- Today, Elgato have released their very first products
in the world of microphones called Wave.
What specifically, Wave:1 and Wave:3.
I've no idea what happened to Wave:2.
Elgato have a history of innovation and really focusing
on products built for creators.
their Stream Decks, capture cards, green screens
and key lights have all become staples
in the streaming industry,
but microphones, that's a tough market
to try and break into.
In this video, we are going to be diving deep
into these new microphones from Elgato,
looking at exactly how they perform
and comparing them against some
of the other similarly priced microphones.
We'll also be taking a detailed look
at their new Wave Link software which spoiler alert,
is really I think the best feature
of these new microphones,
especially when you integrate it with a Stream Deck.
My aim with this video is
to give you all the information you could possibly need
to help you make the decision
whether either of these microphones are going to be
a good choice for your live stream.
As always, I'll have timestamps down
in the description below.
So if you want to skip ahead, look at different chapters,
then go and use those timestamps,
and I think we should probably go and plug this in
and use it as our microphone for the rest of this video,
so you can hear exactly what it sounds like.
(light electronic music)
Okay, so what you're listening to now is the raw audio
from the Wave:3.
Now I haven't done any post-processing,
no effects or anything like that.
I want you to actually hear what it sounds like.
Maybe done a small boost in levels,
just so that you can still hear me when I'm editing,
but no post-processing, no effects
and don't worry, we're going to come back
and do a deeper dive on the actual audio quality.
Just wants to use this microphone
for the rest of the review.
So let's start by actually looking
at some of the technical specs of the Wave:1 and the Wave:3
and any differences between them.
Both the Wave:1 and Wave:3 are USB condenser microphones
and they have a tight fixed cardioid polar pattern.
Both of them are made of mostly plastic,
but with some steel and aluminum parts.
Technically, they're both stacked pretty similarly
with the main difference being that the Wave:3's analog
to digital converter can use a sample rate of 96 kilohertz
compared to the 48 kilohertz of the Wave:1.
Both of them come with an included stand
which is what I shared at the beginning of them attached to
which just unscrews and they also come with an adapter
if you do want to Mount it to a boom arm
like I have done here.
One thing to mention on the boom arm front,
I'm using the RODE PSA 1 which is pretty common.
And I actually found
that the microphones are a little bit too light
for the PSA 1.
They kept sort of springing back up into the air
and I couldn't get it in a low fixed position
like I have to now.
So what I had to do was use a screwdriver
just to tighten some of the joints at the elbows
to make sure that it stayed
in these lower positions absolutely fine.
So physically, the main differences
between the Wave:1 and the Wave:3
is that the Wave:3 also has a capacitive mute,
which means that you can disengage your mic
just with a light touch on the top
and it'll completely mute the audio coming from it.
And the Wave:3 also has a multifunctional dial
which allows you to adjust the input gain
or the output volume or the cross-fade
between your microphone and your PC audio mix,
whereas the Wave:1 dial,
that just adjusts the output volume.
So from a purely specs point of view,
these might seem pretty comparable really
with a lot of the other offerings on the market,
but we all know that specs don't mean anything really
in the audio world.
There's a lot more that goes into it
which is why I'm so glad
that Elgato made a really smart decision
to leverage the expertise of Lewitt
which is a company that has been building
professional grade studio microphones for years.
I really feel like if Elgato had just gone
and tried to design and engineer a microphone
completely on their own, I would have been worried
that they'd missed the mark
and deliver something kind of subpar.
So thumbs up to Elgato for realizing that the best way
of making a good sounding product was to partner up
with some audio experts.
Oh, and thank God they didn't go for
like everybody else does,
the copy of the Blue Yeti
where you can select different polar patterns
because honestly,
that creates way more problems than it solves.
So many people have that Blue Yetis set up incorrectly
because of the choice of polar pattern
and not just sticking to the default cardioid,
which is what 99% of people will want to use.
So well done Elgato for not being like everyone else
and just copying the Blue Yeti.
Right, so enough talking about the tech specs
and the build quality of the microphone.
Let's talk about what I think is the biggest selling point
and the best feature of these new Elgato Wave mics
and that is that new software, Wave Link.
Wave Link essentially allows you to have complete control
over your streams audio sources
through two independent output mixes.
One for you and one for your audience.
This allows you to have completely different audio levels
of every individual audio source for you
and for your stream.
So you can do things like playing music,
copyright free of course, for your stream
and then you can have that music muted for you
in your headphones so you can concentrate on the game
or you can have different levels
for your teammates on Discord.
So your stream doesn't hear them quite as loudly
as you do in your headphones.
