Dan Blank: Publishing, Innovation & the Web

Guest column by Peter Welander, Control Engineering process industries editor.

Showing up at a trade show, conference, or other event with a recorder or a video camera but no plans on what you’re going to do with them can become a frustrating experience. Thinking ahead can solve this, or at least make it easier.

Maybe you’ve been there yourself: You go to an event with good intentions and the desire to bring back some kind of multi-media project. All those people are there, you must be able to do SOMETHING with that, right? So you find yourself in the midst of all that activity and you don’t have a clue what you’re going to do. People are busy, and they aren’t going to fall at your feet to talk about their lives or stand there in the good light waiting for you to start rolling videotape.

You’re at an event, equipment at hand. Now, what do you do with it? If you don’t think ahead, it may never come out of the bag and you’ll go home empty-handed and frustrated.

If you’re at a trade show, you can always find people who will tell you about their products. If traffic is slow, they’ll talk to you and do demos for hours. You can tape or video to your heart’s content. If that’s what you want, you’ve got it made.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes this is exactly what you want. Audio or video product explanations or demos are an appropriate use of the media, and companies may actually pay you for it. If you are planning on doing some kind of online product release for that company anyway, such demos can be embedded as sound bites or short videos to add pizzazz to a mundane product story. Here are examples of embedded audio and video.

• Audio Example
• Video Example (on-camera interviewer)
• Video Example (no interviewer)

At many events, the sponsoring organization will have opinions on what you should be doing and NOT doing, particularly with a video camera. Much depends on the nature of the event. People working a booth at a trade show are generally marketing and sales types, so they’re not shy and are used to performing a spiel on demand. Often the official regulations will discourage video and even photography, but enforcement may be minimal or non-existent. It helps if you aren’t too obvious about waving your equipment around, and don’t start shooting the nearby exhibitors without asking permission.

Conferences that attract non-sales, end-user people can be different and much more tightly controlled. Hosts don’t want the attendees pestered, especially if they’re paying to be there. Attendees like to have hallway discussions without fear that they are being filmed or that the walls have ears. There are also potential issues that your subject’s company may not want him or her on camera or even on tape. I’ve been at user groups where a PR person accompanied me whenever I was shooting or even had the camera out. Maybe that sounds a little like North Korea, but this is still largely uncharted territory for most companies, and they want to keep things under control.

But if you aren’t happy with product demos, you have to figure something else out. That’s a challenge, and one that I struggle with. For example, last spring I was at a major trade show for an industry that’s part of my coverage area. I was armed with my recorder and determined to bring back some kind of audio project that provided an overview of the whole event. Having a few product demos were fine, but I also wanted something more “journalistic.” Unfortunately, I had made no specific appointments with key people, nor were many of my usual contacts on site. Yes, it was very poor planning.

I found people to talk to at some of my key companies, but came back with a hodge-podge of recordings on assorted topics. As I started thinking about how to use these, I had a couple of choices:

• A: Create a series of short unfocused bits, sort of a miscellaneous product or new technology round-up from the event that probably wouldn’t be worth much.
• B: Try to cobble them together into an industry trend survey from the show, adding some additional commentary from me.

I went for B and tried to fabricate something that represented the larger industry. But it didn’t work because the discussions didn’t have a strong enough connection to a common theme. After doing the editing, I simply abandoned the project. Sometimes that’s the only thing you can do. The lesson I took away was to plan ahead:

• Set up more appointments with the right people in advance;
• Figure out a series of questions, the more specific the better, that center around particular industry related issues;
• Allow the participants to express their thoughts on whatever aspects of this discussion they consider the most relevant to them, as long as they don’t stray too far from the original theme; and
• Ask followup questions that continue with the subject’s line of thought or push back to the original intent.

If you’re creative and don’t mind some time spent editing, you can put these remarks together with some of your own commentary into an industry overview from the event.

None of this is particularly creative journalism. It follows standard practices. But you may find that when the tape or video camera is rolling, you have to adapt the way you think about questions. It’s the difference between you being an invisible and silent observer to being a more conspicuous part of the process.

Guest column by Peter Welander, Control Engineering process industries editor.

Have you tried to create a podcast or launch a video project? No? While I don’t have any hard data I suspect the majority of print and web editors have made no efforts, or very modest ones. For most editors, these projects are really scary, so don’t think your reluctance is anything peculiar.

When you first start listening to yourself, the sensation isn’t always pleasant. The key to improving is realizing what it is you don’t like about your delivery, and making a conscious effort to fix it. With some practice, it will get better.

