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00:00:00
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Y'all ready for your history?
00:00:01
Get started.
00:00:01
Welcome.
00:00:02
Hi.
00:00:02
Hi.
00:00:03
Hi.
00:00:03
Hello, everyone.
00:00:05
To the Pro Audio Suite.
00:00:06
These guys are professional, they're motivated.
00:00:08
Thanks to Triboot, the best vocal booth for
00:00:11
home or on the road voice recording, and
00:00:13
Austrian Audio, making passion heard.
00:00:16
Introducing Robert Marshall from Source Elements and Someone
00:00:20
Audio Post Chicago.
00:00:21
Darren Robert Robertson from Voodoo Radio Imaging, Sydney.
00:00:25
Tech to the VO Stars.
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George the Tech Whittam from LA.
00:00:28
And me, Andrew Peters, voiceover talent and home
00:00:31
studio guy.
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Line up, man.
00:00:33
Here we go.
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♪ Suck, suck the beat ♪ And welcome
00:00:36
to another Pro Audio Suite, thanks to Triboot.
00:00:39
Don't forget the code, T-R-I-P
00:00:41
-A-P 200.
00:00:42
That will get you 200 US dollars off
00:00:45
your Triboot.
00:00:46
And Austrian Audio, making passion heard.
00:00:49
In fact, you're hearing my explosives quite well
00:00:52
on my Austrian Audio at the moment.
00:00:54
Sorry about that.
00:00:55
Now, talk about microphones.
00:00:57
Are USB microphones up to snuff as far
00:01:00
as being used for voiceover?
00:01:02
Yeah, where did you hear about this topic?
00:01:04
Was this off the Facebook group?
00:01:05
It was on Facebook.
00:01:06
I can't remember what group it was on,
00:01:08
but someone was asking the question, you know,
00:01:10
it's been, you know, I realized 10 years
00:01:12
ago USB mics were a big no-no,
00:01:14
but are we at a point now where
00:01:15
USB technology has come far enough that, you
00:01:19
know, USBs are more acceptable?
00:01:21
I don't, you know, I don't know if
00:01:23
it's more acceptable.
00:01:25
I think it still has a image of
00:01:28
being unprofessional.
00:01:29
So I think there's, I don't know if
00:01:31
there's anything USB mics can do to get
00:01:33
over that.
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And this is a dumb analogy, but I
00:01:37
love analogies.
00:01:38
This is like being a professional photographer, knowing
00:01:41
how to be a great photographer, and then
00:01:43
showing up with an iPhone 15 Pro and
00:01:46
saying, this is my camera.
00:01:47
And you're like, I know they can pull
00:01:49
off a great photo with this thing, but
00:01:51
it's not a pro camera.
00:01:52
I feel like it's a similar thing.
00:01:54
It's interesting though, isn't it?
00:01:55
Cause there's a couple of mics out there,
00:01:56
good mics, like Rode have one and Shure
00:01:59
have one that do both, that do XLR
00:02:01
and USB-C.
00:02:03
So it's not a matter of technology.
00:02:05
It's not anymore, is it?
00:02:06
That's the thing.
00:02:06
It's all about eye candy, which is, you
00:02:11
know, a lot of what studios are becoming
00:02:13
these days more and more.
00:02:14
It's like, does it look good as opposed
00:02:15
to, does it sound good?
00:02:16
I think it's two things.
00:02:17
I think it's perception and I think it's
00:02:19
practicality.
00:02:20
Yeah.
00:02:21
If you work purely solo in your own
00:02:24
little booth at home, USB or brain out,
00:02:26
it's fine.
00:02:27
Use your NT1, whatever you've got with USB,
00:02:29
it's fine.
00:02:30
When you have to work in a workflow
00:02:32
with a production remotely, or if you have
00:02:35
multiple microphones that you manage or switch between,
00:02:39
USB is not the way to go by
00:02:40
far.
