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How I Picked My First Mic – And Why It Should Be Yours

Looking back at when I first started out with Garageband, the number one thing that took my projects to the next level sound wise was when I went from using the in-built mic to a ‘proper’ microphone.

Now, I didn’t start out taking this stuff seriously  – to begin with I was using Garageband to sketch song ideas, and as a tool for arrangement ideas and practice, using the inbuilt microphone on my – even then – ancient Apple iBook G4, running Garageband 2.

Those were the days – no Flex Time, no Groove Matching, 16 bit recording…. yeah, actually…. it wasn’t that great.

It wasn’t long before I realized that I could be using Garageband to create ‘proper’ sounding and produced tracks. I knew that the sound quality I was getting from the built in mic really wasn’t going to cut it though (especially for guitars – but we’ll get to that later…).

So began the hunt for a ‘proper’ microphone. I had a few criteria that it had to adhere to :

 

It would have to be really really easy to use

I was still a bit SuperNoob™ when it came to audio interfaces etc back then, so I needed a mic that was really easy to set up and use.

 

It should be reasonably priced

I wasn’t what you’d call ‘flush’ at the time – My girlfriend and I had just moved in together, so money was pretty tight. ( plus, i’m Scottish, so yeah – i’m naturally tight fisted…)

 

It would have to be really flexible

I was only getting one mic, so not only did it have to be able to do everything I needed It to do, it needed to do it WELL.

 

After much deliberation, sweat, indecision and research, My first Microphone was……

 

Samson C01U Garageband

 The Samson C01U.

 

It turned out to be the right choice. Big time.

Surprised? I thought not – over the years it’s become an incredibly popular Mic, especially with beginners – with good reason in my opinion.

 

So did it meet my requirements?

 

Is it really easy to use?

Hell yes.

This is down to the Samson C01U being a USB microphone, which means that to get it up and running all you have to do is plug it into the USB socket of your Mac.

That’s it. Seriously.

Watch, i’ll show you:

 

 

Is it reasonably priced?

It is. Very. You can pick one of these guys up for an incredible price nowadays.

Now, you may come across a certain type of producer or sound engineer who will tell you until they’re blue in the face that you “MUST buy an expensive pre amp with a proper XLR microphone other wise your sound quality is going to be terrible and you’ll never be a proper producer without it and all your friends will never speak to you again and your mother will disown you and blah blah blah blah….”

Look, you probably will want to go for all that stuff at some point – generally a XLR pre amp interface coupled with a proper XLR mic (like this one) will sound better – BUT – it will also cost a lot more than you’d pay for the C01U (triple, at least!) and be a bit more of a pain to set up.

So if – like I was – you’re happy to strike a balance between cost, usability and sound quality, go for the USB option to begin with.

 

Is it flexible?

The C01U is a cardioid pattern condenser mic, which makes it perfect for recording, vocals and live intruments. It’s also good at cutting out any noise from behind the mic, which worked for me as I was recording in my living room at the time with no noise cancelling  foam insulation mcguffins. Rock and roll, huh?

I’ll let you be the judge of how much better it sounds when compared to the Mac’s in built microphone… ( I used the built in mic on my Macbook Air A1369, FYI)

Here’s a vocal comparison between the Samson and the built in mic

 

 

And I had to let you in on how much better the Samson is at making your guitars sound fantastic.

 

 

Needless to say, the C01U was a huge step up in sound quality and as it’s a condenser microphone, it provides awesome results whatever you’re recording.

 

 I can’t recommend it enough

If you’re a beginner, just getting started with Garageband or even if you’re looking for an inexpensive addition to your studio set up, I can’t recommend the Samson C01U enough.

Yeah, it’s been on the market for a while, but there’s a reason why it’s still top of the class in it’s price range – the thing is a complete workhorse, taking anything you throw at it and making it sound as schweet as can be. In fact, I still use mine to this day, primarily  for voiceover stuff and acoustic guitar work – being able to just plug it in and go with no fuss whatsoever is a great time saver.

If you feel that you could give one of these bonny wee microphones a good home, you can grab one for a reasonable price here – Samson C01U

While you’re there, you might want to grab the optional shockmount too – if you’re a bit clumsy like me it could make the difference between owning an awesome mic and a pretty lump of metal. Just sayin… – Shockmount.

