SAMSON C02 Pencil Condenser Microphones

Yes, I know that this mic is intended for choir or instrument mic'ing. But read on. I sing bass in a quartet, and the mic I had used for awhile seemed to be not sounding as good as it used to. I started searching on the internet to see what bass singers were using. There were 4 or 5 mics that kept coming up as being excellent for that application, but they were all very expensive mics. I'm just an amateur, so I didn't want to spend several hundred dollars. I ran across a forum where a guy mentioned this mic. He said someone told him about it, so he tried it, and was tremendously impressed. Then I found another forum where a guy was raving about it. So I thought what the heck; for that price, I'll give it a try. Let me interject this....the discussions I found on the forums mentioned a problem with the wind screen that comes with it. This is a condenser mic, so it must have phantom power. And like condenser mics, it's extremely sensitive. Using it as a handheld, you must use a windscreen because it's so sensitive it pics up every p-pop and breathing noise. I put the windscreen on, but immediately noticed that it muffled the mic. After inspecting it, I found that it has an inner layer of felt type material behind the foam. I reached in with needle nose pliers and pulled that out. That fixed the problem! With that layer gone, the wind screen did it's job without excessive muffling. With that modification done...WOW!! I did an A/B comparison, and couldn't believe the difference I was hearing. So I called my wife down to the studio to get her opinion. She had the same wow factor I did. This $55 mic (the come in a 2-pack for about $110) made the $200 dynamic mic I had been using, as well as the other mics I have, sound like crap in comparison. So sensitive, so clear, unbelievably rich! When the guys came over to practice, they couldn't believe their ears either. It should work equally good for any vocal range. It's truly one of the great deals in pro audio!

For the price these are as good as the very pricey mics.

I was looking for a good pair of condensers to record guitar and cymbals without having to spend too much money right away, so I ordered these. They seemed like exactly what I needed. Eager to try them out, I first set them up to record my acoustic guitar. One aimed at the fingerboard, one aimed at the soundhole, I recorded in stereo and was amazed at the sound I got without even having to experiment any with my mic positioning. If you want to hear an example, search Robert Bassett Acoustic Guitar Recording Example on SoundCloud. I can't link to it in a review, but you should be able to find it easily. That recording I got is exactly the signal I got coming in, without doing any EQing or anything. The excess noise is due to the environment I recorded in, me breathing, and my laptop's crappy soundcard, not the microphones. You can hear the full range it picks up, and even the decent bass response. The closer I positioned the mic to the soundhole, the greater the bass response. I tried drums a few weeks later, and that was when I really fell in love. I had these guys set up over the drums to capture the cymbals and whole kit, as well as mics on the hi-hat, snare, and kick drum. After listening back to the sound I got, I realized how well the Samson's were picking up the kit on their own, so I ended up pulling out the mics on the hi-hat and snare, and just using a mic for the bass drum and the Samsons for the rest of the kit. The kit we recorded with didn't have the greatest cymbals on it but you couldn't tell that from the recordings we got. The Samson's made them sound crystal clear. Another few weeks later, I tried capturing a baby grand. I positioned the pair about 5 inches back from the hammers and 5 inches up from the strings, one aimed at the lower strings, one aimed at the higher strings recording in stereo again. The recordings I got were awesome, and their wide frequency response picked up each note beautifully throughout the full range of the piano. I just used another condenser five feet or so back from the piano to capture the room sound, and a little reverb of course, and I was more than pleased with the recordings I got from such an affordably priced pair of mics. I would have payed much much more for these. So basically, if you're looking for a matched pair of condensers for recording stereo, you really shouldn't look any further than these. For a little over a hundred bucks, they really took my recordings to the next level. Their wide frequency response makes them excellent for use in any application. And the carrying case they come in is really handy too. I didn't think I'd use it since I already have a case for my mics, but I ended up using it anyways since they fit so nice in it. Oh and no i'm not affiliated with Samson in any way, I just fell in love with these mics haha. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions, i'm not an expert or anything but i'll do my best to tell you my experiences i've had with them.

These mics work perfectly and capture amazing audio of choirs, drum sets, bands, and anything in a theater. They even work really well for my studio TV show where we use the mics above our talent as dialog mics. To hear examples of how these sound, check out Powered By Rainbows on YouTube because we’ve used these in every video with exceptional sound quality.

