Whether you are rushing A, or you are ready to gank enemies on mid lane, coordination is important. If you do not understand those terms, chances are you are not a gamer. But those are terms used by players in Counter-Strike and Dota 2. But if you aren’t rich enough to buy an expensive microphone, there are budget options available. We reviewed the best cheap microphone for gaming under the budget of $100 for this purpose.
It can be difficult to coordinate without a microphone, the same goes for streaming. It can take a while to type out the strategy, speaking it out seems much easier after all. But microphones can be expensive, and headphone mics do not cut it. Buying a dedicated microphone can help you out in other tasks as well.
These high-quality microphones have more purpose than just playing games on discord with your buddies. You can also use them for streaming and even podcasting, and if you plan to start, start low. Get a cheap microphone instead of those expensive ones you see on streamers and podcasters’ videos.
Buyer’s Guide for Cheap Gaming Microphone
Most of the microphones on our list use USB for connectivity with your computer. Just remember that USB microphones do not have upgradability options. So buying an expensive USB microphone unless it is premium, is a waste of money.
People often choose XLR microphones when they are planning on upgrading in the future. Because when it comes to upgrading, XLR mics have a lot of room for improvement. You can buy a high-quality interface, a better and longer cable, or even change the mic and keep the other setup intact.
Either way, USB microphones are great for a budget, they do have great quality and serve their purpose. You can always buy a better microphone later or switch to an XLR setup later once you get a hang of it.
Most of these budget microphones have only one mode by default and that is the cardioid. Some also have omnidirectional and -10db cardioid to capture sounds more easily.
Best Cheap Microphone for Gaming Reviewed
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Blue Snowball USB Microphone
Blue is not a new name when it comes to microphones, most poeple who stream or podcast are using the Yeti from Blue. The Blue Snowball is also a famous microphone for budget streamers and people who make podcasts.
With three modes, the Blue Snowball is one of the best budget microphones available in the market. It is quite affordable and it gives a really good sound quality without any post or softwares
This USB microphone is based on a two capsule condenser design allowing for rich voice capture. It also allows the Blue Snowball USB microphone to have omnidirectional and cardioid voice capture.
There is also a -10db cardioid mode that allows it to receive higher tones without noise or distortion. When in cardioid mode, it almost only captures the voice in front of it. You can barely hear the noise from behind or the side. Which is a great thing if you are a gamer and using it to chat with your buddies on discord.
The omnidirectional on the other hand is great for doing podcasts or such, as it can capture voices from all directions. Be careful though as it might capture stray noises as well since it will listen to sounds all over.
You get a desktop stand with the Blue Snowball so you do can use it as it is without a stand. Just put it on your tabletop and start streaming, voice chatting, or recording right away.
The Blue Snowball is a USB condenser mic, and it is priced at $70 on Amazon. We recommend this microphone to anyone who has some cash to spare. It is a really great investment to make.
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Zalman Zm-Mic1
The Zalman Zm-Mic1 is a high sensitivity headphone mic, that can be attached to your headphone. This allows it to do the job of what a headphone mic is supposed to do, but much better.
The Zalman Zm-Mic1 will not be a suitable replacement as a microphone for streaming. But it will be more than enough to be used as a mic for gaming, serving its purpose well.
While almost all good headphones do have a good microphone attached to it, not everyone can afford one. If you have a local brand’s headphones, their mics are not that great. But with this microphone, you can get better results than what you could on the local brand headphones.
The Zalman Zm-Mic1 is supposed to be attached to your headphones and used to communicate. Of course, this will not give you stream worthy or podcast worthy audio quality at this price tag. But it will be perfect for discord or voice chatting during your gaming sessions.
It is a high sensitivity microphone and can pick up your voice perfectly. With a clip, it can be attached to your headphones. It is like one of the clip-on microphones that you see on people’s shirts, just this one is clipped to your headphones instead.