 

Ahoy me hearties! There be Affiliate links up in that there sea o’ words! What’s an affiliate link? Click here.

 

How would you feel about having the Samson C01U as your first microphone? What would you do differently? Share in the comments below!

Show Comments (34)
  1. I’m a beginner jazz vocalist and need to practice and record/playback my vocals with and without karaoke type tracks.

  2. I’d be interested to hear a side by side comparison between the Samson and something like the Blue Yeti (similar price range and specs).

      1. i have the samson c01u and my old vocalist has the blue yeti mic, both are nice, the yeti is definitely nicer but also deffinitely more expensive, i paid $109.95 for my samson brand new in the box, my buddy paid more than double that for his blue yeti

    1. It is a good mic. I first started using a Shure SM-58 as that was all I had. I switched over to
      a Blue Snowball USB mic for most recording applications soon after, but the Samson is indeed
      another very decent microphone.

      1. Hi Michael,
        Like you I have access to SM58. Used to be the PA industry standard. Is it not so good for recording?

    2. Hey Greg – that’s awesome. Thanks!

      It’s actually pretty quiet for a USB mic. Not as silent as an XLR obviously but a lot better than some other USB’s on a clean channel.

  3. After doing some pretty strong research I came to the same conclusion as you, bought the C01U and never looked back. It’s a tremendous mic at a price which suggests there must be a compromise somewhere, but there isn’t.

    I use the C01U for all my recording, vocals and acoustic guitar, alongside an Apogee Jam interface and for around £150 you can have a pretty complete GarageBand studio set up to to record material which 15 years ago you couldn’t have accomplished without spending hundreds on a single studio session or tens of thousands on pro gear.

    Viva-la-Garageband

    1. Hey Molly – I’d go for the Sony Lavalier ECMCS3 – cheap, cheerful and sounds great. Here’s a decent comparison vid I found on YouTube:

  4. Greets,

    What’s about the 16-bit / 48kHz max resolution / sample-rate on this mic? Or the fact you don’t get a pop filter or shock mount, for nominally half the price of a Rode NT1-A Studio Pack? Once you factor in the filter and mount that are missing (but strongly recommended) with the Sanson (or any condenser mic), I reckon you’d end up close to the price of the Rode Studio Pack. Provided you had an audio interface that could accommodate an XLR condensor mic (and I do: it’s a Presonus Firebox), you’d arguably have the ‘better’ equipment for close to the same price.

    I hope I’m not coming across too aggressively: I’m not a Rode ‘fan-boy’ or anything; just a beginner at audio recording… but like everyone else here, I’m trying to get the best bang-for-buck and I’m just saying that on face of it, the Samson looks like a false economy.

    A question for you Patrick: How do 16-bit mic-ed tracks sit in 24-bit GB projects? Does the lower resolution affect the quality? What about after you apply some effects?

    Ta.

    1. Hi Frank – some brilliant points here.

      Just had a wee look online and I see you can grab the Rode NT1-A pack for £149/$250, which includes a shock mount and pop filter, as you mentioned. Add in the cost of an interface (let’s say the one you mentioned, the Presonus Firebox) New – £120/$200 Used – £70/$120 and you’re still looking at a bit more of an initial investment.

      Not that that’s a bad thing – I think if you were planning on putting together a mini studio setup and want the option to Directly Input your guitars/ bass etc then the Rode pack coupled with an interface is definitely a good choice.

      I still stand by my recommendation for the complete beginner though. Yes, grabbing a £10/$15 pop filter is pretty much essential and you could pick up the shock mount if you wanted, (though I personally didn’t until a good while after first getting the Samson) but once that’s done all you need to do is plug in one cable and hit record.

      As for the 16 bit/48kHz you’d be hard pressed to notice any difference at all really – varying bit rates across different tracks has little audible effect in real world terms anyway. I would say that the Samson (and any USB mic in general) will produce more background noise than an XLR but again, it’s never enough that it affects the quality of a project.

