Equalization (EQ) units
Equalization is a process whereby tone is altered by boosting (turning up) or attenuating (turning down) certain frequencies. The bass and treble knobs on your car stereo apply EQ. Most mixing desks include simple EQ, but you may want finer control of your tone at times. In this case, you'd buy an external EQ unit. You also can use EQ units to fight feedback problems (refer to the "Feedback: What It Is and How to Avoid It" sidebar).
Compressor
Audio compressors help control your audio levels. Compressors turn audio levels down when they cross a certain threshold. They're incredibly useful because they protect your equipment from distortion due to abrupt level changes — for example, if one of your guests suddenly starts yelling. You can place a compressor between your mixing desk and your audio interface as a protective measure or compress your input channels individually.
Effects units
Effects units enable you to add special effects to your podcast, like echo and reverb. Effects are often used in music production to make the band sound like they're playing in a large hall or club. For most podcast material, this simply isn't appropriate. If you listen to the radio carefully, you'll notice that special effects are used sparingly, and even then only on the "bumpers" (the show announcements) or on advertisements.
Audio interfaces
At some point, your analog audio signal must make the transition between the analog and digital worlds. This can be done at various points in your signal chain. Once upon a time, the only way to get sound into your computer was via a soundcard, but that is no longer the case. Audio interfaces can connect via USB and FireWire, mixing desks come with built-in audio interfaces, and you can even buy USB mics.
Soundcards
Virtually every computer sold these days comes with some sort of audio interface. Usually, there's a headphone and/or speaker output, a microphone input, and a line level input if you're lucky. The problem is that these soundcards are usually built with really cheap components and are low quality. Microphone inputs on soundcards tend to be very noisy. They're very vulnerable to electrical interference (of which there's plenty inside a computer). In general, you should avoid using the mic input on a soundcard.
This doesn't mean that you can't produce a podcast using whatever soundcard you're stuck with. Hey, the idea is to get podcasting as quickly as possible, right? If you must use the soundcard that came with your hand-me-down computer, and if you must use the microphone input, go right ahead. Just remember that when you decide it's time to improve the audio quality, the soundcard is probably the place to start.
Plenty of good soundcards are available today. You should look for a soundcard that uses professional 1/4″ or XLR connectors, because they're far more reliable and resistant to noise. Many soundcards these days come with a breakout box that you can place on your desk or a shelf, so you don't have to crawl behind your computer every time you want to plug something in. Check out the example in Figure 2.
External audio interfaces
Another way to get digital audio into your computer is to use an external audio interface. This type of stand-alone unit connects to your computer via USB or FireWire. Until recently, only a few of these were available, but now you have lots to choose from. One nice thing is that most of these units come bundled with tons of great recording tools, so if you don't have an audio editor, you might consider picking up an external audio interface just to get the software!
Like soundcards, external audio interfaces come in many shapes and sizes and have different features, such as number of inputs and so on, like the ones shown in Figure 5.14. One thing to consider is power; most of these units run off the power supplied by the USB or FireWire bus, but to get power on a FireWire cable, you need the larger six-pin cable. Some laptops come equipped only with the smaller four-pin FireWire input, so you'll have to supply external power if you're using a FireWire interface. For the ultimate in portability, you may want to go with a USB version.
Recording devices
You have a number of options for recording. The most obvious is to record directly to your hard drive. However, this may not be an option if you're recording on location, or if you don't want to lug your computer around with you everywhere you go. Of course, these days, people bring their laptops with them everywhere, but if you don't want to do that, this section discusses other options for recording your podcast.
You can record in many different formats. Some, like the cassette, have been around for ages, but are still entirely useful. Others, like tapeless recording, are relatively new. Tapeless recording is of particular interest to podcasters, because you can transfer the files from your recorder to the computer digitally and much faster than real-time transfers.
Cassette
Cassettes were initially developed as a dictation format and never designed to be high quality. But they caught on like wildfire, so manufacturers improved the tape quality and the electronics, and they even added noise reduction systems like Dolby. If you have a decent cassette deck lying around, you can use it, but be sure to buy high-quality chrome cassette tapes and set your record levels high so you don't hear tape hiss. Of course, you can always use studio trickery later on to get rid of (or at least reduce) tape hiss.
DAT
Digital Audio Tape, or DAT, appeared in the mid-1980s as a high-quality studio format, but found its way into the consumer market. Although it has largely disappeared in the past ten years, plenty of serviceable DAT machines are still out there, and they're very high quality.
MiniDisc
Sony has been trying to convince the world that MiniDisc is a great format, but few people have listened. MiniDisc just never seems to go away, no matter how poorly it sells. This is partly due to the fact that MiniDisc units use ATRAC compression on the audio signal, which is acceptable for spoken word content, but not really acceptable for recording music masters. As a portable podcast recorder, a MiniDisc unit can be quite useful, especially because you can find them on craigslist for under $50 and MiniDisc blank discs are cheap.
MP3 recorders
A handful of MP3 players include record functionality. Most of these units do not have external mic inputs. A few have a line input that you can record from, but this means having some sort of mixing desk for the mic pre-amps and feeding the line level output into your portable MP3 player — not exactly a compact setup. Of course, you can use the built-in mic these units tend to include. If you're in a quiet location, it's probably fine. But don't expect broadcast quality.
New tapeless options
If you want the latest and greatest, look no further. Several manufacturers have released high-quality tapeless recording options in the last year. You can see some examples in Figure 5.15. These units record to compact Flash memory cards, which you can pop out and put into a USB card reader connected to your computer, or you can connect the unit to your computer using a USB cable. This allows you to transfer files much faster than real-time transfers; the transfer time depends on the type of file you recorded.
These tapeless units generally offer uncompressed recording in the WAV format, as well as MP3 recording at a variety of bit rates. Most come with built-in microphones, but for highest quality you'll want to use your own mics, of course. Some units offer XLR connectors, some 1/4″ or 1/8″. As of the writing, models are available from four manufacturers, but we're sure you'll have many more choices by the time you read this.
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