Details on mic stuff, for those who are interested: I started out with a Blue Yeti, which is a fine microphone, but pretty echoey and picked up a lot of noise - made worse by the fact that I wasn't even using noise reduction, as I didn't know it existed. It also didn't work that well with my voice, which is a little nasal through the Yeti (and probably in real life, too). I didn't really know what I was doing back then ("back then" is barely half a year ago), and recorded straight into OBS with no noise reduction or noise gate, and no post processing either. You can tell. So, I bought another mic, a Shure SM57. It's an instrument mic, but I liked the sound of it for my voice. The trouble was, it's really impractical. The SM57 is an XLR mic, meaning ordinarily you need an XLR cable and an audio interface (fairly pricey), but I bought an adapter from Shure so that I could use it with a normal USB cable. This adapter was constantly sagging off the end of the mic, not to mention a ton of other issues, such as yet more background noise, no mute button for voice calls, and having to use a pop filter that blocked half my vision when the microphone was pointed toward me. I recorded this microphone roughly pointed forwards, though off to the side a bit and pointed at the corner of my mouth to cut down on mouth noises. I maybe wouldn't have to do this, except that I liked its sound best when I was almost touching the pop filter. I can't remember when, but at some point between getting it and switching to the newest mic, I discovered the wonders of Audacity's noise reduction, followed by compression and extremely lazy EQ. If the Yeti was bad sound + good practicality, and the SM57 was good sound + bad practicality, what I really needed, I decided, was to spend $250 (despite being monetized I haven't yet made a cent from TH-cam, by the way) to get both in one -- enter the Shure MV7. It sounds good, works good, and with my new post processing process (noise reduction, then compression once or twice, then normalize, then boost bass and treble, then a mild EQ to fatten things up further followed by little manual tweaks to remove clicks and mouth stuff), it's the best I've ever sounded. Mine is "modified", if you can even call it that: I've got the filter from its more expensive cousin, the SM7B. It fits fine, and means there are fewer annoying noises when I talk. I record close to the mic, but not eating the pop filter like I did with the SM57, and I have the mic rotated nearly 90 degrees from my mouth, talking *past* it rather than into it. This doesn't sound like it'd work, but it does. Anyone still reading? No? Alright, I'll shut up.
Details on mic stuff, for those who are interested:
I started out with a Blue Yeti, which is a fine microphone, but pretty echoey and picked up a lot of noise - made worse by the fact that I wasn't even using noise reduction, as I didn't know it existed. It also didn't work that well with my voice, which is a little nasal through the Yeti (and probably in real life, too).
I didn't really know what I was doing back then ("back then" is barely half a year ago), and recorded straight into OBS with no noise reduction or noise gate, and no post processing either. You can tell.
So, I bought another mic, a Shure SM57. It's an instrument mic, but I liked the sound of it for my voice. The trouble was, it's really impractical. The SM57 is an XLR mic, meaning ordinarily you need an XLR cable and an audio interface (fairly pricey), but I bought an adapter from Shure so that I could use it with a normal USB cable. This adapter was constantly sagging off the end of the mic, not to mention a ton of other issues, such as yet more background noise, no mute button for voice calls, and having to use a pop filter that blocked half my vision when the microphone was pointed toward me.
I recorded this microphone roughly pointed forwards, though off to the side a bit and pointed at the corner of my mouth to cut down on mouth noises. I maybe wouldn't have to do this, except that I liked its sound best when I was almost touching the pop filter. I can't remember when, but at some point between getting it and switching to the newest mic, I discovered the wonders of Audacity's noise reduction, followed by compression and extremely lazy EQ.
If the Yeti was bad sound + good practicality, and the SM57 was good sound + bad practicality, what I really needed, I decided, was to spend $250 (despite being monetized I haven't yet made a cent from TH-cam, by the way) to get both in one -- enter the Shure MV7.
It sounds good, works good, and with my new post processing process (noise reduction, then compression once or twice, then normalize, then boost bass and treble, then a mild EQ to fatten things up further followed by little manual tweaks to remove clicks and mouth stuff), it's the best I've ever sounded.
Mine is "modified", if you can even call it that: I've got the filter from its more expensive cousin, the SM7B. It fits fine, and means there are fewer annoying noises when I talk.
I record close to the mic, but not eating the pop filter like I did with the SM57, and I have the mic rotated nearly 90 degrees from my mouth, talking *past* it rather than into it. This doesn't sound like it'd work, but it does.
Anyone still reading? No? Alright, I'll shut up.
10/10 once again
Thanks!