PC Gamer Reader Awards - tell us about the microphones you love!

[PCG Dave]

What's the PC gaming gear that you've fallen in love with? It doesn't matter whether it's the latest Nvidia graphics card, a 2000-series AMD CPU, or that grinty gaming mouse you picked up a few years back but now can't bear to be without. Whatever it is, we want to know about it.

And we're not necessarily talking about what you think your most powerful superstar component is, or your most expensive purchase, we'd like you to tell us about the different parts of your gaming setup that mean the most to you. If you're regularly gaming with it today, and it sparks joy, then we want you to tell us just why that particular slice of PC gaming has found a place in your heart.

Over the next two weeks we're going to find out just what our PC Gamer readers are gaming with and why you love the kit you do. So each day there will be a new category of gear and we'd love you to get involved and tell us which products speak to you and why. Then we will gather all the entries together, come up with a shortlist for each of the following categories, and you will then have the chance to vote on which products should get the coveted PC Gamer Readers' Award.

• Graphics card
• Processor
• Laptop
• Monitor
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• Headset
• Microphone
• Wildcard entry!

Today we're asking about the squawk box you shout into while gaming.

Have you been waiting long years for Elgato to finally deliver a mic drop and now can't bear anything else, is it the Blue Yeti X all day long, or do you want to chat about the $3K you dropped on a Neumann mic? Tell us in the thread below, without quoting the original post, first with the name of the product in question, and then just a line or two about why it means so much to you.

And who knows... you might even find yourself featured on the site in our Readers' Awards coverage too.

 

[Rivereyes]

The one that comes with my Razer Kraken headset. I'm not a headset guy. Lockdown necessity forced me to the necessary evil of a headset. Game audio should be blasted loud through concert hall quality speakers to properly channel the no-life goodness of it all.

 

[The Zapper]

I don't stream really, as I'm not good enough of a gamer for my gameplay to be interesting, and I don't believe I'm very entertaining to watch game. However, I will say for recording vocals (whether it be music, podcast, audiobook, streaming, etc.) I will put my Charter Oaks SA538B microphone up against any other. Especially when paired with the lovely Avalon VT-737SP. It's just an incredible combination. I don't know that most people would be interested in such an expensive and serious vocal recording setup if it's not something you generate income from, but I've been using it for 10+ years and it's just a perfect sound every time. I will also highly recommend the time tested and classic radio microphone Shure SM7B. That one and the Electro-Voice RE20 are both excellent choices if you're not looking to drop a PC build-amount of money on a microphone setup. I just recommend a solid pre-amp for any microphone you purchase.

Other than that, my only other experience with recording vocals when streaming would be using my Hyper X Cloud Revolver's microphone. Which sounds decent for an average stream that not MILLIONS of people will watch, but if you're serious about your setup and production values, you'll likely want to look into something a bit more professional.

 

[Anthraxx00]

I still have the original Snowball from Blue. It's so good I have only been tempted to replace it because it looks silly not because of sound quality.

 

[J€Di]

I don’t have a “gaming” microphone - to me that conjures up an image of some black lump mounted on a flimsy desktop stand where far more money has been spent on RGB bling than audio quality. No thank you.

I have a Behringer XM8500 dynamic cardioid microphone in a shock mount with pop filter, mounted to a boom arm. This is connected to a Behringer U-Phoria UM2 USB interface via a shielded XLR cable, and then plugged into my PC. Total cost? £60.

that’s only half the story though - it’s great at allowing me to record perfectly clear audio into my PC, but then what? The next bit is the software. I record in 4K60 135mb/s using Nvidia Shadowplay, but the trick is I record the game and mic audio onto two separate tracks. Then when I edit my footage in Davinci Resolve, I can apply compression to duck the game audio whilst speaking, de ess and denoise the vocal track, and generally tweak the hell out of it before rendering and uploading. And the best bit? All free.

Good news for streamers too, OBS Studio also lets you compress and duck game audio in real time so you can achieve the same audio quality whilst streaming.

 

[Isaac]

I'm currently using an Audio-Technica AT2020 XLR microphone I found cheap on eBay, it has been working amazing for me. Have it paired with a wholesale 48V phantom power supply, shock mount, and pop filter to make it sound even better.

 

[Arduous]

Well, I just like the original condenser microphones from before the general maturity of streaming... I have one of the cheapest one's from guitar center at $100 by Sterling Audio. There's really nothing like the professional sound. Crisp highs and lows beyond regulated microphones, the only issue is their range is meant to pick up in an enclosed booth scenario, if you can get some version of that, you'll sound like you're in the same room as the viewer.

Class-A Sterling Audio St51