I "invested" in early 2020 when all of my training moved to Zoom. I've gone through a lot of equipment and frequently am complimented on my sound, camera, and background.
My rank order for investment:
1. Mic - See my mic comment in another thread
2. Lighting - It is hard for good cameras to compensate for poor lighting. Good lighting on the other hand, does compensate and helps laptop webcams perform much better. I currently run a Godox ULC60bi with a huge parabolic diffuser. Probably overkill for many. You can get cheap fluorescent or LED lights with a diffuser. Would avoid a ring light especially if you wear glasses.
3. Camera - I have used Canon M50 and Sony A6500 as webcams. These days, I use an Insta360 Link. It's not quite as good as the cameras (you can add more "background blur" with their software), but it's more convenient. I still get compliments on this.
4. Background - Blur, doors, and bedrooms are what you see 90% of the time. A good background helps you stand out. I have a bookcase with the books ordered in color. Folks always comment about it. There are lots of other common looks, look on Youtube or X (Kevin Shen) for office makeovers.
5. Teleprompter - Not for scripts but for "looking in the eyes" of my students or the person on the other end of the call.
My setup is not as professional as yours, but I bought the "diva light" ring light and put my camera in the middle of it. I swear it makes me look 10 years younger and people say I look like a supermodel on calls which is really funny. The key is to put the camera and screen up high so you're looking upwards, which makes it a flattering angle for jawline.
I wear glasses, and having a ring in the middle of them would drive me crazy when editing videos. Also, staring at a computer screen with lights off to the side is bad enough for me, I don't know how you can look directly into the light. Finally, it isn't compatible with my camera being behind the teleprompter.
Most lighting folks recommend putting one light to the side (say 45 degrees) so that one side of your face is lit and the other has a shadow. Fancier folks have additional fill light to highlight the shaded side and the back of the head (so there is a glow around it).
>Background - Blur, doors, and bedrooms are what you see 90% of the time. A good background helps you stand out. I have a bookcase with the books ordered in color.
True on the first part, but bookshelves as backgrounds are so cliche. Every two bit hack who gives an opinion on TV has a bookshelf as the background. It's a negative signal for me.
I had my real bookshelves behind me for most of my remote career. Mostly because my old sociology professor called attention to what backgrounds people get in media reports tells you a lot about them.
Sadly, we had a second child and we put a cot into the room, so I can't have my books behind me anymore :(
Me, too. You can't really see what's on them due to the bokeh from the DSLR I use as my webcam, but you can tell they're books, at least! What's actually there is my RPG collection, and some other hobby references.
4b. Collapsible green screen[0]. Can't recommend this enough if you don't want/have the ability to stage or curate your background (my "office" doubles as a guest room). It's also excellent for presenting and handy for any number of one-off things. When I don't need it I just slide it under the bed, easy.
I put together a similar setup in 2020/2021, but had to tear it all down. I got too many jokes about being a Twitch streamer, and the teleprompter made me look like one of those dudes who stares directly into your eyeballs at all times as a power move.
Maybe I should have stuck with it and iterated! Sounds like you've dialed it in.
I'm the creepy instructor who looks at his students rather than talking to you by looking down and to the right...
More seriously, I have dialed it in because I think it gives my clients a better final product. I also just want to have things work rather than spending an inordinate amount of time setting up equipment each time I need to record.
I'm up to level 4 on this scale, with a hacked d5100 as my camera. How much incremental ROI do you feel you got from adding the teleprompter? I'd never considered one.
I use it for looking in the camera. If I don't have the zoom window on my teleprompter, I find myself looking at the zoom window. Probably not a huge deal for folks using just laptops and occasional zoom.
I find it even more useful when recording courses. I use OBS to overlay my face when talking about code. I immediately notice when folks try to do this without a teleprompter. They keep gazing off to the side.
There are yt tutorials about making cheap teleprompters. You could try it out and see if you care for it. I made two, however the value in a real teleprompter is the sturdiness and the mount. It was easier for me to buy one than hack one up that I would be using everyday.
