really cheap ways to immediately improve how you sound over conference calls.
Another tip I talk about us using RNNoise, which does an excellent job at cutting out background noise while preserving your voice. It's built in to OBS if you ever want to try it.
I think one of the main issues here is it's hard for people to realize what they sound like on the other end. I've been playing a lot of online trivia tournaments in the past year. During these tournaments, people read questions aloud. It's really important to be able to hear all words clearly. It's astounding how many people think that they're coming through clearly when using a microphone built into the laptop--even after repeated messaging before the tournament that this audio quality sucks.
[0]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZPBFVKK (not an affiliate link, either. I just love this mic)
I wasn't able to find an open access copy of the study, though I suppose there's always sci-hub.
1: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1075547018759345
So, reading the paper proper, I was wrong about it being the authors' talks. They picked existing engineering talks and interviews. It'd be nice to be able to actually see the clips to get a sense of how much they changed the quality. They say they put the clips on youtube for the test but don't take the opportunity to link the clips.
In the Science Friday graph all the error bars overlap so meh. For the combined technical talks the error bars don't overlap and they're all in the same direction, which is way more encouraging, though I really wish they'd tried it with a pool of more talks to remove that systemic effect. I also worry about the fact that random mechanical turks may differ from the usual audience for a technical talk in important ways (e.g. not knowing the subject and so having nothing to go on besides audio quality). They say in a note at the end of the paper that they tried filtering by correctly answering a question at the end, and that the effect was still there, but they don't show the data for it or say if it affected the strength.
Overall I feel it's a reasonable methodology and certainly suggestive results, if a bit lacking in the exact methodological details and the number of talks they tried it on. And it's not like I have a prior that audio quality doesn't matter...
These days I don't believe these sorts of psychology effects until I see a Registered Report, but this also isn't the hot steaming garbage you'd expect from the OP summary. It's more or less what you'd expect from a small but not super-small sample investigating a moderate real effect across the board which does seem pretty plausible a priori.
I always give people the following advice: If you can hear it, the microphone can hear it. This includes HVAC noise that is ridiculously hard to get rid of in most office and home locations.
If at home, you can always temporarily turn off the HVAC while you record yourself. In fact, I've recorded at a commercial studio where, after getting everything set up and checked out, the final step is they turn off the HVAC.
Not great advice if there is a chance they want you to hear it.
As an aside, I can't tell you how many times I've played in venues with mics scattered around and the sound guy will leave them on between sets.
Every...single...thing you say if you wander around the stage (or slightly off-) will get booted out to the audience. Hilarity ensues.
It removes the background from the webcam and all background noises, including other humans, from the audio. It's impressive how good it works. Not perfect. But impressive.
It's made quite a difference and importantly it makes you feel better to use.
I've been convincing my friends to pick up dynamic mics to lower their surrounding noise and sound clearer.
There's an Audio Technica that's usb/xlr. So you can start with usb and upgrade to xlr when you get a preamp.
And not always in sense of "better quality" -> "smarter".
For example, we're so used to cheap TV content, that when a movie is played at higher TV framerate, it looks "cheap" to us.
I've heard a few attempts to explain this as "in higher framerate you can see the sets are fake", but that makes no sense, especially if the set is not moving.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_JHzRsFnIA/?igshid=12n08cbb2bqo...
The audio from the built-in mic is very good. Zero background noise.
I suspect a really good condenser mic, with a filter, would be better, but these headphones work great.
I have noticed that people that use earbuds (in particular, Apple AirPods Pro), seem to also supply a lot of background noise. That does not happen with my headset.
WHY?
Bluetooth was designed for embedded devices that need to conserve power.
That said, I know that there's active work going on, to improve this exact thing.
Might be a while before we see video over BT, though.
In which case would that be useful?
There seems to be a range of broadcasting features, but if I'm not mistaken they mostly use WiFi.
Apple has a system that basically combines all of the available connection options, so it can appear as if BT is being used, but it’s really WiFi. Not sure if this type of “zero config” stuff is available in non-proprietary form, though.
- aggressive noise reduction can add unpleasant distortion
- depending what you use them with, you get a low bitrate bi-directional codec that does not sound great.
- any bluetooth interference leads to dropped frames and choppy sound.
