Todd – What gear do you use to broadcast your show?

Todd – What gear do you use to broadcast your show?

This is a question that I have been hearing a lot lately, so I thought I would share for the benefit of the other hosts and pod-casters  looking for that awesome quality of sound. Listen to my show and others to hear the difference.

1st I have to stress that using the phone line will never produce good quality sound with out some expensive equipment. To keep it simple the pots (Plain Old Telephone System) was designed to clip certain frequencies at the bottom and the top of the human voice frequency range, it’s impossible for it to carry all you put out unless you run it through a digitizer.

2nd Skype is a great way to get your voice into the studio as long as you have a good connection to a DSL (Dedicated Service Line). Having a good connection to the internet will make a huge difference. A wireless connection to a modem that has a DSL connection is not good either. An Ethernet connection to a modem connected to a DSL is preferred. My interview two weeks ago with Doug Vermeeren was done on a wireless connection (inadvertently) and you can tell the difference just listen for your self, lesson learned.

3rd A good computer is next, you can tell I’m working my way down the chain of variables required to get good quality sound for your show. I use a mac book pro I’m a PC guy and have been for years but I find that the mac does an excellent job at processing audio, its portable and reliable as long as I plug it into a solid connection to the internet, I have never had a problem and don’t expect any, very important to me when I’m getting ready to do a show.

4th Next I use a external sound card that plugs into my mac via a usb cord. This sound card supplies my condenser microphone (more about the Mic next) with phantom power it also has a quarter inch phone jack for my headphones, both the microphone and the headphones have a gain control, very important features for tuning your voice in for the station. You can quickly turn the gain on the mic down when you have to sneeze.

5th Is a good quality condenser microphone. condenser microphones are powered, this provides the microphone the ability to pick up and convert all the frequencies of your voice with ease. I have it mounted to a desk top microphone stand with a pop filter (wind screen)

There you have it five simple things that will make your sound awesome, other than the computer you can budget $200.00 to $300.00 dollars and sound like the pro that you are.

If you have any questions ask, remember to make it a great day, its a choice