- TC-Helicon the company behind the ever popular GoXLR
and GoXLR Mini, have now released an XLR microphone.
And I bet you're not going to be able
to guess what they named it.
(drums rolling)
GoXLR Mic.
I wonder how they came up with that one.
Priced at $150, it's a dynamic microphone
featuring an all-metal body,
multi adjustable mount,
included pop-filter and swappable colored accent rings.
In this video, we'll get this unboxed
and set up at my PC
so you can hear exactly how it sounds
and even do some comparisons
to some similarly priced dynamic microphones,
like the PodMic
and the MV7X to see if the GoXLR Mic at $149
is worth your investment.
(upbeat music)
So in the box itself,
looks like we get some documentation,
the actual GoXLR Mic itself,
which definitely has a bit of weight to it.
It looks like it already has the pop-filter
and the articulating joint already attached.
And then we get all of those different color ring choices.
So we can swap out this color here to customize it.
As well as the black version,
there's also a white version of this microphone.
Again comes with all of the colored rings.
So I'm going to go with the black GoXLR Mic.
And whilst I get that mounted up onto this boom arm here,
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(upbeat music)
So what you're listening to right now is the GoXLR Mic
plugged directly into the Wave XLR audio interface
with no processing, no effects, no filter.
So you can hear directly how it sounds.
My gain is set to 42 decibels or about 55%.
And that has me hitting around -12 decibels in OBS.
The mic itself feels really pretty well built.
It's mostly made out of metal,
really the only bit of plastic on it
is the colored accent rings.
There's no flex or give in the microphone mash cover,
and there are no buttons or controls anywhere on the mic.
Just simply that XLR port on the back.
I'm personally a big fan of the multi-adjustable mount
through those two articulating joints.
It's going to allow you to really position and control the
direction of the microphone,
which isn't always easy to do on a boom arm.
One complain is that these knobs to tighten and loosen
the mount can be quite difficult to grip.
And I often find myself struggling
to be able to loosen them.
The microphone uses a highly directional
super-cardioid polar pattern, so it should be good
at rejecting sounds that aren't directly
in front of the capsule,
which we can demonstrate by turning
around the microphone while speaking.
So here I am speaking
into the front of the microphone,
into the side of the microphone,
into the rear of the microphone.
And finally, into the other side of the microphone.
You can also make some slight adjustments to the pop-filter
and adjust actually how far away
from the capsule you have it.
This is definitely the most fragile part of the microphone,
even though it is still made out of metal.
And we can do some plosive tests now to
actually see how effective it is.
Katie likes cookies that she tells Ted to try.
Peter has a puppy that he should keep washed and dry.
Sophie looks sassy with her crazy zigzag dye.
Katie likes cookies that she tells Ted to try.
Peter has a puppy that he should keep washed and dry.
Sophie looks sassy with her crazy zigzag dye.
Katie likes cookies that she tells Ted to try.
Peter has a puppy that you should keep washed and dry.
Sophie looks sassy with her crazy zigzag dye.
To swap out the colored rings, it's really pretty simple.
You don't even need to remove
the microphone from your boom arm.
You just take off the pop-filter
and then unscrew the microphone from the mount.
And then you can simply swap out to a different color
and screw it back into place.
It's a nice addition from TC-Helicon to have all of these
nine different colored rings included in the price.
Personally for me,
I don't see these colored rings as a huge selling point,
but I kind of presume that
these were going to be sold separately.
So a thumbs up from me for not charging extra.
(upbeat music)
Let's next, do some comparisons with
some similarly priced dynamic XLR microphones.
So this is
the GoXLR Mic from TC-Helicon.
It's a dynamic XLR microphone that retails for $150.
This is the PodMic from RODE,
a dynamic XLR microphone that retails for $100.
And this is the MV7X from Shure,
a dynamic XLR microphone that retails for $180.
This is the GoXLR Mic from TC-Helicon.
This is the PodMic from RODE,
and this is the MV7X from Shure.
So I think all three of these mics sound really
fantastic for the money.
I would say that the GoXLR Mic probably is actually the
most well balanced,
certainly for my voice straight out of the box.
The PodMic, it's a great spoken word microphone,
but it does lack a little bit of low end.
And I would say that the MV7X
actually suffers from the opposite
and lacks a little bit of clarity for my voice.
But in all honesty, I think that any of these microphones
can be made to sound very, very similar
by just applying a little bit of an EQ,
which can be done through OBS Studio
or some software like Wave Link
or through a hardware mixer like the GoXLR.
To enhance the sound even further
I would definitely recommend adding in some compression,
maybe a noise gate or expander if that's needed
as well as a limiter.
If you want to learn how to apply all of those filters for
your microphone, and it doesn't need to be
an XLR microphone, even USB microphones,
this will work for.
Then I definitely recommend checking out
the video that I did for improving your microphone sound.
I'll leave that link up in the top corner.
So let me know what you guys thought
of the GoXLR microphone.
Personally, I think $150 is pretty fair price.
Any microphone that comes out in this 100 to $200 range
is always going to be compared to the PodMic from RODE
at $100 which has just such great value.
And if you're on a tight budget,
I certainly still think that is the best microphone for you.
But with a couple of unique features like the
articulating mounting system where you can really position
it and angle it properly on any kind of boom arm,
as well as the built-in pop filter
and swappable colored rings.
If those kinds of things appeal to you,
then maybe the extra $50 is worth it.
Let me know either way
and I'll catch you guys in the next video.
Peace.