- There's a bit of extra latency. I've had issues with bluetooth sound visibly getting out of sync with video I was watching. I expect this could also happen for the microphone.
The worst is people who are not aware they sound bad that ought to know better. I've had more than a few calls with people who basically talk a lot on audio/video calls professionally (e.g. recruiters, sales people, etc.) with apparently really shitty headsets. A lot of those people were using some bluetooth headset that combined with a lousy network (or saturated upload in the case of DSL), makes for a really lousy sound quality. Talking extra loud does not really help.
I just picked up a pair of Shure Aonic 50 headphones. I asked a few people in calls if it was an improvement over my built in imacs microphone. Answer: nope. It wasn't horrible but not exactly an upgrade. I also was not enjoying the low bit rate with the bi-directional codec that makes people sound like they are on a bad phone line. So, I switched to using the headphones for output only. The imac microphone is fine. I just need to make sure to be near it when talking.
If I bought these for calls I'd be annoyed of course. But I bought them for their sound quality and ability to filter out my obnoxious neighbor. Neighbor cancelling headphones are great for my stress levels.
So far, it hasn't been an issue, but I don't do podcasts; just the occasional class. Most of the folks that I know, who do podcasts, use wired mics with filters.
I can't tell that much of a difference between it and a blue yeti. The yeti, is definitely cheaper.
The earbuds are hardly noticeable, and the shotgun microphone can be kept off camera with outstanding audio and no concern of feedback.
In all seriousness I had it, the sound is good but had the physical usability issues. Had two, the USB port seemed to die after ~1-2 years of active use but that's the lifespan of these devices anyway.
First experiment (science conference talks from YouTube): "We selected two conference talks (in physics and engineering) from YouTube and altered their acoustic features using iMovie software. The good audio quality version of each talk was created with an audio filter called “small room,” which reduces the echo and increases the clarity of the speaker; the poor audio quality version was created with an audio filter called “Large Room,” which does the opposite, increasing the echo and decreasing the clarity of the speaker."
The second experiment (NPR interviews) was again using iMovie and they describe it like this: "The good audio quality version of each talk was created with no audio filters so that participants heard the interview as it was originally recorded. The poor audio quality version was created with audio filters that made it sound as if the researcher had called in on a bad phone line."
Of course that still means bad audio may influence the effect of your presentation, but not in the way suggested in the linked article.
That's what bad audio does. Echo is one part of that, but audio that cuts out or has crackles has a similar effect.
I disagree that the approaches are invalid. Bad audio is bad audio, and it shows that people's perceptions do change when audio is good and clear.
https://www.amazon.com/Microphone-FIFINE-Computers-Podcastin...
https://fifinemicrophone.com/collections/microphones/product...
In Logic add an equaliser to counteract microphone and room deficiencies. Then finish off with a compressor to add extra “warmth”
Once done, output logic audio to a virtual sound card (eg sound flower) and use that as an input for your audio conferencing.
Great audio, for not too much money.
I experimented using a second sound card and routing the out of my main to that - but I had ground loops.
I wanted this for TTRPG streaming so I could treat my voice to fit with the character better.
https://vb-audio.com/Cable/ might interest you.
Unless you tried one of their more advanced offerings, like Voicemeeter - which also looks pretty intuitive judging from the screenshots. (Never tried it, on Linux I get this capability via JACK.)
Historically, audio routing is something you do within a DAW, between tracks and plugins and the like - and routing sound between separate apps is a niche OS feature based on hacks and workarounds (like VAC) instead of the OS providing primitives that map to the concept model. In an outboard setup you could at least trace the cables to see what's connected to what... and that's what audio routing on any OS lacks (JACK patchbays notwithstanding, since JACK is a pain to run alongside normal PulseAudio).
If I remember correctly, it was non-obvious how to set up monitoring with Live and VAC, so I ended up using ASIO4ALL which can bridge multiple soundcards - but prevents other programs besides your DAW from using them. You're right, audio routing on Windows is a bit of a mess, MacOS is plug and play with strings attached, and on Linux there's JACK which has potential for greatness but is somewhat underdeveloped. Same as any desktop feature on these OSes :)
Logic Pro is overkill.
