Group podcasts on the cheap?

February 28, 2009 7:06 PM

Researching cheap and cheerful equipment (mics, mixers, etc.) for recording podcasts. The caveat: there will be several people in the podcast.

There are a bunch of guides that say it's really cheap to get started with podcasts, and a lot of them recommend USB mics of varying sorts (the Blue Snowball and the Samson C01U seem to be mentioned a lot). But all these guides seem to assume your podcast will only have one speaker, and don't cover what you should get if you plan to have several people talking roundtable-style for a podcast.

The best options I could think of are a) buy an omnidirectional USB mic like the Snowball, or b) get a bunch of normal mics and a mixer. Asking a guy at the local music store led to a discussion of $400 USB mixers, though, which suddenly seems like a lot once you buy three or four mics to go along with it. We don't know if the podcast is going to be all that successful or gain a regular audience, and $700+ seems like a lot of money to spend on something that's far from a sure thing.

On the other hand, I've read comments that suggest the Snowball's omni mode is little more than a novelty unless everyone leans in really closely. Plus I'm worried about it picking up room noise that cardioid mics would cut down on. So maybe this isn't the answer either.

Are there any solutions, preferably less than $500 (and the lower the better!) that would allow three or four people to put together a podcast that sounds, if not amazing, at least decent? Or should we just bite the bullet and splash out for the mixer and mics when (if) we have the dough?

posted by chrominance to media & arts (12 comments total)

I recently asked this exact question of a sound technician at a major radio station. He recommended this, the Microtrack 24/96 Professional 2-track Mobile Digital Recorder with mini stereo mic, which uses a compact Flash card and costs about $360.

I haven't used it personally, and neither had he, but it was the equipment his station had bought for recording streeters (ie, pieces recorded on the street or in other real-world settings, not in studios), and he was happy with the quality of file his producers were returning with. He said the built-in mic on that device was fine for recording voices, should be OK for more than one voice, and could get location sound at web-broadcast quality. He also warned to always use headphones while recording with it, to keep an ear on the levels. I was surprised that such a little gadget would be good for all that, but he said it seemed to be working fine.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 7:42 PM on February 28

Given the $500 budget, you're not going to get an idea setup, but you can get something that will get you started an hopefully be upgradeable if/when the time comes.

Ideally, you'd record each participant to their own track, but in your situation, you can get away with mixing two people to a track.

Mixer: Behringer Xenyx 1202 A cheap mixer with 4 mic preamps. $106

Mics: Shure PG58 A budget version of the venerable SM58. $63 each, with cables.

Interface: Behringer UCA202 A no frills 2-channel usb interface. $40

So that takes you to $400 before taxes, and it'll get the job done.

Toss in some Mic Stands and some decent headphones for you to monitor the recording with, and you're all set up. Well, except software. Audacity is decent and free.

Pan two of the mics far left and two far right and you have a little more flexibility in post in case someone is louder / quieter than the others.

Sorry for the messy reply, in a hurry to get out the door.
posted by jjb at 7:49 PM on February 28

If I may venture an opinion, you can probably get away with some pretty cheap microphones. There is, for example, this mic from Shure; I'm guessing that it would be more than good enough for what you're doing. Amazon also has the Behringer mixer and USB interface jjb mentioned for a bit less money.
posted by sinfony at 8:48 PM on February 28

Lots of good advice here already, but I think you can get it done for under two hundred.

First, the mics: get a cheap set of pencil condensers. I use Samson's CO2 mics, but anything in the $100 should do just fine.

Now, the mixer: ANALOG. You're not recording T-Pain here, you're not going to be multitracking, and you're probably not even going to have to fiddle with the levels too much once you've got everyone's voices checked. Get a cheap mixer with at least two phantom powered XLR inputs, then buy an RCA-->1/8" cable to interface with your laptop. Use Audacity. It's free. The mixer will probably run you $50-75. You don't need anything too fancy. You probably don't even need faders. Boom, there you go.

