Yes, this! In this day and age, if you’re applying for a remote position but you’re still fumbling around, unable to smoothly join a zoom meeting with a working microphone, it doesn’t bode well.
I’ve never understood this issue. We get paid well. A $400-450 Shure sm7b or Electrovoice re20 will last you decades and is an incredible return on investment — way better than your electronics and monitor investments and probably better than your chair and desk investments for most people.
Even a $30-50 USB mic will last a few years and blow away your laptop or built-in camera mic (though the dynamic Shure/EV mics don’t pick up everything like capacitive mics).
For me at least it's about the ergonomics of the microphone form factor. I'm not comfortable with a standalone mic in front of my face. I don't like having to remember to keep the proper distance.
I got a nice high quality broadcast headset that sounded amazing but then I couldn't get the monitoring levels to work well with any combination of audio interfaces. On any given call I might have to boost my headphone volume considerably depending on the other person's audio quality but that would invariably throw off my own monitoring levels.
In the end I got a high quality gaming headset that doesn't require monitoring due to the open-back design. The microphone sounds fine but not nearly as good as the other options unfortunately.
All that to say I spent a few thousand dollars over a few months trying to solve this problem and couldn't find a great solution!
Anything is better than a laptop mic. It’s amazing how some people don’t seem to get the hint after years of remote. I bought a $30 Razer desktop mic and it’s already and order of magnitude better and pretty sturdy compared to the $10 lapel mics or laptop mics
By the way, is there any easy to use software to make your voice sound better, e.g., crisper or slightly lower, during Zoom/Teams calls? I don't know enough about audio to change equalizer values to something that would sound good.
hajile|2 years ago
Even a $30-50 USB mic will last a few years and blow away your laptop or built-in camera mic (though the dynamic Shure/EV mics don’t pick up everything like capacitive mics).
jacamera|2 years ago
I got a nice high quality broadcast headset that sounded amazing but then I couldn't get the monitoring levels to work well with any combination of audio interfaces. On any given call I might have to boost my headphone volume considerably depending on the other person's audio quality but that would invariably throw off my own monitoring levels.
In the end I got a high quality gaming headset that doesn't require monitoring due to the open-back design. The microphone sounds fine but not nearly as good as the other options unfortunately.
All that to say I spent a few thousand dollars over a few months trying to solve this problem and couldn't find a great solution!
coffeebeqn|2 years ago
dr_kiszonka|2 years ago
(I already have a stand-alone mic.)