If you’ve been following these columns, you might get the impression that I think the answer is simply technical. Get the right recorder and microphone, and all your problems are solved, right? Well, no. You can go to a trade show or conference and have all the right equipment plus training to use it, but still not record a minute of conversation or even take it out of the bag. Here are some reasons why I think that happens, with suggestions for what you can do to overcome the inertia. We’ll start with podcasts, as they are the more manageable project type. Video is somewhat more daunting.

Reasons why we don’t

• I have no technical skills
  You tell yourself that you don’t understand the fine points of recording technology, you don’t have any equipment, and you have no idea how to edit or finish audio or video productions. These things can be taught fairly easily, and current equipment minimizes the need for technical skill. Seek out someone who has been successful and ask for guidance. The Oak Brook RBI office now has an audio recording studio with necessary equipment, and Web folks who can assist. Do other offices?

• Listeners will hear me—(Subtext: I think I sound like a dork.)
  Yes, listeners will hear you. People who are used to reading your articles will now know what you sound like. If you find that unnerving, you’ll just have to get over it. You also have to get used to the idea of listening to yourself. That can take time.
• Listeners will hear my questions—(Subtext: I better ask really good questions.)
  It’s true, you can no longer hide behind your notebook. We’ve lived with the understanding that answers are more important than questions and readers don’t hear what we ask. That changes now, and you have to think more about what you’re saying. It never hurts to write things out, even though it may sound a little stiff at first.

• Interviewees can be boring
  Yes, they can. Everyone doesn’t provide an interesting recorded interview. If you have an interviewee with a dull delivery, you must either convince yourself that what he or she is saying is so important that people will listen anyway (e.g., Stephen Hawking), or don’t do the podcast. If you are disciplined enough to write out your questions and give them to your interviewee first, he or she can prepare and it could make a big difference.
• You might be boring
  Yes, you might be the less interesting side of the interview or a dull narrator. That means what you say has to be really compelling or you have to work on your delivery. Probably both.
• I can’t, ummm, talk
  Some people don’t realize how much they depend on ummm, ahhh, like, I mean, and that, and any number of other verbal crutches that get inserted into sentences. I suspect that indicates your mouth is running faster than your brain and you have to slow down your speech to let your thinking catch up. The first time you try and edit yourself on tape, this will become brutally obvious. It will also make editing a terribly tedious and slow process if you attempt to fix these glitches. The solution is to think ahead, make notes, and simply slow down. Stop for a few seconds and formulate your question in your head. Then talk. It’s easier to edit out a chunk of silence than smooth over an ummmm.
• I can’t…mumble…mumble…
  Yes, you have to speak clearly and enunciate. I used to know a professional voice-over actor who told me that he would practice by reading aloud from Shakespeare or the King James Bible while holding a cork in his teeth. Maybe he was pulling my leg, but you get the idea. Some people do tend to mumble, but it can be overcome.
• I don’t have time
  This is probably one of the biggest obstacles. For most of us, multi-media projects have to be done in addition to our normal responsibilities. The challenge is to find ways to incorporate these new things. However, doing so helps move you into the next phase of our existence as a company. Editors who cannot extricate themselves from print will be in a more difficult position as we move to online and multi-media. Maybe it isn’t fair, but it’s a reality.
• This puts all sorts of new pressures on me
  Yes, it does. You have to be interesting and compelling on tape. Your voice has to sparkle and engage listeners. (If you think a podcast is scary, wait until you stand in front of a video camera!) This isn’t something we all do naturally, but these skills can be learned and it does get easier. Really.

What should I do?

• Practice. Record yourself as you interview your friends and family. Interview one of your fellow editors, and then switch roles. The topic doesn’t matter. This will also help build your technical skills.
• Then, listen to yourself and edit the recording. Critique your delivery. Do you speak in complete sentences? Can you understand yourself? Does your speech seem natural or forced? Record yourself reading an article aloud and see if you can make it sound like you’re not reading. Maybe this sounds silly, but you’d be surprised what it will tell you.
• If you’re going to an event and you want to do some recordings, plan ahead. The worst thing you can do is show up with no plans, no appointments, no objectives. Decide who you want to talk to and work out the details before you go. If you really want to do it right, plan your questions ahead and send them to your subject in advance. This will get both of you thinking and make the process much easier and smoother.
• Get ready for some criticism. Turn down your personal sensitivity and ask some people you trust to critique your efforts. Listen to the results and try to figure out what you can do to improve your methods.

Making this leap isn’t easy. Moving from being a wordsmith to a new role as voice talent, or worse, on camera, is a huge step, but it’s one you should make.

Guest column by Peter Welander, Control Engineering process industries editor.