A disclaimer though, that this is an omnidirectional microphone, there are no other settings on it. So you will be picking up voices from everywhere, the keyboard, the mouse, or even your cat if it’s lying around the room.
But for the price of around $9.5 on Amazon, it is a sweet deal and you can use it for gaming without any issues.
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Samson Satellite
Samson has a really great range of budget microphones available in their line of products. The Satellite is one of those amazing microphones on a budget with great sound quality.
The first thing you might notice is that this microphone has a really great look to it. It looks more like a broadcasting mic than a gaming one. But with its quality and features, it serves both purposes.
The Samson Satellite has a great metal body, making it feel sturdy. It has a built-in tripod stand, which can be retracted back into the body if you wish to use it on a stand.
Just like the Samson Meteor, the legs of the tripod can be adjusted to a suitable angle on your tabletop. So if you wish that the angle of the mic faces your mouth, you can adjust the hind leg and angle it so.
We love the feature that if the mic is too loud, the Power and Mute LED on the mic turns red/orange. This means that you are too loud and it might hurt the ears of others. It features 3 polar patterns, cardioid, omnidirectional, and bidirectional.
This is a USB mic, but here is the best part, it can be used with your iOS device as well. So for instance, if you want to do an interview with your iPhone you can do it with this.
We love the build quality, Samson has always had good microphones, all of them at a great price range too. This mic will only set you back a $100, which is the highest price for a mic in our list. Not to mention it has 3 polar patterns and is a great quality condenser mic.
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FiFine K669B
The Fifine K669B is another great microphone, the B, at the end of the model, is for black, as there is one in pink also. The sound quality of the mic is great, making it a fine $50 mic to buy on the cheap.
The Fifine K669B is a plain and simple microphone with not many gimmicks or features. It is featured as a plug and play microphone and you get everything you need out of the box.
The mic comes with a tripod stand, that you can use to put on your tabletop, the USB cable is attached to it. It is a 5.9 feet long cable, so the cable length is big enough for most cases.
So you do not need an interface or anything, just attaching it straight to your laptop or gaming rig works fine. Since there are no options for changing polar patterns, this mic is set to a cardioid pattern.
This makes it great for gamers and streamers alike. You will not be getting much noise from the environment or the keyboard or your gaming PC’s fans. The mic stand is not built-in it is removable, so you can attach it to a stand instead if you like.
There is a volume control button on the microphone for adjusting your voice volume. Other than that there is not much to say about the microphone itself. The audio on the other hand is another story. It has amazing sound, it was very clear from what we could pick up. We did not get noise or distortion from the voice at all.
For $45 on Amazon, it is not a bad deal at all, just you will be limited to what you can use it for due to it not having many polar patterns. Overall, the Fifine K669B is a really solid microphone that is just amazing for gamers and streamers of all kinds.
5 – HyperX QuadCast
HyperX primarily aimed at the gamer audience develops gaming gear and accessories. So this mic is aimed at the game streaming audience mostly, but the quality of this mic makes it excellent for podcasting as well.
So let’s get over the technical information really quickly. The HyperX QuadCast has a sampling rate of 48Hz/16-bit and has a range of 20Hz – 20kHz, which is great for capturing all kinds of sounds.
But since it is mostly aimed at gamers, you can bet this can be used as a great podcasting microphone as well. Since game streamers mostly use these to narrate their adventures in the game so it has to have perfect voice capturing ability.
In our tests, it worked flawlessly, it has 4 modes, the same as the Yeti from Blue. It is also a USB microphone, which goes great with computers. It also has a tap to mute the mic feature, with a sensor on the top that detects your touch to mute the mic. The LED on the mic also turns off when it’s on mute telling you when the mic is on or on mute.
There is a volume dial on the bottom to adjust the gain, so if you feel like your voice is too loud for others or the computer, you can just tone it down on the dial.
Lastly, it comes with its own shock mount, and it pairs up great with mic stands. It will cost you about $140 on BestBuy, which is a great deal for a mic of this quality.