00:02:41
Or if you have to go any kind
00:02:42
of distance, because USB, maybe 10, 12 feet
00:02:47
or three meters, if you have a really
00:02:50
long cable, maybe.
00:02:51
But other than that, once you go beyond
00:02:53
that, forget it.
00:02:53
It's not reliable.
00:02:55
So you can't get a good connection.
00:02:57
So like a lot of people have their
00:02:58
laptop outside their closet, you know, and they'll
00:03:00
have their mic in the closet.
00:03:02
And they'll be like, I can't get a
00:03:03
reliable connection to my USB.
00:03:06
It doesn't matter whether it's a mic or
00:03:07
an interface, same problem.
00:03:09
And it's like, that's just because it doesn't
00:03:11
do well over distance.
00:03:12
But you know, what does is a studio
00:03:14
mic cable, an XLR balanced mic cable can
00:03:17
run a very long distance, hundreds plus feet.
00:03:20
Talking about that though, if you're using a
00:03:23
USB interface, which many people do as opposed
00:03:25
to outboard gear with an A to D
00:03:27
converter.
00:03:30
Basically, if the USB microphone has a decent
00:03:34
capsule, then there really isn't that much difference
00:03:38
between a standard XLR cable mic into a
00:03:43
USB interface.
00:03:43
Not really.
00:03:44
I mean, if you're comparing the entry level
00:03:47
audio interface products, we'll talk about the Passport
00:03:49
VO by the way, because I saw the
00:03:51
circuit board.
00:03:52
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:52
The amount of componentry packed into that board
00:03:55
is mind-boggling.
00:03:57
It is nothing at all what you would
00:03:59
see inside of a USB mic or a
00:04:02
typical USB interface, like a Scarlett 2i2 for
00:04:04
that matter.
00:04:06
Most of the componentry that run these devices
00:04:08
are condensed down to a couple of ICU
00:04:11
chips, just IC chips, just small chips that
00:04:15
do the vast majority of the heavy lifting.
00:04:18
And because of that miniaturization now, you're basically
00:04:21
taking the function of a USB interface and
00:04:26
packing it down into a little board and
00:04:28
shoving it inside the body of the mic.
00:04:31
And so there's no real inherent necessary reason
00:04:35
the quality needs to be lower.
00:04:37
I think the first really good USB mic
00:04:39
that I knew of or heard of was
00:04:41
probably the Sennheiser MK4 Digital.
00:04:44
That's when Sennheiser said, let's make a USB
00:04:47
mic.
00:04:48
And they partnered with, I believe, Apogee.
00:04:51
So now you've got Apogee pre-easing converters
00:04:54
in a Sennheiser mic.
00:04:55
That's gonna be great.
00:04:57
You know it.
00:04:57
I mean, I've heard it and it sounds
00:04:59
great, but it has absolutely no physical controls.
00:05:03
It has no headphone monitoring.
00:05:06
It's kind of like the Rode NT1, right?
00:05:07
It just has USB.
00:05:09
It's a microphone.
00:05:10
That's it, right?
00:05:10
So it's pros and cons there.
00:05:13
The other thing I tell people is like,
00:05:15
imagine you're in a session, you're being directed
00:05:18
and they say, you're a little bit soft.
00:05:21
Can you give us a little bit more
00:05:22
gain?
00:05:23
And you go, yeah, sure, just a second.
00:05:28
And you're flexing with the mic trying to
00:05:30
find a gain knob.
00:05:31
I'm like, how is that gonna come across
00:05:33
on a Source Connect session?
00:05:34
You know what I mean?
00:05:35
Like, oh, your gain knob's on the mic,
00:05:38
oh, okay.
00:05:39
Look, a little bit unrelated, but USB mic
00:05:42
centric is, I live in a really musical
00:05:45
street.
00:05:46
I have my neighbor two doors down, who's
00:05:49
a good mate of mine, a guy called
00:05:50
Baz.