If you’re considering how you can get your podcast and video productions to the next level (to use a very tired phrase) one easy step that will get a lot of bang for the buck is improving your microphones. Here are two designed for field use that you should look at if you’re starting out.

Bob interviews Ray with a 635A.

These two are considered “industry standards” and have gathered wide acceptance thanks to a useful collection of features. Of course there are dozens of choices available in any given area, but the characteristics of these can help you evaluate others by comparison.

ElectroVoice RE50 and RE50B: This microphone is a standard for hand-held interviewing, and one if the most versatile tools you can buy. (The B designates black finish.) If you actually get geekish enough to start looking at the microphones you see on TV (I do) you’ll see them in all sorts of situations, including the Weather Channel where some poor sap is standing in a hurricane trying to describe what’s going on. Here’s why:

• Resists handling noise so it won’t pick up sound from your hands;
• Wind resistant so you can use it outdoors;
• Resists p-popping so you can get close to your subject in a noisy environment;
• Dynamic, so it needs no phantom power;
• Omnidirectional, so you don’t have to point it precisely; and
• It also works great in a stand for use on a table.

What’s more, it makes you look really professional if you’re doing video. That never hurts. It is a little big, but that’s not a bad thing in these situations.

The RE50 is an excellent choice for any face-to-face interviewing opportunity.

If you don’t want to spend so much money, they are available used. I have a couple from eBay. Older original RE50 units are a gray-green (EV calls it beige) which also looks good on camera. Nice black ones will go for $100.+ but older green ones sell for $50.-$70.

Other similar mics from other manufacturers include Shure VP64A and AKG D230, but these aren’t nearly as common on the used market.

While the 635A is smaller, it lacks the internal cushioning the larger RE50 uses to reduce handling noise.

ElectroVoice 635A: Another workhorse, nicknamed the “Buchanan Hammer” for its indestructibility. (The legend goes that an ElectroVoice salesman used to demonstrate its durability by driving nails with it. Given that the company was located in Buchanan, MI, the name stuck.) It has many of the same attributes of an RE50, but to a lesser extent:

• OK for hand holding, but not as good as an RE50;
• Somewhat wind resistant so you can use it outdoors if not too breezy;
• Resists p-popping so you can get close to your subject in a noisy environment;
• Dynamic, so it needs no phantom power;
• Omnidirectional, so you don’t have to point it precisely;
• It also works great in a stand for use on a table; and
• They are not fragile, so you can toss them in a bag.

The 635A is smaller than an RE50, but isn’t as good for hand-held use. If you’re doing interviews across a table with multiple mics on stands, they’re fine.

This model has been in production for decades. It was considered a classic when I was in college in the 1970’s, and there must be many thousands in circulation. You can find used ones around in every conceivable condition. Beaters sell on eBay for $40 and less. Really nice ones for $75.-$85. I probably wouldn’t buy one that looks really clobbered, but ugly can still work amazingly well. Some of them can be 40 years old.

Another similar mic from a different manufacturer is the Audio-Technica AT804, but there aren’t as many of these around.

Put these broadcaster’s tools to work to improve your podcast and video productions.

Guest column by Peter Welander, Control Engineering process industries editor.

If you get involved in serious audio or video recording, you’ll soon find that you can spend a whole lot of money on microphones. What are these and what can they do for you?

Frances with RE50: Frances shows off the Control Engineering flag she made for our video productions. That microphone is a standard for hand-held interview applications.

If you buy a small digital recorder of camcorder, it will typically have a built-in microphone. These work, but they are designed in a way that does as good a job as possible in the broadest range of conditions. Since they are one-size-fits-all, they can’t be specialized. If your device has an external microphone input, it’s probably a stereo-mini, just like a headphone jack. You’ll find there aren’t many choices of things to plug into that jack, so those devices won’t be very specialized either.

Professional mics are made in every conceivable size, shape, purpose, and price. There are probably thousands of choices. They can be general purpose or amazingly specialized.

XLR mic connectors are very positive, lock in position, and are virtually indestructible, but they’re bulky. Note the quarter in the foreground for size.

One thing they have in common is a standard XLR connector. Most mics do not have a cord permanently attached. Instead they use a specialized three-pin connector that is virtually universal. Things that generate signals (outputs) use male connectors. Inputs use female connectors. This offers some very useful advantages:

• You can use the same mics and cables for all your applications.
• It uses a balanced line. I won’t try to explain it technically, but it means that you can have long wires without picking up hums and electrical noise.
• They are very durable. Good cables can be indestructible.
• They lock. Connections are difficult to pull out by accident.

