Today's podcast is going to be mindful, insightful, and demiurer. We're going to talk about my favorite microphone, which I don't own. Welcome to Thursday, actually recording this on Wednesday, but it doesn't matter. It's Thursday.
And on Thursday, I just popped and I'm not going to edit it out. What do you think about that? Anyway, on Thursday, it's mindful. It's insightful.
It's demiurer. And today we're going to talk about my favorite microphone, one that I would highly recommend for every podcaster to own, no, I'm only kidding. It's called the Nommen U87. It's a diaphragm condenser microphone.
It's made in Berlin, Germany, and it is the finest microphone I have ever encountered in my life. I mean, just, it gives me goosebumps to think about it. Now, I used to go and record radio commercials for pest control companies across the country through an agency in Tampa at a radio station, and they had a production director, and I would go and he would do all these things. I would walk in.
He would hand me the scripts, and I would do it. And in the studio where I was at was a typical, just a typical S-M7B or an electro voice RE20, which I had at home, by the way, but I would record into an electro voice RE20 microphone. That's probably about a $450 microphone. But next to it, over about, I don't know, three or four feet over, it was sitting there, and it was just there, and it didn't have a speck of dust on it, was a Nommen U87.
I had only heard of these things. I had heard production done on these things. I had been in radio stations in New York City, and I had seen one, but nobody could ever use it except for the guy. The one guy, because it was his microphone, even though, you know, the company bought it.
It was his microphone. Nobody could go near it. So, about a year ago, I had an opportunity. I turned down a lot of production work.
I, you know, well, I'll tell you what I always turned down, is audiobooks. Audiobooks are just so time consuming, and it just wreaks havoc on your soul. But there was a company through an agent that I used to have. The agent just passed away, as a matter of fact.
So, I'm not getting any more work from him. But he said, listen, I want you to go to Brooksville, which is about where I was going, as it turns out. I, you know, Google mapped it. It was about 48 miles from here.
But part of it was a dirt road where I was going. And it wasn't on, you know, and he just had to explain to me how to get there. And he says, he says, I'm getting $450 to record a 47,000. To record a 46 page, single space type written manual for a piece of printing equipment.
And they just wanted it all on audio. So, I was being paid to go up there and do it. The company, the client company was in Indiana or somebody. So, this guy has this little recording studio and agency up in Brooksville.
And, or he's got, you know, this recording studio up in Brooksville. So, I found, I immediately turned down the job and I was saying, oh, you get to go in the neat studio and use the Nomine at U87. I said, I'm in. And I forgot how much I was getting paid.
I didn't even care. By the way, that was very low amount of money for that much work. That should have been like two grand, I'm thinking, but Nomine, you know, Nomine, U87. Condenser, microphone, diaphragm, condenser, microphone.
I had never spoken to one. I was so excited. So, I drive all the way up there. I had a hell of a time finding this place.
When I say it was in the middle of nowhere, it was in the middle of nowhere. I pulled into about a three to five acre compound that was all overgrown. And there was what looked like an outhouse outside with a window air conditioner on it that was running. I said, that's interesting.
And I thought it was an outhouse. I was reasonably sure that's what it was. I go in. There's these big dogs, giant dogs, who wanted to bite me.
But this lady came out and, you know, she pulled the dogs back. And I don't know, she looked like she should live on a piece of property because there were two single wide mobile homes that she came out of one of them. And she put the dogs in there. She goes, I got to get the dogs calmed down before you record.
I'm going, okay. And then they showed me their studios. Their single wide mobile home was their normal studios. Very nice setup.
Okay. They had the same microphone that I was using at home in there. But they said, you're going to do this on the nominal. Yeah.
Where's the nominal. And they said, it's out in that building. We're getting it cold for you. I said, what?
We're getting the building cold for you because when you go in there, we've got to shut off the air conditioner. So we're getting it nice and cold for you. I said, okay. So I go in there.
And the script was on a iPad that was mounted there. And I could just take my finger and move the script up with my finger. And she said, you have to be very careful about how you do that. And I used barely touch it and move it up because it'll pick up on the microphone if you don't.
I said, no problem. I got this. So I go in and she said, you're going to be in there for about five minutes till you get your breathing regulated. I said, okay.
So I go in there and the air conditioner is still blasting and I'm getting relaxed. And yes, I put on these fabulous headphones. I don't even know what they were, but they were like just incredible headphones. And, you know, the mic has turned on and they shut off the air conditioner.
And the way they shut off the air conditioner is they went outside and they unplugged it. I could hear them. The room was a dead room. It was totally padded.
And I thought it was an outhouse, but it wasn't. So I sat there for a few minutes and threw my headphones. I could hear her with her very country voice saying, all right, Michael, whenever you're ready, just go ahead and start. And she goes, you're going to flub up, but just keep going.
Flub up. Count to three in your mind and then keep going. We'll fix all these things in post. I said, okay.
I said, are there any words in here that I'm not going to be able to pronounce? She said, yes. And I said, okay. So, you know, she tells me where it is.
And then nobody knows how to pronounce it. So I pull out my iPhone and I ask my iPhone how to pronounce it. And it told us. And we said it a couple of times.
So then I just sat there as relaxed as I could be with the script in front of me. And I recorded an audio book about a piece of print collating equipment that I knew nothing about. I said the hard word. I've made a couple of flub ups in there, but you know, that's what happens.
The people I know who do audio books, they have flub ups all the time. They just count to three after the flub up and the audio editor knows how to go in and pull that out and put it all back together again. So I had a couple of those and I just did a one, ooh, I hit the microphone with my finger. I'm not going to edit that out either.
I just sat there and read the whole thing, got right through it. And then I'm done. At which point she said, you want to do another take? I said, do you think I need to do another take?
She goes, no, it sounded perfect. I said, okay. I said, okay. Can you turn on the air conditioning?
She said, I'll have Roy go out and plug you in. And I just said, no, I just walked out the door. I said, don't worry about it. I just walked out the door.
And it was cooler outside in the summertime than it was inside that room by the time I got done reading all those pages. And I walked up to the main studio, visited with them, and they said, is a check, okay. I said, sure. And she sat there and she wrote me a check.
And out the door I went. And I said, a pleasure. Yeah, okay. It was a pleasure.
You know, and everything's great and wonderful. And I took their business card and I was just hoping upon hope that I would be able to go back there one day. But about, I don't know, six or seven months later, I called them up just to say hi. Their phones were disconnected.
They weren't there anymore. And I got a hold of somebody who knew them and they had moved to Arkansas. They just backed up, moved to Arkansas. I got their phone number in Arkansas, but I never called them.
But that was my experience using the best microphone on earth. How much does this microphone cost, you say? Well, I'm on Sweetwater.com where I buy all of my audio equipment. And they've got one on sale right now for $3,750.
So if you enjoy this podcast and you would like me to record it in the future using a nom made in Berlin, U87 set large diaphragm condenser microphone done in matte black. I want the matte black. They've got a silver, but I want the matte black. Just go ahead and buy it for me.
And I will say your name on the show at least twice, maybe three times. And I appreciate that. Having good equipment is important, but you don't need, and neither do I, need a nom in U87 diaphragm condenser microphone done in a matte finish. You really don't need that.
You just need a good microphone. The PodMic from Rode 99 bucks sounds great. I'm talking to you on a PodMic USB, which sounds even better. And I replaced a more expensive microphone with this microphone because I love the way it sounds.
So, you know, the important thing if you're going to start a podcast is to start the darn podcast. Have a great day. See you tomorrow.