Sadly the seller sent me the single microphone kit instead of the pair kit as advertised... so I had to return, but I wanted to leave a review on this product anyway as the microphones themselves are good at what they do. (I had to re-order from B&H Photo because I no longer trust this seller after them leaving me in the lurch) We use these microphones for our Youtube Livecast... as a live cast on set, proximity microphone they work great. We have three hosts on our live cast... so a Shotgun Mic just won't do the trick, we needed more "spread" in our pickup range. We place them just above our heads, just out of frame and they pick up really nice without picking up a lot of ambient room noise. They have pretty good sound for the price point... there are better microphones out there for four times the price, so consider these a really GREAT entry level-mid level microphone... bang for your buck is high... As far as sound quality... I would put these on par with our label mics.... not amazing sound, but still good clean audio, and we don't have any noise movement rustling sounds that we were dealing with from the Lavalier mics, and no cords to trip over and get tangled up in... which is really the best part...we have freedom of movement with a microphone that is worry free... and by having two of them we can better capture our set sound regardless of who is talking. If you're looking for a good boom mic, especially for a Livecast, or an interview mic that is lightweight, affordably priced, with decent sound... you've found it... you just might want to consider another seller.

OK... I rarely (if ever) give a 5 star review because they are often "faked" or the people writing them are "starry-eyed" (Ooh... Shiny!) ... In this case, however, I will make an exception. (OK... If I could give them 4.5, I would, just to stick with my "no 5-star reviews" rule.) ... But I digress. Back to the mics, for the money, I just don't think you can beat them, at least for the application for which I am using them. I bought them because I wanted to get high-quality acoustic guitar recordings in my home studio. I have a fairly nice on-stage microphone (a Sennheiser 835S). It does a fine job on-stage but as a recording mic it is "meh". (This should come as no surprise because it's fundamentally not a "recording mic".) My "Cordoba GK Pro Negra" guitar also has a very good quality Fishman built-in pickup and pre-amp which also is fine on stage but likewise suffers from "the meh factor" when trying to get a good quality "studio" recording. By "studio", I mean in my home studio, feeding inputs into a Presonus AudioBox 22VSL interface... and then into my laptop. (Don't even THINK about trying to run inputs directly into your computer, if you want any kind of quality recording onto your laptop... but that is a topic for another day.) Anyway, I decided most likely the only way I could get the sound quality I wanted was to buy a couple of dedicated mics to use in my studio. Like many of you out there, I didn't (don't) have an unlimited budget, so I decided to give these a try. To get right to the point, I simply could not be more pleased with them... especially at the (approximate) US$100 price for two. My first impression when pulling them from their handy little travel box was the "sturdy" feel they seem to have. I plugged them into my interface, pushed the "phantom power" button, and they sprang to life. (Yes, they require "phantom power" to give them the juice they need to operate. No phantom power = no sound.) Just a word about "phantom power" and the cables you use... a laptop cannot provide that extra 48 volt shot that these mics require. You will absolutely need some kind of audio interface. As I mentioned above, I use a "Presonus AudioBox 22VSL interface". This little box can accept either 1/4 inch "guitar cables" or "XLR" cables. I cannot speak toward other interfaces, but with this particular interface, 1/4 inch cables CANNOT receive phantom power. I absolutely MUST use XLR cables to get that 48 volt phantom power that the mics need. Other interfaces might work the same way, so be sure to check. In other words, if you are using these mics with an interface and you are not getting the phantom power you need, check to make sure you are using XLR cables, not 1/4 inch cables. Just be warned. But back to my review... They are VERY sensitive... but that is what I wanted. It will take some time to find the exact "sweet spots" to position them, but that too is OK, as I appreciate the subtle differences in their tone when I move them around. The "cardioid pattern" of sound pickup is exactly what I was looking for. Due to their sensitivity, I found I had to be careful not to look down at my hands while playing my guitar , as doing so turns my head (and breathing) toward them, resulting in their picking up wind noise as I breathe. Certainly I could eliminate most of this by using the little wind screens that are included, but I don't want to use anything that will cut off any of the natural frequencies. I now have a couple of disk-shaped pop-filters I position between my mouth and the mics. That eliminated the problem. (Until I bought the pop-filters, my quick-n-dirty solution was simply to wear a "pollution mask" when I played! It worked perfectly as a means of eliminating the "puffs and rumbles" of my own breathing but was not a good long term solution. Hence, I bought the pop-filters.) Now if I could just eliminate the sound of my blinking eyelids... Ha ha! ... Just a joke... They are not quite THAT sensitive. Also because of this very predictable "cardioid pattern", my studio (with some ambient noise coming from outside) does not need to be absolutely silent. My neighborhood can be a bit noisy, but always making sure the mics are pointed away from the window seems to eliminate any but the sharpest of background noises.The heavy window drapes I have also help. One last thing... as I mentioned above, the two mics came packed in a handy little hard-shell travel case. Nice! So to rap it up, I hope my review does not seem "overly gushy", as I really have put them to a pretty comprehensive set of tests in my home studio. Your mileage may vary in other situations and applications but as acoustic guitar recording mics in a home studio ... and especially considering their bargain price, one simply cannot go wrong with these mics when using a similar application as mine.

