Many pro audio products are marketed to novices as all-in-one recording systems. While the appeal of this is clear – beginners are eager to start immediately, with minimal fuss – not every manufacturer can live up to their claim. Creating a recording system that’s elegant, easy to get into, and able to go from A to Z all at once is an incredibly complicated endeavour that takes experience (among everything else).
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Get Something Reliable
When you want a solution that’s as no-compromise as possible, your best bet is shopping from established brands that have been around the block. One such brand is Antelope Audio, a manufacturer of pro-audio equipment that’s been pushing the envelope for nearly two decades. Over the last couple of years, Antelope has paid close attention to the novice & intermediate user segments and scaled its high-end technology to fit their skills and budgets. Among the resulting products is Axino Synergy Core , a USB microphone that exemplifies the “all-in-one recording system” concept in ways suitable for both music makers and content creators.
Making it all Come Together
Axino Synergy Core achieves this by combining the essential components of a modern digital recording setup in a single unit that’s more than the sum of its parts. It also costs less than some of them bought individually, all while maintaining professional quality. Housed inside the microphone are a mic preamp with discrete analog circuitry, a digital audio interface with premium clocking and conversion, and – still a rarity for USB microphones – a virtual studio effects processor. The latter recreates iconic recording equipment (including 18 vintage microphones) in real-time using Antelope Audio’s Synergy Core processing platform.
A USB Microphone, but with Modeling
That’s right – the Axino Synergy Core can be a polished-sounding modern condenser mic, but it can also approximate the kind of microphones found primarily in private collections and prestigious studio facilities. That, in addition to all sorts of compressors, equalizers, and other audio devices that helped define the sounds of generations. Add a pair of headphones for monitoring, and the Axino Synergy Core offers everything needed to make professional vocal and instrument recordings from the get-go!
Using the Axino Synergy Core all-in-one Recording System
Using the Axino Synergy Core is remarkably straightforward for such a sophisticated device. It connects to your computer over USB for power and recording. Control over the process is established from the microphone’s switches and controls in tandem with the Control Panel application for Windows and macOS. The on-board controls include a low-cut switch to clean up low frequency buildups, a pad switch to prevent clipping when recording loud sources, a Volume knob for gain adjustment, and a HP knob for headphone output volume.
Mastering the Control Panel Application
The Control Panel software, easy as it is to get around, is considerably more involved. There, users can route audio sources (such as microphone input and loopback computer sound) into separate mixes for recording, monitoring, and streaming – complete with different settings and effects for each. There are 10 available effects and plenty more can be purchased from Antelope Audio if you wish to expand your palette. Note that all these effects (of which up to 12 can be loaded in a single session) are processed inside the microphone at no discernible latency and with zero CPU hit for your computer. This means more computing power is available for your recording session.
Axino Synergy Core in-the-box
Within your recording or streaming application, the Axino Synergy Core is recognized as a 4-in/4-out USB audio interface. This gives you some wiggle room in terms of routing tracks. For example, you can record both dry and effected microphone audio simultaneously, all while monitoring or streaming the resulting audio. You can also take existing audio tracks into the Synergy Core effects processing and route them back for recording.
Choose Wisely
While the variety of recording and processing options offered by Axino Synergy Core will surely please advanced and professional users, it’s not something overly complicated that would be putting beginners off, either. Getting started with the USB modeling microphone is easy – the hard part is mastering the craft. To that, a device like this can be of great aid for the years to come.
