This post is going to be a little shorter than most because I’m devoting most of my spare time this week to our new audio setup.

Going back through the archives, I think there’s a lot to like about what we’ve done with the show. But one of the things that makes me cringe is the huge dichotomy between our HD episodes in the studio in Phoenix, and the quality of episodes when we’re forced to use Skype.

What follows is a somewhat technical look behind the scenes at At the Buzzer. Come with me after the jump.

So I did a bunch of research about a month ago into good mics that were also USB friendly, because the nature of us having to use Skype when we’re in different cities isn’t likely to change in the near future. A couple seemed pretty solid, like the Blue Snowball and an Audio Technica condenser mic. Ultimately, though, I picked up a Blue Yeti microphone, and have been putting it through its paces to try to get a much more crisp, clean sound.

Our new setup basically entails a bunch of somewhat inexpensive technology that should still make the show sound way better. The Yeti mic comes with some handy built-in settings to optimize where it’s picking up sound: a cardioid setup for directly in front of the mic (great for anything I record solo), a stereo setting and an omnidirectional setting (both different ways to pick up a room full of sound), and a bidirectional option.

The bidirectional option basically means that Shaun and I can record in one room while still picking up Dave on Skype. Essentially, the mic picks up sound in two directions: the front and the back. It means Shaun, whose audio quality has plummeted since his headset broke 4-5 episodes ago, will no longer be using his laptop’s built-in mic or a Rock Band microphone (yes, this happened). So already we pretty much have to sound better.

The moral of the story is yay, fancy new mic. The Yeti allows for zero-latency feedback, so I bought a headphone splitter and the two of us can now each run headphones into it to see how things sound. It’s almost like a studio, in a roundabout way.

We recorded an episode yesterday, and while I’m still working out some of the kinks, I can already see a pretty big improvement. It’ll be even better once I fine-tune the process (for example, I was a little too close to the mic this time, and we still have to get Dave a new setup eventually). We’ll also be able to do away with the entire Skype recording eventually, which will be mean stereo sound instead of us being panned hard left and right. That’ll be nice.

So as always, stay tuned.