But,

• They’re bulky and heavy.
• Good cables aren’t cheap.
• Cables that are cheap have crummy connectors.

Advanced recorders and video cameras have XLR inputs to take direct plug-in of cables.

Devices that have XLR inputs are serious. That is often one of the lines that separates amateur and professional equipment. The assumption is that the user wants the versatility and control that more specialized choices offer.

A simple patch cord allows you to use one or two pro mics with your mini recorder. This can make a big difference for your recording options.

What makes them different?

Microphones have different coverage patterns. Some are designed to pick up sound from any direction (omnidirectional) and others are more selective. One common selective design is cardioid, which favors sources more in front of it. This is better in a noisy environment, but you have to point it more carefully. Shotgun mics are extreme cardioid, and have a narrow pickup which makes them favorites for use on video cameras. (Wikipedia has a good discussion of this larger topic.)

Shotgun mics are favorites for shooting video since they concentrate their pickup on what the camera is pointed at, minimizing extraneous noise. Note the XLR inputs on the camera.

There are also different electronic mechanisms. The two most common are dynamic and condenser (aka, electret condenser). There are many differences between these, but for our purposes, there are only a few that we need to consider.

Dynamic:

• Very rugged.
• Do not need phantom power.
• Tend to be bulky.
• Not the strongest signal (input must be turned up more, possibly introducing more hiss).

Condenser:

• More delicate.
• Generally the first choice for the most critical applications.
• Need phantom power or internal battery.
• Can be very small or very bulky.
• Stronger signal (resulting in less hiss).

Most serious equipment provides phantom power so that’s not an issue, but the more delicate nature of condenser mics means that field ENG (electronic news gathering) designs are usually dynamic. Having stuff tossed in a bag is normal, so it can’t be fragile.

Use with any recorder?

You don’t have to have a professional recorder to use better mics. There are cords that provide a link from an XLR mic to the stereo-mini input on your small recorder or camcorder that sends the signal to both stereo channels. This allows you to get many of the mic’s benefits without buying more equipment. This may require some experimentation with your mic sensitivity settings, but can work very well. However, most small recorders cannot provide phantom power, so you’ll have to use a dynamic mic or a condenser with an internal battery.

This is a huge advantage when you’re trying to record someone standing and talking at an event. Trying to shoot video with a built-in mic in a noisy environment is a major problem.

I made a double adapter that allows me to use two mics, one on the left and one on the right channels. These are also available commercially.

Next week we’ll look at some specific mics so you can see what’s available. There are many features that you will find helpful in you know what to look for.

Something very interesting is happening over at Library Journal’s website.

In revisiting their blog strategy, LJ did something a bit risky… they recruited one of the biggest bloggers in their field. But this blogger comes with a few caveats:

• She is anonymous
• She is completely unafraid of taking on industry standards and big players
• She is unedited by the LJ staff
• She goes by the moniker: Annoyed Librarian

The move was not taken lightly by LJ, and they have gotten very mixed reviews from their readers and the industry at large. Their journalistic values have been questioned; people have threatened to give up their LJ habit; and those LJ archives from 1870 I showed you a few weeks ago sponateously burst into flames. Heavy stuff for B2B media.

But what is happening here is important. And it is about FAR MORE THAN JUST TRYING TO INCREASE PAGE VIEW METRICS. So, I want to take this apart:

• The Good: What the Annoyed Librarian has accomplished so far on LJ .
• The Bad: The tough questions LJ and their readers have had to face.
• Moving Forward: What other brands can learn from this experience.

The Good:

• The Annoyed Librarian receives 50-100 comments on every single blog entry. Some of these comments are just plain petty, but many push the conversation forward and explore issues that are important to the industry. The personality of the Annoyed Librarian and the veil of anonymity has given people courage to discuss things they might not otherwise in a public forum like this.
• She takes on any topic that needs to be discussed openly. It is difficult for most to do this, for fear of losing their jobs or being demonized. The Annoyed Librarian breaks down some of these niceties, which brings important issues into the open. Her posts are long… this is not someone who is just slinging tomatoes at the industry. For all the controversy, you do get a sense that her purpose is to uncover the truth about an industry she cares about.
• From day one, she has gotten a ton of traffic. It is amazing to see the community that forms around a single person.
• People are engaged. Her other web metrics are impressive… people are staying on her blog, not just popping in and popping away. I still have to do a deep analysis, but bounce rate and time spent metrics are looking good, as are other indicators.
• She reads her comments and responds to them. She is not merely standing on a soapbox, and does everything with a wry sense of humor.

