Judie and I first met when we were doing a podcast. She had already started Gear Diary, and I was a staff writer from Just Another Mobile Monday. A few weeks ago, Judie was on a friend’s podcast. She sounded great but commented that she needed a better podcasting setup. I told her one piece of it should be the Blue Designs Compass.
This week I had the pleasure of guesting on Myriam Joire’s Mobile Tech Podcast. While the emphasis of her podcast is mobile tech, trust me to go off on a tangent or five. We covered some of the latest mobile phones and touched on design … while lamenting the “evolutionary but not revolutionary” designs we’ve been seeing.
Recently, Reply All, a podcast from Gimlet Media about the Internet, published a podcast centered around Facebook and its notoriously shady data collection practices, titled “Is Facebook Spying on You?” Users noticing strange coincidences regarding Facebook’s targeted ads are left wondering whether Facebook has been listening to their conversations through their smartphone’s microphone without their knowledge.
I have had a Blue Yeti of some sort for years, and while the mic comes with its own stand, it’s one designed to only work on your desk. I’ve often found there doesn’t really seem to be a good place for the mic with its stock stand. This changed when I received the OnePlus Upgraded Mic Arm Stand.
Shure describes the MOTIV MV88 IOS Digital Stereo Condenser Microphone as “The Documenter.” Having used the MV88 for the past few months, including at CES 2016 and for any YouTube video I’ve shot in 2016, I can say it is that and much more. The MV88 plugs directly into your iOS device and lets you capture the moment with clarity. The microphone is small, comes with its own protective case and a windscreen and works in random with a free iOS app. The result is a microphone that is easy to use while still being incredibly powerful. When I first…
In just a few weeks Judie, Greg, and I will be headed to Las Vegas for CES 2016. Last year Judie and I did more video interviews than ever before, and we’re going to do even more this coming year. The IK Multimedia Lav mic is going to be a huge part of our interview process for a few reasons.
As I began my flight out West for the popular “Further with Ford 2015” conference, I found myself with one problem: good podcasts. Anyone can go ahead and listen to music, trust me, my Spotify is stacked with everything you can imagine. Minus Taylor Swift (okay, I admit “Bad Blood” is my jam but thats’ besides the point.), I have much variety, but sometimes I just like to hear people talking about the topics going around the world. That’s where my “Pocket Casts” app comes into play. With following over 80 different podcasts, some that only do a podcast once…
Dan and Judie wrote about how the iRig Mic Field from IK Multimedia helped them cover NAIAS in Detroit as well as CES, and it illustrated another step in how far IK has evolved in their microphone offerings. Now IK Multimedia is announcing their next step with the iRig Mic Studio, an ultra-portable large-diaphragm mic for every platform.
The Blue Yeti is an amazing USB microphone that sounds as impressive as it looks. (I use the Yeti Pro with my Mac and love it.) Now Blue has announced the Blackout Yeti. It adds a gorgeous new style to the company’s best-selling USB microphone family. Considering the quality the sub-$150 price is a bargain. The all new blackout finish on the new Yeti microphone “adds style to your music, gaming, or podcasting setup.” At the same time it offers the same recording prowess that have made the Yeti a hugely popular success. The Blackout Yeti uses the same…
If you use iOS devices such as the iPhone, iPad, and iPad mini to record audio or video, the Blue Microphone Mikey Digital is a fantastic way to quickly and easily improve the quality of the audio captured. For under $100 the microphone, which plugs directly into the Lightning connector, will let you capture what you actually hear.
I’ve used the Samson Meteor Microphone since first doing the review three years ago. (Read it!) I love the retro look, the ease-of-use, and quality recordings it produces. Now the company has released the Samson Meteorite. A small, USB condenser microphone, it is inexpensive, easy to use, and great if you want something more than what your computer microphone offers.