It is a Glide Gear teleprompter with an Insta360 Link for a camera, custom foam draping, and a Lilliput 8-inch monitor. It is attached to my monitor mount with a swing arm, and some adapted camera gear (inspired by some YT video) that allows me to adjust its vertical and level position of it relatively easily.
Wow, this is being downvoted. (Please help me understand why as this comment is a summary of interactions that I have when folks ask me about my equipment.)
My guess is because for the median HN reader (an ordinary techie who doesn't talk much on video, and when he/she does, it's mostly to other ordinary techies), your setup appears to be expensive overkill.
Lighting makes a HUGE difference. Just get an Elgato Key Light Air from Amazon, set it to ~5700K and full brightness and watch the magic happen. It takes a while to get used to having a lightbulb in your face but it's so worth it.
That, and the new Macbook Pro's portrait mode feature on the webcam. It's good enough that most people won't want to bother with setting up a DSLR
For a good visual on how much lighting helps check out youtuber Hannah Poston's "Why do I look so young" where she shows herself with and without her lighting setup: https://youtu.be/S9TTLmTZnf4?si=gJoSCwWK8bg2rerL&t=41
I just got back from an All Hands meeting in our main office. Most people do it remotely. We had remote people presenting from their M-series macbooks. I was reading this thread prior to the all hands, so I was paying attention to the quality of the voices. Audio was being pumped through the ceiling speakers. They all sounded great and it convinced me that I did not need to throw money at an imagined problem... I of course reserve the right to change my mind as soon as I see a great desktop mic on a sweet deal.
I was wondering the same. I’d love to see a quick head to head, in realistic non studio wfh environment, starting with macbook mic, and then at $50, $100, $300 mic investments.
Anyone got the setup already in front of them at their zoom desk and want to make us a 5 minute comparison video?
I have a Blue Yeti, an AudioTechnica BPHS1 (headset), a Fifine 688 (cheap Shure SM7B competition), and a Behringer C2 (pencil mic). I have also used "professional equipment" sent from studios for me to record with.
The professional equipment sounds the best, but the audio device alone (sans mic) was $1200.
These days, I use the pencil mic with a Scarlett device. It sounds good enough for my recording needs (I post-process everything regardless). It is out of camera, and pencil mics (or shotgun) are what pros use in camera studios.
If you don't mind having a big mic on camera, the Fifine is a lot of bang for the buck. If you are a brand person, go for the Shure.
A headset is great for minimizing sound when talking with others (say for a podcast interview), but I have yet to find one that is comfortable for using all day (I'm often teaching day-long courses).
I have the Scarlett audio version. It works fine. However, I played around swapping my mics with the $1200 Sound Devices Pre2, and it just sounds amazing. I'm not sure what is going on inside that box. I haven't been able to justify that purchase.
I bought a Yeti Blue a while back, and several people commented positively on its sound quality. I'm pleased with it, especially given its decent price: it's not a bank-breaker for being such a huge upgrade over the built-in laptop mic.
As a bonus, it has a hardware mute button on it. Now I usually leave my Zoom unmuted, and use the button to toggle whether my coworkers can hear me. It's more convenient than clicking the Zoom button or finding the keyboard shortcut.
Basically any mic that's widely recommended for entry-level YouTubers (outside search engine spam, those don't count as real recommendations) will be a giant step up from laptop or headphone mics, enough that most people who just want to sound good on video conferencing probably don't need to spend more. The Blue Yeti is exactly that kind of mic, to the point that it's kind of a cliché.
Shotgun mics popular among low-budget filmmakers (think: people who shoot local commercials, little indie films and shorts, and, when desperate for cash, weddings) would also be a good and fairly cheap way to go, though they may require other hardware to function.
Shotgun mics? They're very good at cancelling off-axis noise (that is, anything that's not in a fairly narrow cone the direction they're aimed) but AFAIK it's really challenging to have hardware cancelling of distant noises in the direction of capture, while also capturing a narrow cone like that. So, do they do noise cancelling? Yes, very much so, it's kinda their whole point, but also no, depending on what you mean.
