Shure SM58 + SMULE. I need help!

[Josh96]

Hello guys,

So, I’ve been a long time earpods Apple user which I always use it to sing on Smule but decided to try a new experience by singing with external mic other than earphone.

Thus, I purchased SM58 with a sound card live mixer called Maonocaster E2, this sound card was introduced by the seller which I was told that it’s very suitable for singing Smule with SM58 (Well, that’s what they said).

Since I prefer monitoring my voice directly from the Smule app, I decided to turn off the mic monitoring from this sound card and have all voice setting such as low, mid, high voice settings, and reverb set to zero (as if no changes to my voice because I’ll be depending the sound effect / filter from Smule), but the problem occurred, whenever I sing into my SM58, the mic monitoring from what I hear is a little bit delayed from Smule which very hindering me to my fullest singing experience as how I sing with earphone. 

So, I’m wondering if that was the sound card problem as it’s a live mixer and the mic monitoring from the app is normal to have latency? Is there any solution for this? 

Or should I purchase another “preamp only purpose” instead? Since preamp main purpose is to power up the dynamic microphone.

If I were to purchase preamp only, I’m thinking of getting iRig Pre 2, as I’ve noticed a few singers from Smule using this together with SM58, but I’m not sure if this product have any problem with the mic monitoring latency like my sound card and still wondering if I can also hear the music from the Smule app through iRig Pre 2? 

Any recommendation or advice would be greatly appreciated. 
 

 

 

[Josh96]

For additional information,

I use iPhone 15 Pro Max (type c port) connected to the sound card, I don’t know if this is the cable is the main problem for mic monitoring latency from Smule? 

[opentype]

What kind of headphones do you use and how are they connected and to which device?

[Josh96]

9 minutes ago, opentype said:

What kind of headphones do you use and how are they connected and to which device?

I tried both Earpods itself (for monitoring only) and AKG K52. 

Here’s the full list of the equipments (with photos)

Maonocaster E2, iPhone 15 Pro Max (connected to the sound card with the original type C itself), AKG K52 / Apple Earpods as sound monitor with 3.5mm Jack, Shure SM58 with XLR cable connected to the sound card. 
 

[opentype]

I’m almost certain the latency can only come from the Maonocaster. I haven’t used it before, but I did a Google search and see many confirmations of significant latency. 

[Josh96]

6 minutes ago, opentype said:

I’m almost certain the latency can only come from the Maonocaster. I haven’t used it before, but I did a Google search and see many confirmations of significant latency. 

Yes, It’s such a shame that is the only thing lacked from this sound card. The mic monitoring from the sound card app itself has no latency but the output which is mic monitoring from Smule app has a latency. So I guess I’ll be better off to get preamp only instead since I don’t like mixing my voice from the sound card and much prefer using the sound effect / filter from the Smule app itself.

I have searched from this forum, and seems like iRig Pre 2 and Tascam iXZ is good for SM58, will they work as how we use earphone? Including listening to the music from the Smule app and mic monitoring directly without latency? Which one do you think suits my need the best? Thank you, sir.

Edited June 13 by Josh96

[opentype]

We usually recommend the iRig Pro I/O. 

We also had discussions about FocusRite interfaces. 

[Josh96]

8 minutes ago, opentype said:

We usually recommend the iRig Pro I/O. 

We also had discussions about FocusRite interfaces. 

Interesting, both are quite pricey and I just bought this Maonocaster😅 If only I chosen one of the two you mentioned. But given two options I mentioned above (iRig Pre 2 / Tascam iXZ since they’re in my budget for now), would you still recommend for me to get them? As long as it can fulfil the mic monitoring needs and can handle or minimize noise (fyi, Maonocaster is amazing in noise reduction, too bad the latency is the breaker)

[Josh96]

Okay, since I wanted to make sure that it’s the Maonocaster that caused the latency, I decided to plug in my iPhone 7 using Lightning to 3.5 mm adapter + conversion to the sound card, surprisingly it has no latency when monitoring the mic from Smule. 
Tomorrow (as it’s almost midnight here by the time I’m writing this), I’ll test further again by trying to use the jack cable that came with the sound card to connect my iPhone 15 Pro Max and see if it there’s any latency issue again. I think the main reason could be between connecting via USB C to their sound card USB C port. 
 

I’ll update to this thread again so I can share my experience with this sound card.

[Josh96]

I’ve tested using the jack cable that came with the sound card, it doesn’t work with iPhone 15 Pro Max at all as we can’t hear the mic monitoring from Smule, the adapter used was Baseus though, I suspect this was the cause because the original adapter for iPhone 7 worked perfectly. 

I’ll purchase the original USB-C to 3.5mm Jack adapter from Apple just to test it out again.

Anyway, for any new starter who are reading this thread, I think it’s much better to get the iRig Pro i/o as opentype suggested, saved the headache.