Apple already offers a live virtual instrument and audio processing rig called Main Stage.
It’s $40 rather than $300.
https://www.apple.com/ca/mainstage/
But I think even that is overkill for your average office worker.
Microphones are already tuned, so you’re getting expert input to the sound at that end already. That alone would be in another league to a laptop in a noisy room.
If you don't mind that I self post to a youtube video, but this segment shows how the pattern and placement of the mic can reduce pc fan and keyboard noise.
You can also run the mic through a signal chain and use a noise gate. So audio only gets sent when it reaches a certain threshold. On linux you can do this with pulseeffects if you're using pulseaudio.
The other hack is just mute yourself. I use a shortcut to do that when I'm typing and not actually talking.
Secondly, hearing typing when someone types is ok, so please don't treat it as a problem in itself. Obnoxious noise level is a problem, which can be solved by increasing SNR: bringing the mic closer to the sound source, swapping a mic for another transducer type or another polar pattern, putting some kind of dampening on the line of sight between the mic and the noise source.
I've written a guide for voice recording which covers most of the basics. Hope you'll find it helpful: https://indiscipline.github.io/post/voice-sound-reference/
One thing I need to get around to doing is to configure somewhat to let me mute with a keyboard shortcut when Zoom/Teams/etc. is not the active window. Why there isn't a built-in universal shortcut is very confusing to me.
The great thing about the setup, aside from the microphone being solid, is that it gives you an upgrade path but works right out of the box fully (mic, stand, pop-filter, USB or XLR).
Phase 1: Plug it in via USB, use the included stand. GO!
Phase 2: Upgrade the stand to a desk-isolating one (e.g. arm/freestanding, etc).
Phase 3: Upgrade to XLR instead of USB (e.g. buy an audio interface/mixer).
Phase 4: Upgrade the microphone at some point.
You can literally buy it and stop at Phase 1 forever, but if you wish you can use it as a jumping off point to a higher end setup and won't have to buy it all at once (easily $300 or more total, for arm/audio interface/pro grade microphone).
Despite it not being a Shure itself, it seems like the clones are fine up to high frequency singing.
https://www.amazon.com/GLS-Audio-Vocal-Microphone-ES-58-S/dp...
For conferencing, it's much more convenient to just use a USB mic. I can recommend the RØDE NT-USB for this purpose - all it needs is an available USB-A port.
Just a simple plug and play will do, I actually just searched hard and finally ordered the Rode NT-USB. thank you.
If anything, we should be actively fighting this trend and instead focus on training ourselves to listen carefully rather than relying on 'good audio' to hear a message.
Possibly your question/comment would resonate more with people if you compared the spend on a microphone with the spend on a suit, or a pair of shoes. It's easy to see the value of quality there, for appearance, comfort and health.
In the case of a microphone, the purpose is to communicate your thoughts, and to make a good impression, so the investment keeps working and giving you a return on investment for longer than the first few moments. And a good mic will last longer than an article of clothing.
A good mic is a great investment.
With investments, people do get unnerved when there are big drops, but you (should) diversify, accept that you win some and lose some, but hopefully come out with decent gains over the long term. If you have a heart attack every time the market drops a few percent you're going to make yourself crazy.
That said, I think everyone pinches pennies on some things and thinks nothing of spending money on other things in ways that often aren't rational.
> which sometimes drops 30% or more, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars or more of losses.
1) This is entirely ignoring the fact that the stock market goes up more often than it goes down. Similarly, tech almost only decreases in value. A $100 webcam might be a nice upgrade, but it will never transform into a $200 webcam.
2) A dip in stock price isn't the same as actually losing money. If you're gambling your money on meme stocks, sure, unsafe bets exist. But otherwise, a 30% dip one day is meaningless without context. The S&P500 dipped 30% over the last week of March 2020. If you put in money in February 2020, watched it crash, held through to today, you would still be up 25% from your initial investment.
I'm more baffled by my/our inability to correctly assess our bad habits. A $100 item costs the same as, say, two $50 dinners - and unlike those, the item will stay with me for months or years. Still, I'd find it pretty easy to pay for two dinners in a week, but I'd agonize on pulling the trigger for a single purchase of goods.
placed first: "$X makes you sound smarter"
closes tab