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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Y'all ready for your history?
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Get started.
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Welcome.
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Hi.
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Hi.
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Hi.
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Hello, everyone.
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To the Pro Audio Suite.
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These guys are professional, they're motivated.
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Thanks to Triboot, the best vocal booth for
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home or on the road voice recording, and
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Austrian Audio, making passion heard.
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Introducing Robert Marshall from Source Elements and Someone
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Audio Post Chicago.
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Darren Robert Robertson from Voodoo Radio Imaging, Sydney.
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Tech to the VO Stars.
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George the Tech Whittam from LA.
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And me, Andrew Peters, voiceover talent and home
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studio guy.
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Line up, man.
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Here we go.
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♪ Suck, suck the beat ♪ And welcome
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to another Pro Audio Suite, thanks to Triboot.
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Don't forget the code, T-R-I-P
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-A-P 200.
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That will get you 200 US dollars off
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your Triboot.
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And Austrian Audio, making passion heard.
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In fact, you're hearing my explosives quite well
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on my Austrian Audio at the moment.
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Sorry about that.
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Now, talk about microphones.
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Are USB microphones up to snuff as far
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as being used for voiceover?
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Yeah, where did you hear about this topic?
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Was this off the Facebook group?
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It was on Facebook.
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I can't remember what group it was on,
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but someone was asking the question, you know,
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it's been, you know, I realized 10 years
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ago USB mics were a big no-no,
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but are we at a point now where
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USB technology has come far enough that, you
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know, USBs are more acceptable?
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I don't, you know, I don't know if
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it's more acceptable.
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I think it still has a image of
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being unprofessional.
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So I think there's, I don't know if
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there's anything USB mics can do to get
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over that.
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And this is a dumb analogy, but I
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love analogies.
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This is like being a professional photographer, knowing
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how to be a great photographer, and then
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showing up with an iPhone 15 Pro and
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saying, this is my camera.
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And you're like, I know they can pull
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off a great photo with this thing, but
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it's not a pro camera.
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I feel like it's a similar thing.
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It's interesting though, isn't it?
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Cause there's a couple of mics out there,
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good mics, like Rode have one and Shure
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have one that do both, that do XLR
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and USB-C.
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So it's not a matter of technology.
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It's not anymore, is it?
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That's the thing.
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It's all about eye candy, which is, you
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know, a lot of what studios are becoming
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these days more and more.
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It's like, does it look good as opposed
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to, does it sound good?
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I think it's two things.
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I think it's perception and I think it's
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practicality.
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Yeah.
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If you work purely solo in your own
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little booth at home, USB or brain out,
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it's fine.
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Use your NT1, whatever you've got with USB,
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it's fine.
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When you have to work in a workflow
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with a production remotely, or if you have
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multiple microphones that you manage or switch between,
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USB is not the way to go by
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far.
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Or if you have to go any kind
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of distance, because USB, maybe 10, 12 feet
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or three meters, if you have a really
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long cable, maybe.
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But other than that, once you go beyond
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that, forget it.
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It's not reliable.
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So you can't get a good connection.
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So like a lot of people have their
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laptop outside their closet, you know, and they'll
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have their mic in the closet.
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And they'll be like, I can't get a
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reliable connection to my USB.
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It doesn't matter whether it's a mic or
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an interface, same problem.
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And it's like, that's just because it doesn't
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do well over distance.
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But you know, what does is a studio
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mic cable, an XLR balanced mic cable can
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run a very long distance, hundreds plus feet.
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Talking about that though, if you're using a
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USB interface, which many people do as opposed
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to outboard gear with an A to D
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converter.
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Basically, if the USB microphone has a decent
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capsule, then there really isn't that much difference
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between a standard XLR cable mic into a
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USB interface.
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Not really.
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I mean, if you're comparing the entry level
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audio interface products, we'll talk about the Passport
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VO by the way, because I saw the
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circuit board.
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Yeah, yeah.
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The amount of componentry packed into that board
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is mind-boggling.
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It is nothing at all what you would
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see inside of a USB mic or a
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typical USB interface, like a Scarlett 2i2 for
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that matter.
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Most of the componentry that run these devices
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are condensed down to a couple of ICU
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chips, just IC chips, just small chips that
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do the vast majority of the heavy lifting.
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And because of that miniaturization now, you're basically
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taking the function of a USB interface and
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packing it down into a little board and
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shoving it inside the body of the mic.
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And so there's no real inherent necessary reason
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the quality needs to be lower.
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I think the first really good USB mic
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that I knew of or heard of was
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probably the Sennheiser MK4 Digital.
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That's when Sennheiser said, let's make a USB
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mic.
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And they partnered with, I believe, Apogee.
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So now you've got Apogee pre-easing converters
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in a Sennheiser mic.
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That's gonna be great.
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You know it.
