Radio Broadcast/Podcast Recording

17 August 2010 | 30 Comments » | opp_id

This post is about how to continue blogging when you’re swamped with work. Just kidding……

Its amazing how purpose driven a microphone design can really be. The Canadian Professional Golf Association (CPGA) is a new client with which I’m producing a radio-style news podcast. Its proven a great opportunity to work with some mics built specifically with this purpose in mind.

There’s at least a handful of good options on the market but I ultimately selected the Shure SM7B to record the shows. Since my illustrious career hasn’t taken me through the fast paced world of radio, I can’t say I’ve had any first hand experience with some of the other radio voice recording notables, such as Electrovoice’s RE20 or Sennheiser’s 421 (although I’ve loved the 421 on toms!).

Like most broadcast mics, the SM7B requires a MASSIVE amount of gain. I have my preferred processing techniques for voice recording, which includes the use of a gentle expander, but this proved an absolutely essential tool here because of the relatively small signal to noise ratio.

I was quite happy with the results – of the studio voice recording anyway. The show also calls for a phone patch so the guys can host industry pros on each episode. With a phone patch, you just never know what sort of signal you’ll receive over the line, which are pretty terrible on the best of days. One of the two calls we took had a horrible signal that required some pretty intense digital cleaning to get it usable. As I said, radio engineers live a faced paced work life! If we were live to air there wouldn’t be any restoration happening!

Take a listen to the first show;

http://www.golfnewsnow.ca/2010/08/10/tales-of-two-tournaments/