Hi Warren,

Welcome to the forum!

The problem inherent with computer recording is latency, the time between when you play a note versus hear the note, can be so high it interferes with your playing. Audio interfaces and USB microphones work around latency by adding a direct output. A direct output is a headphone jack connected to an internal mixer that compensates for latency by mixing the microphone output with the computer audio output.

From your post, it seems the USB microphone you presently use has a built-in headphone jack. If you can playback an Audacity audio track while recording through the microphone and both audio streams playback correctly then your USB microphone headphone jack is a direct output. The USB microphone you have should work as well with RealBand as it does with Audacity.

The sound quality of USB microphones has drastically improved since they were first introduced. Most well known microphone manufacturers offer USB versions of their most popular microphones. USB microphones are considered as and can be used as an audio interface. Many people prefer external audio interfaces because they offer multiple types of inputs, familiar controls, microphone pre-amplifiers originally designed for mixers, a variety of headphone jacks or amplifiers and better sounding A/D or D/A conversion. You don't know what you're getting with a USB microphone until you get it and many stores have a can not return once it's used microphone policy.

For what its worth, you may receive more views and responses by creating a new thread instead of tacking onto an existing thread.

Jim Fogle - 2026 BiaB (Build 1224) RB (Build 8) - Ultra+ PAK
DAWs: Cakewalk Sonar - Standalone: Zoom MRS-8
Desktop: i7 Win 11, 12GB ram 256GB SSD, 4 TB HDD
Music at: https://fogle622.wix.com/fogle622-audio-home