PawSense

First of all let me thank all of our listeners for sticking with us as we ramp up the sound, content and production quality of the Pop Zombie Podcast. You'll notice the small image to the left of a very nice and professional looking recording studio, and if you click it you can view a much bigger version of this impressive studio. Go ahead, have a look, I'll wait here...

All done? That was a pretty kick-ass studio, wasn't it? Well, I know what you're thinking, "do these guys actually get to record in that kick-ass professional studio?". The answer, of course is "Hell No!". In fact that's just some picture I found on the interblag (thanks Google images!). The point being that if you look closely at that picture you'll notice a crucial missing element... That's right, people. all those buttons and doo-dads can't make a podcast enjoyable if it sucks, that takes people. And you know what, we ARE people, so you can just suck it, fancy studio - We don't need you, we have people.

The truth is we don't have a proper studio, nor do we - at this point- rate having one. Right now we are three (sometimes more) guys reminiscing about the 1980's and how the reality of that decade usually doesn't measure up to our collective memories. The majority of the time we are sitting around a kitchen table, whether it be BaronVC's, mine or Quality Jones'. We have, however, transitioned over the last 20 episodes (and yes, at the time of this writing only 12 have been posted, that's just how frakkin prodigious we are, we're AHEAD of you, lazy listeners) from the most craptacular equipment to the slightly less craptacular equipment. Keep the faith, listeners - Each and every episode will be better than the previous one.

The Hardware

This whole venture started with a gathering at BaronVC's castle where attempted to hand hold mics in a very warm room, with an older Behringer mixer plugged via 1/8" stereo jack into a desktop PC. You'll notice in ep1 the sound isn't really terrible, but our ability to modulate the volume of our own voices was severely lacking. Sadly, we have work to do yet on this front. By episode two the little mixer that could had suffered a stroke and now introduced a hideous buzz into the recording.

Not wanting to delay production, we visited the local Guitar Center in Tampa and we picked up the mixer you see to the right, the Alesis Multimix USB*. This handy lttle mixer has, thus far, suited us perfectly. For under $200 this mixer allows us to input 4 xlr microphones and 2 additional pot controlled devices. In our case 2 laptops will occupy the #5 & #6 mixer inputs. There is also a line level input for yet another device, like an iPod, Zune or any other input device we might use during the show. The best part about the mixer is that is is USB connected to the recording PC so there is no line noise introduced by the final leg from the mixer to the PC. This device acts as an external sound card, in effect relieving your PC's sound card from any duties during the recording process. The mixer also boasts 100 digital sound effects that can be applied to any of the 6 assignable channels. These are mostly variations on echo, flange, phase and pitch and unfortunately introduce a lot of noise into the recording when used.

The Sennheiser e835 praised by most to be the German cousin of the Shure sm58 (ok, not really- I just made that up) is the anchor of the sound you hear coming from Bigbrain's mouth. To be honest this mic is the best in the stable currently, and the other two main mics are a Samson and an SHS - also descent sounding 'budget' mics, but the goal here ultimately is to timbre match all mics by having atleast 3 of the e835's in the bag. You may not know this, out there in podcast-listener land, but none of us get paid for this gig. All this equipment expense comes out of our pockets and the only reward we hope for is the smiles we put on your face when you enjoy the tidy piles in which we pile our collective brain-poo.

Since we almost always sit around a table we now employ 4 tabletop boom mic stands, the kind with a hefty iron base to make schleping them all the more painful. In fact, these 4 stands are the only things that don't fit in my gear bag. So anyone with suggestions for a hard side case that will carry everything listed here, please speak up...

 So all you keen audiophiles out there who looked at the jumbo sized image of the Alesis mixer are wondering about monitoring, since there's only one phones jack on the board. Well, not the most elegant solution, but another piece of equipment (headphone amp/distributor) was not what we wanted, so the Belkin Rockstar came to the rescue. I have to say I was skeptical that the sound quality would hold up under the 3 or 4 way split, but so far each of 4 sounds as good as one. This little gadget is a simple line splitter, 1 in 5 out. I don't suspect we'll ever have more than 4 speaking and monitoring but that 5th jack is a nice little back-up plan if we decide to add a DAT recorder for redundancy.

Ok, so we've got a uniform 4 way split for monitors, what about the difference in headphone impedances? well, as you might have guessed the answer to that is for us to all have the same model phones. Enter the Maxell DHPII Digital Headphones. I was skeptical of these at first when I saw a deal for them at NewEgg.com for only $17ea. (deal is gone, product is gone, sorry). You can see by the Amazon page that full retail is $90 and most resellers ask around $50 for them. I took a leap of faith and ordered 4 pairs for a total of $68.

Now for those of you who don't know me, I dropped a TV on my head when I was about 24 or 25 (I don't really recall, being as how I dropped a TV on my head). I should say "on my right ear" since that's where it landed. Did you know you can bruise your earlobes? It's not easy, but I did it.

Point being that I cannot wear any type of headphones very long, it just plain hurts. Ear buds are out of the question - they're the worst! And the presumably comfortable Bose Noise Cancelers are too expensive. Well, let me tell you these Maxell-DHPII's sat on my head for close to 4hrs and caused me no discomfort. He shoots, he scores! I do read that they are reviewed as a bit 'fragile' in their construction, which is bad for the travelling around they'll do, but we'll just have to be careful.

The Software

Since Quality Jones currently has the modern day mobile equivalent of W.O.P.R for a laptop we have settled on it as our recording device of choice. we use a few different applications to capture the podcast and are still evaluating which one will be the ultimate winner. Currently we use Sony's Sound Forge 8. We have experimented with some freeware applications such as PodProducer and Audacity and have just started using The Levelator as a finishing tool (Thanks to the Film Junk Podcast for mentioning this great app on their show)

We know that some of our shows have been a bit low-fi compared to our contemporaries. Rest assured we are doing everything finacially, educationally and hardworkingly possible to increase quality as quickly as possible. We only ask that you bear with us while we grow into this new skin.

Suggestions, comments and feedback of all types, as always, is greatly appreciated. Tell us what you think, what you want and we will oblige. We do this as much for you as for us.

Thanks for Listening!

 *The mixer did not come in on time, resulting in the sound of episode #4.