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Looking for a microphone that doesn't pick other people's voice (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I work from home with my SO and for the same company. We work side by side, I'd say we're like 2-3 meters apart.

We're often in the same video-calls together and unfortunately my microphone picks up her voice quite a bit (and vice-versa, of course). I've tried reducing the microphone volume, noise suppression, noise canceling but nothing seems to really work. It's very annoying because she hears herself when she's talking and has to ask me to mute myself. Then, I forget I'm muted and talk for a while before I notice it. it's very distracting.

I'm currently using a BoomPro X Microphone which doesn't solve my problem.

I've thought about those desk microphones like the Blue Yeti or something, but I'm quite ignorant about the matter and I'm afraid it will pick up a lot of keyboard noise or not solve the problem at all. I just don't want those gamer/streamer arms where mic has to be super close to my mouth, I want something that I can use at work!

I'd say my budget is around 100 euros, flexible. Thanks a bunch!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Most videoconferencing software these days has dynamic gain to try to accommodate people using non-ideal microphone placement. See if you can turn that off. Audio pressure decreases pretty drastically with distance. Using 10 cm as your microphone to mouth distance, 2.5 m as the distance from your wife's mouth to your microphone, and 60 dB speaking volume, your voice is 30 dB louder than your wife's. That should be enough to make it nearly inaudible / certainly not distracting.

If you're looking to mic shop, get a directional mic. Your current microphone is omnidirectional. A directional microphone will provide even more acoustical attenuation over your wife's voice. A coworker uses one of these for his WFH setup. Look for terms like Cardioid, Supercardioid, and/or Hpercardioid. These are the same microphones used by vocalists on stage.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

In Microsoft Teams there's a "disableAutoGain" flag, which I have enabled a long time ago. It certainly helps, otherwise teams will just boom my microphone input to 100% gain every time. It helps but doesn't solve the problem.

I've tried a bunch of configurations, a bunch of noise supression software such as NoiseTorch or EasyEffects but nothing seems to work. It either sets a threshold so low that I have to speak very loudly for it to activate or the mic just picks up her voice near perfectly.

Thank you for pointing me into the right direction, I'll take a look at Cardioid microphones!