Can you have good sound quality coming from a budget mic ? I am relatively new to all this and I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the info scattered around, especially since there's sometimes contradictory advices. Without getting into details, I am on a small budget and I have to make a choice between a good mixer or a good mic (I will upgrade in a few months).
I have seen several people recommend a 30$ mic (Neewer NW-700) and people are either saying that it is good enough to start out and others that's it's pretty terrible even for that price. The mixer would be in the 200-300$ range. I guess my question would be, what's more important ? A good mic or whatever comes after ?
And also, another dumb question but is a dedicated preamp external to the mixer a noticeable plus or is it overkill ?
Can you have good sound quality coming from a budget mic...
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yes
no
maybe
some rabbis say yes, some rabbis say no
Yes.
You don't need a mixer to begin with, an audio interface is fine.
You could get a decent sounding setup with about $50.
>sound, coming from a mic
Thanks for the answers.
Should I cheap out on the mic or the interface ?
Both.
Just research what type of mic you want first; condenser or dynamic.
Not the guy, but don't cheap out on the interface my dude.
If you are using it for voice in a noisy environment go for a dynamic mic. Samson Q2U or ATR2100 are common recommendations.
In Europe their price is too high, I got a Samson on Ali express.
Those allow to use usb till you need more quality and buy an interface.
its great even amazing with a little mod + a cheep audio interface is fine stight into the PC is not that great.
Get the AliExpress (BM800 or something) + a 30€ Behringer USB audio interface (U phoria or so)
I have this cheap ass setup for 3 years now and it's been amazing. For under 60€ I can both chat online with great quality and even record some music pretty decently
Unless you're a professional sound engineer or an audiophile faggot there is litteraly no reason to invest more money. Nothing under 300€ will give you better quality than the chink mic + cheap audio interface
I had this exact setup (Excelvan BM800 and Behringer UM2) and it sounded pretty good for a bunch of Chinese shitter components. Just remember that you get what you pay for and you could very well get a dud. The Neewer NW700 is venerated as a good budget microphone, but I had one come in with a crooked grill and it sounded like dogshit. BM800 is a bit pricier but it's the same cookie-cutter Chinese mic design, so buyer beware.
I currently use an MXL770, which is nice and warm-sounding while being a cool 70 bucks.
Get an Audient iD4. Great preamps for a really nice price. You'll love this forever even if you decide to go with something even better in the future.
Now that you've invested in XLR, consider getting yourself a dynamic mic to start with. They're cheap, but will usually sound very good (shure should be a safe bet). For a condenser mic you will probably want to spend a bit to get something good, so maybe wait with investing in one, at least to start with (depends on your budget really, and what sort of sound you're going for/use case). Only disadvantage with dynamic mics is the cardioid pattern and the need to have it close to your face, but that also means you're very likely only getting your voice and not a bunch of other shit.
My 2 cents.
Actually, you can probably just go for the MXL770 like this user said Had my eye on it myself at some point. Think I found something slightly better, but I can't remember anything about it sadly.
Maybe it was the MXL990...
Thanks a lot for the answers. My setup is currently in the living room close to a wall, my place is very quiet however the room is not treated (yet). I have a roughly ~5 meter space behind me and the walls are all partitions in that room.
In non-treated rooms of this size, is a condenser mic a wise choice or is dynamic mic better ?
I'm in no way an expert but I bought a neewer nw-800 + arm + pop filters and such for 25€ (just the mic is 12-16€ in europe, i bought the cheapest between nw700 and nw800).
Since I only bought it tu use as a decent communication mic, I'm very satisfied with it as it picks up almost no sound other than my voice and everything is clear.
If you're worried about the grill being bent like that other user, see if it's cheap on amazon because they'll definitely exchange it if it's bent
Check out Podcastage on YouTube. Be warned though: it's a rabbit hole.
youtube.com
Watch this video.
The guy speaks german, but sound sound examples on the combinations, where you can hear it and he also blends in what microphone is heard.
Best combo is audio mixer with some decent microphone like the neweer or alike.
i forgot:
The pop filters crom china are mostly pretty hsit, buy a brand named one and add it to the china microphone.
Depends, what are you recording? Just voices or instruments too?
Meant for
wth wouldn't you just buy a blue yeti and be done with it?
Voice only (mostly talking, sometimes singing).
Condenser mics are very sensitive, so any echos will be picked up, you'd want to have the mic very close to your mouth so that you don't have to have the gain very high in order to reduce amount of ambient you'll pick up.
Dynamics will pick up less ambient and are more directional. You can have it further away from your face and use a higher gain without picking up so much ambient noise.
Depends on how you use it and what you use it for.
Because Blue mics are a joke compared to a discrete interface/mic setup. Not to mention upgrading is impossible without replacing the whole thing.
XLR microphones will be better than USB microphones but require an external power supply to make them work. Both record pretty good in my opinion but XLR microphones are just a bit clearer.
I have an AT2035 microphone and a Focusrite solo as an amp.
If you record try exporting in .wav for the highest possible quality.
Here is my workflow for recording in audacity and mixing audio when I record in OBS.
1. Noise removal
1.1 make profile (keep a 5 second section in the beginning where you aren't talking, this will record the ambient sound of your room allowing audacity to remove it, select this and then go to effects > noise removal > make profile).
1.2 select the entire track, open noise removal again and press ok instead of make profile to remove the ambient sounds (fans and other stuff) from your voice recording.
2. Compressor (-15 to -18)
3. Equalizer (Curve to Bass Boost)
4. Repeat Step 3 with Treble Boost
6. Boost microphone +3 (I have a very quiet voice so you might not need this if your voice is loud or you aren't mixing it with other audio. I reduce my game audio to -10 db so my voice will always be audible)
7. Normalize (makes quiet sections louder and loud sections a little quieter so they're all the same volume)
8. Export in a lossless format like wav of flac for maximum quality (keep in mind these files can be pretty big, especially with wav files).
youtu.be
I bought the 25 buck mic and a behringer xenyx 802usb mixer, sounds fine.
That's pretty good, there's a pack with the mic, a stand + pop filter and a power supply for under 80 bucks which is great value for an xlr mic setup.
amazon.com
That's a shitty way to connect it up though.
A cheap audio interface is a better solution than the phantom power they supply in that set.