The setup: stack the pencil condensers on top of one another so that the capsules overlap. Then angle them so that they're pointing a little less than 90 degrees apart. Put the mic setup about five or ten feet from you and your friends, who will be sitting side-by-side at a table. Bob's your uncle, and he's your uncle for $200.
posted by The White Hat at 9:09 PM on February 28

I wouldn't go with condensers unless you've got a really quiet room to record in. With condensers, you're going to pick up everything in the room (and probably the neighbor kids, traffic on the street...)

Stick a dynamic right in the face of each speaker and you've got good clean sound from everyone and don't have to worry so much about outside noise creeping in.

If you want to go with an all-in-one sort of unit, the Zoom H2 could be slapped down in the middle of the four of you and do a pretty decent job for around $300. I've heard some really good recordings out of it.
posted by jjb at 11:56 PM on February 28

The Zoom H2 is actually around $150 if you look around (buy.com has it for $165, including shipping), and if you put it into it's 360 degree recording mode, it'll work just fine. That lets you bypass the whole mixer routine, and if you're just trying out the whole podcasting thing out, it's a minimal investment. You didn't mention what computer platform you'll be using for post, but as long as you throw a dynamics compressor on the recording (which will help bring up each recorded voice to the same overall volume level), you should be good to go.
posted by dbiedny at 11:09 AM on March 1

Computer platform is Windows, though at least one of us has a Mac and could probably do the editing there if necessary (seems like the community for this sort of thing favours Macs). We're in Canada, so the $150 prices don't seem to apply up here; best I could find the Zoom H2 for online was about $230.

It sounds like the Zoom's our best bet; it sounds like a really versatile piece of kit for the price, and probably good enough for podcast work. It also sounds cheap enough that it won't be a big deal if we dump it in favour of a full mic/mixer setup down the road (and would still be useful as a portable recorder).

Thanks, everyone. I'll keep checking in in case anyone has other ideas (or thinks the Zoom's a really bad idea).
posted by chrominance at 12:13 PM on March 1

Here's a review of the H2 from O'Reilly with a whole bunch of sample clips.
posted by jjb at 12:22 PM on March 1

Related: I just found a place selling the Alesis MultiMix8 USB 2.0 (the $400 mixer recommended to us at the music store) for $380, but ALSO the Alesis MultiMix8 USB (non-2.0) for $190. Is there a good reason why we would go with the USB 2.0 version at twice the price? And if we could score the USB 1.1 mixer for $190, would this change anyone's thoughts on the Zoom H2? Seems like mics would still run us about $100 each so it'd still be more expensive, but less than the original mixer+mics option we were given...
posted by chrominance at 1:25 PM on March 1

I'll tell you why the Zoom makes sense - when you think about microphones, you also have to factor in a mic stand and pop filter for each one. Just holding a decent mic in your hand will create some very problematic noise and rumble effects, not a good thing. Say there are 3 microphones, you'll need 3 desktop stands and 3 pop filters, which will run you at least another $25 US per mic, give or take. With the H2, it's all self-contained, you'll need nothing else. Save your money, if the podcast works out well, you can always find a used mixer and mics later, and the H2 is a fantastic field recorder (here's my review of it). Check Craigslist before anything else, it's become very popular for selling used music gear.
posted by dbiedny at 2:47 PM on March 1

If I recall, the USB1.1 version of the Alesis is a 2/2 interface rather than the 10/2 of the USB2.0. Thats probably not a big deal in your situation, but something to be aware of. It's effectively the same as the little behringer mixer and the seperate USB interface, just all in one package.
posted by jjb at 3:51 PM on March 1

Grabbed the Zoom H2 in the end. We haven't really done the podcast thing yet but our test seemed to pick up decent enough sound, given the constraints (two guys sitting on the couch playing video games and randomly talking at the mic). If we were in a round table setting it'd probably do even better. Thanks!
posted by chrominance at 8:59 PM on May 20