Behind the Scenes: Microphones (Patreon)

Hi Patrons, Thom here! 

Nina thought that you might enjoy learning a little bit about the nuts and bolts of how we put the podcast together, and when I say 'nuts and bolts' I specifically mean the hardware and software I use to record each episode. I'll do a couple of these posts and walk through the whole audio chain, plus talk about my plans to improve our sound in the future.

We started out making the podcast using a single Blue Yeti microphone that I bought years ago for some other project that never quite managed to happen. The Yeti gets some hate these days, but it's actually a really good-sounding microphone that's relatively easy to use, especially for a USB mic. On the other hand it's way bigger and heavier than it has any right to be, it doesn't work with a lot of 3rd party accessories, the official add-ons are crazy expensive, and Blue seems to follow that awful pricing model where the 'sale' price is the real price and the regular price is twice what it ought to be. 

The other problem with the Yeti is that, as a condenser type microphone, it picks up tons of background noise. That might not be a problem in a proper studio or out in the countryside, but we record in a 100-year-old New Yark City building with windows looking out over a busy avenue. For our first dozen (!!) episodes, we would record segments multiple times hoping for a clean take, and then I would go in and manually delete every creak, siren, car horn, loud truck, barking dog, and chatting neighbor on the track. 

We realized very quickly that we were going to need to change microphones if the podcast was going to be sustainable. 

Since episode 1.13, we've upgraded to a pair of Shure SM58 microphones. If that picture looks like the most generic microphone you can imagine, well it's because the SM58 has been the 'standard' microphone for all kinds of applications since 1969. It has its own Wikipedia page. 

The SM58 has a bunch of advantages: using a separate microphone for each of us allows for much more comfortable recording set ups and makes editing easier, the SM58 is sturdy enough that we can travel with them and record on the road, and the biggest one by far is that the SM58 is a dynamic (rather than condenser) microphone and so it picks up much less sound. There are always going to be noises that require manual cleaning - no microphone is ever going to totally exclude NYC - but these have made the editing process easier and way faster.

But if I'm honest, I don't think that the SM58's sound is as rich as the Yeti was able to capture at its best. I think we sound pretty good, but I'm absolutely a perfectionist about this sort of thing and I'm always looking to improve. With the Patreon going so well, I think I might be able to convince Nina that we need to invest in an upgrade.