Comments on: Blue’s Icicle: Plug XLR Mics Straight to USB

By: Tom Ronai

Tom Ronai — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 05:28:26 +0000

i am strictly a video only editor. This looks like the ticket for those quick vo’s for 30 sec spots, corporate work, etc. Coupled with a descent mike, I think it might just fit the bill.

By: Roy Harper

Roy Harper — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:18:50 +0000

The new MicMate Pro, from MXL, overcomes the main objection raised above, by having both headphone socket, and analog gain control.

With regards to the lack of sound quality using 16bit converters, take a look at

http://www.howaudio.com/vids/play.php?vid=http://howaudio.vo.llnwd.net/o25/u/MicMatProdSpot.flv

I am not claiming the MicMate pro is an SSL or Neve, but it sure is a lot easier to carry around.

http://www.mxlmics.com/condenser_mic/micMate/MicMatePro.htm

By: Randy Washington

Randy Washington — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:55:40 +0000

Without a headphone amp on Icicle, one could probably expect latency of 10ms or more, especially on Windows – unusable in my opinion. Why don’t all of these devices have a headphone amp?!

By: Create Digital Music » XLR to USB: CEntrance MicPort Pro Reviews

Create Digital Music » XLR to USB: CEntrance MicPort Pro Reviews — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:57:04 +0000

[...] Micâ€™s new Icicle and subsequent discussion of alternatives like CEntrance’s MicPort Pro has generated some [...]

By: JB

JB — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:00:31 +0000

great blog, very informative -1 on Nate’s comments

By: Create Digital Music » XLR to USB Adapters: Better Options than the Blue Icicle?

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:56:07 +0000

[...] USB/FireWire audio interfaces. But as readers pointed out following Blueâ€™s announcement of the Icicle yesterday, various solutions have offered direct mic â€“ to â€“ USB hardware with preamps for [...]

By: Randy Washington

Randy Washington — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:50:25 +0000

How do you monitor yourself with Icicle? I know MicPort offers zero latency monitoring and is 24-bit/96kHz.

By: Ted Pallas

Ted Pallas — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:38:36 +0000

Still seems attractive – I don’t want to carry my whole interface to a rehearsal, or through the woods, or into the subway, or to the airport, or wherever else I might be recording something, and I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who doesn’t love the notion of dropping some serious dough on a field recorder. We’ll see how it stacks up when we can actually order the thing…

And I, for one, think you do a wonderful job of presenting us with a wide variety of perspectives on the music tech industry, and lord knows I’ve learned just as much about synthesis as I have about KORE, thanks to your tutorials.

Keep up the awesome work!

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:28:44 +0000

PS, I actually didn’t realize the Alpha had gotten that cheap(!) But yeah, I think the major issue here is you don’t get zero-latency monitoring, and I don’t see why you couldn’t just use an audio interface, which is what I said previously. I’m always surprised by exactly what people want to use, though, that’s why I opened it up.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:27:49 +0000

Wait, my “ad” was me saying I didn’t really want to use this?

The tutorials on Kore and Reaktor were ones we put time into producing. I really appreciate the work Eoin and Peter Dines did for us, in particular, and I’m glad we had the resources from NI to do them because it’s stuff I really wanted to do.

Not quite sure I follow you here, Nate. But yeah, I agree, I’m not particularly interested in a generic litany of everything that’s out there. I personally find some combination of the open source and DIY tools with commercial tools is optimal for my own work, so that’s what I present.