This gets even cooler when you add in an Elgato Stream Deck,
as you effectively have all of that granular control
over the levels of all of your different audio sources
at your fingertips.
Okay, so let's actually look at an example
of how you would use this for your stream.
So you can see I've got the Wave Link software open here,
and it has correctly identified the Wave:3 microphone
that I'm using and showing the levels coming into that.
Now you can jump into some options here
and change the gain and volume.
With the Wave:3, you can actually enable those
and change them on the microphone,
but with the Wave:1, you would have to jump
into the options here, as well as enabling
some extra features which we'll get onto later.
But you can also see we got separate channels
that they've set up for us for system, music,
browser and voice chat.
So let's actually go through an example of exactly
how we can set this up for our stream.
You notice down here in the outputs,
we have two separate outputs.
We have the monitor mix and the stream mix.
You want to set the monitor mix to be your headphones.
So that is actually how you're monitoring
all of these different sounds.
And the stream mix is obviously the one
that is going to be going into OBS.
So if we go and start playing some music on Spotify,
you might notice that nothing is showing up for the music.
You guys can't hear any in OBS
and I can't hear any out my speakers.
That's because right now, Spotify isn't set up
to use these Windows audio devices
that will separate them into separate channels.
So if we come up here and click this icon here
next to the settings cog,
this is actually going to open up
our volume device preferences in Windows
and we need to find our music, which for me is Spotify
and change the output device
to the Wave Link music audio device.
Now there's a few different ones here
and you want to select the right one for what it is.
So if it's your game, if it's aux or if it's whatever.
I'm going to select music because this is obviously music.
I click that and instantly we can see the music channel
is now showing the music playing.
Hopefully you can hear it in the OBS recording right now
and we can actually change the volumes for me
and my headphones, which for me is my speakers right now
and for the stream.
So if I turn this up,
you should hopefully hear it get louder.
(light electronic music)
So you can see how much granular control you can have
over something like your music.
Now you can do this across everything.
So you can set your browser to a specific audio channel.
You can set your Discord to a specific audio channel.
All of these can be separate audio sources
that you can then change volumes from
on the fly with Wake Link and this gets even better
when you integrate it with a Stream Deck.
So what I've done here is
I've opened up the Stream Deck software
where you actually choose the customizing
and layout of your Stream Decks
alongside the Wave Link software.
So you can actually see
how my Stream Deck is affecting the Wave Link software.
So what I've done here is I've set up
or Elgato rather have setup some default profile pages
where you can actually customize exactly what you want
each thing to happen.
How it's set up is that each two rows of keys is based
on the two different channels here.
So you can see how I have plus, minus, plus, minus.
Those are for the plus, minus of my headphone mix
and the plus, minus of my stream mix.
And this is the microphone channel, the system channel,
the music channel and the browser channel.
Also down here, the bottom row of keys
that they have given you is some customization
based on what you are hearing
and what your stream is hearing.
So you can see here what my monitor mix is set up 50%
and I have the plus and minus buttons
to be able to increase or decrease that.
We also have this button to be able to swap
between what we are monitoring.
Are we monitoring the monitor mix
or are we monitoring the stream mix?
So right now we're monitoring the monitor mix.
I can click this button and it will swap over
to monitoring the stream mix
and you can actually hear my microphone
coming back up my speakers.
So disable that so you don't get the feedback.
Obviously if you're wearing headphones,
you wouldn't get the feedback
'cause it wouldn't bleed back into the microphone.
But we also get some options here to be able to mute
and unmute the whole stream.
So if you desperately need to mute the stream
for some reason, you can click this button.
I just said it to now,
hopefully you guys can't hear me in OBS
and I was looking at my OBS meters and indeed, you couldn't.
Also send volume buttons here to be able
to change the volume of your stream mix
and finally, a button to go back home
to your original Stream Deck layout.
Just to quickly show you how easy it is
to add another input in Wave Link software.
You can just hover over an empty bank here,
click add audio input,
choose what kind of audio input is.
So let's say it's game and there you have it.
You have it set up and then it's going to to be set up
as a Windows device as well.
So as long as you check your game
to use that Windows device,
it's going to show up in a separate audio channel
that you can choose what levels you want
and you can of course, scroll across
and use all actual nine banks.
So what it is is it's the Wave microphone plus eight banks.
So nine in total that you can use
to control all the different audio sources on your stream.
So really I think the Elgato Wave Link software
is the best feature of this microphone.
Microphone itself is obviously good.
You can hear that for yourselves,
but I think the real value comes
from this Elgato Wave Link software
and yes, you probably can do something similar
with some software like Voicemeeter Banana
or Voicemeeter Potato, but again,
Elgato have just made it so intuitive and easy to use.
