After an exciting trip to California, and meeting a couple of the podcasters I have been listening to for years, I got inspired to try my own hand at recording some material. Not n erverssarily withn the goal to have my own full podcast, but more as a way to share my experiences with technology given how important a role technology has played in my life. More specifically, Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast podcast at Podfeet.com really inspired me to give it a try. Meeting Allison and Steve was like meeting good friends I hadn’t seen for a while.
In sharing some initial recordings with Allison, and talking about quality and how to improve them, she mentioned the ATR2100 (https://amzn.to/2Dx5rlx) would be a good mic to replace the Blue Snowball I was using, as the Cardioid Dynamic ATR2100 would be better in this setup than the condenser type Snowball. I’ll admit it doesn’t take much to get me to buy some new gadget, but in the first days with this mic, I can honestly say Allison was 100% right.
My immediate observations of the recording quality is that the ATR2100 is more clear with a better focus on the vocal rather than environmental sounds. The ATR2100 also seems to be much more “hot” than the Snowball mic, where on the Snowball, I’d have the gain pretty much full out, while with the ATR2100, I’ve cut it to about half. I haven ‘t really dug in the the EQ settings, as I am still playing with recording setups, but more on that in another post.
Physically speaking, the ATR2100 is a familiar handheld mic style, comes with a little desktop tri-pod and can be used over either XLR or USB connection, all cables included - which is always a nice thing! The Blue Snowball mic is a literal orb shape, and while it does have a more sturdy base tripod feel, it only works over USB.
Definitly a good mic, and a great value. I’m looking forward to getting more familiar with it and will share that journey in future posts.