Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruze
On my thread someone mentioned needing an "interface" (which I didn't even know what it was, but they explained it) to convert the audio mike signal to digital. But you said above that all you need is a USB mike -- does the USB connection/port automatically convert the signal to digital?  |
To record a mic to a computer, you need basically a
mic -> preamp -> analog to digital converter -> computer interface.
In my own setup, I have each of these as separate things, but there are lots of boxes that combine the last 3 into a single unit, (MBox, RME Fireface, many, many others). But lately, some people make USB mics that cram everything into the mic itself, like the BLUE Snowball. You just plug these into the USB port and it will appear as an input device on most recording systems, like Audacity. The results may not be quite the level of quality you can get with the component route - it's easy to spend thousands on each of the 4 elements I listed above, and you can get USB mics for under $100 that combine everything, but for home recording, the results can be just fine, and it makes getting started really simple. (There are also some high end USB mics that aren't cheap, and presumably compete with pro level signal chains)