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Today's Bonus:
The Voice Actor's Guide to Home Recording
This amazingly tiny device solves the dilemma when traveling of having a professional-level audio interface that doesn't weigh a lot or take a lot of space. The quality blew me away. Now every professional microphone can instantly become a USB microphone best of all you can monitor your work through the built-in headphone jack.
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This preamp really is nice; its compact, setup is a no brainer, and sound quality is top notch, even with the gain turned all the way up, its whisper quite, very nice.I am a professional voice-over talent and bought the MicPort Pro so I could record on the road through a USB cable plugged into a laptop. I did an A/B comparison of the MicPort Pro with my studio preamp, a FocusRite Saffire LE with a firewire output. Both were connected to the same Blue Bird mic. Blue Microphones Bluebird Cardioid Condenser MicrophoneNo, it isn't as good as the FocusRite pre, but it's REALLY close. I have a deep, warm voice, and the MicPort Pro is just a tad thinner/less warm on the bottom end. But otherwise, the sound is clean and clear and does not sound amateurish or cheap at all . The slight difference is most noticeable on high resolution monitors, but less so on computer speakers or a set of MDR-7506 headphones. I did not have the problems with the XLR connector that others have mentioned here, and have absolutely no qualms about taking it on the road and using it to submit auditions and finished projects to clients, or using it as a backup if something went wrong with my FocusRite.
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I'm a full-time pro voice talent, have been running my own studio since 2003. I'm not a trained engineer, but over the years I have learned how to get broadcast-quality audio from my studio. Since I freelance, of course I do not get any paid vacations. But now that I have a MicPortPro, now I kinda do!Let me explain. This little gadget is so small, that along with my 10 inch screen netbook and an AT2050, the whole lightweight rig takes up very little space. So taking it along with me when I travel is easy-peasy. Oh, also, it sounds wonderful. So now, IF I want to, I can record voice tracks when I'm away. For example, when I was away for a week this winter, I got a script in from a regular client. I arranged some heavy blankets in a walk-in closet in our condo bedroom, set up my netbook, MPP and mic, and recorded my script in under 15 minutes. I uploaded the file, and my client was very happy I could turn this around even though I was on vacation. While this means I'm never really on vacation (unless I want to be), it sure was nice to work for 15 minutes and make enough to pay for a *really* nice night out with my wife. (She forgave me for working!).
Then just last night, again I was out of town on a family vacation. An audition came in for a regular client of mine my hit ratio with her is very good, so it seemed like low-hanging fruit so to speak. I set up my little portable studio, recorded the audition in a few minutes, and submitted it to my agent. Boom I got the gig! Without the MicPortPro, it would have gone to someone else.
The little beauty also saved my bacon when my home studio computer flaked out on me. I connected the MicPortPro to my other computer, one I normally keep for personal use only, and I was in business again in just a few minutes. I was able to record that national cable TV voice-over for my regular client on schedule, thanks to the MicPortPro. Every serious studio needs to have a backup plan. Mine does, and it works, and it's cheap, and it's easy to use, and it sounds GREAT!
Yeah, I'm a fanboy.....
UPDATE 4.22.13:
After owning both the MicPortPro and the Shure X2u for over a year, I now have some clearer opinions on the merits and disadvantages of both units.
I recorded a sample script with both interfaces, and found that I had a slight but significant preference for the sound from the MicPortPro. It's a slightly richer and clearer sound than what I get from the X2u. The MPP is also slightly smaller than the X2u, which makes it easier to carry when traveling (I have a backpack to keep my audio gear in that is already stuffed to the gills, so smaller is better). The downside of the MPP may be quality control. The level and headphone output dials are both make loud scratchy sounds in my headphones when moved (though, crucially, that noise does NOT appear in the recorded sound file!!). It's annoying for sure, but I can live with it. But it does make me somewhat concerned about the durability of this unit.
The Shure X2u sounds very good, though not nearly as good to my ear as the MPP. It is bigger and heavier. It feels more solid and durable than the MPP, and I've had no issues with scratchy pots or anything else. However, I really dislike the controls for mic level and headphone output. They are scroll wheels without any markings at all. For me this is a potential problem. I have a few clients that demand consistent sound, and I can't be sure exactly how hot my input is without any numbers on the dials I just have to do it "by ear." I can't just set it and forget it, but thishonestly is more an annoyance than a deal-breaker.
