So, this is more of a question about audio hardware, but I figured there must be some people on these boards who do radio and/or podcasting. I'm looking to buy a mic, but I've got no idea where to start looking in terms of brand and features that meet my requirements (or even if my requirements are unrealistic.
So the situation is this. In the last couple of months, I've joined a community radio show here in Canberra called Reel Time (we do film reviews, interviews with local people involved in the industry, talk about trailers for upcoming films and generally ramble about cinema for an hour a week - You can check out the archives here: Reel Time 2XX Archive. I show up in ep27 as a guest host talking about the 2014 Canberra International Film Festival, then I was away until ep31, after which I'm there pretty much all the time since I became a more permanent member of the show). Problem is that since it's a community station, they don't have a lot of budget for equipment, meaning we're limited to four mics in the studio we use for the show. That's fine when only four of us show up, but more often than not there's five of us, and sometimes six if everyone can make it that week. We've been getting by sharing mics, and in the case of two of the hosts it works really well, but due to the fact that three of us like to banter back and forth a fair bit, it gets kind of crowded with us trying to shuffle back and forth between the two mics we share.
Since I've been meaning to start recording some of my gaming sessions for the purposes of having a reference when I'm writing stuff up, and also maybe starting to do some podcasting, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and buy a mic I could use for the show as well. Herein lies my problem. I know that the microphones we use in the studio only really pick up sound that's coming at them dead on (allowing us to turn down our own and talk quietly without being heard on the show while others are talking). So obviously I need something capable of doing that... but for recording the gaming group, and for podcasting if I get someone else on as a guest, for that I need to have it be able to pick up stuff all around the table. I have no idea if there's a mic that can be switched to work in either way or not, but that's the kind of thing I'm looking for (otherwise I guess I need two mics).
So, the requirements are:
- Able to be switched/configured to work either as either directional or omni-directional (no idea if this is correct terminology or not, but hopefully you get what I mean)
- Must be able to be connected to a PC (USB preferable but if there's an adapter or something I can use then that's fine)
- Must be able to be connected to a radio station mixing desk (I believe the input is a fairly standard one, 3 Pin XLR female connector if I'm remembering correctly, so the output on the mic would have to be a 3 Pin XLR male connector.)
- Decent enough quality for radio (I don't want to sound awful compared to everyone else, at least no more so than I usually do)
- Has a sturdy/stable and adjustable stand
- Relatively easy to setup/pack up and transport (I'll be carrying this thing around either in a backpack or in the topbox of my motorbike)
- Preferably not going to send me broke, I don't have a set price range in mind, but I'd really prefer to not be spending anywhere near $1000 if I can avoid it. I'm not that dedicated to community radio or podcasting. I guess the cheaper the better, though I understand that I do have to pay a bit for quality
So. The cry goes out to my fellow Paizo board lurkers! Halp! Lend me your wisdom and expertise! Shower me with knowledge of these magic amplification sticks. Seriously, if what I'm asking is totally unfeasible/impossible, just let me know. If that's the case then I guess I'd be looking for advice on two mics (preferable without doubling my costs if I can avoid it :P)
Thanks in advance for any help guys. While I think of it... As I'm sure you gathered from what I've said above, I don't know a whole lot about this sort of stuff. Feel free to get technical, but if you do so, please also break it down into simple terms for me. Explain it like I'm five, as I think the peeps over on Reddit say.
I'm told by my brother that what I'm looking for is a mic that can be switched from cardioid to omnidirectional. Apparently he's heard of them but knows nothing about them beyond the fact that they exist (he works entirely with cardioid mics due to his requirements).
Now that I've got the terminology correct and have hopefully avoided any confusion, anyone have any advice for me?
I'd advise getting a nice USB condenser mic. It will give you a nice pristine recording that can be sound designed to your liking. You can grab a kit from Amazon at a decent price and it will work just fine.