Oh i meant more the noise canceling you need in a call... cat meow, ambulance siren coming from the open window, the sound of you pouring yourself more coffee etc.
I have one of these, but honestly, I find it hard to convince myself it's better than the built-in mic in my MBP. I've gone back-and-forth in the Zoom audio settings between my Yeti and the MBP mic, tweaking the knob on the Yeti to every setting, and I still prefer the laptop.
The main issue with the Yeti Blue is that it's 15 years old: although microphone tech doesn't evolve as much over the years, it's still behind a bit (e.g. it does 48 kHz/16-bit audio while modern USB mics do 96 kHz/24-bit). It also uses a USB-mini connector which is very annoying.
There are a few modern improvements on it, such as the Yeti X.
hehe, I just posted a sibling comment about the same mic. I've been using it for 5+ years, and I don't think like I'm missing anything. I suppose I need to make sure to keep myself uninformed on the subject so I don't get an upgrade :)
The USB connector is not an issue for me, because the mic is connected to a docking station/computer display.
The sound quality hasn't been an issue yet, and I've used it to record some game assets, etc...
Have you used Yeti X? If so, how does it compare to Blue in practice?
The Blue Yeti is a condenser mic, so it picks up a lot of background noise.
Going the dynamic mic route can end up costing a bit more, but worth it in my opinion. Unless you have a very quiet environment and don’t need to type on a keyboard or click a mouse while on calls.
That hasn't been my experience at all, especially when set for cardioid. I use to ask diligently about whether my coworkers could hear me type, or my kids yelling from another room, etc., and they couldn't. It does a surprisingly good job of not picking up the trucks leaving from fire department literally across the street from my house.
I have a feeling this is likely due to noise suppression in the video call platform.
Possibly Jitsi doesn’t do it as well as Zoom or Google Meet, so my experience on Jitsi was a night and day improvement switching from Blue Yeti (cardioid mode) to a dynamic mic.
IK Multimedia iRig Stream Mic USB, it sounds great, has a built in audio interface, pop filter, direct monitoring, mixing, light up mute button, and all for under $100.
Def use the mic with a pair of wired headphones/earbuds to use the live/direct monitoring feature.
My team used to have a lot of issues with people mics being too loud or too quiet without realizing. Getting everyone on that mic and specifically using direct monitoring has solved that issue.
Pencil mic/ shotgun mic is what you want. Rode Videomic is the most accessible one you will find. They are highly directional (hypercardioid). The reason you sound tinny from your laptop is because a) they are not very directional (beamforming helps but it's not enough) and b) the lack of directionality is made up for by too much autogain thus picking up the room.
The "podcaster mics" will work too but they are designed to be pulled up to your face. If you don't want the mic in camera then you will not get great results with them.
I've been finding the pickup on my bluetooth bone-conduction headphones to be surprisingly good enough. I tried it as I found them convenient & comfortable for calls on my phone. People don't notice the difference when I'm using them rather than the company-provided wired over-ear headset.
Though that might say as much for the company provided mic as it does for the BC ones!
I use an Elgato Wave XLR $200 so that I can upgrade my microphone separately; I'm not a fan of hybrid/integrated devices. I use it with an Audio-Technica AT2035 $200 and a Elgato Low-Profile Microphone Arm $100.
The one built into a Logitech C922 camera. Works best when there is some sound-absorbing material in the room, such as carpet on the floor, tapestry on the wall, sofa somewhere, and so on.
I work in high end professional audio services for conferences, events, etc in Silicon Valley. The Ferrari of headset microphones in the industry is currently the DPA 6066 - the vocal nuances, timbre, and precision of the 6066 is that of a finely tuned instrument. Note that this is a mic only, you'll need something over or in ear to monitor audio from Zoom, Webex, etc.
Agree that the best mics for speech are headsets that tightly control the position of the mic.
