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Samson CO1U USB Condenser Microphone | 
 enlarge | Brand: SAMSON AUDIO
Category: Musical Instruments
Buy New: £54.00
Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 22
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 0 x 0 x 0
Legal Disclaimer: Please check manufacturer's website for product compatibility
MPN: C01U
Model: CO1U RS
UPC: 809164005810
EAN: 0874171001247
ASIN: B000AP1RE8
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Industry's first USB Studio Condenser mic | | • | Plugs in directly to any computer with a USB input | | • | Cardioid Pickup Pattern | | • | Large 19mm Diaphragm | | • | Heavy Gauge Mesh Grill |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
For the first time ever, musicians who record music on computers have a simple, affordable way to capture high-quality vocal and acoustic instrument performances. Seamless integration was the idea, and it was obtained by creating a studio condenser microphone that can be plugged into any computer with no in/out boxes, no expensive computer pre-amps, just a USB cable. It features a 19mm internal shock mounted diaphragm with a cardioid pick up pattern ensuring pristine studio quality recordings. The C01U works perfectly on any computer, Mac or PC, and with any DAW software program. It immediately solves a huge problem for users of many laptops, many of which have no other input method for audio devices. It's a must for any musician on the road or in the project studio, but the C01U is going to offer solutions to more than just musicians. The mic opens up possibilities for anyone who records audio?from Podcasters, journalists, students, and business people adding audio files to websites and multimedia presentations. Smooth, Flat Frequency Response USB connection cable included Perfect microphone for Podcasters as well as Musicians 16-bit sample resolution Supports 8 kHz, 11.025 kHz, 22.05 kHz, 44.1 kHz, and 48 kHz sampling rates USB low-power device - draws 26 mA => 130 mW. In suspend mode 0.3 mA => 1.5 mW. Frequency response - 40 Hz to 18 kHz
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Easy, Excellent, Value for money :) November 5, 2008
Nadia (UK)
I'm new to the world of microphones and recording but I've recently found a new hobby of karaoke online & song recording. I bought this mic several months ago & I absolutely love it! The clarity is amazing! It can pick up low to high notes without any trouble. I also use it to chat online with my mum & she says the bass on this is great, even better than chatting by phone. She feels 50 is definitely worth it & is asking me to get one for her ;)
My friends have told me that it makes my voice sound a bit lower after recording compared to what they are hearing "live" when they're standing beside me, but I have no idea if that's to do with the mic or just my voice.
It's really easy to use too- just plug & play! I downloaded that SoftPre software but have never used it. Other reviews mentioned it's very sensitive to sound- I have not had any real trouble with unwanted sounds like the PC fan although it may pick up the sound of a car passing outside if my room is very quiet & I'm listening to the playback via headphones.
I have not tried the Cakewalk software because I can't seem to get it to work yet but I use a free software which I downloaded & it works fine :) Unless I find another mic which is found to provide better quality vocal recordings & isn't extremely expensive, I'd stick to this one :)
 A Tale of Two Halves October 9, 2008
Frustrated Phil (England)
Works great with a MacBook I have - simple plug and play and great quality recording using Garageband. Really good and lives up to the great reviews that encouraged me to purchase this in the first place.
However trying to get it to work with Windows has just been hopeless. Suffers from a very low input level (you can find lots of complaints about this on various forums or people appealing for help with it) and the input levels are so low as to be unusable. You can download some additional software from Samson but some people report this makes the problem worse. Still nearly impossible to get a decent recording level and installing the Samson download seems to disable access to some of the audio settings in Windows.
This microphone has been around for a couple of years now and Samson really should have sorted out this problem for Windows XP. Maybe their attention has moved on to new products. This is a great shame because this mike really should do the business (and for some people it obviously does). As for myself, well it works great in a MacBook, but I've wasted hours trying to get it to work on a couple of Windows machines.
