- In this video,
we're gonna show you how to set up
and connect the Elgato Wave XLR audio interface
with the Audio-Technica AT2020 condenser microphone.
This is one of the most affordable
and most popular microphones in the world,
and the Elgato Wave XLR just came out this year,
and it is really, really appealing due to its budget.
The features that it has inside it,
which we're gonna walk through,
and its form factor in terms of being compact
and being able to sit on your desk.
So, if you are just wanting to hear
how all of this combination sounds,
this video will show you everything involved.
And if you have a heap of equipment in front of you
and you need to know how to plug it all in
and set it up correctly,
we're gonna walk through all of that as well.
If you are looking for pricing or specs
for anything that you see in this video,
the microphone, the stand, the cable,
any of the things that we talk about,
or if you're looking for other things
that aren't featured in this video, for example,
we're using a short microphone stand here
because it is more convenient
when we're hooking everything up,
but if you're looking for a recommendation on a boom arm
or anything like that,
we have some helpful links down in the description below
with current up-to-date pricing
from a variety of online retailers.
Now, the first thing that we have to do
with the Audio-Technica AT2020,
there are a couple of tricks here
to get the best sound out of this microphone
before we even connect it to anything to our computer.
So, the first thing that you wanna do
is you wanna have perfect mic positioning.
What we're gonna do is we're gonna bring it up.
We're gonna try and get it
within about a fist of our mouth here
that will give us the best pickup.
If you notice, there are two sides to this microphone.
There's a side here that has a logo on it
and the backside says "Back".
You wanna make sure that the logo is facing your mouth.
Another common mistake that we see
with this microphone all the time is people think
it's an end-address microphone.
They'll try speaking into the top of it like this,
but the Audio-Technica AT2020 is a side-address microphone,
so you wanna speak into the side,
and you should be speaking into the side
that has the logo on it.
So, we're gonna orient that towards us.
Next, we do have another video
with five common mistakes that people make
with this microphone.
But one of the big ones is,
I would always invest with a pop filter or foam windscreen,
or something like that for this microphone.
It is really sensitive to plosives,
that popping sound
if you breathe into the microphone.
You can get these generic foam windscreens on Amazon.
We do have some links down in the description below as well.
But it's definitely well worth the money
if you're using this to record your voice,
if you're speaking into this microphone.
We do also recommend that you use some type of shock mount.
We're not gonna cover that in this video,
but I will leave a link down in the description below
that will prevent things like tapping
getting through all the way to the microphone.
Now, if you are recording an instrument
or something like that with this microphone,
you don't necessarily need the foam windscreen on it.
I just liked that if I am recording my voice
with this specific microphone.
So, now that we got all that set up.
We're about a fist away from the microphone.
We have the foam windscreen on.
It's oriented correctly.
Now, we can get into connecting this microphone
to the Elgato Wave XLR.
On the bottom of this microphone here,
you can see that it is the XLR output,
and on the back of the Elgato Wave XLR,
the reason that you would buy this device
is to connect an XLR microphone to your computer,
so we have the XLR input on the back of that device.
So, we're gonna use a standard XLR cable here.
It'll be XLR male to female.
If you are looking for recommendations on XLR cable,
we have some links down in the description below.
Where you connect this to the bottom of the microphone.
Make sure you hear that click there.
We will put the microphone back,
so it's oriented correctly.
And on the back of the Elgato Wave XLR,
we're gonna connect our XLR cable.
Now that we have the Audio-Technica AT2020 connected
to our audio interface,
there's a couple little things that we need to go through
in order to make sure that this microphone
is working perfectly for us.
On the top of the device here, you can kinda see it,
there's a mute button.
There's no clicky button.
There's no anything like that.
You just touch it.
So, the microphone could be muted here
without you realizing it,
so do make sure if those lights are red,
then the microphone is muted, so unmute that there.
I turn that everything down.
The next thing that you need to know
is that this is a condenser microphone.
All condenser microphones require 48 volts of phantom power
in order to activate them.
They won't sound bad without it.
They will literally not work.
The technology inside this microphone
requires external power,
so we need to send it power from the audio interface.
If you look down here in the bottom corner,
we can see 48 volts and the light is turned off.
We're gonna long press on the big button here,
and you'll see that we turned on 48 volts of phantom power
that will activate this microphone
and allow it to start working for us.
The next thing that we need to do is we need to turn up
the gain in order to get more level out of this microphone.
So, we're gonna double check
that we're within about a fist of this microphone.
We're gonna single press on this big wheel
until the microphone button here is lit up,
and then we're gonna increase the gain.
As I look over at my computer here,
you can see that we are peaking up at -5.
I'm just gonna reset that.
You can see that right now we are peaking at -18 or so.
So, that's about right.
Let me turn up just a little bit more.
When I set this,
I want it to be somewhere between -12 and -18
when it comes through my computer.
Now, you can monitor this level
using all types of different software.
Most commonly and free is OBS.
You can download that online.
I'll put a link down in the description below.
In this video, I'm using Logic Pro
because that's what I use to record on my Mac here.
But you do wanna make sure
that you're between that -12 and -18 dB on the input gain
of your microphone.
For me and my voice with this mic positioning,
that means that I'm turned up to about a third of the way
on this knob here, about 30% of the gain from this preamp.
Now, why do we want to be between -12 and -18?
That gives you about 12 dB of headroom.
So, if you do get animated,
if you laugh during your recording or live stream
or something like that,
if you're a singer that has very dynamic vocals,
you wanna make sure that you can exceed that
without clipping.
What happens when you clip?
Let's turn this up so you can hear what happens
when you clip the microphone
by turning up the gain too much.
So, I keep turning up the gain here until you can see
on the meter here that we're at zero,
and you can hear it's clipped.
It's distorted.
It's really gross.
And the really bad thing about doing that
is that you can never recover that audio.
Once you record a clipped signal, you can never get it back.
So, do keep in mind that you wanna avoid that,
if at all possible, not only does it sound horrible,
it will ruin your recording and ruin your take,
so you'd have to redo whatever you did
if you send a clipped signal.
That's why I recommend being between -12 and -18 dB,
just to give you that headroom before you start working
or processing that sound on your computer.
There are lots of videos out there
on how to work the Elgato software
if you're setting up a live streaming mix
or something like that,
but this video just covered everything that you need to know
in order to get your microphone working correctly.
You need good mic positioning.
You need good mic placement.
You need to speak into the side of the microphone.
You need a foam windscreen if you're using your voice.
I think it always sounds better
with a little foam windscreen on it.
You need to set the input gain correctly,
so in our case about 30% with my voice,
and then you obviously do need to make sure
that you have 48 volts of phantom power turned on as well
to power and activate this microphone.
If you have any questions that we did not cover
in this video, please leave a comment down
in the comments section below.
Again, if you are looking for pricing or specs
on anything that you've seen here,
we have a bunch of links down in the description below.
And if you wanna see more videos like this in the future,
please like, and subscribe.
Thank you for watching.
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