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I have a shotgun microphone which I'd like to be able to use while using my speakers. I find this to be very practical when, for example, talking to other people without needing a headset. However, unless I have my speakers to a really really low level, the microphone will pickup. How could I make so that this microphone doesn't pickup the speakers too much?

I think that I could use the fact that it's a shotgun to be able to get it out of the speaker's field while still catching my voice, but I've had trouble to get it in a good position (I think it might be due to the reverb in the room in which I am located). I would like to, if possible, not have to use software such as Audition so that I don't have load my computer more. However, if it makes a big difference, it would be ok.

I've looked at other questions, such as this one, but I do not feel like it exactly relates to my problem.

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a) Shotgun microphones perform best when cancelling off-axis planar wavefronts. In short, not indoors. They work best outdoors.

b) You are obviously feeding-back your microphone signal into your monitors. You should be able to turn this feature off in the sound driver, or in the application you are using.

c) You might want to try a lavalier mic. With closer placement, you will get a much better gain-before feedback ratio.

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  • I see. The goal is that I can just start a call without using headphones or anything. I achieve to solve this issue in some apps due to integrated echo cancellation, but it doesn't always work well. I'm not sure if feedback was the correct term, but I also meant that the sound from my speaker (such as people talking to me, music, etc) is sometimes captured by my mic. Any other things I can look at?
    – Sneling
    Jan 17, 2017 at 0:17
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Annie Lennox of the Eurhythmics quite famously recorded her vocals in the control room rather than the studio.

This was done by using two techniques together.

  1. A dynamic mic with a high rejection to the rear - Shure SM58, really a 'live' mic rather than studio vocal mic. She performed whilst literally touching the pop-shield with her lips as she sang, so signal-noise was at its peak.

  2. Reverse the phase of one of the monitors. This is not a perfect technique even if the audio is in mono, but provided an extra 'quiet spot' halfway between the speakers that could be used to advantage. [I have no knowledge of whether they did sum to mono to do this.]

There was a 3rd slight advantage, insomuch as any spill into the mic would be the audio from the song they were going to mix the vocal into & would therefore be well masked.
You would lose this advantage if all you're doing is trying to adopt the technique for a Skype call.

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