For a streamer, engaging with your audience is the single most important factor for success on Twitch. The disconnect between the live personality and the flow of a chat box is a difficult problem to overcome. Beyond that, creating a visually stimulating space to stream from can be difficult and costly (or cheap and boring with a pop-up green screen).
Razer's new microphone tackles both of these challenges in a clever and innovative way that is going to make a lot of streamers very excited. Its new microphone, called the Seiren Emote, is a professional quality mic with a live display that seamlessly interacts with your chat while you play. The device was announced at TwitchCon today, and TheGamer was able to go hands-on with it. We're happy to report Razer has a killer product here that has the potential to elevate your stream and engage your audience in cool new ways.
How It Works
The Seiren Emote has an 8-bit display on the front that can display an unlimited variety of emotes based on any condition you want. After plugging it in, your PC will automatically install Razer Synapse 3 and the Streamer Companion App. From the app, you can choose the idle emote that displays while you're gaming, which is either static or animated, or you can create your own.
From there, you can program specific emotes to display whenever you get a new follower, subscriber, donation, host, cheer, raid, or even when a specific word or phrase is used in chat. The Streamer Companion App links with Twitch and Streamlabs so that, after setting it up initially, there is absolutely nothing to do other than stream as you always do - the emotes will change and display automatically.
That's not all, the app also supports all of the Razer's Chroma device and anything else chroma enabled, including Hue's Smart Light system. If you have Chroma enabled accessories, all of them can be programmed very simply and intuitively to react to certain conditions. Now, when you get a new subscriber, your microphone will emote and your headphones, keyboard, mouse, and Hue lights can all flash and strobe however you want them to, creating exciting interactive moments with your audience.
It's Also Just A Damn Good Microphone
The Seiren Emote looks a lot like Razer's Seiren X, a popular microphone for streamers and podcasters. The hyper-cardioid pick up pattern means that the mic is extremely directional to capture the details in your voice while eliminating the background noise. I was able to run a fan nearby pretty loud while testing the mic and the audio quality was phenomenal. It comes with an extra long braided micro usb cable and has a port for your headphones, which you'll need to use because your PC needs to have the Seiren Emote set as the default input and output device to work.
The shock mount built into the base is meant to absorb accidental knocking or impact sounds while streaming, as many streamers are known for getting particularly animated during games. I found that it didn't completely eliminated accidental noises, but it did dampen them to the point of being almost impossible to hear.
The interchangeable gooseneck makes it easier to raise the mic up into frame, something I struggled with slightly due to my normal camera position, so that your audience can see the emotes. I usually don't think about where my mic is or whether my viewers can see it, but in this case, the mic is also serving as a prop so ensuring that it is within the frame without being obstructive can be a bit of a challenge. In the demo I watched, the Razer streamer was using a studio arm to bring the mic just bellow his face, so I would recommend using one of those rather than the gooseneck it comes with.
No Muss, No Fuss
The Seiren Emote works right out of the box as well, so if you aren't a streamer or you don't want to fuss with new apps (though they are surprisingly easy to use), you can just plug the mic in and start using it. The emote will be a default smiling face if you don't change it, which I actually don't really mind.
The real value, though, is in setting up those conditions that trigger emotes. It's super fun to see hearts flash on the mic when you receive a like or a big gaudy dollar sign spin around when you get a donation and I think it's something really fresh that audiences are going to dig. Getting the whole Hue light setup and chroma integration is probably further than most small streamers are going to go, but the environment it creates is definitely really cool and something you can personalize.
I love that Razer is passionate about creating new products for streamers that help connect them to their audience. The Seiren Emote seems like the beginning of an ecosystem for streamtainment (I made that word up) and I'm excited to see what they come up with next.
The Razer Seiren Emote is available now for $179.99 USD. You can find out more on Razer's website.