Recording - December 2009 - 18

The U7 is a surprising entrant of a sort not commonly seen in the USB realm; it’s an omni condenser mic designed to sit on a tabletop and record conferences, but I found it had musical applications beyond its conventional intent. The capsule has a nicely open and clear sound, and if you want a quick way to capture musical ideas with friends sitting around singing and playing, you could do a lot worse than the U7. The U37 is the mic that is obviously aimed at music recording; it’s a medium-diaphragm side-address condenser with switchable bass rolloff and 10 dB pad, which comes with a detachable USB cable and folding table stand. It really came into its own when I took it off the provided desktop stand (which will get you started but isn’t great for most types of placement) and put it on a proper boom stand with a Stedman pop filter in front of it; I found it to have a clear and bright tone, with a fair bit of the high-end ping that’s common in condenser mics of this type, that went well with male vocals and acoustic guitar. For solo music recording endeavours or high-quality podcast vocals, this is the mic you’ll want to audition. All four mics are plug-and-play for Mac OS X and Windows, being simple USB input devices (and output in the case of the U2). All installed and worked flawlessly. I particularly recommend giving the U37 a listen if you’re getting started recording music at home, or perhaps the U7 if you like the idea of capturing quick but good-sounding demos of small groups that can play together around the mic.—MM In tests with a couple of large-diaphragm condenser mics and Shure’s own beloved SM57 dynamic, I found the X2u to provide the same listening experience as one would expect from a midlevel audio mixer with good-quality transparent mic preamps—nothing exciting or colored, but very clean, transparent and honest, relaying the mic’s inherent tone to the computer with minimal fuss. The SM57, with its very familiar tonal bumps, was a very good match for the X2u—which may explain why that mic is offered by Shure in a bundle with the USB adapter. Another nice surprise was the headphone amplifier, which offered a clear and pleasant tone with plenty of gain, the Monitor knob allowing me to quickly dial in a good blend of computer audio and whatever I was recording on the mic. If buying a whole new mic with uncertain audio specs isn’t your cup of tea, and all you want is a convenient way to turn a mic you know and love into a USB recording device and you look forward to the reassurance that a name like Shure carries with it you’ll find the X2u well worth trying out. It’s simple, nicely featured, built to last, and sounds great.—MM Cakewalk UM-3G and UA-1G UM-3G, $89; UA-1G, $99; www.cakewalk.com For the beginning computer musician, Cakewalk now offers a series of very affordable and compact audio and MIDI interfaces. The UM-1G and UM-2G offer one and two pairs of MIDI Ins/Outs, respectively, and the UM-3G offers three of each plus some useful expansion options. The UA-1G is a 2-in/2-out audio interface with up to 24/96 capability. I got to play with the UM-3G and UA-1G. The UM-3G has a nondetachable 1.2m USB cable connected to a box with three MIDI Ins and three MIDI Out/Thrus (with a separate Thru switch for each port); it comes with a driver CD-ROM for Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.3.9+. [At the time of finalizing this article in October, Cakewalk let us know that “Snow Leopard and Windows 7 Drivers are available on our site. We realize we don’t have Win 7 drivers for these products yet, however by the time this goes to press we will, and this goes for all our cable interface products.”—Ed.] Driver installation is straightforward on Vista and XP; on the Mac, there’s an extra step of breaking out the UM-3G into three separate MIDI I/O virtual devices within the Audio/MIDI Setup application. It’s explained very clearly in the manual and is easy to do. Operation on my Windows and Mac machines was flawless right out of the box. [Cakewalk also reminded us of the low-latency benefits of the Advanced Driver mode for the MIDI interfaces—Ed.] There are also two USB ports and two switches labeled Master/Slave and Unit 1/2/3. The idea there is that you hook one UM-3G directly to your PC or Mac, set it to Master and Unit 1, and it works as a main MIDI interface; if you ever want to add more ports, just buy another UM-3G and plug it into the first one, and set the second one to Slave/Unit 2. Adding a third as Slave/Unit 3 takes you up to nine MIDI Ins and Outs. The UA-1G is a compact plastic chassis with a nondetachable 1.2m USB cable, RCA jacks for L/R In Shure X2u $154; www.shure.com Shure isn’t the first company to offer an inline adapter that lets you use any microphone with a USB-equipped computer, but they’ve added some nice touches that will please many users, and put together a package that’s reassuringly solid and likely to last for many years. The idea of the X2u is to allow any microphone to be pressed into service as a USB mic with minimal impact on its sonic performance—ideally you’d want any mic you plugged into the X2u to sound the same running into your computer as it would going to a good-quality mixer. It’s class-compliant and works on Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X with no need to install special drivers. The X2u is a small inline device in a rugged metal casing with a locking female XLR jack at one end, a standard USB connector at the other, and a 1/8" TRS headphone connector halfway up. It offers recessed thumbwheel controls for input gain, headphone volume, and blend of the input signal into the headphone output for zero-latency monitoring. A tiny button activates 48V phantom power, and indicator lights show phantom power and USB connectivity. The case itself has two small slots machined into the back for a pair of Velcro straps to secure the X2u to a mic stand (yes!), and comes with said straps, a long heavy-duty USB cable, and a zippered carrying pouch.RECORDING DECEMBER 2009
http://www.cakewalk.com http://www.shure.com
Recording - December 2009

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