Forget what you think you know about sound recording: the traditional home microphone is dead. Never again should a mini-jack plug have to run its awful buzzing signal into your Mac's mic socket.
The digital domain of USB is here - and it's better. Blue's Yeti, the beastly sequel to its groundbreaking Snowball USB mic, exudes a retro charm completely at odds with its next-gen makeup.The heavy 50s-style metal construction - complete with a brilliantly designed large-footprint table stand - lends it an air of seriousness that its little brother (a white plastic orb) missed.One advantage of its 5v-powered USB makeup is that the Yeti is able to put many of the most important recording controls on board. There's a built-in gain dial, essential if you're recording quiet or distant sounds and useful for preventing later processing.It also features a volume knob for the live-monitoring headphone amp, a mute button to pause recording, and the most important control of all: the pattern switch, which selects between the four operating modes of its triple-capsule array.The Yeti's quality was clear and full in every test we gave its multiple patterns, though you may want to invest in a pop-shield for the best possible results. Its omni-directional mode captured a room full of chatting people clearly and loudly, the cardioid and bi-directional patterns were pleasingly precise (although you'll need to lean close to the mic to get the best from them), and its stereo pattern is perfect for podcasting, neatly separating multiple voices gathered around a table.Whether that range of functionality does enough to counter the Yeti's one obvious disadvantage - the fact that you're tethered to a single mic rather than a multi-head setup - is a matter of taste.But bear in mind that an external mixer and the relevant microphones to replace its stereo function will cost a lot more than the Yeti, and this is an unquestionably high-quality mic (THX certified, no less) at a ridiculously reasonable price.
Classic
America launches a new web site. Click here to go to the new site.Classic America is, “America's Pops Concert Channel” great music
for adults of all ages.Classic America, America's "Pops Concert Channel" broadcasts to the world 24/7 in High Definition 128 kpbs mp3 audio. Classic America features 60 % lite familiar short classical selections and 40% music from Broadway along with all the established Academy Awarding winning songs. Classic America features 55 minutes of music in every hour with only two commercial interruptions. Every evening from 6-9 PM Classic America features smooth lite jazz in the Oscar Peterson style, Every Sunday from 6 AM to 10 AM we feature Great Religious music. Classic America will soon launch this format for terrestrial broadcast stations via satellite. Classic America will use the Cumulus XDS satellite receives for nationwide distribution.
This is the equipment I suggest to use for Skype remotes. This price for each component is great. You can use just the Audio Technica Microphone USB and Headphones if only one mic is needed like in a home studio. Otherwise I suggest you purchase the Mixer and several Microphones the Shure Beta 58A is a good inexpensive choice or the Heil PR-40 is the best choice. You can not use the Audio Technica USB mic into the mixer. Remember you MUST have a strong internet connection like Comcast Business Class at each end of the remote for it to be reliable. Never try to do a Skype broadcast on a dial up. I further suggest not using wi fi at least at this time for a internet broadcast. Please purchase from Amazon.com. Select from the box below. There are three pages of equipmnet in the box below, not just one.
Global American is now operating radio stations coast to coast from our new Technical Operations Center in Vero Beach, Florida. The new platform is known as Broadcast SOS. Global will house all the computers, operators, accounting, logging, backup systems and voice talent for stations under one roof. Global will maintain the station’s public File on the internet and provide FCC legal advice by our contract FCC lawyers. Depending on the size of the station and market Global fees will range from barter to a negotiated service fee. Global will service most any format delivered via satellite including news and weather. This service is targeted at stations wanting to streamline operations and maximize profits without supporting the costly studio operations. This service does not relieve the station from maintaining the required FCC local presence of employees. Global will produce the required “Issues and Programs” for each client as well as create or maintain a station web presence. Global’s first client is Low Power, WJPP-FM 100.1 Palm City/Stuart Florida. Global began operating WJPP January 1st 2011. Click here to go to WJPP. For more information contact
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or call 772-770-9000. Click on the GAB Logo to see a new Video on our facilities.
I have seldom mentioned what I am about to report here for many reasons, not withstanding my major involvement in the tall tower business many years ago.In the middle 1970's I owned an FM station in Fort Pierce, Florida, 98.7. I was interested in moving to a tall tower to provide a city grade signal over Palm Beach County. At that time, there were no tall towers north of West Palm Beach. I joined forces with Frank Spain an inventor, TV engineer and owner of WTVX TV, Fort Pierce. We, together, found property that satisfied our needs to construct a 1,549 tower in Martin County, midway between Fort Pierce and West Palm Beach.
After many legal and engineering hoops to jump through, we were ready for the final public hearing with the Martin County zoning board. As I recall, the room was filled with 100s of naysayers and just a few of us proponents. Then came the surprise. A large contingency of Audubon Society folks appeared protesting, and demanding to be heard, suggesting the notion that a tall tower, such as the one we were proposing, would kill thousands of migratory birds. Wow, were we surprised! What a stupid idea. Where did they come up with this? We actually thought they were a shill for our competitors. The Zoning Board permitted many of them to speak. Fortunately for us, they really didn't have a great deal of substance to their plea. At the end of the meeting, the Zoning Board approved the plan, and granted us a building permit.
