Which Mic Is Best For An Untreated Room? | Audio Technica ATR2100x vs AT2020 USB+

[@cadenceenglish]

Bro thanks you explained EXACTLY what I needed to know. Yes would love to learn about EQ, which daw is this you’re using ? Looks much better then audacity

[@mohossain]

you are very welcome brother. this is Studio One. yeah its packed with features. ok i'll look into making a tutorial on eq

[@orestes1984]

Ehhh.... There was one comment from what literally looks like a keyboard warrior. The 2100 is not a bad microphone, it's hiding a surprisingly good (for the price) Behringer capsule from what I understand. It works better than a lot of other microphones especially due to its cardiod pattern at rejecting the noise you don't want in your podcast. I would recommend turning off fans when recording though. Id also recommend getting a recorder and hooking the 2100 up to that instead. The biggest weakness of the 2100 (and it really isn't one just for recording spoken word) is the cheap internal DAC. This microphone tends to sound a lot better via XLR inputs, also, even into a "cheap" recorder such as the Zoom F3. It's actually a decent microphone at that price point, due to its sound frequency it sounds a bit dead.... The sound frequency is almost completely flat with a bit of a boost in the highs (aka treble range) hooking it up to a proper sound recording program such as Abelton, Logic, Pro Tools or even dare I say it Garage Band on a Mac will allow you to add some EQ, boost the mids a little bit, add some reverb, and so on to make the microphone sound less dead. Overall it's a good microphone it just tends to have a very flat sound to it with not much presence... but then.... you can add that in post. The big drawback with the 2020 is that you can't upgrade it. If you buy a sound recorder for example you have no ability what so ever to plug a USB microphone into it, which means replacing the microphone. So, as you improve your recording desk you're stuck with a microphone you no longer can use. Also, being USB you can't take it out into the field, at least not without a laptop attached to it which is another reason overall why the 2100 is better. As to how much to spend? It really doesn't matter, at this point the 2100 is an acceptable microphone spending more on a Shure, or even a Rode microphone wont necessarily result in a "better" sound if the person behind the microphone isn't good enough and the audio technician isn't good enough. You can go out and spend $400 on a Shure SM7 but you're not Michael Jackson, this isn't Thriller, and you don't have Quincy Jones mastering your tracks. The 2100 is good enough and if you can't work out how to get a good enough sound out of it, especially after processing you're doing something wrong.

[@mohossain]

Totally agree mate. 2100 does sound better with XLR and with some basic effects, it's possible to make it sound pretty good. However I ended up returning the 2100 though as I wanted the flexibility of moving around the desk during meetings. Didn't seem practical to be super close to the mic for conference calls which can easily last for hours. Lol I guess I sacrificed quality for flexibility!

[@orestes1984]

@@mohossain yes, as you said being a dynamic and cardiod microphone it has its pluses and minuses. You have to speak into it. The rest bellow is just an incoming wall of text you may want to read (or not). If you want a bit more of a sensitive microphone with a wider cardiod pattern a condenser is probably better for you as it gives you a bit more room with placement. Speaking directly into it is the "problem" if you want the best sound, and you might not always want a microphone directly in front of you... It depends how you want to style your desk. I have always loved the desks of US style late night talk show hosts. Johnny Carson started that trend. Although Seth Myers uses a lapel Mic he still has his mic on his desk in front of him. It's the look I like, but I see a microphone as an aesthetic prop in these environments when you're talking to people. Not all people do. back to the he 2100, well I mean, it's the same type of microphone as the SM7 aka dynamic. The advantage of dynamics is that there should be pretty much zero noise when you're not speaking into it and it should pick up less sound due to the way dynamics work. Being a cardiod with a classic heart shaped pattern it'll only tend to pick up what's in front of you and you have to speak into it. On the 2020, A condenser microphone will be a bit more sensitive but it will also pick up more room noise. It's also a cardiod but due to being so sensitive it'll pick up a lot more, and have a slightly wider pickup pattern, from where you can place your mic and still get a decent sound. There's a plus side to that in that you don't have to be as close to the "sweet spot" of the microphone, but it general all those fan noises you mentioned will be much louder. There's no real wrong choice, I would suggest getting some room treatment done though if you go fully down the condenser pathway. I would also suggest getting a pop filter, the advantage of your microphone design is that you can use a full wrap around type such as this type when you speak into it, as opposed to a screen in front of a more traditional looking microphone you would see hand held this kind of "looks cooler" www.ebay.com.au/itm/224170466411?hash=item343199dc6b:g:57AAAOSwKpBfbise&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAwLmSY0UJUtZ8WtCij%2FIk29wq7VSo6d3GM2TK9vYsHJEH%2BgZ8xdtrkrTp7u79X7XiPoRaHyr%2B1P4IbDkm2BMYQOotdTiP874g9iGzoh26fjZL%2FAlQIhTtAyN8cQFZpLDjTFLqccimxu5XX430qRB%2BKm3vyU3ao%2FM1SnFFpqohOreXak8xzsezuyWWKB2NDVa0k%2B8QnXBhSSZ4gbqXra%2FqrY%2F5TF2mxWy5MfOhUIjfNKFiBmcS4K%2BiWIiva6KozgosiA%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR_qf9-n9YQ Both of these microphones are actually quite flat, with a little tendency towards the high end. It's generally just what Japanese people "like." It can give you a good baseline to wok with for your voice. The downside of all of this is if you have a high pitched voice they can sound a bit nasal or shrill, but actually, if you have a deeper voice like myself it can (sort of) help out of the box to stop your voice from being muddy on mic. I've found the golden rule with these microphones, is probably to add a bit more reverb to make the highs sound less brittle you can do this in OBS for live streams or whatever recording software it is you use, and maybe doing a bit of a high pass. These microphones can also handle having better preamps. As I said with the 2100, the preamp in USB mode at least tends to seem to verge almost towards having a low pass filter in it, and maybe it does to reduce pops and hisses.... I'd recommend at least hooking either Mic up through your recorder in XLR format for best results. The Zoom H series does have a pretty crappy noise floor the F series such as the Zoom F3 or F6 depending on how many mics you need seems to fix a lot of those issues and is a good recorder for that price range.

[@mohossain]

@@orestes1984 Thanks for sharing your knowledge mate. Much appreciated. Yeah H series does seem to pick up some noise. Will look into F series (maybe 32bit float) when budget permits. Would love to sound treat this room but currently my wife has not agreed to have foams on the wall! Btw thanks for sharing the link for the pop filter. I’ve ordered one already! Yes I think using a high pass filter is a good idea to reduce sibilance. In terms of effects, what order you reckon produces best result? Is Noise reduction (if any) > De-Esser > EQ > Reverb a good audio effects workflow?

[@Kymlaar]

Thank you for doing this comparison! Can you please tell us about the voice isolation tool that you were using? The audio before and after you tweaked is completely different, and I would love to be able to test similar. Thank you!

[@mohossain]

anytime mate. i used DaVinci Resolve's Voice Isolation tool. they do have a free version. :)

[@mohossain]

My first mic was a $10 lav mic from eBay. It was a complete waste of money! What was yours?

[@DanielPetre]

both of those mics are quite trash.

[@mohossain]

Which mic would you recommend at this price point? Say around $100?

[@orestes1984]

Trash as compared to what? What is your wisdom based on?