MXL joined Jeffrey powers last month at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas to talk about their new Tempo Microphones.  The new Tempo Mics work with both laptop and desktop computers, but they are also compatible with the iPad.  That last part is key because the iPad isn’t typically able to work with microphones due to power issues.  However, the Tempo works with the lower power by connecting with the camera connector kit, which requires an adapter, but that’s a cheap price to pay for this ability.

The Tempo will turn your iPad into a mobile recording station, allowing podcasters and others to travel much lighter than was previously possible.  These are condenser mics, not dynamic, so it will need power.  This will provide much better sound than the built-in microphone that Apple provides.  Of course, if you are just doing video chat then that mic will be fine, but for serious recording this is the first real option to come along.  To top it off, the MXL Tempo retails for $79.95.  You can check them out at MXLMics.

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of The Geekazine.

If you’ve listened to the Geek News Central podcast for a few years, you might have heard Todd talking about Blue Microphones as his mic supplier of choice. Here Todd and Don talk shop with Jon Maier.

Blue Microphones returns to CES this year with three new mics, all in the portable space. The new Mikey Digital is designed for the Apple’s newer digital connector rather than the older analogue one, meaning that more digital processing can be done on the microphone itself. In particular, auto-level sensing can adjust the input gain depending on the loudness of the source.

The Tiki is a brand new small USB device that’s been in development for over a year. It plugs directly into the USB port on the side of a laptop and has intelligent signal processing so that extraneous noise, such as typing, is ignored. It’s aimed at Skype and Google Talk users but it’s still a high quality recording device, so if needed, the DSP can be turned off to record live music as naturally as possible.

The studio-grade Spark Digital is a USB and iPad version of their pro mike, the Spark, both of which have glorious retro looks. Sitting in a shock mount, it looks great. Utility-wise, the Spark Digital converts the iPad into a mobile studio.

All the mics are expected to be available in the spring. Prices are $59 for Tiki, $99 for the Mikey Digital and $199 for the Spark Digital.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central and Interview by Don Baine, the Gadget Professor, for the TechPodcast Network.

Olympus has announced the latest addition to its popular LS series of digital recorders with the addition of the LS-100 linear PCM audio recorder. Aimed at musicians and audio enthusiasts, it comes with a combination of professional interconnects, high quality sound recording, multitracking and extra features in a convenient pocket size.

It’s an impressive little device with a matching list of features

- two internal 90-degree directional stereo condenser microphones with a frequency response of 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz and capable of capturing sound pressure levels up to 140 dB (which is about as loud as you’d really want to get).

- uncompressed 24 bit/96 kHz Linear PCM digital recording saved to the internal 4GB memory or on SD (up to 2GB) / SDHC (up to 32GB) / SDXC (up to 64GB) cards.

- separate audio and system circuitry to keep the signal clean.

- low cut filter at either 100 Hz or 300 Hz to eliminate low frequency background noise.

- two quarter-inch XLR / standard phone combo jacks, supporting phantom power at 48/24 volts to power high-quality external microphones.

- 8 track multitracking, with independent volume and pan control.

- tuner and metronome.

- Lissajous measurement which shows the phase difference betweenthe left and right mics.

- direct CD mastering.

- 2″ LCD screen and all-metal body.

“The Olympus LS series has been a favourite of musicians, artists and music lovers, and the LS-100 is an evolution in this series designed with the working musician, specifically, in mind,” said Amy Leslie, Sr. Marketing & Business Development Manager, Olympus Imaging America Inc. “For songwriting sessions, band rehearsals, live performances, broadcasting, or really anything that requires the highest quality of audio recording, the LS-100 is an ideal, all-encompassing recording solution.”

Nevermind all that, it just looks cool. Full details on the LS-100 are here and it will be available from all good stores in February 2012 for $399.

The team over at Vitrue have produced a short primer on how to create good looking video content. It’s aimed “marketers” wanting to get into social media, but it has relevance to anyone who wants to produce video. I think it’s a better article than most that I’ve seen in this space as it actually gives recommendations for what to buy, but I’m not a video producer, so I can’t comment on their suggestions.

When preparing to shoot video, Vitrue suggests five areas to think about beforehand.

• Who is the target audience?
• Meet with your team and map out content ideas
• As a team, develop the plan and schedule.
• It will take twice as long as you think to produce the content.
• Take your time to record the footage.

