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Hello everyone. I'm a YouTuber who just switched from making Gaming Content to IRL content. I need help with choosing a good microphone, which will give me the best performance and is around 50$. I'm thinking between a Lavalier mic and a camera microphone (shotgun), but can't decide which one will be more useful. I will mostly film vlogs, public interviews, pranks and challenge videos with other people, so I won't be the only one talking. At this point I think the Lavalier mic will be the better version, but I'm not really familiar with microphones, so I would like you to recommend me a few Lavalier mics or camera mics. Let me know, which option is better. Thanks in advance!

THE BEST CHEAP LAVALIER MICROPHONE Purple Panda's - "Lavalier Lapel Microphone Kit" BUY IT NOW Australia - EbayAU United States/Canada - AmazonUS BEFORE WE BEGIN So as of writing this, I HAVE NOT received my "Purple Panda" kit, just keep that in mind that this post is to make people aware of its existence (looking at you LTT audio engineers/announcers). MY PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES My experience with microphones and audio in general I feel is good enough to be here writing this post. I have worked on several projects and YouTube videos behind the microphone where I was required to provide my own gear and software. Many of these projects were focused on the post-production of the audio A.K.A voice effects to have the effects work at such a high quality I require a good microphone setup (links to my test tracks and gear will be below). I also have film audio experience thanks to my time In college studying film. After that my experience with audio revolves around instrument recording and some light podcasting. MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS So this segment is usually written after I have "reviewed" the product but since international postage has failed to deliver it on time I will be going off others reviews (links below in "sources" section). After watching several videos and talking to my friends with this mic setup I decided to buy one for myself. While watching these reviews I noticed that there was, in fact, a light layer of hiss in the audio. This at first felt annoying as it would show up whenever the speaker would stop to breathe. These thoughts quickly dried up as the hiss can easily be removed later or it can even be left in with the addition of some background music (most videos have it). The overall quality I initially thought to be flatter than I would have liked but you quickly forget the difference between the Purple Panda and a shotgun mic like the RODE Videomic Pro, and that being said the quality from the Purple Panda is better in conditions like outdoors or when the speaker is far away from the camera. In terms of mobility, I saw a lot of reviewers using their phones as an external recorder to keep the camera audio but the 5ft cable in the mic itself should be more than enough for anyone using this for vlogs and if you need more room to move Purple Panda has you covered with the included 10ft extension cable. It also comes with a TRRS > TRS adapter, Deadcat windshield, Go Pro Hero 4 mic adapter, 10ft extension cable, steel alligator clip and a nifty Purple Panda carrying case. FINAL THOUGHTS Look I don't expect you to trust my judgment as I have yet to receive my Purple Panda kit but from what I have seen on reviews and heard from friends this truly is the best cheap lavalier mic. I did intend to do this post after I received my Purple Panda Kit, but with a few days delay and with stock quickly selling out (at least in Australia) I thought I would let people know. I will be making a final review so don't think this is over just yet. SOURCES Carson Miller's Review ---------------------------------- David Vogt's Review ---------------------------------- SethLeeFilms review MY SOURCES Audio Quality Test Track ---------------------------------- My Custom Voice Effects

This is my first time posting a review on this actual forum. Please let me know if I'm not following etiquette, and what you think! Introduction: For the past few years of my work on YouTube, I've been using a pretty janky audio setup; on-camera microphones, cheap shotguns, broken audio recorders. That is, until about a month ago. Sennheiser sent me over one of their AVX Wireless Microphone kits. The one I specifically received was the ME2 Wireless Lavalier version. (There are other versions with a handheld mic, a different lav mic, or a combo kit of both.) Not only does the ME2 lav mic sound pretty good, but the entire kit has drastically improved the efficiency of the audio side of my video shooting. Average Price: ~$800 (OUCH!!) My kit came with: ME2 Lavalier Mic Capsule Wireless Transmitter Wireless Receiver (XLR Connection) Hot shoe mount XLR - 3.5mm adapter (for going straight into camera) Mic clip Mic windscreen Carrying bag Micro USB charging cable USB "wall wart" (power brick) Paperwork Build Quality: The kit is composed of two parts - the lav mic and transmitter, and the receiver. The microphone capsule is small and