This is the Cheapest Streaming/Podcast Mic I Could Find - How Good Is It?

today i'd like to try something a little bit different you might remember a while back i did a video where i compared the rode pod mic up against the shore sm7b a very legendary vocal microphone and in that video it was pretty clear that the shure is overall a better microphone but it normally retails for 400 whereas this guy the pod mic as you might know usually sells for a hundred dollars so for the cost of one shore sm7b you can get four pod mics which means that if you're like me and you work with the road caster pro a mixer that has four xlr inputs for the cost of one sure sm7b you can have an entire podcast setup and so far i've been really this looks almost looks like an award like the podcast award so far i've been really happy with the road pod mic i actually own two of them i love them i think they are terrific of course a lot of what makes a microphone sound good depends on your specific voice and your preference in terms of audio processing but i still had a question in the 100 price range there are a lot of really good microphones like you have a ton of options for great mics even going a little below 100 to like the 75 80 range there's some really good mics there i was wondering what about the super budget price range there's this guy right here the newer condenser microphone kit really catchy name i know so this sounded like a good deal at the time but now let's see if it actually sounds like a good deal i've never used this microphone i don't really know much about it it got decent reviews the key component it was 25 so very similarly to how you could get four pod mics for the price of one shure sm7b you can get four of these microphones for the price of one pod mic i'm really curious to see if that's a good way to go or if you're better off spending a little extra on getting a higher quality product so let's dive in and check this out we'll be doing some sound tests with this but first let's see what you actually get for 25 i haven't gone through and opened this yet so we get to do a little unboxing here all right we've got our instructions oh it actually comes with an xlr to 3.5 millimeter cable you get a you get a windscreen that's not too bad it's really thin you get this little thin foam windscreen you do also get a shock mount which is shocking because the price is so low and this thing feels not too bad it's made out of metal it's got some foam in here it's got a smaller amount than normal but i think that's so it can more easily mount to something like the rode psa1 very cool and of course oh we get a packet of harmful if swallowed and of course the main event the microphone itself so it's gold and black actually looks pretty cool i know that when it comes to microphones the looks aren't the most important thing but with a lot of people doing broadcast and video podcasts and things like that a lot of times you do find the microphone in the shot with you so having something that you think looks good makes sense it's one of the reasons i actually prefer the pod mic so that's everything your 25 gets you which is not a bad deal right off the bat the build quality of this is very different from the build quality of the pod mic the pod mic is one of the heaviest mics i've ever used it's a very sturdy microphone that could cause some serious damage if you wanted to this is much more lightweight the thing i noticed which is actually kind of a bummer you saw me just take this out of the package right now but there are some scratches on the body that were there as soon as i opened it nothing that's really going to show up on camera but when you just take something brand new out of the package and it's scratched it's kind of a bummer and of course i'll put a link to this down in the description but if you want to know the exact model this is the nw800 kind of my fault in terms of a comparison because this is a dynamic microphone this is a condenser microphone the difference being that this has a lower output signal but can kind of handle a wider variety of sounds whereas a condenser microphone might be more apt for vocals specifically but it also benefits from phantom power or an external power source fortunately since i'm using it with the road caster pro i'll be able to give it the phantom power that it needs to put the mic in the shock mount you just sort of squeeze these wires now of course it comes down to what does this sound like so let's test it out just a little bit let's grab the road caster one thing i did notice was there's just a little adapter down here so if you take this out then it has a more standard microphone mount that will fit on standard mic stands this is always the most popular question i get in my microphone videos are about these little tabletop stands these are little samson stands that i like because they're shorter but this table is also taller than a normal table these are on stage brand stands that can extend out a little bit and they work great as well so i'll put links to these down below the taller stands and the shorter stands taller ones would work really well if your typical table is normal height like 30 inches this table is actually a little bit taller than that so i like the shorter stance so i don't just stare behind the microphone and you're trying to talk to someone and this is all that you see and for right now the beginning of this video i've been using the rode videomic pro plus as always just for my normal audio but in a second we're going to switch to these mics pretty much for the rest of the video and we will put the newer mic because it's the newer mic on this mic stand this is sort of strange because it feels kind of strong and cheesy at the same time so i don't know how long it'll last but you can kind of get an idea for how the shock mount works right off the bat what i can notice is i'm hardly getting any signal off of this mic if i turn up the pod mic