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Up Your Voice Game with the XTUGA X-4 USB Desktop Condenser Microphone
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May 29, 2025
Tired of people asking you to repeat yourself while you're streaming, gaming, or on a video call? Ready to start recording yourself for a podcast or your next great musical number? In all cases, you'll be one giant step closer with the XTUGA X-4 USB Desktop Condenser Microphone. Tech expert Dave Taylor walks through all the features of the X-4, including offering an extended demo, and shares the great and not-so-great features and capabilities. Check it out at: https://xtuga.com/products/xtuga-x-4?ref=ADT Discount Code: JIMNML Visit Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ 00:00 Introduction 1:18 Specs and Technical Details 3:25 Voice Demo Setup 4:52 Voice Demo! 6:20 Don't Pop Your P's 7:20 Summary of Features 8:42 Price and Wrap-up #xtuga #microphone #usbmicrophone #askdavetaylor
View Video Transcript
0:00
this desktop USB mic will make you sound
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a lot better let's check it
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[Music]
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out dave Taylor here and I'm testing out
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another microphone it's so important to
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have really good sound whether you're
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live streaming you're on a Zoom or a
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Meet call or you're just experimenting
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with different things or gaming and
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recording yourself for a podcast all of
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those situations better audio gives you
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better results enter this this is the
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Xtuga X4 USB desktop condenser
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microphone and as you can see it is
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pretty hefty it is a large microphone
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but there's a lot going on inside to
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give you the best possible sound and let
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me just show you right off the bat so
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here's the front and then here's the
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back and you might wonder hm why' they
1:01
put the mute button on the back and that
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is a good question i think that's just
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where it fit but those two volume
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controls are probably more important the
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top one in particular being gain control
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where you want to not quite get into
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that red zone on your recording or
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streaming device but let me give you
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some specs and then we'll do a demo so
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40 to 18,000 hertz at 48 kHz sampling
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rate minus 39 dB sensitivity 66 dB
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signal to noise ratio and it has four
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polar patterns let me turn this around
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and you can see these four patterns and
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here's a handy cheat sheet are stereo
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cardioid birectional and omnidirectional
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and they're all to do with where it's
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trying to pick up the sound and if
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you're using it yourself you can leave
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it omnidirectional and then you don't
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have to care what direction you have it
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facing you could even have it with the
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mute button in front if you want because
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it's picking up from all around but
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generally stereo is probably going to be
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your best bet it does have built-in
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noise reduction circuitry so if you're
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doing this in mom's basement while the
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other kids are running around screaming
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it should cut down some of that
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background noise for you or
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alternatively you're in an office and
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your office mates never quite get quiet
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while you're actually on a call with a
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client both situations it's going to
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really be helpful i really like the mute
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button it's all metal casing so this is
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a big chunky substantial guy and I want
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to show you that props to Xtouga it
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ships with two really nice cables one of
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which is USBC to USBC and the other is
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USBC to
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USBA so I really like that flexibility i
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know for companies it doesn't cost them
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much to add a second cable so you have
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that flexibility so let's plug this
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thing in and here's a quick view of
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what's on the underneath so there's that
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type-C or USBC plug that 3/8 inch is so
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you can mount it on a different stand or
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have it hanging over your desk and that
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AUX out is the ability to like plug it
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into speakers or something in addition
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to that headphone jack now the headphone
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jack gives you the volume control so
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that's a big difference there but I'm
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going to plug in this
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USBC then I just happen to have a
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Windows 11 computer here so let's move
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some stuff aside here and this is my
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Lenovo Yoga really like this PC i'm
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going to log in with my fingerprint
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sensor how handy is that and we'll plug
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it in and what'll happen is the
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microphone should just immediately light
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up and it is plugandplay and sure enough
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you can see that mute button has lit up
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and if I push
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it it goes from
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uh illuminated blue to a flashing blue
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so flashing blue tells me that it's
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actually in mute state so push it again
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and that's about all that lights up but
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that's pretty important because it does
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give you that visual feedback
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unfortunately it's on the back of the
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microphone and let's see i'm going to
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spin this around there's a little bit of
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adjustment you have to do do the first
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time as I am doing to pick which pattern
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and I'm going to just go ahead and pick
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omnidirectional
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and then I'm going to do well since I'm
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omnidirectional I can actually do it the
