question for the podcasters

I've been working on a new episode of RFB most of this morning, and I'm incredibly sad to reach the conclusion that it's just not going to happen.

I don't have anything original or interesting to say, but I figured it wouldn't be the biggest deal, because the bulk of the show would be audio from the Star Trek convention and my audition on Tuesday. The big problem is, that audio is just for shit. It's so blown out that listening to it gave me a headache and actually made me feel a little sick to my stomach by the time I gave up trying to clean it up in garageband.

I've been using an iRiver 795; I've noticed that the last few times I've used it, the built-in mic is so sensitive, that with the encoder set at 44 kHz and 160Kbps, unless I'm speaking very quietly or there is absolutely no ambient noise, the audio is useless at best, and painful at worst. I've tried the line-in with a clip-on mic, but without some sort of pre-processing, the levels are too low.

So, can any of you experienced radio people or podcasters out there suggest an extremely portable, very affordable solution to my audio problem?

(Thanks to Matt D. for catching a picture of the official RFB truck in action!)

Comments

[Joe]

The iriver 795 is a great tool for recording audio and keep it discrete.

There's a setting in
--Control -- Voice Recording
for AGC on or off. That's automatic gain control. If you turn it off, it makes the built in mike more sensative.

Maybe with AGC On, it can make the clip on mike MORE sensative. Have you played with that setting?

As for other solutions, I've tried several other "portable" flash recorders, including dedicated voice recorders from Sony & Panasonic, the result is mediocre at best (with the exception of the Sony portable DAT recorder)..

Otherwise, Iriver's philips DSP is one of the best out there.

[shurg]

I recommend Sound Soap from Bias for cleaning up audio.

http://www.bias-inc.com/products/soundsoap/

And it runs under OS X.

[BrendanScamper]

Scamper uses the Olympus Digital Voice Recorder WS-100 for the Scamper Podcast.

It works great - only $100 and it gets great sound quality. We did a podcast from our show with Kay Hanley (episode 2 at www.scamper.net/podcast) and even in a noisy rock club you can hear my voice incredibly clearly. Check it out.

[melina]

I can't help with your actual posts question, but Happy St. Paddy's Day to you Wil!

Love your show, and keep up the great posts.

[Joe]

Correction:

AGC OFF makes the mic LESS sensitive.

AGC ON makes it MORE sensitive.

It may also have an effect on the clip-on.

[Joe]

Also, try using the latest firmware for the Iriver. Currently, the latest version available is 1.65. I have noticed differences in sound quality with the different firmwares. Started off with 1.24.

[DigiMatt]

I'd strongly suggest you get a very basic mixer, like Behringer Eurorack MX602A. They're quite affordable, and have decent preamps for the money.

[Nathan Gill]

I use an iRiver H10. Not exactly the most affordable, but failry portable. Very iPod-esque. I'm really impressed with the quality, though.

[glitchnyc.com]

I've got the iRiver-899 and an external mic. When you hold down the little "joystick" button, you get a menu that you can change all sorts of settings on. I find the default mic input level waaaay to hot, and generally turn it down to around 24. You can always amplify, but if you clip out (over moduldate) you'll never get that lost audio data back, and it will sound very rough where the waveform gets cut off.

It's a tough balance, but i tend to err on the side of too soft.

[tanyak]

I'm sorry, but I was just watching Hustle and Flow and then popped on here to read what's up and it gives your search for the perfect mic a whole new meaning.

[Kirimaku]

Sorry Will, I too use Audacity. Sure would love to hear the Stories though.

Just taped Journey's End - one of my favaortes of yours that I decided would be a keeper. Wil's rite of passage - way cool.

But wanted to pass on the neatest thing you might wantto share with your kids.
http://www.135ahc.com/media/hubble640.html - shere you will find stunning stunning pictures from Hubble set to music and available as a screensaver.

Since it looks like we will be losing Hubble, might as well smell the roses while they are here. - Give it a look when you grab a moment.

congrats and applause on the progress with the audition! Fingers crossed and prayers for best outcome!

[Marianne]

Hi Wil-

Long time reader, first time poster. As a podcaster (castress?), I figured now would be appropriate to add a comment.

We use Audacity exclusively for recording and editing. We thoroughly researched GarageBand, Logic, Logic Express and even Protools, but found that even paying hunderds of dollars couldn't get us the flexibility of editing and tools we have with Audacity.

I've got one of the boys looking at the hardware we use now for the names/model numbers. It's all worked great for us for over 25 shows, and we skype in guests and the whole nine yards.

