NevOn Experimental

Podcasting with an Alesis mixer

I bought a mixer on my trip to London a few days ago - an Alesis Multimix8 USB.

Among its many features are 8-channel mixing, 4 microphone/line inputs, a load of special effects as well as phantom power for a condenser microphone. Full specs here. Bundled with it is Cubase LE recording software. That's primarily intended for music mixing and I'll probably stick with Audacity for podcast voice recording.

I bought the Alesis at Maplin Electronics in Bayswater for just under 130 quid, along with a Shure C606 dynamic cardioid microphone. It all looks to be more than ample for what I want to do with audio recording for podcasting, at least at this point - an affordable hardware-based recording and mixing system that's easy to install and set up and isn't too complicated to figure out and use.

Installation was very easy - turn it on, plug the USB cable into the PC, turn on the PC and that was basically it. Windows XP saw it immediately and, after changing the default recording/playback settings in the control panel audio setup, I was good to go.

So I've been experimenting a bit today, and learning (or trying to at least) some new things. I'm sure I don't yet have the optimum settings for standard voice recording - this 5-minute test recording (MP3, 2Mb) might indicate that - so more trial-and-error testing ahead. I plan to use it when Shel and I record Monday's edition of For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report.

One issue I may encounter - echo when recording over Skype. Shel and I have had this problem for a while in our twice-weekly shows. The echo doesn't record but I certainly hear it. We think it's a mixer issue. So I wonder what will happen on Monday when I'm using this mixer and Shel's using his and we're recording over Skype...

Great recording for podcasts with iRiver

Some months ago, I bought a Packard Bell AudioDream MP3 player/recorder, plus external powered microphone, for recording conversations to use in my podcast.

I said at the time that this little gadget was great, just what I needed. Unfortunately, the reality turned out quite different.

I have no complaints with the AudioDream from a recording quality point of view - it is terrific. But what a performance to actually make a recording! It really is very small and very light, and I kept dropping it. Mainly, though, setting it up to do a recording was just a major pain. Plugging in the microphone, cables everywhere, tiny buttons on the gadget... it just wasn't worth the headaches.

So last week on a trip to London, I bought an iRiver IFP-790 in the duty-free shop at Schiphol airport. On half price offer so how could I resist ;) Main reason, though, was that this was the brand I wanted to get in the first place but could not find an iRiver anywhere at the time.

Now this is the gadget for easy mobile voice recording, without question. While this particular iRiver model doesn't have the flash memory storage capacity of the Packard Bell - 256Mb versus 1Gb - it's ample for what I need. It doesn't have a rechargable li-ion battery like the AudioDream - it takes a single AA battery which seems to last forever.

Using it is simplicity itself - you just turn it on and start speaking, that's it. It's built-in microphone is amazing for the quality of recording you can do. You can also connect an external microphone if you wish. I'm especially impressed with the options you can choose for setting up your MP3 recording - selecting bit rate, sample rate, automatic gain control, etc (see the full specifications). And unlike the AudioDream, the iRiver records directly in real-time MP3 format which is what you want for podcasts. It can also record in OGG Vorbis and WMA.

It has other superb features, too, like a built-in FM radio. I'm just using it for voice recording at the moment. One other thing - it supports ID3 tags, crucial for podcasts. It comes with software for Windows that makes it so easy to transfer recordings to your PC. And its firmware is upgradeable.

Now I can fully understand why nearly every other podcaster I know has an iRiver.

Trying out Odeo

Last week, I received an invitation to try out Odeo, a podcasting service currently in beta, launched earlier this year.

What is Odeo? From the FAQ:

Odeo consists of three major parts: A catalog of audio content, of all types, which is constantly being added to. The Odeo Syncr, which let’s you download anything in the catalog (and, optionally, put it on your MP3 player). And creation tools, including the Odeo Studio, which let you publish your own audio content, which will then show up in the catalog. (The creation tools aren’t ready for public use yet, though.)

If you want to know more about the company and who's behind it, see How Odeo happened.

So, I've taken my first real look at Odeo today. When I first logged in and created an account, one thought I had was re what else is already out there in terms of finding podcasts and how would Odeo differentiate itself. There are loads of directories. Indeed, you're almost spoiled for choice at the moment of where to find increasing numbers of podcasts. Then there's Apple's iTunes Podcast Directory which looks like it will contain thousands of podcasts.

As the FAQ says, it's a catalog, a directory, with MP3 files organized by tags or categories. Unlike other directories, though, you have a much easier way to choose the content you want to subscribe to as you can get concise descriptions of each show plus the option to preview them (listen) before you download.

This reduced-size screenshot might give you an idea of that:

To download podcasts, you use the Odeo Syncr, a desktop applications based on iPodder. Once you subscribe to some shows on the Odeo website, you set them up to be retrieved by the synchronizer app, which then behaves just like iPodder, ie, it fetches your shows. Is this real podcasting, ie, making use of RSS as the delivery mechanism? No, but does that matter to the average user?

