Gadgetory

this video is brought to you by NCI XCOM great technology selection and service hello everyone this is Dmitry with Harbor Canucks and Razer established a strong reputation for everything gaming pretty much everybody knows that and the rising competition from Logitech and many others is making it that much harder for Razer to dominate as they once did so the natural progression for the brand is of course to expand into different categories because putting glowing snake orgies on the product should satisfy your inner fanboy ISM for the brand so this is the Razer siren this is their first standalone microphone it is priced at the hefty $180 and this is no doubt in to compete with the likes of the blue Yeti and also the audio technica at2020 but with a few additional bells and whistles Razer style the full black metal build is outstanding the base is solid with a soft pad underneath to prevent scratches I am disappointed to say that both the pop filter and the shock mount are not included and must be purchased separately at least the pop filter should have been included to prevent from all their breathing pops but here's a little trick record at an angle off-center away from your breathing pops for the cleanest possible vocals I love the symmetrical look of the microphone itself with perforated matching top and bottom enclosures and even the top surface follows in line with the rest dual chrome lines in the middle help to emphasize that symmetry and overall razer siren looks fantastic although it doesn't have to be this massive the tiding knobs are pretty standard to angle the microphone in the right position but also used to remove the entire capsule at the bottom we find the mini USB connection works with PC and Mac dual threaded mount for mic stands a headphone jack for monitoring and an LED on and off button for the glowing stink logo on the other side I do appreciate the color match the green on the mic mute button to maintain consistency that also turns red when you did one thing I do want to point out is how slippery the knobs feel I think rubberized coating would have suited better for the knobs one of the distinct differences between the siren and the Yeti aside from the general physical layout is the front or LED display that actually is useful as it shows the volume of your headphones and microphone gain and the recording pattern so you always have a visual on the settings however I think they should have done so much more with display like actually showing you the sensitivity readings in decibels so you can technically see if you're clipping or if you gain is too low during recordings as the microphone is incredibly sensitive and anything past 1/3 of the gain will clip the recording and monitoring the levels with the headphone jack for sensitivity accuracy is impossible forget about that because you can hear yourself just fine perfectly through the headphones but in reality you could be recording a totally unusable audio because your game is too hot and everything is clipped and it's also hilarious on just how many reviews on YouTube of this microphone the recordings are all clipped I would recommend you reduce the microphone levels in microphone properties to give you the extra gain flexibility with the actual knob on the siren the for recording patterns are useful for specific situations we have the most common cardioid pattern for unidirectional voiceovers and podcasts this is what I'm using to record this review then there's a stereo mode also good for vocals and differentiating between left and right channels next is an omnidirectional pattern recording in 360 degrees check this out it's very difficult for you to actually determine what the direction of the audio and so I mean the chances of you recording a roundtable discussion are still slim but the mode is there and lastly a bi-directional suitable for interviews maybe instrument separation and all these modes are available right at your fingertips and if you haven't ordered you realize this entire review is being recorded with the razer siren for vocals without any compression applied it sounds pretty dull to me it lacks the clarity but compensates with goodloe and pickup but I would still not consider this for streaming or broadcast without first passing the audio through some type of compression and here comes another disappointing find the synapse software that's include is very limited it only allows the selection of bitrate and the sample rate and this is where I would like to see some compression filters or some vocal effects as added value for streamers as otherwise you pretty much stuck with the default recording signature which is pretty boring and this is what you've been hearing so far the audio has been untouched so now let's compare how the sounds versus my personal recording setup and what you're hearing now is recorded with the Audio Technica 2035 pass through the scarlett 2i2 preamp this is a bear track no compression applied and only now I've added my usual voiceover preset for clarity and extra body for the lower frequencies and what you're hearing now is recorded through the razer siren with the cardioid pattern this is a bear track no compression applied and now I've added a multiband compression filter in Adobe Audition to bring up the clarity and in my opinion significantly improve the recording signature and if you can tell a difference let us know which one sounds better to you the Razer or the Audio Technica in my opinion the microphone sounds fine the noise on the high gain is controlled well and passing the recording through my standard compression proves there's enough latitude in the recording for proper amplification and boosting the low-end regions for that broadcast sound for $180 I do appreciate the front o LED display for convenient information although it is very limited and should have been utilized for so much more information display all the controls are right there on the microphone with the for recording patterns for different situations and overall a handsome and a sturdy structure of the mic but I wish at least a pop filter was included as standard really the major drawback here is the lack of any software integration for effects and compression presets this is a USB microphone it's easily achievable and this is a huge oversight on Razors part but what do you guys think of the sound especially compared to my own microphone the 20:35 from Audio Technica which one sounded better to your ears let us know with a comment below make sure you subscribe for more similar content give us a like if you found this review helpful and see you in the next one