Not that I am qualified beyond the reviews I found, but I picked up a Shure 58 for $100. Supposedly used by many musicians and can be dropped/abused without issue.
My background is very tailored. A wall of 80s/90s themed stuff and a large pixelated "loading" bar with magnetic blocks for the progress bar. I get compliments regularly and I am sure it helps me stand out in a sea of screens.
I run an HD obsbot camera and a great mic. I am fully convinced it helps.
nothing too wild. Found a wall sticker on etsy of a pixled loading bar:
_____________________
| |
|___________________|
L O A D I N G
The sticker is on the wall and looks all pixled, and then I have 7 black, thin foam 5"x6" rectangles that I've glued magnets to the back of, and then on the wall, I have nail heads that the magnets connect to. I can load up the bar, one block per day, or I can just have it as my energy indicator haha.
Ah, I was imagining something way more complex and wilder, with electronics and LEDs and what not :D But that's cool too, if simpler, nice way to track stuff. Thanks for explaining! ;)
A good non-bluetooth headset. Logitech makes some with a wireless dongle. I use a Sennheiser DECT headset. Most DECT headsets have pretty tinny cordless phone type sound but this one has an ultra-wideband mode that sounds pretty nice. Can also walk around the house with 0 connection issues.
Audio gear is surprisingly complicated for non-experts to research, evaluate and monitor. (Like even making sure your app is using it, and didn't reset to your laptop mic when you accidentally unplugged it for a minute.)
And fixing your lighting can require rearranging your entire office if you have a window behind you. Or investing in expensive blinds, etc.
Use the laptop microphone as the input instead, or if no microphone is present just buy an external microphone. You probably don't need a $300 podcast-class microphone since the audio still gets compressed in transit, though.
These days, most premium and/or business laptops (MacBooks, ThinkPads), etc have mic arrays that are far superior to those on earbuds anyway, being capable of eliminating background noise without negatively impacting audio quality.
The array isn't enough to mask your mitts smashing/sliding on the device while typing and talking.
For the love of everything, use something standalone. Ideally not a desk mic. Vibration works against those... just like what's built into any given laptop. It's a form-factor/usability thing.
Decent audio isn't a price problem, it's entirely about selection. What you suggest is my last choice. A backup.
Headsets and forgive me, wires I can replace, are hard to beat. I like to type, talk, and be heard. Sometimes all at once.
I wasn’t meaning to say to use laptop mics at the exclusion of a standalone mic, just that if you already have a nicer laptop then the parent comment’s recommendation to switch inputs for a “free” instant quality boost is particularly pertinent. It’s also applicable to situations where one is away from their desk.
The degree to which vibration of is a problem depends on your setup. If your laptop is mounted on a VESA arm bolted to your desk and you’re typing on an external keyboard for example, it’s not going to come through too easily, especially if you have the keyboard placed on a desk pad. This is true of a standalone mic on an arm too.
>You probably don't need a $300 podcast-class microphone since the audio still gets compressed in transit, though.
Misunderstands the value of a good mic. That's like saying DSLRs and flip phones take the same quality photos if you are compressing them down to 400x400 JPEGs
A good mic setup is actually quite finicky. The interface/a2d, channels, amplification, clipping, drivers, etc. all need to work well through your OS and app stack, which is often not the case because these things aren't tested a whole lot. At least that has been my experience on linux. I have an RE320 and a Motu interface, but I have weird dropouts in all software (teams, zoom, obs). I haven't debugged it. I can totally understand the recommendation of sticking to the laptop mic or a basic headset.
> Use the laptop microphone as the input instead, or if no microphone is present just buy an external microphone
You'd be surprised at how many companies/etc issue laptops that don't handle background noise for anything, even the fan on the laptop itself.
That said I've been using one or two variants of a gaming headset with dedicated receiver for the last 5-ish years. (Before that I used Logitech H800s with the dedicated receiver, alas the earpieces disintegrated after a decade or so.) Better audio quality and at the time were only 100$ on sale.