      1. Thanks for that Patrick,

        Kudos to you for making a call, and sticking to your guns! The Samson C01U is a popular mic, and for good reason… I doubt one can do better for the standalone price. Looking on eBay here in Australia however, I’m seeing the C01U USB Studio Microphone Pak (which includes a shock mount, pop filter, desktop stand, Cakewalk Sonar LE and a nice aluminium carrying case) is asking $239, compared with the NT-1A Studio Kit at $266. Just saying…

        Never mind the minuscule ‘noise’ differences one might hear with a lower resolution device: doesn’t recording at higher resolutions offer up more dynamic headroom before clipping? I know this is getting a bit off topic though.

        Finally, it seems you’re a guitar-based musician so I’m also curious about your factoring an audio interface into the above calculations: do you have a USB guitar as well? If not, how do you interface your guitars with your Mac? I bought the Firebox for interfacing with a MIDI keyboard, guitars and bass — as well as microphones — and I wanted decent preamps and nice conversion back to analogue for monitoring my sounds.

        My first and only decent mic to date is a Sure SM58, which I bought some twenty years ago when I was in a band. More recently, I was mightily encouraged to hear that Bono from U2 records his studio vocals with an SM58 but there’s no doubting a condenser mic is more suitable for delicate vocal work.

        Cheers

  5. Hey Patrick
    what do you think about the apogee mic? It’s a big step up in price but sounds so good on the demo that you might be able to avoid using an audio interface ever. Especially as you can run 2 in aggregate later when you might need another input. Of course everything sounds good at the company’s website. Have you ever tried one?

  6. I bought a usb condenser similar to the samson. It works fine except that the osx preference app never keeps up with the newest version of osx, so I have to control the input and output volume externally.

    However, I play guitar and sing at the same time – more often than making a mix track-by-track, one by one.
    I quickly realized I need an interface to feed two mics into garageband simultaneously and to control both levels independently. It’s not a sound quality issue. In the end I needed an interface to do anything other than one-track at a time recording. So if you don’t count the cost of the interface (which anyone with two mics will need anyway) the cost of buying an xlr, phantom powered condenser mic is not much more than a usb mic – and way more flexible.

    I’m still using a pair of temporary dynamic mics (sm57 & sm58) through the interface, and the usb mic is only marginally useful to pick up my webcam audio for making unpolished, unedited, videos.

    Can you recommend an xlr condenser mic similar in quality to the co1u?

  7. does this work for a keyboard? Otherwise, how do you suggest I can hook my keyboard up with my mac?

  8. Patrick I am so pleased you wrote this article, Microphones seem to be in the “black art” category and many people myself included a mislead into thinking that the more you pay the better the quality. I am so pleased I subscribed – Thanks Roland

  9. Hi there! I need to record myself singing on GarageBand to backing tracks on YouTube or accompanied by ukulele. Any advice on what mircrophone would work best for singing and ukulele would be much appreciated! It sounds so average with just the Mac microphone and the ukulele sounds awful!

  10. What about USB mikes and Latency issues? I bought a CAD U37 and had to return it as it had severe latency probs with Garageband . Also you can’t lower the buffer on the Garageband settings as of 2018 . Is the Samson in any way better regarding latency ?? Thx pal

  11. hi i was wondering what that filter is called in front of the mic in the picture at the top of the website is called and which one you would recommend? Does the C01U come with all the wires and connectors needed?

  12. Hi, I am thinking of getting one of these for my daughter. Will it work on garageband on an iPhone iPad? Never bought a mic before so any advice would be really appreciated!

    Thanks

    Stuart

  13. Hello,

    Really good post. I bought an iRig Mic some years back. Its ok, but not near the quality you’re produces (understandably)

    I may treat myself to an early xmas present.

    Thank you for all your cool youtube and blog content. Keep up the great work.

    Daryl

  14. I bought the XLR version of this Samson mike to go with my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 back in about 2013 and I also recommend it to newcomers. But if you can afford it, the Audio Technica AT2020 has a clearer sound and, in 2020 can be had for a fair bit less than £100.

  15. I came across this in May 2020 after looking for a cheap mic and this review is very useful and informative, as is the whole site.

    However, it is 3 years old, so what would you recommend now; an equivalent to the Samson mic?

    Many thanks

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