Good quality standalone microphone setup for my Windows computer

March 20, 2024 11:27 AM

I would like to setup a low-maintenance standalone microphone setup for my Windows computer to capture my voice for games/meetings while filtering out environmental noise like my mechanical keyboard.

I'm not happy with the quality of the sound input I'm getting from my headphones or webcam, especially when using voice chat in games. One part is that it's hard to consistently get the volume of my voice high enough without it becoming distorted and part of it is that it picks up the sound of my keyboard and such.

I'm willing to spend some money and take some time to set things up if I can get a system setup that results in good quality sound for games and virtual meetings without much ongoing maintenance of the system. I suspect this means a separate dedicated microphone along with a noise removal plugin.

I have an RTX 3080 graphics card and it sounds like the NVIDIA noise removal would be a good place to start on that front.

On the microphone side I'd love your suggestions. I'm running Windows 11. I would really prefer not to have the microphone right in front of my face or in my webcam view, but I could position it on my desk or above my monitor around 2 feet away from my mouth.

I'm quite flexible on price point. I don't mind overbuying a bit for better quality if it makes it more likely I'll be happy with the system or that it will require less ongoing maintenance (I don't mind some time getting everything set up).

posted by unus sum to Shopping (4 answers total)

Best answer: It's going to be very difficult to get good audio from a microphone unless it's within a couple inches of your face. With your stated constraints, your best bet for good audio will probably be placing a highly directional microphone just out of frame, and even then you may not be satisfied with how the result sounds.

If you do go with this approach, you'll probably want a small diaphragm condenser microphone with a cardioid or hyper-cardioid pickup pattern. You'll also need a USB audio interface with an XLR input and 48v phantom power, and a mic arm or boom stand placed above or below your camera frame, so you can get the microphone as in-line with and as close to your mouth as possible.

To get an idea of what a microphone sounds like at a 2 foot distance, check out the mic reviews from Podcastage on youtube, most of which include a "Distance Test" section. The reviews also include demonstrations of how much keyboard noise a mic will pick up with no post processing, and comparisons against other microphones.
The review playlists for shotgun microphones and small diaphragm condensers may prove useful.

If you're not opposed to using a headset-style boom mic, you can also get fairly decent audio that way, but the microphone will be visible in your webcam. For my day-to-day, I just use a Antlion ModMic attached to my headphones and placed by my mouth. For work, I use a USB Plantronics business headset, also with a mic placed by my mouth. The built-in noise cancellation built into whatever chat platform I'm using usually works fine for me.

(One thing to note: the ModMic does require "plug in power", which is approximately 5V, and is supplied by most standalone PC microphone jacks. If your computer only has a single headphone/mic combo jack, I think Antlion will sell you a cheapo USB sound card that can provide plug in power. If you have a fancy audio interface with XLR jacks and phantom power, you can get an adapter for this. The Rode VXLR+ is a name brand one, Antlion sells one, and there's various no-name ones on Amazon.)
posted by t3h933k at 3:58 PM on March 20 [2 favorites]

Best answer: The main problem, IMHO, is going to be your mechanical keyboard. You need both a VERY directional mic that is aimed toward you, and does not pick up anything "behind" it, plus a filtering program, such as NVIDIA Broadcast, that will filter out noise through AI (which you are already aware of). I agree with t3h933k that you need a headphone mounted mic in order to put the mic as close to your mouth as possible. I use a standard mic (USB, not XLR) on an arm, and I don't appear onscreen on my Youtube videos, but you can clearly hear the keyboard in the background. Maybe not when I am speaking, but you do hear something.

I believe Modmic does have a wireless model, but fidelity is a bit less and all that.
posted by kschang at 4:50 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks you two, you've convinced me that a headphone mounted mic is the best approach for me. I appreciate your thoughtful advice.
posted by unus sum at 8:07 PM on March 20

I was going to alert you that most any improvement in microphone will require you to get audio with headphones, but your solution makes that automatic.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:02 AM on March 21