I'll post again with the hardware info, hope that helps out.

You can hear us at:
www.TavernCast.com

Good luck!

:) Kirnakaterre
TavernCast Cast Member
A World of Warcraft Podcast
Part of the PC Gamer Podcast Network

[Batmensch]

Why not just use a camcorder or something, pull it into iMovie and just save the audio?

This is assuming you have a camcorder, of course.

[Joe]

Something quick, highly portable, and that can be triggered on a whim with little thought is what I think Wil is aiming for.

[Paul R. Pival]

Hey Wil, Tod Maffin had a similar post back in January that collected a lot of useful comments. I think your setup is good and that you just need to tweak the settings...

http://todmaffin.com/blogs/radio/?p=912

[drewcipher]

I use a Sony Minidisc player with external mic. Excellent sound quality. To upload the audio back onto my ibook I use the Griffin iMic (because I don't have a line-in). I think the Powerbook has a line-in but I'm not sure. Anyway, the audio transfer is in "real time" since there's no USB transfer but the quality is top notch. I use this all the time to record shows of my friends bands, etc.

[Michael]

Hello,

Email your buddy David Lawrence, he's spoken about a mic that has a built in compressor / expander, that he's used with the iRiver. I'm sure he can also tell you what digital filters to apply to clean up audio files.

Michael

[Keith Coogan]

If you have a video camera with a mic line-in jack, I would use the camera to just record audio! It works great, and is often used as back-up to the DAT they use to really record sound. One of those new-fangled high-def cameras that are in the prosumer price range would work great. Just slap an actual hand-held mic (like the ones you would use a lead singer in a band) and you are good to go. Funny thing is, people react to the big microphone differently than to a small device or smaller mic.

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!!!!

-Keith Coogan

[Kaolin Fire]

Sounds like a great topic for a podcast, filled with interesting tidbits of painful audio ;)

[Blake]

I'm not sure if its exactly what you are looking for, but one of the coolest portable recorder's I've used is the Marantz PMD-660. It is completely solid state (no moving parts) and records compressed or uncompressed PCM audio files (I think either MP3 or WAV). It has a built in mic or takes XLR mic cable connectors and can record 2 tracks at once (stereo or interview style). I've used it for sampling and production recording. The coolest feature is if you have it in record pause and hit record, it starts recording 3 seconds before you hit record (buffered... really slick trick).

As for cleaning up audio, Sound Soap is good and easy to use. There are a bunch of other consumer level products that work as well. But to completely salvage bad audio, find a post facility with a Cedar Cambridge. They are pure magic. Let me know if you ever have a project that you need it on.

Blake

[smurfwreck]

Have you thought about something a little more singular in function like the Olympus DS-2 Digital Voice Recorder? I'm so not tech inclined, so I'm not sure if the quality is comparable to teh iRiver, but it's an idea.

[n. kittinger]

I know you blog for the LA metroblogging, and I, in fact, blog for Chicago. I was just thinking that you might find this:
http://chicago.metblogs.com/archives/2006/03/separated_at_bi_4.phtml
interesting :) .

[Rob Klause]

I've always been intrigued by the "Radio Expeditions" on NPR so I started looking around for high quality portable digital records-- you know, so I can wander around the woods and record crickets in hi-def audio. Gripping.

I saw this review back in November for the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 Pocket Digital Recorder on digitalmedia.oreilly.com: http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/11/30/m-audio-microtrack-review.html

The review features sample recordings that give an idea of what to expect. It's around $400 at Amazon.

[tshewmake]

I use the Olympus VN-480 for recording interviews, and a Plantronics DSP-500 headset for podcasts and VOIP. The Olympus dumps to .wav over USB, and has 2 mic sensitivity settings, for $60 at RatShack.

[whatupdog]

Because I deal with this stuff all day long I can actually make a few suggestions:

EDIROL R1 is probably right down your alley price wise. Here is a link you can check out:

http://www.elvistech.com/c=mWxdrF4OefVLuy98UOdYE0TWD/product/EDIR1

Probably just as good if not better is Sony's PCM-D1
which is a lot more expensive:

http://aes.harmony-central.com/119AES/Content/Sony/PR/PCM-D1.html

Sony has several less expensive options that use mini disks including this one:

http://www.elvistech.com/c=mWxdrF4OefVLuy98UOdYE0TWD/product/MZB100

Good luck with your audio/video ventures!

PS. Any chance you can use Sound Forge for your editing?