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Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

Any tips for good mics? Any good options that are not immediately in front of your face?

I have a Blue Yeti, an AudioTechnica BPHS1 (headset), a Fifine 688 (cheap Shure SM7B competition), and a Behringer C2 (pencil mic). I have also used "professional equipment" sent from studios for me to record with.

The professional equipment sounds the best, but the audio device alone (sans mic) was $1200.

These days, I use the pencil mic with a Scarlett device. It sounds good enough for my recording needs (I post-process everything regardless). It is out of camera, and pencil mics (or shotgun) are what pros use in camera studios.

If you don't mind having a big mic on camera, the Fifine is a lot of bang for the buck. If you are a brand person, go for the Shure.

A headset is great for minimizing sound when talking with others (say for a podcast interview), but I have yet to find one that is comfortable for using all day (I'm often teaching day-long courses).

I don't think anyone is going to blow 1 month of their salary to sound better on zoom.

You can get a decent 2-in 2-out audio interface for 100€ or less. I can recommend Behringer's UMC series: https://www.thomann.de/at/behringer_u_phoria_umc204hd.htm

I have the Scarlett audio version. It works fine. However, I played around swapping my mics with the $1200 Sound Devices Pre2, and it just sounds amazing. I'm not sure what is going on inside that box. I haven't been able to justify that purchase.

I actually bought a sound card, different model. But to do recording. I don't bother to plug it for zoom calls :D

Are you referring to the $1200 audio device? Yes, that is expensive. It is meant for professional recording.

The average software salary in the US is about $10k a month. Few spend that much on audio equipment.

Why do you presume that software developers are the only ones doing zoom calls?

You’re on a software developer forum

An international forum, there's more countries than USA.

nobody suggested anything otherwise

also original post only actually recommends $100 - $200 mics, so this entire subthread has been a bumbling series of utter nonsense

I use a BPHS1, in my case I found that replacing the ear pads with 3rd party gel pads greatly improved the comfort for long meetings.

I replaced my pads with microfiber ones. The pads don't cause me pain, the top of my head hurts after 4 hours or more.

I bought a Yeti Blue a while back, and several people commented positively on its sound quality. I'm pleased with it, especially given its decent price: it's not a bank-breaker for being such a huge upgrade over the built-in laptop mic.

As a bonus, it has a hardware mute button on it. Now I usually leave my Zoom unmuted, and use the button to toggle whether my coworkers can hear me. It's more convenient than clicking the Zoom button or finding the keyboard shortcut.

Basically any mic that's widely recommended for entry-level YouTubers (outside search engine spam, those don't count as real recommendations) will be a giant step up from laptop or headphone mics, enough that most people who just want to sound good on video conferencing probably don't need to spend more. The Blue Yeti is exactly that kind of mic, to the point that it's kind of a cliché.

Shotgun mics popular among low-budget filmmakers (think: people who shoot local commercials, little indie films and shorts, and, when desperate for cash, weddings) would also be a good and fairly cheap way to go, though they may require other hardware to function.

Do those do noise canceling?

Shotgun mics? They're very good at cancelling off-axis noise (that is, anything that's not in a fairly narrow cone the direction they're aimed) but AFAIK it's really challenging to have hardware cancelling of distant noises in the direction of capture, while also capturing a narrow cone like that. So, do they do noise cancelling? Yes, very much so, it's kinda their whole point, but also no, depending on what you mean.

Oh i meant more the noise canceling you need in a call... cat meow, ambulance siren coming from the open window, the sound of you pouring yourself more coffee etc.

I have one of these, but honestly, I find it hard to convince myself it's better than the built-in mic in my MBP. I've gone back-and-forth in the Zoom audio settings between my Yeti and the MBP mic, tweaking the knob on the Yeti to every setting, and I still prefer the laptop.

The main issue with the Yeti Blue is that it's 15 years old: although microphone tech doesn't evolve as much over the years, it's still behind a bit (e.g. it does 48 kHz/16-bit audio while modern USB mics do 96 kHz/24-bit). It also uses a USB-mini connector which is very annoying.

There are a few modern improvements on it, such as the Yeti X.

hehe, I just posted a sibling comment about the same mic. I've been using it for 5+ years, and I don't think like I'm missing anything. I suppose I need to make sure to keep myself uninformed on the subject so I don't get an upgrade :)

The USB connector is not an issue for me, because the mic is connected to a docking station/computer display.

The sound quality hasn't been an issue yet, and I've used it to record some game assets, etc...

Have you used Yeti X? If so, how does it compare to Blue in practice?

And boy does that mini-uab connector suck. The cable falls out all the time.

The Blue Yeti is a condenser mic, so it picks up a lot of background noise.

