Raw Danger!

What it is: an affordable microphone for PCs.

What’s the story: I wanted to record and stream stuff, so I got one of these last Christmas. Really very simple, you plug in the USB cable and configure it in the software of your choosing. I use it with OBS and after a few minutes fiddling with mic levels and desktop levels, I found a volume I’m comfortable with. I would imagine it works with software dedicated purely to recording music or podcasts, but I haven’t tried anything like that. But it’s about a $60 item, is available in a bunch of colors, and comes with its own nice little tripod stand. Really cool device for someone like me, where my last mic experience was the headset on the original Xbox.

Recommended if: you want to dabble a bit into recording things, without breaking the bank in the process. As someone who knows next to nothing about any of this type of hardware, I can say that it was easy to set up and easy to use, and that’s a definite positive for someone getting their feet wet.