| Have you ever had your air conditioner break down in | | | | computer. He agreed the quality was much better than |
| your house in the middle of summer in one of those | | | | his, and asked how much I had paid for my gear. |
| hot states? You probably suffered for hours, if not | | | | When I told him it was $5.00 he was floored. |
| days, before a repair person came to your house, | | | | So now you're wondering how this happened, right? |
| climbed into the attic for 30 seconds, and presented | | | | Simple. I've been recording audio for over 20 years. He |
| you with a bill for $100.00. | | | | has only just started. Yup, I was the repair guy who |
| If this made you feel like it made me feel, you probably | | | | knew which button to push. He should have had much |
| thought "I just paid $100 for a guy push a reset button | | | | better audio quality than I did with the gear he had, but |
| (or whatever only took 30 seconds)." You thought, | | | | he did not know how to use that gear. |
| "heck I could have done that for free!" Am I right? | | | | As it turns out, all I did was make sure my voice was |
| Yeah, me too. | | | | always close to the microphone, and that my voice |
| Although it is true that you or I could have just as | | | | was being recorded quite loud (software meters can |
| easily pushed a button as a repair person, the thing we | | | | show you this), but that it wasn't too loud to cause |
| couldn't have easily done is KNOW what button to | | | | distortion. After that I cleaned up the noise in the audio |
| push. The knowledge is what we paid for, not the | | | | with some software. How easy is that? Well, it was |
| finger pushing the button. | | | | almost as easy as pushing a button on an air |
| OK, so what does this have to do with audio? I'm glad | | | | conditioner. The software was free, the mic was |
| you asked. | | | | $5.00. The difference was KNOWLEDGE. |
| I was recording a podcast interview with someone | | | | So before you decide you need to drop hundreds of |
| who had recently purchased a microphone costing | | | | dollars on a microphone, try some of the techniques I |
| over $300. We played the recording on the show, and | | | | mentioned above. You can find much more useful |
| it sounded terrible! The voice was distorted (that fuzzy | | | | knowledge that will save you money and improve your |
| sound you hear when something was too loud for the | | | | audio at Home Brew Audio on the web. Our motto is |
| microphone), as well as filled with hissy noise. Just for | | | | "knowledge trumps gear." And happily, in this case |
| kicks, I played him a recording of my voice that I had | | | | anyway, knowledge is much more affordable than |
| made using a $5.00 microphone going straight into my | | | | gear;). |