Looking for a simple, cost-effective method for recording audio? Whether you’re looking to improve your home studio recordings, podcasts, video meetings, or gaming live streams, a USB microphone can be the perfect solution.

With the simplicity, versatility, and an immense amount of features offered by USB microphones — such as the PreSonus Revelator USB-C Microphone — you’ll find major improvements in the recording applications specific to your needs. 

Before we dive into the motives for owning a USB microphone for different recording applications, let’s go over what a USB microphone is and how they work.

What Is A USB Microphone?

A USB microphone is an audio recording device built with the same components as a traditional microphone — however, the main difference being the USB microphone comes with a built-in preamplifier and an analog-to-digital converter. 

The included components in a USB microphone allow you to simply plug it into your computer and record without needing other audio equipment — such as mixing consoles or external microphone preamplifiers.

When you plug a USB microphone into your computer, all you have to do is open your recording software and it will capture all the sound your microphone is picking up. 

Generally, USB microphones include the software required to record sound. The PreSonus Revelator (a new and popular premium usb microphone) comes with PreSonus’ Universal Control Surface software mixer. This software offers 16 easy-to-use, professionally-crafted presets and fully editable, award-winning StudioLive EQ and compression processing, in addition to voice effects and reverb. This will give you the studio-quality sound you’re looking for with minimal effort.

If you’re looking to listen to the sound of your recordings directly, USB microphones will often come with a headphone out for monitoring your audio. Built-in headphone monitoring is also featured in the Revelator microphone with volume control and zero-latency monitoring.

Now that we’ve gained a better understanding of USB microphones, let’s dive into why USB microphones are useful in various recording applications. 

Home Recording Studios

USB microphones are perfect for those looking to improve their home recording studios without breaking the bank. 

For those who may just be getting started and want to start small before expanding into more expensive equipment, USB microphones are a great option. Or for those who just don’t have the budget or time to gather all the necessary high-end equipment outside of a microphone, you’ll still be able to experience a major improvement in audio quality and recording convenience with USB microphones. 

When you’re looking for the perfect microphone to record vocals or instruments in your home recording studio, we recommend you find a good condenser microphone or one that serves as an audio interface as well with an input for your instruments and enough built-in controls.

A great USB microphone for this application is PreSonus’ Revelator, which comes with a 6-in/6-out audio interface:

• 1 dedicated microphone stream for analog recording
• 2 dedicated output for headphone monitoring
• 4-in/4-out virtual streams for application-to-application recording and playback with loopback options for macOS and Windows

Podcasts

The sound quality of your podcast is instrumental to its success. Why? Because sound is the only thing your listeners are getting unless you decide to include video.

Starting a podcast can seem like a daunting task, especially when worrying about all the recording equipment you’ll need — but with the convenience of a USB microphone’s plug-and-play nature, you’ll be able to start your podcast in no time.

When starting a podcast, it’s important to consider how you want your microphone setup to be. Some podcasters will have two or more microphones set up in the room to record multiple speakers at once.

And due to the current pandemic, some will even do virtual podcasts where they use one singular microphone and their guest will have one of their own. But this can potentially be detrimental to the quality of your podcast if your guest doesn’t have a decent microphone. 

But if you’re looking to use one microphone and conserve your money, we’d recommend getting a USB microphone that offers multiple polar patterns.

The polar patterns we suggest using for your podcast are cardioid and figure-8. The cardioid pattern is useful for capturing one singular voice, whereas the figure-8 pattern can capture two different voices. 

The figure-8 pattern captures sound from the front and back of your microphone. If you place the microphone in between yourself and your guest, you’ll have no problem capturing the perfect sounding audio for your podcast.

Looking for the perfect USB microphone for your podcasts? The PreSonus Revelator comes with both cardioid and figure-8 patterns, as well as the omnidirectional pattern for all your podcast recording needs.  

Live Streaming And Gaming

Live stream gaming and podcasts can go hand in hand with each other in terms of your recording setup — however, the main difference being you won’t need to worry about needing a microphone that can record with a figure-8 pattern. 

For live stream gaming, you’ll need a USB microphone capable of recording in a cardioid pattern where the microphone only picks up what’s in front of it. This is great for voice isolation and will allow the microphone to not pick up unwanted sounds — such as typing on the keyboard.

Ideally, your USB microphone software should be able to control any audio input and output so you can decide exactly what to monitor and what your audience can hear. 

The PreSonus Revelator comes with the perfect software for your live stream gaming needs. The Universal Control Surface software mixer included with the microphone gives you full control of your audio processing, giving your viewers the best live streaming experience.

Video Conferences

Ever since the start of the pandemic, there’s been a massive increase in people working from home. Because of this, video conferencing sites — such as Zoom and Skype — have seen a major spike in usage.

Many people have grown tired of using their computer’s internal microphone or audio recording setup at home and have considered investing in a higher-quality microphone to be able to communicate clearly without muffled or distorted sound.

Upgrading your video meetings setup with a USB microphone can make virtual meetings feel like in-person meetings with the high-quality and clear sound that will be sure to engage everyone on the call.  

When meeting virtually like this, it is important that your audio quality is good. Think about when you have poor cell phone reception. It is incredibly frustrating when words are garbled for you and your attendees. Having a high-quality USB microphone helps prevent this.

USB microphones are also inexpensive and easy to use. Just plug it into your computer and change the input and output settings accordingly to your USB microphone.  

Need something affordable and convenient for your video conferencing setup? The PreSonus Revelator will offer the high-quality and stress-free video conferences you’re looking for.  

Conclusion

As we mentioned before, USB microphones are a great alternative to the high-end and expensive microphone and interface setups. Without needing to purchase additional recording equipment for your setup, USB microphones allow you to record easily with their simple plug-and-play nature.

Whether it’s for your home studio recording setup, podcast, or live stream gaming channel, USB microphones will give you the upgrade you’re looking for.

Sometimes certain USB microphones are more useful than others in certain scenarios, but if you’re looking for a USB microphone that’s best suited for multiple applications — such as studio recording, live stream gaming, and podcasts — check out The PreSonus Revelator.

Click this video to learn more about the PreSonus Revelator and how it’s best suited for your audio recording needs. 

As you can see, the PreSonus Revelator comes equipped with a variety of features, allowing for powerful customization potential for advanced users and can greatly improve the quality of your audio workflow.

To learn more about the PreSonus Revelator and all its included features, check out its product page. At this time, there is also a promotional offer from PreSonus that gets you the Revelator mic with all included software and plug-ins — such as Ableton Live Lite, tutorials from Melodics, sound libraries from Ghost Hack, 7 virtual instruments, and more — for 149.99. 

This offer is live from May 1, 2021, to June 30, 2021, and can be purchased at digitaldjgear.com or in person at our store at 283 Main Street in Hackensack, New Jersey.