Microphone Positioning

September 24, 2021 11:53 AM

I have a fancy microphone, an EV RE20. Being full-time remote, how I sound on Teams calls is kind of important so it would be nice to incorporate it into the setup. I don't, however, want to look like a geek and have it visible on camera. If it's positioned above the camera out of frame and I'm not talking directly into it, since it's a directional mic, is it going to sound any good? Would there be a better option for a mic for this situation?

I know I can just test it, but listening to your own voice sounds weird anyway and it's kinda hard to tell. Also I have tin ears, which is why I never started podcasting when I bought all this stuff 15 years ago.

posted by hwyengr to Technology (5 answers total)

I have a much less fancy microphone (the cheapest/smallest AmazonBasics condenser microphone) for exactly the same use-case. Meetings on MS Teams for work.

I have it mounted (very cheap boom clamped to my desk) to hang just out of frame above the field of view of the webcam. This keeps it about 2ish feet from my head during a meeting. The sound improvement was really remarkable.

I think your setup will work great! Of note, the reason I went for the boom instead of just using a simple stand on my desk was that it was picking up the vibrations of my keystrokes when typing way too well through conduction.
posted by Lafe at 12:01 PM on September 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

I came to say pretty much everything Lafe said above. I have the same arrangement (condenser on cheap boom above monitor, just out of frame of the webcam) and folks say I sound great. If I had the mic riiiight in front of my face, I'd probably sound more "podcasty" but this setup sounds good.
posted by zsazsa at 12:30 PM on September 24, 2021

Or, a lavalier.
posted by CollectiveMind at 12:33 PM on September 24, 2021

In addition to the above comments, i can confirm when I turn on the virtual background, my mounted mic disappears from view.
posted by cendawanita at 12:38 PM on September 24, 2021

since it's a directional mic, is it going to sound any good?

Directional mics (mostly) aren't directional like a laser beam, it's more like a globe with a dead spot at the rear of the mic.

So it'll probably sound fine for web meetings & whatever - if you could figure out a way to mount it, like, above and behind your monitor so it's still pointing at your face that might be even better.

Although you are kinda bypassing the point of the RE20; the reason it gets used for podcasts & broadcasting so much is that there's some technical hoohah going on that allows a speaker to get the "intimate" sound of being right up on the microphone without having a bunch of plosives (a "PUH!" sound that often happens with the letter P) happening. If you're not using it like that you could sell it for a pretty good price and buy something cheaper.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:05 PM on September 24, 2021 [3 favorites]