The best microphone for noisy environments

Have you been stuck wanting to record your podcast but there’s just too much noise around you?

Planes, cars, kids, dogs, TVs, babies, banging pots in the kitchen, the list goes on and on.

Everyone in your house is walking on tiptoes because the slightest noise will reverberate in the ears of your listeners.

Well, I found the solution!

In this episode, I’m talking about the BEST microphone for all of those noisy environments. I’m using it during this episode so you can hear how crystal clear the sound is even when there’s considerable background noise.

For this demonstration, I’ve enlisted the help of two little people to create a real-time scenario so you can hear how it holds up to children having a fantastic time in the next room.

I’ll then compare it to another superb microphone that podcasters use so you can really hear the difference.

If you’re looking for an easy solution to your noisy recordings (without making everyone wear slippers) - this is the episode for you!

Transcript:

00:00
Welcome to Pump Up Your Pod today on the podcast, I'm going to have some little helpers with me to explain all about this microphone. Are you ever in a situation where you feel like you'd really love to do a podcast episode, but there's too much background noise going on? Maybe there's planes flying overhead, there's cars honking backing out. There's little kids running around behind you or in the different room. Especially during all the homeschooling. You know, that whole situation. It's so hard to do podcasts when there's other people running around. If you've got wood floors, cluck, you know, all the pitter pattering of all the things happening in your house or you've got the kind of balls like in an old Queenslander where they don't have any insulation. So you feel like you just have to be everyone has to walk on eggshells around you to actually get a podcast episode. Done. Does that feel like you because it certainly feels like me a lot of the time. And I found a microphone that helped me navigate this particular issue.

The microphone I want to talk about today is the Audio Technica BP H s one. And there's also the Audio Technica BPHS. Two, which is the more recent model of the same microphone. And in fact, this microphone is what I'm using right now to record this episode. Am I blowing your mind I should be. It's a really great mic. The thing that's cool about it is that it's actually headphones with the microphone attached to it. It is made for radio and broadcasting situations. So it's made for lots of noise going on. So for those kinds of situations where there might be a live event, or you know, there's a parade or something, and then the radio people have to talk and be able to be heard through all that. That's what this microphone is.

So now what I'm going to show you is what it sounds like to have little people playing around you and talking and interacting with each other. And how much of that actually gets picked up by the microphone while I'm talking. So I have my lovely little people, my two kids with us today, seven year old, four year old ones, this one go again, one's a seven year old, and one's a four year old. Great.

So I'm going to get them to just do their normal playing like they would in the background. So that you can hear how much of it is actually picked up. Now they wouldn't normally be this close to me guys. So maybe go into that room just over there. Just do the normal playing that you would do talking to each other running around all that sort of stuff. And then I'll see whether how much of it gets picked up. So I'm going to talk to you while they're playing.

So that you can hear how much of it is actually getting picked up. Now, the funny thing is that they're they're purposely making a lot of noise. It's a lot more noise than they would normally make. But this will give you a really good indication. Like if I take my headphones off, you will be able to hear so much noise. And in this particular situation, hopefully, you're not hearing too much of that. This is particularly good as well for like zoom meetings, things like that. I always wear these headphones, because they're so good for those loud environments. And when there's little pitter pattering feet and all that sort of stuff. They're really, really good for that.

Okay, so now I'm going to stop, I'm going to listen back and make sure this is really good. Okay, so I just listened back. That's pretty good. Like, if you could hear how much noise they were actually making and how much of that came through. It's a very big difference in sound escaping.

The other thing that you can do as well with that, then with this particular microphone is if you have an editor or someone like that, we can then apply like a noise gate type filter situation where we can then reduce that noise even more. So it's fantastic. I'm a big fan. I'm a really big fan of this particular microphone and I also did a little reel just recently on my Instagram where you can see what they actually look like. The only thing I would say about them is that they're a bit heavy on the top of my head. So sometimes I feel like I'm getting a bit of a bull patch if I'm wearing them all day. I feel like it rubs a bit too much on my actual scalp and it starts to hurt but that's that's kind of like what it's like for me anyway when I'm wearing over ear headphones all the time. So it's not too much I can really do about that other than maybe getting an extra bit of foam and attaching it to the actual top of the mic. Sorry, top of the headphones.

