Choosing The Right Microphone – Part One
One thing that often concerns people when it comes to audio (and video) is equipment – e.g. which microphone is ‘best’ for recording audio products?There is much to say on this subject and it can get quite technical, but here is the supereasy answer.
There is no ‘best’ microphone, but there are recommendations, depending on your preference and budget.
The bottom line is it’s more important that you have a microphone that you are comfortable to use and that will get you good results, than being concerned about whether your audio is of top quality, simply because there are many factors to consider to get great studio quality recording.
Hear’s the Difference!
Here’s the thing. Despite what you may have been told, most people really do not hear the finer points of your audio recording, because it’s generally information they want – solutions to a problem – not hi-fi audio (which can be difficult to achieve well at home).
No one will buy your product over someone elses because you use a ‘studio’ microphone and your competitors don’t.
Most people won’t hear the difference, and this is how I know.
Firstly, the hundreds of people I trained in audio recording over about 10 years (with many listening tests in studio conditions) showed that very few people (even audio students) can tell the difference between sound recordings you imagine would be very obvious to most.
Secondly, everyone is used to hearing a wide range of audio quality, ranging from over produced, full, rich sounding FM radio and TV commercial audio with booming voices… through to thin and scratchy sounding mobile phones and standard telephone landline audio – (teleseminars recordings make great high-selling products and are of low
audio quality).
Consumers are not focused on audio quality when they buy an information product (unless it sounds really bad of course!) – they are focused on the information (the one exception is hypnosis and meditation audio which is a whole specialist area by itself).
This is why most people will buy an audio product from you – because it provides a solution to their problem – not because it sounds great!
Thirdly, most people play audio back on crappy sound systems anyway!It always amused me that thousands of hours go into producing a great sounding music project, sometimes on millions of dollars of the absolute best audio equipment in the worlds top studios….only to be played back on a $10 easily scratched plastic disc… mostly on cheap and badly set up sound equuipment… usually by someone who just wants to turn the sound up loud… without noticing or caring about the finer points of audio production.
Audio Info Products: What To Focus On
After 3 decades in professional audio, it has taken me many years to get over my conditioned focus on hi-fi audio for info products, and to know that there are two things people primarily want in any audio or video product
1) good quality information from a credible source
2) certainty demonstrated by the person delivering the information that they know what they are talking about
A studio microphone won’t do that for you!
So…what microphone do you need?
Click here for ‘Choosing The Right Microphone – Part Two‘
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