[waffleiron]

I would even say that room treatment is a lot more valuable to a starting podcast. Sure don’t have the cheapest, shittiest mic but especially starting our room treatment grants a lot more value.

Of course, you could record in your closet ;)

[ARandomerDude]

Even easier: get a hypercardoid shotgun mic and speak directly into the front of it. I’ve had amazing success with the Azden SGM-250H in very poor recording environments (bare walls, tile floors, etc).

No affiliation, and I suspect numerous other similar mics would do well.

[kortex]

A hypercardioid and any manner of soft surface behind the speaker - even pillows or curtains - will get you >90% of the way there for most podcast purposes.

Really, after just fitting out a (very shoestring budget) recording studio, the first thing is reducing flutter echo by covering most hard flat parallel surfaces. That alone is like, worth double digit percent of the solution.

[duncan-donuts]

Second the room treatment. It should likely be prioritized over everything. Specifically you should look into getting bass traps and a gobo or three. There’s budget stuff out there but sound is fickle. Control those reflections. Expensive mics still sound bad if a room sounds bad.