How to connect an external microphone to my computer
By Rudolf Boogerman |
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You have that wonderful and rather expensive external mic with XLR connection and discovered it doesn’t work on your computer? Yet, you bought an adapter for the XLR connection to fit into the sound board of your computer and it still doesn’t work? Chances are that your mic needs a lot of phantom power. Professional mics need that extra power and most computers, including Mac, are not configured to work with this sort of mics. Most good quality sound cards do not provide phantom power either. Therefore, what you need is a little external mixer or audio interface. Preferably a firewire mixer if you have firewire on your computer, otherwise USB will do a reasonable job as well. Below I discuss a firewire mixer and an external USB audio interface.
Alesis Multimix 8 Firewire
Alesis has a very good entry level mixer that exists in 2 flavours: Firewire or USB 2.0.
You can find this device for as low $165- $200 USD and it is very easy to operate.
It is plug and play, meaning that it installs very easily and if you follow the instructions of the non technical manual, it is set up in minutes. It comes with Steinberger’s Cubase LE for Mac/PC and it has 4 female XLR ports and lots of stereo jack ports, including a headphone port. On your mic, you will need a male XLR jack to connect to the mixer. You can use regular mics as well on this mixer too, as long as they have either a stereo jack or XLR connection. Mini jack- or usb headsets don’t fit. As the mixer has many options, it might take a bit of time getting used to all the options, but the manual is written with beginners in mind, so that helps a lot. The reviews about this device are mixed. Some adore it, others just hate it.
In my personal opinion, I think this device is OK, although the mixer tends to overheat after an hour or so. This results in crackling noises in recorded audio. It could have more sturdy buttons as well, but this is a very low priced mixer, so they have to economize on some points.
Stereo Jack(1/4″)
XLR jack(female version)
Here is the official feature page of the Alesis multimix 8 firewire.
The mixer is compact, so it won’t take too much space on your desktop (it is like half the size of a laptop). Yet, it weights heavy enough so that it doesn’t slide easily from the desk to the floor by accident. Just don’t buy this device in order to use it with a cheap mic, it makes no sense if you do not work with good material.
The rule of the thumb is: your sound is only as good as the weakest link in the chain.
Edirol UA-25 USB Audio Interface from Roland
Currently replaced by Cakewalk UA-25EX High Quality 24-Bit/96 kHz USB Audio Interface
You can find this device for as low as $185-$200. The reviews about this device are very good. One minor point might be that the USB 1.1 connection can cause a delay while recording, thus you will need to have a bit of patience on some computers before the audio is transferred to the computer. Most USB interfaces do not have phantom power for condenser microphones, but this one does. It has variety of input connections under which XLR, RCA Jacj, Stereo Jack(1/4″) and more. It comes with Cakewalk’s Sonar LE, an audio application for Mac and PC. This device is much smaller then the Multimix8 Firewire as it is not a mixer. Therefore it is easier to handle but it doesn’t have the same options as a mixer. If you want to record vocals/speech, this a great option. Roland has build up a solid reputation as a provider for professional music equipment, so you can’t go wrong with this device.
As with the Multimix8 Firewire, it makes no sense to work with a cheap mic. A good mic costs several hundred dollars.
Here is the official feature page on the Roland website
I haven’t tested the Edirol UA-25 USB Audio Interface myself, so I can’t give you a personal review, but Roland does make good products, so I’m quite confident about it. As a rule of the thumb, always read several reviews (the more the better) and never pay attention to emotional reviews because they are unbalanced.
What about a USB microphone?
USB mics may work on a Mac, they almost certainly will work on a PC, therefore if you have a good one and it gives good results, no need to change.
But if you are still looking around and plan to spend several hundred dollars on a good quality mic, you might want to use it on your camcorder as well instead of the built-in mic. Since USB mics do not fit on most camcorders you may want to consider buying a mic with a XLR jack, preferably a condenser microphone, since they have superior quality. Even if the camcorder only has a mini jack plugin to connect with an external mic, with an adaptor of only $7 USD you will have superior audio quality compared with the internal device.
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December 24th, 2008 at 11:56 am
[...] How to connect an external microphone to my computer [...]
December 29th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Gosh, this is such good news! I have been struggling with this for a long time. I couldn’t connect a mic on my Intel mac mini and didn’t understand why. Even the Apple site didn’t give me a proper explanation. Thank you soooo much!!!
Merill
January 1st, 2009 at 5:25 am
Do you know if it’s possible to connect an professional mic to iPhone?