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I mean, I've heard it and it sounds
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great, but it has absolutely no physical controls.
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It has no headphone monitoring.
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It's kind of like the Rode NT1, right?
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It just has USB.
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It's a microphone.
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That's it, right?
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So it's pros and cons there.
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The other thing I tell people is like,
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imagine you're in a session, you're being directed
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and they say, you're a little bit soft.
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Can you give us a little bit more
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gain?
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And you go, yeah, sure, just a second.
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And you're flexing with the mic trying to
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find a gain knob.
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I'm like, how is that gonna come across
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on a Source Connect session?
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You know what I mean?
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Like, oh, your gain knob's on the mic,
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oh, okay.
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Look, a little bit unrelated, but USB mic
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centric is, I live in a really musical
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street.
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I have my neighbor two doors down, who's
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a good mate of mine, a guy called
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Baz.
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He's a classically trained violinist who's actually now
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works as a builder because he couldn't get
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enough work as a violinist.
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And the other guy across the road, a
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guy called Richard, his father is a really
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famous opera singer and Richard now sort of
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writes and sings his own stuff as well.
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In fact, he's got his own Spotify channel.
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But Baz, the violinist down the road, his
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son is a budding audio engineer and he's
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always recording his dad playing the violin when
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Baz is practicing.
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So I took him down my Zoom recorder
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as an interface and gave him my OC
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-16 and the NTG-4 to play around
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with, to record the violin and sort of
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said, look, point the shotgun at directly at
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the violin and then use the large diaphragm
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mic to sort of, you know, muck around
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and record the room in different places and
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see what you can get.
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Yeah, the larger body sound.
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He's had it for about two and a
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half weeks and he brought it back on
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the weekend with the biggest smile on his
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face.
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And I said, how'd you go?
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And he said, oh, I had so much
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fun.
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And so yeah, so it's kind of nice,
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but I can't imagine trying to record a
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violin on a single USB mic somehow.
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It can be done, but you know, any,
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if you don't know what you don't know,
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but a lot of people probably don't know
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that when a violin is recorded in a
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studio or any kind of performance, it's not
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just a close mic.
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That's not what gives you that classical music
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sound is when you close mic an instrument.
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That's gonna give you a pop sound.
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Yeah, that's right.
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But not a classical sound.
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So that's what I was sort of saying
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to him is like, you know, play with
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the blend of the two and see what
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you come up with.
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So I'm yet to hear his recordings.
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I've asked him for them, but he's a
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little bit shy on that side of things,
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but I might have to talk to Baz
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and say, you've heard them, get a copy
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to me.
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Let me have a listen.
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I mean, there's a ton of innovation around
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USB mics.
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I've had this cute little Tula mic, the
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T-U-L-A.
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We've talked about it on the show before
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and it's, you guys can't see it, but
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it's just a little, it's the size of
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a, I mean, it's half the size of
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my hand.
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It's about the size of my palm.
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And it's got a cute little folding stand
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and it has a few tricks up its
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sleeve, like built-in recording and USB simultaneous
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recording.
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It's very cool.
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But in terms of feeling like a studio
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mic and something that you could feel like
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you're working professionally, could you pull it off?
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Yeah.
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Would you feel confident?
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I don't think so.
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Well, just hold it up again.
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I mean, can you imagine being on a
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Zoom call like this in a professional session
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and talking into that?
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I don't think so.
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Yeah, you guys have to look it up.
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T-U-L-A mic is what it's
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called.
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It's very cute and a very well-designed
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thing, but it's just, it's so small and
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tiny and feels sort of kind of hobby
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-like, so yeah.
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And that's the problem, isn't it?
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That's the vibe that people get when you
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pull out a USB mic.
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It's a hobby-like.
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Yeah, hobby or podcaster or something, it's not
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at the echelon of voiceover when you pull
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out a USB mic.
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And there's a very clever stuff going on,
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like RØDE has the RØDE Connect software that
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you can have four different USB mics all
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on the same computer and they all interface
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with each other like you have a RØDECaster,
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but it's all software, which is really clever.
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There's really cool stuff going on, but yeah.
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Austrian Audio have theirs as well, the Micreator.
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The Micreator is a really cool packaging, very
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neat design with a slave mic that you
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can plug in and have a secondary mic
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for stereo pair and yeah, it's a real
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tough argument to say to somebody, if you're
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buying your first mic for your home studio,
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just get a USB mic.
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I would say it to somebody who you
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really don't feel is gonna be taking this
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seriously.
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You know, kind of kicking the tires, taking
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their first classes, you know, no acting background.
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They're just like, I wanna try.
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Okay.
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You know, start simple, start cheap.
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Audacity in a USB mic.
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Anybody that gets really serious.
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Yeah, we leapfrog and go right to a
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studio mic.
