Okay. It's Thursday. That means we're talking about podcasting. Hi.
I'm Michael Kross. This is the Daily Grateful. And I've been getting a lot of requests about more information about what is a good microphone. You know what?
That requires an opinion. And an opinion is like a cleanness up belly button. Everybody has one, but we will talk about it in just a second. And welcome to the Daily Grateful.
I am Michael Kross. And for 35 years on the radio, I was a horticulture student answered gardening questions and people would give me gardening questions. And the gardening questions always started with me, you know, when they asked the question asking them a bunch of questions, because you got to know about a lot of stuff about you personally, if, you know, you want a correct answer, same goes with selecting a microphone for a podcast. And so we're going to get through this as quickly as we can.
All right. I want you to consider the first thing is your recording environment. Are the acoustics good? I have a podcast studio that I built in my house.
But before that, I, well, I had a radio studio that was built in my house that was totally soundproof. This is not totally soundproof, but I've got acoustic dials up and it's pretty good. My friend Katie has a very successful podcast, I mean, extremely successful podcast. And she used to now, as I entered, they just bought a new home and they built her a studio.
But for years, she did her podcast in her closet, actually just outside of her closet. She had a little table. She'd set up and she would talk into the clothes and the sound was ideal and perfect. So we start with that.
The next thing we have to consider is the microphone type. And there are a couple of different types of microphones. There's a condenser microphone or a dynamic microphone based on your needs. In my opinion, let me tell you the difference, the condenser microphone would be something like a blue Yeti, which in my opinion is the worst microphone for podcasting, but there's a lot of people, including my damn daughter, who has a successful podcast using that microphone.
And I gave her a really good microphone, but she's still using that microphone. And her show sounds fine. I'm just being, I'm just being a dad. What can I say?
But a condenser microphone, what they do is they pick up the sound from everywhere like in the room. So if you're in the room and the cat is on the other side of the room and he goes me how? You're going to hear it. So the other would be a dynamic microphone, which I'm talking to you on right now.
And it has a short area that it picks up the sound from right in front of the microphone. Five inches from the microphone is ideal. That's what I recommend. That's what I bought my daughter.
And does she use it? No. And she does this, I think just to never mind, love her dearly and I can't argue a success. So the next thing you have to decide is the connection type, what your computer, what your microphone is going to connect with a USB or an XLR USB's go directly into your computer.
They're, you know, that's the microphone she uses. Does that. All right. XLRs have to go in, they eventually get to the computer, but they have to go into something called an audio interface, which has all kinds of nifty things on it that make you sound better.
And USB microphones, there are some good USB microphones that go directly into the computer and I'm going to recommend one in a few minutes. Okay. So that's the difference. I use an XLR connection.
My microphone goes directly into a machine that I'm looking at right now. And my voice is processed and all kinds of other stuff happens there. So, but if I had a, I, for years, I used a USB microphone for podcasting, budget considerations. That's another thing.
You have to determine how much money you want to spend. If you're just starting, you don't want to spend a lot of money. Get a USB microphone. Okay.
Get a USB dynamic microphone. Do not get a pop mic because you're going to make me mad and my daughter makes me mad enough. I don't need you to help. Okay.
Unless you want one. You know, I'm not a cop. No, I'm a, I'm a horticulturist. Well, I played one on the radio for 35 years.
Portability and versatility. That's the other thing you want to look for in a microphone. All right. If you're going to do your show in multiple locations, you want to make sure that your microphones are portable and all of that good type of stuff.
So let us, if we can, talk about five microphones for podcasting. The biggest one that everybody loves and you've seen it, if you watch any YouTube, you've seen it, that would be the sure SM seven B microphone or the original version, the sure SM seven B, great microphone, great broadcast quality microphone. It's an XLR. It's a dynamic.
It's not going to plug into your computer and it takes a lot of gas to get it going. So you need a really good audio interface. Number two, the audio, Technica, AT 2020 condenser XLR USB, a budget friendly option. And it's okay.
It's all right. The road, NT one condenser XLR. If you're doing audio books, that's a damn good microphone. I don't own one, but I want one, but that's, that's a good one.
The other one that's on the list is the one that I don't like and it's the condenser blue yeti. So I'm not going to talk about it anymore, but I will give you a really good budget microphone that I recommend that works on both XLR or USB, actually I'm going to give you two of them. Okay. The Samsung Q2U microphone, you're going to spend about 70 bucks for it.
And what you're going to get in the box in the box, you're going to get the microphone. You're going to get a phone cover for it to get rid of the plosives. Okay. That comes with it, which is really good.
You're going to get a USB cord. You're going to get an XLR cord and you're going to get a crappy microphone stand. Get the microphone stand and throw it away and go on anywhere and buy a table microphone stand. I'm sitting here.
I've got three of them on my desk right now and it is a great microphone. It is an outstanding microphone. It is broadcast quality and it's 70 bucks. Okay.
It's good. Get it. And if you get an audio interface, you can keep it and plug it right into it. I've got one right here on the floor in a case.
It's a very good microphone. I like it. So that is good. Now the other one that I would recommend is the one that I am using now and it is the Rode PodMic USB.
Now, Rode has a PodMic. I've got two of them right over there that are not USB. They are XLR. They go into an audio interface, but then they came out with this little dandy thing called the Rode PodMic USB.
It's 199 bucks and it plugs into XLR and it plugs into USB and if you plug it into a USB, it's including software that you can slap on your computer to make the microphone sound even better. You're going to spend 200 bucks there compared to the Samsung Q2U, which you're going to spend 70 bucks, but I want to put it out there. Okay. Whatever you get, here's the most important thing that you need to do.
You just need to do it. You need to get started. That's all. Just get out there and do a podcast.
Have a happy day. Tomorrow's Friday and at the opening of the podcast tomorrow, you're going to hear good morning, American. It's Friday. Yeah.
All Harvey. I mean, if you know who he is or who he was. Let me know. All right.
See you later.