Small (tiny) USB mixer to run a condenser mic?

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by FlyFishn

Perhaps. I've been using Audacity in various capacities on and off for decades and it has served me well. Though, I won't get philosophical about the whole bit. I'm sure if there were complaints about what I was after there would be more posters complaining. So far you are the only Internet God that has hammered the point. I'm sure any newbies reading through can reread - and interpret what ever they want however they want.

"Internet God" hey thanks for the flattery I admit I did not realize trying to point out the inconsistency sometimes inherent in subjective opinion of familiar workflow, vs the objective reality of the actual workflow involved ,,, was either "complaining" or divine. Silly me.
If that point of objective observation,(which BTW has nothing to with what you are "after"),,,,, insults you, I can certainly remove that post from your thread, no problem .

[lkingston]

I seriously considered the Zoom F6. The only reason I didn’t get it was because it doesn’t have combo jacks and hi-z on the inputs, and I like to use my Schertler AG6 with the S-Mic turned all the way up for recording.

The Zoom H6 is fine for recording close miked stuff, which is what most people do.

When I’m recording at home however, I really like the sound of a dynamic mic at a distance of about 18 inches from my mouth. I like how natural it sounds, and how I don’t have to worry about exact head placement, compression, etc.. At this distance, a condenser mic picks up a lot of the room whereas the dynamic mic is fine. To do this you have to crank the heck out of your preamp however. That or use a FetHead or CloudLifter. The MixerFace is good enough to do this without an external gain booster:

https://youtu.be/36W_wq65eDA

[lkingston]

Originally Posted by keith.rogers

The Zoom F line has better preamps, and what I'd recommend if the budget is there. But, IMO, for live gigs, the H6 is fine with normal mics and vocals. I made a lot of recordings made with Shure SM58s going into an H6 and it worked Ok. Not what I'd use for a string quartet in a church, maybe, but on a live, open mic stage with lots of ambient noise, it was fine. (I can send links comparing F8 and H6 - not the same performers, probably, but PM me and I'll dig through some of the older stuff.)

p.s. (edit) I actually found a couple that I did of the same performer in the same club. The first is with with the H6, the second is with a Zoom F8. The mic is the club's own well-used SM58.

https://youtu.be/DwNY5zaqaok (H6)

https://youtu.be/_DUDIvmtgFc (F8)

Those both sound really nice. I’m listening to both on my iPad Pro with headphones, and I wouldn’t be able to tell which was recorded with the H6 or F8 if you didn’t tell me.

[keith.rogers]

Originally Posted by lkingston

I seriously considered the Zoom F6. The only reason I didn’t get it was because it doesn’t have combo jacks and hi-z on the inputs, and I like to use my Schertler AG6 with the S-Mic turned all the way up for recording.

The Zoom H6 is fine for recording close miked stuff, which is what most people do.

When I’m recording at home however, I really like the sound of a dynamic mic at a distance of about 18 inches from my mouth. ...

The Zoom F6 has 75dB of gain (as does the F8n), so probably would handle the distance, while the H6 might not, at least not without some noise. Never tried that!

While the F8 does have combo jacks, I was always plugged in at the end of a snake, so XLR was fine, and anything like an acoustic/electric would have gone into a DI at the stage end. I actually only had a problem with line level, balanced outs because the F8 was not software switchable, so you had to go in 1/4" for it to switch to a "line" input, and required adapters. The F8n fixed that problem, which was one (main) reason I updated, plus the limiters were supposedly better, though they fixed that in the F8 with a firmware update IIRC. Also, headphone output is better on the later models, but I never had a problem in the more acoustic music venues. (I could imagine on a live film set that is where it was really evident.)

I only have the F8n now, but I still think it's a fantastic piece of gear, and has advantages that still make it a better box for me over the F6 (not that I'm using it these days - sold the F8 and the H6 has been gone for a few years now).

[MarkF_48]

A FetHead works well with my old Zoom H4n which has noisy preamps when cranked up for a dynamic mic when used without. A Cloudlifter would work OK as well for a bit more money. The H4n does have combo jacks with Hi-Z 1/4" and does the job as an interface as I mentioned in a previous post. The newer H4n Pro supposedly has better, quieter input preamps.

[lkingston]

Originally Posted by MarkF_48

A FetHead works well with my old Zoom H4n which has noisy preamps when cranked up for a dynamic mic when used without. A Cloudlifter would work OK as well for a bit more money. The H4n does have combo jacks with Hi-Z 1/4" and does the job as an interface as I mentioned in a previous post. The newer H4n Pro supposedly has better, quieter input preamps.

My H6 has the same improved preamps as the H4N, and they are still pretty noisy if you have to turn them up past about 6 o’clock. The gain is there, it just gets noisy at the higher numbers. The MixerFace R4 preamps don’t have as much overall gain as the H6 preamps (about 55db of gain on the MixerFace), but it is pretty quiet all the way up. Cranked, the hiss is audible, but just barely. Not like the H6 where it is easily noticeable.

The MixerFace R4 is more expensive initially, but then you don’t need to buy two external gain boosters, which brings the price closer.

Feature-wise, of course the Zoom recorders are better, but the MixerFace has more outputs. The MixerFace has headphone, unbalanced 1/8” line out, plus two balanced 1/8” TRS outs for connecting directly to studio monitors.

I’m going to keep the H6 for cases where I need to record multiple inputs: like if I am recording with another musician and/or singer. But for my usual recording of just me playing guitar and singing, I prefer the MixerFace.

[sdelsolray]

On the input/tracking side of recording, the DAW does not "drive" the interface. Aspects of the input/tracking side of recording handled by the interface include all analog steps (e.g., mic, preamp) and A/D conversion. The DAW does not receive the signal until after it has been converted to digital.

[lkingston]

Originally Posted by MarkF_48

A FetHead works well with my old Zoom H4n which has noisy preamps when cranked up for a dynamic mic when used without. A Cloudlifter would work OK as well for a bit more money. The H4n does have combo jacks with Hi-Z 1/4" and does the job as an interface as I mentioned in a previous post. The newer H4n Pro supposedly has better, quieter input preamps.

I have both the FetHead and a CloudLifter. The FetHead changes the EQ ever so slightly (towards the high frequencies) whereas the CloudLifter is completely neutral. Personally, I can barely tell the difference, but the difference really bothered my 20 year old son (who is quite a musician). We both mainly use it for the Shure SM7B when we are recording in less than pristine places. I don’t think the FetHead does anything that can’t be easily compensated for with EQ, and it certainly is more convenient, especially with an SM7B where it can be plugged directly in the bottom of the mic running right alongside the end of the mic arm boom.

[jim1960]

I have a couple of McBoost boxes from Radial Engineering. They do the same thing as the Cloudlifter and FEThead, but there are a couple adjustable parameters that can be helpful. The "load" switch allows the user to adjust the impedance. Level lets the user select an output level. It can be full, half, or adjustable by using the knob. The box is really solidly built.