Best Microphone for Youtubers

I actually have one right behind me here. Very very common microphone, and it would've been my guess going in but I had no idea just how popular it was. An incredible 110 outof the top 250 streamers on Twitch are using the Shure SM7B as their microphone of choice. That means that 44% of these top 250 Twitch streamers are all using the exact same microphone. I'm going to dive into some examples and some reasons why later on in the video, but for now let's keepgoing through the data and see which othermicrophones performed well. In total, there was 36different microphones that featured in the top 250, which is a good indication of how much choice there is out there. After the Shure SM7B, the next most popular, maybe a bit surprisingly for me, was the Blue Yeti. Now this is obviously a USB microphone, and a condenser microphone, so quite different to the Shure SM7B, and we saw 9% of users still using the Blue Yeti. Now the Blue Yeti is rightfully so a very popular microphone around smaller streamers. And it's usually what people pick up as their first professional microphone. But it is still a USB condenser microphone and really very differentto the Shure SM7B.

 So I was certainly verysurprised to see it so high up on the list. Next we have the Audio Technica AT2020, and there's two differentvariants of this. A USB version and an XLR version, which I kept separate because I wanted to look specifically at some stats about USB versus XLR. If we combine them together, then 11% of the user base are using the AT2020. Some honorable mentions are for the Rode Procaster and the Electro-Voice RE20, a couple of dynamic microphones that are very popular inthe podcasting industry, each picking up about 4% of the market. Next let's look at howmuch people are spending on their microphone typically. The average spend over the whole analysis is just over $300. But I think that was kind of skewed because there was a few users that were using some seriouslyexpensive microphones at over $1,000 a piece. If instead we break up thepricing into some groups, we can see the most popular category is the $300-$400, which is where the Shure SM7B sits at, $400. The second most popular price range is the $100-$200 range, which sees nearly 25% ofstreamers buying microphones in that category. So this is where some of thoselower end XLR microphones start to come in, like the AT2020, also some of the higherend USB microphones like the AT2020 USB, or the HyperX Quadcast, or the Rode NT-USB. They all sort of fall in this price range. If we look at the actual connectivity of these microphones, we can see that 77% of Twitch streamers are choosing XLR, and 23% are choosing USB connections. Now obviously an XLR microphone can't connect straight into your computer like a USB microphone can, so the streamers that areusing an XLR microphone need some kind of interface or mixer to connect it to their computer. Something like the GOXLR or the Scarlet2i2 or the 2i4, or just a generic mixer. So you can expect any streamer that is using an XLR microphone to be spending an extra $100 to $500 on an interface of some sort to connect it to their computer. In terms of the dynamic versus condensermicrophone argument, this was kind of close, which is probably what I expected, with 60 40 split in favorof dynamic microphones. Brands wise, we can see that obviously Shure hasthe highest market share because of how popular the SM7B is. 