So I have to give it 5 Stars for when it works but please be warned that you may have real problems getting what should be a great product to work at all. Yes I am frustrated but when the built-in mic from a cheap web cam gives me better results than what should be a great mic it really is frustrating. Spending hours scouring the web for solutions (so far unsuccessfully) hasn't endeared me to it either -so 1 Star for that.
And since I can't give it 2.5 Stars I'm giving it 2 as I've just wasted another couple of hours trying to get it working as I really need to get some decent sound (voice) recordings on a Windows XP PC for some training videos. Should be fab but fatally flawed?
Exceptional! October 1, 2008
W. Kemp (Essex, England)
This is an exceptionally good product. When i ordered it i wasn't entirely sure what to expect, as i'd never heard of Samson before (despite a lot of broadcast radio technical experience). And i wasn't sure how good a USB mic would be.
However, this mic certainly exceeds my expectations. The sound quality is very good and it worked immediately on my Linux system. It's very well made and nice and heavy and solid feeling. It feels like a professional piece of equipment. I was very impressed. The included desk stand is a useless piece of junk though!
I had a bit of difficulty working out how to orient the mic to eliminate "P-pops", as the usual technique of speaking over the top of it didn't work. But i eventually worked out that holding it by the side of my mouth and speaking past it in that way works fine and i don't have any problems with popping 'p's.
One rather strange thing about this mic is that it's been built with a stereo preamp internally, but the signal is first fed to the right channel and then the right channel output is fed into the left channel input - this gives more amplification. I use it for spoken word and the signal from the right channel is rather low, but the signal from the left channel is fine. I'd imagine that for high sound levels - e.g., mic'ing up a drum kit, the right channel output would be best.
This probably won't be of interest to windows users, as i believe the software provided with the mic makes it transparent. But for Linux users it's important to understand it, as Samson doesn't provide Linux software.
For Linux users, this means that for best results the levels for the two channels should be adjusted independently - and treated as a two-stage preamp. It also means only one channel can be used (the left and right channels are 180 out of phase because the left channel has been amplified twice) - don't forget it's a mono mic.
For recording, that means one of the channels must be eliminated. How you do this will vary depending on what editor you use - for example, Mhwaveedit allows you to map the left channel to both left and right, which gives you a sort of stereo-mono sound. With Audacity, you can split the stereo tracks and then delete the right channel (or left channel, for high level signals, i guess).
This isn't a particularly cheap mic - nor a particularly expensive one - but it's a better mic than i would have expected for the price.
A great microphone - just a few installation niggles. August 22, 2008
Mr. J. Horniblow (Reading, Berkshire)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Technically, this mic is really good for the price, and the onboard A/D and usb connection completely removes the hum often associated with inbuilt PC cards.
I'm still going to give it 5 stars, but beware that if you choose to use the SoftPre drivers in Windows XP (which does help improve the sound and gives you extra tweaks) then you might want to check on this FAQ page:
http://www.samsontech.com/usb_mics/driver_update/
The drivers don't always install properly, you may find yourself having to reboot and re-install them manually if you plug the mic into another USB port, and then having to restart Audacity.
Tip: Set the audio buffer in Audacity to 100ms to avoid "blips" when your PC does something else, and set the latency correction to -110ms if recording multiple tracks over one another - there's a slight latency with the mic, so you can't listen on headphones as you record. Or you can, but you'll give yourself a quick headache!
Altogether a really good mic - but worth spending 5 or making your own "pop" filter from a pair of tights or something, and also looking at websites on microphone technique if you're new to recording.
Do that, and your recordings will sound even better!
Very Good Buy July 14, 2008
D. Reilly (Glasgow, Scotland)
Bought this item today, came home and plugged it straight in. No problems at all apart from when i tried it out with skype it as a little muffled. I sorted it out though. It was just the settings. After I changed all the configurations to work with the mic it was great!
No background noise, Very clear quality and even comes with its own sturdy stand so you can make it a fixture of your desk.
The usb feature is great as it allows me to also plug in a set of noise cancelling headphones to monitor the sound.
Overall a geat buy and good value for money
4.5/5
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