not super gaudy, and the shirt clip for it feels quite durable. The mic cable isn't super thick, but it doesn't feel like it will break easily. It attaches to the transmitter via a 3.5mm connection that actually screws into the transmitter. This is great, as it keeps the connection secure and safe from damage. The belt clip on the back of the transmitter feels secure, yet easy to slide onto a pant seam, pocket, belt, etc. The transmitter has a removable battery with easy-ish to grab release clips, a rubber flap to cover the Micro USB charging port, a tiny antenna that doesn't get in the way of shirts or anything, a rock-solid (in a good way) mute switch, indicator LED and a LCD to display connection status, signal strength, battery life, etc. There's also a tiny LED by the charging port to indicate whether it's charging or fully-charged. It also has two buttons on the left-hand side - a Power button and a Pair button. The buttons are quite mushy and hard to actually press properly without a lot of deliberation. The receiver is quite small and is based on an XLR male female end. (I plug this into my mixer board - Behringer Xenyx X1832USB.) The XLR end is rotatable, so you can keep the receiver in any necessary position, which is awesome. This features a removable battery, Micro USB charging port with an indicator LED to show red when charging, green when fully charged. At the top lies the Power/Check button, Pair button, and AF Out button, as well as a Power/Status LED and 4 LEDs to indicate battery level/AF Out levels. Again, the buttons are very mushy. The Power/Check button, specifically, requires a lot of nail to be used to press in, and even still it's hard to hold in all the way. This is, by far, the weakest part of the product. All-in-all, both the receiver and transmitter have very solid, rugged, durable build quality - but the mushy buttons need addressed. Seriously. The use of proprietary batteries could be a problem for some, but the ease-of-use of Micro USB charging and included charge cable and wall wart help keep this from being a problem. Functionality: This kit is seriously easy to use. Charge it up, mic up, hook up your receiver to your desired audio input device, power both parts on, hit the "Pair" buttons on both, and you're good to go! The best wireless channel is automatically chosen and the two are continuously kept in-sync, even through power cycles, so there's no fiddling with wireless channels or forgetting to set them correctly. If they do get out of sync, fixing it is just a button press away. Pressing the "Check/Power" button on the receiver while powered on will show battery status. Pressing the "AF Out" button will allow you to change your desired output levels. The default worked best for me, as turning it up caused clipping/peaking, even with low levels/gain on my mixer. The XLR-3.5mm adapter and hot shoe mount are easy to set up. Both units can be charged while using them. It's easy to just leave the receiver plugged in during use. Battery capacity on the transmitter/mic is very good - I rarely need to charge it, but the receiver has a very tiny battery and I end up leaving it plugged in more often than not. This is further hurt by the otherwise good feature of it automatically turning on whenever Phantom Power is detected. Audio Quality: Audio quality on this capsule (again, the ME2 capsule for my unit) is great. It is the best microphone I have used for on-camera video so far. It doesn't fully compete with my broadcast mics, but it is definitely up to par with my Rode NTG-2 shotgun mic that I would otherwise shoot with, but with much less/cleaner/easier-to-remove-in-post background noise. It has a decent dynamic range pickup - with crisp high-end, full mid, and a decent bass/low-end pickup, though noticeably less low-end gets picked up compared to my NTG-2 shotgun mic. Which is totally understandable and fine. As a raw recording, it sounds a little flat. But compression and EQ quickly bring out some really great sound from this audio, and I'm really happy with it. The audio is clean with no wireless interference, even in a very wireless-heavy environment where my PS4 controller can't stay in-sync from 2 feet away, and can be processed to sound sexy quite easily. You can listen to a raw, unedited mic sample here: https://soundcloud.com/eposvox/sennheiser-avx-me2-wireless-lav-mic-test (Take it for what you will; recording scenarios vary. Plus, you'll ideally be post-processing the audio, anyway.) Conclusion: Overall, this mic kit is a fantastic investment, and perfect for small teams or "one man shows" like myself. The sheer convenience of just opening Adobe Audition, powering on the receiver and mic and being ready to record quality audio cannot be beat. My only real complaint about this mic kit is the price. This kit could cost you north of EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS! That's freaking expensive. For productions with decent revenue and a need to make things more convenient - you definitely get your value for your money - but for those of us who don't have that kind of dough lying around, this may be out of your price point.