The Best Podcast and New Media Gear of the Year.

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In the spirit of the coming year, I wanted to compile a “who’s who” list of core studio gear.

Join Laura and I, for a glimpse at the foundation components of a New Media broadcast studio.

Let’s take a look back and forward at the gear that will allow more people to become broadcasters than ever before…

RADIO CONSOLES

Listed below, are true Radio Consoles for your studio. You won’t find EQ or pan controls here. These are industrial strength workhorses based on decades of radio workflow.

Best Radio Console Buy – Broadcast Tools knows broadcasting. The ProMix12 is a true radio console at an unbeatable price. You won’t find chrome trim or fancy colors, but you will get broadcast quality and functionality. The ProMix12 is all about bringing multi-thousand dollar performance to a sub-$800 package.
$799.00 (average street price at publish date)

New Retro Radio Console – You don’t have to remember the Gates Statesman to appreciate round “pots” instead of faders. The SixMix by Henry Engineering mixes (pun intended) the best of old and new in a professional USB radio console. Check out the SixMix from Henry Engineering. The SixMix is all business. Under the hood is a true console at a high-end “mixer” price.
$1000.00 (average street price at publish date)

PROCESSING – VOCAL STRIPS

Vocal processors include a mic pre-amp, dynamic control (compression), filtering, voice EQ, and gating to give your voice presence and consistency.

Best of the Best – After trying quite a few, I knew that the Aphex 230 had the ‘sound’ I was searching for. A good vocal strip does a lot of things at once, and I can’t find anyone that does it better than Aphex.
$799.00 (average street price at publish date)

Legend – The Symetrix 528e is an excellent vocal strip. The 528e is a little more transparent than the 230. It has been around for decades and continues to be a strong player.
$499.00 (average street price at publish date)

Bargain – You won’t find a better value than the dbx 286a. This strip has proved itself over the years with classic dbx dependability and a price that is hard to beat.
$209.95 (average street price at publish date)

SOFTWARE – PC

Most of us utilize the power and convenience of our computers to capture audio. Here are a few software staples for capturing and manipulating pro audio.

Pro – Sound Forge is THE stereo/mono recorder for the PC platform. Although multi-track is possible (with a multi-track interface), the real strength of Sony Sound Forge is its solid, professional recording and no-nonsense plug-ins. Sound Forge always gets the job done.
$299 (average price at publish time)

Multi-Track Staple – Whether you create layered voice overs or need to manipulate dozens of tracks at once, Adobe Audition has been tightened and tweaked into a World-Class recorder/editor. I’m never far away from Audition.
$349 (average price at publish time)

Value – Reliable, responsive, dependable and inexpensive are all words I would use to describe GoldWave. At $45, GoldWave represents a tremendous combination of value and power in a small package.
$45 (price at publish time)

SOFTWARE – MAC‘

Multi-Track Intro – You may expect to find Garage Band here, but after looking at standards and features vs. price, the winner was clear to me. Apples Logic Express offers much of the power and multi-track performance/features of Logic Pro at an affordable price.
$199 (average price at publish time)

Multi-Track Studio in a Box – Logic Studio combines the power of Logic Pro, and then adds SoundTrack Pro along with a suite of instruments, effects and loops. Logic Studio is THE answer to Professional multi-track recording using OS X.
$499 (average price at publish time)

Best,
MarkJensen and Laura

Filed under: PodCasts