these mics work great. we use them to pick up choir and congregation. For the price you can't go wrong

After years of paying an hourly rate for studio time, I decided to figure this recording thing out. Here's my story. I'm a multi intrumentist, I've been playing in bands since the 7th grade, im 35 now. After highschool I started writing down the ideas for songs that I'd hear in my head. Then I started recording rough drafts of these ideas. Not multi track recording but more like voice memo's to listen to. Through the years I've been able to record in at least a half a dozen decent studios, all of which produced a good final product, most of the time.. Well I finally decided to embark on a DIY journey. After a ton of research, tutorials, friends mentoring, I hit the ground running. Picked up a multi track interface-mixer, a DAW, a couple of mic's, etc.. Real entery level equipment, basic set up. Finally after putting everything together I was up and running. I first recorded 4 original songs (drums, bass, guitar, keys, vox, etc..) I'm really happy with the sound quality on these Samson mic's. Also, these mic's come with their own mic clips which is really helpful👌 These were $75 dollar pair of mic's back when I bought them, I see they've gone up a bit in price now.. Anyway, as soon as amazon will let me, I'll post some pics and maybe even a link to my music, lol. I guess in short, if you're thinking about purchasing these mic's for drum overheads do it. I can't speak of how these mic's sound with any other application as I purchased specifically for drum over head use in multi track recording.

In terms of value in relation to quality, these mics are hard to impossible to beat; for the price you get two condenser mics with fairly good quality wind covers, mic holders with 3/8th/1/2inch threads and a decent carry case. Add to that, the very good construction and materials of the mics - solid, heavy - really good feel to them. I don't know about professional use, but these are the best microphones that I have and they are capable of producing clean sound, so great for audio, music recording and video. Having two mics means that you can record stereo sounds or two actors for video recording. In the sound test that I conducted, I used two prosumer recorders, a decent field recorder with XLR connectors and a reasonably good quality pocket sized recorder with a 3.5 inch jack input; this particular model is no renowned for its 3.5 jack sockets, it has to be said. In sound editing, I normalised each take to -12db. There is a noticeable drop in sound quality in the second recording, which may have something to do with the recorder's ability to properly power the mic which does need phantom power, something that the field recorder has. I tried another pocket recorder, but without any form of phantom power, the performance proved unusable - so take note; ensure your recorder has phantom power or you will be disappointed. In both tests I turned up the gain to just below audibility in my headphones; I could have added more gain probably without much adverse effect, but it is better to be sure. In both recordings, there is some sibilance, but that is more about my voice, I think, than anything the mic is producing and I could try using a pop filter. Overall, I am satisfied that these Samson mics are good to use and capable of producing good sound quality in voice recording.

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The Samson C02 Pencil Condenser Microphones are a testament to precision and audio excellence, packed into a compact and versatile form. These pencil condenser microphones have quickly become an indispensable tool in my recording setup, and here's why they deserve a five-star rating: First and foremost, the audio quality produced by the Samson C02 microphones is exceptional. They capture sound with remarkable clarity and accuracy, making them ideal for a wide range of recording applications. Whether you're recording vocals, instruments, podcasts, or field audio, these microphones deliver pristine results. The compact and pencil-like design of these microphones makes them highly portable and easy to position. They are perfect for studio recordings, live performances, and on-location shoots where space may be limited. The cardioid pickup pattern of the microphones offers excellent off-axis rejection, reducing unwanted background noise and focusing on the sound source. This feature ensures that your recordings are clean and free from interference. The build quality is top-notch. These microphones are built to withstand the rigors of professional use. They feel sturdy and well-constructed, assuring you of their durability and reliability. The included shock mounts are a valuable addition to the package. They reduce vibrations and handling noise, ensuring that your recordings are free from unwanted disruptions. The shock mounts also make it easier to position the microphones precisely. The versatility of these microphones is a standout feature. They are suitable for a wide range of applications, including studio recording, live sound reinforcement, acoustic instruments, and more. Whether you're a musician, a podcaster, a content creator, or an audio professional, these microphones adapt to your needs. The microphones come as a matched pair, ensuring that you have a consistent and balanced stereo recording setup. This is essential for capturing the full richness of stereo sound sources. In summary, the Samson C02 Pencil Condenser Microphones are a must-have for anyone seeking precision and clarity in their audio recordings. Their exceptional audio quality, compact design, cardioid pickup pattern, durability, and versatility make them an unbeatable choice. Whether you're a musician, a content creator, or an audio engineer, these microphones are a five-star addition to your collection of audio equipment, ensuring that you capture every sound with precision and excellence! 🎤🎶🌟