Especially if you are in an open office or pit style setting, bluetooth just has too many issues to be reliable/good for wireless audio.
Anecdotally, my friend and I were prepping me for an interview, and my Bluetooth Bose Q35 microphone was crystal clear, while my JLAB Talk Go via USB was having issues with echo. Now the former is a $350 MSRP device while the latter is a $50 MSRP device, but the latter is also much bigger, has much more bandwidth for the wired connection, and has exactly one purpose. So I expect it do better than the tiny pinhole microphone on my headphones!!
USB microphones usually have audio converters built into them. So if you're going for a cheap wired headphones, it's usually better to go with one with a 3.5mm jack.
Also, when using your laptop microphone, for the love of god don't wipe invisible crumbs from your keyboard every 5 seconds. I don't know why this is such a common tick, but the amount of times I had to repeatedly ask people to stop fidgeting with their device mere centimeters away from the microphone is just way too high.
It's honestly a pet peeve of mine when people consistently lack audio etiquette. Communication is a huge part of our job, remote work is a godsend for work-life balance, it should be the bare minimum to just mute yourself when you're not talking and in general being mindful how much sound interruptions you're repeatedly causing in group meetings.
The most important thing for good sound is distance between the mic and your mouth - since SnR falls off with the square of distance. Some people use a standalone mic mounted to an arm on the front of their desk, but I find that to be too intrusive and ugly. The ideal setup is a headphone with a boom mic.
A lot of business conference headphones have a boom mic, as well as gaming headphones, but they all cheap out on the actual microphone element. For ideal sound quality you want to get a V-Moda BoomPro (wired, $20) or an Antlion ModMic Wireless ($140). These tack onto your existing headphones with a small magnetic clip (so you can take it off when not in a call). You can look up sound quality comparisons on YouTube, these two devices are far ahead of even the most expensive business/gaming headsets. It makes a vast difference in sound quality.
The ModMic Wireless also works around the "Bluetooth sound quality is shit in headset mode" issue, since your headphones are in output-only (A2DP) mode and the ModMic has its own separate Bluetooth connection for mic-only.
Finally, camera quality and lighting are important too. Here's a good article on lighting: https://languageoflight.blog/2020/10/08/time-zooms-by/. For the camera you can use an actual camera (DSLR/mirrorless, ideally with a fast lens) with an HDMI capture card, there's plenty of info about this available on the internet. An old iPhone can also work quite well afaik? Either way, it'll be much better than a webcam, particularly if your room's lighting conditions aren't ideal.
> The ModMic Wireless also works around the "Bluetooth sound quality is shit in headset mode" issue, since your headphones are in output-only (A2DP) mode
I will never understand for the life of me why the hell bi-directional high-quality audio over Bluetooth still isn't a thing, even in 2025.
Bluetooth has MORE than enough bandwidth. 320 kbps output gives you damn near lossless quality, and just 128 kbps would be plenty for single-channel microphone audio, and honestly even just 64 kbps would be be fine. You would need at most 500 kbps. Bluetooth is capable of more than that.
Even if there's no bidirectional high quality standard (HFP is bidirectional, but low quality), Bluetooth allows simultaneous logical connections of multiple profiles at the same time. Sure, your computer has an A2DP connection as the source to your headphones as a sink. Why can't a headset also open a second A2DP connection with itself as the source and the computer as the sink?
It just doesn't make sense that a spec that's been around for what, 20 years has failed to keep up. I hate that as a gamer, I can't use the Bluetooth built into my motherboard to use a gaming headset if I want high quality audio. I have to get a headset with a proprietary dongle and then remember to bring it with me to LAN parties.
Bluetooth 5 added audio for BLE called LE Audio with LC3 codec. BLE has higher (24 Mbps vs 1 Mbps) bandwidth than Bluetooth Classic. Bluetooth 5 headphones are available now.
That would have been perfect time to update headsets. It sounds like A2DP can do backchannel now and there is Qualcomm proposed FastStream. But it isn't implemented widely and probably won't be until standardized.
