greetings earthlings today i'm back with a review of a brand new usb condenser microphone
from mackie that microphone is the em usb and if you are interested in this microphone it
will cost you around 150 dollars like always i'll throw some links down below and for this
review i have the microphone connected directly to my mac the gain on the computer is set at 25
and the gain on the microphone is set at around 10 o'clock or 10 30 i will not do any kind of
post processing but i may boost it in post so check the dooblydoo to see what i didily did
and now let's talk about what comes in the box
swish bro dude i should play basketball that was tight of course you are going to get the
microphone a microphone mount but no 5 8 to 3 8 inch microphone stand adapter a pretty
sturdy and nice desktop stand that kind of resembles the blue snowball microphone stand
a usbc to usba cable and some documentation as well as a few pieces of free software
then as far as the build quality it doesn't feel bad at all it has an all metal body as well as a
metal mesh grille the grille does have a bit of give to it but nothing out of the ordinary
the dials have very little wobble to them very great feeling there
and the mute button has a nice tactile click to it so you know when it's been depressed just like me
and it's manufactured in china on the front of the microphone you will find a headphone volume
control you'll find a microphone gain control you'll find a microphone mute button as well as
a light to indicate whether or not the microphone is live or if it is muted there are no other
features as you move around the microphone but on the bottom you will find a usbc port which is
great to see and then you'll find a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack which does not offer zero latency
monitoring and i'm just realizing i'm wearing my headphones i'm not listening to anything
this is weird now you can see my deformed ears oh no then as far as the specs this microphone has
a cardioid polar pattern a frequency response of 30 hertz to 18 kilohertz a sensitivity of around
negative 32 db a max spl of 130 db a bit depth of 16 bit and a sample rate of up to 48 kilohertz
now i am spinning around the em usb to 90 degrees so you can hear the off axis rejection
and coloration we'll continue around the microphone to 180 degrees here's what it
sounds like from the rear continuing around the microphone to the second 90 degree angle
and then we will rotate and end at the front of the microphone now let's go ahead and see how well
this microphone does and rejecting plosives please bring pizza pronto please bring pizza pronto
please bring scary pizza pronto please now i am right on top of the microphone to demonstrate the
proximity effect on this thing about three inches off with the mic pointed at the corner of my mouth
and here is how it sounds about one foot away from the microphone two feet away from the microphone
about four feet away from the microphone and about eight feet away from the microphone you gotta fear
him he's gonna sniff you he's gonna give you a big old sniff now i am typing on a keyboard
with gateron blue switches to see how much of my voice versus how much of the keyboard it picks up
and for you elite gamers now i am typing on the sad w keys
here is how the microphone sounds in a well-treated room
and here's how the microphone sounds in a completely untreated room
now i want to demonstrate why i don't typically recommend using one of the provided desktop
stands i will place this directly on the desk in front of me i will bump the desk so you can
see how much of that noise it picks up i will go ahead and type on the keyboard here's how much
of that it picks up and now i'll throw it on the boom arm so you can hear how it performs in that
situation and now i have the microphone set up on a boom arm i'll go ahead and tap the desk
this is how much of that noise it picks up i'll go ahead and click on the keyboard it's
how much of that noise it picks up there you go that is why i recommend getting a microphone
off of a desktop stand and onto a boom arm farther away from all the noise generating sources
now i'll go ahead and hit the mute button so you can see what kind of noise is generated
when the mute is activated i will go ahead and continue talking and
when i pressed it it looks like there's a very loud and pronounced
popping or clicking when the button is is unpressed it looks like there's
a very loud noise there you go that's the microphone mute button test noise
test three o'clock
about 12 o'clock on the microphone
about three o'clock on the microphone
and about 100 on the microphone
now i want to do a very quick comparison between the mackie and a couple of other
usb microphones on the market this is not going to be an exhaustive list i just want to provide
a little bit of context about how this mic compares against some equally priced usb
options of course we are going to start on the mackie em usb i am six inches away from this thing
the gain on the microphone is set at around 10 30. gain on the computer is set at 25
and here is how the audio sounds let's jump to the first mic and compare it to
that now i am on the rode nt usb mini this is a 100 usb condenser microphone six inches off
this only has a gain control on the computer which is set to 40 percent and here is how the
audio sounds make sure to check the lower third to see how much i boosted it in post but here's
how it compares to the mackie very cool let's jump back to the mackie back on the mackie usb
again and here's how it sounds i am just including this to cleanse your palette let you hear how this
