It’s time to have “The Talk” about USB microphones…

Among all the people who use a microphone connected to a PC, a tiny fraction of them need or would benefit from an XLR mic OR a dedicated USB mic. For that matter, most of the people outside that tiny fraction can get by just fine with the mic built into their laptop or $30 webcam -- provided meeting participants exercise mute button discipline.

"what, you bought a VW Polo? That's not a car, who would buy that lol. A Porsche GT3 RS, that is a REAL car. You're doing it wrong". Stfu.

Unique to see these days that someone uses Win XP

I got the yeti x pro on sale and I like it....

I get the simplicity aspect, but this is not good sound quality. One can argue if good sound quality is even needed for this kind of video, but that's another discussion.

How does the sennheiser compare to the audio technica at2020xp ?

I love the Sennheiser Profile USB mic, how it solves a lot of problems to streamers, but, i don't like how it looks 😂HELP

Earthworks icon...no more debates

I prefer a portable digital audio recorder to podcast with, then take the SD card out, place it into my computer and edit the files with Reaper, Ocenaudio, or even Audacity. But for recording both audio and video together a usb mic comes in handy.

Question is does this beat the BEACN Mic ?

I use decent EIMs because wearing cans for hours with glasses is just too uncomfortable for hours, but otherwise I totally agree with the bit about using monitors/speakers.

Another amazing video! Many thanks!

Which webcam are you using?

im useing a sE neom usb i paid 80 like 6 months havent used my akg 220 sence i got my usb my 8 year son does music on the usb mic no one believes me its a usb mic

The problem is that there are USB mics and there are USB mics. And the market seems to be flooded with cheap USB mics that are not great, just like the market seems to be flooded with crappy headset mics. With XLR, I feel like there's a better chance of getting a good mic. But maybe that has been changing for a while now as well with the streaming boom? But yeah, with a good USB mic, it certainly doesn't matter whether it's USB or not.

Thanks for this video. In doing research on mics, for my setup, specifically dynamics mics there's a price jump from an usb/xlr combo dynamic mics vs just a usb dynamic mics, and for a lot starting content creators the combo mics are out of the budget/just don't want to spend that much. I've even seen some usb condenser mics get up in price, this is probably the best condenser mic I've heard even unprocessed and at pretty good price.

In addition likes others in the comments of said, an xlr only dynamic means adding an audio interface, not you got another piece of equipment to fiddle with on top of your streaming software, game your playing, camera, green screen.

Most starting out content creators want something as plug and play as possible. I mean doing a little EQ and processing is fine, but sometimes I feel like other content creator videos recommend the higher end stuff that they've grown accustom to using and feel that they just can't recommend anything below that. Which is fine for their needs and other established creators, but it irks me when they do that and then say it's for beginners or just starting out - no it's not.

It's similar to a well-established graphic designer telling someone just getting started in graphic design that the the beginner needs to spend $500 a year on Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. They don't. I'll admit, I'm a self-taught graphic designer that started out on Gimp (It's free) and to this day I still don't use Adobe, mainly because I don't need it. I also use a different software that is a one-time purchase and I've had better experiences with and it does all I need.

What BVM is that?

I used to work in audio gear sales and at the time, the only "quality" USB mic was the Yeti, back before Logitech bought Blue. Since I was primarily selling recording/live audio gear, I never understood why anyone would buy the Yeti. Then it took off for streaming and I still didn't get it. There's no upgrade path with USB mics and condensers don't always seem to be the best choice for streamers (they tend to pick up more background noise). At the time, anything that wasn't the Yeti was also a real POS. But the thing is, most of the problems people had with the Yeti are because they weren't following your advice here: get the mic off the desk and close to your mouth. These days, the preamps and converters in USB mics are pretty decent and low (enough) noise that there's no real reason to go XLR for general content creation purposes. Plus you get the advantage of software processing, so you can set everything up and just never touch it again. Unless I get back into music and want to record an album, I don't think I'm going to bother hooking up any of my XLR gear again, the Wave works just fine. Though one area I would like to see improved is the headphone amp, it's quite noisy and it's the only way to monitor your voice in real time instead of with latency. One thing at a time, I guess.

If I have fo tinker too much with equipmemt I lose focus of what I'm actually doing. Its distracting and also stressful for me.

The Sennheizer Profile sounds great. Rode's new generation of USB mics are also great.