The Bad:

• She may offend with her humor or viewpoint, and is largely unapologetic about it.
• She seems to have no issues with calling out individuals or specific groups.

• Some of the issues she raises… or those raised in the comments chain… are very real, but difficult to discuss.
• Some posts may be purely for fun, and some comments may be gibberish, nothing close to resembling the journalistic inquiry I mention above.

Lessons:

• If you can, recruit superstars - entrepreneurial bloggers and content creators who already exist and have captured the attention of your industry. Don’t be afraid to expand your boundaries on topics or tone. Assuming those folks don’t existing in your space, keep reading.
• Tap into what your industry really cares about… what they talk about at the bar, over lunch, or during their cigarette breaks.

• Anonymity is one a way to bring issues out in the open. While the Annoyed Librarian has gotten backlash for this, somehow, The Economist sort of gets away with it. Go figure.
• Everything doesn’t have to wear a suit, and be so vanilla that it couldn’t possibly offend anyone. That is where journalism fails. And that failure is not a personal failure… it fails our culture. Pushing boundaries is not easy, but then, some issues that need to be discussed aren’t easy in any situation.

Are there other sides to the Annoyed Librarian story? Sure. Are there other lessons both good and bad? Probably. Has her blog brought more conversation around hot topics in the library field to the Library Journal website? Definitely.

This month marks my five year wedding anniversary to the most incredible person I have ever met - my wife Sarah. We took time away over the weekend to take a step back and really reflect on what we each mean to each other, and share an experience that we knew we would remember for years to come.

We spent the weekend at the Mohonk Mountain House, a 130+ year old retreat in the Shawangunk Mountains in New Paltz, NY. The place harkens back to a time when people spent the “season” there with friends and familiy, hiking, in discourse on world affairs, and experiencing the beauty of nature. The weekend was quite simply: Perfect.

So it’s with these feelings in mind that I read a phenomenal article in this week’s New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell that compares how our culture feels about the two ways we experience genius: The precocious genius and the late blooming genius. And of course, I put these thoughts into two different contexts:

• Marriage
• The state of publishing

So the article shares stories about geniuses - primarily artistic geniuses - and compares those who appear fully formed, such as Picasso, and those who struggle their entire lives through mediocrity, only to hit upon genuis late in life, such as Cezanne.

In my five years of marriage (I know, a mere blip for some of you), I have learned that you need both:

You need to experience brilliance at the start,
yet constantly work to find a new brilliance as the relationship evolves.

Extending this to the business world, any company - any brand - needs this as well. To inspire and engage their audience and their industry at inception; but also continue to challenge and reengage them, working hard to meet their ever changing needs.

For publishing, an example would be that the soul of a magazine brand is perhaps not the magazine itself. That is just a delivery mechanism. Their true purpose is how they serve the needs of their audience. Taking away these parameters also allows for boundaries to lift - and new ideas to form as to how brands can evolve.

Yes, brands need to keep the essence of that original relationship with their customers. But without evolving together - without constantly challenging the status quo - the business will always be at risk.

Many are feeling the mounting pressure of the economy, and of market shifts due to digital media and tools. Do these changes represent an opportunity or a problem?

Power has shifted and the rules have changed. So many industries are being reshaped: media, journalism, marketing, and advertising included. And thinking about how to respond to these tremendous market shifts, I seem to come back to a quote by Scott Johnson has always stuck with me:

Caring is a powerful business advantage.

Guest column by Peter Welander, Control Engineering process industries editor.

One question resulting from our discussions so far is, “Why do I need a separate recorder when I can record directly to my computer?” The answer is, you don’t. You can record directly to a computer, but you may not want to. It’s strictly a matter of logistics and personal preference.

Here’s the Tascam US122L as you might set it up with two mics. In most situations you’d probably use a laptop, but any computer will do. Note that the interface is as large as a professional digital recorder and needs the same equipment for all practical purposes. There are other interfaces that are somewhat smaller, but they’re still bulky.

Going back to the beginnings of podcasting, many early practitioners expressed their opinions by talking to their Macs, recording directly using GarageBand. That’s a crude approach and the sound quality reflects it. But there are much more sophisticated techniques available now. Bear in mind though that a desktop or laptop is not, by nature, a recorder. It can have that function, certainly, but there are constraints.

The interface is bigger than a relatively large digital recorder. That might tend to keep it office bound.

First, you really need some type of external microphone. The built-in one just won’t cut it. Fortunately, there is a variety of products aimed directly at computer recording. Microphones that plug in via the USB port have grown in popularity. (Inexpensive ones like you can buy at Radio Shack aren’t much better than the one in the computer, so get something worthwhile.) The Blue Snowflake is designed just for podcasting on the road with an integral stand and costs only $69. If you want something more sophisticated but less portable, the SE-Electronics USB1000A at $199 or Rode Podcaster at $229 cover the high end of the range.