For Immediate Release is listed in the business directory (that's the bi-weekly show I co-present - plug!) so if you use Odeo and want to subscribe, here's the link.

Odeo is an interesting concept. I can see some great possibilities as a paid-for service, giving it some exclusivity. Right now, though, I can't see what a differentiator could be if it's just another open-access podcast directory (once it's out of private beta), no matter how sexy-looking it all is. The Odeo Studio creation tool looks like the big thing, but that's not available yet and I haven't seen what it looks like nor what it can do.

I'll be trying it out a little more over the next couple of weeks, so more commentary to come.

Web-based MP3 players

I started another new blog today, one that will help me focus some thoughts about podcasting and related tech themes. The new blog is hosted on Big Contact and it's simply called nevontech.

I found out about this service from PodcastNYC, a great place for podsafe music.

One of the very cool benefits that Big Contact gives you is a web-based MP3 player, what they call a channel player. It aggregates all your blog posts that link to MP3 files and gives you a playlist of those MP3 files with the content of your blog posts as the sort of show notes for reach MP3. This means you can get a sense of what each MP3 is about, whether it's a podcast or just music, before you click on that play button.

Once you launch the player (it appears in a pop-up window or new tab), it starts streaming the first MP3 file (so broadband is a good idea) and starts playing it. Pretty neat.

There is some code on the Big Contact site that I can include here so that you can directly launch the player. Unfortunately, that code doesn't work. I've emailed Big Contact about it and I hope to get it up here at some point.

I also discovered a rather neat Flash-based MP3 player. Produced by Jeroen Wijering, it's very nicely put together and dead easy to add your own list of MP3 content to the XML-based playlist. Take a look at my little experiment - this lists some of the For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report podcasts we've done this month that you can play with this player.

Similar concept to Big Contact's channel player - when it loads, it starts streaming the first MP3. You can configure it to start playing automatically or wait for a click.

Go on, give it a go!

[UPDATE 29/5/05] I had a detailed and very helpful reply from Nat at Big Contact about launching the MP3 player, as well as resolving an issue with MP3 sampling rates (separate post).

The link for the player works fine. You can try it here -

Why didn't it work yesterday? Not sure. I wrote this original post offline in ecto for Windows and tested the link in ecto's preview window. That's when it didn't work. But it works fine now.

All set for podcasting on the move

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a Packard Bell AudioDream digital MP3 music player/recorder.

While Packard Bell is not a brand I have a load of confidence in, to be frank (a view based on very poor experiences some years ago with a desktop PC), they have a potential winner with this little gadget.

The impressive spec includes 1Gb of flash memory, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, colour LCD display, plays WMA and MP3 files, supports ID3 tags, has voice recording capability in WAV file format and a line-in socket for a microphone. The whole thing is about a third smaller in size than a credit card (thicker, of course: it's about a quarter-inch thick) and weighs just 30 grams.

What I wanted such a device for was to record conversations for the podcasts Shel and I do in For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report. There are a few conferences coming up during the next few months that I'll be presenting at or otherwise participating in, with opportunities for conversations with some interesting people.

Today, I bought an external microphone, and a very neat one at that. It's an Eagle G157B clip-on (or desktop standing) stereo mike that comes with a powered sound amplifier (which is actually bigger than the AudioDream), that uses one AA battery, to help capture the best-quality sound. I think it does that - check the short test recording I made (MP3, 03:33, 1.5Mb). Note: this isn't a podcast, just an MP3 file. It would be a podcast if it were available via RSS, but it's not.

Now, voice recording on the AudioDream is in WAV format only, so how did I get an MP3 file? Quite easy, actually, using a method that's simple and straightforward.

Once I'd done the test recording, I connected the AudioDream to the PC via the supplied USB cable to copy the WAV file to the PC. Then I opened that file in Audacity, the free cross-platform sound editor (I have the Windows version) which enables me to save the WAV file in MP3 format.

I could also have manipulated the WAV file if I'd wanted to. Perhaps enhance the quality, or strip out any extraneous noise, add a fade, etc. But for this test, I just saved it as an MP3.

While this certainly isn't a studio-quality or professional sound recording, I think this set up will do just fine for recording conversations for our podcasts.

Incidentally, the AudioDream makes an excellent backup device for files. It's one-gig capacity is pretty huge, really. It's by no means the simplest device to use for managing music files - no simple synchronization here with iTunes, for example, which automatically updates a device as it does with an iPod.

No, with the AudioDream, you get the device and a USB cable (plus headphones, carry case, etc). When you connect it to your PC, Windows see it straightaway as an external drive. So you'd access it to copy and delete files just as you would with any drive. Getting music on to it means manually copying the music files.

I'll likely be using it more for file storage. I don't need this to play music as I have my iPod Mini!