I recently purchased a Blue Snowball iCE microphone. It seems like this person and this person had success using this on earlier versions of Ubuntu. When I plug in this microphone, it's not recognized at all. I plugged into my Windows 7 box, and it works just fine. Below I have the outputs for running dmesg and lsbusb -v. I love the quality of the mic, can anyone help!

When I run dmesg, I see this message:

[ 9398.403809] usb 3-1: new full-speed USB device number 24 using xhci_hcd
[ 9408.410102] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0d8c, idProduct=0005
[ 9408.410108] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 9408.410111] usb 3-1: Product: Blue Snowball
[ 9408.410502] usb 3-1: can't set config #1, error -32

I have been googling around to figure out what that error could mean, and no luck.

When I run lsbusb -v, I get the following related to the mic:

Bus 003 Device 024: ID 0d8c:0005 C-Media Electronics, Inc.
Couldn't open device, some information will be missing
Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 1.10 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 16 idVendor 0x0d8c C-Media Electronics, Inc. idProduct 0x0005 bcdDevice 1.00 iManufacturer 1 iProduct 2 iSerial 3 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 159 bNumInterfaces 3 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 0 bmAttributes 0x80 (Bus Powered) MaxPower 100mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 0 bInterfaceClass 1 Audio bInterfaceSubClass 1 Control Device bInterfaceProtocol 0 iInterface 0 AudioControl Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 36 bDescriptorSubtype 1 (HEADER) bcdADC 1.00 wTotalLength 46 bInCollection 1 baInterfaceNr( 0) 1 AudioControl Interface Descriptor: bLength 12 bDescriptorType 36 bDescriptorSubtype 2 (INPUT_TERMINAL) bTerminalID 2 wTerminalType 0x0201 Microphone bAssocTerminal 0 bNrChannels 1 wChannelConfig 0x0001 Left Front (L) iChannelNames 0 iTerminal 0 AudioControl Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 36 bDescriptorSubtype 3 (OUTPUT_TERMINAL) bTerminalID 7 wTerminalType 0x0101 USB Streaming bAssocTerminal 0 bSourceID 8 iTerminal 0 AudioControl Interface Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 36 bDescriptorSubtype 5 (SELECTOR_UNIT) bUnitID 8 bNrInPins 1 baSource( 0) 10 iSelector 0 AudioControl Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 36 bDescriptorSubtype 6 (FEATURE_UNIT) bUnitID 10 bSourceID 2 bControlSize 1 bmaControls( 0) 0x03 Mute Control Volume Control bmaControls( 1) 0x00 iFeature 0 Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 1 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 0 bInterfaceClass 1 Audio bInterfaceSubClass 2 Streaming bInterfaceProtocol 0 iInterface 0 Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 1 bAlternateSetting 1 bNumEndpoints 1 bInterfaceClass 1 Audio bInterfaceSubClass 2 Streaming bInterfaceProtocol 0 iInterface 0 AudioStreaming Interface Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 36 bDescriptorSubtype 1 (AS_GENERAL) bTerminalLink 7 bDelay 1 frames wFormatTag 1 PCM AudioStreaming Interface Descriptor: bLength 29 bDescriptorType 36 bDescriptorSubtype 2 (FORMAT_TYPE) bFormatType 1 (FORMAT_TYPE_I) bNrChannels 1 bSubframeSize 2 bBitResolution 16 bSamFreqType 7 Discrete tSamFreq[ 0] 8000 tSamFreq[ 1] 11025 tSamFreq[ 2] 16000 tSamFreq[ 3] 22050 tSamFreq[ 4] 32000 tSamFreq[ 5] 44100 tSamFreq[ 6] 48000 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x82 EP 2 IN bmAttributes 5 Transfer Type Isochronous Synch Type Asynchronous Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0064 1x 100 bytes bInterval 1 bRefresh 0 bSynchAddress 0 AudioControl Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 37 bDescriptorSubtype 1 (EP_GENERAL) bmAttributes 0x01 Sampling Frequency bLockDelayUnits 0 Undefined wLockDelay 0 Undefined Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 2 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 1 bInterfaceClass 3 Human Interface Device bInterfaceSubClass 0 No Subclass bInterfaceProtocol 0 None iInterface 0 HID Device Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 33 bcdHID 1.11 bCountryCode 0 Not supported bNumDescriptors 1 bDescriptorType 34 Report wDescriptorLength 26 Report Descriptors: ** UNAVAILABLE ** Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x87 EP 7 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0010 1x 16 bytes bInterval 1

This is the output from syslog:

Aug 9 00:30:54 Europa kernel: [ 835.548792] usb 2-1.5: new full-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pci
Aug 9 00:31:04 Europa mtp-probe: checking bus 2, device 5: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.5"
Aug 9 00:31:04 Europa mtp-probe: bus: 2, device: 5 was not an MTP device
Aug 9 00:31:04 Europa kernel: [ 845.631082] usb 2-1.5: New USB device found, idVendor=0d8c, idProduct=0005
Aug 9 00:31:04 Europa kernel: [ 845.631088] usb 2-1.5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Aug 9 00:31:04 Europa kernel: [ 845.631091] usb 2-1.5: Product: Blue Snowball
Aug 9 00:31:04 Europa kernel: [ 845.631450] usb 2-1.5: can't set config #1, error -32

11

1 Answer

The Blue Snowball iCE DOES NOT WORK with Ubuntu 14.04 out of the box. If you looking for a microphone for your Ubuntu 14.04 box, don't buy this one. I bought the ATR2100 by Audio-Technica and that worked very well.

If you want to the Blue Snowball, I recommend getting the original version (not the iCE) I haven't tried it, but after talking to a number of folks, the original seemed to be working for them.

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