[Pedro Ramirez]

Thanks!

I’ll be researching these mics out. I’ll also try to find a good place to avoid echo and apply some possible blanket treatment.

I’m still worried about buying a XLR mic and losing quality when connecting it to the XLR-to-USB adapter and then to my laptop. Any advice on the adapter (American Sound UM100) will be fully appreciated. So will be any other budget-mic models.

Thanks again for your time.

[Pedro Ramirez]

Thanks for answering.

I’ve certainly taken a look at the Shure SM58, as Ty just recommended. But, as you can see, I’m no expert.

The Shure SM58 is a dynamic microphone. I’ve heard their advantage over condensers are their resistance and ability to supress condenser “fizzes”. But because condensers are the ones used in studios, I understood that they had better sound quality, thus leading me into confusion.

I understand the issues with “cheap” mics and untreated rooms, but that’s all I need for now.
All I’m looking for is the best voice-recording mic for around $200, and since I don’t know anything between condenser/dynamic, neodimium/other-metal, big/small diaphragm, etc, that’s were I need help.

Thanks for your time, and happy new year!

[Pedro Ramirez]

Thanks for answering. Now, clearing a few things up:

1) Currently I can´t allow myself a microphone costing more than $200, for a few personal reasons.

2)My Canon-USB adapter is an “American Sound UM100”, which cost around 60$ in Chilean money (it´s probably cheaper in the U.S.A).

3) My movies are not comercially-intended (for now). They are Youtube intended.

There´s this Youtube channel called “Machinima”, a very respectful company with a huge community of fans. This community is an essential part in the channel´s development, since a huge part of their videos (over 18.000+) are fan-made.
Of course, to get a video accepted they require a minimum-quality. I already have an HD capture-card, and now I´m focusing on sound. But since most of their videos are fan-made, you can´t expect all of the fans to spend a thousand on a capture card and mic (and also considering most of those fans are minors supported by their parents´s allowance).

Considering Youtube´s already compressing their videos, a $100-200 mic SHOULD, and IS more than enough for Machinima.

Furthermore, I´ve tested the microphone on the Apple Iphone, and I´m pretty sure that´s already quite enough. Adding to that, if you go to any Youtube video you will see little difference between $2000 mics and $200 microphones.

So, I´m not looking for perfect quality, but the best achievable with 200 bucks.

4) You may disagree, but I personally think many of the costs in this world are brand-made, like the MONSTER cables, for example. I have read of Chinese microphone copies which sound even better than their original counterparts, because many of this companies are blind on their brands, also considering that manpower is much more expensive on countries like Germany.
So, while someone can assure quality by buying expensive, I prefer to struggle a bit more and save a few hundred for the same quality.

5) The Shure SM58, the most used mic in the world, has a cost of around $240 brand-new here in Chile, maybe cheaper in other places. I´m pretty, pretty sure I won´t need anything better than that.

Thanks again for your time. Any mic examples will be very appreciated.

[Pedro Ramirez]

I had exactly the same problem.

For what I have seen, it seems to be impossible to “glue” together files that have been already divided, so you have a few options:

1)Turn on the Ripple Tool (it is the icon on the top, with 2 boxes, and a green arrow pointing to the left. My program is in spanish, so I dont know how the tool is called in english). That tool has different options, but one of the most-used is the one with which you insert a new event, and the WHOLE project moves to make space for it.

2)The other option (which you can combine with the first one) is to make groups. To make a group, select all the events you want to group together (INCLUDING the sound of each event. If you dont select them, they will SEPARATE from the video when you move the group!!!) by CTRL+CLICK´ing each event.
After that, click G to group them, so they move as if they were one, or in case you change your mind, you can degroup them by pressing U (beware, this may separate the sound from its video. In case that happens, group the video with its audio again with G.).

In case this turns useful for you, please respond back 😀

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PD: Subscribe to my starting YT account “LuciusFilmex” in case you like Halo 3.

[Pedro Ramirez]

Are you asking which are the best render options to keep your video quality with the new sound?

In case I´m right: Which is your resolution, or video size? (ej:1280#720, etc.)
Try .wmv format, with the different settings. I would go with 3mbps because it doesn´t turn up into such a big file as the HD rendering settings.
.mp4 darkens the video.
.avi makes an extremely big file.

Hopefully this is of any help to you. Try with the different setting and choose the one you like the most. Remember, the more times you render the same video, the worst the quality will be (because each time you render, there is an small quality-decrease).