Decent Microphone In Multi Mic Setup

Glal

I game in the same room as my SO and often when we're playing with others we're tripping each other's microphones. Over the years I've spent countless hours trying different microphones, adjusting gain and other software settings and moving them around, but just cannot seem to be able to find a combination where
a) one person talking doesn't echo through the other person, without at the same time
b) having the sensitivity so low that Discord just eats half a second of each sentence

I swear, some of these microphones seem to be more sensitive to the sound coming from behind them, two meters and physical monitors away, than they are the speaker 15cm away from their front.

I figure there has to exist some consumer grade unidirectional microphone that primarily captures from the front, right? And keep in mind, this is purely for gaming VoIP purposes, so keeping the price low is preferable. I've been pondering just making a cone of shame and sellotaping it around the head, but I don't know if that'll just distort with little gain.

syndalis

Glal wrote: »

I game in the same room as my SO and often when we're playing with others we're tripping each other's microphones. Over the years I've spent countless hours trying different microphones, adjusting gain and other software settings and moving them around, but just cannot seem to be able to find a combination where
a) one person talking doesn't echo through the other person, without at the same time
b) having the sensitivity so low that Discord just eats half a second of each sentence

I swear, some of these microphones seem to be more sensitive to the sound coming from behind them, two meters and physical monitors away, than they are the speaker 15cm away from their front.

I figure there has to exist some consumer grade unidirectional microphone that primarily captures from the front, right? And keep in mind, this is purely for gaming VoIP purposes, so keeping the price low is preferable. I've been pondering just making a cone of shame and sellotaping it around the head, but I don't know if that'll just distort with little gain.

https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Condenser-Microphone-Streaming-Podcasting/dp/B07QKQJL17

This is the gold standard for podcasting, gaming, etc. Not cheap, but also not $audiophile, works with everything, and has really good unidirectional capabilities.

Glal

How good is it at filtering out other sounds in the room, though? As said, the issue isn't sound quality, it's that we're echoing in each other's mics, and lowering the sensitivity to where that doesn't happen then also starts cutting off the start of each sentence of the person using the mic.

syndalis

Glal wrote: »

How good is it at filtering out other sounds in the room, though? As said, the issue isn't sound quality, it's that we're echoing in each other's mics, and lowering the sensitivity to where that doesn't happen then also starts cutting off the start of each sentence of the person using the mic.

you would dial it in to cardioid mode and make sure the 180deg cone is pointed away from the other person.

edit: it won't be flawless, but it will be way better than what you are currently working with.

Glal

Thanks for the help!

Akilae

A Yeti might actually be overkill for what you need to do.

A cheap-ish dynamic mic would work for filtering out noisy environments.

Glal

Yeah, ended up ordering a cheaper cardioid condenser mic that had good reviews, but knowing what to look for was the key; unfortunately "microphone what primarily captures at the front innit" is not very helpful in figuring out what the hell stuff is called.