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Officially, the Shure PG27USB works under both Windows and Mac operating systems and requires no drivers. But as it's simply a standard USB audio device, it also worked on Ubuntu 9.04 'Jaunty' with no configuration required either.

Using the Open Source 'Audacity', I simply selected the Shure microphone as my input and output devices and I was ready to go. I didn't have to fiddle around in any sound recorder settings as all of this is taken care of before the signal is digitised.

The microphone itself offers much more than meets the eye - it's really a microphone, preamp and monitor all in one. Adjusting the gain is done by a fairly standard roller dial and there is a -20db pad which reduces the gain if you happen to be in a really noisy room or in close proximity to an instrument - for example, a French horn.

There is an LED indicator, too, that has three colours: green so you know it's picking you up, yellow to show its near its peak and red if you're clipping. During recording, you want it to be green when there is sound, with the occasional yellow during the loudest parts. So for initial setup, all you have to do is run a few simple test sounds while adjusting the gain to find the perfect level - you don't even have to be recording at this stage.

You'll also notice a headphone jack built into the microphone. This is for zero latency monitoring. When using the sound card on the computer for monitoring, there can be a delay as the sound is processed before it's sent to the headphones. In this case, it comes directly from the preamp allowing you to monitor the recording in real time.

As well as providing an input to the computer, it also provides an output. So while recording, if you're playing the tracks you are layering over, these will be sent to the microphone to be mixed into the monitor for playback through your headphones.

There are two more roller dials on the microphone - one for adjusting the volume of playback through the headphones, and another to adjust the volume of the monitor (i.e what's coming through the microphone). This allows you to decide what you want to hear more of - the backing track, or yourself.

The outcome of this is, is that you can get almost everything setup without even having to turn your computer on. All of your settings will be completely independent to the machine too, so you could move between several machines and have consistent levels.

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