Should I Buy a USB Microphone?

[moresound]

Especially with ones hands over ones ears while loudly mumbling MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA.

[DJ X]

Wouldn't system resource usage be a consideration as well? It should be higher for USB.

[jimmys69]

Wouldn't system resource usage be a consideration as well? It should be higher for USB.

How do you figure that? I never heard that before.

[moresound]

MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMa!

[dgatwood]

Especially with ones hands over ones ears while loudly mumbling MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA.

No, in the words of Chevy Chase, that's "Nanananananananana".

[dgatwood]

Wouldn't system resource usage be a consideration as well? It should be higher for USB.

Higher than the overhead of a well-written FireWire audio interface driver that uses DCL programs to offload most of the heavy lifting? You bet.

Higher than the overhead of a PCI audio interface driver? Maybe, leaning towards yes.

Higher than the overhead of a poorly written FireWire audio interface driver that does everything on the CPU? Probably not.

On average? Probably.

[Bobbsy]

Or, put another way, the system resource use for USB is almost certainly a bit higher than a well-written Firewire interface, most likely higher than a PCI interface and "meh" regards to some of the poorly written stuff out there. However, you need only look at how many USB interfaces are chugging away happily out there with up to 16 tracks to see that it's simply not a real-world problem.

[dezbert]

Yea Blue Yeti is great for anyone who was wondering, very good microphone!

[Backyard Record]

USB microphones can be very useful in a setting which demands easy access and straight up and down recording.
They do create a different 'flavour' to your conventional XLR microphone but are very useful, especially fi you are podcasting or on a really low budget and want to put it 'straight in' you computer.
Like everything Audio, some are better than others and it is about budget and purpose.
There are some great USB microphones that wont break the bank or eat up your ram/processing power too.

[ZoelVazra]

I was about to get Audio-Technica AT2020 USB mic...now I changed my mind to get XLR one. This is a good article about USB mics.