you can see the levels shooting up right there this mic the new one on channel two it's up all the way you can hardly see anything that's really because of that phantom power so all i can do is go into channel level turn on phantom power and now we can really see this is i can turn down the gain significantly which is great because the less gain you have the cleaner the signal will be now as i'm setting up these microphones i realized i was going to make a bit of a mistake they look kind of similar but they don't work the same way the rode pod mic is designed basically to have you speak directly into the front of it maybe across the front of it whereas the best pickup pattern for this microphone is speaking into the what looks like the side that's actually the front of it so i put it on a taller mic stand which is gonna let it let me angle it towards me a bit more so there's no effects turned on this microphone is just set to the generic condenser setting so we're gonna switch over to the newer microphone in three two one and here we go with the newer microphone it definitely sounds different than the pod mic but it doesn't necessarily sound bad and it has tremendously high output if you notice on the slider here on the road caster i have it turned down below halfway and i'm still getting pretty high levels which means to get a cleaner signal i could actually go into the gain setting turn the gain setting down and raise up the microphones level and it should give me a cleaner signal overall now of course going back and forth this is the newer microphone and this is the pod mic i think right off the bat the pod mic does sound better to my ears but one of the problems with doing microphone comparisons sometimes is that it doesn't necessarily let you appreciate each microphone in its own right it's easy to go back and forth and think this one doesn't sound as good as that but what about in a vacuum by itself what if you were just using this microphone would it sound good enough that's what i'm really curious about and right now i don't really think that it sounds great but i am kind of optimistic that with some equalization we'll be able to get a good sound out of it so first thing before we test it out before we switch up some stuff let's check out the pickup patterns on these microphones with the pod mic it's designed like i said to speak directly into the front so if i turn the mic away from me you can hear my voice less if i turn the mic towards me you can hear it more it's really designed for you to speak directly into the front of it this microphone is a little bit different the side right here is really the front if i turn the microphone away from me you can't hear me as much and if i turn it towards me it has a very clear pickup pattern of basically right here is where you want to speak into and direct your voice with this microphone i almost messed up and just talked into the front of it and messed everything up i'm really glad i didn't do that and had to refilm this both of these microphones are supposed to have pop filters built into them pop pop pop pow pow pow pow power wheels pow pow power wheels and then if i go over here pow pow power wheels pop pop pop pop pop i mean they they actually don't sound too bad they almost seem to have pretty equally effective pop filters at least in my opinion this one probably seems a little bit weaker but it does have a windscreen so let's see if this actually helps peter piper picked a pack of pickled peppers pizzas pepperonis peter piper picked a peck of pickled pizzas pepperonis prize fighters i mean it kind of makes a difference this isn't really the highest quality windscreen in the world i bet if you got something that was a little a little better you could probably get better results this did noticeably take down the pops but i also feel like it kind of cut out some of the high end that was there before and it really kind of seems like this microphone is lacking some of that balance so before we make our final judgments let's go through and play with this microphone play with some of the settings i'm going to go back into the pod mic i'm going to go into my microphone settings change it over to the pod mic setting that i normally use basically i just keep most of the effects off i do play with the oral exciter a little bit add in some bass adjust the treble a little bit doesn't make a huge difference but this is with those settings and this is without those settings it just kind of turns it up a little bit and i like that so now i've spent just a few minutes adjusting some of the settings on here this is the microphone without any effects and this is the microphone with my adjustments again this is with my adjustments and this is without any effects so the differences might be kind of subtle but basically all i did was i added a little bit of compression it almost seems like it boosted the mids a little bit i'm not an audio pro but it just kind of got rid of some of that weird hollow sound that this mic had and then i went into the oral exciter added a little bit on the highs and a little bit on the lows now i could do something crazy especially with like the bass and turn it up really loud and then it's a super bassy sounding microphone or i could take it all the way down and make it really thin there is room to be flexible and it doesn't sound too too bad here's again without any of those settings and then with those settings kind of just fills out the sound so just for quick comparisons this is the rode pod mic this is the newer microphone but between these two microphones so imagine you're having like a podcast and you're talking to a guest if you're bouncing back and forth i definitely think it would be possible to make them match a little bit you might need to spend more time playing with the equalization on this guy i boosted the aural exciter a little bit just to bring in a little more of the highs this is without the highs being adjusted