This setup is as minimal as I was able to get it: no big booms on my desk to move around, microphones blocking my video, etc. Yeah, I look like a pilot on calls, but the audio quality is amazing. Also, the mic being close to me blocks background noise, and isolates it from my desk. Sometimes my colleagues with podcaster-style mics have issues with mechanical transmission from their desk setups, while I have none.
People often comment — even to this day — about my audio quality. I talk to people all day, being in sales, and it makes a huge difference in my presence and professionalism. Absolutely worth every penny I spent.
As a side note, I also use my iPhone as my webcam (continuity cam I think it's called) along with a couple Logitech lights on my monitor, and the overall quality of my digital presence often blows people away.
Honestly I'm sort of surprised that there isn't training about this given how much sales training people go through. Presentation is HUGE. A good mic, a proper camera, and even just minor consideration for lighting make anyone so much more credible, and pleasant to talk to.
Myself and my team are all technical sales folks with engineering backgrounds, and we naturally optimize for this sort of thing — all of us have some form of “advanced” setup that’s been informed by each other’s investment.
On the other side, NONE of our account reps have anything remotely close. I can think of one or two times in the past few years when someone asked me about what tech I use. My company even has a home office budget benefit meant for exactly this sort of thing!
It's not that surprising, it's fairly technical and many don't want to deal with it (ask anyone if they know what XLR or phantom power is), another problem is there's so many different options that it often leads to choice paralysis and some people feel uncomfortable to ask for money to buy better equipment.
A wired headset plus my mixer gives me an opportunity to tinker and upgrade my setup as I wish, and is all USB powered to boot.
I have some rough plans to make a simple audio interface with built in sidetone for use as a portable setup, but haven’t had the time to turn it into a real product. Someday!
I kind of went the other direction here.
AT2020 condenser mic into a focusrite scarlett. Mounted on an adjustable boom that's clamped to the far right end of my desk with a shock mount and pop filter (so I can get the thing fully out of my way). Sound comes out some bookshelf speakers sitting below my monitor.
My monitor's raised up a bit on an arm so about 20% of it is above eye level for me with the webcam sitting on top of that. It's a solid few feet away from me, so the angle isn't really noticeable to anyone I'm on a call with. But the angle does mean that I can pull the microphone right in front of my face, just below my mouth so I'm speaking over it, and it's not blocking my mouth or any of my face. (Visually it's in front of my shirt and on the edge of the frame anyway.)
It already does a fairly good job of isolating my voice by virtue of being a cardiod mic inches from my face, but further from that I have it set up (in software) with a noise gate opened by the microphone _in my webcam_. When I'm talking to people I'm generally looking at them so I'm speaking towards the monitor. This sets it up so sound directed towards the monitor opens the mic, but other sound generally does not.
I couldn't find a pair of over-ear headphones I could comfortably wear for long periods of time--they'd all push on the arms of my glasses and end up really sore after a couple hours of calls in a day (even non-contiguous). Instead of trying to solve that, I just steered hard into making the open setup work and sound as well as I could.
As far as visuals--I have a couple of LED light panels for my photography that are set at 45 degrees to either side of my camera, with one adjusted a bit cool and one a bit warm. Picked it up from some time spent doing stage lighting--if you evenly light a scene, it looks flat. (Think a photo taken with an on-camera flash.) A slightly warm and slightly cool wash from different angles can be lit fairly brightly while maintaining the depth and texture.
Different approach but same goal and outcome: I spend a lot of my day talking to people and trying to convey information. It's to my benefit that I'm clearly heard and easily understood. And, besides the practical concerns, professionalism. Frankly, I think it's silly _not_ to invest (to some extent, anyway) in this. In the remote work world, a huge part of everyone's interactions with and perception of you is actually their interaction with and perception of your audio and video setup. You don't need to overdo it, but don't be _bad_ at it.
How does it work? Asking, because I always have this issue in 3+ person calls, where I'm frequently starting to talk just about when someone else does, ending up in those awkward "oh sorry you go please" moments. That makes me prefer to not say anything at all unless explicitly talked to.
I always assumed that my issue is that I'm just a slow-thinking dumbass who can't get the cues in time (which is true, because it happens in face-to-face in-person conversations as well, just less frequently), but maybe it's a technical issue contributing to it?