00:05:51
He's a classically trained violinist who's actually now
00:05:55
works as a builder because he couldn't get
00:05:57
enough work as a violinist.
00:05:58
And the other guy across the road, a
00:05:59
guy called Richard, his father is a really
00:06:02
famous opera singer and Richard now sort of
00:06:04
writes and sings his own stuff as well.
00:06:06
In fact, he's got his own Spotify channel.
00:06:07
But Baz, the violinist down the road, his
00:06:10
son is a budding audio engineer and he's
00:06:13
always recording his dad playing the violin when
00:06:16
Baz is practicing.
00:06:17
So I took him down my Zoom recorder
00:06:19
as an interface and gave him my OC
00:06:23
-16 and the NTG-4 to play around
00:06:27
with, to record the violin and sort of
00:06:28
said, look, point the shotgun at directly at
00:06:30
the violin and then use the large diaphragm
00:06:33
mic to sort of, you know, muck around
00:06:34
and record the room in different places and
00:06:36
see what you can get.
00:06:37
Yeah, the larger body sound.
00:06:38
He's had it for about two and a
00:06:40
half weeks and he brought it back on
00:06:41
the weekend with the biggest smile on his
00:06:43
face.
00:06:45
And I said, how'd you go?
00:06:46
And he said, oh, I had so much
00:06:48
fun.
00:06:49
And so yeah, so it's kind of nice,
00:06:51
but I can't imagine trying to record a
00:06:53
violin on a single USB mic somehow.
00:06:55
It can be done, but you know, any,
00:06:57
if you don't know what you don't know,
00:06:59
but a lot of people probably don't know
00:07:00
that when a violin is recorded in a
00:07:02
studio or any kind of performance, it's not
00:07:04
just a close mic.
00:07:06
That's not what gives you that classical music
00:07:08
sound is when you close mic an instrument.
00:07:11
That's gonna give you a pop sound.
00:07:13
Yeah, that's right.
00:07:13
But not a classical sound.
00:07:15
So that's what I was sort of saying
00:07:16
to him is like, you know, play with
00:07:17
the blend of the two and see what
00:07:19
you come up with.
00:07:20
So I'm yet to hear his recordings.
00:07:21
I've asked him for them, but he's a
00:07:23
little bit shy on that side of things,
00:07:25
but I might have to talk to Baz
00:07:26
and say, you've heard them, get a copy
00:07:29
to me.
00:07:29
Let me have a listen.
00:07:30
I mean, there's a ton of innovation around
00:07:32
USB mics.
00:07:32
I've had this cute little Tula mic, the
00:07:35
T-U-L-A.
00:07:35
We've talked about it on the show before
00:07:37
and it's, you guys can't see it, but
00:07:41
it's just a little, it's the size of
00:07:43
a, I mean, it's half the size of
00:07:45
my hand.
00:07:46
It's about the size of my palm.
00:07:47
And it's got a cute little folding stand
00:07:49
and it has a few tricks up its
00:07:51
sleeve, like built-in recording and USB simultaneous
00:07:55
recording.
00:07:56
It's very cool.
00:07:57
But in terms of feeling like a studio
00:08:00
mic and something that you could feel like
00:08:02
you're working professionally, could you pull it off?
00:08:06
Yeah.
00:08:06
Would you feel confident?
00:08:08
I don't think so.
00:08:08
Well, just hold it up again.
00:08:09
I mean, can you imagine being on a
00:08:11
Zoom call like this in a professional session
00:08:12
and talking into that?
00:08:14
I don't think so.
00:08:14
Yeah, you guys have to look it up.
00:08:16
T-U-L-A mic is what it's
00:08:17
called.
00:08:18
It's very cute and a very well-designed
00:08:20
thing, but it's just, it's so small and
00:08:23
tiny and feels sort of kind of hobby
00:08:27
-like, so yeah.
00:08:29
And that's the problem, isn't it?
00:08:30
That's the vibe that people get when you
00:08:34
pull out a USB mic.
