BehringerC-1U Studio Condensor Microphone, Compatible with PC and Mac

I have been using Garageband on a Macbook Pro for just a few weeks now and wanted a mic that was going to give me better results than the on board mic of the macbook. I have tried to record acoustic instruments using the on board mic but results were not great. After looking around I wanted a mic that did not require phantom power as it would just add more expense purchasing a power supply. I opted for the Behringer C-1U as it was powered from the USB which is just very convenient for me.After reading other reviews about the low volume issues I was a little wary, however I have no issues with recording volume as I simply turned the mic input up in my audio settings to 90%. When recording my acoustic guitar from about 1 foot away the results were great and so much better than the on board mic, I tried a few vocals and again so much better than the on board mic.Agreed that there is a little hiss at the high level but nothing that cant be filtered out with software but this still gets 5 stars from me as I have used other mics in this price bracket and none even come close to the recording quality I get from this.*Update* After using this for over a mouth now I still have no issues with recording level. I have some noise as expected but noisegate in Garageband got rid of most of it, Here is a sample of the recording of acoustic guitar and vocals. Noisegate has only been applied to vocal tracks not the acoustic recording. [...]

Very good balanced mics with very low noise.These are two small but seriously good mics, XLR fitting, low pass filter and a -10db setting, to be honest you won't need the minus 10db unless your pre-amp is very loud. Pop filters work very well considering they are just pieces of foam but they are effective, very effective.The mics themselves are all metal construction, nice satin finish and really look the business, sound quality is good for such inexpensive mics and I was pleased and surprised at how good they sound. Phantom power is required and they come in a hard plastic carry case (probably ABS, whatever it is, it is tough and will take a few knocks).Great looking, great sound, a great deal for little money.Love them.

just right for what i need, recording a very small group of singers in a noisey pub. good value

I bought the Behringer Studio Condenser C-1U microphone to improve the quality of my home music recording efforts without going to the expense and complication of adding a pre-amp box. The selling point for me was the USB connection which is powered by phantom power directly from the computer.The mic arrived a month ago (great customer service from Blue Aran) and it has taken me a longish time to achieve acceptable results. The main problem (which I discovered is not unique to me) is that the mic is on the quiet side. To produce the flat, quality sound I was hoping for requires all relevant computer settings to be turned up to the maximum. In the course of doing so, I ran into problems with my Realtek Audio Manager. It is quite possible that the resulting glitches are due to my particular system components, but the fact remains that for me it was not quite the "plug and play" experience that was promised. I have e-mailed Behringer customer support a couple of days ago and have not yet received a response, so I cannot comment on that. One point I would like clarified is that the LED light indicating that phantom power is being received is always green on the mic (I have tried it in 8 different USB ports on 2 different computers) whereas the documentation says it should be blue. Whether this indicates insufficient power from the USB port is something I would be interested in knowing.On the plus side, this is a very solid and good-looking piece of gear, heavy and substantial in feel and offering the kind of convenience and low-cost solution I was looking for. It came with an adapter (but you still need to buy a mic stand) and a software CD. There is Juice software for podcasting, Kristal and Audacity for recording and editing. These last two are free software. Kristal's last version (dating back to June 2004) is still available for free download online but it's handy to have it on CD. As for Audacity, I prefer to use the latest version directly from Sourceforge.The best advice I can offer to anyone who is encountering similar issues to mine with the C-1U is to resist the temptation to shout or play into it at close range, as condenser mics are very sensitive to such assaults. Five to six inches away is the recommended distance otherwise you get distortion. What finally worked for me was to separate the input jacks in the Control Panel, Audio Manager (I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium), turn the microphone (input) volume to the maximum in Audacity (having given Audacity control of the mic), and respect the 5-6 inch distance for both guitar and voice. I then apply amplification and/or normalization to the resulting recorded sound wave. My research indicates that the problem of the low sound is common to other condenser mics of the USB variety, and I have seen suggestions that Vista is not very user-friendly in that respect. With my current set-up, I am happy with the sound I am getting, there is no hiss and I love the ease of the USB connection. The three stars rating reflects all the hoops I had to jump through to get acceptable results.Behringer C1U Studio Condenser Microphone with USB