My new podcasting studio microphone came today. It's the Samson C01U Studio Condenser Microphone recommeded by my mentor Andy Leonard. So far, I really like the new mic. I bought it from an eBay company called Unique Squared because they seemed to carry audio equipment in my price range of high quality and they had a very good rating. Payment was simple via PayPal and the package showed up in just a few days in excellent condition.

I bought what's called the Podcasting Kit which puts together some parts that make a lot of sense for podcasting. These include the C01U mic, of course, a heavy base, a retro-looking spider mount for absorbing vibration noise and a pop filter for taking the edge off of words beginning with that hard "P" sound.

In the picture attached to this blog entry, you can see the old $5 mic in the foreground and the new $112 mic behind it. I thought my friend Joey Beninghove would get a kick out of seeing the two microphones together since he ribbed me in a tweet about this purchase a few days ago.

This mic is all-digital and USB-connected so I was worried about drivers and potential incompatibility. Thankfully, there were no drivers to install for Windows XP. I just plugged the mic into the USB port and Windows XP recognized it right away. I had to adjust the mic volume but I was up in running in just a few minutes. How the setup goes in Windows Vista (or Mojave) or Mac OS X remains to be seen.

The Cakewalk LE (ostensibly meaning Limited Edition, or cripple-ware) software that came with the package was a different story. It installed OK but it was clearly a 1990s style installer that had been cobbled together by someone who didn't really know what he was doing. After being interrupted by about 20 pop up dialogs asking inane questions about features I didn't understand, I got through the installation. However, after the installation, I discovered that the the Cakewalk LE user interface is pretty much incomprehensible for someone like me who has never used audio mixing and voice-over software before. I suppose I'll get the hang of it over time. If you know of some better (hopefully freeware) software that I should be using or if you can aim me at a Cakewalk LE Tutorial, that would be great.

I used the Cakewalk LE software to record a voice version of this blog post as an experiment. You can use the player below or download the MP3 file here. Let me know what you think. Drop me a note anytime, OK?