[PodcastMN] Whaddya think?

[Steve Borsch]

I've been pretty silent on the PodcastMN list as of late, and those of you
who know me have no doubt seen my podfading since this Spring. It's been a
busy time and I've also spent the summer caring for my 94 year old
father-in-law and my 81 year old dad...since I could.

Here's the deal: why is audio so hard? There are a crapload of
products....but to get truly quiet sound a person needs to spend
THOUSANDS....or is there a better way?

A new idea for my bride's business meant that I need actual broadcast
quality audio. So I decided to beef up my gear which was the AudioTechnica
3035 mic and a Mackie 1202 mixing board. I went with the Shure SM7B -- since
it's the voiceover gold standard -- and bought the Alesis Multimix8
Firewire. After TONS of work trying to get these to give me good results, it
turns out that the guy at Guitar Center goofed: the preamps in a cheap
($300) mixing board can't power the Shure and I had to max out the gain and,
of course, the output was hissy and noisy.

Next I take back the Alesis and the GC sales guy has a bunch of boards --
and the SM7B ($350) buy a Trident preamp ($800) with built-in EQ -- and just
in case I buy a Monster power conditioner. I get it home, hook up all this
stuff, start to play with it and you guessed it: there is still noise AND
when I turn on the EQ button, it introduces yet more noise.

Arghh.....

So I emailed Shure yesterday about the Mackie 1202 VLZ3 ($300 mixer with
+60db preamps...enough to power the Shure) and the guy in tech support
basically tells me that "we've not had good luck with cheap preamps...call
the guys at Sweetwater Sound and they can help you." Yeah sure....and try to
sell me a $2,000 preamp.

Now on to the question since I'm fired up to start in earnest again and
really just want a dead quiet preamp: am I trying to buy a BMW for the price
of a Chevy Cavalier? Is it just not possible to get quiet sound out of a
preamp and drive a great mic like the Shure?

If you know of anyone that I could talk to that is a sound engineer (or if
you have a solution) I'm all ears and this could also be a GREAT topic for
Podcamp.

-- 
Steve Borsch
Direct/Mobile: 952.486.7678
Email: Steve at iConnectDots.com
Blog: http://www.iConnectDots.com
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