Hi, it's HandyAndy Tech Tips here. So you've clicked on this video wanting to see a microphone
review. But first, I just wanted to ask: who would want to buy a dedicated microphone these
days? I mean, virtually every one of the electronic devices that you own, be it smartphone, laptop
or tablet, has a microphone built in. But in my opinion, comparing a dedicated mic to
an integrated one is like comparing a DSLR to a phone camera. The phone camera will work,
but the DSLR will just produce far more professional results. In a similar way, a good microphone,
like the Samson C01U Pro, will just add that much more professionalism to everything you
do with audio, whether that be recording vocals or even close-miking a musical instrument.
In fact, the C01U Pro is perfect for both of those uses. It has a condenser element
with a super-cardioid pattern on it. That basically means that the frequency response
is most linear at the front of the microphone, so it'll pick up your instrument or your vocals
without too much distracting background hiss or ambient room noise. So this is a USB microphone,
it has an analog to digital converter included in it, and what really amazed me was just
how easy it was to set up. You simply plug the included USB Type B cable into the bottom
of the mic, and the other end into the computer that you're using it with. And you can instantly
start recording! There's actually no drivers required, which is a massive bonus, and of
course it works with both Windows and Mac OS X. And while you're recording, you'll have
access to some pretty cool features. One of them is the headphone port, which gives you
zero-latency monitoring. Essentially, it means that you can listen to what the microphone
is picking up in real time, but since there's no volume control on this headphone output,
it could get pretty loud. And talking about loud, the last thing that you want is clipping.
It can sound really ugly, especially when it's applied to vocals. And if you're not
quite sure what clipping is, it's essentially a square wave effect that is resulted from
recording too loud in digital audio. Thankfully, this will never happen if you have the C01U
Pro, because there's this little LED on the front. It's normally green, but when it turns
red you know that you've got your recording level set too high. Now as I mentioned earlier,
there's no drivers included with the C01U Pro. But what is included? What do you get
with this microphone? Well, firstly, you get a really nice box, and I'm actually not joking
when I say that. The box is really useful, because it allows you to store the microphone
and the tripod in a very nice padded foam enclosure. But not that you'll be needing
too much padding, because the microphone is really durable. It's made of a solid die-cast
metal body; I'm not quite sure exactly what metal, but I'm going to speculate aluminium.
Anyway, something really tough. What's not quite so good though is the tripod stand;
it's basic and works well enough but I've got two complaints about it. Firstly, it has
no shock mount, so it might pick up some vibrations. Say, for example, if you had the microphone
on the same desk as your laptop, which has a fan in it, then the vibrations from that
might transfer into the microphone and give you some undesirable hiss. Also, the stand
actually seems a little bit prone to tipping over. The first day that I got this microphone,
it actually tipped over three times, and the third time was onto my laptop screen, so yeah,
I wasn't too impressed by that. So apart from these two main components, you've got two
other things in the box. The first thing is an adapter to convert the 5/8-inch thread
on the swivel mount to a 3/8-inch thread, which is actually the standard in Europe I
believe. Also, you've just got a basic, short USB Type B cable. So, all these accessories
and specifications are all well and good, but how does it actually sound? Well, you're
listening to it right now. So this is basically the audio directly from the microphone. All
I've essentially done to the signal is applied some compression and limiting so that the
audio for my video is at a competitive loudness. If I run a frequency analysis on the recorded
audio, you can see that there's signal right up to 22.05kHz, which makes sense, since the
C01U Pro has a 16-bit ADC that samples at 44.1kHz - in other words, it's CD quality.
Now of course, the manual does claim that there's only a flat frequency response from
20Hz - 18kHz with this microphone, but honestly, the difference between that and 22kHz is really
academic. You really couldn't notice those high frequencies, especially when you're recording
vocals. And now, be prepared for a huge downgrade in quality, because I'm going from the C01U
Pro to the microphone in my Dell Inspiron laptop. Now, to be honest with you, in comparison
to the C01U Pro, this sounds like I'm being recorded underwater. There's not much bass
and not much treble, it sounds mostly midrange to me. And it just proves that, in spite of
this being a stereo microphone setup with two pickups, it can't hold a candle to the
mono-based Samson C01U Pro.Wow, I'm glad that that's over, and to me, it just really proves
how much of a difference good audio can make. Especially if you're doing video production;
you could have the highest quality video in the world, but if your audio's bad then it
will let down the entire production. But the C01U Pro will not let you down; it's a fantastic
device with awesome audio quality, and honestly, if you're looking for a professional microphone,
then I'd say this one is the one to buy. Hey, I'm HandyAndy and thanks so much for watching
my video. Please subscribe if you want more tech videos, because I've got heaps more awesome
ones coming right up.