00:08:35
It's a hobby-like.
00:08:37
Yeah, hobby or podcaster or something, it's not
00:08:39
at the echelon of voiceover when you pull
00:08:42
out a USB mic.
00:08:44
And there's a very clever stuff going on,
00:08:46
like RØDE has the RØDE Connect software that
00:08:48
you can have four different USB mics all
00:08:51
on the same computer and they all interface
00:08:53
with each other like you have a RØDECaster,
00:08:56
but it's all software, which is really clever.
00:08:59
There's really cool stuff going on, but yeah.
00:09:03
Austrian Audio have theirs as well, the Micreator.
00:09:06
The Micreator is a really cool packaging, very
00:09:09
neat design with a slave mic that you
00:09:11
can plug in and have a secondary mic
00:09:13
for stereo pair and yeah, it's a real
00:09:16
tough argument to say to somebody, if you're
00:09:18
buying your first mic for your home studio,
00:09:21
just get a USB mic.
00:09:22
I would say it to somebody who you
00:09:25
really don't feel is gonna be taking this
00:09:27
seriously.
00:09:28
You know, kind of kicking the tires, taking
00:09:31
their first classes, you know, no acting background.
00:09:35
They're just like, I wanna try.
00:09:36
Okay.
00:09:37
You know, start simple, start cheap.
00:09:39
Audacity in a USB mic.
00:09:41
Anybody that gets really serious.
00:09:42
Yeah, we leapfrog and go right to a
00:09:44
studio mic.
00:09:46
Well, the ultimate USB mic was the Sentrance
00:09:51
MicPort Pro with the shotgun straight into it.
00:09:54
The USB mic that isn't, but yeah.
00:09:56
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:09:58
I mean, it was perfect because like we've
00:09:59
talked about before, the iPhone 15 has a
00:10:01
USB-C port.
00:10:03
So you go straight in and like I've
00:10:05
been using it with Twisted Wave on my
00:10:07
phone.
00:10:08
If I'm traveling, now that that's what I
00:10:10
take, my Port Pro into the iPhone 15
00:10:13
and capture it on Twisted Wave.
00:10:14
And you're using the CC8, you said?
00:10:16
The CC8, which I really, really like the
00:10:18
sound of it.
00:10:18
So you don't bring the 416 anymore.
00:10:19
You take the CC8 and...
00:10:21
No, I don't.
00:10:22
And the CC8, because the CC8's about probably...
00:10:24
Smaller.
00:10:25
Close to half the length, I guess.
00:10:27
Yeah.
00:10:29
Yeah, and the CC8 sounds fine.
00:10:31
It's the ultimate USB mic, really, because you've
00:10:34
got physical controls over input, blend, output.
00:10:38
You've got a really good preamp converters.
00:10:40
You've got a proper headphone monitoring with a
00:10:42
good headphone amp.
00:10:44
And away you go.
00:10:45
Sorry, you go ahead.
00:10:45
Oh, I was just gonna say, it's just
00:10:47
interesting that we're sitting here listening to the
00:10:50
conversation and we're going, oh, USB mic.
00:10:52
You know, no, no, no.
00:10:52
USB interface, oh, that's okay.
00:10:54
I know.
00:10:55
It's like...
00:10:56
Yeah, exactly.
00:10:57
I know, that's the irony.
00:10:58
The circuitry is not gonna be all that
00:11:01
different.
00:11:01
It's just gonna be condensed into the smallest,
00:11:03
simplest possible package.
00:11:05
We used to say a USB preamp can't
00:11:07
be any good because it's only getting USB
00:11:09
power because there's only 500 milliamps of current.
00:11:13
So there's a lot of limitations, but circuit
00:11:16
design has come a heck of a long
00:11:18
way.
00:11:19
And yeah, we can do it now.
00:11:21
And now a lot of products have gone
00:11:22
USB-C, which allows for a higher amount
00:11:26
of current.
00:11:26
I think it's 900 milliamps or something like
00:11:29
that.
