The order that matters
Spend attention in this order: the room, the microphone position, the microphone, headphones, then everything else.
- A small, soft room with curtains, carpets or sofas.
- A microphone close to the mouth, about a hand’s width away.
- A decent microphone, USB or XLR.
- Closed headphones for every speaker.
- A recording method that saves a track for each person.
What you need
The minimum for a clean show is a microphone, headphones and a quiet room. A pop filter or foam windscreen helps with hard consonants. A stand or boom arm keeps the microphone at a fixed distance, which is hard to do by hand.
What you can skip at first
Mixers, audio interfaces and acoustic panels are useful later, not on day one. A USB microphone avoids an interface. Blankets and curtains do much of what panels do.
When to spend more
Spend when you record in a studio setting with several people, when you have a regular schedule or when your first recordings show a problem you cannot fix by moving. At that point an interface and XLR microphones give more control.
What your editor needs from you
Clean tracks, one per person, with a few seconds of room tone. These matter more than any piece of gear. See the recording checklist.