I recently got my hands on a USB microphone, namely the Samson Meteor Mic, a large diaphragm electret condenser microphone that not only looks cute but also has overall good reviews online. However, when testing the microphone I was rather disappointed by the annoying background noise that is clearly audible when turning up the volume of the microphone. Have a listen:

Example of background noise
Same example as before but amplified

We hear two things here: One is relatively normal microphone hiss. The other is a high-pitched noise which you really do not want to have in your recordings. Let’s have a look at the spectrum of the recorded noise, using Audacity and its spectrum analysis (i.e., an FFT):

Read More