Now, let’s fast forward to a few months after the tower was completed. I was installing an FM transmitter plant in the building at the base of the tower. I arrived at the tower site just as the sun was rising on a beautiful clear day. When I entered the tower base compound, I couldn't believe my eyes. There were thousands of dead birds everywhere. Too bad we didn't have cell phone cameras. Yes, in fact, the Audubon Society was right. Clearly, the birds did meet their demise as a result of the presence of this tall tower. Needless to say, I didn't call the Zoning Board or the Audubon Society. I arranged for the entire area to be cleaned and the birds were given a fitting burial.
In my lifetime, I have visited 100s of tower sites, built at least a dozen towers in excess of 1000 feet, and never have seen or heard of an incident like this. None the less, this event did happen, and I saw the results with my own eyes.Now begs the larger question. What caused this? Could it have been the strobe lights? Was it the guyed wires, or was it a combination of all of these and even more unknown events? This was definitely an awful event.
Now, as broadcasters and towers owners, what do we do? TV and FM stations must have tall towers to transmit their signals; this is a fact. A 1,549 foot tower cannot be made any skinnier, and guyed wires are still going to be necessary, and some type of lighting system is absolutely necessary for aviation safety.Do we use the premise that airliners crash, so we should ban all aviation travel? Certainly not!I hear you folks at the Audubon Society, but let’s face it, to the best of my knowledge, birds crashing into towers is a relatively rare event. I have spent a great deal of my adult life around tall towers, and have only observed one of these such events. I suspect there are others, but how many, and how often?
Just about every event in the modern world creates a “cause and effect”. Tall towers cause a small number of birds to die every year. Cars crash, airliners crash, ships sink, worms die when we dig, birds fly into our windows, Love Bugs die when our car hits them, dogs and cats get hit by cars and trucks. Where do we draw the line as to how much protection we must build into our infrastructure? How much money should we spend on studies to determine the amount of gas emitted by cows and what should we do about it?Come on folks. I am a very sensitive guy. I cry when the America Flag goes by, and the National Anthem is played. Why can't we come up with a plan to stop this insane “over protection”, and focus on what are really important issues like jobs, homelessness, education, and overpopulation?Written by Ron Crider, a freelance Technical and Travel writer, broadcaster, and tower owner. Ron Crider can be reached at
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or 772-770-9000.
Recently we have started to use Skype here at the GAB Network on a few select remotes with excellent success. This past week we did 2 Hours a day for 4 days from the Administaff Golf Classic at the Woodlands in Texas. During the entire 8 hours the audio quality between Texas and Florida was totally without any jitters or delay and never one glitch. Had I not been monitoring the event I would have not believed it. I must add the computer in Texas was connected via Ethernet at the Marriott Hotel. During the same period I downloaded the Skype App to my I phone. We made dozens of tests and determined the quality was incredible, provided the IPhone was connected to WiFi or Ethernet connected. Here again I don't recommend G3 for either the IPhone or the Computer for broadcasting Skype, at least not yet.
Here is a small inexpensive easy to travel with computer interface for remotes. It is made by Shure and is known as the Shure X2U - XLR to USB Microphone Signal Adapter. It sells for less than $100.00. The Shure X2u XLR-to-USB Microphone Adapter is a modular accessory that connects any XLR microphone or line input to your computer to create better-than-CD quality audio. The X2u provides phantom power so you can also use your favorite condenser mic for direct USB recording or feeding Skype. This little device has a separate control for the microphone as well as your headphones and monitor. I use it with my Acer Aspire One Netbook computer. The entire remote setup fits in my small briefcase. For under $500.00 you can be live from just about anywhere with excellent glitch free sound.
After many months of searching and planning our small family of media companies GAE, GAB, RCN and MrFiveStar finally have a new home. We had many options and most of them were excellent. In the end The Omni Financial Center at 2300 5th Avenue Vero Beach was selected. Here are a few pictures and a link to the ourphoto album.
GAB and GAE distributes Radio Programs to the entire United States via Satellite using the services of ABC (Citadel Media) in New York. We also distribute programs world wide via the Internet. Global American Enterprises Syndicates Health Radio LLC 24/7, Marshal Sylver’s Get Rich Radio 2 hours daily, and numerous health programs for Patient Power. GAB originates Financial programs 24/7 Including Ray Lucia, Phil Grande, Tom O’Brien, Jim Blassingame, Marc Mandel, Moe Ansari, Brian Elrod, and Kevin and Sue McCarthy.
