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Does anyone here use USB condenser microphones?

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 2:53 pm
by uddhava
Hello everybody,

I was wondering if any of you have tried using a USB condenser microphone for recording? Any opinions or favorites? Thanks.

udd

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 7:03 pm
by SpaceBoy64
I would like to know about this too. My sound card's phone jack input is horribly noisy.

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:21 pm
by uddhava
I changed the topic title slightly. Maybe it was looking like spam......Now we wait.

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 10:49 pm
by Yosemite Sam
I use this one, and it's great:

http://www.amazon.com/MXL-USB-24BIT-96K ... sbs_misc_1

But there's cheaper ones. The snowball's supposed to be a pretty good bargain mic:

http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphones- ... pd_cp_pc_0

or:

http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphones- ... pd_cp_pc_2

It really depends on how much you are willing to spend.

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 11:28 pm
by sbtamu
These are 2 of the 3 mics I use. But usually I just use a $9 Walmart logitech mic with foam around the pickup. All my short little how to vids are done with the Logitech and it comes out clean. I use these other 2 for recording music or sound fx.

Image

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 11:49 pm
by SpaceBoy64
I was wondering if there's some sort of phone jack to USB converter.
I have a fairly decent microphone, but it's got a 1/4 inch phone jack.

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 12:00 am
by sbtamu
SpaceBoy64 wrote:I was wondering if there's some sort of phone jack to USB converter.
I have a fairly decent microphone, but it's got a 1/4 inch phone jack.
Tons of them for around 10 bucks.

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 8:37 am
by slowtiger
Even a cheap microphone can yield good effects when used correctly. See viewtopic.php?t=16209 for some tips about that.

"phone jack to USB converter": what you need is an interface. Have a look here: http://www.thomann.de/gb/cat.html?gf=us ... ces&oa=pra, it's 10 pages of stuff, from simple to complex. For under 100.- € you get an interface with a gain knob (important!), pre-amplifying, and different types of jacks, even with phantom power (which you need for XLR condensor mics).

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 6:35 pm
by uddhava
Thanks for the replies.
Yosemite Sam, does the microphone you use pick up a lot of background sounds?