Read an article from PC World on the topic of USB mics.

On the other hand, a USB mic won’t help you if you have to record off the phone or you need some other line-level input.

If you want something more sophisticated that adds the possibility of using more than one mic, or other types of inputs, there are interfaces that allow you to feed your signal into the USB port from a device that adds some capabilities of a mixing console. These typically have multiple mic inputs and function as a mixer and headphone driver. Some designs are VERY sophisticated and aimed at producing the next indie rock sensation in your basement. For podcasting, you can stay at the low end of the spectrum. You’ll still need to use “professional” mics, but the basic units are really not all that complicated. One example is the Tascam US122L at $129. We bought one of these and it works quite well, allowing you to use two mics and line inputs with some simple mixing functions. The downside is that the software is weird and tends to disappear. The glitch may have been fixed, but be aware of that caveat. You will likely have to load the driver from time to time.

As an additional benefit, you can connect your stereo system to one of these interfaces and transfer your favorite vinyl to CD or your iPod.

Second, you need a software program that supports recording. Audacity is probably the most common choice since it works and is free. (That may be the subject of a future discussion.) GarageBand is popular for Macs, and I’ve used it for dozens of projects. There are oodles of other choices, most of which are aimed at music recording projects, but basically any of them work for speech recording and basic podcast mixing, provided you aren’t overwhelmed by the other functions.

As mentioned before, computers aren’t recorders. You may have to do some optimizing to get the best results. For our relatively simple purposes, what you have will likely be fine, but here are some recommendations for things you can do to make the process easier.

The best advice is experiment. Make sure you know how everything works before you try it with something you need.

Guest column by Peter Welander, Control Engineering process industries editor.

Last week we examined a group of portable digital recorders in the $200 to $300 price range. Are those enough for producing high-quality podcast recordings, or should you be looking for something more expensive?

Do you really need all this to record a podcast? That’s a lot to carry to a trade show.

Any of the “music” recorders discussed last week should be able to produce satisfactory sound quality if used skillfully and recording conditions are cooperative. When you have a relatively quiet room and participants who speak clearly, the task is pretty easy.

If you spend more on a recorder, you should expect something for your money:

• Extended features;
• Greater durability;
• Higher overall “quality;” and
• More versatility.

Extended features in this arena may apply more to field recording of music, which doesn’t necessarily help us working on podcasts. On the other hand, some designs are aimed more at professional broadcasters who are trying to do recording in the field. Those might help but could simply lean more on you to provide the skill. More on that later.

Greater durability is important if you want to throw your recorder in a briefcase and drag it around with your laptop. If it gets crushed in the overhead bin on your next flight, or when the microphone breaks off, that’s a problem. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to judge relative durability from a Webpage or catalog.

Higher overall quality in this context can relate to better microphones, reduced recording noise and hiss, wider frequency response, etc. Such improvements may be aimed at better music recording, but these also help getting better speech. The question is, are they worth it for our purposes? Probably not in most instances.

Versatility is also hard to quantify in our context. Many recorder features support better music capture. Truth to tell, for podcast recording, we need a pretty short list of capabilities. What versatility we do need comes primarily from adding different types of microphones. As long as the recorder supports that, there really isn’t much else.

With that in mind, let’s look at a few possibilities in the $400 and higher bracket:

Edirol (Roland) R-09 and R09HR
This unit has some very sophisticated features for music recording and excellent built-in microphones. I know a conservatory professor who records pipe organ recitals in a huge concert hall with one of these, and he really likes the results. Should you buy one for podcasts? Sure, but it’s overkill.

Marantz PMD620
Marantz has been making broadcast-grade recorders for years, including cassette tape, mini disk, direct to CD, and now digital card. This unit is relatively new and the company’s first foray into pocket-size designs with usable on-board mics. It is optimized more for speech recording and has features aimed particularly at broadcast journalists and podcasters. Durability should be high, but reviews on this topic vary. One major drawback (to my thinking) is that it does not have XLR mic inputs. Of course there are ways to get around that and still use professional microphones. If you’re serious, you should explore this unit. It should provide a good bridge between amateur and pro recording.

Once you get to this point, you either need to stop looking or prepare yourself for moving to a whole new level.

