A Steady Evolution for USB Microphones

When it comes to vocal microphones, USB connectivity effectively eliminates your setup time and makes life a little easier. Theres definitely value in being able to plug and play, and also in cutting down on that spaghetti pile of cords underneath your desk. Generally, I wouldn’t really use a USB microphone for anything else than pod-casting, stuff like that… But, some new products are changing the game a little bit, and luckily for us, in a good way.

First of all, quality is getting pretty damn good. If you are looking for something to record dialogue for a pod-cast, a headset for gaming, or something to use with SKYPE, then USB has always been the way to go. However, recording vocals for a song means you really need to feel confident with your vocal microphone before you press record. Its that feeling of confidence that has taken time to propagate throughout the home studio community, but things are changing.

USB microphones as a sub-category of vocal microphones, are still basically thought of as consumer products, and not as good as pro-sumer and professional level wired microphones. Fair enough, that same is probably still true, but the time has come to take notice of what companies like Audio Technica, Shure, AKG, CAD, and NADY are developing for the home studio. Audio Technicas AT2020 is a competitively priced large diaphragm USB microphone that sounds good enough to fool most home recording gurus.

A new development that has a lot of people pretty excited is Shures new X2u XLR-to-USB adapter. Now, you have the luxury of being able to hook up your higher end vocal microphones with the USB adapter seems to good to be true. So far, people seem to have had pretty good results. Great development for anyone who likes to simplify in the home studio, but doesnt want to give up the collection of wired Sennheisers. The X2u adapter is perfect for multi-track recording and features zero latency.

If you have been gradually adding components to your setup over the years, its time to consider picking up a USB condenser microphone and see just how good the results you get on your next vocal track really are. You will be surprised at just how close the margin between price and performance has become.