and now this is with them being adjusted and the reason i did that is because i think that it helps it match with the road pod mic just a little bit more and i think you could pair them up for a podcast and it's not going to sound too crazy you could say like hey tell me about that thing you're working on oh you mean which thing that i'm working on that thing or the other thing no the one thing the main thing oh it sounds like you're in the same room with me on the same microphone i am in the same room with you but i'm on a totally different microphone well it must have been equalized and worked really well that doesn't sound like 25 at all really it doesn't so with that in mind in the 25 price range is this a decent microphone i think that it's not bad if you have nothing or this this is better than nothing which probably isn't the best tagline for the company like newer better than nothing and so who is this microphone for it's for someone on a budget if you have any kind of budget don't get this microphone jump up to the 50 or 100 price range i think the trickier part comes to if you need more than one microphone because now you can get two of these for half the cost of this or four of these for one of these if you're trying to put together a podcast put to if you're trying to put together a podcast if you're trying to put together a podcast kind of makes a difference it could also be a good option if you've already got a good mic and you have guests on your show sometimes and you just need a mic every once in a while and you don't want to spend full price on a second microphone but you want something just to have when you need it this could be a good fit for that of course i am a big believer in the idea of buy quality by once and what i mean by that is this microphone works it doesn't sound the best it's not built the best i mean it was kind of scratched and damaged right as i took it out of the box chances are just with regular use and plugging in plugging out over time you know i wouldn't expect this to last a very long time whereas this or something like the shure sm7b i would expect this to last forever unless i like ran over it with my car and even then this thing is so durable it would probably still work after that the point being that you are saving a bit of money with this microphone but if you can put forward a little bit more money initially it's going to deliver better quality and it's going to last longer so i'm a big fan of the idea of just bite the bullet buy quality buy once and then you're set so am i going to keep this microphone yeah i uh well i mean amazon's not taking returns right now right but there's no reason to return this microphone for 25 you get a mic you get a cable you get a pop filter you get a shock mount it's not a bad deal it's not the highest quality mic it's not the one i'm going to be reaching for all the time but definitely in those situations i've got two pod mics if i ever need a third person it's gonna be nice to know that i have this and i can use it i'm also actually pretty excited to see how i can mix these mics together to record my drums because drums are really hard to mic up and even though this isn't the highest quality mic it's a weirdness especially the fact that it almost sounds like it has scooped mids all the time i think might actually be helpful when mixing in for drums so i might end up trying to use it for something like that so the thing that i would ask you to do if you're trying to make your decision is this microphone good enough for you do you need something better get the best microphone you can afford for your budget if you are on a limited budget and you need the 25 microphone option forget the comparison with the pod mic and just focus on how my voice sounds right now knowing that i spent you know three to four minutes working on a basic equalization and knowing that if this microphone were yours you could spend a lot more time dialing it in to the style that you prefer and to suit your voice so if i had not used any other microphones in this video and i just started with this microphone this sound would it sound good to you would you notice it and say hey your audio sounds terrible today or would you be wow that audio sounds great or would you not notice it at all if this were a podcast you were listening to you popped in your earbuds or put it in your car and you this is what you're hearing through your speakers as you're on your commute or whatever does it sound good enough and that's a personal decision for you to make ultimately you want the best audio quality who cares what the name brand is on it who cares what the price tag is but there's definitely something to be said for a quality brand reputation and maybe spending a little bit more money to get a higher quality product that's going to last a long time but if all you have is 25 and you need the best microphone you can get for 25 i don't really think there's anything wrong with this one right here if you want to know how the rode pod mic stacked up against the shure sm7b i'm gonna put a link to that video right here and i really appreciate all the feedback and comments i've been getting on my videos i've been getting a lot of audio engineers from all over the world from places like latvia and czechoslovakia so i got feedback from a latvian sound engineer and a check one two czech went to czechoslovakia also you

Channel: Tom Buck

Views: 426,356

Rating: 4.9338722 out of 5

Keywords: neewer nw-800, neewer microphone, budget microphone, neewer nw-800 unboxing, cheap microphone, neewer microphone kit, nw 800, condenser microphone, neewer microphone review, neewer nw-8000, neewer microphone test, neewer vs podmic, neewer vs rode, budget microphone 2020, budget podcast microphone, podcast microphones, podcast equipment, rode podmic, dynamic vs condenser mic, rodecaster pro equalizer

Id: -5C5Hvaffsg

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Thu May 21 2020