[Rwp] New hardware to use with Reaper: is it just me?

[Chris Belle]

Most of these USB mics in that price range are not great quality.

Lots of reasons I'd rather use a standard mic on my board or interface pres,
like eq, noise, having to juggle different interfaces, since anything 
like this will be the sole interface,
and probably limit you to class compliant standards, not that that's 
necessarily
the worst thing in the world,
but I think when you get around the 100 dollar mark, there are so many 
good working man microphones that are available.

If you just must use a USB adapter, get a USB adapter that will allow 
you to use any mic with it,
that way you can swap out mics if you need to, not be limited to a bad 
sounding mic.

if you have too much boom
try using a low shelf or high pass eq filter on it, and cut some of the 
mud,
I had a student who had that snowball,
not in USB form but I think she had the standard version of it,
and it was indeed a boomy muddy mic, my favorite blue mic in the 100 
dollar range is the encore 100
which is a sweet sounding mic, with lots of sweet high end, and not too 
much boom,
better yet, if you must go portable get an entry level interface,
there are lots of them at the 100 dollar price range with reasonable mic 
pres.
You'll be better off going forward as you start buying microphones in a 
standard format for different purposes.



On 4/6/2015 3:32 PM, Christopher-Mark Gilland via RWP wrote:
> So, here's the deal.  I have a studio grade Blue Bluebird microphone 
> that I bought a while back from Sweetwater which I use for tracking 
> vocals when I record.  It sounds absolutely amazing.  I needed another 
> microphone which I could use on a different system more not for 
> singing but more just for doing voice podcasts, or for things like 
> Skype, Teamtalk, etc.  I can't very easily use that same mike I 
> already have, the Bluebird, as a lot of times I want to be sitting 
> down at my production machine.  The issue is, the mike stand that I'm 
> using for my Bluebird is a floor stand which I have raised about 5 
> feet in the air, so I can stand at it comfortably.  What I needed was 
> just a little desktop mike.  So, I found the Blue Snowball.  It 
> retails for about $60 in the US.  It's a self powered USB mike.  No 
> prees needed.  It just works.  Anyway, I was wonderring if anyone 
> either has used one a these babies or has at least heard one being 
> used.  I'm asking as I don't know if this is normal, but in Reaper, 
> Sonar, SoundForge, ProTools, you name it, I'm finding that there 
> really isn't much high end to this mike. By high end, I don't mean 
> high end quality.  I'm speaking of high end frequency.  It doesn't 
> sound at all muddy, just very very boomy/basy.  If I set the padding 
> switch to the low padding or high padding positions, it sounds kind of 
> like someone with no compression raising the gain who is standing 
> across the room from a mike with the gain hardly turned up. Best way I 
> can describe it is, it sounds like a sort of shorted out mike cable.  
> It sounds great though with the padding off completely, aside that 
> it's again, just really got no high end that I can really hear.  It's 
> very clear, just a little more boomy than I expected.  I heard someone 
> use one of these things before buying it.  I want to say it was 
> Michael shoot... what's his last name, I don't remember.  He does the 
> How to Be Blind podcast.  Anyway, don't quote me on this, but I'm 98% 
> sure that was what he was using on the recording I heard him do.  Mike 
> Melarcy!  There!  I knew I would think of it.  It was on the tip a my 
> tongue!  LOL!  Anyway, I dono. It's possible that he did what I'm 
> gonna have to do, and e queued the thing.  That's no issue if I do.  
> I'm just wonderring if this mike is notorious for this, or if you all 
> know.
> Chris.
>
>
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