So, I just bought this NT-2 from ebay and I think it might be broken. I'm not experienced with real equipment so I'd like to see if there is something basic that I'm overlooking.

I have an SM-57 and I run it into my external sound card and I can monitor it in Ableton Live and when I just swap the microphones there's no signal.

It's probably just dead. But does anyone have any better microphone diagnostic ideas or if I should just return it and beg for a refund?

Thanks.

condenser microphones need phantom power to operate.
your 57 is a dynamic and your nt2 is a condenser.

yep 48v-

phantom power- not broken

I don't want no part of yo' tight-ass country club, ya freak bitch!

Thanks for the quick help guys. With more thought, I figured there could have been a power issue, but the Rode manual is written in extremely casual speak.

Anyway, I could try googling for standalone phantom power supplies, but I'd rather go with a recommendation on here (as I did for the mic). Anyone?

I appreciate it.

you would probably be best off getting a small mixer that has phantom power as you probably shouldn't be going straight into the pc soundcard

I have an X-Fi elite pro (which was a rip off and I regret getting, but I went with for it's gaming features too). It has an external hub thing that's got two 1/4" inch jacks on the front with knobs that control the input gain, so I run my electronic instruments straight through that (using amp sims and shit) or micing things and monitoring it all with my epic computer speakers, and rarely are there any latency issues. It works extremely well for my music - my songs usually have way more tracks that I'd want to spend the money on a mixer to support, so I don't really understand the purpose of one for me... unless there are fundamental aspects of having a better setup with a mixer that I'm missing.

Bummer my card doesn't supply phantom power, though.

you should definitely get a mixer for the xlr in and mic pres, which as far i can tell your soundcard doesn't have, and then go from that into the soundcard. you don't need to have big desk by the sounds of it. you don't need a channel for every track you have recorded, use the virtual mixer in your audio program for mixing, just use the desk when tracking stuff.

oh yeah, and if you do get a mixer make sure it does have phantom power, a lot of mixers don't.

After seeing the reasonable prices of a lot of the smaller mixers, I am now leaning towards that idea... getting a standalone power supply just doesn't seem worth dealing with. Thanks for that.

I understand the value of using the desk mixer just for channeling the audio into my soundcard (just by soloing whatever track?); I am curious about USB interfacing, though. I recently purchased a laptop that I haven't been able to use for music (since I have no hardware for it). It seems like there are a lot of mixed reviews on USB mixers and a lot of people just say fork up the extra money and get a mixer and sound card (which I already have).

Although, that's cool for the desktop it could be real nice to work on the laptop and I can shove this Creative X-Fi shit up my ass. USB interfacing just seems too simple, what am I missing?

Thanks for following me along this massive thread derailment.