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> You don’t need pro equipment. The camera and microphone in your laptop are sufficient. I disagree with this. Yes, the built in might be enough to be understa

> You don’t need pro equipment. The camera and microphone in your laptop are sufficient. I disagree with this. Yes, the built in might be enough to be understandable, but during an interview you want every advantage possible. Personally I think shifting from built in microphones to earbuds should be the bare minimum for audio quality, as this helps reject background noise. For cameras, positioning is more important than quality. Yes, a separate webcam is drastically sharper than a built in one, but more importantly it can be placed at a much higher height than your laptop screen. This prevents the “I can see up your nose” issue.

alisonkisk 5y ago
MacBook Pro has excellent microphone.
- eropple 5y ago
  It does not. It has an excellent microphone for a laptop microphone. It doesn't step to a $69 desk microphone.
samatman 5y ago
For microphones, it depends on the laptop. I have the 2020 16" MacBook Pro, and I've tried the onboard mic array, AirPods (Pro and otherwise), a lamellar mike, and a Sony stereo mike that fits the hot shoe on my mirrorless camera. The MacBook's onboard mic arrays give the best voice quality, so I've stuck with that. Arguably tied by the lamellar, but that just means I don't have to bother plugging it in, clipping it in place, making sure the battery is off, and then being tethered to my setup. Much like the speakers, the microphones on this laptop are much better than they have any right to be. The webcam, on the other hand, is a potato. I set up the mirrorless (α6500 for the curious) and some lighting, even though this is at least ten times the effort. It's worth it.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  > For microphones, it depends on the laptop. For raw mic quality in a perfectly silent environment, sure. But background noise rejection is a matter of ratios. The closer the mic is to your face the louder your voice is in comparison to any background noise. The computer can do some computational noise reduction, but that always ends up being a bit like virtual backgrounds; fine, but clearly insufficient. Personally I use a XLR mic on a boom arm, because I can be a bit extra in these things. But among my colleagues the Airpod Pros are probably the best normal person mics anyone uses. I've never heard any background noise from the people wearing them, even those I know happen to share an office with their significant other and someone who literally had a baby on their lap while they were talking to me.
  - samatman 5y ago
    This is a confident, and wrong, assertion, if we limit ourselves strictly to the array microphones in 16" MBP. As I said, empirically, those are my best choice. I use the AirPods for voice-only calls through my phone, but I've gotten lag from them through the laptop-to-Zoom pipeline. Again, the sound quality and noise cancellation from this array of microphones (please note what I'm emphasizing here) is better than it has any right to be. It figures out what's my voice and what isn't, and passes along what it should. Sure, if I had to make a call from a very loud environment, I'd use the AirPod Pros and hope for the best. But of the options I have, under normal use conditions, the 16" microphone array is simply the best one.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      > Again, the sound quality and noise cancellation from this array of microphones (please note what I'm emphasizing here) I’ll repeat myself; no number of microphones will make the inverse square law go away. You can attempt to use computation to detect human voices and reject background noise, but this will always be an inferior technique to moving the microphone closer to the sound you want and further from the sound you don’t want. This is the same reason why the speakerphone on your cell will never beat out just holding it up to your head. It’s also why podcasters use XLR mics rather than laptops. Sure, laptops have gotten better, but they’re still not as good as other options. If you have issues with lag, wired headsets work great. Gaming ones are particularly good, since they’re designed for long periods of use.
spicybbq 5y ago
It is pretty cheap to get a setup that outperforms built-in laptop equipment. I have one of those knock-off 1080p webcams ($30-40) and it is more than enough for zoom. My lighting is a clamp light which reflects off of the wall behind my monitor. For sound I have a bottom-of-the-line boom microphone which was probably $10-15 new. Sound quality is merely ok, but it beats a built-in laptop mic. Then I clean the room and run it through OBS so I can crop the video and know how it looks before I join a meeting. To me it's foolish to not put some effort into the zoom setup, given what is at stake when interviewing for a job you actually want.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Lighting seems to be the thing that really matters for the camera second to placement. I just use some smart lights to toggle “meeting mode” which turns off my overhead lamp and turns on the desk lamp. It’s better than the norm, but inferior to the professional setups some people have.
  - KozmoNau7 5y ago
    I have two inexpensive desk lamps with daylight bulbs, which I normally use for hobby work, but for video meetings I point them at the white wall behind my monitor, and tweak the white balance a bit in the webcam settings. It gives a pleasant soft lighting that doesn't blow out.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I think a lot of people feel that the next step from laptop mic and speakers is a full-on pro studio setup. For <$100 and a little effort, you can do a lot and for maybe $300 you can be set--including whatever background stage management your setting allows.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    A lot of the super high end stuff wouldn’t be appreciably different from a lower end podcasting setup for zoom calls. The issue is both diminishing returns, and the fact that pro gear is usually designed to meet standards and tasks that amateurs never need. For example, a professional mic might need to record a singer or a guitar, which demands a much wider frequency response than spoken word does. My mic might be horrible for a singer, I’ve never tried, but as long as it works in the relatively narrow range where I speak it’s fine.