The good news is that you should be happy with either interface (assuming the MicPortPro doesn't suffer from QC issues). If you are willing to take a risk on the QC and I can't say what the risk level really is I do prefer the superior sound quality and portability of the MicPortPro. Those advantages are worth the $50 premium over the Shure X2u.
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Hi all--I'd spent some time surfing around for a highly portable two channel USB microphone adapter to hook up to my laptop and record my band's rehearsals. I quickly arrived at a preference to get one of the marker pen-shaped interfaces that you can plug your mic into eliminating the need for a mic cable. Out of the obvious suspects on the market the specifications seemed to indicate the MPP offers audio quality superior to the other units so I decided to give it a shot plus I wanted to record stereo so I purchased 2 units.
My initial portability demands had been met I can fit two NT55s incl. stand adapters and the extra capsules, two USB cables (supplied with MPP), and the two MPPs in one standard size mic pouch and put the whole thing into my gig bag's front pocket (I'm a guitar player) I'm pretty sure this would have been impossible in the 2008 world and it feels fantastic!
The units look fairly sturdy. I guess the XLR could be better quality. The circuit board is lodged in the metal body very tight to avoid any parts rumbling inside (read on to see why I had to open the unit up). Knobs are made of rubber, have a soft feel to them and again fit very nicely. The phantom power switch is a low action micro switch that is kind of difficult to get to, which I class as a good thing as long as you don't deactivate it while trying to insert headphones in the 3.5mm stereo jack that's just next to it.
Sound quality indeed turned out to be this product's strength. Noise level of both recording and playback is very low, I had no problem with any kind of distortion, hum, hiss... Obviously it's always a question of what is it that you're comparing it to. As far as the built-in sound adapter in most/all laptops I can't even begin to describe the difference. I'm sure there are better laptops in that respect than my Compaq but seriously it would be comparing two different worlds.
Reliability on the first session I noticed that the first unit I tried kept losing signal from the mic while recording. This was magnified when I was moving the mic around and indicated a connection issue between the mic and the MPP. Initially I thought it would be loose XLR contacts on the MPP. Now, live too far and I'm too impatient to send the unit back so being fairly skilled and being an electrical guy I went through the hassle of taking the XLR apart to respring the contacts to later find out the exercise didn't fix the problem. You can imagine the internal PCB is a pretty busy one so I still hoped the lost/unstable connection would be between the small board that the XLR is soldered to and the unit's main board and it was I quickly found the main board kept losing connection to pin 3 of the XLR. As the internal electronics uses multi layer circuit boards I was unable to track where the path goes and where it's broken so I just ran a piece of fine wire from the XLR to the main board on which it was obvious enough where it needs to go. No problem from there. The other unit was OK.
Next thing was to try both MPPs at the same time to record a stereo track. The Centrance website does make sure their users understand they need to plug both units into the same USB hub to achieve a sample-accurate stereo track so that's what I did (my laptop has two USB ports on either side and I plugged both in one side). In Cool Edit I assigned the inputs to the tracks and pressed rec. After a second or two of the cursor still stuck in one spot a Win error message pops up saying I'm exceeding the USB's bandwidth. This was in a 44.1kHz and 16bit recording session. Out of curiosity, I replugged one unit to one of the USB ports on other side of my laptop reassigned inputs and tried again. This time the recording started successfully and carried on with no apparent problem. After it was done I listened to the tracks and confirmed what Centrance warned about. The two tracks were off from beat one and their offset was getting worse as the track progressed to reach over one second over two and a half minutes. I later even tried to adjust sample rate of one of the tracks to compensate and realized the two clocks were not only different but were very unstable during the course of the track too. So again, Centrance is right, no way to go!
I'm currently trying different setups to make the units work in stereo, if I don't I'll be stuck with two MicPortPros both of them for sale as one is obviously not going to give me stereo. I paid $300 for the two units and was ready to take off three stars in this review but I just noticed here that the price has recently dropped to something a lot more reasonable so I'm only taking two stars off.
All in all, mono operation is flawless as long as your MPP isn't faulty and sound quality is stunning for what it is. Much worth considering especially now at the new price.
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