Samson C01U

This USB condenser microphone, which I ordered about three months ago, finally arrived. I thought it would be fun to use with my iBook to make quick and easy recordings.

I first tried it hooked up to a machine running Windows XP. As soon as I plugged it in the system recognized the device (even knowing it's name and model number!) and when I went to the Sound Recording application it worked just fine. Couldn't really tell how good it was as there was a lot of noise in the office environment.

I had a lot more trouble getting it to work with the iBook.

There's a driver you can download from Samson's website and it said to simply install and away you go. Except that it didn't; the install went okay, but when I selected the mic nothing happened other than the small green light going on. I was worried that I might have damaged the mic by putting the cable in wrong (you really have to watch those USB cables!) but I tried it on another Windows box and it still worked fine. Back to the Mac.

It turns out there's a small application installed in the Applications folder (nothing that I saw in the installer talked about that!) Tried that; still nothing! Restarted; nothing. Unplugged, and replugged. Just about to give up when; suddenly it was working.

Only problem; I have no idea why it started working!

Anyway, it's working, and I tried it with Deck, and it seems to be working well. A bit of noise but I need to do some experiments to see how it compares with other mics.