Microphone review thread

[soundcage]

I'm not exactly what you would call a wealthy person, so I use an Altec Lansing PC mic. Not perfect, but I'm adaptable. It's a good mic for recording for the sake of getting used to the craft, I guess. One day I hope to purchase something with a little more to offer.

[Jason Axelrod]

A few months ago I upgraded from a 20 dollar broken-in-half headset (the model escapes me) to a Shure SM86. At the moment I still don't know what the hell I'm really doing with my mixer exactly, and so I'm sure I don't have it where it would be perfect... but as I have it now, the pick up is great for moderate-volume recording. Cancels out most background sounds and picks up little noise most of the time. However, when I lower the gain to record screams, sometimes the recordings aren't as sharp and seem quite flattened out. Despite that downside to low-volume recording however, I have found this microphone also works well for foley work. I've recorded a bunch of great and useful sound effects while I've had it, and they sound great in quality.

Although I very much enjoy it, I still feel like the quality, even though it's great, doesn't have that vocal feel to it. Hard to explain really.

Great idea by the way. I'm looking into getting a new mic soon and this'll definitely help me with my search.

[SeiyruRenaih]

Thought I should review mine as well. This is going to be two mic reviews in one, but first, a backstory!

When I first started VAing last year, I used a Logitech headset microphone that came with the PS2 game SOCOM: US Navy Seals. That offered hooooooooooorrible quality, but was decent at picking up a voice, because all it really was supposed to be was a way for other gamers to hear you, not AVAing. It really wasn't even worth the review.

Anyway, after that headset broke due to flimsy design, I got a NEW headset. The Altec Lansing AHS202i:
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REVIEW FOR ALTEC LANSING AHS202i:



This headset, overall, was probably one of my best buys (of a headset mic). It cancels out a lot of noise, and it's a very good microphone overall. The only problem lies with the fact that it is indeed, a headset. Therefore you're most likely to experience numerous amounts of pops and smacks when you're recording your lines. If you like to move around when you're acting (I know I do a lot of movement with the emotion of my line) this wouldn't be the best choice. Also, with a headset, don't expect yelling to be easy. >.< With this, I had to place the headset on the keyboard and scoot my chair back, just so the audio levels wouldn't peak when I yelled, and it always sounded distant. But, for normal voice speaking, it was decent. 'Tis good for the first time VA'ers, and only costs around $20, but in my opinion you would probably do better with a Logitech USB desktop microphone. Overall, I'd give this a 6/10.

About 3-4 months after I bought the AHS, it started functioning weird: speakers were dying, the voice recordings got more staticy, and worst of all, it started only picking up the high frequencies in my voice, which caused ALL my lines to sound like I had a cold. Therefore, something had to be done. Something cheap, yet professional, and I hit Ebay. I started looking for a Shure SM58, since I heard from a few VA's that it was reeeeeeeaaaaallly good at recording and such. Well, a search for a cheap SM58 failed...but I soon hit the motherload and found something that just as good the Shure that cost me about as much as the headsets did!
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REVIEW FOR AUDIO TECHNICA LIMITED EDITION ST95 MKII :



I've had this mic for only a little while now, and it's be GREAT. The recordings don't pick up a lot of background noise, but it picks up my voice crystal clear. Noise reduction is also makes no impact on the quality of lines since it's picks up little noise in the first place. Alas, without a pop filter, talking directly into it does produce puffs and pops. But if you go the pro way and either talk to the side of it, above, below, left or right of it, you don't need to worry about anything. I bought the pop filter just in case though. ST95 can withstand a little yelling, but if you're going Supah Saiyan, all you need to do is scoot away from the mic a little bit, and it'll pick it up great without peaking. It's not meant to go straight into a computer though, so you'll have to spend about maybe 20 dollars on the neccessary wiring for it up (I bought it from Ebay, so it had nothing but the mic, no wires.) Personally, this really jumped the quality of both my lines and my performance, because it got me feeling like I was really professional. Overall, I'd give this mic a 9.5/10. If only they could make an affordable one that could withstand my screaming. XD

Anyway, that's all I have!

