How many local mic inputs do you need?

Anything direct connected to the computer will likely have high noise (especially when it's a laptop and it's plugged into power) external sound cards help a lot, and most come with good mic preamps built in.

Best bang for buck is probably an external audio interface like a scarlet. Puts all your audio i/o outside the noisy computer and gives you flexible physical cable routing for different scenarios.

Tbh most of the nuance in mic selection and preamp selection (other than signal to noise) gets destroyed when encoded for broadcast on most settings, and the other poster is correct : it's mostly about mic technique, proximity effect, and basic eq to get the sound you want across different listening environments.

It's worth playing with different mics (keeping everything else the same) to find one you like with your voice with minimal eq needed, but there are so many other variables with broadcast encoding and analog to digital conversion that might impact things, if you really want to dig in we would have to discuss the whole signal path from voice to earholes

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Greatly appreciate the feedback man 🙏🫡

The increased noise with the SM7dB makes a lot more sense now…

Re: mic technique, it’s honestly incredible how much a difference it makes… my plosives were out of control when I first started then I watched a 5 minute technique video and it improved drastically (still plenty of room for improvement but at least better than before).

I’ve honestly been pretty pleased with the MV7 overall since I’ve only been doing solo recordings and virtual interviews, but if I start doing them in person I’m definitely going to need to figure my shit out…

Also, love that you say “earholes.” I, too, say earholes.

Anyway, appreciate the insight brother