Recommendations for affordable USB mic?

[nick_s]

Hi all,

 

Looking for affordable recommendations for a USB microphone, recording direct into a laptop. Not looking for world beating performance, just the ability to put down ideas.

 

Thanks!

[jonnyg]

Depends what you mean by "affordable". Most of the half decent USB mics seem to be around the £70.00 mark. Initially I bought a Samson C01U which turned up DOA and its replacement died in about a week (it was OK while it was working though).

I settled for the Blue Snowball which you can get from Amazon UK among many other suppliers. For roughing out ideas quickly it turns in a very reasonable performance although it doesn't rival my main large diaphragm mics (Rode NT1 and JoeMeek JM47) but is about par with my Behringer C3. That's probably because its fixed at 16bit 44.1k, as all the USB mics I've seen seem to be. Nontheless, it works and it's been trouble free for 18 months or so.

 

Two pieces of caution. There are stories of Snowball failure all over the web, as there are for all things theses days it seems, so I'm only speaking for the one I have which has been fine. There are far more positive reviews as well. Secondly, you are stuck with the little (but very well made) tabletop stand you get with it unless you're prepared to spend almost as much as the mic costs on the suspension mount. And that's if you can find one.

I'd recommend the Snowball but the more conventional Samson C01U also seemed decent assuming you can find a reliable one. They are both around the same price.

[nick_s]

Depends what you mean by "affordable". Most of the half decent USB mics seem to be around the £70.00 mark. Initially I bought a Samson C01U which turned up DOA and its replacement died in about a week (it was OK while it was working though).

I settled for the Blue Snowball which you can get from Amazon UK among many other suppliers. For roughing out ideas quickly it turns in a very reasonable performance although it doesn't rival my main large diaphragm mics (Rode NT1 and JoeMeek JM47) but is about par with my Behringer C3. That's probably because its fixed at 16bit 44.1k, as all the USB mics I've seen seem to be. Nontheless, it works and it's been trouble free for 18 months or so.

 

Two pieces of caution. There are stories of Snowball failure all over the web, as there are for all things theses days it seems, so I'm only speaking for the one I have which has been fine. There are far more positive reviews as well. Secondly, you are stuck with the little (but very well made) tabletop stand you get with it unless you're prepared to spend almost as much as the mic costs on the suspension mount. And that's if you can find one.

I'd recommend the Snowball but the more conventional Samson C01U also seemed decent assuming you can find a reliable one. They are both around the same price.

 

Thanks for the input Jonny :)

 

To be honest, I've diddly squat experience of recording, so have no realistic expectation of affordable, as long as the price isn't stratospheric I should be able to accomodate. I'll do a bit of looking into the ones you've mentioned and see what I come up with :).

[jonnyg]

If what you say about having "diddly squat experience of recording" is true, let me point up a few things you may need to know. I'll have to assume you're using a PC laptop rather than a Mac. I can't help you with Mac but I'm sure there will be a forum somewhere that may point up the same problem.

 

If all you want to do is point a mic at a guitar and sing at the same time, that's no problem and we're job done (as long as you don't want to use headphones to do it. If you do, read on).

If you want to use headphones and/or overdub you'll most likely (90% certain) have to get round the problem of latency. Latency is a delay in what you'll hear when you play back a backing track and try to overdub (say) a lead guitar. You will hear the lead overdub later than the backing track. At worst, you could hear the notes you're playing up to half a second after you've played it. It's impossible to multitrack with that. There are two solutions.

 

There's a free piece of software you can download called ASIO4ALL. You'll have to install that and set it up. It's not that difficult if you're reasonably technically minded, full instructions are on the website and it works very well. I use that on my laptop with the Snowball mic.

 

The second solution would be to get a proper USB audio interface with a proper ASIO driver (I use this on my main recording desktop albeit an internal PCI board). They run out from around £120.00 but you could get a cheaper mic. The Behringer C3 is a reasonable mic for the money at about £50.00 or there's the C1 which is cheaper at £35.00 but you lose the omni directional capability (no great loss really). These are not world class mics but for the purpose you need either will do fine. With an audio interface you could use a dynamic stage mic if you already have one. A Shure SM57 or SM58 are well regarded recording mics.

 

Either system will give good results, but personally I would recommend the audio interface if you can afford to go that route.

Note that you may be lucky enough not to encounter the latency problem, but in my experience there is more chance that you will than not.

 

Hope that helps.

[nick_s]

If what you say about having "diddly squat experience of recording" is true, let me point up a few things you may need to know. I'll have to assume you're using a PC laptop rather than a Mac. I can't help you with Mac but I'm sure there will be a forum somewhere that may point up the same problem.

 

If all you want to do is point a mic at a guitar and sing at the same time, that's no problem and we're job done (as long as you don't want to use headphones to do it. If you do, read on).

If you want to use headphones and/or overdub you'll most likely (90% certain) have to get round the problem of latency. Latency is a delay in what you'll hear when you play back a backing track and try to overdub (say) a lead guitar. You will hear the lead overdub later than the backing track. At worst, you could hear the notes you're playing up to half a second after you've played it. It's impossible to multitrack with that. There are two solutions.

 

There's a free piece of software you can download called ASIO4ALL. You'll have to install that and set it up. It's not that difficult if you're reasonably technically minded, full instructions are on the website and it works very well. I use that on my laptop with the Snowball mic.

 

The second solution would be to get a proper USB audio interface with a proper ASIO driver (I use this on my main recording desktop albeit an internal PCI board). They run out from around £120.00 but you could get a cheaper mic. The Behringer C3 is a reasonable mic for the money at about £50.00 or there's the C1 which is cheaper at £35.00 but you lose the omni directional capability (no great loss really). These are not world class mics but for the purpose you need either will do fine. With an audio interface you could use a dynamic stage mic if you already have one. A Shure SM57 or SM58 are well regarded recording mics.

 

Either system will give good results, but personally I would recommend the audio interface if you can afford to go that route.

Note that you may be lucky enough not to encounter the latency problem, but in my experience there is more chance that you will than not.

 

Hope that helps.

 

I have a Macbook Pro and a regular PC based laptop at my disposal so can go either route :)

 

I have Audacity already on the PC, but am more than happy to consider alternatives. I'm also not averse to trying an interface if it'll yield better results :) And a big thankyou for the tips :)