ProTools 11/Mac - using a usb mic for quick scratch pad recording

darcym

I have a pretty nice protools / mac setup at home for recording demos and ideas and even some pretty good quality acoustic or live tracks.

What I'm thinking of doing is grabbing an "ok" quality USB mic that can just sit on a table + mac + small external disk and just use it with an acoustic guitar for scratch pad / idea recording thats a bit more portable.

eg: I currently use a macbook pro with a rack setup including some pre-amps, digidesign and forcusite audio interfaces, disk array for recording, basically enough to allow 24 tracks to be recorded live, it works great but it's not pickup and go, or boot up and record.

This never used to be possible but I believe with protools 11 you can get supported USB mics and just use them direct into the mac with protools 11, there are warnings that the quality won't be amazing, but for my needs thats fine, I'd just like to grab my mac+usb mic+ thunderbird disk and when I go on little breaks to little houses in cornwall take it with me, without taking the big setup.

Any one doing this ?

Any idea of the mic's that will be fully supported for this in pro-tools 11 ?

opinions/advice etc.

ecc83

Don't understand why you would hamper yourself so much with a USB mic for the sake of not using a modest interface?

Fornot much more than the price of a decent USB mic you could get the Steinberg UR22 and take one of your own mics!

But if you are dead set on a USB mic at least get the 24bit AKG.

Dave.

darcym

it's more about plug and play for some idea stuff.

for Idea stuff I normally just take my zoom portable recorder, and it's fine, infact it's good, but the concept of throwing the laptop in the bag with a mic, to actually play around with ideas more, or for example have different tracks trying out different melody lines is quite appeaeling, you don't get that with the tools such as the zoom, I'm already packing a guitar/mic/laptop, I'm considering packing a thunderbolt disk as it's better to record to a separate i/o  channel, but for the quality of recording I'm wanting to do, I'll possibly not bother, getting another audio interface, while a good option and one I'm happy to consider seemed like just another bit of kit I had to get and it was starting to grow into a smaller version of my real setup.

guitarfishbay

Depends on what workflow you want.  You can always transfer files from the Zoom to the computer, but that means you're not using the click from the DAW if that is what you need.

It also depends on how small you need things to be.

Consider USB Mic + Stand + USB Cable vs Regular Mic + Stand + Mic Cable + Interface + USB cable.

I honestly don't think you're saving much time or money going for the USB mic, when presumably you already own a regular mic you could use.

If you wanted something small interface wise have you considered an iRig pro?  I've not used one but apparently you can use them with a Mac computer.  http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irigpro/ There will be other options but off the top of my head that is one that could work for not a lot of money.

You might not need an external thunderbolt disk - do you have an internal SSD?  It is probably fine.  Even if you have an internal Hard Disk it really won't be a problem until you get to higher track counts.  I've done 8 track recording sessions straight on to 5400rpm internal laptop hard drives before without hiccups, so for just simple vocal recording I wouldn't worry about buying an external HD at all.

ecc83

"just simple vocal recording I wouldn't worry about buying an external HD at all."

+1 And you could throw a few USB sticks in the bag and offload the files to that to keep the internal drive load down.

Really, something like the UR22 will give much better, much more flexible recording AND give you a decent headphone feed to boot! I don't suppose the output chips on macs are any better (or different from!) the usual crap on PCs?

However you look at it OBSound is shite as a rule.

Dave.

darcym

found a Focusrite scarlett 212 USB on amazon for a really good price, and having digested what people said on here (thank you) and thinking about me other thoughts, e.g.: just take the mac and a room mic to a jam etc, the external interface seems the simpler approach and better approach for what is in essence the size of a way huge guitar pedal.

The Focusrite has perfect protools support, it's light and I got a superb price on it (cheaper than the UR22) so I think problem solved.

Thanks for the input, good to get an external non-blinkered perspective.