In this episode of the Content Amplification Podcast, host Shaun Whynacht walks listeners through the fundamentals of microphone selection for both podcasting and video production. He begins with the core principle that audio quality is limited by the source – "crap in, crap out" – and stresses the importance of matching mic type to the intended application. For solo podcasters he recommends USB microphones like the Blue Yeti, explaining how the signal stays digital from mic to computer and why this simplifies the workflow. When scaling to multiple speakers, he introduces the Zoom LiveTrak L‑8 mixer, detailing how it handles up to six XLR mics and can record directly without a computer. Transitioning to video, Shaun compares lavalier and shotgun microphones, outlining their visual impact, mobility, and directional characteristics, and shares his own use of a Sennheiser shotgun mounted on a DSLR. He then clarifies the technical distinction between dynamic and condenser mics, covering power requirements (phantom power), sensitivity, and ideal use‑cases such as voice‑overs versus on‑camera interviews. Throughout, he emphasizes the proximity rule – the closer the mic to the sound source, the cleaner the audio – and warns about background noise amplification when the mic is placed too far. Finally, he advises listeners to choose a mic strategy based on the primary content format, noting that a good shotgun can serve both video and podcast needs, and invites questions from the audience.
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Hey, welcome to this episode of the Content Amplification Podcast. As always, I'm your host Shaun Whynacht, and thank you for joining me for today's show. Today we're going to be talking about Microphones. That's right, the exciting world of microphones. You're hearing me because I'm speaking into a microphone, and that is why this is an extremely important topic. The other reason why I wanted to cover this was because I see over and over again a lot of people using a wide range of microphones, but then wondering why they're getting a wide range of results, some of them not so good, some of them really good, but the reason comes down to the type of microphone that you're using for the application in which you're doing it. I had a radio instructor back, oh, it must be 20-some years ago when I was in broadcasting school, who sent this quote to me, and his name's David Bannerman, and it still stuck with me to this day. It's crap in, crap out, right? If you bring in an audio source that is not clean, it's got a lot of noise, meaning they're picking up some crackling, some static, it's just a low-quality microphone, there's really no way to get high-quality audio out of that. Now, you want to bring in the best audio possible. Now, by doing that, you're going to invest a little bit into a microphone. And if you're going to be doing podcasting, I would highly recommend that if you are looking to do it by recording it into a computer, a laptop, or a desktop, you start with something like a Yeti or a Blue microphone. These are connected by USB cable. And when that happens, what's happening that most people aren't aware of is the audio signal stays digital. It stays digital from the moment it hits the microphone. It converts to your analog audio. Obviously, your speech is not digital, and it converts it to a digital signal that's going to then carry into the computer. You're editing on the computer, you're saving the file completely digital on the way. There's no conversion from analog to digital aside from just speaking along the path. A lot of times when you are recording into a mixer, what's happening is you have a microphone that is then plugged into a microphone cable, right? So now the microphone has to carry that electric signal through that microphone cable into the mixer The mixer is then going to take it from the cable into the input, down through all the different channels that are in there. And in some cases, if you've got a digital mixer that is digitally connected to your computer like I have right now recording, it's connected by USB, it's converted at the mixer side going into the computer into a digital signal. If you don't have that and you're plugging it in through like a line out or headphone jack, what most people call it, into the computer, Now the mixer has to then change it over again to analog or keep it analog and bring it into the computer, letting the computer make that analog to digital conversion. Along the way, every time there's a connection, there's a chance for signal loss, interference, and things along those lines. Now if you're using high-quality cables and high-quality connections, you're not gonna notice that much of a difference. But a lot of times when you're starting out, you don't have the funds to invest in, you know, a high-quality microphone and high-quality cables and a high-quality mixer as well, right? You want to get started. So your best investment off the top is go with a USB microphone. I can't say enough good things about the USB Yeti microphones. I recommend them a lot to people who are starting out because they're really truly plug and play. You don't have to install any software, you just plug that into your computer and your computer is going to recognize it. Whatever program you're using, whether it's Audition or GarageBand, your computer will recognize that microphone. The other great thing too is you can play back the audio that you're recording back through the microphone because there's a headphone jack on the bottom. So if you're recording a podcast, my recommendation to you is go with a Yeti microphone. Now, if you want to take it to the next step and bring in multiple people using multiple microphones, you're then going to have to bring in a mixer. Highly recommending the Zoom LiveTrak L-8. We just brought one in for a client of ours and then also bought one for ourselves in the studio. That's what I'm recording this into. Allows us to bring up to 6 different microphones in there, plus a caller through a phone that plugs in. And I can record directly into the mixer without even needing a computer. Now, let's switch gears and let's talk a little bit about video, 'cause video is another thing that a lot of people are doing more of, and they should. With video, there are different types of microphones. You've got lavalier microphones. Those are the ones that clip onto the shirt. You see those