>You can look up sound quality comparisons on YouTube, these two devices are far ahead of even the most expensive business/gaming headsets. It makes a vast difference in sound quality.
Assuming that's true, I'm not even sure I care. A halfway decent business or gaming headset sounds fine for Zoom or Teams, especially if it's wired to the audio jacks or has a usb connection. It's only the cheapest garbage that has problems. If you are doing audiobook narration or something sure, go for something better, but as long as you spend $50 or so you're fine for virtual meetings.
I am slowly coming around to the idea of desk mics, like you I detest the idea of it hanging in my peripheral vision on the desk or monitor arms etc...
Even at the higher end of closed back headphones, there is a still a decent bit of noise leak.
I've Had V-Moda mic in the past, as well as Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic headsets with boom mics.
It usually isn't a problem with the relatively low volumes in a meeting, but any other time the noise leak is enough to get reliably picked up on recordings etc...
Good point, what I use that is great at the desk is a gooseneck stand - SO much easier to move around while working than normal mic stand, you just bend it out of the way. Put one of those on a stand with a big circular weighted bottom and you're gold.
Lav mics and boom mics are great because they solve the problem so many other designs are trying hard to work around: distance from the speaker’s mouth to the transducer.
An inexpensive omnidirectional lav can sound good for much less money and much more reliably than complicated software-steered mic arrays or even desktop mics with various pickup patterns can in the hands of an average consumer because the source audio, proportionally, is so much louder than any background or room noises due simply to distance. Because of the inverse-square law, every time you halve the distance between source and mic you get 4 times the acoustic power, so much better signal to noise ratio.
Real situations exist where simply putting the microphone closer to the mouth isn’t good enough to solve the problem on its own, and that’s why stage microphones have those pickup patterns that reject more noise but require some technique to use. That’s not the reality for most people giving a presentation on their laptop, though.
I think so, but I've never tried. I like to move around during calls so for me the ModMic Wireless + my existing Bluetooth headphones was the best option. I don't think there's any system out there that can beat the physical flexibility and ease of use of this setup.
The ModMic comes with a tiny magnetic nub that adheres (permanently) onto the headphones. Then the ModMic itself snaps onto / off of that magnetic element, so it takes literally 2 seconds to take it on/off.
Cheap ($10) lapel microphones from Amazon tend to have extremely acceptable sound quality for me. They tend to record even subsonic frequencies fairly well.
recording the output of my transducer (bass shaker), for one. Of course it's only really perceptible to others with transducers or very good headphones, but having enough output to still sound good enough through a recording is a point of pride for me.
I regularly hear people on podcasts, radio, and tv who go on shows with shitty mics. I don't understand how. "I'm going on a national radio show. Maybe I should get a decent mic? Nah, screw it. I'll just sound like garbage." And no one behind the scenes on the show sends them a mic? Or at least tells them not to use airpods as their mic? Certainly there times when an interview is set up quickly. But I've heard entire 90+ minute podcasts where the guest was on a terrible mic.
I use my Rhode condenser mic, that I use for recording vocals, as my Google Meet mic while at home. I've lost track of the amount of people who have said "WOW" when I start talking and then go on to tell me how good my voice sounds. It's kind of lame, but true that I do stand out more when presenting to executive leadership. I've even had one VP remember me because of my mic and audio quality.
I’ve had a similar experience, where a friend suggested that Teams must boost the host’s audio, based on how clear my voice was in a group meeting we had.
And I just use the mic attached to my Game Ones which isn’t even a condenser.
So many people are overengineering this... I have a wireless Jabra headset. Works great. At home I use one of those usb speakerphone pucks, works great. Not these super special desktop mics that streamers or radio broadcasters use.
The people who try to use their webcam mic or the built in mic are the ones causing most of the problem (yes I'm also looking at you Macbook users).
I always thought it'd be a great idea if in your internal Teams or Zoom instance you had a "send this person a new headset" button to fix the problem.
