Hey guys.
Brief intro: I am having a tiny tiny YouTube channel. The main criticism, people are having towards it, is the bad audio quality.
I am using my smartphone to record speech. It's doing the job, but I bought a mic anyway. Turns out, my sound card don't really like microphone.
A couple years back, when I was Twitch streaming, people told me my audio was too quiet as well. I tried many things, but I decided it's time to find a solution.
I appreciate having separate device for audio recording. This way I can use my PC for whatever while I record speech.
Anyways, I want something cheap. Can't really afford an expensive 2-300$ device. Something in the 40-50$ range will be just fine...
You could buy a decent portable recorder or a simple USB audio card with a mic in. I'm using a Sony ICD-UX533 and has a really good voice quality for what it is.
I'm It isn't a great idea to get a portable recorder in that price range, as the portability is what you'd be paying for, yet don't need. Desktop audio interfaces will have much better preamps at a lower price, since the competition to satisfy your type of application is much greater at that price point than in the portable field production market.
Check eBay for something like a presonus firebox, anything MOTU, or something small from focusrite that connects via USB.
If you must go portable, look for something like a small edirol or Roland recorder. If nothing else, $100 could probably get you an old zoom recorder. Not good, but better than a phone.