You’re going to start a podcast and wonder about the correct setup? Can you use a gaming headset for a podcast instead of professional equipment?
Yes, of course. If you’re a new podcaster and want to play around with what you already had, a gaming headset is not a bad idea to record your show.
Jump into our post to learn more!
Can You Use A Gaming Headset For A Podcast
Yes, a gaming headset can support you to record a podcast if you don’t expect too much. Just spend a few hours practicing your records, and you will learn how to make the sound better. In some cases, you may need a mic preamp to fix things.
Gaming headsets often feature unidirectional microphones with decent noise cancellation built-in. That’s likely why they sound better: they eliminate background noise and solely pick up the speaker’s voice.
You can get good results by enhancing your technique, repairing it in post with EQ, de-essing, noise gating, compression, or treating the room.
Still, the mics in gaming headsets aren’t the best quality for your podcast, so the sound quality you’d get from your recording will not be as good as when using professional equipment.
But if it doesn’t bother you, just save your budget and see how things turn out.
How To Make Headset Mic Sound Better?
This section will offer you three handy tips to improve your headset mic’s quality. Let’s see!
Find The Right Position For Your Mic
The proper position must be the critical factor in improving the audio of your recording. We recommend you listen to how your microphone makes you sound.
You can either access a monitoring function on your PC or use Audacity to record yourself talking for a few minutes.
Once you’ve figured out how to listen to your mic audio, focus on how you sound. Try bringing the microphone closer to your mouth if it’s too quiet.
Practice your plosives—the P and B sounds that cause you to exhale. If you feel like a phone call on windy days, move your mic to the side of your mouth, so air doesn’t touch it when you exhale.
If it sounds like a phone call on a windy day, try moving your microphone to the side of your mouth so that air doesn’t hit it every time you exhale.
Check Your Device Settings
Mic settings on gaming headsets usually have more than a mute switch. So, check if your headset has a separate volume dial for the mic. If yes, it might be the reason why your voice sounds quiet even when you’ve adjusted the mic position.
On your Windows 10, right-click the small speaker icon in the bottom right corner of the screen and select “Open Sound Settings.”
In the “Input” section, find your microphone or headset and click “Device Properties.” You can now see a volume bar in which you may adjust if necessary.
If you use a console, go to the Audio Devices page in the Devices menu and click “Adjust Microphone Level.” It will pop up a built-in monitor indicating that your music falls on a scale from low to high and a volume adjustment slider.
Check Your Mic By Using Discord
Let us share with you about Discord if you’ve never played games on PC and using this platform for voice chat. It would help you a lot in mic settings.
Go to the “Voice and Video” section of the app’s settings by clicking the gear icon next to the mic and headphones at the bottom. The mic test button will notify you if it’s too hot and will assist you in adjusting the output volume.
When it comes to output loudness, don’t move the bar to the right straight away.
The scale extends up to 200 percent, so it’s quite acceptable if it sounds fine in the center.
The mic check button of Discord is an excellent way to improve the call quality, but you can utilize it to check your mic. It also helps you decide to turn on the echo cancellation and noise suppression features or not.
Simply start the test and listen. Is there too much background noise or not? Can you hear your voice?
Just play around with the settings on this page because you can always reset to default by pressing the button at the page bottom. You never know what could come in handy!
Here’s how to check your mic in Discord.
Conclusion
Now that we’ve just walked you through some exciting information about gaming headsets and how to improve your mics for a better recording. So what’re you waiting for? Take out your headset and see how it’s going on!