Is nobody using a DJI Mic2?? I hoped you guys would recommend something better than the DJI Mic2, not because it's expensive, but there surely should be better mobile/wireless mics, no?
I hope someone knows, hey I am even down buying those talkshow moderator style mics, like the DPA 6066, that was recommended here. But don't they require a bulk of stuff wearing in your back attached to your pants/belt? For sound I would wear regular noise-cancelling in-ears, here the difference isn't that big, unless you're audiophile like me and many others in this thread. Especially so, if you have above average hearing, the world is optimised for lower-quality sounds :(
Why the focus on just the Laptop/PC? Mobile Phones also feature crappy mics, especially when on loudspeaker. Yeah I noticed it depends very much on the software being used too, but WhatsApp sounds tinny, Instagram sounds crystal sharp, Zoom/Meets sounds tinny.
What if you have to use the screen and still need to listen on your mobile phone?
Bummer, the microphone switches to crap-quality on loudspeaker.
Test yourself and record a message with loudspeaker on and off. Especially with background noise it's getting worse, whatever that algorithm is doing, it's tinning your voice to filter the stuff out.
I do have a (not cheap) BT headset and still use the builtin microphone of my mac. Why? Because when i use the mic of my headset it changes the type of BT connection and the sound i hear is basically unbearable.
How do you have the macBook pro microphone in a proper position? If I only use the macBook the camera is in a bad spot. Usually my macBook is plugged in which means my decent, external camera on my monitor is in a good location and so is my lighting. However, it means my macBook is off to the side.
> "During videoconferencing, of course, you know how you look, since you can see yourself too," Walter-Terrill noted. "But on a call with dozens of people, you may be the only one who doesn't know how you sound to everyone else: you may hear yourself as rich and resonant, while everyone else hears a tinny voice."
Not quite! You don't really know how you look, because you see yourself before transmission.
Yeah I can't really blame people for not realising they have shitty mics and shitty internet because it's really hard for them to tell! Basically the only way is to start a meeting, record it, and then watch it back. But what a faff!
Why is there no "play me back but delayed" test meeting option?
Apparently Zoom has this but I'm using Google Meet at the moment... Their answer is "ask someone else". No really.
I moved my whole team to $30 logitech headsets and they're miles better than the laptop, airpod, and standalone webcam mics we have on file. Clarity is great for guys who work at the coffee shop. I play music while on calls and nobody can hear it.
I'm a bit surprised the article didn't get into what kind of mic too. It's not just about the quality, there are specific favourites of broadcasters that have a particularly nice proximity effect, the phenomenon by which some mics make one sound bassier when speaking very closely to them. This sound has come to be associated with trustworthiness and so on.
So yeah, more expensive is not necessarily better - a wide diaphragm condensor in an untreated lively room is going to sound less authoritative than a cheaper but decent dynamic mic dead close.
An affordable mic that sounds really good for this is the Seinheisser e935. It's not as heinously directional and tight as an SM57 so doesn't ding you when you move, but still has a nice close, warm proximity effect. I use it for zooming and I have much more expensive mics on hand.
A more expensive broadcast favourite with a milder proximity effect is the Electro-Voice RE20. Killer live mic too.
PSA: If you use AirPods on a call, please don't use the mic. Set Zoom to use your laptop mic or another external mic. I don't understand how people don't realise a microphone next to your ear if going to sound like shit. The mic needs to be in front of your mouth. Same goes for people with those Bose noise cancelling headphones (or equivalents). The mic is shit. And that's expected given its position.
BTW, the old wired Apple headphones with the cable remote/mic are a decent cheap solution.
I purchased a nice microphone for podcasting, and it works so well during work meetings that people will comment how much better I sound even if I forget to plug it in.
I second this. The cheap USB ones sound fine and never fail.
If I'm sitting at a desk at home anyway, I prefer to plug things in. Power: don't have to think about battery life or power saving modes. Ethernet: don't have to think about wifi. Headset: don't have to think about bluetooth, codecs, or battery. Keyboard: low latency, has followed me through four jobs.
