Desk v. Headphone Microphones

[Tusker]

Hi, my name is Eric and I've been a single-player on DCS for less than a year. I thought that I might reach out for some thoughts and advice. I suppose the bottom-line question is, can I use a desktop mic for high-quality sound in a multiplayer game?

 

Right now I'm using a Thrustmaster T.Flight U.S. Airforce headset with attached microphone, as well as a TrackIR TrackClip Pro attached to the side. I'm looking to really enhance my audio both input and output. There are several options, but it seems the desk mics, such as the Blue Yeti Pro, give you better sound than many/most/all headset-mounted mics.

 

By way of background, again I'm using Track IR at the moment, but will probably dip my toes into the VR waters at some point. I don't intend to publish video content but am looking for a very high-quality set-up for multiplayer and streaming.

 

 

Many thanks from Chicago.

 

eric

[The_Nephilim]

Well it should work I don't see why it wouldn't.. you can usually test it first in TS3 and Discord before going online with those programs..

[RustBelt]

Go the other way, get a full mask with a MIC. Really lean into the Fighterpilot/Bane aesthetic.

[Ranma13]

I have a desktop mic, a headset mic, and a lapel mic. The main determining factor to how good you sound is how close the mic is to your mouth. A desktop mic will have a larger and better microphone than a headset or lapel mic, but it's also further away from your mouth and will pick up echoes and background noise more easily, whereas a headset mic that's right up to your mouth and set to an appropriate gain level will basically eliminate any background noise and echoes (in addition to whatever the software is doing).

 

The quality of the microphone does make a difference, but only up to a certain point. For online comms, unless your microphone is bargain bin quality, as long as people can understand what you're saying, it's not going to matter how good or bad your mic is. Some external apps like SRS will even filter your voice so that it sounds like it's being broadcast over radio.

[Bob_Bushman]

I got a blue Yeti about a year ago and it blows any headset mic away, especially makes any wireless headset mic sound like muffled garbage in comparison.

 

It does pickup anything though, so using voice activation is sometimes a challenge, I had instances where I forgot, and continued chatting on discord from across the apartment, I wasn't even shouting.

 

If you want to take the extra mile, figure out how your mic works best. By downloading something like audacity and listen to the playback of a few test phases. Like the blue Yeti, it needs about a foot of space to sound it's absolute best.

 

The yeti isn't like amazing, but discord also compress your audio so you can easily hear a difference between a local recording and what comes through it., Just saying, so for online chatting it's better than what you actually can use, there is probably better for self recording and streaming, but it's plenty good enough , but those would cost several hundred dollars.

[Habu_69]

I believe audio from some desktop mics has a lot of reverb.

[Tusker]

I have a Blue Yeti Pro that is really quite good. It sits about 1.5-2 feet away with a carotid pattern. My latest project is dialing the Yeti Pro in to use Viacom Pro and Voice Attack. Still experimenting with settings though.