Posts Tagged "microphone"
Review: Røde Podcaster USB Microphone
Podcaster? Screencast creator? Amateur musician? If you’ve ever tried your hand at any of those, you’ve probably found yourself wondering how to record better audio with your Mac. There are many solutions out on the market, but most require a bunch of bothersome cables, fiddling with filters or an audio engineering degree.
Enter the Røde Podcaster: This USB microphone promises to make recording professional-sounding audio with your Mac really simple. But does it live up to the promise?
What’s in the box
The Podcaster comes in a sturdy black box: Apart from the mic itself, you’ll also find a USB A to USB B connector (the kind most printers require but never include), and an adapter ring for connecting the mic to a stand.
Build Quality
The microphone has a solid metal enclosure that gives it considerable heft and weight, but in a really good way. It has a fairly large pickup area that is also protected by the outer casing, which is good as the mic grill is something that is often damaged by knocks or drops on traditional microphone designs.
The adapter screw also doubles as the USB port enclosure and is also entirely made out of metal. This should also do wonders for this mic’s durability, as the stand adapter is often under a lot of strain on mics and can often crack if made out of plastic.
The one minor gripe I have is the headphone volume control on the front of the mic: It’s made out of plastic and feels a bit wobbly and out of place on a mic this well made.
Audio performance
Probably the most important factor when choosing a mic: How good does it actually sound? Røde promise “High quality broadcast sound” and I’m pleased to tell you that the Podcaster delivers. It has an incredible textured sound that gives recordings a “studio” feel. It sounds very accurate without too much treble and produces clean, warm audio.
A normal recording setup requires:
- A mic
- A mixer with preamps and monitoring capabilities
- An audio interface
Whilst there are some solutions out there that can act as an interface as well as a mixer, this mic is so much quicker to get set up: A single cable to your Mac, plug in your headphones and you’re set. Ever tried to record decent audio without hearing yourself? Or without hearing your overall mix? Getting monitoring set up (without a delay!) is usually more trouble than it’s worth – the Podcaster solves that issue nicely and you have zero timing issues.
I’ve created a short audio snippet to give you an idea of the audio quality: Both the voice and guitar heard in this video were recorded with the Podcaster.
Compatibility
The Podcaster works out of the box with OS X: Just connect the USB cable and you’re all set. There are some Windows drivers and applications on the CD that’s included, but you can safely ignore those. Fire up Garageband, select one of the vocal presets and you’re good to go. It also shows up as an audio output device immediately as well.
Tip: Remember to turn off Garageband’s live monitoring feature if you use the Røde as your output device (the mic will already pipe your audio to your headphones) – otherwise you’ll start hearing yourself twice!
Conclusion
The Røde Podcaster is a great microphone for any Mac user. It is well suited to creating podcasts, screencasts, movie voiceovers and even recording music. The build-quality is almost flawless and it offers an ideal feature combination of features for fast and easy recordings.
I’ve found myself quickly recording song ideas and voiceovers, simply because it’s so much less hassle to do so (previously I had been using an interface with a traditional microphone, which usually required extensive setting up and configuration to get decent results).
The Podcaster includes a 10 year guarantee and is available online for around $229 – less than a traditional microphone, audio interface with mixing capabilities would cost you. The convenience and audio quality you get for that price is currently unmatched in my opinion.
Highly recommended.
Links:
Røde Podcaster manufacturer website
Support Jetplane Journal: Buy the Rode Podcaster at Amazon.com
JetLinked: iPhone headphone mod
The original iPhone headphones are great in a lot of ways (sleek design, unobtrusive microphone and remote), but are a bit lackluster where it counts – sound quality. There are various 3rd party alternatives of course, but I’ve yet to see one with a mic / remote as nice as Apple’s original.
One iPhone user over at everythingicafe decided to take matters into his own hands and has modded his original headphones, replacing the earbuds with the in-ear buds from his Crossroad X3′s.
The result looks pretty nice and others have had success with this mod as well. (I’m not brave enough to try it with my Shure SE310′s though…)
Link to original everythingicafe post.
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3 Tips for better iChat AV Video conferences
I’ve been using iChat AV quite extensively recently, as my girlfriend is spending some time in Sweden – the land of insanely fast consumer broadband. iChat AV has been a great way to keep in touch, however thre have been a few glitches here and there. Here’s a few possible remedies for common issues.
1) Audio Issues
Low call volume, background noise and feedback are some of the problems you might typically run into.You can avoid most of these by using a headset (luckily now also available in better-looking behind-the-head designs, but if you don’t happen to have one handy, try these tips:
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