This has not been a good day, and it's only been morning for about four hours.
I'll leave out the goings-on with my roommate's irritability due to a mishap at her doctor's office resulting in a lapse in receiving her medication. That's been going on a few days and it's mostly tolerable.
This morning I received some equipment I ordered to help with recording my videos, including a Behringer USB mic. I've officially had it installed for about 40 minutes and I'm already thinking about sending it back.
Here's the problem: when I use my webcam to record one of my v-logs or newer reviews, I use Windows Media Encoder as capture software. The main reason for this is that it lets me configure audio and video separately; I can use one device for video, and one for audio (That way, I'm not at the mercy of the webcam's awful built-in mic). Everything seems fine, I set the audio settings to the USB mic, and the video settings to the Ipevo, and set the recording format. Once I hit start, however, I get an error message:
no specified device driver is present 0xC00D0072
This is just impossible as I've installed all necessary drivers and, prior to starting the recording session, the program acknowledged the device's presence and allowed it to be configured. I went to Behringer's site to verify that I did indeed have the most recent driver. I found little to no support articles about the C-1U and ended up having to send an e-mail detailing the issue with WME. I've gotten the obligatory auto-response that it's been received, but a full reply is going to take about one business day. So, that's up in the air.
Then there's the mic itself. It may not work with WME, but it does work with Sound Recorder and Photo Story 3 (though the latter gives me error messages to the contrary despite recordings). I figured that while I'm waiting on a response from Behringer, I'll see how the mic sounds and get a feel for its sensitivity. Ideally, I'd like to have it sitting on my desk next to my webcam so it's not visible in the frame. As a sort of control for the experiment, I just put held it like a Karaoke mic and recorded that way. It sounded brilliant; one of the best microphones I've had. However, when I tried recording again with it on the desk and next to the webcam, it's a whole new story. I should have guessed this might be the case given that putting it on the desk makes a distance of about 2 or 3 feet between me and the mic. That said, it's still really disheartening that I basically have to lean into the mic in order to get the best sound. I'd have to hold it almost directly in front of my mouth while I'm recording, which also means I won't have a free hand if I have to do a review. Me holding a microphone while recording with a webcam would just look horrendous, and it's just not what I got this mic for at all.
So, after days of waiting, and on top of everything else, I finally get my equipment to find that, even if I can get it to interface with my software and recording system, it's completely useless and impractical.
At least I got some of the dishes done before the UPS guy showed up, so the day hasn't started off to a fully-rotten start.
4 comments:
Being a condenser mic, I don't supppose you should need to hold it close to your mouth when speaking. However, in order to be able to work well even at a distance, you require to use it with a pre-amp. Not sure how that works with these USB mics, but I'd imagine your software should help you increase the 'gain' on the mic, which will make your voice audible even when it's a few feet away. Of course, you need to remember that the farther you go from the mic, the higher your gain will have to be to compensate for the distance; and the higher the gain, the louder the noise (background noise, traffic, birds, computer fan, etc). I suppose you'll face the same issue with any other USB mic, too. An ideal solution may be to exchange this for a standard condenser mic (non-USB one), along with a tiny little mic-preamp, or mixer that may help you get your job done. Should all cost you under a 100 bucks, I'd imagine.
Good luck!
USB Condenser mics get their phantom power from the USB port, so a preamp is not needed. That's what I thought would be so great about the Behringer, it was only about 75USD, I wouldn't need a preamp, and most programs have built-in equalizers so I wouldn't need a mixer. I also think maybe Encoder just doesn't like using two USB devices at once; I also got this USB audio interface that accepts line-level RCA plugs, and I got the exact same error message.
I'm probably going to end up using a lavalier mic clipped to my shirt. Those just use standard 1/8" jacks that my sound card accepts (and WME, as well).
I appreciate the feedback.
Fair enough.
I understand that the USB mic will draw its phantom power from the USB port. But not exactly sure how the signal will get amplified enough to come to a recordable level; I suppose that's where the gain of your software would come on.
One last thing I could think of, off the top of my head, that may get you good sound for your video (I'd imagine a working condenser mic will sound way better than a dynamic lavelier mic). You could record your webcam video in whatever software you were planning to originally. But for the audio, you could use a different software (maybe Audacity? - it's the only power-packed free software I can think of at the moment, unless you go with a share-ware version which may deprive you of editing / saving capabilities). Obviously, hit record on the audio first, so it's rolling while you start your video. When done, simply take the wave file from Audacity and dump it into your video editing software. May yield significantly better results than using a dynamic lavelier mic running into your onboard soundcard, according to me.
Happy recording!
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