Microphones

What PC microphone would you guys recommend getting for someone who wants to add some speech and homemade sound effects to a game? I`m really after something quite cheap but still decent enough to capture some good sounds.

Also are USB ones the best or doesn`t that matter much?

Thanks,
Jason.

Even if you take an expensive one.. will you reduce the recordings to 16khz/8bit orso, if so.. who cares :D

At my study I once got compliments from an audio enginieer for a good recorder (the wind insturment) -recording. His jaw hit the ground when I told him I used the shell of a headphone to record it.

Sonically there's not *that* much difference between mics. You're as strong as the weakest link. A cheaper mic and a mic-preamp might also be a solid combi.

I never used a USB Mic. Are they sending the sounds as digitized data to the pc? Or are they abusing the USB connection for some kind of analog transmission? If they send data and therefor have an integrated AD converter, then it may be a good thing since it prevents e-smog noise in the first place (where bad analog cables of conventional mics would pick up a lot of noise near a PC).

Well, as I said, I don't know much about USB mics. Analog mics are pretty good too, even cheap ones. If you can test a mic before you buy it, then test it. Some criteria are: the bandwidth should be wide, eg. 50 Hz to 20'000Hz, or more.
The case and grip material should be of metal, plastic mics usually are crap and create a lot of noise when you touch it. When you squeeze and mess with the grip part of the case, there shouldn't be too much noise, this seperates cheap mics from hiq ones. But you will easily find a good mic in a low price category, even Sennheiser offer good and cheap mics these days, tho I'd rather suggest to have a look at Shure and Phillips. Make shure the mic doesn't require socalled "phantom voltage", they don't work with your pc. There is one thing that is very important for you: you need a good cable. The cable should feature maximum shielding from electromagnetic fields and smog!
Then your recording app / audio mixer should offer an optional mic booster that allows to add 20dB to the sensitivity of the mic. Without this, you probably won't be able to record anything good.

I am currently using a Phillips SBC MD-695 and it's ok, compared to professional stage equipment. (Although some people say it's crap, I used a lot of mics, live on stage and in studios, and the phillips is not so bad, although maybe not a leadsinger mic, but useful for speech and dialogs, eg. an external camera mic.). You will however have to edit your recordings with an equalizer to optimize it. That's why you also need some pretty good reference speakers or headphones to make sure your mix is objective.

For good quality voice recordings you're looking at getting a condensor mic, which will require phantom power (and so you'll need either a compact mixer or a soundcard which features phantom power). If quality isn't so much of an issue, a dynamic mic will probably be fine but you'll want to think about the mic pickup... a cardioid mic is best for vocal recording, and an omni mic is best for ambience \ sound effects.

I've never seen these USB mics before but i'd be a little dubious about the quality... to avoid interference it's best to use XLR cables (the vast majority of mics use this), as it cancels out any noise gained along the way. The audio interface to your PC is also important, most people are surprised to learn that a top of the range creative soundblaster is actually pretty poor quality. You can pick up a professional quality audio interface pretty cheap, try manufacturers such as M-Audio, ESI-Pro, RME, Edirol etc

Don't forget to make your PC quiet as possible, perhaps with lots of blankets (not for long as it may overheat!)

Yep, nothing worse than the sound of the fan in the backround, or someone shuting on you or the phone going :P. It is funny though, playing back the recording, to hear you curse when it happens.

Or you can get a mic with a long cord and step out of the room...

For real good sound response you need a professional condenser mic, with XLR and phantom powering. But you'll also need a mixing desk to plug it into :P - Oops Jams already said it!

Pickles isn't too far off... my dad had his own sound studio for a while... was just afun little project and quite simple to do... let me outline it.

You need extention cords for all the noisey bits of the PC... all you need in the room itself is keyboard, your devices, mouse, and a monitor.... if the low hum of your monitor is a bother, you'll need to stick the thing on the opposite side of double or tripple paned glass.. but for an amature studio it should be fine (get an lcd monitor now-a-days)

make sure the room you are using is small but already has little echo, and line everything with deep carpet, and on the walls (over the carpet) put egg cartons... you can add more covering to it if you want... but unless you have planed flying by all the time that should be plenty to drown out anything from other rooms.... plug in your mic and enjoy the sound of only your own voice...

total cost (minus the house with the tiny room or the cost of building one in your basement like my dad) maybe $700 for crap carpet and all the eggs and extension cables... want to make the cables yourself and get the cartons from the supermarket? maybe $100-200

Not bad for your own sound room..... my silly dad wanted to record his banjo and guitar playing... but he never really did.... he bought the nice newish PC of his for the same thing and never uses it for that.... he has dreams... just no drive.. hahah

I'm using a cheap headset by Verbatim that I picked up wholesale for around $US3 which records my voice perfectly. I seriously don't think a more expensive microphone would produce a better recording.

"I seriously don't think a more expensive microphone would produce a better recording."

You're quite mistaken....
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?LOG-980178
http://www.dv247.com/invt/21006

I'd put my bets on the second one making a better quality recording!

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You can drown out alot of outside noise by putting a blanket over your head when you're recording, it works pretty well, plus you look really cool :D

For something in between, you'll find this one quite tough to beat.

http://homerecording.about.com/b/a/196823.htm

A number of pros have used it and rate it quite highly.

i.e.

http://rogermcguinn.blogspot.com/2005/09/techie-report-3-by-roger-mcguinn.html (qv) for one! ;O) (search for the samson bit on that page)

Whatever you might think of his music, this guy really knows about audio on computers.