Jake's friend wants to get into music recording and is looking for a good USB microphone. Their budget is between $100 and $200. Leo says there's a lot of choices in that price range. Blue is best known for this category. The Blue Yeti is the top dog. He should avoid the Snowball, though. It has no headroom. Audio Technica's ATR2100 is very nice as well.
Shane wants to create podcasts while out in the field. Leo says that Zoom recorders are a great choice for that. They make some great recorders including the H1n and H4n. All are great for recording audio. But the best is the Behringer XAir 18 mixer. It works with an iPad that records all the tracks.
Rich is an audiobook narrator and he just finished building his own vocal booth to record his audio files. But since the booth is so small, he wants to have his laptop on the outside with a monitor connected and a monitor on the inside. WIll an HDMI splitter do the job with a 2012 MacBook Air? Leo says that a splitter can degrade the image quality. The Air also has a mini display port, so he'd need an adapter for HDMI. They're pretty cheap. The Air won't really have an issue with the splitter.
James is looking to get a Chromebook, but he's thinking that as a musician, he may need a Windows machine. Are there online ways around it? Leo says that there are online resources to record audio. Leo says that Chromebooks are great for most people, but it may not be for everything he does. Leo says that before he buys, he should try using nothing but the Chrome browser exclusively for a few days and see if there's extensions that can do what he wants. Leo's guessing that for recording music, the Chromebook may be lacking and he would need a full OS like Windows.
Danny wants to know how he can capture streaming audio on his computer. Leo says Replay Radio by Applian is a good option. It'll take all those streams and save them like a DVR.
Shannon is a southern gospel singer and they sing in 4 track harmony. He's looking for good software that can balance the volume and gain when recording separately during a live performance. Leo says that all recording software has that capability, and he can always use hardware to do it with a Telos compression/expansion module. It also protects against popping and clipping. Audacity is free and he could find a plugin for it that can work. It's available on all platforms, too.
Sigmund recently had heart surgery and they replaced one of his heart valves. It 'ticks' rather loudly, though. Leo says that Dr. Mom says it's not unusual for mechanical heart valves to have an audible ticking noise. Leo says that some mics, mostly condenser mics, are very sensitive and can pick up the faintest of sounds. That's why most studios use dynamic mics. They don't pick up a lot of external sounds. But condenser mics can be tuned to not pick up that. Sigmund should find that in his Yeti settings. He can also "declick" the audio recording through recording software.
Roger would like to get into voiceover work and wants to know what equipment he needs that is high quality, but affordable. Leo says that breaking into voiceover is a challenge, but it's easy enough to build your own sound studio. Many work out of their house thanks to high speed internet and ISDN telephone lines. But the ISDN line can be expensive, so it's better just to record at home and then upload.
Roger wants to be able to record music and play with images. Would the Chromebook be a good option? Leo says that he can do it on a Chromebook, but it's all mostly done in the Cloud. The problem is that it needs an always on internet connection, and it's not really that easy for higher end applications like music recording. There are some Chromebook extensions that can do it, however. A good way to test it is to use the extensions on his existing computer.
Walter would like to connect his iPad to his stereo and record music. Leo says that's doable if he gets the right cable. He'll want a four ring cable and the software that can handle the audio signal. It needs to be a stereo audio in, and lightning out. Walter should check out the Griffin StudioConnect. He could also check out BlueMic.com.
