I’ve just finished uploading two new episdoes of the MN Geek Animal Stories podcast. Both episodes are about Emmet, our loveable and laughable Black Lab. I hope you enjoy them.

I also wanted to mention that I’m hoping you’ll hear a change in my upcoming episodes. A couple of listeners mentioned that the volume level of my voice was pretty low. To do my recordings I’ve been using an M-Audio Fast Track USB interface box and an Audio Technica dynamic microphone. The difficulty I’ve had is that the Fast Track and combined with this particular microphone are not giving me very much in terms of levels to play with and I keep coming up short. I know if I switched to a condenser type microphone I’d have better luck, but I just don’t want to spend the money on a microphone.

So I’ve decided to take a different route. The computer I’m recording with has an audio line-in, so I went out and got myself a Yamaha MG10/2 four channel mixer. I got it from a place here in the Twin Cities called AABACA and the price was INCREDIBLE. $129 for the mixer, a boom microphone stand and an inexpensive dynamic microphone. If you don’t want the boom stand and the mic, then it is $100. If you don’t live here in the Twin Cities, you can be order from them and they’ll ship it to you. This mixer has four XLR inputs as well as six additional inputs of various types. It also has record-outs, which are at line-level, so I can plug straight into my computer and record away. Sweet! I believe it is Episode 7 or 8 that I start using the new mixer. Let me know what you think, but I think you’ll be impressed.

–Pete