This year’s Audio Bloggers month took place over the month of June. You can catch up on the conversations and recordings from those involved via the AudioMo hashtag.
Thanks to @Ernmander for keeping it going for 10 years. Great work nurturing and catering for a wonderful community.
[A version of this post first appeared in my weekly email which you you can subscribe to here: https://documentally.substack.com/welcome]
For this years Audio Bloggers month I set myself the challenge of using a different microphone every day and managed it with a few mics to spare. I mostly recorded into the iPhone using VRP7. If I recorded on an external recorder I used a card reader to transfer to the phone. Then if needed I’d edit in the amazing Ferrite Recording Studio. Finally I converted the audio into video for Twitter with either Backpack Studio or Wizibel.
Out of the 10,000+ listens the audio snippets received online, the Twitter stats faired much better than Audioboom.
[This post is laced with Amazon affiliate links. Should you choose to buy anything linked to them I might get a few pennies in Amazon credit (to buy more mics). But this hasn’t happened since January. So who knows what they’re up to.]
By far the most important bit of kit in this workflow was the Rode iXLR. With the occasional assistance of a minijack to XLR adapter it enabled me to plug any dynamic or self powered mic into the iPhone and monitor the audio in realtime. It is well built and easy to use but as you are monitoring the audio before it goes into the phone it will not work with the soundboard in Backpack Studio. If you need to hear your audio assets or have mics that need phantom power then it might be that the iRig Pre HD is more suited.
For a compact portable podcasting solution that enables monitoring and functions with Backpack Studio I currently use the Apogee Mic Plus. A cheaper alternative is the Rode NT USB Mini but you need to get close to the mic to avoid room noise. I use the original larger version (the NT-USB) on a boom for video conferencing, but am taken with the price and sound of the Audio-Technica ATR-2500x-USB.
If you have the money, another mic worth looking at is the Blue Yeti Pro. I’ve not owned a Blue microphone for years and although not the most portable, the Pro sounds great and has some interesting pickup patterns. The bi-directional option can have two people record a podcast while sat across from each other at a table.
I’ll drop a video at the end of this post so you can get some more insight on these mics.
In the meantime — here are my #AudioMo recordings and the microphones I used over the month of June.
- Day 01 Sennheiser HandMic Digital into the iPhone [audio]
- Day 02 iPhone with windshield [audio]
- Day 03 Sony PCM D100 Recorder [audio]
- Day 04 Apogee Mic+ into iPhone [audio]
- Day 05 Sure MV88 [audio]
- Day 06 Sennheiser Ambeo smart headset [audio]
- Day 07 Giant Squid Audio spaced omni mics [audio]
- Day 08 Mikme wireless audio recorder [audio]
- Day 09 Olympus LS-14 [audio]
- Day 10 Rode Pro Lav into the Zoom F6 + Ambeos [audio]
- Day 11 Shure MV88+ into the iPhone [audio]
- Day 12 Rode NTG4+ into Rode iXLR into the iPhone [audio]
- Day 13 Rode Podmic into Rode iXLR to the iPad [audio]
- Day 14 Realistic TRC-1007 into iPhone [audio]
- Day 15 Sennheiser Memory Mic to iPhone [audio]
- Day 16 Turner SSB+2 Ham Radio mic into the Zoom H5 [audio]
- Day 17 Rode NT4 Stereo Mic into the Zoom F6 [audio]
- Day 18 Shure 520DX Green Bullet into NT4 and F6 [audio]
- Day 19 Fostex M501 into Rode iXLR & iPhone [audio]
- Day 20 Shure SM58 into Rode iXLR & iPhone [audio]
- Day 21 Sennheiser Clip Mic Digital [audio]
- Day 22 Audio Technica ATM31 into Rode iXLR & iPhone [audio]
- Day 23 Shure MVL lav mic into the iPhone [audio]
- Day 24 Shure VP64A into the Rode iXLR & iPhone [audio]
- Day 25 Rode Wireless Go With Interview Go to iPhone [audio]
- Day 26 Rode Reporter into iXLR into iPhone [audio]
- Day 27 Zoom H3-VR [audio]
- Day 28 Zoom SSH6 into the Zoom H5 [audio]
- Day 29 Rode Video Mic Pro+ into iPhone [audio]
- Day 30 Sony ECM-909A into iXLR into iPhone [audio]
So 30 days and 30 different ways to capture audio. AudioMo is a great space for learning. For instance I quickly learned that the cost of the gear matters little when audio blogging. In fact you want to make things as simple and easy as possible.
That said I had the most fun on the last day. The long process of making a 90min cassette tape for one listener was immense fun. As did the hiding of it.
Also with no travel restrictions social distancing has little effect on a creative audio blogger. Sometimes these restrictions breed new formats and workflows.
If some of the recordings above have got you thinking about USB microphone options then this video should help inform you more.
All you really need is a phone to get involved in AudioMo. But as you can see from the list above you can make any microphone work.
Get June 2021 in the diary and let’s once again immerse ourselves in some daily audio blogging.
What’s not to like about audio and the community that embraces it?
Audio creates empathy. Those that love audio are listeners. And those who listen care.
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Thanks for reading/listening/watching.
