Re: cheap but decent microphones?
In my experience, USB mics normally come with a stand mount that you can use to mount the mic to either a tripod that comes with the mic, or a tabletop or boom stand or something like that, which you'll have to purchase separately. Sometimes these stand mounts are custom-built for the particular mic, but other times, especially if the mic is small and thin, you can just use a standard mount to get it on a stand. I'm starting to prefer this, since if the mount breaks, you can just buy another one and you can get them cheap. However, the only mics I've seen which work this way are the XLR ones, not USB. But my experience in mics in general isn't especially wide, so you'll have to do your own research.
Audio Technica stuff usually sounds good, but is a little too inexpensive for me. My ATR 2500 had a little more bass than I like and, unless you put on a shock mount, it would have thumping and low frequency handling noise like nobody's business. I never got into the shock mount thing; when I saw shock mounts, they looked especially complicated to figure out. Not to mention, after about a year, the stand mount it came with literally cracked and snapped apart in my hands without warning. The mic itself is fine, but from the research I did, I couldn't just get a new stand mount; I'd have to get a new mic. To be fair, I got the mic for a pretty good price, $65 I believe. Their stuff, as pointed out, is pretty inexpensive so they wouldn't be bad choices imho. Samson stuff is too, though my friend had a Samson mic and it was pretty hissy and its volume scaling was really broken. Iirc, set it to 70 percent and it's quiet, set it to 80 and it's blaring your head off. They're certainly an improvement over internal mics, but you have to be careful of things like that if you're looking for budget equipment. A Youtube channel I particularly enjoy perusing through is podcastage. They cover all kinds of USB and other mics and in each video, the guy performs very similar routines and tests, so you'll be reasonably sure that you're getting a fair comparison.
Ah, the Blue Yeti. I went through at least 3 of them and the issue with them was always the same: the USB connection would deteriorate to the point where it couldn't hold and the mic wouldn't work. None of my Yeti mics lasted for more than a year. at the time I was dealing with this, I didn't know USB mics could last longer, so I happily went out and got replacements or asked for a replacement on my birthdays and Christmas. Eventually I decided to get the Yeti pro which offers higher quality recording. Unfortunately it requires a special driver in order for this to work, and that driver was not working well on my Windows 7 machine. After e-mailing Blue microphones about it, I was essentially told that their driver was only tested on Windows XP, that if I wanted up-to-date tested drivers, they were only available for Mac at the current time. Of course, things may have changed since then (this was in 2012 so almost 8 years ago), but those combined experiences, in addition to hearing examples of their lower end mics such as the Snowball and not liking them much, got me thinking that maybe I should be looking for something else. And while the Yeti has some nice qualities, essentially bundling 4 mics in one package, I realized that I didn't need them all. I only really needed cartioid (picking up sound from the front) and thus I could spend less money on a mic specifically designed for that purpose, of whcih the market is saturated.
Right now I use the Rode NT-USB. It's more expensive, around $180, but I've had mine for over 3 years and the only things that are wrong with it are a big dent in the front, which is my fault, and two weeks ago I had to replace the cable. But the mic is a trooper and still works well. It sounds, well, I can't say it sounds great because I disliked it when I first got it, but if I compare it to my other mics, I can safely say it's an improvement over any of them. Hey, it'd make a good Christmas present if you have folks like mine who keep asking you what to ask Santa for. Haha
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