The V-MODA BoomPro microphone cable for the V-MODA Crossfade series of headphones adds a boom microphone to the already-awesome Crossfade M-100 headphones. Sure the M-100s ship with a cable that has a microphone but this microphone makes a world of difference. At just $30 it is a terrific add-on to an already amazing pair of headphones. Get it. It seems a bit odd to be writing a review for what is essentially an accessory for an accessory, but when the first accessory is the V-MODA Crossfade M-11 headphones (read our review), and the second accessory makes them even better, the latter item deserves…
Funding any sort of internet endeavor is never easy, but a jazz interview podcast? Really difficult – you are playing to a small audience to begin with, yet have to deal with the same real world technology costs of any other web site or podcast. Jason Crane of The Jazz Session made numerous attempts, getting underwriting from AllAboutJazz.com and then setting a ‘member drive’ that sought a monthly subscription … but over time there just wasn’t enough income to sustain operations and so last fall he had to call it quits. And while there have been other things going on,…
I’ve become increasingly enamored of video chatting. It is handy, convenient and it works well; it also saves gas and time. For example, I do most of my High Holy Day sermon writing with my friend Lawrence. We bounce ideas around, rip initial drafts apart, and share illustrations. In prior years we would get together two or three times and have marathon writing sessions together. This year we didn’t get together once; instead we used FaceTime and Skype. We didn’t need to travel, and we were able to “meet” far more times than we could have in the past. Similarly,…
The MacBook Pro with retina display really improved on the built-in microphones Apple had been previously using. By including dual-array mics, Apple was able to create a system that allows users to use voice and video chat without a headset. The dual-array setup is also quite useful with the built-in voice recognition that comes with OS X Mountain Lion and, while using a headset does improve the transcription accuracy when using Dragon Dictate for Mac, the dual-array system is rather impressive in its own right. Still, if you want to get high quality audio recordings from your Mac, especially if…
I purchased the Canon T3i after speaking to a number of friends and reading a great deal on the web by way of reviews. There were a number of excellent options available in my price range but the T3i seemed to best fit the bill. I ordered through Amazon and got a good price on a Canon T3i kit (body and lens) and an additional telephoto lens. I’m happy with the decision. No, I’m very happy with the decision. In fact, I like everything about the camera… except the audio when shooting movies. That, in a word, stinks. The audio…
It has been over a year but Gear Chat is back and we’re talking tech. In this first episode Thomas and I talk about the Samsung Galaxy Note, the Series 7 Slate tablet and what configuration of Apple computing products is best. Future episodes will include Gaming and eBook segments and much more. We also want to hear from you! What content do you want covered? What questions do you have? Would you like us to do the podcast as a live, call-in conversation? We want to know. Happy listening and, as always, thanks for sharing via Twitter and Facebook.
Blue Microphone has consistently impressed me with their line up of microphones. From consumer USB microphones to professional units that plug into existing sound systems, the company puts out quality devices. This time, Blue Microphone took my favorite USB offering, the Yeti, and added a professional twist thanks to an option that now lets you plug it into professional audio equipment. Yeti Pro on Left, Yeti on Right As you can see, the new Yeti Pro looks almost the same as the original with two exceptions. The first is a very obvious color and texture change that yields a textured…
A year and a half ago I was able to review the Blue Yeti with Larry. I love the Blue Yeti and use it every Wednesday when I record the Linux Link Tech Show as well as the occasional episode of Hacker Public Radio. It’s almost a perfect product. However, there’s one thing missing that makes the Yeti less of a perfect device for a professional. That is an XLR output. Blue has changed that Yeti of a Microphone and made him a pro by adding a XLR output on the bottom allowing you to plug the Yeti Pro into…
About two weeks ago Thomas mentioned a brand-new microphone that was about to be released, the Sampson Meteor Mic. He told me that it not only had a great look to it but that all reports indicated it worked beautifully. It was small, easily transportable thanks to its fold up design, and it looked pretty cool. Most importantly it apparently offered excellent sound quality. I told him I’d have to look into it. I was fortunate enough to have a review unit waiting for me just two days later. I’ve been using it ever since and have been incredibly impressed…
I am unique in how I started blogging. I started audio blogging or podcasting far before I started writing gadget reviews and posts here on Gear Diary. So, the first thing I always seem to look at when doing gadget reviews is a way to capture audio no matter where I go. My first mobile recorder of sorts was a Belkin Tune Talk, which is an adapter that plugged in to the bottom of an iPod, followed by the Griffin iTalk Pro and the Blue Mikey. All of these had issues. First, there is battery life. The hard drive on…