Marantz PMD660
At $500, this is the threshold of professional broadcast recording equipment. The PMD660 pushes you into the world of external microphones, cables, headphones, and the whole works. But, it is designed specifically for the kind of recording you need to do for podcasts. The list of features is very short, but they are exactly the ones you need if you want to do very high quality work:

• It has onboard mics, but they are worthless. You need to be using external mics.
• Full manual and automatic recording levels, but best when working in manual.
• Once it’s set up to your preferences, and you’ve gotten used to it, operation is very quick and easy.
• Supports recording in stereo or mono.
• Big (3x the size of pocket units), heavy, but very durable.

But, bear in mind that buying the recorder is only the beginning. You need mics, cables, stands, etc. It is a much different type of commitment, but can provide versatility that will allow you to record in difficult situations.

You can find units used for $300-350. I have one I bought on eBay in that neighborhood.

There are many ways to achieve high quality podcasts. As with most things, with a reasonable amount of effort, you can get 70% of the way there. Once you move past that point, each incremental advance requires more energy and possibly more equipment. Most editors that I’ve talked to seem to have a high tolerance for crummy production values. I don’t think this reflects an unwillingness to make an effort as much as a frustration not knowing how to make it work. In other words, it’s a training issue. How can we help advance our capabilities?

We all want community on our websites.

• Readers to comment on articles.
• Your industry to participate in webcasts.
• Experts to become bloggers.
• Forums that are overflowing with new posts.
• Submissions of videos, images and other media.

And yet, it is often ellusive. Even when you do create such community, it is difficult to sustain. So perhaps this is the moral:

You can’t create community.

At least not in the form that many people hope for. EG: a group of random people gathering around your article, your forum, your website and consistently giving of themselves. Sure, this happens, but not as often as you may think. So what can you do?

You can leverage existing communities.

Let’s take some RBI blogs for example. Three examples of leveraging a community:

• Annoyed Librarian.
  This is Library Journal’s newest blog - one that was already a successful on its own, who they recruited to join LJ. The Annoyed Librarian has been able to engage a very active community around her blog - often receiving over 100 comments on a single post. While the blog can be controversial, it is the source of some very good conversations on the biggest issues in the library field. Instead of recreating the wheel, Library Journal simply recruited a star, and recruited an existing community.
• Betsy Bird
  School Library Journal has pursued a strategy like this for a long time now - recruiting existing bloggers with an established audience. Their biggest star, Betsy Bird, was already huge when they brought her on board. She blogs about children’s literature - or KidLit as she calls it. How did her blog get so big? Partially because she aggregated the best of the best of all the other KidLit blogs (there are many of them) and did it with a sense of personality and flair than none could match. She then extended beyond this, to be more than just an aggregator; she reviews a ton of books, organizes in person events, attends many others, and is constantly pushing her blog further. And this is all in addition to her day job as a librarian.
• Barbara Vey
  When Publishers Weekly recruited Barbara, she was not a blogger, not an industry insider, and had no real credentials for either. But she has a passion for books and for making connections. Her focus is romance fiction, which has a thriving online community of readers and authors. Barbara simply saw this community and began making as many connections as possible - and like Betsy - created a blog with such personality and flair that it got her noticed. She is entrepreneurial in how she expands her readership - every event, every author, every new person she meets - is an opportunity to make a new friend. I have been on the subway in New York with her and she starts up a conversation with the woman sitting next to her, ending it by giving the woman her card and telling her about the blog. Barbara does this every day. The community is already out there, she just helps push them together a little closer.

Thinking about these examples, each blogger’s strategy was simple:

Get in front of the parade.

Community is not just a bunch of unconnected people commenting on the same article. Community is based on existing real-world connections. Paying attention to them gives you the opportunity to help steer them your way.

Guest column by Peter Welander, Control Engineering process industries editor.

Last week, we discussed some technical considerations for recording high-quality podcasts. Once you’ve set down that path and are getting ready to invest in a digital recorder, how can you tell if a specific model will help your efforts or be a waste of money?

Jeff Weinstein at Hotels Magazine likes his Zoom H4. His advice is to get close to your subject for best sound.

First, my own experience: Our publisher was strongly encouraging us to start working on podcasts. My latest audio training was working on a 10 watt college radio station in 1973-74 when “digital” meant something to do with your fingers. I had seen small recorders, but had no clue what they were about. So, in October 2006, I went to my local Guitar Center store, and plunked down about $300 for a Sony MZ-M10 minidisk recorder (now discontinued). It was a totally uninformed purchase and I quickly learned the features that were in my favor, and those that were not:

• The little “hammer head” microphone was amazingly good.
• A 1 gig disk holds 90 minutes of recording time, and they don’t cost very much.
• It took special software, but I could upload files to my Mac, if I recorded in Linear PCM. I could never get it to transfer directly to a PC.