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Well, the ultimate USB mic was the Sentrance
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MicPort Pro with the shotgun straight into it.
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The USB mic that isn't, but yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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I mean, it was perfect because like we've
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talked about before, the iPhone 15 has a
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USB-C port.
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So you go straight in and like I've
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been using it with Twisted Wave on my
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phone.
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If I'm traveling, now that that's what I
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take, my Port Pro into the iPhone 15
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and capture it on Twisted Wave.
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And you're using the CC8, you said?
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The CC8, which I really, really like the
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sound of it.
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So you don't bring the 416 anymore.
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You take the CC8 and...
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No, I don't.
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And the CC8, because the CC8's about probably...
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Smaller.
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Close to half the length, I guess.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, and the CC8 sounds fine.
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It's the ultimate USB mic, really, because you've
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got physical controls over input, blend, output.
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You've got a really good preamp converters.
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You've got a proper headphone monitoring with a
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good headphone amp.
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And away you go.
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Sorry, you go ahead.
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Oh, I was just gonna say, it's just
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interesting that we're sitting here listening to the
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conversation and we're going, oh, USB mic.
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You know, no, no, no.
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USB interface, oh, that's okay.
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I know.
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It's like...
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Yeah, exactly.
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I know, that's the irony.
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The circuitry is not gonna be all that
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different.
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It's just gonna be condensed into the smallest,
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simplest possible package.
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We used to say a USB preamp can't
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be any good because it's only getting USB
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power because there's only 500 milliamps of current.
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So there's a lot of limitations, but circuit
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design has come a heck of a long
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way.
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And yeah, we can do it now.
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And now a lot of products have gone
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USB-C, which allows for a higher amount
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of current.
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I think it's 900 milliamps or something like
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that.
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So things can run on a lot more
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power and are just gonna sound better.
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You get more headphone amplification available to you
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when you have more power.
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Things don't fall apart, clip too quickly, more
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headroom.
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You know, that's another thing is like USB
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mics, they don't have much headroom.
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Like when you push them, they just sort
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of sound like a horrendous crunch.
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They just turn ugly.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It turns really nasty here.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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But it's funny, I'm looking over here and
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I've got the SSL2, which is bus powered.
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Yeah.
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But the ID44, I'm assuming the ID24 and
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14, the smaller one, I think that's what
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their names are.
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Well, I know the 44 is AC powered.
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It's a power supply, yeah.
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Yeah.
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And I'm pretty sure the other ones do.
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Maybe the smaller ones don't.
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I'm not sure, 100%.
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I think it has as much to do
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with the fact that it's four, it's got
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four mic preamps, right?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I mean, to really get an adequate amount
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of preamplifier power, phantom power, again, headphone amplifier,
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the internal mixing, all that stuff, yeah.
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You use up that 900 milliamps pretty quickly.
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Yeah, pretty quickly.
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Yeah.
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Yes, indeed.
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Whenever you pick up a USB interface, they're
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so light.
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And you kind of look at the, once
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again, the Mic Port Pro and look at
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the size of that, and it does everything
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and probably more than the SSL2.
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It does.
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And takes up about an eighth of the
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real estate.
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The miniaturization is amazing.
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And as I touched on earlier, the Passport
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VO, by the way, because I saw the
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circuit boards, at least one picture of one
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of the boards, front and back, of what's
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inside.
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And that's one of, I believe Michael said,
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the four boards that go into the unit.
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I could be wrong on that.
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It is incredible, the packaging, to fit all
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the componentry.
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Because I can't wait to get this in
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the hands of guys like Julian Krause and
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others who love to take things apart and
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look at what's going on and really see.
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I know it sounds good, it is good,
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right?
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But when you really see the work that
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goes into the circuit design and the componentry,
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you start to understand why this thing is
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gonna sound the way it sounds, what it
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does, and why it costs what it costs
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compared to the other things out there.
00:13:58
Well, there's not a spare inch on the
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board, is there?
00:14:02
The question that comes from me for that
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though, right, is we're talking about the limitations
00:14:07
of USB mics as this sort of overview
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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
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about USB-C, more power.
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We're now talking about, you know, cramming circuit
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boards full of stuff.
00:14:20
So that then begs the question, looking forward,
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do we see a day when USB mics
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will become almost the norm because they will
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have the same capabilities as having a microphone,
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XLR microphone plugged into an amplifier or a
00:14:34
preamp?
00:14:34
Well, if you look at the size of
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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,
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so below the cage, there's a ton of
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real estate there to fill it up with
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all kinds of knobs and bits and pieces.
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So, and you get a beautiful capsule, great
00:15:01
circuitry and it's USB.
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I don't know, I'm not an expert in
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boards and all that sort of stuff, but
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I can imagine that surely we've got to
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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
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the miniaturization of the stuff that Michael does
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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
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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.