00:11:29
So things can run on a lot more
00:11:31
power and are just gonna sound better.
00:11:34
You get more headphone amplification available to you
00:11:39
when you have more power.
00:11:41
Things don't fall apart, clip too quickly, more
00:11:44
headroom.
00:11:45
You know, that's another thing is like USB
00:11:47
mics, they don't have much headroom.
00:11:49
Like when you push them, they just sort
00:11:51
of sound like a horrendous crunch.
00:11:54
They just turn ugly.
00:11:55
Yeah.
00:11:55
Yeah.
00:11:56
Yeah.
00:11:56
It turns really nasty here.
00:11:58
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:11:58
Yeah.
00:11:59
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:12:00
But it's funny, I'm looking over here and
00:12:02
I've got the SSL2, which is bus powered.
00:12:06
Yeah.
00:12:07
But the ID44, I'm assuming the ID24 and
00:12:13
14, the smaller one, I think that's what
00:12:15
their names are.
00:12:16
Well, I know the 44 is AC powered.
00:12:19
It's a power supply, yeah.
00:12:21
Yeah.
00:12:22
And I'm pretty sure the other ones do.
00:12:25
Maybe the smaller ones don't.
00:12:26
I'm not sure, 100%.
00:12:27
I think it has as much to do
00:12:28
with the fact that it's four, it's got
00:12:30
four mic preamps, right?
00:12:33
Yeah.
00:12:33
Yeah.
00:12:34
I mean, to really get an adequate amount
00:12:35
of preamplifier power, phantom power, again, headphone amplifier,
00:12:40
the internal mixing, all that stuff, yeah.
00:12:43
You use up that 900 milliamps pretty quickly.
00:12:47
Yeah, pretty quickly.
00:12:48
Yeah.
00:12:49
Yes, indeed.
00:12:49
Whenever you pick up a USB interface, they're
00:12:52
so light.
00:12:55
And you kind of look at the, once
00:12:57
again, the Mic Port Pro and look at
00:13:01
the size of that, and it does everything
00:13:03
and probably more than the SSL2.
00:13:05
It does.
00:13:05
And takes up about an eighth of the
00:13:08
real estate.
00:13:09
The miniaturization is amazing.
00:13:10
And as I touched on earlier, the Passport
00:13:13
VO, by the way, because I saw the
00:13:14
circuit boards, at least one picture of one
00:13:16
of the boards, front and back, of what's
00:13:19
inside.
00:13:19
And that's one of, I believe Michael said,
00:13:21
the four boards that go into the unit.
00:13:24
I could be wrong on that.
00:13:26
It is incredible, the packaging, to fit all
00:13:30
the componentry.
00:13:31
Because I can't wait to get this in
00:13:33
the hands of guys like Julian Krause and
00:13:35
others who love to take things apart and
00:13:38
look at what's going on and really see.
00:13:41
I know it sounds good, it is good,
00:13:44
right?
00:13:44
But when you really see the work that
00:13:46
goes into the circuit design and the componentry,
00:13:50
you start to understand why this thing is
00:13:53
gonna sound the way it sounds, what it
00:13:54
does, and why it costs what it costs
00:13:56
compared to the other things out there.
00:13:58
Well, there's not a spare inch on the
00:14:01
board, is there?
00:14:02
The question that comes from me for that
00:14:04
though, right, is we're talking about the limitations
00:14:07
of USB mics as this sort of overview
00:14:10
of this session.
00:14:11
But now we're sort of talking, we're getting
00:14:12
to the point where we're just, we're talking
00:14:14
about USB-C, more power.
00:14:16
We're now talking about, you know, cramming circuit
00:14:18
boards full of stuff.
00:14:20
So that then begs the question, looking forward,
00:14:23
do we see a day when USB mics
00:14:25
will become almost the norm because they will
00:14:28
have the same capabilities as having a microphone,
00:14:31
XLR microphone plugged into an amplifier or a
00:14:34
preamp?