[Fate Avenue]

Mind if I know what the usual price range is for gewd mics? I'm using a BAD mic. XD

[Seishiro17]

thats completly up to debate, and the use.

for a cheap milti purpose mic to use for just about anything, the logictech usb is very nice for the job.

for a nice vaing mic you'd need to spend anywhere from 100-300 american usually. though if certian conditions are met you could setup a 20$ karoke mic in a professional studio no problem.

usually when looking at buying a mic you should think about several aspects and properties of the mic.

for something simplistic, compatible, with a small amount of cabling you will prefer something like the co1u or again the logictect usb. both of which through the power of usb, are compatible with almost any kind of computer.

for something more professional sounding you would more than likely need a preamp with phantom power to give the mic energy to operate. and usually for voice acting you would prefer an uni or omni directional mic depending on your situation. if you are in a soundproof or quiet space an omni directional mic will capture more of the sound in generall. and if in a room with people, or some sort of noisy-equipment a uni-directional mic will capture in one direction so it can recive your voice better than the background noise. even though they operate on different principles that dosn't mean that quality-wise one is better than the other, like I said it all depends on your situation.

taking all this into account you later have to ask yourself how much money you want to dump into this little hobby, you can find something cheap with good quality like the logictech usb for about 30 american. and something slightly more professional like the shure ksm 27 for...slightly more.

now onto acsessories.

usually for most mics, you'd need a stand, wether it be a pull-up, or a boom both of which can range anywhere from 20-60$

along with a decent stand, a isolation mount is a nice addition,as it helps stabalize the sound.

along with all of these an almost essential part is the popscreen, which being so essential has been givin a tutorial of its own, just give it a look. it can improve your quality without you having to replace your mic.

if you really want a viable suggestion it would be best to post your situation. otherwise this tried and true info is the best I can come up with.

[Fate Avenue]

Haha, thanks for the much needed info. ^^ I've just lately discovered that my auddies have had so much "alien sounds" from my cheap chatting mic. XD

[Fate Avenue]

*pops in*

I'm buying a microphone this weekend, but, looking at my options, I guess I might be buying something like Azure's. It's one of the few available here at my area. and at least now I know that it's pretty good.

My other option is to order online, but before I do anything, I'd just like to ask one question; when I searched for expensive, professional microphones, it seems that the mic sensitivity seemed to get higher and higher, like how a cheap mic has -53db and how an expensive one is -46db. This is just a conclusion I drew up out of the blue, but I need to know if it's true: Is higher sensitivity better?

[Lone Peanut]

Hi All, I would always recommend shopping round and looking for a mini mixer for first timers, something like the behringer ub802 (this has phantom power which can be used for studio mics and therefore has some future proofing). This can go into the input of the soundcard/audio interface card and provides a little flexibility in bass/treble levels before it even gets to the pc therefore making it a little easier to find a nicer recording tone.

My microphone is cheap, uber cheap but I got lucky on ebay, it's a Takstar and my only advice for getting mics if you're going super cheap is to go for one that does NOT have a cable attached. Go for one with a 3prong (xlr) connection if possible, these tend to at least be vaguely reasonable. In my experience if you're interested in getting a clear sound you need a microphone that is not one of the 'pc desktop mics' or 'headset mic' as the quality is rarely high enough (as mentioned previously in this thread). Couple of things/terms I've picked up when looking at microphones...very basic:

Frequency response - (how low and high the sounds it picks up are) General professional studio mics 20hz-20khz
average pro dynamic 50hz-15khz ( shure sm58 )
cheap mics 100hz-1khz

impedance - (higher means takes more juice to run them so without a pre-amp a higher impedance means a lower recording level)

studio mics less than 300 ohms (has omega sign sort of a curly n next to it sometimes)
average pro dynamic 600 ohms
cheap mics 600+ ohms

Finally if you see any graphs with the microphones generally the longer and flatter the line the better, the more 'hilly' the more difficult to get an even recording over different vocal ranges (low to high).

Other than that go for the most expensive mic you can really, dynamics are used in live roles as they don't pick up so much background noise and for general stuff can be ok for recording but they're not as smooth and noiseless as condenser mics.

Starting can be fairly cheap with fairly good quality, one place I've heard good reviews is www.red5audiousa.com/ or uk www.red5audio.com

IF you can test a microphone before you buy do!!

Happy hunting

Lone Peanut

[Rosegirl18]

My parents suddenly bought me a headset microphone that was really expensive and it doesn't work at all x.x
It keeps buzzing and the speaking phone is too small. When I try to record something on it hardly any noise is heard, just a bunch of buzzing. What do I do? Any advice? This thing works worse than my built-in mp3 one...

[Yoda117]

My parents suddenly bought me a headset microphone that was really expensive and it doesn't work at all x.x
It keeps buzzing and the speaking phone is too small. When I try to record something on it hardly any noise is heard, just a bunch of buzzing. What do I do? Any advice? This thing works worse than my built-in mp3 one...

What make and model.

I had an issue like that years ago with a plantronics mic, turns out that it needed some extra juice from the sound card, so they sent me a line amp and it did the trick