OK Go - Samson’s mini USB microphone

Posted by Gavin Brockis on Friday 25 June 2010 at 2:34pm
Tags: microphones | sound recordings |

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Over the past few weeks I have been steadily growing to love my new little microphone - the Samson Go Mic. Working on a range of platforms and devices, I need a self-contained USB microphone  for podcast and screencast recording which is portable and self-contained, will give consistent quality whichever computer I plug it into, is easy to install (ideally Plug&Play) and which has a good feature set. The Go Mic ticks all of these boxes, and at around £30 is good value for what it offers - most USB condenser microphones cost considerably more. So, what can it do?

The Go Mic is a very small device, little bigger than a box of matches. In this small package, however, it incorporates a flexible set of features. While clearly being built to a budget, it feels and looks solid and well built; the built-in clip is ingenious, and all controls and sockets are sensibly positioned. The 10mm dual diaphragm condenser capsule allows switching between directional recording, with a cardioid pattern facing away from the silver front face, or omnidirectional pickup, which picks up sources evenly all around the microphone. For louder sources you can attenuate the directional pattern by 10 decibels. These three options should be sufficient for most situations. Recording quality is excellent, with a wide frequency range and very little colouration, and it gives a crisp vocal sound.

Plugging it into a Windows computer (XP or 7) it is recognised immediately and available for recording within seconds. Similarly the Macintosh knows exactly what it is. This is very welcome. I can use the 3.5mm headphone jack on the side of the microphone to listen to system audio, and playback quality is very good. I can also route the microphone signal to the headphone output for real-time monitoring, and latency is very low, with no noticeable delay. The microphone draws all power necessary from the USB port. Its only real limitation is that while the Go Mic doesn't need a soundcard to plug into - like all USB microphones - it has no option for outputting a 'standard' microphone signal, so you are stuck with its own onboard digital conversion, and you won't be able to use it with portable recorders, cameras etc. but only in conjunction with a computer.

I've used the Go Mic for a couple of projects now, recording voice-overs in a variety of environments, and its sound is clear and well defined with a pleasing warmth which makes for easy listening and clarity. You can hear an example of a bit of informal voice-over recording in the final screencast of our Screencast Workflow advice document.

Video blog about the Samson GoMic.
If you cannot see the video above, please use this link to download the video file (20MB).

For more information about types of microphone, and an explanation of some of the terminology surrounding them, have a look at our Microphone Guide.

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