Gear, specifically microphones, really stresses me out. Why? Because they are expensive. They are also hard to research because EVERYONE on the internet seems to have an opinion. One person will say, “this is an incredible mic.” The very next review will say something like, “if you think this is a good microphone you should quit your job, leave your family, and spend the remainder of your life alone in the woods thinking about how terrible your microphone choices are.”

I recently got to experience a great A/B test of two microphones that helped me avoid the chaos of internet forums and decide for myself what microphone I liked better. And I want to share those results with you in hopes that I avoid contributing to the noise of microphone choices. So, let me set up the back story.

A few months ago, I decided I wanted to get a little more serious about my video quality and YouTube presence. The first step I needed to take was get some kind of microphone for my setup that wasn’t a Shure SM57 on a mic stand in front of my face. So, this is why I began my search. Not because I didn’t like how a Shure 57 sounded, but because I knew the world didn’t like looking at me talking into a mic on a stand. Does it matter to me? No. But there is a HUGE ‘judge in the first 3 seconds’ problem with the internet, and that is just reality. So, I began researching.

Thankfully, I had a friend who was further along in the video world than I, and he had a spare lavalier microphone. For those of you who are like, “what on Earth is a lavalier?”, I hear you. A lavalier microphone is a really small mic that clips to a shirt or lapel of a jacket. The specific lavalier microphone my friend let me borrow was a Shure SM93. I shot several videos with this microphone, and while it was a huge upgrade from having a full mic and stand in front of my face. I always found it VERY difficult to get the microphone to sound good.

Now, this is where my opinion enters the mix (really this whole post is my opinion) and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. If you think lav mics sound great and you love having a TON of weird mid-range stuff on your voice for recordings. Great. You do you. I just wasn’t a huge fan. So, I was left wondering, “what other options do I have for recording my voice during a video?”

If you’ve watched the video, or read the title of this article, you can see that I discovered shotgun microphones. Also if you’ve watched the video, you’ve seen the part where I randomly bring up a guy named Austin, and then don’t explain why. This is because it was VERY late when I recorded this, and I was just trying to pump out a video to get my VERY first reaction to this A/B microphone test. But Austin runs a YouTube channel and he was the first person I heard talk about using shotgun mics for videos. So, without much more info than Austin’s recommendation, I ordered a shotgun mic.

The shotgun microphone that I purchased was an Audio Technica AT875R. I plugged the mic in, put it on a stand, and just hit record. I didn’t want to think too much about how to place the mic, where to set the gain, etc – I just wanted to test it as quick as possible to see if there was a distinct difference. And there was a difference. A huge difference.

Out of the box, with no EQ, compression, or anything, the shotgun mic sounded so much clearer. I have also found it is easier to get a consistent capture over-and-over with the shotgun. The lavalier mic would always sound OK on one recording, and then another day sound really terrible. I just find this shotgun mic easier to work with in almost every way. As an added bonus, shotgun mics are meant to capture audio from further away, so I now have NO microphone in my video shot – which is cool.

Lavalier versus shotgun. Who wins for me? Shotgun. Hands down.

Check out the YouTube video and let me know which microphone you think sounds better. Leave your pick in the comments below!