Samson - G-Track Pro USB Microphone

My background: Audiophile since my teen years in the 1970s, professional broadcaster since 1978. I've spent many years talking on and listening to mics. I'll be the first to admit that my hearing's high end isn't what it used to be, but I can still recognize that this mic provides excellent sound quality and is a great value. I produce a weekly podcast of sorts, and I've been using a voice booth at the TV station where I work to do the raw recording, then take the file home for editing. That's rather inconvenient, so I got to thinking that I should buy a USB mic to use at home. The reason I picked this model is because it is available for local pickup, was on sale at $129, it has a headphone output, and it looks nice. Now that I've brought it home, I can add to the list that it has great build quality, and excellent sound. I'm sure that true audiophiles could pick at real or imagined flaws all day long, but for basic, clean vocal recording into a PC, it does an impressive job at a low price. I recorded several voice samples at home, and compared them to some recordings from the TV station voiceover booth. Although there is a slightly different coloration in the frequency response, the Samson G-Track Pro compares quite favorably. In fact, if I were not doing A-B tests, and you just walked up to me one day and presented me with a recording without telling me which mic it was from, I probably could not reliably identify the source. Clean, wide-range sound, reasonably low preamp noise, and surprisingly good shock isolation. The built-in headphone amp sounds very good and can drive low-impedance headphones to a very loud level. I didn't test the instrument input. I am confident that for any home, or even some professional voice recording scenarios, this mic will do an excellent job at a very attractive price point. I wish they had stuff like this at this price when I was cutting my audio teeth over 40 years ago!

I am a professional Voiceover Actor/Producer/Coach working fulltime in my Bremerton studio. Because I coach beginners as well as veteran VO talent, finding microphones to help people get into the business at a lower cost is always on my mind. This G-Track Pro is a reissue of an earlier Samson USB microphone that has been really upgraded for professional sound quality. Microphones used for VO work can cost upwards of $200 to $1500 and still require an expensive preamp and cables to hook them up to your computer for recording and editing. USB microphones get a bad rap in the VO Industry sometimes, especially from talent who have the expensive gear, but you gotta start somewhere and I would challenge anyone to compare the audio recorded on this microphone (in a well treated & soundproofed booth) to more expensive microphones & chain, to see what they think. It is very heavy and well built, lots of metal on the stand, body, and screen. Only plastic I found were the knobs. If used on the provided stand, it needs to be isolated from the desk or tabletop by a soft cloth, silicone mat, or other padding since it is very sensitive to vibrations. Hoping to find a matching shockmount from Samson that would help tremendously with this and then mount it on a desktop Boom-Arm.

This is an excellent mic for USB, Id put it up with the Rode/Shure in terms of sound quality via USB. If your local sales associates try selling you on a Blue Yeti instead, tell them to take a walk. This mic has a better noise floor, does a better job cutting out unwanted noise without using 3rd party software, and offers the same different recording types for different uses. (Cardioid, Omni-directional, figure-8 etc.) It also includes a 1/4" headphone out for zero latency monitoring, and one of my favorites, a 1/4" line in which can be used for instruments or playing audio off a separate source (such as a phone with an 1/8" to 1/4" adapter). The mic monitor out sounds surprisingly good for being off a usb mic, and pushes enough power to drive the power hungry Senn. HD650's, just dont expect it to be as good as an amplified signal. LED with red peak indicator is a nice addition for setting your mic volume when not using the monitor line. Definitely would buy again, and is a perfect mic for anyone wanting sound quality without spending the money on a higher end xlr to usb interface/mixer and mic.

I was excited at the prospect of recording voiceovers and gaming with this microphone... build quality appears to be excellent and it's a solid, well built mike. I like that it has the ability to plug in a guitar or other musical device and record that with voice. The Samson is heavy and made of solid metal parts; very little plastic in its construction. The only problem; I could not get windows 10 to recognize it after plugging the usb connector into my computer. It doesn't appear in audio and has a error mark in device manager. Tried downloading devices and software from Samson and still the mic has no output into computer and doesn't even show up as an option to select in audio settings. So disappointing! Had to return it ... got a Yeti instead which doesn't seem quite as well built, but it worked immediately plug and play when I hooked up the USB into my Windows 10 computer. I wish it worked because I thought it demonstrated great value for the money, excellent quality of build, it just doesn't operate with my Windows 10 computer!

I game every night and recently started to stream on Twitch. This microphone is definitely an upgrade in sound quality but then again, I was just using my headset mic! I thought about getting the Blue Yeti instead of this one. I spent many hours looking and researching which was better and in the end I chose this one and don't regret it. My sister has a blue yeti she uses for YouTube which I tried for my gaming and the blue yeti picked up a lot of background noise even on the cardiod setting whereas the G-Track Pro did not. The sound is so much more clearer and professional sounding. Great starter mic. I did have an issue with this microphone when I first got it though, the USB that it came with did not work. It turned on the Mic but my PC and laptop did not recognize it as a device. I luckily had a spare laying around and it fixed the issue! This is the ONLY reason why I'm giving this mic 4 stars. Besides the one thing- the mic was easy to set up. All I had to do was plug it in and set it as my default device to work!

First of all, the sound quality of this microphone definitely exceeded my expectations. It’s crystal clear, crisp and blocks out unwanted noise quite well. It is definitely well built, and very durable — perhaps, a bit too much though, as I’d probably lose a few toes if the mic ever came loose. The software is great! That is, if you are able to work with it. I have used Adobe Premier and OSX Final Cut without a single problem. This software is the only one I have ever had with any. Maybe it’s over my head? If so, then I’m sure it would be over the vast majority of others — leaving it to those who are very savvy with the program in specific to benefit from it. And I highly doubt they will be using a 20-pound, $150 mic, which could basically be used as a weapon; is extremely limited in terms of inputs/outputs, connects via USB B (of all things?!), and will likely require a $300 microphone stand to hold this behemoth in place. On the other hand, it works great for voice dictation, voiceovers, podcasts and other stationary tasks.

- According to the Samson tech support reply to me today, the Samson G-Track Pro is not actually a 24bit 96kHz Microphone, neither single channel or two. I have spent weeks waiting for a response from Samson Tech Support, only to find out it will not work at 24bit @ 48kHz, but will only at 16bit @ 96kHZ, (dual channel), or 24bit @ 48kHz. But, even at 16bit, I feel that a low latency kernel mode driver should have been provided. - There are no kernel mode low latency drivers. - The Serial Number for the product is on the outside of the box, (for other people to unlock the software), and it takes a few tech support calls to actually get the software that is supposed to come with it. - Warranty registration, etc., online support, etc., feels very hacked together, (which is probably how the serial numbers - on the outside of the boxes), may have been used by others to unlock the software before you buy it, (or probably through a website brute force attack). All of these issues have been raised with Samson tech support, but nothing at all appears to have changed. Regardless of the quality of the mic - (which I haven't even gotten around to testing because of this issue), I do not recommend it - because of the business practices alone.

This microphone sounds great and it's very easy to set up. It's a quick plug and play. I would recommend this if you're a musician because you can use it as an audio interface as well. It has a direct input which allows you to record two separate tracks for your vocals and instrument. There's a microphone gain knob and headphone monitoring input. It's a pretty sturdy and heavy mic, so it's not ideal if you're looking for something portable and lightweight. It works well with my PC, but it does NOT work with my iPhone 7 or iPad. There's an error that states the microphone "uses too much power", which is why I didn't give it five stars.