Making music on your PC has never been easier – or harder. While the recording side of things is fairly straight-forward, getting good audio using your PC’s limited complement of hardware tools is difficult. Hissing, bad levels, and odd artifacts plague home recording. That’s why I like the G-Track microphone from Samson. It essentially puts a good microphone and nice line-in source in a package that is shock-proof, highly configurable and really quite attractive.
The G-Track has a condenser mic with a separate line in. The microphone is hidden in a nice cage and the line in and line out are at the bottom of the mic. Three front dials control the instrument and mic gain and the volume controls the monitor output. To record, simply plug in the device and fire up your recorder. I used Garage Band but it includes Cakewalk’s Sonar LE for Windows.
To record you attach the mic to the included stand or optional “spider mount” and begin monitoring the mic’s mono channel. The mic mixes in the line-in audio into one channel and acts as an audio output device for most programs, allowing you to monitor the mic input through headphones. The quality is excellent, with a nice depth of field. The dials offer enough audio tweaking but aren’t so complex as to render them useless to amateurs.
It includes a 3/4″ female to 1/8″ male cable and an dual mono RCA to 1/8″ cable which should fit just about any music gear. I plugged in my acoustic guitar with a Dean Markley pick-up and set the levels. I then began recording. Note: This is the song I’ve been singing to my son recently and one of the only ones I’ve memorized off-hand. I could have played No Woman, No Cry but that would have been horrible.
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As you can hear, the resulting cacaphony is quite clear. I would actually use this mic for podcasting and Skype and it’s sufficiently powerful and sufficiently compact enough to be considered portable. At $149 the G-Track is a bit expensive for a mic but, as we know, good microphones are the cornerstone of any rock band’s success. That and having a hot singer.
Bottom line: This is a great mic for singer-songwriters and podcasters.
Very nice job on the song, John! You could have written a thousand words about that mic and I wouldn’t have been interested. The song sold me.
I’d love some more mic reviews from you in the future if you include a song with each one.
I’m with Neal. That song added quite a bit to what could have been a dry review, but now we have an excellent idea of what the mic can do. Well done!
Muhahaha.
You know where to go next, I assume:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/16/apricado-selling-your-music-has-never-been-this-easy/
Nice review. Always good to learn about new recording tools. I haven’t tried Samson myself, but I have a Rode mic that I really like.
Dude, were you in the Traveling Wilburys?
Very useful review, your brief description of the features, use of the analog input and the audio recording tells it all.
Thank you.
I have bought thousands of dollars of mics, you have to hear them to know if they are what you are wanting. Best case, hear them in your particular application. Other than that, human voice is a good reference.
The proof the pudding is in the eating.
best,
bret
Dreamy! thanks for that review.
I hear good things so far, and I can’t wait to get my hands on one.
Do you know when this mic was released? its like a traveling musicians dream. No interface hassle, but no hassle with USB quality. Plugs in guitar and headset….ahhh i can’t wait.
Thank you so much for posting that demo as well. Gives a great idea. More mic reviews should do that.
The Samson G-track is a very good mic.the first time i saw it i knew i wouldve like it
I’ve been umming and ahing over this mic for a few months now, but hearing the quality of it through the song you recorded has made my mind up. Thank you :-)
Hey, great review and I liked your recording. I myself have just purchased the mic and am trying to record both my acoustic guitar and vocals at the same time. I have everything plugged in properly. When I playback though, I hear a horrible static. Do you have some sort of solution to this problem? Also, how did you ensure you were recording your vocals and guitar on two separate tracks simultaneously?
Any help would be hugely appreciated. Thanks in advance.
I’ve got a similiar problem, static with a steady popping/clicking noise. Can’t find much support for this online. I like the mic, and I’m optimistic this is a good product but need to fix this issue.
Yes, static is known issue with this Mic. It has something to do with USB Clocking. Basically teh timing is out somehow in the way it communicates with the computer.
This specifically has to do with the USB controller chip inside the Mic. It could also be fixed by the driver, but doesn’t seem to in all cases.
In my experience, I love this mic, but the static was causing me a lot of grief. I emailed Samson, and they got back to me in a timely manner for a fix on Mac OS X, but not a satisfactory one as the static still comes back now and then.
This is an awesome mic, but they needed to do a better job on the USB clocking issues they have. Surprisingly they still sell this Mic without a solid fix for the static.
Anyway good luck!
This problem was reported all over OS X forums for a lot of different products, but doesn’t exist at all in Windows. Odd, huh? I though OS X was supposed to be great for audio production…
Thanks for the great review. I just purchased this for my husband’s Christams gift and it’s nice to hear that other people think it a great mic. He’ll be using it for creating marketing videos.
Thanks again :-)
Thanks for a perfect review on this amazing mic.
The only reason I bought it was the headphone monitoring jack, No other mic in this range has the feature. Also i did some researching comparing the g-track to the C03U, I wanted to know why this mic was priced at the same price yet had more features.
Was it the quality ? I never found out. The mics on its way, will reach on the 10~11th June.
I would also put up a review on my blog and also a link to yours.
Have a nice day
~fiazio
I’ve got a question..I just bought a Samsion audio G-track but I’m a little bit confused about how to record. Can someone explain me where I need to plug and stuff? About that pick-up, you plug the guitar into the pick-up and you plug the pickup into the microphone, or what? I also got Cakewalk’s Sonar LE, but it says I don’t have input so I cant record..need some help ^^ Just need the basics..
Great review made more convincing with the great audio sample. I’m an acoustic guitarist/vocalist and mainly looking for a mic to record covers and some originals for friends/family. This mic/interface seems like a great product, can’t wait to get my hands it :)
I got a question… After doing alot of research on this mic alot of people said the static is only a problem with mac. Is any one having static problems on PC? I want this mic specifically for vocals and i can’t have any static.. the only reason I’m considering still getting this mic is because i can plug the guitar up to it. Please lemme know!
Hi everybody i’m goin to tell you what’s been wrong with the mic in my opinion, i got that static you’ve had but i somehow solved it just moving the usb cable towards me i know its crazy but it worked…. THE BIG PROBLEM NOW is that when i record vocals on my garage band the vocals only sound on one side (left side) nothing on the right side and it’s driving me crazy.. already checked the pan control etc, can anyone help me with this?
P.S. quality is excelent but the mono – stereo problems :(
Assign the left channel to track 1 and the right channel to track 2. That’s how you’re supposed to use it.