First off, I hope I have this in the right spot! It was a little difficult figuring out where exactly this topic belonged.
My name is Stephen Georg, and I produce YouTube content for a living. One of the channels I run is dedicated to game commentaries (commonly called "Let's Play" videos) where I play video games and commentate over them. I've been doing this for nearly 4 years now.
Our setup is extremely simple. We've been using
Sennheiser PC 151 headsets plugged directly into the mic jack of the computer. If we have another person commentating (my wife frequently joins in), we simply use a splitter to plug two of the headsets into the mic jack. Certainly not the most elegant solution, but with some audio effects in post, it sounds pretty decent.
We've used this exact setup for all 4 years, and while the headsets occasionally short out (the cable for them is extremely thin), we've never run into a problem like the one I hit 2 weeks ago. After finishing a 2 hour recording session, I played it back to discover that a few minutes of the file contained pops, crackles, then an ever-increasing echo and distortion. It gradually gets worse, then better, until the problem goes away. In the nearly 2 1/2 hour recording, the oddity covered a 12 minute area.
In the past, when I've had a headset short out, it produced pops or crackles, but not this weird echo effect. I feel like the problem isn't in the microphone, but rather with the computer. Unfortunately, in the last 2 weeks, the problem has only shown up on 2 occasions, so it's extremely difficult to pinpoint. We've recorded hours of content in that time, and I've had many successful recordings with the same headset. I decided to try my wife's the other day for a 4 hour recording, and while it was successful, that doesn't feel necessarily conclusive since I've had successful recordings with my own.
I've
posted a YouTube video where I talk about the problem and play a bit of the recording (recording starts around 2:07). One of the commenters suggests that it could be a buffer issue. I just find it odd that this problem appeared out of nowhere after 4 years. For the record, nothing related to my computer has changed whatsoever, which also has me stumped.
While it's beneficial to have commenters on that video, they are not audio professionals, which is why I've come to these forums. A few people have recommended getting a dedicated audio interface, though I'm not entirely sure that'd work with the headsets we already have. I actually posted on these forums
back in 2012 about looking into a mixer, though I never went through with that purchase, due to incompatibilities with our current headsets.
I'm at a loss since I don't know what the problem is or what could possibly fix it. I'm hoping someone here can assist. Thank you!
(As a side note, my experience with audio is probably best assumed to be a beginner level. That may be safest!)
