Phantom Power Supply or Mixer?

[thehitman123]

Hi all, recently I purchased a behringer b1 condenser mic which requires phantom power, so now I'm wondering will it work if I use a phantom power supply such as behringer mic100 or ART Phantom, so connect mic to the phantom power supply input then for output use xlr to 3.5mm cable to connect to my pc? Btw the MIC100 also has balance 1/4 TRS output.

If this doesn't work then I guess the mixer option should work? Where I get a mixer with phantom power and then using RCA outputs connect that to PC?

Yes I'm aware of audio interfaces but that's not affordable at the moment.

Help would be greatly appreciated

 

[mjbphotos]

No, and no!

Get an audio interface with phantom power, like the M Audio Fast Track Pro, Tascam US-models, etc. It's better save a little more money than waste it on something that is going to end up not give you what you want.
From the links, I assume you are in the UK with a budget of around 35 pounds. You will prbably need to look for a used interface to keep near your budget.
The sound card in your computer has cheap components and will give you a lousy recorded sound with either of the preamps you are looking at.

 

[thehitman123]

Well a friend of mine uses his mic by connecting it to mixer then from the two RCA outs to his
laptop and this works perfectly fine with no 'lousy sound'. Hmm.. I'll try to pick up a USB interface but still need more advice/opinions.

Edit: What about the behringer xenyx 302 USB mixer?

 

[mjbphotos]

What DAW (software) is your friend using? What kind of music are you trying to record? If you are rapping over a pre-made groove, then you can probably use the built-in soundcard in your computer and not hear too much noise, but you will never get great quality sound. It's a fact that the A-to-D converters in OEM soundcards are not good.
I bought a Behr Xenyx last year and brought it back to Guitar center in less than 24 hours. In the one I had the preamps were terrible - I had to crank the gain way up for a Shure SM57 and then it was extremely noisy.

Since you like the idea of an ART preamp, why not try the ART USB Dual Pre? It functions as a USB interface. At that price the preamps themselves are not great, but at least will give you a start.

 

[thehitman123]

Cool Edit Pro. And I will be using it for rapping indeed. I found another possible option which is the 'blue icicle', what are your opinions on this?

 

[mjbphotos]

Tiny inline USB converters are what you pay for them ... Inferior components again.

 

[Bobbsy]

Please, please listen to the advice above about buying a basic USB interface. The audio input on your computer will be noisy and prone to clipping--and a basic interface won't cost much if any more than a mixer.

The advice to look at second hand is good...but if you must have new, something like THIS would do what you need at better quality than the Behringer mixer which is only £20 less.

 

[Steenamaroo]

The advice here is good.

Going straight into onboard soundcards works, but the quality is nothing compared to a proper audio interface.

If you were using a $5 mic I'd say go ahead, but your condenser will be wasted without a reasonable preamp/interface.

 

[thehitman123]

Wow as a matter of fact Bobbsy the fast track 2 is exactly what I discovered today and was about to ask opinions on! Yeah I'm willing to pay £25 extra because it's a worthy investment rather than going the cheap way. But I hear the a/d converters aren't much different even on a thousand dollar interface? But I guess it's other factors that determine the sound quality such as preamp? So the m audio fast track 2 is definitely worth it and will be better than the behringer xenyx 502?

 

[Bobbsy]

Well, there ARE differences in the A to D quality (and, even more important, the quality of the mic pre amps) between different interfaces---but the biggest differences are also the number and type of inputs available. The M Audio mentioned is a decent pre amp and A to D (with phantom supply).

I'm not in the "never buy Behringer at any cost" camp (if you haven't encountered them yet you soon will!) but the Xenyx mixers are a case of "too good to be true". If you look at what you're getting for the very low money, you can see that they're very much engineered to a price. The mic pre amps tend to be pretty noisy and "brittle" sounding and I've heard of reliability issues too. The fact is that you don't need a mixer so you may as well put the money into the quality of what you do require rather than buying extra knobs to go wrong! FYI, the Xenyx 502 isn't better--it just features more of the same as the 302 if you see what I mean.

 

[thehitman123]

So the m audio fast track 2 has a better preamp etc and will deliver better sound quality? If that's the case then I'm definitely going for it! Btw my current microphone is a Samson co1u so hopefully the upgrade will be worth it

 

[thehitman123]

Update: I grabbed a bargain off ebay which was the tascam us-122L, it was nearly half price compared to the normal price So yeah got my self all set up now and been recording! Except I have realised when I record in Cool Edit Pro it only records in the left channel, anyway of sorting this? At the moment I have to keep right clicking and converting the audio to mono..

 

[Bobbsy]

It's quite a few years since I've used Cool Edit Pro (it became Audition almost ten years ago) but, from memory, in Edit View you right click on the waveform area of the screen and this brings up a menu that lets you select between mono and stereo (and, in mono, decide whether to record the left of right side of the stereo input). In multitrack view there's a similar selection but it's brought up by right clicking on the "control" box just to the left of each track.

If my memory is faulty, just have a search around the various menus--there will be a method to select mono or stereo and route you signal.

 

[thehitman123]

Yeah I managed to fix it thanks anyway now all I need is a shockmount any recommendations?