5 Best Microphones for YouTube 2020

Key Takeaways

so when you're making videos obviously the most important thing is the concept and the content behind it so if you don't have good content your videos won't do well but if you do have good content the next most important thing according to a lot of creators is to have high quality audio so people tend to put up with lower quality video if the audio is high quality so what I mean by that is if you're shooting 1080p and not 4k but your audio is really good people will definitely still watch it and you won't have any drawbacks but if you're shooting 4k and your audio sounds like you're in a cave people are not gonna watch your videos they're not going to like and engage nearly as much as they would if you had high quality audio so in this video I'll be talking about five microphones that are for youtubers and essentially I picked one microphone from each category that I think is the best and there are five categories that will sort of encompass any type of channel you make and so I really want to describe what each category is and I also want to describe which microphone is best for you to help you decide before you go out and buy one because unfortunately the way it works is when you're getting started you're buying microphones you tend to have to buy a bunch and then you use them then you realize they're not so great but then by then it might be too late to return it or just such a hassle to return it so that's why I just want to recommend five of my favorite microphones that I use in my videos all the time so before we get too far into this if you are new here and you are looking to grow your online influence start your growth now by clicking the subscribe button down below also click the bell icon so you don't miss the latest videos so starting off with number one in really no particular order this is the blue Yeti what I'm using right now this one cost about $120 so the most expensive one on this list but it definitely has the features to earn that extra value when you're buying it so it has knobs in the front and the back you can control the gain on this right onboard on the microphone you can also plug in headphones on the bottom so you plug in a USB which is the power supply and the recording so you'll be recording on a computer so you are tethered to a laptop or a desktop that is one minor drawback to this you can't have this you know going totally mobile anywhere else you're gonna be tethered but if you are in a studio this is a great microphone so you see this anywhere on you know because you have a boom mount on the bottom people use this on a boom a lot of times you see this on podcast because you have the different settings so you actually have three little capsules inside in different directions so for that reason you can actually have these four different settings on the back on that little knob right there and that can control how it's going to sound in different settings based on where the microphone is and what you're trying to do so you'll see this like I said you're gonna see this on podcast a lot a lot of people actually you know a testimony for this is that people that do like the ASMR type stuff the people that are you know like the videos were people like whisper on their microphones you know yeah I don't know if you've seen those but they use microphones like this so that's just to give you an idea of you know what kind of people use this it's obviously a very high quality microphone and for that reason this is one that I recommend to anybody who is in a stationary studio or trying to make a podcast and wants very high quality audio this is probably the best you're gonna get for your money alright now the next microphone you can use is this one right here which is the zoom h1 and this is actually more than just a microphone as well because this little thing you can actually use as a recording units for a lot of different situations so basically anytime you could use the blue Yeti you could also use this one but this microphone is also great for traveling around and using just as you can see here it's battery-powered so I'll just take this off and show you right now you can also use this microphone to walk around and interview people so you can plug in headphones like I have right now when you're in a studio or you can unplug them go out in public and walk around it has a battery inside of it and you plug in your own SD card so it's totally mobile you're not tethered to anything so that's why this is really really good you can change a lot of settings on here you can see what your audio levels are it's totally mobile you're not bound to a computer for that reason I would say that this microphone might be the best one that everybody has to get even if it's not their primary microphone it's one that every channel should have so you can go around you can interview people or you can use it in your studio or a social you in one second you can also plug in other microphones into this and just record directly on this using like a lav mic that brings us to number three which is the lavell ear microphone or the lav mic now these are great for anytime you're walking around or you just want a small microphone that's hidden you don't want something in front of you or maybe you're just really far away from the camera and you aren't near like a laptop for example so that's why you might want to use a lav mic this is what I typically use in almost all of my videos just because it's the easiest it's very small relatively discreet obviously right now I have a green shirt on so it's super obvious but usually I wear like a button-down or it may be like a Henley or something that you can kind of hide it in the buttons and so when you're doing that lav mics are extremely small and discreet they're also very cheap so this one was twenty or twenty five dollars Nate's is actually a Sony which is also twenty to twenty five dollars the reason I prefer this one though is because this one actually has an adapter on it that you can plug into either a recording unit which most already plug into or you can plug into a smartphone which is great when you're just getting started off so you don't need to buy a recording unit now I will say some of them come with an extension cable and you can plug into your camera and record directly on your camera through a lav mic although I found the best audio quality tends to be when you record through the zoom h1 which is again why I said everybody should get the h1 I think it's really just a great Universal recorder and microphone that any channel could use in any situation and it sounds good when you're using a lav mic or it sounds good when you're using it as a standalone microphone okay so next number four we have an onboard phone microphone and this is one that hopefully everyone already has if you have a phone you probably already have a camera on it and you probably also have a microphone and so when you're starting off on youtube if you want a really cheap way to start off a phone microphone might be a decent enough camera and microphone set up for you where you know it sounds okay because you're so close to it that you don't have to worry about you know you know I'm syncing the audio or buying anything else any other equipment at least for your first couple videos if you're vlogging like this it can be a decent enough microphone so next we have the rode videomic which is a shotgun mic it mounts on top of your camera and it records directly into your camera so it's great because your video files all have the audio right onboard you don't have to sync them up you don't the clap in the beginning of a video you don't worry about any of that because it's already synced up and it's almost you know entirely hands-free they're really really easy to use they have you know decent audio quality although sometimes if you are farther away they do tend to capture a lot of ambient sounds which could be a good or a bad thing depending on where you are and what you're trying to do but this is the classic microphone for any kind of video where people are walking around a lot or any kind of video where you're doing a vlog or a lot of people even use these just in a studio setup just like this okay guys so if you are on a budget and you have a studio set up you're probably going to want to use either I have my connected to your phone maybe just your phone microphone or maybe a shotgun microphone this one's about $80 but there's also some like this one which are about $30 I recommend getting the $80 one the rode microphone I'll link it down below is a great microphone now if you have a slightly better studio I would recommend getting either the blue Yeti or the zoom everyone should have the zoom in my opinion no matter what type of video you are making now if you're walking around a lot but the cameras staying still you could use either a shotgun microphone or a lav mic obviously the blue Yeti wouldn't be good if you're walking around because it's pretty much stationary the whole time next if you're really really really far away from your camera you're going to want to use a lav mic like I said they're pretty universal and they're fairly cheap so if you're doing interviews it's great to have everyone have their own lav mic that way you don't have anyone louder or quieter in the video and you can also adjust all the volumes later and then lastly of course if you are absolutely on a budget or you just want the easiest most hands-free thing ever just use a phone but make sure you have a decent smartphone right here is the Galaxy S 10 which granted is more expensive but the audio quality seems to be fairly decent alright guys so that's all I have for you in this video comment down below which of these microphones you would like to use for your channel and why you want to use them let me know what kind of channel you have and any questions you might have associated with microphones like I said Nate and I have been using lots of microphones if you're looking to buy one odds are we probably already bought it and probably already tried it so let me know in the comments down below thanks for watching guys I'll see you next time