Rode NT-USB
5 reviews
It captures sound cleanly and naturally, with no harshness, making it perfect for calls, recording, and streaming. Setup was super easy, and the build quality feels solid. My voice comes through crisp and professional every time.
Great addition to the recording studio. Easy set up – This is a lovely USB mic. I'm using it on a mac mini and it is a breeze. If I want to record a quick idea I can be tracking in logic within 30 seconds. And the demos of voice and guitar come out very very usable. Tone is very clear, full and warm. If you just need a mic for zoom video etc then this may well be overkill. It is very sensitive and picks up desk noise if i'm typing etc Its seems to be a very high quality mic.
I highly recommend for musicians or someone who needs a great spoken voice recording.
It does not replace a 'real' microphone as it has no way to put it on a mic stand, it only goes on its desk mount.
It's quite heavy (reassuringly so) but may be a pain to carry around all day. Summary - great USB mic
Solid Quality Microphone – I bought this microphone as an upgrade from a previous USB mic. All I can say is this is AMAZING! What do we find in the box; the NT-USB Mic surrounded with foam and foam supporting the included pop-filter for your plosives, a long (2.5m) USB cable, the desk stand a "padded pencil case" (zipper travel pouch), instruction manual and a "I [heart emoticon] RØDE" sticker. Sold me on the sticker.
This is a quality unit as it is quite heavy made of metal and weighing in at a smidge over 520g. The stand is plastic and does the job, but then again not many microphones come with a stand and pop filter included. The pop filter is a metal construction and just oozes luxury with it's fine metal mesh and RØDE branding.
Quality of sound recording from this microphone is amazing. This mic is a studio quality microphone with the convenience of being USB so you can plug it straight into a modern computer without the need for an interface to convert analogue to digital. I chose this mic for voice over and podcast narration work and have not been disappointed
Another reason for purchasing this microphone was for the on-board sound monitoring. Simply plug in your 3.5mm stereo headphone jack for zero-latency monitoring. You have on board volume control so remember to check the volume of your recording as this may not match what you're hearing. Add to this another control for mixing in what you may be playing back on the computer however there is a little lag there and can be disconcerting I have found. Maybe I'm not doing it quite right?
This mic is powered from your USB and displays a subtle and very cool purple LED inside the main mic grill that lets you know the mic has power.
Finding the ideal placement for the mic took a little time to find the "sweet spot" for my recording voice style - slightly off to the side rather than addressing straight on. It is a cardioid mic (meaning that it picks up sound from the front and the sides and rejects sound from the rear). Now I know where to sit in relation to the mic for great sounding audio capture. There is a gold dot on the front of the mic so you know which way is facing forward.
Quality with great included features you can hunt down a bargain on this mic for less than $200 easily. In my experience this is a quality piece of equipment that will serve me well for years to come. Warranty is the standard 12 month manufacturers warranty BUT if you register your product with RØDE they will give you an additional 12 months making the total warranty perios 2 years.
Registering the product on my iPhone was not easy. The QR code scanned no problem but then I could not enter all details for registration on my iPhone so I then needed to complete the registration process on a laptop.
Decent depending on what you use it for – i bought this microphone to record my singing on Garageband (and other recording programs)... i found it was very quiet and didnt quite have the quality i expected from such a high-end branded USB mic. When singing loudly, the feedback was awful, and when singing away from it (loudly) - the mic wouldnt pic up anything "useable" or loud enough. For other uses, as a 'Gaming' microphone, this was excellent. Clear quality and never had any issues. The built-in stand is very handy too when playing at a desk.
I love this microphone so much! – The voice quality is crystal clear, you would have to be the most discerning audiophile to fault this and if you were I'm sure you'd forgive it given it's price point and ease of use (plug and play on PC and presumably the same on mac). It does pick up all of the background noise though, so you have to either have a silent room or as I do, edit it out. It comes with its own pop filter and stand just to add to the plug and play nature, I haven't a need for a shock mount but they are an optional extra.
Aside from how great it is for recording, I've also been using it for gaming and it's brilliant. I plug my headphones into the audio jack on the mic and all of the sound goes through the microphone. The dial on the side of the mic then allows me to control the listening volume and also a mixer so I can hear some/all/none of the microphone sound (at the mic level not repeating back through the pc). This can be great because with the turn of the dial I can have a conversation with someone in the room or focus on the game again without taking off the headphones. Also I can set it to hear my voice just a little (it's actually difficult to talk when you can't).
Just recently I've started recording some video on my phone (google pixel 3xl) and with an adapter it plugs straight into the usb-c port for top quality audio recording, did I mention I love this mic?!!
There are definitely better microphones out there, but not at this price point.
Extra Information
ProductReview.com.au has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence our content moderation policies in any way, though ProductReview.com.au may earn commissions for products/services purchased via affiliate links.