on TV, on news anchors wear them, a lot of interviews, people are wearing them. You also have something called a shotgun microphone, conveniently named because of its shape. It looks like a long barrel of a shotgun. Now, there's a benefit to using either or. With the lav microphones, the downside is that it's something visible in the shot. It is something that, clipped on the shirt, you will see. The other downside is if you've got more than one guest, you're going to need an individual lav mic for each one of those guests to get proper audio. Now, the benefit behind it is if the person you were recording moves a lot, so if you're going to be doing a video and you move a lot and you have somebody follow you or walking down the street, a lot easier to use a lav mic because it is attached to you. You don't have to have a cable back to the camera because most likely you would be using a wireless lav. Now, the next one is the shotgun microphone. Now, the shotgun microphone is also considered a boom microphone. You know when you see the movies and you got the audio guy with the long pole and the big fuzzy thing on the end? Inside of that is a boom microphone, a shotgun microphone. Highly sensitive in the amount of audio it can pick up and also, extremely directional, which means that where you point the end of that, that's where it's going to pick up the audio. It's not going to pick up too much from surrounding areas around it. Very directional. This is a benefit to having it if you're using it on a video set or an interview set where you've got, you know, 2 or 3 people sitting around. You can use one shotgun microphone to pick up audio of all 3. If they're closely together. I use it a lot all the time. The other benefit too is if you're interviewing somebody who's not used to being interviewed and you can tell they're nervous, using a microphone like that, because you can bring them in, you can sit them down, and you can start recording and asking questions. You don't have to come up and ask them and clip on microphones and make them aware of what's going on. A lot of times they'll get nervous, they'll get shy, and that technology of being able to have somebody clip something on if they're not used to it will make them clam up, and it's not going to be a great interview. The other side of using a shotgun microphone is a lot of times you can just attach it right to the top of the camera. Now, I have a Sennheiser. It was about $600 or $700 when I bought it a couple of years ago. It's because I do a lot of professional video production, and it justified buying that. A lot of times I'll put it on a stand, and I'll put it in front of the subject to be able to shoot on set that way, or clip it right to the top of the camera. Now I also have a digital SLR for recording video, and you can get shotgun microphones that clip right to the top, and it's really nice and compact and works really well that way. Now when we look at microphones, they come in two different types. You're gonna hear things like a dynamic microphone or a condenser microphone. Condenser microphone. What that really means is one of them requires power to operate and the other one does not. A dynamic microphone does not require power to produce a signal. Very similar to a microphone that you would see like a musician singing into. It's got the round head on the top, just plugs into a microphone cable, doesn't require power. That is a dynamic microphone. Now, a condenser microphone, very similar to what you'd see in a studio, does require power. And by power, that comes through the microphone cable that is being sent to it. Now, on our Zoom L-8, there is a button there that says +48 volts, a DC power. That is the power that it requires to be activated. They're more sensitive. They pick up a wide range of audio. And they're really the best type of microphone when doing anything like voiceovers, podcasts, anything like that where you're just recording the audio. Now, you could ultimately, if you're sitting around and you're doing an interview show and you wanted to produce it for video, you could set up a couple of condenser microphones on a stand, run them into a mixer to power them, output that audio into the camera or record it independently and sync it up in post-production later., you could do that. The difference is you're going to see the microphone in the shot, but if you're okay with that, if that's the style of what you're going for, you're going to get better audio than just the shotgun. Now, when it comes to using microphones, here's really the rule of thumb to think about. The closer you can get that microphone to the source of the audio, meaning the person's mouth that they're talking from, then the better, the cleaner that audio will be. So remember that the closer you can get to them, the cleaner and better that audio will be. So if you're using a shotgun microphone and it's sitting back about 6 feet because you think that's the range you need to be, you got to be aware that if there's some other background noise happening in the room, maybe just the low hum of an exhaust system or a fan or anything like that, When you increase that audio a bit so that it's going to be audible to listen to in post-production in your final video, if you have to turn the volume up, you're also amplifying the background noise. So all in all, when it comes down to it, what you're going to need to look at is what type of microphone should you invest in first for the type of audio that you're doing. If you're gonna be doing different types of audio, so let's say you're gonna be doing video, then you could invest in just a shotgun microphone on your SLR camera, and you can shoot your videos with that, but you can also shoot the audio for your podcast. Doesn't stop you from turning on the camera, hitting record, standing in front of it, and just talking, you're not going to use the video part, you're just going to strip out the audio for the podcast. So it has a cross-platform usability for that. So in closing, what I want to tell you is just think about what it is that you want to do and think about the different types of microphones you potentially could use to do that. If you have any questions at any time, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'd be happy to answer those for you. Until next time, thanks for listening to this show. We'll see you in the next.
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