New Microphone

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Flack
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New Microphone

Post by Flack »

I ordered a new microphone, which should get the podcast back in business. There will be a full-fledged blog entry about the new mic, but the short version is, the new mic should arrive early next week, and a new episode of You Don't Know Flack will be posted before the end of October.

I PROMISE.
Flack
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ubikuberalles

Re: New Microphone

Post by ubikuberalles »

Will you be in your new house when you do the new podcast?
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dstone
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Re: New Microphone

Post by dstone »

Curious to see (or hear) what you chose. Just started playing around with a ribbon mic myself, although the pre-amp I run it through is quite noisy.

-------------------------------

Oooh, a Blue Yeti. Curious to hear what that sounds like. What were you using before?

I currently use an MXL 990 for voiceover stuff. My sound rig has four wireless Shure Beta87A's, a wireless SM58, two Shure Microflex gooseneck mics and a Sennheiser E835. I also have an MXL V900, but that usually only comes out if I'm needing its vintage look.

The ribbon mic I have is the MXL R144. Neat mic, but it's really unforgiving when it comes to your recording space and pre-amps. It's not something I'd want to use in a live environment.
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Flack
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Re: New Microphone

Post by Flack »

I was using a Shure 57, running into a small Behringer (4 channel? 6 channel?) mixing board. I have a Mackie 24x4 board in the closet but ... a little overkill for a podcast. ;)
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Re: New Microphone

Post by Flack »

I did some preliminary tests (including a short bit for the Retroist's annual Halloween podcast) and I have to say it sounds pretty good.

the microphone has a dial with four physical recording options (omnidirectional, unidirectional, bidirectional, and one other one). On the Retrobits podcast I used the unidirectional since I was sitting in place and that made the most sense, but I've been experimenting since then and I think the bidirectional option is actually louder and clearer.

If using a Shure 57 with a mixing board is a 10/10, I'd say this is an 8/10 or 9/10, and every other solution I've tried has been a 5/10. I'm willing to live with a point or so in degradation in exchange for the convenience of just plugging in a USB mic any time I want to record.
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Re: New Microphone

Post by Flack »

While the bidirectional setting is louder, it also gives a slight reverberation echo as it's recording my voice as it bounces off the wall, I think. Maybe I am using the directional setting incorrectly. I'll do some more playing. In the meantime, check out the latest episode (113) and tell me what you think about the audio quality.
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Re: New Microphone

Post by Flack »

I re-positioned the mic a little to the side for 114 and although it sounds better, there's still a bit of echo as my voice bounces off both the wall and my monitor. Maybe for 115 I'll throw up a piece of carpet on the wall or something and see if that sounds any better.
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Re: New Microphone

Post by Flack »

Turns out, I was using the mic incorrectly. It's a side mic, not a "top" (?) mic, so I've pretty much had it positioned incorrectly all this time.

Earlier this week I bought the USB dongle for the iPad. The iPad supports the Blue Yeti mic, and Blue even has an app (Blue FiRe) that will record at CD quality. It's very possible that the next episode of YDKF will be recorded on an iPad. Don't tell anybody.
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Re: New Microphone

Post by Flack »

I did a quick test last night and, when oriented correctly, it sounds 10x better than it did. Which is awesome, because it already sounded pretty good.
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