I do use one of those wireless logitech mice, though. The AA battery gives it a nice weight.
into a JHS Colorbox V2 https://jhspedals.info/products/colour-box-v2
an electric guitar effects pedal emulating a Neve recording console channel strip, can do XLR in/out and pass 48V phantom power to the mic
into a Focusrite Scarlett
with Apple Airpods Pro as in ear monitors
It works for me - I usually audition the mic and the Airpods before unmuting
The colorbox helps increase the gain level so I don't have to be so close to the mic, I usually place it upside-down using a boom mic stand, at around 1 foot away from my mouth at a 45 degree angle from my forward gaze (to avoid plosives and sibilance), Its in frame as a conversation starter but doesn't necessarily have to be.
I find my voice is more intelligible if I use the colorbox to reduce some of the midrange content. It also imparts some compression and harmonic distortion. I watch the Scarlett input indicator to avoid clipping at the digital input
I find myself with less vocal fatigue using this equipment than the Airpods Pro as a mic. Also it just seems a little more exciting to think my voice travels through transistors and capacitors I soldered, through a recreation of a circuit that some of my favorite music was recorded though.
I (panic-)picked up a decent-quality but not overly professional podcaster-type mic ahead of my online Master's thesis defense, and now use it as my exclusive audio input method for Zoom and Teams calls. I have earbuds wired to its monitor output, which combines the mic with audio out from the computer, and it's just such a stable, easy, and good solution for my usecase.
I'm really surprised there's no discussion about DECT headsets here.
It operates over the 900 megahertz ISM band. I'm able to walk all over my house and property without audio dropping out, and it doesn't suffer from Bluetooth codec compression issues.
There are also documented effects of your camera quality, and even where your camera is placed (as you tend to look at your screen during a call so your gaze is always relative to it).
probably not very relevant in a zoom meeting but there are people hypersensitive to the eye movements of someone reading from a teleprompter as well! When I figure someone is reading from a script with their eyes moving, it really affects my focus for some reason. Here is someone trying to find the ideal setup to prevent it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LkRMtWfhn4
While that may very well be true, I'd be willing to bet that these effects are much more pronounced (and rightly so) with people who hotmic / don't use push-to-talk. As while this can be mitigated some with diligent muting by the host (or whoever), or with a raise-hand-to-talk system, it's still completely lacking in consideration for others, whereas tinny audio is something that sometimes cannot be helped.
One thing you should do is not use your camera all the time. Use a really good profile picture, people will imagine whatever you look like in their head and you build an air of mystery and exclusivity. Save your on camera moments for when you want to grace others with your presence and court attention. Most people on camera just look bored, small, and uninteresting. By being more deliberate, you can avoid giving that impression.
How is this bias different than dressing and looking well? The screen/sound is where the rubber hits the road and if you have a messy room, noisy environment, crapy mic setup, poor internet quality, it all adds up to a chance you are not really detailed oriented.
I use this as leverage to make calls go faster. I bought the cheapest mic on Amazon, it manages to be over-sensitive to background noises such as my computer fan but still barely captures my voice adequately. It's annoying enough that nobody wants to stay on the call any longer than necessary.
TL;DR: Audio-Technica ATH-M50xSTS XLR + USB audio interface (if you want to fiddle, get one with onboard compressor, eq, and noise gate).
I've also been routing the steel series arctis nova pro into the audio interface. No steel series software and the interface's compressor and EQ is much better. But the nova pro, despite being the BEST sounding wireless headset mic, still sounds like trash compared to the compressor mic on the wire headset. Seriously, RTINGS has sound clips of every headset they've ever reviewed. Go listen to them. They're tragic. Especially Apples.
For Macs, Quicktime with New Audio Recording lets you hear yourself (if you're wearing a headset or earbuds). This helps modulate tone and prevent "yelling at the computer" phenomena.
A recording doesn't have to be made. It's like having a free audio "monitor."