Okay, so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to use my other microphone, which is similar to what a normal podcaster would have. It is a sc, h one h1. It's a dynamic cardioid microphone, that might make no sense to you. And that doesn't matter. But basically, it's a very, very good quality microphone. It was about 500 and something dollars when I bought it, and that was a long time ago. But it's a super high quality mic. So now I'm going to turn that on and keep recording and get the kids to make a bunch of noise again in the background so that you can hear the difference between this mic, which is my audio technica, you know fancy headset one versus another microphone, that is kick ass, but you need a really quiet environment for. Okay, I'll be back.

Alright guys, we're back. This time with the SAE microphone. My dynamic cardioid fancy microphone. And I want you to hear the difference between this is the same sound like the same level of noise that they were giving me before. And I want you to hear the difference between what this microphone sounds like versus the other one. This is a flippin beautiful microphone. I love it. It's so good for vocals, like the frequencies that it picks up is just gorgeous. But for a noisy environment or something that you just don't have too much control over. It's just not great. It's not a good option. Makes me sad, because I love it so much. Now they've been really quiet. Can you tell that they've gone quiet now?

06:56
Back, cool. Okay, so now I'm going to turn this off, and then switch back over. And then we will keep going with the episode. So you should be able to tell the difference between those two microphones, you'll probably be able to tell that the SC microphone sounds nicer overall.

This particular microphone I'm using now the Audio Technica, I feel like it sounds a little thin. So it doesn't have as much juiciness it doesn't cover as much of your vocal range as the other one does. But for the purpose of what I needed to do, which is cut out noise, especially like there's cars driving past right now that you probably can't even hear. There's planes that go overhead, you just don't hear that stuff with this mic. And it just really puts you at ease. And as I said and mentioned before, if you are having a lot of zoom meetings and those sorts of things you're working from home, it's a really good microphone to have, because it just cuts out all this stuff. The other really good thing about it, which I did show in the reel was that unlike other microphones where you have to make sure that you're sitting properly in the right spot, you don't move that sort of thing with this. Once you set up where the headsets going to sit, you can move your head around, you can do whatever you want, like I'm moving my head like crazy right now. And it's not really changing the sound, because it's attached to my head. So when my head moves, the microphone moves. All in all, I would highly recommend this microphone for people that are using in high noise or even just medium noise environments. Or if you've got wood floors and things like that, and you're wanting to try and minimise as much of the background noise without disturbing the rest of your family or telling them to shut up every 20 seconds. This is great for that.

The only caveat I have here is that this particular microphone, it's an XLR input microphone. It is not a USB input microphone. What do I mean by that? It means that XLR inputs are a much higher quality input for your that's a giant motorbike Did you hear that one. XLR input microphones are much better quality as far as the sound that you can get from them. But you need a mixer for them to plug into in order for you to get the sound. So you need a mixer, which then plugs into your laptop or computer via USB. and the microphone plugs into the mixer. So it's an extra thing you have to buy mixer meaning a lot of people bought those Rode caster Pro, big mixer things with all the knobs and stuff. You don't need all that jazz if you're not going to be recording a bunch of people at once. I'll link below the mixer that I have. It's a really simple little one and it's just fantastic. It's really good. Easy, simple. You plug it in, you turn it on, you plug the mic in and it's ready to go. It's one extra thing, but if it's a situation where you're always recording in the same spot or you know it's it's compact enough that you could take it with you to other places. It's great. It's a really good option. Let me know if you have any questions send me an email, all the things.

If you want any more tips and information and that sort of stuff, I would join our free community, the pod lovers.com especially for new podcasters those that are just getting started or haven't started yet. This is a really great community to be in because there's lots of tips and things in there. In fact, I will post this episode in there as well so that they can access it easily. Yeah, so jump on there. And then if you need any information about the services that we have, you can go to Bamby media.com otherwise, just have a great day. Goodbye. Goodbye Goodbye. Oh audience excuse my brother, please. He's a bit crazy. You can see you later. Bye