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I bought a thirty dollar microphone and it works great but there is buzzing. I read online that I might need an audio condenser. I used my phone and the quality is way better than the microphone with singing because there is no buzzing. I've used audacity to filter out any disruptions and it sounds great but not like a song. I've tried producing with it but I'm so discouraged. The mic is called, "

TONOR Pro Condenser Microphone XLR to 3.5mm Podcasting Studio Recording Condenser Microphone Kit Computer Mics with 48V Phantom Power Supply"

I'm just so discouraged and need help rn with advice for making audio sound good for an actual song. Does this need an audio interface or something? Thank you

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    Can you describe your signal chain in full detail? Mar 3, 2018 at 21:21
  • are you plugging the +48V supply into the computer USB port? It is hard to tell what is causing the buzz without hearing it because it could be a few things. Do you have multiple XLR cords that you can swap out incase it is a bad cable? Lastly if you touch the metal casing around the microphone does it stop or get worse? Mar 4, 2018 at 5:52

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An XLR to 3.5mm microphone will never be that good of a sound, but there shouldn't be buzzing. If you're using a laptop, try recording with the computer unplugged and running off the battery. A condenser is an entirely different type of microphone, which would sound a lot better but would require an audio interface. So, pricey.

If you can't get the buzzing to go away, a better cheap solution would be to buy a USB microphone. There's a good one for around $100 from Blue, but other cheaper ones would do okay too.

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It's probably possible to remove that buzz using some kind of galvanic decoupling (DI box), but frankly that would be putting lipstick on a pig. From my experience, 1/8" mic/line inputs on consumer sound cards, especially of laptops and mobile devices, are pretty unsalvageable.

Get a USB audio interface, made by a brand that's at least somewhat recognised in music production. That'll give you proper mic preamps, in a box with AD-converters that are decoupled from all the interference you have in a computer housing. It'll probably also give a more reliable phantom voltage than that supply you've got there.

The market leader in the cheap-but-usable segment in Behringer, whose U-Phoria UM-2 interface might be just right for you. Though Behringer used to be notorious for noisy inputs – hiss, not buzz – until, so it's often said, they bought Midas and took over their preamp designs. (Which are probably not in the U-Phoria though; anyway I think it doesn't have that much to do with design as with production – small integrated-circuit preamps just can't be made low-noise).
For a little more money you can at any rate already get pretty decent quality with something from Presonus, Focusrite or Tascam.

Though it should, I wouldn't guarantee that the microphone will indeed work flawlessly even with a good audio interface. But if you have an interface you will easily be able to replace the mic with a better one at any point later.

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