I will come back to those options a bit later. For certain recording requirements, they can be a great solution. And importantly, they are not going to break the bank. It is quick and convenient and gives a decent reproduction. It is easy to use as it is purely a plug-and-play microphone.įurthermore, USB mics don’t need an audio interface. It is fair to say they can now compete with some of the lower-level XLR mics. USB mics have come a long way since their first appearance. The USB Micĭo you need a mic that is ready to use instantly? Are you having a difficult time with computer connections? The USB mic might be the way to go. We are going to look at setting it up to get a great sound. Right at the forefront of the best USB mics is the company, Blue, and their Snowball model. And they are getting better, as you would expect. They aren’t.īut, they do serve a particular market, and they do it very well. But don’t think that they are a Neumann U87 or an AKG C414. It will give you a good performance and will satisfy many requirements. Let’s Not Pretendīut let us not kid ourselves thinking that a USB mic is going to give you a stunning performance. A system that has become easily transportable, opened more doors, and created jobs and activities where before there were none. Mics that go straight into your laptop or recording device. Now, you don’t need an audio interface to plug a microphone into a computer. Technology has developed and has taken us even further. And, of course, it will link up with Logic Pro, which is a pro standard. But, enough built-in that you can add stuff on to do some good work. Buy a Mac, and you get Garageband pre-installed.

Moving Onįast forward to today, and there are plenty of choices. A way of plugging guitars and microphones into our computers and using our Digital Workstations to produce music. It is still the basis for all digital recording today. A way of converting analog data to digital. It was in 1938 that British engineers developed PCM or Pulse Code Modulation. There had to be a way to plug in guitars and microphones. To be a fully functioning portable studio sitting on your desk, it had to be better than that.

Basic it might have been, but it proved it could be done. In 1992, there was forward movement when Steinberg released Cubase for the Mac. The early ones were clumsy and experimental and pretty awful. By the early 80s, the Digital Audio Workstation, or DAW, was on the drawing board. And Then One Day…Ĭomputer power was increasing, and more things were becoming possible. We were not going to go very far like that and get any sort of worthwhile product at all. Many of us could only afford the bad ones, which made us sound worse than we were, if that were possible. There were good ones, bad ones, and then there were the pros. If we wanted to record, then we had no choice.

Blue snowball mic switch settings