Selude, What Microphone Do You Use~? [Equipment and Setup Breakdown]

Sometimes people ask what microphone I use and I thought it would be handy to have a post to link them where I talk about my equipment and setup~!

My microphone and equipment was a huge investment at ~$1,000 CAD and I can't just blindly recommend something so expensive without giving lots of information first~! But if you don't want to read all this, (I don't blame you~!) I use the ShureSM7B~

I won't use any acronyms and will do my best to explain any technical words. I find a big problem about learning about recording is that there's a lot of specific terms and words to learn and it can be hard to decipher~

I never talk about my equipment because I'm not sure I would recommend my setup to anyone looking to do something similar to my audio (read on to find out why) but I am happy to talk about it~! I can't add more than one picture in a Patreon post but I have included links to my equipment at the end~!

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Table of Contents:

• What Microphone~?
• Pro and Con List~
• The Rest of My Gear~
• Recording Environment~
• Software for Recording and Making Videos~
• Closing Thoughts~
• Links to My Equipment~
• Quick Postscript on the Blue Yeti Microphone~

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What Microphone~?

My mic is the ShureSM7B, it's a famous microphone and very, very popular for podcasting. (Michael Jackson used a Shure7M7B to record the vocals for 'Thriller'~!) I've never seen it used for ASMR, but I’m very inspired by Bob Ross and Mr. Rodgers; they sounded so wonderful with television microphones meant only to capture their voices (and paint brush strokes)~

I also thought it would make me stand out since it isn't commonly used in ASMR, and if I couldn't find any success with YouTube I was going to record audio books as a plan B, and it would be great for that. Plus it's popularity means I could resell it easily~

The ShureSM7B is good for singing vocals and instruments too, but I don’t know much about that~!

I also use a small pop filter, which is a screen that goes in front of the microphone to help diffuse the sound of ‘plosives’ which happen when a word or noise has a burst of air in it. (A lot of words with the letter ‘P’ have this, and we know how often I say ‘perfect’ in my stories…~) They are very inexpensive, I think I got mine for $10 and I would recommend them to anyone~

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Good Things About The ShureSM7B:

-It's pretty good about only picking up my voice so I'm able to record whenever I want, mostly. If there's garbage trucks or dogs barking outside it doesn't throw me off. All of my friends who do live action ASMR have to wait for nighttime when things get quiet before they can record, that would drive me nuts~!

-All of Shure's microphones are guaranteed to survive a fall from 6ft onto any surface. I'm never nervous when handling it because I know it's very sturdy~

Bad Things About the ShureSM7B:

-All microphones do this, but I find not only does it pick up every click and slip of my mouth, it somehow enhances them and makes them loud as heck. (If this happens and I didn’t catch it while recording, I edit them out for you~)

-There was a big learning curve to use it, and even after a few years I'm still not sure I have all levels and settings right. The interface / pre-amp I had to get to use it (I talk about that in the next paragraph) was frustrating for me and all the knobs and buttons make it feel like it's easy to screw something up. It also needs a microphone booster if you’re using it for dialogue / quiet sounds because it’s a low sensitivity microphone, which is an extra cost~

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The Rest of My Gear:

My interface (the thing that makes the microphone work with my computer) is the Motu-M2 and I got it because it's very well reviewed but I've had problems with it~! Like artifacts, which are small distortive noises that happen when I'm recording, and updating the firmware is a paaaaain. But it's so recommended I can't help but wonder if that's user error on my part, or I just got one that's a bit of a dud. It cost about $250 CAD~

The microphone booster I use is the cloudlifter~! I have no complaints, it does its job~! It goes for $200 CAD now, but when I bought mine it was only $90~! Wow, the price jumped...~

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Recording Environment:

Please remember that your recording environment counts for so, so, soooooo much more than your microphone~! Many people get amazing sounds out of USB microphones that have very accessible price points (and no interface to mess with) because they're recording somewhere properly sound treated. I have foam panelling and I record in a small room with rugs on the floor and heavy curtains. I've heard some voice actors record in their closets and get a great sound that way. There’s honestly too much to say about recording environments, but basically you want to make sure there isn’t big empty space for the sound to bounce around~

Also I started with a much cheaper blue yeti microphone (I talk about it briefly at the end of this long, long, post)  and then invested in my ShureSM7B once my channel started gaining views and subscribers. I would never recommend spending big on equipment or software for YouTube right away. There are so many hidden costs with content creation and you want to make sure you enjoy the process of making your content before sinking money into it~

My microphone is only a small part of my sound, I do a lot of work in post (after recording) and I make sure my voice sounds the best it can while I’m recording~

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Software for Recording and Making Videos:

My DAW (digital audio workstation, the software I use to record and edit my recordings) is Adobe Audition, and I would not recommend it~! I’m not even going to link it. I thought it was a good mid-point software and I’ve become pretty adept at using it, but there’s better options and learning a new DAW is hard…~! They all feel very different. Most people start with Audacity, which is free. I hear good things about it~! 

The software I use to make videos is DaVinci Resolve, it’s free~! There’s a big learning curve for it, but since I don’t do anything besides use some pictures in my videos, it hasn’t been too bad~

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Closing Thoughts:

Whew…~! I think that’s everything~! Hopefully that was helpful. Please understand I am very much an amateur with regards to recording, audio production, and making videos. I’m just a writer who got a hold of a microphone…~! There are lots of much smarter and wiser experts out there, and people get degrees for this sort of thing~! Take everything here with a grain of salt, what works for me very likely won’t work for you~!

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Links to My Equipment:

(These links go to Long & McQuade in Canada, where I bought all of my recording equipment. They were so incredibly helpful and kind. I ordered online but when I picked up my order the staff in the store made sure I had everything I needed and that the cords I got were long enough, just a wonderful bunch of people~)

Shure SM7B (Mircophone)

MOTU M2 (Interface / Pre-amp)

Cloudlifter (Microphone Booster)

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Quick postscript on the Blue Yeti microphone, which is commonly recommended as a good entry point (~$130.00 CAD) microphone for ASMR. It is also literally the best selling microphone of all time. I used one for ~9 months to record some of my first stories and I honestly hated it. I am by far and away the exception, I don’t know of anyone else who disliked using this microphone like I did~

I found it just picked up waaay too much extra noise. It would record my cat moving around in the next room, even when I used the cardioid mode setting, which means the microphone was only picking up sounds from directly in front of it. I know of one audio creator who uses a Blue Yeti and sounds amazing, but they live out in the country where it’s quiet~