Is this setup balanced ???

[RoryRB]

Hi i was wondering is this a decent setup for the price ???

 

Audio Technica AT2020 xlr

Nobsound Little Bear MC2 

Behringer UMC22 

 

I was just wondering since im fairly new to audio and only recently found out about amps

[Slottr]

-Moved to Audio-

[Blasteque]

That mic requires phantom power (most condensers do).  Since that pre-amp is passive, I'm assuming it does not provide phantom power.

[RoryRB]

Just now, Blasteque said:

That mic requires phantom power (most condensers do).  Since that pre-amp is passive, I'm assuming it does not provide phantom power.

So what do you mean by that/ what would be the best budget thing to add in to fix that

[Firewrath9]

28 minutes ago, Zvoid said:

So what do you mean by that/ what would be the best budget thing to add in to fix that

usb AT2020

[Blasteque]

2 hours ago, Zvoid said:

So what do you mean by that/ what would be the best budget thing to add in to fix that

If you wanted to use the same mic and interface, then you need a pre-amp with phantom power (and can just do a search for "pre-amp with phantom power").  Basically, the mic needs a power source; phantom power provides 48 volts DC along the XLR cable as a DC offset.  At any rate, it's not uncommon and should be easy to find.

 

Or, as @Firewrath9 indicated, go with a mic that doesn't need phantom power or uses a powered interface (like USB).

[JabroniBaloney]

3 hours ago, Blasteque said:

That mic requires phantom power (most condensers do).  Since that pre-amp is passive, I'm assuming it does not provide phantom power.

The UMC 22 absolutely provides 48v phantom power.

[JabroniBaloney]

3 hours ago, Zvoid said:

So what do you mean by that/ what would be the best budget thing to add in to fix that

That mic will work with the interface. The person who replied assumed incorrectly.

[Blasteque]

1 hour ago, JabroniBaloney said:

The UMC 22 absolutely provides 48v phantom power.

Ah, OK, good to know.  I was only looking at the "Nobsound Little Bear MC2" pre-amp.

 

With the Behringer, is the pre-amp necessary?

[RoryRB]

Well i was originally gonna get the pre-amp for my headphones to see the sound quality improvement but i seen somewhere that you could use it on a mic. Would the pre-amp improve the sound on my headphones and just use the phantom power from the umc22 ??? 

@Blasteque

[JabroniBaloney]

2 hours ago, Zvoid said:

Well i was originally gonna get the pre-amp for my headphones to see the sound quality improvement but i seen somewhere that you could use it on a mic. Would the pre-amp improve the sound on my headphones and just use the phantom power from the umc22 ??? 

@Blasteque

A headphone amp, like the JDS Labs Atom, might be a better option.

[Spuriae]

A passive preamp is just a potentiometer in a box. You get worse channel balance, noise and impedances while gaining nothing. They're only useful if you have no other convenient way of adjusting the volume.

 

They're a great way to ruin electrical damping, too. Only put them between amplified stages, not directly before or after a transducer (speaker, microphone, headphone) unless you know what you're doing.