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Audio engineer here. I scrolled through the whole thing and he's been very thorough in his considerations. His conclusions/choices aren't always ideal and may b

Audio engineer here. I scrolled through the whole thing and he's been very thorough in his considerations. His conclusions/choices aren't always ideal and may be a little complicated or naive, but considering that the author seems to have put this all together from scratch as a non-domain expert it's commendable. Good work. Nonetheless, I still found some of the advice to be unsatisfactory and rather than go over everything point by point, I sat for a moment to decide if I couldn't come up with a more elegant solution that can serve the needs of 90% of laypeople trying to communicate remotely. Then it hit me: Buy a pair of Airpods. 1. The microphone is of high-enough quality. It's not something you'd make an album with, but it's good enough and is optimized for speaking. 2. The ratio of direct sound (voice) to ambient noise (reverb) is very high because the microphone is effectively glued to your face. This dramatically reduces the effort necessary to treat the acoustics in the room. Additionally, the mic will always be placed at optimum range and you don't introduce the possibility of audio quality wavering when you move away from a desktop mic. As long as your room isn't completely devoid of furnishings (like the first room photo in the guide) any average residential room should have enough acoustic absorption/diffusion and probably be suitable. 3. The fact that you're monitoring all audio through the earbuds completely removes the potential for feedback issues. 4. The built-in noise-cancelling DSP will clean up any remaining steady-state ambient noise (air-conditioning, refrigerator hum, etc) 5. The DSP in the earbuds are optimizing gain. As long as you don't shout you should steer well clear of clipping and be at an optimal gain setting. It's not gonna be the solution for every situation and the fidelity isn't immaculate, but it's quick, easy, simple, and sounds damn well good enough while also coming in at a price point that is less than a very conservative rudimentary recording package (mic, interface, headphones, cabling) would cost. I regularly watch world-class engineers live-streaming discussions with each other using this exact setup. If they can stand it, I think the layperson will be satisfied.

nickjj 6y ago
One of the top recommendations from the post is to use a dynamic USB mic connected straight to your computer btw. Not too complicated I hope. One takeaway through out the post is less is more for the gear / processing side of things. Do you have any recommended audio comparisons using the airpods where you know a ton of post-processing hasn't been applied to the recording? After a quick look on the internet a few recordings I heard left a lot to be desired. For example https://www.soundguys.com/apple-airpods-pro-vs-airpods-2-27213/ https://www.soundguys.com/apple-airpods-pro-vs-airpods-2-272... (half way down), the recordings have a huge amount of line noise, static and it kind of sounds like the voice is getting garbled a bit. A couple others I found on YouTube had at least the same amount of background hiss. Maybe they're ok for occasional Zoom calls but based on what I heard I wouldn't use them for any type of semi-professional recordings (youtube, live streaming, podcasts, etc.).
- Slow_Hand 6y ago
  You're right. A dynamic USB mic is a solid and simple choice. Nothing wrong with that. I don't have any resources for comparing the audio of airpods. Just personal experience and observation of other people's usage. Not sure where the line noise would be coming from. Perhaps there's some RF or electrical noise that's being picked up from the computer. Computers can be super-noisy and introduce all kinds of RF and electrical interference, not to mention fan noise. Short of being far away from your computer or isolating it in a cabinet/faraday cage I'm not sure of the best way to prevent certain devices from picking up this noise. I can only cover it up or remove it after the fact. Also, I was a little hasty in my statements. I was picturing this tutorial more on the spectrum of audio for Zoom calls and casual correspondence. If you're producing a professional video or something of high-production quality AirPods are not going to be ideal. I don't mean to discount your work. That's my mistake.
  - nickjj 6y ago
    No problem, thanks for the suggestions. Yeah it's a bit more suited towards getting professional sounding audio (or least a few notches above casual Zoom calls), but would work for anyone doing Zoom calls regularly in case they wanted to up their quality without breaking the bank or going off the deep end in hardware.

nickjj 6y ago

One of the top recommendations from the post is to use a dynamic USB mic connected straight to your computer btw. Not too complicated I hope. One takeaway through out the post is less is more for the gear / processing side of things. Do you have any recommended audio comparisons using the airpods where you know a ton of post-processing hasn't been applied to the recording? After a quick look on the internet a few recordings I heard left a lot to be desired. For example https://www.soundguys.com/apple-airpods-pro-vs-airpods-2-27213/ https://www.soundguys.com/apple-airpods-pro-vs-airpods-2-272... (half way down), the recordings have a huge amount of line noise, static and it kind of sounds like the voice is getting garbled a bit. A couple others I found on YouTube had at least the same amount of background hiss. Maybe they're ok for occasional Zoom calls but based on what I heard I wouldn't use them for any type of semi-professional recordings (youtube, live streaming, podcasts, etc.).

Slow_Hand 6y ago
You're right. A dynamic USB mic is a solid and simple choice. Nothing wrong with that. I don't have any resources for comparing the audio of airpods. Just personal experience and observation of other people's usage. Not sure where the line noise would be coming from. Perhaps there's some RF or electrical noise that's being picked up from the computer. Computers can be super-noisy and introduce all kinds of RF and electrical interference, not to mention fan noise. Short of being far away from your computer or isolating it in a cabinet/faraday cage I'm not sure of the best way to prevent certain devices from picking up this noise. I can only cover it up or remove it after the fact. Also, I was a little hasty in my statements. I was picturing this tutorial more on the spectrum of audio for Zoom calls and casual correspondence. If you're producing a professional video or something of high-production quality AirPods are not going to be ideal. I don't mean to discount your work. That's my mistake.
- nickjj 6y ago
  No problem, thanks for the suggestions. Yeah it's a bit more suited towards getting professional sounding audio (or least a few notches above casual Zoom calls), but would work for anyone doing Zoom calls regularly in case they wanted to up their quality without breaking the bank or going off the deep end in hardware.