00:14:34
Well, if you look at the size of
00:14:38
the OC-18 or 818 or 16, whichever
00:14:42
one, you can see that the possibility of
00:14:45
actually extending the bottom half of the microphone,
00:14:48
so below the cage, there's a ton of
00:14:51
real estate there to fill it up with
00:14:52
all kinds of knobs and bits and pieces.
00:14:55
So, and you get a beautiful capsule, great
00:15:01
circuitry and it's USB.
00:15:03
I don't know, I'm not an expert in
00:15:06
boards and all that sort of stuff, but
00:15:08
I can imagine that surely we've got to
00:15:11
get to a point where the technology is
00:15:12
going to allow all this stuff that we're
00:15:14
saying is a limitation is going to allow
00:15:17
it to happen, surely.
00:15:18
Well, the technology is there, isn't it?
00:15:20
I mean, we've just talked about it with
00:15:21
the miniaturization of the stuff that Michael does
00:15:24
at Centrance.
00:15:25
I mean, the size of the Mic Port
00:15:27
Pro is the size of the bottom of,
00:15:30
well, it's not quite the size of the
00:15:32
bottom of the OC-818, but it's not
00:15:35
that much bigger, really.
00:15:37
Yeah, I mean, what Rode's doing that clever
00:15:39
is that each mic appears as a different
00:15:42
unique mic with its own model number, or
00:15:45
I guess number.
00:15:46
So like, if you plug in two USB
00:15:49
interfaces that have the same name and model
00:15:51
and everything, now you're like, okay, which is
00:15:54
which?
00:15:55
How do I get the both of these
00:15:56
to communicate to one DAW?
00:15:58
DAWs are designed to really see one set
00:16:00
of digital inputs or one USB input, and
00:16:04
that might be a multi-channel input.
00:16:06
It might be a USB interface with eight
00:16:07
inputs or 16 or whatever, but once you
00:16:12
have literally separate AD converters all with their
00:16:15
own connectors, they all have to talk to
00:16:17
the same clock.
00:16:18
They have to be in sync with each
00:16:20
other.
00:16:20
That is definitely still a lot more difficult,
00:16:23
and frankly, most people don't have a computer
00:16:25
that are gonna accommodate more than four or
00:16:28
five USB ports either.
00:16:30
So there's the analog way of doing things
00:16:33
with multiple mics into a board.
00:16:36
Even if on the inside of the board,
00:16:38
it's totally digital, which is way more common
00:16:41
now, it's a whole different animal.
00:16:44
So yeah, I think we're gonna be doing
00:16:46
things the traditional XLR way for a long
00:16:50
time.
00:16:51
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree.
00:16:52
Funny hearing you talking about USB ports though,
00:16:54
because I think we spoke about it earlier
00:16:56
in the year.
00:16:56
Beginning of the year, I went M1 Mac
00:16:59
Studio, which I'm loving, by the way.
00:17:03
But the interesting thing is, I had some
00:17:05
trouble with my iLock the other day, and
00:17:07
I thought my iLock had died, but it
00:17:08
was actually the USB hub that I had
00:17:10
it on.
00:17:11
But I was looking at the back of
00:17:13
my Mac going, all these pristine, beautiful USB
00:17:17
-C ports, but it's converter, converter, converter.
00:17:21
Oh, that one's USB-C, converter is still
00:17:24
living in the past.
00:17:26
That is the one thing I'm missing out
00:17:28
on with my Mini is really just the
00:17:29
ports.
00:17:30
I only get two C and two A
00:17:33
ports.
00:17:34
So that all feeds to a Thunderbolt dock
00:17:37
with a million cables coming out of it.
00:17:40
I mean, it is a mess.
00:17:41
I'm looking at it right here underneath the
00:17:43
shelf.
00:17:43
It's a real mess, and it would be
00:17:45
a little bit cleaner with the studio with
00:17:47
a lot more jacks on the back.
