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Courtesy of the gorgeous Maria over at GearPlus comes news of two new podcasting ‘toys’ for us, both from Behringer.
Firstly comes the Podcastudio bundle — studio-grade FireWire audio interface with a Behringer-branded edition of Ableton Live Lite 4 (PC and Mac). The package also comes with an eight-input mixer, high-quality headphones and a studio microphone plus stand and cable. Buy it (AU$400) and you could be ‘on air’ in next to no time.
Then comes news of another AU$400 Behringer ‘tasty’ little item — a mixer with full midi support (if you need that sort of control, which is great for recording voice, guitar and keyboards all at the same time, plus recording the mix processes for tweaking or repeating later, e.g. when gigging).
Since my much-desired mic, the Aussie-made Rode Podcaster USB mic (c.AU$290) is also from the same company who has compiled the very tasty ‘Rode to Recording’ package (c.AU$1350) with the Rode NT1A mic (c.AU$350) I am sorely tempted by the Podcastudio bundle, because it comes as complete package, even if it has a lesser-quality mic (the C-1; c.AU$75)…
To add even more complexity to the matter, Ableton themselves offer a semi-useful package if you already have a mixer: the Live 6 boxed edition coupled with the Rode Podcaster (AU$718).
To my fractured and befuddled mind (living with teenagers can do that to you; did you know that senility is hereditary? You get it from your kids…) the Behringer Podcastudio package sounds like the go. It has a mixer, a semi-decent mike, a half-decent firewire interface (c.AU$155) and, the pièce de résistance: it even comes with an illustrated quick-start guide called “How to Podcast” — can’t be bad, eh?!
Now I just have to make the choice between getting the rig or upgrading my ram to be able to cope with Vista… choices, choices
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
These do look fun! As for getting the ‘rig’ or getting RAM to cope with vista, I’d be waiting for 6 - 9 months before upgrading to vista, and buying a new machine at that time that is designed to run it.
To me it makes more sense to let the rush of first adopters iron out the bugs, let the manufactures have more than a matter of weeks to get hardware right (think video/sound/network/mainboard drivers). All the quirks get sorted by the Worldwide Microsoft Testing Team (the public) and we then upgrade to a more stable product.
Plus all your rig (will belong to us) will work on a new machine in 9 months time… my thoughts on it anyhow.
Forget Vista Lee…buy the rig & then get a Mac! lol
Love & Peace, Clarence
ha ha ha!!!
The rig definitely looks ‘the go’ as we say here in this neck of the woods.
But a Mac???? Why would I want to put myself through the humiliation of people thinking I’m a weirdo arty-farty?? [huge grin]
Ah, Lee, you sweet talker. Thanks for the kind words. But to your readers who want to get into the PC/Mac debate - Give up. It’s so easy to shit-can each of them and arguing about processors in a box has become really boring. Why not consider learning a bit about dynamic compression, or phase enhanced bottom end, or soft clip exciters to increase speech intelligibility, or any other topic that would help fix some of your podcasts?
Maria — what would be fabulous is if you gave me some articles I could use about all this. I could not only pop them here on my blog for my blog readers, but also on my article website (LeeHopkins.com) for a different group of readers.
Now, THAT would be fantastic! Any chance you can oblige? Or point me off to articles that DO give such info? I would be eternally in your debt!