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:40 am
Hi Xavier,
Connecting a professional mic directly to iPhone is not possible. That said, if there is some way to connect an external device that intermediates between your professional mic and your iPhone, you can get somewhere.
Now, I’m not an iPhone user myself, so I can’t speak from first hand experience, but I did some research on the subject and bumped into one article that may (or may not) help you on your way:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/tag/iphone/
Let me know if you found this helpful. I noticed more folks struggle with this question.
January 5th, 2009 at 11:32 am
hey
i found ur article very helpfull n i really apreciate ur effort
m a new user of mic n i dun know how should i record my songs i mean i have instrumental songs n i want to record my lyrics on it
i ll be very thankful to u if u can help me
thankxxxx again n happy new year
January 5th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Hi Khan,
Both devices I show here can be used to connect music instruments. I’m not a musician, though, I’m more a multimedia person. So I’m not the guy to turn to when it comes to guitar playing and such, but here is an article from someone explaining about setting up your recording studio on a mac mini:
http://www.engadget.com/2005/02/08/how-to-turn-your-mac-mini-into-a-low-cost-recording-studio/
In case you work with PC, you will find that a lot of advice he gives counts for PC as well.
However, the article tends to praise low end stuff. Read also the comments and be careful with mics of $40 and cheaper. They are usually not worth it.
Before you buy anything, read as many reviews as possible.
I hope to have my video tutorial ready on how the connect the Alesis Multimix8 Firewire by the end of this week, but it might get a bit later then that, it is rather busy this week, but I’ll do my best.
I hope this helps you on your way:-)
January 5th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
May I say that I’ve not been able to find this level of details when it comes to explain multi media as I find when I visit your site Rudolf.
Your talent to explain this stuff in an easy to understand way is simply mid blowing.
Thanks for your commitment to keeping your faithful readers up-to-date!
Miss Gisele B.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Thanks, thanks for this informaton. I am trying to use my Shure 58 with my external sound card for voice-overs only….a single track. I have been looking at the Audio Buddy from midiman.com but not sure which preamp I will get. I got the Shure A96F transformer that goes in the line between the mike and the card, but I still don’t get the levels I want, so I think a preamp will do the job.
This is a great site and thanks for the down-to-earth explanations
Bruce
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:49 pm
[...] Read also: How to connect an external microphone (on Mac) [...]
February 28th, 2011 at 11:40 am
I need to know how to connect my external numark dxm 09 mixer to my pc at home , what cables i need
February 28th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Hi Peter,
The technical specs page on http://www.numark.com/dxm09 does not speak about computer connections so it probably isn’t meant to work with a computer, unless via a sound card that accepts cinch plugs. So, what you need to look out for is a sound card that has two cinch plugholes for output and two for input. However, I would ask the manufacturer first to make sure which soundcards would be compatible with your device.
Hope this is useful?
August 13th, 2011 at 11:01 am
I Need Your Help…
I Purchased the professional package software (drs 2006). We are having problems with getting the sound levels from our alesis usb 2.0 sound board to put the even levels on the drs 2006.
The Sound levels are coming in good on the first channel from the board, but channels 2 through 8…only sounds coming from the “right side” is showing levels and the left side is not. The alesis board is functioning good. The level coming out of the alesis soundboard is coming out evenly from both left & right levels, also we ran other broadcasting software programs (like adobe audition 3.0) and it wasn’t any problems.
We don’t play music. We have a talk radio station. were trying to get the microphone outputs to go out from the alesis board to the drs2006 over the internet. we tested the alesis board and it works fine. We can’t get the microphones to talk evenly through the drs2006 except for line 1 of the alesis board…please help us.
We use the alesis usb 2.0 soundboard as our input audio device source only. we do not use any sound cards. the sound levels from the alesis usb 2.0 channel line 1 come in good going into the drs 2006. we’re not able to use our other channels lines 2 through 8 on the audio board as inputs into the drs 2006 encoder. That is where to sound levels come from and That is where the problems lie.
We getting a bit antsy, can someone please help me and my technicians…We would gladly appreciate your generosity.
Vectorman
August 13th, 2011 at 12:43 pm
I’m afraid that I have no experience with drs 2006, but looking at your description, the problem seems to be with the configuration of the software since you say it works fine with Adobe Audition. Did you try support of drs 2006? Sorry, I cannot be of any help to you.
August 15th, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Thanks for trying to help. Is there anyone that is a member on this site has experience with the drs 2006 broadcasting radio software?