00:17:49
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:17:50
But I gotta tell you, I don't know
00:17:52
if you've ever had that moment, because it's
00:17:54
the first time I've ever had it, but
00:17:56
I do have zero downtime, so I was
00:17:58
kind of happy about that.
00:17:59
But that moment when you go, oh, fuck,
00:18:02
my iLock's not working.
00:18:04
That heart in your chest, just your throat
00:18:08
sort of feeling of, I can't work, I
00:18:11
can't do anything.
00:18:12
You literally, like your income, you live and
00:18:15
die by that.
00:18:15
Yeah, it's all hanging on that one little
00:18:18
USB thing that just sits there.
00:18:19
For me, it's like, I gotta launch Source
00:18:21
Connect.
00:18:22
Is the iLock still working?
00:18:23
Oh, yeah, it is, okay.
00:18:24
Yeah, exactly, I know.
00:18:25
It's the only time it fires up.
00:18:27
And same thing happened to me, too.
00:18:28
I had it plugged into a USB hub
00:18:30
that just died one day, and I didn't
00:18:32
notice until I launched Source Connect and it
00:18:35
needed to use the iLock.
00:18:35
And you're going, no authorization.
00:18:37
You're going, what do you mean, no authorization?
00:18:38
It was stupid.
00:18:40
Yeah, but okay, now I'm obviously a bit
00:18:43
slow on this one, but I've got the
00:18:44
two Source Connects.
00:18:46
I've got one on the Mac mini, which
00:18:47
has the iLock plugged in, but I'm also
00:18:50
using this one right now on the laptop
00:18:51
without an iLock plugged in.
00:18:52
Because it's authorized to your computer and not
00:18:53
to the iLock.
00:18:54
You can authorize to your computer or you
00:18:56
can authorize to the iLock.
00:18:57
So you've got one authorized to your computer
00:18:59
and the other one.
00:19:00
Well, the other one could be authorized to
00:19:01
that computer, too, or it could just be
00:19:03
on your iLock so you can take it
00:19:04
with you.
00:19:05
Yeah.
00:19:05
Either or.
00:19:07
Well, USB's not going anywhere.
00:19:09
Thunderbolt is here to stay as well, but
00:19:12
it's just relegated to much more expensive devices.
00:19:16
So there might be someday a Thunderbolt microphone.
00:19:19
I don't know, but what does Thunderbolt do?
00:19:21
It basically looks like USB, except it just
00:19:23
carries tons more data.
00:19:26
Much, much more data.
00:19:27
Like, I think USB-C 3.1, whatever
00:19:31
the hell standard, I think carries like five
00:19:33
gigabits of data a second, which is fast.
00:19:36
That's a lot.
00:19:37
It's huge, isn't it?
00:19:38
But Thunderbolt 4, I think, can do 40
00:19:40
gigabytes a second.
00:19:42
So that's the realm of video and video
00:19:44
people.
00:19:45
The only thing out there that I use
00:19:46
with any frequency are the Apollos, which uses
00:19:49
Thunderbolt.
00:19:50
The reason why Thunderbolt is so important for
00:19:52
Apollos is the speed of the bus.
00:19:55
It's not just how much data can it
00:19:57
squeeze, but it's how fast the computer can
00:20:00
talk to the Apollo, and the Apollo can
00:20:02
talk to the computer.
00:20:04
The Thunderbolt port is the same equivalent speed
00:20:07
as a PC card, PCI card, in the
00:20:11
computer.
00:20:12
Yeah, wow.
00:20:12
It's the same speed communication, something like that.
00:20:15
So that's why Thunderbolt is so unique, and
00:20:18
a lot of people think they need it.
00:20:20
They're like, I need a Thunderbolt dock.
00:20:22
You probably don't.
00:20:23
If you're not doing very big video projects
00:20:27
with tons of channels, you probably don't need
00:20:29
it.
00:20:30
But it's such a commonly confused protocol.
