C01U Microphone Distortion Gremlin Solved
At the risk of invoking the wrath of the gremlins i've been working so hard to overcome these past two weeks, i think i've finally solved the Samson C01U USB condenser microphone distortion issue once and for all. At issue had been the fact that random distortions would affect the recordings made by the C01U microphone, causing the audio to sound like garbled "robots" (i call it the "Cylon" syndrome - boy, i loved "Battlestar Galactica" as a kid!) It turns out that the free Microphone Preamp Software applet (or, "SoftPre" applet) offered by Samson as a driver for the microphone has been the culprit all along. This was meant to operate as a virtual volume control/mixer for the C01U, but it seems to pose some serious memory buffer problems in its operation. Do NOT download this applet!! (currently version 1.0.19 as of this writing) Instead, simply plug in the microphone and let Windows XP take care of operating the microphone directly. Be sure to have Service Pack 2 installed as the latest update to the operating system. While you won't have the nice graphic volume meter to play around with from Samson, you can still operate the input line levels within the Windows Sound control applet. Full instructions for using the C01U without installing the SoftPre applet can be found here.If you've been struggling with the C01U as i have been on a Tablet PC computer, be sure to immediately uninstall the SoftPre applet. You may have to go into the System Hardware Properties to manually uninstall the USB driver for the Samson C01U as well - if i receive any requests for help on this, i'll post another article detailing how to do this.
So far, 3 out of 3 recordings since Saturday have come up clean (including yesterday's sermon from Church - at last, a working digital copy!!), so here's hoping that this solution finally sticks.
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tags: C01U, samson, audio, recording, digital_audio, digital_recording, audacity, saw, sawstudio, sawplus32, usb
Regarding the memory buffer issue, i had actually figured out a possible setting to use with an older audio recording software called SawPlus 32, made by Innovative Quality Software (Pre Queue Buffer needs to equal 3 - this is for my own notes). SawPlus 32 has been discontinued, and IQS has now become SawStudio.com, but it looks like the developers have replaced it with SawStudio Basic, which runs about $300. Saw Studio Basic seems to only offer 16 bit recording capabilities, the same as my old SawPlus 32 (but with considerably beefed up features and editing capabilities, as i've just noticed on their demo video), while their premium products (SawStudio Lite and SawStudio run $1200 and $2500 respectively and offer much higher recording resolutions, as well as video syncing capabilities and other powerful features. SawPlus32 was my favorite digital audio editor for years - this program was blazingly fast, even on my older computers, due to its pure programming in Assembly language. While this program still holds a special spot in my heart, i really wanted to try to stick with Audacity for now, since this would most likely be the first digital audio editor for most musicians new to digital recording/editing, due to its Open Source availability (=FREE) and widespread usage, especially for podcasters. If i ever decide to try some serious audio editing for professional recording, i would seriously consider picking up one of the updated Saw Studio products...
tags: C01U, samson, audio, recording, digital_audio, digital_recording, audacity, saw, sawstudio, sawplus32, usb
Can you help ? thank you.
Im using Windows XP.