There's something like ten thousand dollars of gear on my desk, and you need almost none of it. I've had the same Shure SM7B for eight or nine years because it's a workhorse, but if you're starting today the minimum viable setup is the phone you already own plus a clip-on USB-C mic — a DJI Lav or the Hollyland Lark L2, which is my everyday carry. That's fifty dollars. If you want something that looks like a podcaster's mic, the Samson Q2U is about a hundred, and the Shure MV7+ around three hundred and genuinely good in a noisy room. But you don't need it. The microphones got good enough that gear stopped being the barrier.

Resources & Links

• Full tour of my desk and gear — casabona.org/desk
• Mentioned: DJI Lav, Hollyland ...