00:20:33
Like I had a client who just got
00:20:34
a dock.
00:20:35
He assumed it must be Thunderbolt, since that
00:20:37
same company makes Thunderbolt docks.
00:20:39
Nothing that Thunderbolt would work with it.
00:20:42
And I said, do you have a Thunderbolt
00:20:43
symbol next to the jack?
00:20:45
Does it literally have a little lightning icon
00:20:47
on the plug?
00:20:48
No, it doesn't.
00:20:49
It's not Thunderbolt.
00:20:51
It's funny hearing you say that, people who
00:20:53
want stuff that they don't need.
00:20:55
I've noticed recently on Facebook marketplace and eBay
00:20:59
and stuff, here in Australia, I don't know
00:21:01
about over there, but all of a sudden
00:21:03
there's been this splurge of Mac pros, like
00:21:06
the cheese grater, the big, like specked out
00:21:11
to the max.
00:21:12
And I'm kind of thinking, okay, so it's
00:21:15
either they're unreliable, which I highly doubt, or
00:21:20
these people have gone, why did I pay
00:21:23
all this money for that?
00:21:24
I don't need this.
00:21:25
I could just grab a Mac studio and
00:21:27
it'll do.
00:21:27
I'm sure there's plenty of people that do
00:21:29
need it.
00:21:29
Let's be honest.
00:21:30
Feature films, blah, blah, blah.
00:21:31
But I can imagine all these cashed up
00:21:35
voiceover artists, let's just say cashed up voiceover
00:21:39
artists who've gone, oh, I might buy one
00:21:41
of those.
00:21:41
And then they've gone, I really don't need
00:21:43
this.
00:21:44
Yeah, I haven't run into it yet.
00:21:46
I have not been to a studio or
00:21:48
talked to a client who's running a new
00:21:50
Mac pro, certainly studios.
00:21:54
Most people are on Mac minis and stuff,
00:21:56
but a bunch of people are on studios
00:21:59
too.
00:21:59
How long have you had your studio?
00:22:02
Beginning of the year, I got it, yeah.
00:22:04
Do you ever hear the fan on it?
00:22:05
No, never.
00:22:06
It's pretty quiet.
00:22:07
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:22:08
I've got the old Mac pro sitting down
00:22:12
to the desk, which is sort of a
00:22:13
server, which sort of just holds my final
00:22:15
mixes and backups and stuff.
00:22:17
But yeah, so that fan occasionally, but no,
00:22:21
never.
00:22:22
And I'm running, I used After Effects for
00:22:25
our video stuff and Premiere.
00:22:28
I mean, nothing heavy in Premiere, but After
00:22:30
Effects is pretty memory hungry.
00:22:33
Choose through it fast, right?
00:22:35
But it flies, it's just so fast.
00:22:38
I don't need anything else.
00:22:40
Yeah, exactly.
00:22:41
Yeah, you're good.
00:22:42
Well, there you go.
00:22:43
USB or what can we say?
00:22:46
USB, not for me.
00:22:47
To be USB or not to be USB?
00:22:48
To be USB or not to USB, that
00:22:50
is the question.
00:22:52
USB, not for me.
00:22:53
No, I'm on George's side.
00:22:55
Still not yet, sorry.
00:22:57
Me neither.
00:22:59
Well, that was fun.
00:23:00
Is it over?
00:23:02
The Pro Audio Suite.
00:23:03
With thanks to Tribus.
00:23:05
And Austrian Audio.
00:23:06
Recorded using Source Connect.
00:23:08
Edited by Andrew Peters.
00:23:10
And mixed by Voodoo Radio Imaging.
00:23:12
With tech support from George the Tech Whittam.
00:23:14
Don't forget to subscribe to the show and
00:23:16
join in the conversation on our Facebook group.
00:23:18
To leave a comment, suggest a topic, or
00:23:20
just say g'day, drop us a note at
00:23:22
our website, theproaudiosuite.com.