Snowball microphones in interface, won't pick up when I hit "record"

Report · Jan 15, 2021

Hi, I run a podcast and I've been trying to get an interface that isn't crazy expensive for a while. I finally got a Phoinikas T-10 interface with multiple USB plug-ins because we use 2 Snowball microphones for recording, and they have a USB plug. Before, when I tried to plug in two microphones, only one would register and we'd have to squeeze around the one microphone. Now, it registers the two microphones and I'm able to set it up to where it should (theoretically) record from both mics, but nothing is picked up when I hit the "R" for record on the tracks. I don't know what I'm doing wrong; I feel like it's a super simple solution, because the system picks up both mics, it just won't feed any audio through said mics.

PLEASE HELP!! It's almost 2 am and I'm losing my mind over this. If anyone has literally any idea why it wouldn't be working, please let me know. If you need pictures, I can do my best to send some.

Report · Jan 16, 2021

Snowballs and USB hubs aren't supposed to get on, so it doesn't exactly surprise me that this won't work properly. You haven't said whether this is on a Mac or a PC, but if it's a PC then the only interfacing method that I know to work with more than one USB mic is to use the (free) ASIO4ALL driver. If you use this, then you should be able to see both mics separately as inputs in Multitrack view. What ASIO4ALL does is use one mic as the sync source, and do a sample rate conversion on the other to get both of them in sync and available to Audition - which they wouldn't be otherwise. Without synchronisation between them, you'd never be able to make a recording. So even if you get away with using the hub (not advisable), you're going to need ASIO4ALL anyway.

If it's a Mac then I don't know whether you can aggregate more than one USB device at a time anyway - we'd need somebody else to confirm that, as I don't have one. The sync situation is the same, though.