sounds before we jump to another one let's go ahead and compare it to another usb microphone
now i am on the blue yeti nano which is a 100 dollar multi-pattern usb condenser microphone
only as cardioid in omni but i am on the cardioid mode on my computer my gain is set to around 30
no gain control on the microphone and here is how this sounds compared to a 150 dollar usb
condenser microphone from mackie and we are back on the mackie one last time so you can hear how
this microphone sounds before we jump to another one and compare it to another usb microphone and
lastly i am on the blue yeti classic cardioid polar pattern gain on the microphone is set
to around 10 30 or 11. gain on the computer is set to 69 lamou and here is how the microphone
sounds this goes for 130 dollars a lot more polar patterns and a lot more control over the sound and
you have zero latency monitoring but here is how 130 sounds compared to 150 bucks from mackie let
me know in the comments down below which one of these microphones you like the best the mackie
the blue yeti the blue yeti nano or the rode nt usb mini let me know down below then when we look
at latency with the sample rate set as high as it will go at 48 kilohertz and an o buffer size of 64
samples we have an eight and a half millisecond round trip latency or four millisecond output
latency at 128 samples we have 11 milliseconds round trip or five milliseconds output and when
we jump up to 256 samples we have 16 and a half milliseconds round trip or 8 milliseconds output
do
it's halloween again but i don't have any scary friends
i'd rather watch a horror film alone but i've gotta test this microphone
honestly i'm not kidding i just got this amazing box at a friday the 13th i want to sit down and
watch all of it i don't want to be doing this i'm not kidding all right i'm just gonna come right
out and say it this microphone confuses me i am confused but first up in terms of pros given the
price and the fact that it's a usb microphone i find the more neutral sound of it pretty pleasing
and impressive i also like that it's usbc the build quality feels pretty good and there don't
seem to be any unnecessary features but there aren't some necessary features either then we
get to cons and as i just mentioned there are some necessary features that are missing
first one being there is no form of metering on the microphone the light on the front doesn't seem
to change with different levels that you hit and most importantly there is no form of zero latency
monitoring so if you want to hear what you're putting into the microphone in real time you're
out of luck and now what are my overall thoughts and opinions of this microphone on the electric
guitar i liked it for the most part the lows were pretty controlled the mids were unoffensive not
too recessed and the top end was pretty good but it did seem to get a little bit piercing at times
and it wouldn't be my first choice because of that then on the acoustic guitar it could do
with a little bit of eq in the low end to control it a little bit more but the thing that i really
enjoyed about it was the upper end it had this really nice shimmer to it and captured a lot of
really nice detail on the acoustic so for some at-home recordings i would absolutely use it for
the acoustic next up for singing i really wasn't too keen on this microphone for that application
i thought it came across as just a little bit too artificial sounding especially in the upper
frequencies if you just have this microphone and you're recording at home i'm sure you're going to
be able to get a decent sounding recording it's just not something that i would reach for in that
use case and lastly for spoken word to sound like a cool kid i was shook is that how the phrase goes
i don't know i really enjoyed it for spoken word especially compared to the other microphones that
i threw against it it had a controlled but full low end the mids were not overly nasally it didn't
sound scooped it didn't sound way too forward and the top end wasn't over boosted it wasn't too
shiny sounding it wasn't top heavy all around a very impressive sound for spoken word especially
at the 150 dollar price point so would i recommend this microphone here is where i'm confused kind of
if you're somebody who doesn't like hearing themselves and you do not want to hear what
you're putting into the microphone and you're looking for a good spoken word plug and play mic
absolutely i would recommend it because i think it sounds really great but conversely if you're
somebody who actually wants to hear what you're recording you want low latency or zero latency so
you can hear and to make sure you're not clipping you're not capturing too much background noise
then no i would not recommend it because there is no way to monitor with zero latency that really
becomes an issue if you're streaming if you're in discord if you're in a skype call if you're
podcasting and you don't have a daw open then you have no way to monitor what you're recording
it's gonna make it very difficult to ensure that you're getting the best sound that you
can and because of that i would not recommend it if you are somebody who wants to actually monitor
what you're recording all right i think that's going to wrap up for today but i'm going to make
a request of you like i always do let me know in the comments down below which of the microphones
that i compared did you like the best the mackie the rode the blue yeti nano or the
blue yeti big boy let me know in the comments down below if you found this video fun
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you so much for watching thank you so much for listening i will talk to you later bye