Audio Technica next up with 16%, Blue with 13%, Rode with 10%, and then we start to fall off through the rest of the brands as they only have one or two mics that are popular amongst streamers. So now let's talk about the Shure SM7B. 44% of streamers areusing this microphone. That is just a crazy number, there must be some reason. Let's actually jump onto the computer so we can use the Shure SM7B as a sample and you can actually hear exactly what it sounds like, and I'll try and explain why it's such a popularmicrophone for streamers. So you're now listening to the audio from the Shure SM7B, a $400 mic that's beenaround for a long time. Apparently actually the original SM7 was used for Michael Jackson's Thriller and the variants, SM7A, SM7B, really haven't changedmuch of the fundamentals of the mic internals. Just like streaming it has become the staple microphone of the podcasting world with many of the popularpodcasters choosing the SM7B as their microphone of choice. Let me go through exactly the setup that I have here, because it's important foryou to be able to understand exactly what you're listening to. So I have the Shure SM7B plugged into somethingcalled a Cloudlifter, which I'll explain in just a second, and the Cloudlifter is then plugged in via XLR to a Focusrite 2i4. I do have a GoXLR which is obviously another interface that you can use, but I wanted to give you the cleanest signal with no alterations. So no compression, equalization, de-essing, noise gating. So this is a pure signal from the Shure SM7B through the Cloudlifter into my interface which is the Focusrite 2i4, and then that goesstraight into my computer. I have the gain on the Focusrite 2i4 set to around 60%, so what you're hearing now is exactly what the microphone sounds like I've done no post processing in the audio. I may have just boosted it slightly so the volume is theright level for you guys, but it's just the raw feed from the Shure SM7B. So what is the Cloudlifter thing that I have which sitsbetween the microphone and the preamp or the interface? Effectively, the Shure SM7B is a notoriously quiet dynamic microphone, meaning that it needsaround 70 decibels of gain to be able to be at audible levels. Most preamps and interfaces only provide about 70 decibels of gain, and when you're cranking it all the way to 100% like that, they start to introduce self noise. So the actual audio signal starts to sound noisy. A Cloudlifter or a Fathead, there's a few different products out there that do the same thing. That sits in between the microphone and the preamp and provides around 20 to 25 decibels of clean gain before it hits the preamp. That means that you can turn the gain down on the preamp or the interface from 100% to something like I have, about 60% now, and therefore reducing the self noise. So let's talk a littlebit about the Shure SM7B. Why has it become the staple in the live streaming andpodcasting industries? Is it a warranted title? Or are people just following the trends and seeing what popularstreamers are using? Well, let's start off with the pros. The Shure SM7B is a verynatural sounding microphone. Meaning that you can shape the audio in many different ways, which is why it is so versatile and used in so many different industries from live streaming, podcasting, to live recording and even live shows. Since it's a dynamic microphone rather than a condenser microphone, it's very good at rejectingsome of the background noise or noise that isn't directlyin front of the capsule. To simulate this, I'll do some typing on my keyboard so you can hear how much of it it picks up. This is quite a loud keyboard. If I stop talking youmight be able to hear it a bit clearer. Another thing about it is that it is very well built. It's mostly metal construction and it doesn't actually need a shock mount since the inside capsule is apparently internally air suspended, so it isolates itself from mechanical noise. Also, it looks good. I know that the aesthetics of a microphone should be the lowest of priority when you're shopping around, but there's no denying that this microphone does look quite good in a webcam frame compared to some of theofferings out there. Okay, the cons are it is expensive, at $400 plus the need for a Cloudlifter or Fathead as well as some kind ofaudio interface or mixer, you're looking at spending quite a lot of money to upgrade your whole audio setup, especially if you're comingfrom a USB microphone and you don't already have the interface. It's worth noting thatthe GoXLR and GoXLR Mini as well as some other interfaces do have particularly clean preamps, so you can get awaywith using a Shure SM7B without the need for aCloudlifter or a Fathead if you wish to. The other major con I wouldsay about this microphone is just how close you need to be to it for it to sound good. You're really going to needto have this microphone in your webcam frame for your streams. If you have it out of frame, it's just going to sound so much worse. To demonstrate that, I'm right up on the microphone now, if I move about a foot away, this is what the microphone sounds like from about a foot away from the mic. So this would be when the microphone isn't in frame. Before we wrap up this video, I want to really emphasize three major points when it comes to choosing a microphone for your streaming setup. Point number one is don'tjust follow the trends and buy what everyone else is buying. You really need to do your research here because microphones are so dependent on the speaker's voice as well as the environmentthat you're recording in. Do your research. Do you want a dynamic ora condenser microphone? How close do you want tohave it to your mouth? 

How sound proof can you get your space? You really need to get a microphone that fits your specific needs. Point number two is to make sure that you're really getting the most out of your currentmicrophone before upgrading. You can make pretty much any microphone on the market sound awful if you don't follow theadvice in the manual or online to make sure that you're setting it up correctly. If you've got some questions, why not join the Gaming Careers Discord where we have thousands of members with so many different microphone setups that can help make sure that you're using your microphone in its best way? And point number three, maybe the most important one, is that the microphone that you use is not going to be the reason that you make it or don't make it as a streamer. As long as you can be heard audibly, I promise you that it's not going tobe the difference maker. As we've shown in the data, there are 10% of the top 250 streamers that are spending less than $100 on their microphone, and getting away with USB microphones. There's even a few examples in the top 50 of people that are justusing headset microphones and have still managed to make their streams incredibly popular. Your content is always goingto be what matters most, much more important than which microphone you end up choosing. Guys I really enjoyed making this video.