The parent commenter, I believe, is talking about the problem where people use speakers and active noise cancellation, which makes it impractical to speak and be heard at the same time; the noise cancellation will ruin the speaker-user's mic audio while it has to cancel out another speaker. Headphones, worn by all parties, resolves this issue.
But I think video conferencing software is built around the assumption that people are using their speakers and so the output is also picked up by the mic. So some of it is increased latency caused by filtering that out. And then it keeps people basically muted until it determines they're trying to speak, and there's a delay with it toggling.
If you're using a mic and headphones at all though, there are settings that cut a lot of that out. They're usually kind of inscrutable like in zoom IIRC it's called "audio for musicians" or something like that. If both people are using headphones and have those settings on, it removes most of that "switching talker" latency.
As you add more people it's harder and harder to get everyone configured correctly, which is why having company buy-in and policy is important. Sheer network latency comes into play too, but most people working from home probably have acceptable connections.
If you are using both your laptop's microphone and speakers, then Teams/Zoom has to decide whether to play audio to you, or pick up audio from you. If you're talking at the same time as someone else, the audio quality for everyone in the meeting suffers.
All laptop speaker/mic combos use AEC[1], where they can both playout and pickup at the same time. There is actually 2 layers of this in many systems, one provided by your device, and a 2nd layer provided in software by Zoom/Teams/Meet etc.
What can happen is that the meeting audio is a mixture of the top-N loudest participants. N+1 people talking will conflict badly.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_suppression_and_cancellat...
The "limitation" arises because Teams/Zoom/etc all have mechanisms to prevent audio feedback. Participant A, using their laptop's microphone and speakers, will cause unpleasant audio cutouts for every other participant whenever they talk, even if Participants B-Z are all wearing headphones that prevent their microphone from picking up their audio output.
- Is built well enough that it doesn’t creak when I pick it up.
- Has a high density IPS glossy screen.
- Has a usable touchpad (meaning, works at least as well as my MacBook’s - I cannot compromise on this).
- Lasts ten hours on battery while running containers and IDEs.
- Has performance on par with an M3 machine.
Does that exist yet? Genuine question.
*inserted [] for clarity
1. Podcast bro / Twitch streamer (giant mic inches from face)
2. Gamer (headphones with or without a headset mic)
3. Call center employee (open back mono headset with mic)
Turning off video is obviously the fastest fix to this. But assuming you don't want to do that...
You'll find a lot of people hate wearing headphones since it messes up their hairstyle or just looks distracting or some other sensory issue with having something clamped to your head. Earbuds work better for them; as long as the mic can't hear other speakers, the annoyance of half-duplex audio is eliminated.
The mic problem is harder if you don't want something obvious in frame. Lav mics work if you know how/where to attach one and to minimize clothing movement noise. Other options will require some level of room treatment if the mic isn't close to the speaker's mouth.
I have the mic on an arm to cut down on bumps and typing transmitting through the desk, but I find it doesn't have to be right in my face. I have it above the monitor, out of view of the camera. YMMV depending on room echo, my walls are bookshelves which is pretty good as treatment.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/w...
It’s a wired headset with a condenser mic I feed into a daw with real-time compressor and eq. No software required or processing done on the computer. The only thing I’m missing is a wireless headset with audio in and out that can be routed to the DAW. Wireless headsets connect to the computer via usb which is a shame. All of my friends use steelseries and it sucks because I constantly have to ride their volume levels because the boom arm moves out the ideal position and they don’t have a leveler to do deal with it.
How's your experience with this regarding soundproofing the room. Is normal noise filtering fine? I assume you have the mic on a boom with a pop filter.
Allocate $300 per person to get everyone a podcaster mic and a pair of open backed headphones to plug into it as a monitor so you hear your own voice through your headphones. It removes the feeling that you need to speak loudly to be heard, which is a lot of the fatigue.
And if both parties are using this setup, it greatly reduces the "only one person can speak at a time" feeling, allowing you to use more natural vocal interactions without feeling like you're interrupting.
Together it makes a huge difference. I have audio processing and sensory problems and used to be so drained after a 40 minute zoom meeting. With this setup I can spend 4 hours a day pair programming and be appropriately tired but not exhausted.
Your 3-4 and large meetings with executives screaming into their laptops from coworking spaces I have no solutions for however.