Vitrue talks about five important tools needed to deliver good quality video. Read the article to see what they recommend.

• Camera
• Lights
• Sound
• Editing
• Exporting for the web

The last topic has a small piece of very useful information if you are new to the video space – encoding settings. They might not be perfect but the ones Vitrue suggest are a good start.

I’ve been playing around with video recording and editing for a number of years. One constant with video editing that can always be counted on is that it’s editing video is time-consuming.

That is all about to change. Enter Videolicious, a FREE video app for iOS. This is an amazing app. Videolicious makes it possible to produce short (up to about 50 second) videos in a tightly-edited, documentary style complete with background music and voiceovers.

You start by recording short video clips. I do this all the time – I have my own name for them – “video snapshots.” I take plenty of short video clips, generally following the “rule of thirds” for good photography and holding the camera as steady as possible, compensating for the cheesy fixed iPod camera lens by getting in close and using angles as much as possible to create visual interest.

Once you have up to 10 video clips, you are ready to quickly put them together into a movie in Videolicious. Step One in Videolicious is to select the video clips or still photos from the iPod (or iPhone or iPad) Camera Roll. Touching the thumbnail in the sequence you want to talk about the clips and photos will number them. You can have up to ten per video.

Once You have selected your clips and/or photos, you move to Step Two. Record up to a 50 second long video of yourself talking about the clips, ideally in the order you numbered them in when you selected them in Step One.

Once you have recorded yourself talking about the clips and/or photos, Step Three consists of selecting background music. Videolicious comes with six background tracks though you can also select any other track present on your iPod. I suggest sticking with one of the tracks that comes with Videolicious, since these are public domain and will keep you out of trouble with the copyright police if you share your video publically on sites such as YouTube or Facebook. Once you have selected your track, the video will quickly render into a final *.MOV file, ready to share with the world.

The remarkable breakthrough with Videolicious is that it has predefined parameters that it follows in order to create a tightly-edited final result. Playback starts with video of you talking and then quickly cuts to the scenes you have selected in the order you selected them. Still shots automatically have the so-called “Ken Burns” effect applied. At the end of the video the shot cuts back to you ending your description of the clips, resulting in a brisk documentary style video that takes what would have been boring clips by themselves and makes them into visual elements of your spoken story discussion of the clips.

It is possible to produce a tightly-edited, to-the-point video in just a few minutes and share that with the world, which is an amazing accomplishment.

Videolicious is not a replacement for traditional video editors. It is a way of placing video clips into bins where the software itself decides makes most of the editing decisions. Videolicious spits out surprisingly watchable, entertaining results in a matter of a few minutes. This is a task that can easily take hours with traditional video editing tools.

“FiRe” Field Recorder is an audio recording application for making high-quality audio recordings on an iPod, iPhone or iPad. The application cost is $5.99 U.S.

“FiRe” Field Recorder does a good job of making high-quality recordings, but the program does have a few quirks that need to be taken into account.

I found that if I tried to make multiple recordings one after the other, the FiRe app would not record the second file unless I exited and re-entered the app. This glitch was a bit of a nuisance but once I realized what was going on it became easy to overcome the problem and get the app to do what I wanted it to. Recorded audio files are transferred to one’s computer via WiFi by enabling the feature in the app and then browsing with a computer on the same local network to a provided local IP address.

The latest generation iPod has a surprisingly high-quality built-in microphone. However, that being said, there are a few caveats that must be taken in account when using the iPod as an audio recorder. Recordings made in low background noise situations were high-quality and quite good. However, I also attempted to make recordings while driving down the road in my semi truck with a lot of heavy background noise present. The resulting audio files were distorted and noisy. Even with an anti-rumble software filter enabled within the app, the recordings were still unacceptably distorted and noisy using the built-in microphone or a standard 3.5mm wired stereo headset microphone.

With these shortcomings and limitations taken into account, I still recommend “FiRe” Field Recorder for iPod/iPhone/iPad if you are looking for a recording app that offers a higher level of sophistication than the simple Memo audio recording app that comes with IOS 4.x.

The VieVu wearable camera is the perfect device for law enforcement or video buff that wants to record everything anywhere anytime the best thing about this device is that it is very durable and water proof.

If you want more information on VieVu and info on future special offers please visit www.rawvoiceoffers.com and enter promo code “VieVu” or visit www.vievu.com

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