In the previous post on microphones I kind of assumed that you would all sit in the safety of your home while recording your podcast. Funny, it didn’t really struck me until today that some of you might be recording in a lot of different places that are far from ideal. So here you go, a post on special situations.

Think about the situation

My opinion was to go with a condenser microphone over a dynamic type (if you’re confused over these terms, read the previous post), and while I made a point that dynamic mics usually is better for live performances I didn’t really extend that argument to a situation it might apply to a podcaster.

If you plan on doing interviewing outside your home or any type of field recording at all, then there might be a lot of noise, and in that case you might want to go with a dynamic mic instead. My point being, take into consideration the place where you will record. The more noise, the stronger the argument for a dynamic mic is.

Handhelds vs laptop

Perhaps you will go around interviewing people at trade fares? Perhaps you will be doing a lot of running around and don’t want to carry around your laptop, your interface and your mic? A small handheld recorder could be the solution. It’s unlikely that you will get as good quality in the sound as you would with a normal microphone, but it might be worth it in some cases.

Also make sure that you not record in MP3 format! MP3 is a compressed format, and while some might think that the audio don’t loose in quality, it does. When you then compress your complete and edited podcast again it will sound even worse. Compressed compression – no thank you.

Is your room crap?

This is something home recording singers often take into account for their productions. While the voice usually is best picked up by a condenser microphone, it does catch a lot of room noise (the created effect for this is called “reverb”). While you wouldn’t have to bother much with this when it comes to interviews or spoken word in general, you could if you’d really want to. In that case, the dynamic microphone picks up much less of the room noise. Your choice really if you want to bother with it or not.

Originally posted on November 16, 2010 @ 7:35 am