The Samson Meteor Mic is a very good-looking piece of kit designed to offer high quality large-diaphragm condenser recording in a small and convenient package – one of an expanding range of ‘prosumer’ items targeting ‘musicians on the move’.
First impressions out the box are very good – the Meteor is solidly constructed, chrome plated and very well designed, with all the controls easily accessible. The fold-out legs are stable and tweakable, and make it very easy to set the Meteor up on any flat surface. The microphone can also be mounted on a stand for more ‘traditional’ recording. Connection to the computer is via USB, and there is a headphone out for monitoring. The front panel has a power light (which doubles as a clip indicator), a mute button and a volume control for the headphones – all you need for recording on the run.
Installation is trivial – for Windows 7 everything happens automatically, and XP requires a couple of mouse clicks before the automatic installation kicks off. I wanted to get a rough guitar/vocal sketch down, so I fired up Live, selected the Meteor as my input, and was ready to record. I ran a Rode Nt1a – Focusrite pre as my comparison setup – many times more expensive than the Meteor, but the sort of rig that Samson would be looking to replace.
Usability is excellent, and the zero-latency monitoring through the headphones works perfectly. The recording level is set in Windows audio setup – I found this a little unusual but it works well enough. Comparing recordings between the test microphones led to a number of observations:
Overall presentation is fairly neutral – with less air and sparkle than the Rode. This is great for spoken word or laying down simple ‘authentic’ rock tracks, but it would be difficult to get the vocal to cut through in busier pop mixes.
For medium to high register vocals the Meteor sounded great. This would be its bread-and-butter application, and it is obviously set up accordingly. The tone is good, there is detail without harshness, and the vocals have a ‘weightiness’ that will be excellent for voice-overs. Handling of plosives and wind noise is about the same as the Nt1a (without pop-shield) – fine as long as you don’t overdo things or get too close.
Low register vocals tend to get a little muddy. Proximity effect is well judged though, with no boominess or ugly resonances.
Results on acoustic guitar were very serviceable – not as bright and open as the Nt1a, but fairly close to the source and with a pleasing overall tone. I would have preferred slightly more detailed transients, but for general-purpose use this sort of thicker tone is more versatile.
Unfortunately for Cubase users there is a bit of a snag – the plug-and-play audio standard that makes the Meteor so easy to install does not provide ASIO functionality, so it’s not possible to use the Meteor with newer versions of Cubase (which only use ASIO). There may be a workaround for this but it didn’t work for me and a quick Google search shows I’m not the only one.
So basically the Meteor does what it is designed to do extremely well – it’s very compact, looks great, is easy to install and set up, and is capable of making some very good recordings in its ‘design role’ – sitting on a table wherever you happen to be, plugged into your laptop, capturing whatever you lay down. The headphone output is an added bonus and turns it into a portable sound card. It shows some limitations when you try to get too much out of it, and won’t replace a good large-diaphragm condenser/pre combo for studio pop vocals just yet, but for the price it sounds brilliant and fulfils it’s design role admirably.
Price: R 995.00
Supplier: Audiosure (Pty) Ltd
Tel: (011) 790 4600
Web: www.audiosure.co.za
Written By : Matthew De Nobrega
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