Monday, October 11, 2010

The Yeti has arrived and the NT Pod is back!

Those who follow the NT Pod will have noticed that today, at last, it returned, after a hiatus of two months.  As I reported at the beginning of September, the delay was caused initially by microphone problems.  Since the early days, I have used a nice Blue Snowball microphone for my recordings but when I sat down with it to record back in August, the recordings were emitting a high-pitched noise.  At first I thought that it might be a computer problem but no, it occurred on different machines.  I googled for the problem and thought I had found a solution and wasted time and money with an externally powered USB hub.  The theory was that power running through the USB was causing the high-pitched noise, and an external power source might fix it.  It did not.  The high-pitched noise was there just the same as ever.

As an interim measure, I tried on several occasions to record in two of Duke's sound booths but I did not find the results satisfactory -- much too much background noise was getting picked up.

And so, I just bit the bullet and invested in a lovely new state of the art USB microphone, Blue Yeti USB Microphone.  And it works just fine.  It turns out that the problem was simply that my Snowball had broken.  It is perhaps not surprising.  I was always moving it all over the house and recording in different places and with the pop filter attached, it often fell over and no doubt got damaged too.

It's good to be back at last with a new episode.  From now on, my plan is to return to a regular recording and release schedule.

5 comments:

Tim Ricchuiti said...

Excellent news! My commutes were very much wanting over the last couple months.

Unknown said...

I am so happy! Your podcasts are a wonderful addition to my week. I appreciate your ability to succinctly cover issues in New Testament studies; I can't imagine how much work you put into keeping each podcast so short! So glad to know you're back, thanks so much for what you do.

Mark Goodacre said...

Many thanks for your kind words. It's nice to be back.

Danny Zacharias said...

These are good mics, you won't be disappointed. Not the easiest to carry around with you though. As you can tell, the yeti with its weight and construction can double as a billy-club

Mark Goodacre said...

Agreed. In fact, one of the things I like about the Yeti is that it is a bit more sturdy. The Snowball, with its tripod base, was always falling over, and I was always having to adjust the thing up and down as it swizzled around. And it only got worse when I added a pop filter. The Yeti is much more sturdy and it's going to stay on my desk at home and not get moved around.