Mic recommendations for educational videos

[micnoob]

Hi everyone,
Totally out of my depth here, so please be kind. I know nothing about audio equipment.

I have just been given some responsibilities providing educational resources for an online course. This is partly live video calls (Zoom) and partly pre-recorded videos. In both instances, I will be partly presenting to camera, and partly screen sharing. In both cases, I will be staying in place in front of my computer, no moving around, although since it's a standing desk, I will likely weight-shift a little from side to side.

My environment is quite loud with fans that cannot be turned off (otherwise I will melt). A/C is not an option where I am.

So what I'm looking for is a mic that can capture my voice, hide the noise of the fans, and that doesn't cover my face. The sound quality doesn't have to be spectacular, just clear enough for people to understand without fighting through the ambient noise.

Budget-wise, I'm not sure. Maybe around €200 at the high end, but would prefer closer to €100 if at all possible.

Does such a microphone exist, and can you offer any suggestions (other than turn the fans off and stand in a bucket of ice water, which I'm seriously considering right now).

Thanks!!

[Drew Stephenson]

Hi Micnoob, welcome.
To be frank, I'd suggest buying nothing and just using the onboard mic on your laptop. The noise cancelling in Zoom and Teams is pretty good now and if you really want to better that then you'll need an appropriate budget (and I'd be looking at noise removal software rather than hardware).
In terms of impact for your audience, the things I'd focus on would be getting a suitable stand to get my laptop up to eye-height (so people aren't looking up my nose) and working on knowing my material and projecting my voice.
If you've got those covered already then no-one outside of a forum like this is going to care what microphone you used.

Others may be along in due course to disagree...

[Luke W]

A "somewhere in the middle" suggestion from me: would a headset be of any use?

There are plenty around now that aren't comically large and won't leave you looking like a fighter pilot. Having the microphone sitting close to your mouth will help fight the ambient noise, and it'll probably get in the way of your face less than having anything stand-mounted.

[sonics]

For your scenario I would second Luke's suggestion of a headset mic. The mic can be placed just under the lower lip so as not to obscure the mouth.

For your budget you should be able to get something quite decent. I assume that the noise-cancelling processing in Zoom can be used with any input.

[Wonks]

Our replies seem to have concentrated on Zoom and getting that to cancel background noise, but that doesn’t cover the video aspect.

I’m not convinced about the headset mic, at least not a near-invisible one. Any fan blowing hard enough on your face to have a cooling effect is throwing air out at several metres/second, enough to cause some wind noise across any mic without at least a foam windshield on it (making it far more visually obvious). The same will go for any mic positioned near the face.

I don’t have any better ideas as I’m not familiar enough with the situation.

If you have to have a fan, then get the quietest one you can and run it at the slowest speed you can live with.

Unless you get an omni mic, then position the fan in an area the mic’s pickup pattern is least sensitive.

Hang up as much sound absorbing material you can around the room (thick blankets, duvets, quilts etc.), but out of shot, to help cut down on reverb and noise reflections.

If this is a long-term thing, then buying or making some sound absorbing panels is strongly recommended.

[shufflebeat]

All of.the above, but mostly headset.

[micnoob]

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful answers. I had considered a headset might be a good solution for this environment, so that aligns. They don't need to be presentation-quality videos but I would like people to be able to hear and when it's 40C outside and with no A/C, I need a fan

[shufflebeat]

Without the fans - we are nothing.

[Tim Gillett]

Speaking of fans... this may sound out of left field but houses and rooms get hot or cold for a reason. Often temperature can be moderated by simple, inexpensive methods. eg: windows facing the sun can be shaded with cheap opaque plastic sheeting placed on the outside of the windows. A single glazed window can be better insulated using cheap parcel packing bubble wrap.

If the high temp can be moderated cheaply the fans could be turned down to a lower setting, saving on electricity, making life inside the room or house more bearable, and possibly saving on the cost of special mics and techniques for voice recording.

PS: So called noise cancellation software tends to be largely cosmetic. It's fine if the voice is already intelligible but can do little for an unintelligible or barely intelligible voice. True noise cancelling referred to a special noise cancelling mic, often used in noisy industrial environments, actually two mics in one, designed to cancel out the noise common to both mics while retaining the voice which only entered one of the mics.

[MarkOne]

When I worked in a large organisation that had a tech support call centre in the same campus, we managers from the development side had to spend a day every year or so sat with one of the customer support people, so we could get an insight into real world customer issues.

From memory they used Jabra headsets with 2-mic noise cancelling technology, and I was surprised how effective these were at cutting the general hubbub of the call centre to a surprising degree.

I don't remember what model they were using, but I did discover this one on Amazon: https://amzn.eu/d/fky2n8W

I have no experience with this model, but Jabra have built their business on stuff like this and so it's probably not rubbish.

[wireman]

I have used Jabra headsets for decades, starting with wireless ones that loop into a traditional telephone or analog office telephone, at that time Jabra (I think operating under another name) were only known in office environments.
I also use USB headsets for zoom/teams calls and prefer the single-ear ones for that use. The specific (few years old) model is the Jabra UC VOICE 750 MS Mono Dark Headset but there is a wide choice.

The collaboration software (zoom) will just spot the headset as input and output device so it makes life quite simple.

Have a look at some youtube vides to see if you would be happy to be seen with a headset.