How to Hookup a Microphone to a PC

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Chris Bryce from Superservice.com. Today we're going to talk about how to hook up a microphone to a PC. Now there's a few different styles of microphones as well as a few different styles of connectors that the microphones actually use. First we'll talk about the style of the microphone itself. There's the lapel style, the small microphones that you would use. There's also the slightly larger mini microphones, and there's the actual full-sized desktop microphones. The choice between those is really a space issue and it's about what you're going to be using the microphone for. If it's for your standard like Skype calling or video conferencing or anything like that, then a standard desktop microphone is fine. There's also a type that will mount to your computer monitor, that's the easiest one to use especially if you don't plan on moving things around a lot or having to move the microphone around a lot. You can just stick it on your monitor and completely forget about it. Now, the next thing to look at is the actual connection that it uses. The standard microphone connection will plug into your sound card in a spot that's normally either color coded in red or pink. Sometimes the microphone's connection on a sound card isn't color coded, and you'll just have to look for the little microphone symbol that's on the card. That's where you plug the microphone into. Now, the other style of microphone connection is USB. There are several USB microphones out there that you can connect to your computer. This way we'd require additional software that comes with the microphone. And you would simply plug the USB microphone into an open USB port on your computer, and then install the software that comes with it. And that's how you hook a microphone up to your PC."