New Microphone: Ordered!

I’m really good at kicking off new projects, and really bad at keeping them going. Case in point? The podcast. I was really enthusiastic about making new episodes in the beginning, but lately I just haven’t had the time to get back into the recording booth and get more episodes recorded. (And by “recording booth” I mean my desk at home.)

Another thing I’m really good at is making excuses. The microphone I currently use to record my podcasts with is a professional quality studio mic. To get it to interface with my PC, I have to run the relatively giant (XLR) connector through a small mixing board, and then run the outputs from the board into my computer. If this level of overkill surprises you … you’ve not met me.

Recently I picked up a small USB break out box that allows XLR inputs and uses USB to connect to my PC. I got a great deal on it at a garage sale, and like many items I purchase at garage sales, when I got it home I found out why it was for sale at a garage sale. Because the piece of hardware is a few years old, there are no Windows 7 drivers available for it. Workarounds exist for the 32-bit version of Windows 7, but I’m running the 64-bit version and am, apparently, out of luck.

Last night while working on an unrelated computer project, my buddy Jeff asked me why I hadn’t just bought a new USB microphone. A few years ago I actually bought a combination USB headset and microphone, and it sounded awful. Well, not awful, but not good enough for my podcast. I decided to take another look around this morning and I ran across this:

This is the Yeti, from Blue Microphones. It’s THX-certified and provides multiple recording options (including omni-directional and stereo). It has a built-in headphone jack for zero-latency monitoring and on board volume controls. Best of all, it doesn’t need any proprietary drivers, so it should work with every machine I own. The machine retails for around $150, but TigerDirect is offering it for $85.

It should be here early next week.

I have often considered taking my recording rig with me “on the road” during some of my out of town adventures to work on podcasts while I am sitting in random hotel rooms across America, but between my current mixing board and heavy-duty microphone, it just hasn’t been prudent. Although I realize the Yeti is somewhat large (with the stand it’s around a foot tall and weighs 3.5 pounds), I’d still consider it to be portable.

Currently my office sits right between Mason and Morgan’s bedrooms. I tend to talk loud when recording podcasts, so I ended up hauling all my recording equipment upstairs, where my options are (a) record next to a noisy air conditioner, or (b) record in a hot room.

(See? I told you I was good with excuses!)

So, here’s the deal — the microphone won’t arrive until (probably) next Tuesday, at which point we will be smack dab in the middle of moving, so chances are I won’t get around to recording a new podcast for a week or two.

BUT, I PROMISE YOU THERE WILL BE A NEW EPISODE OF YOU DON’T KNOW FLACK BY THE END OF OCTOBER.

Thank you, Mr. Wentzlaff-Eggebert, for the gentle prodding. ;)