Snowball mic ?

BlissedBear · Post by **BlissedBear** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 12:19 pm

Hi guys my first post to this forum I have been given a snowball usb mic and wonder how or if I can use it with my creamware scope home card?

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 12:58 pm

welcome BB

I don't know that mic, but I rather doubt there is an analog stage and converters inside that are even remotely in the quality range of your Scope Home card .
Most likely it's a typical mass-product for pod-casters where audio quality isn't such a concern.
Nevertheless you may be able to assign a track in your sequencer to it, if it comes with a WDM driver and that track may be routed by bus send via Asio into Scope, but I would encourage the hazzle.
A good mic and preamp are important parts of a recording, often crucial - and there's a lot of (quite good) stuff for affordable prices today.

cheers, Tom

BlissedBear · Post by **BlissedBear** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 3:49 pm

Thanks for your promt reply Tom the mic has has very resonable specs and though it is not my first choice of mic ( I have many others ) I am keen to experiment with it. There are no drivers required or supplied windows detects it and it is availiable as an input source for windows recorder. My problem is there seems to be no way of routing audio inputed via the usb bus into the scope mixer. As there is a growing number of usb input devices from mic's to guitars I wonder if creamware have any plans to address this issue. I use Logic Audio rev 5.10 on a PC I built myself and so far it seems to use this new toy I have to buy Logic Audio rev. 7 and an Apple Pc to run it on.... sigh

Paul

Post by **garyb** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:32 pm

it's not a scope problem, it's the way these things work.

a usb mic is a crappy setup that is simple for a consumer. it's very usable still, however. just record the usb input, it'll be recognized if you have it plugged in before you open the sequencer. you can then route through scope after. personally, i'd rather choose a better preamp than just be stuck to what blue says is good, no matter what the spec.

actually, you can route through the sequencer and then into scope live if you monitor the track, you'll just add latency.

the real problem is that the usb mic is not designed to be used with anything else, not vice versa. both scope and the mic are input devices. input devices can only talk to software, therefore the software needs to be in between the two.

you don't need any extra software, however.....

BlissedBear · Post by **BlissedBear** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 1:27 am

Thanks guys I still can't get the thing to work but its no big deal. I have to say I have been using my scope for a year or so now in my very low budget home studio and find the sound quality to be top notch resulting in a very happy bunny indeed. The unique way this card works caused much head scratching at the start and I'm still sure I can improve my understanding of how it all works.
I have only found this forum thanks to my snowball issue so it was worth it just to find my way here.
Looking through the forum I have found the usual politics raising its ugly head but I for one would like to thank the site mods for this home for scope users, its not the easy option but definatly the most flexable and best sounding card on the market and this space on the interweb will be a regular port of call for me
Thanks guys

BlissedBear · Post by **BlissedBear** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 6:42 am

Whoo hoo, all I had to do was activate the pc audio driver from within Logic as well as the asio driver and bobs your aunties live in lover. I have to say if your on a very tight budget (unlike some of the lucky so and so's on this forum

) then this budget usb mic performs as a very usable all round mic. Its certainly found a home on my desk top.

Post by **garyb** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 12:19 pm

now ya hear me....