I use a Sudotack USB mic for my audio at work, and there is no reason to upgrade. USB is so easy and perfect for a good amount of applications.

The problem with USB, even though it may not be a frequent one, Is the failure.
XLR mics are just plain more reliable. In a USB mic, All the points of failure are inside the mic, if something breaks, and it will eventually, especially in low-quality mics, you throw away the whole thing.
And then there's the interference, think of all the audio interface components, inside the mic. Often with poor isolation and poor quality to keep costs down.

I'm sure there are good USB mics out there, but I still personally prefer and recommend XLR, NOT FOR EVERY USE CASE, but for higher quality results, The Price-to-performance is still superior, YES including the interface.

If you want a USB mic, get a good-quality one, please.

I think one thing about an XLR set up that doesn't get talked about enough is surface real estate, the interface has to go somewhere, the XLR cable protrude very heavily from the mic and interface.

Not to mention the additional cables for the USB needs routing and if connecting headphone and speakers, its a lot of cables that gotta go somewhere from a single point which makes in my opinion the interface when actually plugged in with stuff, twice the effective real estate size that will take up on a desk.

I've for one have gone back to a USB microphone and its opened real estate back on my desk in a huge way and the number of cables pulled away from the PC is staggering as it turned out.

will it be good for normal rooms i have a fan and ac running atlow, but a little sound does come from ac. will it handle the noise well.

Not the best time to talk critically about USB mics when this very video is sponsored by one. I don't expect you to be negative about them given the sponsor.

I think historically, USB mics were significantly noisier because of the acoustic components proximity to electrical circuitry. The physical proximity led to a tonne of cross-talk and noise. A good USB mic these days would be really hard to distinguish from a low-end audio interface and XLR pair.

Great talk, very informative...been considering the Profile or the Deity VO-7U for voice overs for my videos (currently using my Deity D3 Pro shotgun).

I love Sennheiser but that Profile mic is not very impressive

I never understood after the conference calls was a thing, people from tv or sport events showed up using gamer headset or macbook microfone when they went live to comment something.
Like big companies still do not understand this, and USB mic make it simple. The Sennheiser is crazy that all the new videos are saying good things about it, but reviews in amazon are so bad. But when i saw this mic i felt: "thats it"... thats the one...no plosives, minimal, light and slim.

The anti usb mic talk is annoying and very discouraging in the voice acting community for beginners and people exclude you from jobs even free jobs !!!! and praise xlr because it means better quality automatically I guess. People should not be recommending beginners to spend cash on xlr and audio interfaces everyone is not a sound engineer.

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Mainly use XLR Mic ran to My 18i8-3g with Air Mode enabled. It makes a big difference

Have the internal converters generally improved? Also, how’s the latency lookin? Major points of contention would be these

VERY good way of doing something educational while being sponsored as well. Didn't feel at all like this was a sponsored bit, good job man.

Well said! Btw, what 4k webcam are you using here?

As a sound engineer, anything that could cut points of failures are a win. That is why i ditched my semi-anologue audio mixer setup with a digital setup. I would rather trade off abit of sound quality over convenience of having audio effects, equaliser, condensors etc. all in one digital audio mixer.

The best Microphone I own is my MacBook. It sounds better to everyone I asked in a blind test versus my $80 USB mic, the levels are right, the noise is lower. The sweet spot is wider. Love it.

Would you consider the blu yeti mic a decent microphone?

nice mic, I do have an issue with the arm costing more than the mic

I have a blue yeti and recently switched to a rode video go ii so I could get the mic out of my face and keep similar qualities. Zoom does a really good job at noise cancelation.

How can I get those noise cancelation/ audio optimization quality across all software without using obs?

moon2SPY

I have just replaced the Shure SM7B with this Sennheiser Profile mic…. I needed better ability to move my set up and had the SM7B running through the Rode ProCaster2. I actually PREFER the sound of this Sennheiser!!

I bought my usb microphone for $23 and it sounds perfectly fine compared to gaming headsets so I’m chillen

Can it work far enough away so it’s not in the camera shot? AKA would this work for an office with some background noise, vs the Samson Q2U that works pretty well in that scenario.

I own a full blown recording studio so yeah its optimal for me to have xlr but these guys dont need em.. lol the amount of shoving product down noobs throats is laughable.. most of these guys are good with a headset lol