alisonkisk 5y ago

MacBook Pro has excellent microphone.

eropple 5y ago
It does not. It has an excellent microphone for a laptop microphone. It doesn't step to a $69 desk microphone.

samatman 5y ago

For microphones, it depends on the laptop. I have the 2020 16" MacBook Pro, and I've tried the onboard mic array, AirPods (Pro and otherwise), a lamellar mike, and a Sony stereo mike that fits the hot shoe on my mirrorless camera. The MacBook's onboard mic arrays give the best voice quality, so I've stuck with that. Arguably tied by the lamellar, but that just means I don't have to bother plugging it in, clipping it in place, making sure the battery is off, and then being tethered to my setup. Much like the speakers, the microphones on this laptop are much better than they have any right to be. The webcam, on the other hand, is a potato. I set up the mirrorless (α6500 for the curious) and some lighting, even though this is at least ten times the effort. It's worth it.

ashtonkem 5y ago
> For microphones, it depends on the laptop. For raw mic quality in a perfectly silent environment, sure. But background noise rejection is a matter of ratios. The closer the mic is to your face the louder your voice is in comparison to any background noise. The computer can do some computational noise reduction, but that always ends up being a bit like virtual backgrounds; fine, but clearly insufficient. Personally I use a XLR mic on a boom arm, because I can be a bit extra in these things. But among my colleagues the Airpod Pros are probably the best normal person mics anyone uses. I've never heard any background noise from the people wearing them, even those I know happen to share an office with their significant other and someone who literally had a baby on their lap while they were talking to me.
- samatman 5y ago
  This is a confident, and wrong, assertion, if we limit ourselves strictly to the array microphones in 16" MBP. As I said, empirically, those are my best choice. I use the AirPods for voice-only calls through my phone, but I've gotten lag from them through the laptop-to-Zoom pipeline. Again, the sound quality and noise cancellation from this array of microphones (please note what I'm emphasizing here) is better than it has any right to be. It figures out what's my voice and what isn't, and passes along what it should. Sure, if I had to make a call from a very loud environment, I'd use the AirPod Pros and hope for the best. But of the options I have, under normal use conditions, the 16" microphone array is simply the best one.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    > Again, the sound quality and noise cancellation from this array of microphones (please note what I'm emphasizing here) I’ll repeat myself; no number of microphones will make the inverse square law go away. You can attempt to use computation to detect human voices and reject background noise, but this will always be an inferior technique to moving the microphone closer to the sound you want and further from the sound you don’t want. This is the same reason why the speakerphone on your cell will never beat out just holding it up to your head. It’s also why podcasters use XLR mics rather than laptops. Sure, laptops have gotten better, but they’re still not as good as other options. If you have issues with lag, wired headsets work great. Gaming ones are particularly good, since they’re designed for long periods of use.

spicybbq 5y ago

It is pretty cheap to get a setup that outperforms built-in laptop equipment. I have one of those knock-off 1080p webcams ($30-40) and it is more than enough for zoom. My lighting is a clamp light which reflects off of the wall behind my monitor. For sound I have a bottom-of-the-line boom microphone which was probably $10-15 new. Sound quality is merely ok, but it beats a built-in laptop mic. Then I clean the room and run it through OBS so I can crop the video and know how it looks before I join a meeting. To me it's foolish to not put some effort into the zoom setup, given what is at stake when interviewing for a job you actually want.

ashtonkem 5y ago
Lighting seems to be the thing that really matters for the camera second to placement. I just use some smart lights to toggle “meeting mode” which turns off my overhead lamp and turns on the desk lamp. It’s better than the norm, but inferior to the professional setups some people have.
- KozmoNau7 5y ago
  I have two inexpensive desk lamps with daylight bulbs, which I normally use for hobby work, but for video meetings I point them at the white wall behind my monitor, and tweak the white balance a bit in the webcam settings. It gives a pleasant soft lighting that doesn't blow out.
ghaff 5y ago
I think a lot of people feel that the next step from laptop mic and speakers is a full-on pro studio setup. For <$100 and a little effort, you can do a lot and for maybe $300 you can be set--including whatever background stage management your setting allows.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  A lot of the super high end stuff wouldn’t be appreciably different from a lower end podcasting setup for zoom calls. The issue is both diminishing returns, and the fact that pro gear is usually designed to meet standards and tasks that amateurs never need. For example, a professional mic might need to record a singer or a guitar, which demands a much wider frequency response than spoken word does. My mic might be horrible for a singer, I’ve never tried, but as long as it works in the relatively narrow range where I speak it’s fine.