Whether it’s a Zoom meeting, YouTube recording, or PodCast recording, it’s easy to get tired of not being confident in your voice. I want to be able to make a better voice. I don’t want to be embarrassed. To such people. There are three ways to improve the quality of your voice. One goes to Vocal pedagogy. One is to practice vocalization and tongue training by chanting “Amenbo Red Aiueo” and Hakushu Kitahara’s fifty sounds. The other is to use a good quality microphone.
It is difficult to go to Vocal pedagogy depending on the area, so it is recommended to use a good quality microphone while practicing vocalization and tongue training.
What kind of microphone should I use if I actually introduce a microphone?
You may be curious about the microphone used for vocal recording. However, if you connect a conventional microphone to the microphone input terminal of your PC, you may hear noise in your voice or you may not be able to record your voice in the first place. If you have an audio interface with an XLR terminal and a USB mixer, you can use the microphone that the artist is using when recording. In other words, it costs a lot.
Therefore, I would like to pay attention to a microphone that can be connected via USB. The audio interface function is included in the microphone, and the setting is almost completed just by connecting it to the PC with a USB cable. It’s very easy to handle.
Anker’s “Anker PowerCast M300” is attracting attention in this USB microphone category. It’s a cheap product at 6980 yen, but what about the actual quality? I borrowed the actual machine and checked it.
Anker PowerCast M300（Amazon）
USB microphone with physical volume
It’s so small and lightweight that you wouldn’t expect it to have a built-in 24-bit / 96kHz audio interface. A 16mm condenser microphone unit is built into the punching metal pop guard. Unidirectional sound collection centered on the sound coming in from directly above the microphone body. This method is best if you want to record only one voice with a microphone placed on the table.
You can change the gain by turning the volume. Since it has a gain control function that automatically makes it difficult for sound cracking to settle down, it is okay to turn the volume too vigorously.
A stand that firmly supports the microphone body
Comes with a tabletop microphone stand base plate. It’s not that heavy, but the light weight of the microphone makes it more stable.
The connection with the microphone arm is a ball joint, allowing fine adjustment in any direction, front, back, left, or right. Since the microphone arm has an elevation and depression angle, it is easy to point it at the mouth together with the ball joint even if it is installed on a table.
The screw hole of the microphone arm is 5/8 inch. It is a popular size for microphone holders and can be attached to external microphone booms. It is also possible to hang it from above.
LED light that shows the mode of the microphone
RGB LEDs are built into the slits on the bottom and body of the microphone. The LED on the bottom can be changed in color with the RGB button on the bottom, but it does not have the function of shining in conjunction with the surrounding sound. You can also turn off the LED on the bottom by pressing and holding the RGB button.
The LEDs on the torso indicate the microphone and volume modes. It glows blue at startup and you can change the gain of the microphone with the volume. Press the volume button once to glow red and mute. If you keep pushing for 2 seconds, it will glow green and you can adjust the volume of the headphone output.
Headphone jack that allows you to check your own voice
The bottom is equipped with a headphone jack for a monitor that allows you to check the volume during recording. Since it is recognized as an audio interface by the PC, it is possible to listen to the music being played on the PC side as well. It is also suitable for dubbing a video being edited with cuts and SEs.
Anker PowerCast M300（Amazon）
Noise countermeasures with software
First, I attached headphones to the headphone jack on the microphone body and listened. Then you can enter, the sound of the air conditioner, the sound of the circulating water supply for cats, the sound of the train coming in from outside the room. Unnecessary noise is mixed in for the purpose of recording voice. Although it is unidirectional, the sound that reverberates in the room is included, and the sound on the side is picked up as it is.
This isn’t a bad thing for the Anker PowerCast M300, as it also happens when using a vocal mic & USB audio interface. Normally, if you don’t customize the room like in a recording studio, you tend to be overwhelmed by ambient noise and extra echoes.
RTX Voice is useful in such cases. If your PC is equipped with NVIDIA GPU (not only RTX generation but also GTX generation), it is an application that performs noise reduction of microphone sound. In addition, noise reduction is possible by using OBS Studio even on a PC using Radeon or a GPU with a built-in CPU.
Actually using RTX Voice solves the problem. I was able to record clear and clean sound. When I listen to the recorded voice again, although there is a difference in the tendency of the sound, it is close to the quality when using a vocal microphone of 10,000 yen or more. The low range is not muffled, the mid range is thick, and the high range grows firmly. This is fine. 6980 yen I don’t think it sounds like a microphone! I feel that the impact is not enough in the low range, but this may be the result of tuning to record the female voice beautifully.
Good quality USB microphone with excellent cost performance
Not only the noise in the space, but if you use it as it is, the sound when you turn the mute button or volume tends to enter. It is a microphone that clearly shows the delicacy of a condenser microphone. If you squeeze the noise gate settings built into OBS etc., it will improve considerably, so if you are pursuing good voice and ikebo, the settings are indispensable.
However, once you set it, you will not be bothered by noise from now on, and if you use it for Zoom meetings, you can leave it unset.
As I will mention again, it has a fairly high quality for a 6980 yen USB microphone. It is also recommended as the first USB microphone.
Anker PowerCast M300（Amazon）
