This post is up intendedly for those proud owners of the Samson Co3U. I’m sure you’re convinced that what you have in your galore now is a powerful great microphone that will take you far if used the right way. However because I received many calls for troubleshooting from some clients who were newbies, I decided to open a unit up, set it up and post a short tutorial.
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Of course the first thing you’ll need to do is to plug in the USB cable supplied to the mic and your computer. There are three switches on the Samson Co3U, the low cut switch, dB switch & pickup pattern switch. Each of these gives more flexibilty to the microphone, so give the manual a thorough read.
In your sound settings you would want to have the inputs set to ‘Samson CO3U‘ keeping in note that the input volume is your gain. I’ve done the tutorials on a mac, but on windows it should be the same. Just make sure that inputs are set to your Samson CO3U and outputs are set to your computer output (assuming you do not have an audio interface).
I’ve then launched garageband on my mac & tried recording by speaking into the microphone. Garageband should have the settings automatically set and you should be able to record with the Samson CO3U by clicking the record button. If you’re unable to record anything up to this stage, let’s look into your settings in garageband.
Same thing as what we did before. Under ‘Preferences’ > ‘Audio/MIDI’ make sure your audio inputs are set to Samson CO3U. System settings means garageband sets the audio input for you, but to be safe, select Samson Co3U. You would want your output to be selected to your computer outs. Having done so, you would be able to record without a frill. The above generic steps should apply to any computer OS and softwares you use. It could vary a little, but it shouldn’t get you cracking to set things up knowingly the Samson Co3U is a plug and play gear.
Being able to listen to yourself while you record is called monitoring. By default the monitoring is turned off by the system so to avoid feedback from your speakers. In garageband, click on the button that appears like ‘waves’ just right beside the button that appears as a ‘headphone’. Once you click that, you will be able to hear yourself as your speak or play into the microphone. Be sure to monitor via headphones though! Feedback occurs when your microphone starts picking up sound from your speakers outputs and it becomes a loop of heavy noise! Having a headphone ensures your output sounds are only in your ears, so to avoid feedback.
Get Your Samson today
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This is a very simple tutorial for setting up your newly purchased mic. I noticed that I’ve only shown this on a mac but if you need help feel free to contact me at reuben@thecatstudio.com.my .. Thanks for reading the tutorial and do check back our website daily for interesting feeds and events!
Reuben Chng
Producer & Arranger
