Using a USB Microphone with Audiophile 24/96

[DrR]

Can any expert help on this:

I've been using the Audiophile 24/96 with Cakewalk Pyro 5 software for a few years now for general recording; I'm now considering doing some live voice recording studio (home) work but as I have a restricted budget I can't afford the pro audio stuff.

One avenue of investigation I've been considering is buying a USB-based condenser microphone such as a Samson G-Track, MXL USB.006 or 7 or a sE2200a.

However, I've been told that as some/ all USB condenser microphones are recognised as 'sound cards' when plugged into a USB port, if a sound card is already present and as a PC is unable to 'deal' with two 'sound cards' the microphone or real sound card will not function - is this true:(?

Can anyone help me arrive at practical (but not expensive) solution?

Spec is as follows:

System Model: Acer Aspire T180 R01-A2
Processor: 2.00 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Main Circuit Board
Board: Acer EM61SM/EM61PM
Bus Clock: 201 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD R01-A2 09/14/2006

RAM
1024 Megabytes Installed Memory

Multimedia
M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496 (PCI)
Realtek High Definition Audio

Relevant Software
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (build 2600)
Cakewalk Pyro 5

Many thank for your help :),

R.

[JA]

USB Microphones are "sound cards"; they all have an analog to digital converter and would be used as the input device to the computer. Many of these USB Mic's (such as the Samson G-Track) also have a digital to analog converter and are used as an output device as well; eliminating the need for a sound card such as the Audiophile 24/96. I would not recommend trying to use a USB mic in conjunction with the Audiophile.

To record a microphone with the Audiophile 24/96 you could use a condenser microphone (such as the M-Audio Nova (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Nova-main.html)), and a preamp (like the M-Audio Audio Buddy (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/AudioBuddy-main.html)). You could also substitute a dedicated preamp for a small analog mixer that has an XLR mic input w/ phantom power.

[Peakdesign]

Ja is right. A decent Behringer analog mixer with phantom and EQ can be purchased for $35. The Audio Buddy is inexpensive but has disappointed users who don't wear hearing aids. Decent condenser mics like the Nova can be found cheaply these days. Get some more memory too, 1 Gb is not enough.

[DrR]

Many thanks for your advice - I'll check it out. :)

Kind regards,
R