August 16th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
i have a cad phantom powered mic with a m-audio fast track interface is it possible to hook up and external mixer to this unit?
August 17th, 2011 at 7:42 am
To what unit do you mean, the Mac or a mixer? To the Mac directly, No.
To the mixer, Roland of Alesis, in either case, best check their site and look into the specifications. If it can’t be found, just call them because your guess is as good as mine.
August 29th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Hello Rudolf,
I have acid pro 7 and would like to record hip hop vocals but I don’t have a treated room. I would like to know which preamp, mic and interface are great to buy. My budget is around $500 in total for all three. Would I also need to purchase a sound card?
thank you.
August 31st, 2011 at 9:02 am
Hi JR,
Unfortunately, I know very little about music, so my recommendation for a mic would probably be the wrong one. I would just make sure that it has a XLR plug and phantom power. Other then that, you best ask a music forum because the article above is rather for speech. I’m not sure $500 is going to cut it, though.
The devices shown above are fine for speech but I do not know if they will be that great for music. I’ve heard some musicians saying Alesis is not that good.
You might have to look for second hand gear if quality is a concern.
I’m really sorry I cannot help you in this matter.
October 27th, 2011 at 11:21 am
I have a Shure sm63 mike that I would like to connect to my HP to record Board meetings. a) is this ideal to record audio and do I need the external ‘phantom power’ or just need to find the cables to connect directly to the PC?
THX
October 27th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
I only tested with phantom power. I’m not sure regular mics will work or not. But I do know they will always work with a mixer that is made for computers. The yhing is, if you have a powerful mic, it needs power and often USB will not give enough power or your computer simply does not recognize it.
That said, give it a try, it may work without a mixer.
December 9th, 2011 at 6:46 am
Hello Rudolph:
I have a Tapco Link.USB, a desktop PC and an equally old laptop.
I want to record audio while “out-of-town”:-digitising with the Link.USB and saving the ‘raw’ signal on the laptop HDD.
I hope to conserve laptop resources by using a dedicated battery for the Tapco which hopefully means that the laptop has very little processing overhead- just grabbing and storing the incoming data.
What do I have to do to collect the microphone signal as a ['raw'] file after the Tapco digitises, then streams it towards the laptop , via the USB2 connection?
Editing on the PC will be done with something like Audacity, later on.
I am a bit new to all this!
December 10th, 2011 at 10:04 am
You obviously will need software to record the audio. You can do that with Audacity, since you are planning to use it anyway. I have to say, my experience with USB is not that good. USB ports tend to pick up static quite easily. But if the port is relatively new, you might risk it. I hope this helps?
January 2nd, 2012 at 7:25 pm
Hi i have got a behringer 802 mixer and an m-audio audiophile. could you please tell me how to connect it all up as i cannot get it working. i have a 1/4 inch jack on th microphone, serveral RCA cables and a double 1/4″ – 1/4″ jack cable + some others. the mic is picking up sound and when my headphones are connectd to the mixer this sound is coming through, it is also showing up on the meter. any heelp would be appreciated
January 3rd, 2012 at 9:10 am
Jake, I’m really sorry, I cannot help you there. Is there anyone else having experience with behringer?
January 4th, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Hey Rudolf
Love your advice. Can you help me??
I’ve been asked to record some audio for podcasts for a pro soccer team. I will need approx 5 different mic inputs and hope to record into Adobe Audition on my Sony Vaio laptop. Is this possible??
Can I just put 5 mics into an external mixer and then plug this into the laptop (adjusting individual mic levels on the mixer) and record into Adobe or does it need to be a little more sophisticated than this??
Hope you can help
Rich
January 12th, 2012 at 6:25 am
Hi Rich,
Sorry for the late response, I overlooked this comment somehow. This should be possible, but you have to make sure you get a mixer supported by your laptop. The best way to go is to contact the laptop vendor and ask which mixers are supported before you buy one.
January 23rd, 2012 at 5:44 am
Ihave an Alesis Multimix12 Firewire mixer! The problem is my HP laptop does not have access for an Express Card for the Firewire cable! An Express card does not fit the computer! What are the options?
January 23rd, 2012 at 11:22 am
You could try with an adapter from USB to Firewire. I googled it and picked the first site I saw: http://www.nextag.com/usb-to-firewire-adapter-cable/products-html
I cannot guarantee this will work because it is already quite difficult to the Alesis mixer to work on a laptop to start with (I tested on a HP Pavilion with FireWire port). But it is very cheap, so you might give it a try.