I don't think you really want an omnidirectional mic because that picks up noise from everywhere and will dilute the speaker in front of it. The only reason you'd want such a thing would be to record more than one person at a time and then your audio quality will be so poor that you would not want to use it on any sort of podcast.
Why would you want to plug into a soundboard? If you're recording on your PC or laptop that would not be necessary.
I've been using this one for years.
Thanks for the advice Brother Fen, I really appreciate it. I've had a look at some of the Samson stuff previously (specifically the Meteor came highly recommended) but sadly they don't quite suit my purposes.
There's a couple of reasons for the requirements I listed. Basically I have three main uses for the mic, four if I end up actually picking up some kind of intstrument again and decide to record my flailing attempts at making music :P
Most of the time it'll be used at home, and recorded to my laptop or PC. The unidirectional mic is for use when podcasting (when I get off my lazy rear and start podcasting). The Omnidirectional is for when I'm recording gaming sessions, and the recordings aren't going to be used publicly, it's more so I have something to reference when I'm writing stuff related to those sessions. So for those two uses, the USB condenser mic is fine (though I still need the omnidirectional pattern as well as the cardioid).
Where things get a bit more expensive is the third use I have for it. It's not just for home use. Once a week I'm on a local radio show, and we have more hosts than microphones, plus occasional guests. I've found sharing mics to be a really awkward experience, and it kind of just makes the flow of the show that little bit harder to maintain. But it's a community station and they don't really have the budget to be buying new mics just for the one show that has more than four people on every week. Since I was buying one for home use anyway, I figured I may as well try and kill two birds with one stone and get one I can plug into the desk at the station. Doesn't completely resolve the situation, we'd still have one more host than we have mics, but two of them manage to share a mic quite well so it'd help significantly.
Turns out one of the guys at work used to be in radio, and keeps up to date with home audio equipment as well, so I discussed it with him yesterday. He recommended the Blue Yeti USB microphone, which as you suggested is a condenser mic. It also switches pick up pattern so that I can get cardioid (for podcasting), omnidirectional (for gaming sessions), bidirectional (for interviews) and stereo (for if I ever get delusions of being a musician again), and has had outstanding reviews since it was released in 2010. It'd set me back around $200, but unfortunately doesn't work for when I'm in the studio. However, the model up, the Yeti Pro has all the same features, plus the option for higher recording resolution and XLR output. Bit more expensive, but well below my breaking point (I was expecting I'd probably need to shell out $400 to $500, I can pick this up for somewhere between $300 and $350)
Still doing some reading on it and checking out reviews, but I'm thinking the Yeti Pro looks like the way to go.
Oh and just in case what I've mentioned sounds too expensive... I'm in Australia, and therefore paying the so called "Australia tax" where everything, but especially electronics and clothing, costs a ridiculously higher amount here. In this case I'm kind of willing to deal with it since shopping locally means less hassle if something happens and I need to make a warranty claim... plus when I checked shipping, it only ended up coming to about a $30 to $50 difference.
Give a call to the folks at Tekserve in Manhattan. The owner David Lerner has the largest collection of mikes on display, and they have tons of music customers.
Better yet, go down there, see the collection of Americana. and have yourself a true 5 cent Coke from a classic coke machine. I chug one down every time I visit.
I would absolutely love to visit that place. It sounds amazing, and if I get the opportunity to visit our offices in Washington and New York later in the year like I hope to, I'll do my best to get there.
Well, just in case anyone's interested in the resolution to this story, my Blue Yeti Pro microphone arrived today, and as soon as I'm done getting the blog post I'm working on ready, I'm doing to muck around with it a bit. Installed the drivers already, had a bit of trouble with them, it kept saying the device wasn't connected. Turned out it tried to auto install and failed, so I had to uninstall the failed driver version, plug it back in and run the exe again. The standard Yeti is apparently plug and play for windows as well as Mac, I'm not sure why the Yeti Pro is only plug and play for mac.
It'll get it's first proper use on Thursday for the radio show.