How to get the best sound from you USB condenser mic, and a review of the Fifine K678. You’ll hear the mic unprocessed and processed, compared with my usual recording mic the AKG D5, and hear my pros and cons thoughts on the k678.
There are two things to take care of when it comes to getting the best sound from a USB mic: isolating the mic from mechanical interference (bumps and noise through the stand), and gain staging the levels correctly.
USB mics like the Fifine K678 have two stages of volume control to manage and that can be confusing. Hopefully this video clears that up for you.
00:00 – intro and acoustic guitar example
03:11 – isolating from mechanical interference
06:49 – optimizing levels
08:00 – setting levels Windows
11:16 – set levels Mac
15:00 – k678 review summary
Fifine K678 USB mic on Amazon (affiliate link)
The mic picks up a lot of sound through the stand. You can try isolating it with cork, foam or other soft materials, but getting it onto a mic stand will allow for better mic placement and isolation.
It doesn’t completely eliminate the potential for noise into the mic. Touching the mic stand will transmit all vibrations into the mic. So try to avoid that
A side note
I like to attach the USB cable to the stand mount to reduce the chance of the connector pulling out or bending. Even if you use the tabletop stand I think this is a good thing to do.
As for optimizing the volume, we need to find the right balance of hearing ourselves, and not recording too quiet or too loud.
The key here is actually a somewhat hidden setting in Windows and Mac.
This mic has a volume control on the mic but the recording level is also determined by the settings in the driver.
I think this will apply to most USB mics on the market that don’t use proprietary software.
After connecting the mic, on windows go to control panel, hardware and sound, then Manage Audio devices, and the recording tab.
Select the mic and choose properties
Under levels we see a slider and a mute button.
So what do we do here? Turn the volume at the mic all the way down, and all the way up in Windows? All the way up on the mic, and all the way down in Windows? somewhere in the middle?
Think of the knob on the mic as a trim, it actually only gives you a small range of adjustment, but should be enough to tweak your headphone mix or adjust for loud sources. Set this in the middle.
Right-clicking the mute button gives us the option to show the level as percent or decibels.
Now we see that 40 percent level on the windows slider is actually 0dB. 100% is +14dB
For my voice I’m setting it to about +3dB
We should also tweak the output level.
In the Speakers properties for this mic there’s another slider that controls the overall level of the headphones output.
For a comfortable listening level that also works well with the direct monitoring, I found a setting of 50% or -9.4dB with the headphone knob at 50%.
On the mac you have the same settings.
Open Audio MIDI settings
Select the mic and adjust the levels.
Again, 40% should be unity gain.
An interesting thing you can do on Mac is actually choose different levels for left and right. There’s only 1 mic capsule so it’s not actually recording in stereo, but by choosing different levels you can make a quieter ‘safety’ recording as a way to avoid clipping.
What’s to like about this mic
- All metal body feels like a professional product
- zero latency monitoring
- its small, but again because of the weight it doesn’t feel like a toy
- quality USB A to Mini cable
- crisp and clear sound
- plug and play operation on Windows, Mac, and even PS4
Downsides
- loud pop/click when muting
- mic and headphone levels not 100% analog or digital, can be hard to gain stage correctly
- very sensitive to handling noise, vibration
- a bit too big for generic shockmounts
- threading on the stand mount is not standard 1/4 20 so it will not work with most camera accessories
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission.
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