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other way so I'm going to do it like
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this and then I'm going to go into sound
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recorder on my PC and we are going to
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get some audio sample let's see so this
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looks like that's the right one so now
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what you're hearing is my voice as
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picked up by the Xuga X4 USB desktop
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condenser mic and I'm going to push the
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mute
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button and you could hear my voice went
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away so really nice and now I'm going to
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adjust the gain a little bit so as I
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turn the gain up or down I'm not sure
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what direction am I doing yeah as I
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turned the gain up I should have gotten
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just a little bit louder but mostly what
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you want to listen to here is the
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quality of the audio it's a really nice
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microphone it does a really nice job of
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picking up my voice so that's my demo
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let me switch things back so I can show
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you a little bit
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more so it is indeed easy to work with
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it is something where you know this very
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first time I plugged it in I had to
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figure out a couple of different
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settings and maybe adjust gain a little
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bit but that's all stuff you can do
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ideally with your headphones plugged in
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and so you're actually getting what they
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call a studio monitor so you're getting
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the ability to hear exactly what the mic
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is picking up which then gives you the
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ability to adjust the gain and to try
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different of those four polar patterns
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again stereo cardioid birectional and
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omnidirectional and pick the one that
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works best for your environment and one
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of the things that you might want to be
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aware of is that you don't want to be
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popping your peas which isn't a big deal
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when my microphone's not in front of my
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face but when it's like this especially
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if I lean forward because I want to talk
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like this then you know if you have that
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P sort of sound then there are shields
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you can get and actually Xuga has a
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really interesting shield as a separate
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product you can acquire i also want to
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highlight that it comes with the most
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amazing case this little briefcase
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basically or suitcase is actually how
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you carry your microphone around and I
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really love this it's not very heavy
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duty but it definitely is going to make
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an impact if you're going over to a
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friend's to do some streaming or
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something and you pull this out and pull
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out your microphone they're going to be
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like
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"Whoa." Like independent of how it
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sounds it's just going to make an
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impression and that's actually really
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fun so that's pretty much what I got on
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the microphone so it does have that USBC
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you can plug it into your phone or plug
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it into a computer as we did with this
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Windows machine it's also Mac compatible
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should work fine with Linux and
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Chromebooks because it's a microphone
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you plug it in via USBC or USBA and
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you're good to go it just comes up as
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one of the input devices that 3/8 inch
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mount hole is really great if you are a
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podcaster then you might well have one
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of those articulated arms so that you
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don't have the microphone on your
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desktop because you don't want to get
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any sounds if you're typing you don't
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want it picking up all those vibrations
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this is isolated so it shouldn't do that
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anyway but even better would be to have
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it just sort of floating above your work
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surface so it supports that there's lots
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to like here but mostly what I really
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like about it is that it has really nice
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sound and it is sort of a nostalgic
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design it does make me think like it's
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from the 1940s thanks very much for
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listening ladies and gentlemen but
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that's my voice it's not going to pick
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up like that don't worry but you know
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you can do audio signal processing and
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have some fun with it so that's really
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everything I got with this microphone it
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is definitely one worth checking out i
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am going to ask you to subscribe to my
8:44
channel go ahead and click or tap on
8:46
that subscribe button hit that bell icon
8:48
for notifications of my new content give
8:51
me a thumbs up if you found this of
8:52
value obviously I hope you did great
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this is the Xtuga X4 USB desktop
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condenser microphone and it is
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$119.99 at
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xtuga.com i also have a discount code if
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you want to check that out in the
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description otherwise just go straight
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to their site check this one out it is
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definitely a nice microphone and it will
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be a big upgrade if you've been using
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the built-in mic on your laptop or
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something oh boy you're going to get a
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huge step forward when you actually
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switch to this so it's what I got i hope
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to catch you in my next video
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[Music]
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