Choose the room before you shop
Stand in each room you could use and clap once. A sharp ring means hard surfaces, and your microphone will hear them too. Shure's beginner guide says to pick the room with the most soft stuff, and warns against bathrooms.
Then listen for the things you stop noticing: the fridge through the wall, a fan, the road outside. Test the room at the time your show will go out.
Soften it with what you own
You don't need foam tiles to get started. Shure suggests soft furnishings: curtains, cushions, bookcases. It also says a pillow or duvet right behind the microphone helps soak up reflections. So try this first:
- Close the curtains, and put a rug on a bare floor if you have one.
- Hang a duvet behind the microphone, on a clothes rail or a door.
- Record a minute, then change one thing and record again, so you can hear what helped.
Buy one good microphone
Get a dynamic microphone, the type Shure says doesn't pick up much background noise. Condenser microphones sound crisp and detailed, but Shure notes they can pick up the shhh of an air vent.
Look for "cardioid" on the box: it listens mostly to what's in front of it. Shure suggests 2 to 12 inches from your mouth, which makes your voice louder than the room. A pop filter, the small screen in front of the mic, tames the puff of air from your p's and t's.
Some dynamic microphones have a low output level. Shure says its SM7B needs a good interface or a signal booster, for instance, so check your model.
Decide between USB and an interface
A USB microphone plugs straight into your laptop. An XLR microphone (the kind with a three-pin plug) needs an audio interface, a small box that turns the microphone's signal into something your computer can use.
For one person talking, USB is the simple way in. If you plan to DJ in Mixxx, free DJ software, check first: its manual doesn't recommend USB microphones, because Mixxx's music can't be heard in the mic's headphone socket and the mic can be hard to set up beside a second sound device. For Mixxx it recommends an interface with direct monitoring, which lets you hear yourself with no delay, and a loopback input.
Some microphones have both sockets, so you needn't decide today.
Plug in wired headphones
Wear headphones whenever you're on air, because speakers in the room can feed back into your microphone. Shure recommends over-ear headphones with a cable and warns off wireless ones for recording. A pair you already own will do for now.
Match your kit to your show
These three levels are our suggestion, not a rule. Move up only when something specific gets in your way.
| Level | What's on the desk | Good for | Move up when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start this week | A laptop, a wired headset, and a duvet | Trying out a show, learning the software | Your voice sounds thin or roomy on playback |
| Solo presenter | A dynamic mic (USB or XLR with interface), stand, pop filter, wired headphones | Most one-person shows | You want a guest beside you, or to DJ in Mixxx |
| Two voices and music | Two dynamic mics, an interface with two mic inputs and direct monitoring (plus a loopback input for Mixxx), headphones each | Co-hosts and shows mixed in Mixxx | You need several sources on faders at once |
Skip these for now
- A mixer. One or two voices don't need one. If you DJ in Mixxx with a microphone, its manual generally recommends an interface over a mixer, unless you use vinyl control.
- A condenser microphone, until your room is properly quiet.
- Foam tiles, until you've tried the soft things you already own.
- On-air lights, big desks and racks. Nice, but no listener can hear them.
Connect it to your station
Your studio reaches listeners through an encoder, the app that sends your sound to the internet. A Stream Brothers radio station takes any Icecast or SHOUTcast encoder, and there are two easy routes:
- A browser tab, on Pro and Platinum. On your station's Go live tab, click Open the studio. Every studio session runs under a DJ account and keeps to that DJ's hours, so create one first, and use Chrome, Edge or Firefox with headphones on. Pick the DJ under Broadcast as, switch on your microphone, and load music onto the two decks. Turn on Lower the music while the mic is on if you want it to dip as you talk, then click Go live.
- BUTT, a free encoder, on any plan. In its settings, click Add and copy in the server type, server, port, mount, username and password from Go live › Encoder settings, then click Add again to save. On the Audio tab, choose your microphone or interface and set the streaming bitrate at or below your plan's limit. Then press play.
BUTT also lets you pick a primary and a secondary sound device on its Audio tab, and its Audio Mixer has a volume for each plus a crossfader to blend them. So if your music arrives on its own sound input, it can sit alongside your microphone without a hardware mixer. Try it on a test recording first, with the streaming and recording volumes set the same in the Audio Mixer.
Keep your encoder's bitrate, the sound data sent each second, at or below your plan's limit, or it gets dropped. Free is 32 kbps, which suits speech better than music, Pro is 128 kbps and Platinum goes up to 320 kbps.
Struggling with a setting is normal the first time, and help is there. On Pro and Platinum, you can later look at publishing your own station app.
Listen back before your first show
- Set your microphone gain while talking at your normal show volume, then laugh loudly. The meter shouldn't hit red. BUTT's meter shows your level, and its manual says to use its gain slider only for fine tuning.
- Record two minutes. BUTT can record while it streams.
- Play it back on a phone speaker and in a car if you can. That's closer to how people will hear you.
- Fix the worst thing you hear first.
You may dislike your own voice at first. That's normal, so fix the sound and get on with the show.