Exactly the same as they did with the Stream Deck
where you could technically do the same thing with a Numpad,
But the Stream Deck is just so much more intuitive,
so much more easy to use and actually better functionality
now that has been developed
through the years on the software.
I hope that Wave Link follows that same pathway.
Elgato will keep improving over time,
maybe adding things like noise suppression,
EQ capabilities, compressors, things like that
to the software so that
you can really make the Wave microphone work
in any application
and make it sound really, really professional.
But even now, my head is starting to turn
with the possibilities that you have
with this microphone being integrated
with the Stream Deck and the Wave Link software.
'Cause you can do some cool multi-actions
like swapping to a BRB scene,
muting your microphone, turning up your music volume
all with one click from your Stream Deck.
I mean that's a simple example.
I'm sure you guys and people
in the community are going to come up with much more complex
and impressive ideas,
but the fact that it's integrated into the Stream Deck,
I think is a big selling point.
Okay, so we've covered the physical microphones themselves
and the Wave Link software,
which I think takes them to the next level,
but none of that really matters
if they don't compete and compare well
with other offerings in the market at this price range.
Speaking of price range, the Wave:1 is launching
with a price of $129 and 99 cents
and the Wave:3 is at $159, 99 cents.
So we're going to be comparing them with the Blue Yeti
and the Samson G-Track Pro
just to see exactly how they stand up.
If you'd like to see a full comparison video
of these Elgato mics against everything else
that's really in that 100 to $200 range for USB microphones.
So things like the Audio-Technica AT2020,
the HyperX QuadCast, the Road NT-USB and the Blue Yeti,
then let me know down in the comments below,
because I think that'd be a really useful video
where we can compare the intricacies and differences
between each microphone,
but I'll only make it if there's enough demand
from you guys in the community.
Okay, so onto the actual comparisons
between the Wave:3, Wave:1 G-Track Pro and Blue Yeti.
I'm going to take it off the boom arm
just to make sure it's a fair test.
Put them all back on their original stands
and have them roughly the same distance away from my mouth
so that we can really get the comparison right.
This is the audio from the Elgato Wave:3
with the game set to around 40%.
This is the audio from the Wave:1
with the gain set to around 40%.
This is the audio from the Blue Yeti.
It sits on a slightly taller stand,
so it might be slightly close to my mouth.
But the gain is set to around 30 to 40%.
And finally, this is the audio from the Samson G-Track Pro.
Again, sits on a similar height standard to the Blue Yeti
and the gain for this one it's at around 55 to 60%.
Okay, so just listen back to the audio samples
and I think really between the Wave:1 and Wave:3,
I couldn't tell any difference at all.
I imagine the internals of those microphones
are exactly the same.
The Blue Yeti, maybe benefits ever so slightly
because it is closer to my mouth
with the bigger stand.
So really, with any of those three microphones,
I think they're going to sound very similar,
especially if you get them up onto a boom arm,
nice and close to your mouth.
The only reason I didn't test all of these mics
on a boom arm is because I don't have the adapter
for the Blue Yeti to go onto a boom arm.
So I clearly need to purchase that.
The G-Track Pro I think just doesn't sound quite as full
as the other microphones,
so I wouldn't really consider that,
but I think the Blue Yeti
and the Wave microphone sound very, very similar
in terms of audio quality.
In terms of accessories for the Elgato Wave:1 and three,
Elgato announced that there are
three different optional extras that you will be able
to buy alongside the microphone.
Those are a shock mount which comes in
at 39,99 dollars, pounds, euros.
The external pop filter that I mentioned before
which reduces the impact of plosives
and clips on nicely, which is 29,99 dollars, pounds euros
and finally, extension rods which are two small rods
that go in between the base and the U-Mount
to raise the microphone by around five centimeters each.
Obviously these aren't needed
if you're going to be using a boom arm,
but if you're using it with the included stands,
they come in at 9.99 dollars, pounds, euros.
Well, hopefully that has been a useful video
with loads of information and tests and a review
of the Wave Link software as well
to help you understand a bit more
about these Elgato microphones
and I'd love to hear your opinions.
What you think of them, are you tempted by either of them
or are you going to stick with something else?
We also have a great Discord server
where people discussed microphones and audio equipment
to the nth degree.
So be sure to join the Gaming Careers Discord
and join in on those conversations.
If you haven't yet subscribed to the Gaming Careers channel,
I would highly recommend doing so.
All of our videos are based around the ethos
of learning to live stream.
So do check out all of our other content
and I'll catch you guys in the next video, peace.
(players mumbling)
(gun shots)
(players mumbling)
(technology beeping)
- [Woman] One enemy remains
(players mumbling)