Hi Ross,

I just finished reading your issues with your microphone. I have a microphone for you that will do the job nicely.
It's an Shure SM58. You will find this microphone in almost every studio in the world. It's a basic dynamic microphone with a cardioid polar pattern.
I have 2 of theses and I don't really use them any more. I believe this microphone will suit you because of 3 things.

1) It's a dynamic microphone, which will be less sensitive to external noise.
2) It has a maximum SPL or 132dB or 142dB (depending on the load of your pre-map)
3) It's Free

A not about compression - yes it will take care of your overs but it will also bring up the noise floor. It may be entirely possible that the clipping and distortion might be your microphone actually distorting mechanically, and not electrically. Hence a high SPL microphone like the SM58 would be Ideal for you.

SM58 Specifications

Maximum SPL
142 dB with 800-ohm load
134 dB with 150-ohm load
Hum Pickup-7.5 dB equivalent SPL in a 1 millioersted field (60Hz)
Output Noise (equivalent sound pressure levels;measured with true rms voltmeter)
29 dB typical, A-weighted
32 dB typical, weighted per DIN 45 405

Dynamic Range
113 dB (maximum SPL to A-weighted noise level)

PM me if you are interested.

Regards

Mark

How funny would that be if Ross said yes and this huge box shows up at his door and when he opens it, there's a big poster just of trollface.jpg?

LOL that cracked me up. That would be rather evil.

Acquaintance of mine got harrased a lot over the Internet. It got so bad that in the end someone figured out where he lived and trashed his car. Thoroughly fed up, took down his public server that hosted forums and rare mods for some older games. The people that were harrassing him weren't even into the subjects of his site and forums. They just decided that they didn't like him.

Wow that's mean, it's almost like being the victim of 4chan fury.

I think Ross would be more than slightly hesitant to give someone he doesn't know his posting address.

It might have been, I don't know. Haven't heard a thing about the aftermath of the incident, or if anyone got arrested. Only that his server and the mods he backed up on it aren't coming back.

http://www.bz2md.com/smf/index.php?topic=3136.0

Ross could just use a P.O. box... Usually only $12/Mo.

A valid point indeed, this is why I always give my work address when I sell stuff online, I can be a paranoid parrot sometimes. However I'm sure that if Ross is really interested in the mic he would find a way that he is comfortable with.

EDIT: LOL perhaps my avatar frightened him, it does give off some satanic connotations.
*makes note to change avatar.

If you're serious, I'd suggest PMing him; he rarely responds on the forums.

Hey,

well now I'm conflicted. I need to do an update, but I ended up buying a new soundcard because I have issues with how Creative handles their drivers, and ended up getting an Asus Xonar card. This has all but solved the mic overwhelming problems I was having, I'm amazed. (The next FM episode has already been recorded on it). So while a higher quality mic wouldn't hurt, I'm wondering about the extra equipment needed to handle that kind of adapter since the current one is just a regular headphone jack. Either way, I'm definitely keen on routing it through the soundcard unless that's a bad idea.

Let's chalk this one up to fate being capricious

Hi Ross, the offer still stands, but I'm a little confused about the soundcard you got. From first glance it appears that the Asus cards are more suited to outputting audio rather than capturing it. I recently upgraded my front end for my audio capture so I have my old capture device doing absolutely nothing. If you want it I can give you that also.

The device is a Tascam US-122L I used this device to record many voice overs. It's a small USB device, it has microphone inputs as well as line/instrument inputs.

Here is a video on the device... http://homerecordingstudio.com.au/2011/06/19/sound-module-explained/ the video also covers other things about sound interfaces and modules. In my opinion your sound issues should be solved quite easily these days, since you do not need a lot of computing grunt to run them. WDM and ASIO drivers for most PC audio interfaces are very stable.

EDIT: (Connecting other microphones to ASUS card) It's fairly easy to make a XLR to 1/8th Jack connector to fit into the card to take a better microphone, however if you ever want to buy a microphone such as the "BLUE" version you has used before you will need +48V phantom power to power the microphone. Incidentally the Tascam US-122L does have this feature. I assumed this is the ASUS card has the 1/8th jack, I hope I did not make an ass of myself.