The entire build out project, 2600 square feet took less than 3 weeks to complete thanks to our GC Ji
m Hester and his sons Chris and Brian’s tireless effort working 15 hour days. Hester and Sons Construction is truly a family operation. Over the Labor Day weekend we counted 8 family members on the job doing everything from installing the hardwood floors to painting and dry walling. If you are looking to get a complicated job done quickly, efficiently, under budget with first class workmanship, That Hester crew can’t be beat. We imported the services of Joe Congelli from Seattle who came to visit and we wouldn’t let him go home until he completed 30 days of non stop work with us. Joe is a super detail guy who is responsible for really putting the polish on the small details as well as designing and fabricating much of the specialized built in rack systems. Here again you can’t find a more dedicated hard working guy anywhere than Joe.
Our own crew didn’t escape the midnight oil, Kevin, Shane and Jimmy did their share of heavy lifting to get the job done. We all literally disassembled the original TOC (technical operations center) and reassembled it for 3 radio networks in 48 hours. Click on GAB Logo to see Video on our new facilities.
Global American Enterprises is launching an all new Classical Music Channel on the Internet and on satellite for Terrestrial Radio. The Format to be known as Classic America will launch March 1 2011 on the Internet and April1, 2011 on Satellite using the ABC Citadel platform. Classic America will be available to stations on a barter basis and will be available 24/7. Classic America will focus on familiar Pops selections with limited commercial interruptions. The target audience is 35 plus women. For a sneak beta audio preview of the music, click here for the Windows version.Classic America. Copy this to your IPHONE until our new App is ready http://ice2.securenetsystems.net/CLASM Or Click here on your IPHONE Classic America
I put this on my IPhone 3GS recently. It works great! It also has pink noise and white noise. $8.99. No more lugging around a bulky audio Oscilator.
Audio Generator is a highly accurate and versatile audio signal generator. It generates sine waves, square waves, white noise, and pink noise. The white and pink noise can optionally be octave-band filtered. All waveforms are highly accurate and low-distortion, created with real-time 64-bit floating point math and ANSI / IEC type 1 filters.
Generator also incorporates a pseudo-balanced output mode, that inverts the output signal polarity to one channel. When used with our iAudioInterface, you will get a signal that can be used for plugging into a balanced input.
Frequency Selection Mode For sine waves and square waves, there are three different frequency selection modes. These modes are chosen by using the buttons in the middle of the dial. In concept, the outer ring selects the octave, and the inner ring selects the place in the octave. If the inner pointer is straight up, you are in the center of the octave. If the inner ring is 1/3 to the left, you are one-third octave below. The inner rings works differently, depending on the mode selected.
One-Third Octave If you select third octave mode, then when you turn the dial, the inner ring will settle on even third octave points. If you move up or down to the next octave, the outer ring will move to the appropriate octave.
Quick - Set Buttons If you touch either the 1000 or 10k button, the frequency will instantly set to either 1000Hz or 10kHz. This is useful if you are doing tests on equipment, and need to quickly access these values. All settings are saved as you change them, so the next time that you start the Generator it will start as you left it.
Output Level & Distortion We have measured a max of +6.35dBu balanced, using our Balanced Cable Adapter. This is with the system volume (set on the side of the phone) set to maximum, and with the fader on the screen set to max. The distortion that we measure is less than .006% THD. The same distortion value is measured at the octaves, at 32, 63, 125, 250, 500, 1k, 2k, and 4kHz. Note that in previous software versions, it was necessary to lower the hardware volume by one click to avoid high distortion levels. That is corrected in the current release.
It's time for change. Do you want a big, crisp sound? Who doesn't! Heil
Microphones are the answer. This is no bull. I must admit I have been
stuck in the RE20/RE27 ditch way too long. It wasn't until Kevin
McCarthy gave me one to try did my entire thinking change. Even then I
made the change reluctantly. I just tried the PR40 to make Kevin happy,
since he really went out of his way to physically delivery one to me
here in Florida. Frankly, I really thought there was little chance I
would switch. After all, if the RE20/27 is good enough for Rush and
Imus why should I change?
OK, here is what happened. I was able to remove the RE20 and directly
inset the Heil PR40 in the same RE 20 holder. Wow! Looks like someone
was thinking when they did this. I plugged in the XLR and Bam! Bob's
your uncle, the mic was hot. That is the end of the story. There is no
more. From this day on there is only one microphone I will use for my
studios and my client's studios. There isn't just a little difference.
There is a huge difference. This microphone is GREAT!
Put those RE20 and RE27's on Ebay as fast as you can before the rest
of the world figures this out. By the way, the Heil Microphones aren't
made in China, they are made here in Our Country the USA. There is more
good news. The price is right. It sells for less than the RE20 and is
at least twice as good. All the suppliers have them or you can purchase
straight from Bob's shop. Click here to go the Heilsound site.
I promise, you won't be disappointed. If you are the PD or engineer, do
this for your station, you will become an instant hero. I would give up
martini's before I would give up my Heil PR40 studio microphone, and
that's the truth! Click here to purchase this microphone.
