Hello, I bought a Blue Yeti a while ago and it’s great. Compared to what I was using it was a HUGE step in the right direction. However lately I’ve been feeling it’s possibly a little TOO sensitive. I record gameplay commentaries for videogames on youtube and the yeti does a bang up job but I think it captures too much background noise which invades the audio. I don’t really have the room or space to move my PC around or console so the fan noise and disc drives revving up etc. all bleed into the mic, I can remove them with audacity or reduce them but it reduces the overall quality of my voice then.
I heard good things about the Rode Podcaster mic and listening to samples or videos on youtube that use it it sounds a lot cleaner to me. It doesn’t seem as sensitive and you have to be practically on top of it for it to pick up your voice well but I think it could be the answer to my problems. Though it would be hard to give up the Yeti because it looks much nicer haha
I was wondering if people have experience or opinions on these mics? Or if you could recommend better etc.
A headphone boom mic would pick-up less computer-fan noise than a desk-top mic , relative to the level of your voice, ( because the headphone mic is closer to your mouth)
An improvised acoustic-shield* made from something like a plastic [milk?] bottle-top attached to the headphone mic with a foam-sticky-pad would block some computer-fan noise reaching the mic. Wrapping more foam / denser-foam around the mic will make it less sensitive , rendering it somewhat like an insensitive lip mic …
As above, it’s not the sensitivity of the microphone but the directionality and/or positioning. A good headset microphone is terrific because it automatically follows you around and is far closer to you than it is to the fan noise.
Directional microphones are good here, too. If you get a good one, you can “point” the dead zone toward the fan and that will help a lot. You didn’t say so, but you probably have room echo as well. Does it sound like you’re recording in your kitchen? Are you recording in your kitchen?
You can’t fix that. You’re pretty much stuck with the headset microphone and even then you may have noise and echo problems. Here’s a headset recording I did with a woman on the other side of the country via Skype. I’m in a normal room with no special provision for soundproofing, so with a regular microphone it would be hollow and echoey. (Some of the rustling noises are Denise checking email at the same time).
Just a though, if the unwanted noise is specifically computer-fan & HDD noise, then you could record those noises, (say with the computer’s built-in mic), and digitally subtract them from your headphone-mic commentary using Kn0ck0ut ,( i.e. similar method as noise-cancelling headphones).
NB: Kn0cKout can generate digital artefact noises, (similar to excessive noise reduction ).
And also remember that Audacity doesn’t do anything in real time. All this is going to happen in post production which means you can’t mix your voice and effects during the show. Effects and music will not have noise in them. Once you start post production you will get into the production time expansion trap. The show editing takes three to five times the length of the show.
There are very few substitutes for a good quiet room. It seems like there should be, but no. These are two sound shoots I did. One is for the voice for a cartoon and the other is a radio show.
The second one is in a soundproofed conference room and the blanket on the table to prevent reflections. I know people that record in a closet with quilts on the wall to get away from sound problems. You may not need any of that, but we still do that kind of thing to get good sound. You still can’t just push a button.
