Review: Creative Live! Mic M3 Microphone
Creative has launched a microphone that’s aimed those who want to up their Zoom or Teams game and those who want to up their podcasting or live-streaming game. The microphone in question is the Creative Live! Mic M3 and it’s priced at an incredibly low $69.99 USD. But don’t let the price fool you. As I am about to explain, this is a very good microphone. Let’s have a look at it:
From a looks perspective, it looks like a typical studio microphone. What comes in the box is as follows:
- A sturdy table stand that has a bit of weight to it
- Mic mount
- Magnetic pop filter
- USB-A to Micro USB (which in the age of USB-C is a bit of a fail)
- The screw mount supports 1/4-inch and 5/8-inch sizes which allows for a variety of mounting options
On the bottom is a headphone jack which is where I plugged in a pair of Creative Aurvana Trio LS in ear headphones that I will be posting a review on tomorrow. On the front you can see a blue light which indicates that the microphone is live. If that light is red, it means you’re muted. On the front you have a volume control knob, and a mute switch. On the back there is polar switch knob which allows you to switch between the two polar patterns on offer – cardioid (for single person recordings) and omni (for multiple person recordings). I’m going to stop here to point out why this feature matters. This option is seldom found in anything other than premium microphones because it requires additional microphone pickups to be built into the microphone. That suggests to me that Creative found a way to do this without increasing the price so that consumers have options as to how they can use the mic. Well played Creative.
Now all of that is good, but what you care about is how this microphone sounds. With that in mind, I did a test recording so that you can be a judge of what it sounds like:
This is very good sound quality. There’s no distortion, and it doesn’t alter my voice. In a quiet environment, I would have no problem recommending this microphone to record a podcast or for use with Zoom or Teams. Which is how I used it in the two weeks that I tested this microphone as according to those who were part of Zoom or Teams meetings, the audio quality was impressively good. The only things that I will point out is that first, it will pick up pretty much every noise in your environment. For example, it picked up my wife typing on her keyboard 3 feet behind me. The second is that if you accidentally bump your desk while using this microphone, it will pick it up. If you’re mindful of both of those things, this microphone is a total win. And at the price point that microphone is being offered at, I have no problem recommending this microphone to anyone who wants to start a podcast, do some live-streaming or up their Zoom or Teams game.
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