 Hey guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rose cell here I want to make a video today about the various products on the markets for getting XLR microphones into your computer using the USB interface so I'm shortly later this this month going to be spending a bit of time in the USA and Relative to the online shopping options here where I'm based in Israel. The USA is like a Consumer mecca Amazon new egg B&H all these websites have so many products and before I go to the US I try to plan out a few different things I'm going to be buying to upgrade my audio video setup. So one thing I've been thinking about getting or looking for For the past few months has been something like a travel audio interface in other words some way of converting an XLR microphone like the one I'm speaking into right now and I have this connected to my computer over at the Beringer Euphoria UM2 Which I will show but something a little bit more compact that you know You can just pack in your bag and bring on a trip and I found a few products That I'm going to show on the screen momentarily just to be clear. This is not affiliate marketing That's not a thing. I'm really into although I have in the past Attempted to do it from a website, but for my YouTube videos in general I don't put affiliate links and if I ever do I put a disclaimer. So this video is non affiliate I'm just sharing what I find on found on Amazon today because I can spend hours if not days lost in Amazon and Looking at their amazing selection of products So here are the few options that I came across and I'm going to try go through these in a logical order The first thing that I didn't find and that I will just say is very very very hard to find if it exists at all Is a built-in sound card with an XLR port if they exist I have I think seen them in the past, but they're very very rare. I don't think I haven't heard of a lot of people With XLR ports and their sound cards connecting microphones that way so The most standard way to do it is to buy a USB audio interface. So this is the exact product I am using right now. This is the Shure PJ 48 microphone. It's an XLR microphone Although it doesn't require phantom power. I have that connected to my Beringer Euphoria and then I have that connected via USB to my computer I mentioned a few times I use a bunch of Linux And I mentioned that just because a lot of people are always wondering will this will still work on Linux And as you can see I'm having no problems. I'm recording this into OBS studio and OBS Recognizes the driver out of the box. So that's great. So this is kind of the standard product It's a box now. They come in various Permutations if you look at a channel mixer, we've gone from a little box Very quickly to a much much bigger box and the difference is just the amount of inputs you have So if you go for like a two channel mixer, we've got you can see two XLR ports there and Monitoring live monitoring. So you've got your quarter inch jack You've got your gain trims and you have direct hardware monitoring So you can either monitor on the software level or you can actually monitor Without going near the computer by just doing that's what direct monitoring is And you've also got that 48 volt phantom power button personally. I really like having a control over phantom power I know that these days for the most part you're not going to damage microphones by putting 48 volt phantom power somewhere It shouldn't go I it's I still rest a little bit easier knowing I have that control because the shore pj48 doesn't require phantom power I'm putting this through the bearinger, but I have the phantom power button deliberately turned off So that's the the main one these guys will set you back if you just need a one channel interface. This is A cheap and cheerful option 45 dollars Um, and it served me very well. So that's that's kind of the standard thing But what I was looking for as I mentioned was something more traveling oriented So just one one more non travel oriented option before we get to the travel travel friendly options Um, you can also get a mixer and I what's the difference between a mixer and an audio interface or product like this one from zeal sound It's described as an audio interface with the mixer now depending on what keywords you plug into amazon audio interface mixer You'll get different products. What's the difference between this and an audio interface? Well, you can kind of see for yourself They've got it's a mixer. So you're going to typically have treble bass controls sometimes mid controls as well And this is intended for live streaming. So it's got these kind of kitschy Uh buttons you can press for laughter sound effects and cheers sound effects You get the idea. Um, and you've got monitoring as well. So the truth is actually not a ton of difference It just really depends whether if you're if you're using your XLR microphone for live streaming Whether it's going to be useful to you to have these things or whether you're happy to do them on the software level I personally would be more in favor of an audio interface and just get all this kind of sound effects stuff done Uh, within whatever program you're streaming from Okay, um, right So now we're getting into the more compact options like me are preparing for a trip But you want to bring with you a decent microphone and get it into your laptop So one option you can do is get a uh usb to XLR cable It's going to have as you can see an XLR female on the microphone connecting side and a usb On the computer connecting side usb a almost always although you'd also see XLR to usb type c Um, this basically has the sound cards in that usb port Um, so the advantage of this is that it's very very lightweight and it's very very cheap This is only 12 dollars if you can get slightly better ones for like 40 50 bucks The disadvantage is that you're not going to have that onboard live monitoring that you did with the Um with an audio interface and you're not going to have those physical gain trims So this is kind of the really really simplistic option if you just want to literally get your microphone connected to your computer Just pick up one of these cables. Personally, they're so cheap relatively speaking that for 12 dollars I would probably pick up one just to have one in my case Uh, but my preference would be to use an audio interface above these probably All right, another thing now these these I actually really really like these are very clever products I put into amazon as you can see usb to axl our adapter This is a sure product for 100 bucks But it came across a couple more products Which I which got really really good reviews This senile product and this pile microphone Just going to come into view in a second on my screen This pile microphone product also got really really good revadings ratings and it comes in at just under 50 bucks. So again, these are pretty affordable products. Now the way these guys works is as you can see it's a little um It's a little uh, I don't know what to describe this kind of bullet shaped Um product, but it has everything on the hardware, but it managed to be a lot small So this is a lot smaller than even that bearing or one channel XLR interface And you have trim wheels for monitoring gain for microphone gain And as you can see here if I uh, I'm just going to put myself Down and miniaturized for a second. You can see it's got a 48 volt Switch now on the output side, it's going to have it's going to these all seem to terminate in usb type c I presume that is in order to Keep the form factor small The pile product actually did the exact same thing Now I like the sure product and I like the one that I got because the 48 full phantom powered this product from pile microphone Got really good reviews. I'm sure it's a great product and it's a more attractive product I think personally you've got those gain trims, but uh, it delivers 48 phantom power whether you want it or not So it doesn't have uh, you can't toggle it again, probably not a problem for 99 percent of microphones, but in case you're really pedantic, uh It might bother you. Okay, the final type type of product I want to talk about for traveling audio interfaces. It's stuff like this product. It's zoom You 44 handy audio interface if you type in zoom handy audio interface, you're going to get a few different products These are Kind of handheld audio interfaces. You can just tell from the form factor. They're more intended for use on the road This one runs at 180 dollars and it's got two XLR inputs as you can see And of course, you're going to be able to put out phantom power and monitoring and all the other things you'd expect A product like this to do it is 20 centimeters long So it's not as compact as some of the other products and as category But again, this is kind of I think a nice intermediate step. It's got battery deliverable Power so you can charge this guy up Etc and uh, you've got quite a bit of functionality In this so I think that this is a slightly more professional option My preference the one I bought Not this exact one, but this something this size for me is really really small to pack In my luggage so that I can use any microphone with my computer while I'm on the road without needing to bring a whole big Even the beringer is not super big, but it's still kind of a chunky product to to pack around in your luggage So there you go guys Those are the options as I find them on amazon.com today. And again, this is not affiliate marketing. This is just My my interest if you will if I've missed anything any other great products compact audio interfaces that I missed Somehow, please leave me a comment or get in touch my emails on this channel And thank you very much for watching this video more videos about tech and other topics coming soon