Going the dynamic mic route can end up costing a bit more, but worth it in my opinion. Unless you have a very quiet environment and don’t need to type on a keyboard or click a mouse while on calls.

That hasn't been my experience at all, especially when set for cardioid. I use to ask diligently about whether my coworkers could hear me type, or my kids yelling from another room, etc., and they couldn't. It does a surprisingly good job of not picking up the trucks leaving from fire department literally across the street from my house.

I have a feeling this is likely due to noise suppression in the video call platform.

Possibly Jitsi doesn’t do it as well as Zoom or Google Meet, so my experience on Jitsi was a night and day improvement switching from Blue Yeti (cardioid mode) to a dynamic mic.

Fair enough. Zoom seems to be alright at that.

Had a yeti nano, pretty good. Still the condenser mics are too sensitive at times.

IK Multimedia iRig Stream Mic USB, it sounds great, has a built in audio interface, pop filter, direct monitoring, mixing, light up mute button, and all for under $100.

Def use the mic with a pair of wired headphones/earbuds to use the live/direct monitoring feature.

My team used to have a lot of issues with people mics being too loud or too quiet without realizing. Getting everyone on that mic and specifically using direct monitoring has solved that issue.

Pencil mic/ shotgun mic is what you want. Rode Videomic is the most accessible one you will find. They are highly directional (hypercardioid). The reason you sound tinny from your laptop is because a) they are not very directional (beamforming helps but it's not enough) and b) the lack of directionality is made up for by too much autogain thus picking up the room.

The "podcaster mics" will work too but they are designed to be pulled up to your face. If you don't want the mic in camera then you will not get great results with them.

I’m a fan of Saramonic’s MV2000 (https://saramonicusa.com/sr-mv2000-large-diaphragm-usb-studi...) is an affordable, good quality cardiod mic.

Frequently available for $50 and supports live headphone pass through if that’s your jam.

I've been finding the pickup on my bluetooth bone-conduction headphones to be surprisingly good enough. I tried it as I found them convenient & comfortable for calls on my phone. People don't notice the difference when I'm using them rather than the company-provided wired over-ear headset.

Though that might say as much for the company provided mic as it does for the BC ones!

I use the Elgato Wave:3, which is more table-level: https://www.elgato.com/us/en/p/wave-3-black

The software is also surprisingly useful, and includes a mixer and real-time-audio effects which are expensive to do outside of the software on macOS.

I use an Elgato Wave XLR $200 so that I can upgrade my microphone separately; I'm not a fan of hybrid/integrated devices. I use it with an Audio-Technica AT2035 $200 and a Elgato Low-Profile Microphone Arm $100.

The one built into a Logitech C922 camera. Works best when there is some sound-absorbing material in the room, such as carpet on the floor, tapestry on the wall, sofa somewhere, and so on.

I've been using this one for the past +5 years, and I'm quite happy with it:

https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/products/streaming-gear/yeti...

It works better if you're really close, but .5-1m away still sounds fantastic (I work from a 3x4m sized room, with some outside noise).

Cons: it's quite big

Try a Sennheiser, maybe like a mke-600. Once you see how you can laser focus on your voice, hard to go back.

I work in high end professional audio services for conferences, events, etc in Silicon Valley. The Ferrari of headset microphones in the industry is currently the DPA 6066 - the vocal nuances, timbre, and precision of the 6066 is that of a finely tuned instrument. Note that this is a mic only, you'll need something over or in ear to monitor audio from Zoom, Webex, etc.

Agree that the best mics for speech are headsets that tightly control the position of the mic.

What is the Honda Civic? Relatively cheap, reliable, good enough for daily use for the overwhelming majority of people?

Not that I am qualified beyond the reviews I found, but I picked up a Shure 58 for $100. Supposedly used by many musicians and can be dropped/abused without issue.

Shure BRH440 ($400) or Countryman H6 if you want the low-profile style ($500)

See my response to parent comment.

Samson Q2U

> DPA 6066

These are about $1,000 and look (though looks may be deceiving) shockingly easy to accidentally destroy, to save anyone wondering a Google.

You'll want some kind of shotgun mic. The rode videomic2 is a good budget option. It has a standard 3/8" thread you can use with a desk boom.

Sennheiser MKE-600 is next up for me. have a graveyard of other mics that don't sound as well for my voice.

Listen to a bunch of the shotgun mics on youtube and see which your voice might sound the best with.

I've been using one for a few years now and am really happy with it.

Every now and then (once every 1-2 weeks) it drops off of the list of inputs on OSX but unplug and plug it back in usually fixes that.

Can't edit my original message, but I just wanted to say: thanks for all the suggestions! I'll research all of them.

The further away the microphone, the better acoustics and less ambient noise you'll need.

see my thread here. the last posts from me are what I've been using.

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