EQ Magazine - August 2008 - (Page 47)

and the narration I record at home with a full setup. • Instant annotation for sessions. Why take written notes for sessions? Just record a track with comments and annotations. I don’t have a huge mic locker, and I don’t want to use my $995 tube mic just for taking notes. But when the mood hits I can feed a USB mic into a track, and hit record. • Recording rehearsals. Yes, those cute little portable recorders are great for recording rehearsals. But USB mics often provide better sound quality, and a better choice of patterns, than the ultra-small mics included with typical recorders. Take your laptop to the rehearsal, plug in a USB mic, and go. • Songwriting. I’ve sometimes used a USB mic with a laptop to sing an idea for a song. Nothing too exceptional there, but the current generation of USB mics is good enough that if you record a really great take that you can never quite duplicate, you can fly in that part, add a little processing if needed, and have something that’s useable for your final recording. • The “I just need one more mic” situation. Surely you’ve had those occasions where you needed “just one more mic” and your mic locker comes up empty. Break out your USB mic, plug it in, and capture that one extra signal source. • All the other obvious stuff. Podcasting, interviews, taking audio notes—they’re all candidates for USB mics. BETTER USB PERFORMANCE Software isn’t all that gets updated: Take your motherboard. For example, for me Line 6’s USB-based UX8 worked fine at 44.1/48kHz, but not 88.2/96kHz. The computer manufacturer (PC Audio Labs) recommended updating my motherboard, and that solved the problem. Updating a motherboard is not always trivial. PC Audio Labs had a utility available online that you burned to CD-ROM, then booted the computer from the CD; from there on, the process was pretty much automatic. However, it’s not always that easy—check your motherboard manufacturer’s website for details. Should the flash process misfire (power your computer from an uninterruptible power supply!), you could lose your motherboard until the flash memory is physically replaced. Consider having a pro shop do it for you. CONNECTING USB MICS USB mics aren’t quite as simple as just plugging a standard mic into a patch bay. Here’s what you need to know. Patch the USB cable from the mic directly to the computer. Most companies recommend not plugging their mics into a USB hub. If your computer doesn’t have a lot of USB ports, a USB hub can expand the number of USB ports for low-bandwidth devices such as mice, printers, and keyboards, thus saving computer ports for your music devices. A better way to add more USB ports is by plugging a USB port card (e.g., PCI) into your computer. Get one with as many ports as possible; you’ll fill them up sooner or later. Avoid combo USB/FireWire port cards, as some FireWire interface manufacturers report problems with the FireWire section. If you install a USB port card, use it for your audio peripherals; plug electrically “dirtier” peripherals, like USB hard drives, into your computer motherboard’s USB ports. Most USB mics will work with either USB 1.1 or USB 2.0. See the section “Sorting Out USB Speeds” on page 50. With Mac OS X machines, Core Audio will recognize the mic and it will operate at relatively low latency. Simply call up System Preferences, click on Sound, click on the input tab, and select the mic as the input source, as shown in the screen shot. With Windows, there are two options. USB mics are class-compliant devices that will show up as input devices with Windows XP (and generally Vista), similarly to how they do with the Mac. Specify your mic as the Sound Recording device by going Start > Settings > Control Panel > Sound and Audio devices, then clicking on the Audio tab. However, this will likely have considerable latency. Check the manufacturers’ websites for custom ASIO drivers for their mics or mic interfaces (e.g., CEntrance, which uses a universal ASIO/GSIF/WDM driver for the MicPort USB mic adapter). ASIO4ALL (www.asio4all.com) is another low-latency driver option that will generally give better performance than standard Windows drivers. Many manufacturers also offer small applets designed to give more flexibility, such as phase reverse or gain control. As to Vista, how it handles USB audio is somewhat different compared to XP, so check the manufacturer’s website for compatibility. Most USB mics are 32-bit Vistacompatible. If you’re a complete newbie to installing USB mics, check out Sweetwater’s helpful PDF tutorial at www.sweetwater.com/ sweetcare/techlib/support/ USB Microphone Guide.pdf. www.eqmag.com AUGUST 2008 EQ 47 http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/techlib/support/USB_Microphone_Guide.pdf http://www.asio4all.com http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/techlib/support/USB_Microphone_Guide.pdf http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/techlib/support/USB_Microphone_Guide.pdf http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - August 2008

EQ Magazine - August 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Lyrics Born, Fink, David Kahne on Working with Paul McCartney, What a Future with no Record Industry looks like Tool Box ?uestlove Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Cakewalk Sonar 7 Apple Logic Pro 8 USM Mic Round-Up USB Mics Chameleon Labs 7720 Sounds Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - August 2008

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