- Hi, I'm Jordan from Kettner Creative.
In this video, I'm gonna show you two ways
to connect your condenser XLR microphone to your computer.
Now in previous videos,
we've shown you that a simple XLR to USB cable
will not work
and neither will the XLR to 3.5 millimeter XLR cable.
Neither of those solutions will work
for a condenser microphone
because they don't have the required
48 volts of phantom power that is required
to activate this microphone.
So in this video, we're gonna show you two different ways
to activate this microphone and plug it into your computer.
The first way is to use an audio mixer
that has a USB audio output in the back of it.
So I'm gonna connect this to my computer.
Now, this is a normal audio mixer.
It's the Yamaha MG10XU.
The XU means that it has a built-in audio interface.
So that's how we connected it to our laptop here.
So I'm gonna open up my sound settings.
I'm gonna open up my System Preferences, click Sound,
select the MG-XU.
Next, I'm going to connect my microphone to the mixer.
So I'm gonna plug an XLR cable
into the bottom of the microphone.
Then I'm going to connect the microphone to the mixer.
Now, it's important that you only connect and disconnect
a condenser microphone once phantom power is off.
It's a one-in-a-million shot
that you might damage your microphone,
but it's a one-in-a-million shot that I never wanna take.
So now that it's connected,
I can turn phantom power on this audio mixer,
and that will activate this microphone.
Now, it's simply a matter of turning up the volume
on the bottom.
We add a little bit of gain at the top of the channel,
and now you can see not only do we have level on the mixer,
but we also have input level on the computer itself
so we can increase this just a little bit more,
get it to a volume that we're looking for.
And you can see here
that this is a completely viable solution
for connecting your condenser microphone to your computer.
Now, I'm gonna show you the second option.
The next solution that we're gonna show you
is a USB audio interface.
So just like the last mixer that I just showed you,
this unit has two XLR inputs, the last one had four,
but on the back,
you can connect it to your computer through USB.
So I'm gonna plug that in now,
then in my sound settings here, I'm gonna make sure
that the audio box 22 VSL is selected.
So now I'm gonna connect my XLR cable to this microphone.
Then I'm gonna double check
that phantom power is turned off on the USB audio interface,
then I'm gonna connect this XLR cable to the interface.
Next, I'm gonna turn on the phantom power,
and then I'm gonna increase the volume on this microphone.
And we can see here now that we have a good input level.
So this is another completely viable solution
for connecting your condenser XLR microphone
through USB interface into your computer.
I'm gonna turn off phantom power.
Then I'm gonna disconnect this microphone.
Okay, so I've shown you two different options.
We have the full-on audio mixer
that has a built-in audio interface,
and we have the USB audio interface as a standalone unit.
So what do I recommend for you
to connect your condenser microphone to your computer?
And I'll say that completely depends on what you're doing.
Now, if you're just getting started with audio,
you do some live streaming, you do some video conferencing,
and you might do a live event or two
out in the real world with speakers,
then I would say a mixer like this
would be a better solution for you.
You can use this for a bit of everything.
It's like Jack of all trades master of none.
But if you're in a situation
where you're doing video conferencing
and you don't wanna use software,
you can do quick EQ changes.
You can add a little bit of compression.
You can change your gain, all that on the fly super quick.
It's all at your fingertips.
And this board even has a built-in effects engine.
So if you wanna do pitch change
or add some reverb to your voice,
if you're doing a lot of music recording
or something like that
and you don't wanna use a software-based solution,
then this will be perfect for you.
Now, if you are mostly doing software-based editing
on your audio inputs,
then I'd say USB audio interface
is a better solution for you.
With the USB audio interface like this,
it's much smaller footprint on your desk.
You can get higher quality preamps for the price.
And since you're doing all your changes in software anyway,
this works better for that purpose.
It's not as flexible
in terms of being able to do a live event
or make quick EQ changes without opening software,
but this is a proper studio input solution
for a condenser microphone for a laptop.
So to sum it all up,
I'd say if you're just getting your feet wet,
a mixer might be a better fit for you because at this point,
you don't know if you're gonna be doing some live events,
some live streaming or things like that.
But if you know that you're just gonna be in the studio
recording all the time
and you might do a live stream here and there,
then a USB audio interface is probably better for you.
You're probably gonna get better bang for your buck.
If you wanna see pricing on either of these options,
I'm gonna put some links below.
I'm gonna show three great options for a USB mixer
and three great options for a USB audio interface
in the description below
so you can check out pricing and specs
and that type of thing.
Now, if you have any comments or questions
on anything that you've seen in this video,
if you agree or disagree,
please leave a comment in the comment section below.
And if you wanna see more videos like this in the future,
please like and subscribe.
Thank you so much for watching.