Mmmm okay, I'm trying to decide, but to make the right decision, I have to ask questions. [snip] It may be that, for some reason, I'll want an interface/mixer system again, like I had before, so it may be better to get the XLR + interface option. I'll do a little more investigation, then decide. Thanks for the advice guys!
I can provide you with a little bit of advice as a guy who has pretty extensive experience with both. My day job is media director for a church. I am in charge of all aspects of audio and video in pre, live and post production settings. By night, I change hats and run a semi-pro recording studio.
At our church, we have two USB mics which see almost daily use. We have a Rode Podcaster and an AT 2020USB. Both are easy to use plug and play devices. Our senior pastor uses one to record a daily 15 minute radio broadcast for a local Christian radio station. It is a typical talking head teaching program...14 minutes long with a 30 second bumper at each end. Our youth pastor does a one minute 'God moment' type show which runs six times a day on a big FM rock station in a neighboring large city. Before we started using the USB mics, we produced in the usual fashion. Meaning that I would record their shows in our isolation booth (right behind our sound board) with me engineering and them in the booth talking. However, this was time consuming and unwieldy for everyone involved. So I hit upon the idea of using USB mics. After a short learning curve, both were extremely happy with the results. It allowed them to record in their offices and on their own schedule. MUCH better for all concerned.
The sound quality? Surprisingly good, at least for what we use them for...which is typical VO work. The Podcaster does a great job at rejecting room noise. The AT is much more sensitive to room noise. But we covered the ceiling of the youth pastor's office with acoustic cotton and the room went away.
As I said they are great mics for what we use them for. That said, would I use them in critical music recording? No. Not so much because of how they sound. For what they were designed for, they sound great. But music production is where you will quickly discover their inherent limitations.
Take the Rode mic for example. It has a maximum SPL of 115dB @ 1kHz...and I do mean maximum. Anything above that, and the mic will splat in a most unpleasant manner. Now, notice how the spec is measured...at 1kHz. That means that with anything remotely approaching a broadband signal, the spec is much worse...probably around 110dB if I had to guess. How many voices or instruments do you think produce sound only in the 1kHz band? That's right, none. Which is why someone once famously quoted "there is a world of lies in statistics". That stat is almost meaningless as a measure of real world SPL performance. Need proof? Take a Podcaster and stick it up against the grill of a reasonably loud guitar amp. You'll figure it out pretty quickly.
Another area where USB mics typically don't perform as well as their XLR brethren is their noise floor spec. Why? Well once again, it is an inherent limitation of the technology being used. The microphone preamp is built into the mic body itself. Which means there is not a lot of space in there. Which means that the mic pre is going to consist of op amps soldered to the circuit board. Which translates into low powered devices in a noisy environment. Which in turn means a higher noise floor. Is this something you will notice? It depends. Will you be overdubbing? How many tracks will you be overdubbing. At five overdubs or less, you are unlikely to be effected. Anything more than that, and the noise floor will start to become a noticeable problem. Trust me. Been there, done that.
So, in short, can you use a USB mic in a studio environment? Yes. Can you get good results with it? Yes, if you can work within it's limitations. Will it be as good as a separate mic and preamp/interface? No. It will not. Only you can decide if it will work in your specific application.
