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If you’ve read the previous article in the series you’ll know the kind of projects you can get involved with. Now we’re going to talk about the kind of microphone you need to get started .  The type of software you use, and the microphone you record make a massive difference to the way you sound.

The cheaper your equipment the longer you have to spend editing it before you can send it out.  This tutorial covers the ultra-cheap labour intensive method. If you haven‘t voice acted before or don’t intend to often  there‘s no point spending a lot of money. For a guide on higher quality hardware check out Gregory Houser’s Home Studio 101 guide.

Microphones

It’s perfectly possible you already have a cheap microphone hanging around. However I would strongly advise against using any kind of headset/ gaming head gear or laptop microphone. Headsets are difficult since they are attached to your head you can’t move them much, so it’s easy to breathe on them and end up recording mic puffs.

There are two main ways the low budget microphone can be plugged in
- Analogue- this plugs in the line in socket on your computer.

-USB There are a number of cheap USB headphones  Logitech do a range designed more for gaming and office applications, where as professional companies such as Shure do more expensive USB microphone for home use.

On a super ultra low budget I’d recommend the Logitech USB desktop microphone usually about £20 and available in largish PC and electronics shops.  Simply put it’s cheap, and provides reasonable sound on even low end machines. If you have any USB microphones from games for systems such as the Wii and PS2 (that come bundled with  music and singing games) you can also give those a whirl.

Your computer may not record immediately with your microphone. USB microphones will need to install, in most cases  your computer will do so automatically. Again more expensive USB microphones will also have drivers for advanced use.

Setting up your microphone
Older versions of Windows ( Windows 2000)

-To set up recording you need to go to your PC’s mixer and make sure that the “mic” option is set to mute. ( That’s in output if you leave that on your PC will act like a Megaphone great for parties but not good for anything else). You then need to make sure that on the Recording section( Options>Properties>recording)that Mic is selected by checking the little box. You’ll also have to adjust it’s volume slider until your recording sounds good. If you have a USB microphone be sure to select that.

Windows Vista
-Windows Vista works a little differently.

If your microphone is USB plug it in. Wait for Vista to install it. Then click on the Windows start icon in the left corner of the screen.
Select Computer.
Then select sound.
Find the listing for your microphone. Right click and select enable. Then click properties. You’ll see a slider. You’ll probably want to push this up a bit from difficult but you can always come back later after you have tested it in your favourite recording program.
If you have a PC with built in microphone, right click on it in the listing you may want to right click and disable it.

The trouble with the Logitech and most cheap microphones is that they often pick up a lot of junk, so with the money you save you have to spend time cleaning up the noise.  In the next tutorials I’ll look at software and file types, as well as basic recording techniques.