But:

• Virtually nobody sells the disks, including Guitar Center, so they have to be mail ordered. If you run out in the field, you’re toast.
• If you don’t have the special software, you can’t upload anything.
• The internal rechargeable battery is good for about 5 minutes, but the external battery “sidecar” really works pretty well and doesn’t add too much bulk.

Dollar for dollar, I could have done much worse. Once I figured out its operational quirks, that little recorder did very well. I used it for at least 30 podcasts and dozens of interview recordings. It has now been retired (although my boss likes to use its mic) in favor of more sophisticated devices, but I miss its tiny size and portability. Since the cost of CF and SD memory cards has come down drastically, the attractiveness of minidisks has faded, and the format is likely headed for extinction before too long.

There are many choices of digital recorders with price points at $200, $300, and on up. While I can’t claim experience with very many of them, I can suggest features to consider and things that might make one more attractive than another. The intent of this isn’t to recommend any specific type or model, but to give you points of analysis that can make your selection easier.

Let’s start by examining a few speech or voice recorders from Sony:

Sony ICD-UX70, $99
This unit has 1 gig storage (non-removable) which is quite a bit, but the specs do not indicate the recording format. The shortest capacity (highest quality, we assume) is about 12 hours, which suggests a medium-sized MP3. Sound quality will likely be disappointing under all but the best circumstances.

Sony ICD-SX68DR9, $199
This bigger brother unit actually has less storage capacity (512 MB). Maximum recording times suggest the best file quality is probably 128 kbps stereo, so that will make for disappointing sound. There are better choices for that kind of money.

Once you’re up to $200, you might as well begin looking at “music” recorders. These are configured for recording your favorite band, guitar player or whatever. That means they have reasonably good built-in mics and should have no trouble with normal speech. Most lack any directionality, so they will pick up ambient noise just as efficiently as they do speech. They are all stereo and do not include mono options that I can tell. This isn’t a problem beyond the fact that it creates a larger file size that gets mixed down in editing. All these units require menu-driven controls due to the sheer size of buttons. That can get complicated and it’s hard to compare units directly. Suffice it to say all designs suffer this to some extent.

One of the most interesting entry-level machines is the Zoom H2 at $200. The built-in microphone configuration looks like it allows for an adjustable pick-up pattern, but it’s hard to tell how that will help with a typical podcast recording situations. As far as other features go, it has the standard set of recording format options, including those we need most. All connections are via standard stereo-mini plugs (mic in, line in, headphones) and USB. This unit can also function as a USB mic, feeding its signal directly to your computer. Records onto removable SD card. This looks like an excellent choice, even when being compared with more expensive units.

There is another group clustered around the $300 price point. All have built-in mics and the necessary recording format capabilities. They have more differences than you might expect which make for an odd assortment of upsides and problems. One peculiar element that I can’t quite figure out is the assortment of external mic sockets. Most external mics have either a stereo mini or XLR connection. Those with ¼ inch plugs are far less common.

Zoom H4
An interesting hybrid configuration: This is the only one in this class that I’ve seen with “professional” XLR mic inputs. That’s great if you want to use a wider variety of mics, but makes more mundane patching applications (like a phone interface) more challenging but not impossible. Can also act as a USB mic and feed directly to a computer. Uses SD cards.

Yamaha Pocketrak 2G
This seems to be billed as a high-end voice recorder with high-quality formats. But, it has only 2 gig of non-removable memory. That still means 3 hours without transferring or erasing but you can’t change cards. Stereo mini inputs/outputs. Smallest form factor.

Tascam DR-1
This has peculiar external mic inputs, including both ¼” and mini sockets. I’m not exactly sure what that’s about, but still ultimately useful. It has some interesting overdubbing capabilities, so this is definitely aimed at musicians. Uses SD cards.

M-Audio MicroTrack II
Another odd configuration, the only one in this class that has no built-in mic. It has ¼” and mini external mic inputs and comes with a separate stereo mic. The mic can be plugged directly to the unit, or via an extension cord. This can actually be a very handy thing and can make it easier to get closer to your subject. Outputs via headphones and RCA connectors. This design looks like they’re trying to make a unit that has more “professional” features such as separate level controls on the two channels. Uses CF cards.

You might be getting the impression that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I suspect any of these “music” recorders will do the job if you’re planning on using just the built-in mics.

Next week we’ll look at some of the offerings at higher price levels and see what they have to offer for the money.

Other articles in this series:

• Selecting a Digital Recorder
• Dealing With Digital Audio File Formats
• Recording Audio Off the Phone