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KitchenAid KICA0WH Ice Cream Maker Attachment $74.99 Make fresh ice cream (and a huge fan club) in no time flat. A sweet choice for every member of the Stand Mixer family, this creative attachment features the largest ice cream bowl capacity in the industry. It prepares up to 2 quarts of ice cream, sorbet, gelato and other delicious frozen desserts. Best of all, it always seems to clean itself. (Just ask your fan club.)… |
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Margaritaville DM0500 Bahamas 36-Ounce Frozen-Concoction Maker $229.99 FoodSaver Margaritaville Frozen Concoction Maker Bahamas, Bahamas Frozen Concoction Maker The Bahamas Margaritaville Frozen Concoction Maker is the right party enhancer for your next “spur of the moment” party! At the touch of a button, the Shave-N-Blend control automatically makes a picture-perfect 36 ounces of margaritas in one easy step. The Bahamas Frozen Concoction Maker allows you to “sha… |
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Cuisinart Power Advantage Plus 9-Speed Hand Mixer with Storage Case $145.00 Powerful Cuisinart Advantage Plus 9-speed hand mixer provides the versatility to mix light ingredients and the full range of speeds to blend heavy batters. This 220-watt motor uses automatic feedback to boost power for blending dense cookie batter or kneading heavy bread dough. Digital touchpad modernizes this 9-speed mixer with the ease of fingertip control and features a large LED display to gau… |
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Cinnamon Rolls at Home $14.95 Cinnamon rolls like you’ve never had before…Just wait till you take your first cinnamon rolls out of the oven. The fragrence will bring folks to the kitchen no matter how early it is on a weekend morning – I know this from personal experience. The recipe produces 18 regular size or 12 mega sized crowd pleasers. You use your own judgement here. The larger rolls almost require you to consume t… |
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Goldsource® STU-750 Step Up/Down Voltage Transformer Converter – AC 110/220 V – 750 Watt $41.50 Made by one of the leading manufacturers in the industry, the Goldsource STU series step up/down voltage transformers offer you a safe, reliable, affordable & convenient solution to converting voltages from 110-120 volts up to 220-240 volts or from 220-240 volts down to 110-120 volts for both home use & industrial applications. The STU-750 is rated at 750 watts maximum. It features a heavy-duty … |
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Until One $6.22 SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA UNTIL ONE… |
Stand Mixer Book!
Cuisinart HSM-70 Power Advantage 7-Speed Handheld/Stand Mixer Sale
Stand Mixer Book Questions
A newbie podcaster’s dream: Podcastudio
In Chicago, I used to teach a class: How to Start Podcasting for Under $100.
It was a very popular class. The principle is simple: the hard part of podcasting is creating compelling content and delivering it on a regular basis, which requires a great deal of creativity and discipline. The audio production is the easy part. Sure, there is a learning curve, which I happily train others to deal with, but in truth, the technical audio production is the easiest part of podcasting.
That being said, it’s really fun being an audio geek. Especially for under $100.
I’ve been using the combination of a Blue Snowball USB mic, Audio HiJack Pro, Audacity and GarageBand to produce podcasts for the last few years. And upgrade to a mixer and XLR mics hasn’t seemed practical, since they still run pretty expensive, and the Snowball mic plugs right into my MacBook via USB. What can I say? I’m a lazy podcaster.
But last week, my audio guru Brian Crouch of Behringer offered to demonstrate their Podcastudio product, and I was eager to give it a try. There’s just something about all the dials on a mixer that have always fascinated me as a wannabe audio geek.
So here is what comes in the Podcast Studio USB box for $100:
- Studio-class 5-input 2-bus mixer
- 2 In / 2 Out USB audio interface
- Dynamic microphone
- Mic stand and XLR cable
- Studio headphones
- 2 stereo RCA cables
- Audacity
- Podcasting how-to book
The mixer The interface plugs into your computer using USB and to the mixer. The mixer can take up to four separate microphone inputs, so it would work great for a panel discussion. Or, if you like, the host could use one mic, and guests, say on a panel, could pass a second mic among them. One nice thing about this setup is that the mixer allows the podcaster to control the input for each mic. So if you have a loud talker and a soft talker, the podcaster can adjust the incoming audio live and eliminate the need to level the file after the fact. Pretty good deal for a lazy podcaster like myself!
The mic A studio-quality dynamic mic is included, which is pretty amazing, considering they usually run at least $150. And a word of caution: the mic is unidirectional, so be sure to monitor and make sure the speakers are speaking directly into the mic. No broad cardioid patterns here. Of course, if you want to purchase additional mics, you could choose omnidirectional ones.
Other inputs I was also wondering about music input–say, if you wanted to record a live show and actually play the intro/outro music live and fade it up and down. Turns out you can use audio input (e.g. from your iPhone) to the 1/4″ input on the mixer; just make sure you get a 3.5 mil audio output adapter first (not included).
Firewire Since I prefer Firewire, I tried out the Firewire version. As you can see on the right, I actually used a bigger mixer than the set actually comes with, just for grins. The Firewire version does cost a bit more, about $170. The mixer has eight inputs (versus four), and it comes with a condenser microphone (C-1) instead of the dynamic. It also comes with two 1/4″ cables and two Firewire cables (instead of USB, of course).
Sometimes, I have to shake my head in jealousy of how darn easy you kids have it these days! In the early days of podcasting, there were bundles like this–usually priced around $500. I remember listening to a how-to podcast in which the host insisted you couldn’t produce decent audio for anything under $1,000. No beginning podcaster would invest in something like this for fear the podcast would never gain an audience, and the gear would gather dust like so many holiday gifts by February.
But $100 is a pretty reasonable price for a cool starter pack. And when your podcast hits #1 on iTunes, you can tell the interviewer, “Oh, I got started for like $100.”
About the Author
Heidi Miller is a Social Media Manager, podcasting geek and Twitter addict.
