Mic Interface questions

[Kelly]

I recently got a new laptop (Dell running Windows 7) and would like to use it, mostly as a musical notebook ,generally just a few multiple tracks at most. Acoustic gutar / mandolin. My question has to do with getting the mic signal into the computer. I just wanted to get opinion on a couple of options I'm considering.

1. Sting together enough adaptors to use my Shure 57 mic going from XLR to 1/2-in TRS to 1/8-inch directly into the mic-in jack on the laptop
I'm worried about playback latency with this situation when adding a second track with this setup


2. Go with a USB mic of some sort such as this: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/control ... EG#reviews
I'm worried about playback latency with this situation with this too


3. Go with USB interface along these lines: http://www.zzounds.com/item--ARTUSBDPPS

Any advice specific equipment suggestions would be greatly appreciated thanks.
Kelly

[kozikowski]

It's not latency that kills you in multi-track. You an easily tune that out in Audacity 1.3. It's listening live to yourself during the performance.

You basically can't. Hardware Playthrough comes the closest to feeding your own performance back to you in real time, but it's never perfect and not all computers support it. Software Playthrough can be as much as a quarter second late.

If you do go with a mixer, it needs to somehow be able to produce two mixes: the live performance shuffled off to the computer, and the old performance and the new one mixed for your headphones.

I have a project pending where I write about how to do that with a small Peavey mixer and a Mac, but that isn't going to help you.

<<<. Sting together enough adaptors to use my Shure 57 mic going from XLR to 1/2-in TRS to 1/8-inch directly into the mic-in jack on the laptop I'm worried about playback latency with this situation when adding a second track with this setup>>>

Again, not a problem in Audacity 1.3. I'd go with that one first as it's the cheapest and that will get you going enough to figure out what else to do. Female XLR to mono 1/8" is pretty rare. I had to make mine.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/UnbalBalAdapter.jpg

XLR adapter to stereo 1/8" is much more normal, but will put computer battery voltage on the microphone and may damage it.

USB microphones can be very handy, but remember you can't get very far away from your computer (generally 6 feet) and a very common problem is low volume.

We did a review of some "Sound Cards" a while ago.

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9477

I need to go to work now.

Koz

[steve]

1. Sting together enough adaptors to use my Shure 57 mic going from XLR to 1/2-in TRS to 1/8-inch directly into the mic-in jack on the laptop

Main problem here is that the microphone inputs are most (all?) laptops are very poor quality.

2. Go with a USB mic of some sort

Large diaphragm USB condenser microphones (that's what this is), can be an economical way to get good quality recordings. The sound quality is likely to be much better than option 1. The down side is if you want to be able to hear what you are recording while you are recording it you will not be able to do so.
You should be able to set the system up so as to hear other tracks playing while you record, and for many users there is no need to be able to hear the microphone input at the same time (because they can hear the instrument acoustically).

3. Go with USB interface

This sort of device (and ART pre-amps have had good reviews) can give you flexibility and high quality, but the sound from a SM57 will probably not be as clear as from a condenser microphone. This interface can be used with high quality condenser microphones (the sort that have 3 pin XLR connectors, not USB) and this should give very good sound quality and flexibility. The downside is that (including a condenser microphone) this would be the most expensive option.

Personally, of these options, I'd save my pennies and go for option 3.

Another options would be to use something like the Zoom H2. This can be used as a stand-alone portable recorder for single track recordings, or may be connected via USB to a computer and used as a USB microphone (it also has a headphone socket for monitoring the recording).