Blue Snowflake Portable USB Microphone

Anyone here tried one? Comments?

ORIGINAL: Beagle

USB mics are problematic, IMO and I woudl never recommend anyone trying to do DAW work to use one. they have their own soundcard. most of them will only work in MME driver mode and since they have their own A/D clock that means that they will compete with your primary soundcard when trying to use them together. you will likely get tracks which are out of sync with each other because of the clock differences.

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I know for overall DAW work, it is best to use a regular condenser mic, into the same audio interface one is using for output, than a USB mic with its own audio interface.

Actually, I don't think this mic comes with its own driver, but would use the built-in Windows USB audio driver. I guess that is MME. But also, I assume one could use ASIO4ALL with it.

However, this one looks very small and portable, one can even clip it to the laptop screen. So, I thought it could be a good solution, for traveling, when one doesn't have a full-fledged interface along. For instance, playback with my Echo Indigo card, or even the laptop's internal soundcard using ASIO 4all, while recording with this mic. I read a good review of it somewhere. But do you think recording that way, the sound would be way out of sync?

Again, I don't mean as one's main recording setup, but for something handy to carry with one with a laptop.

Anyone here tried one?

ORIGINAL: Beagle

Actually, I don't think this mic comes with its own driver, but would use the built-in Windows USB audio driver. I guess that is MME. But also, I assume one could use ASIO4ALL with it.

I don't think that's right, I believe it does have its own driver, but even if it uses one it finds on windows - that's still a driver for that particular device, it's just that windows has it "on file." and even if WDM or ASIO4ALL will work with it, that still doesn't solve the clock problem. the separate clocks DO exist and one of the soundcards HAS to be the master clock and one of them will lag the other for recording since one of the devices is not using its native clock.

if you don't try to use it in conjunction with your built in soundcard or with the Indigo, then you could get by with using it for projects as long as you changed the clock master each time you switched soundcards (inclucing the usb mic).

Thanks again for your reply, Beagle.

There is a generic usbaudio driver in Win XP, that even most USB audio interfaces that come with their own driver will work with (for both in and output), instead of their own driver.

I think the Blue Snowflake doesn't even come with its own driver, one is supposed to use the Windows one, already installed on the system.

I am pretty sure that ASIO4ALL can be used with the generic Windows usbaudio driver.

Now for a follow-up question--You write not to use the USB mic "in conjunction with" another card. Well, I guess that depends on what you mean by "in conjunction with". I would not be recording simultaneously with another card. While using the USB microphone, it would be the only recording input, and as you say, would be set as the master clock for recording.

However, since a USB microphone is an input only device, I would of course be playing back through another card, whether the Indigo card, the built-in card, or whatever.

For example, if I have already recorded backing tracks. I play them back (through whatever card), and record a vocal track with the USB mic, while the backing tracks are playing back through a different card.

Are you saying that if I did that, that vocal track will be out-of-sync with the backing tracks?

All that being said, back on topic, how does the snowball sound? I dont know that I liked the sound I heard at the vocal mic test site here:

http://www.vocalimpactmedia.com/SoundStorage.html#2d

scroll down and you will see the mic tests.. very useful site!