Microphones
We move from video devices in part 2 to audio devices in part 3. Audio is a very important piece to the webcasting puzzle. Without the proper equipment, your webcasts will have no sync, poor quality sound, or worse. Just look at our first Episode of Week in Review. We had two microphones, one was 7 years old and no longer provided the quality our show demanded. In Episode 2 we used one microphone for David and I used the older microphone due to the limited amount of talking I would be doing; we had a guest linked in via Skype. I’ll show you more about that in part 4 when I discuss the audio mixer.
Like with our other equipment, we are on a very limited budget. So I dropped by my local RadioShack for a low cost microphone. I found the Wireless Lapel Microphone System at the wonderfully low price of $49.99 each. I quickly purchased one to add to the one I already had. The quality is perfect and being wireless, I could position the host anywhere in my home office studio: main desk, couch, walking into the room, etc… This ability was important to me for this project and others.
After our first show I quickly learned that the older Wireless Lapel Microphone I already had degraded far enough that it was unusable. So I dropped back by my local RadioShack for a second Wireless Lapel Microphone System. One caution to remember is that wireless microphones transmit on frequencies. It was important to get the second mic that transmits on a different frequency.
These wireless microphones are perfect for different scenarios. However I’m looking for high quality or the HD audio version of microphones. Once our show takes off, we’ll be looking at upgrading these wireless microphones to something else.
While researching I came across the microphones I’d like to use with our show. The Heil PR-30 has a wonderful reputation for high quality audio with a dynamic range. David and I can use all the help we can get when it comes to audio quality. I found this microphone over at Amazon for only $249. That’s not bad for the quality I’m looking for.
Along with the microphone, I’m looking to utilize a Heil Sound PL-2T Microphone Boom for $120, a Shockmount for $99 to reduce table vibrations and lastly an XLR male to XLR femail microphone cable for $8.85.
The current microphones work very well and we’re likely to continue using them for a while… unless anybody wants to donate the upgrade costs?
Cost Sheet
In the next part of my How to Produce a Webcast series, we’ll talk about how to mix audio from multiple sources: 2x Lapel microphones, Skype, Computer, and an MP3 player.
My friend is loosing his eyesight so in an attempt to make it extremely easy to determine which item we’re on, I’ve created a very special “ScrollText” .NET control. This allows the “selected line” to be much larger and a different color than the rest of the content, thus making it extremely easy to see.
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