Mobile Podcast Equipment – 2 Great Options For Interviews On The Go

Australian pro audio giant RØDE Microphones recently launched the SC6-L Mobile Interview Kit, the latest Lightning connected recording solution for Apple iOS Devices. While many brands, including RØDE, have offered external microphones to record in higher quality with the iPhone, and even launched lavalier microphones with clip-on accessories for interviews, the use of two simultaneous microphones still poses many challenges. The Røde SC6-L Mobile Interview Kit intends to solve that problem.

Source: http://www.audioxpress.com/news/rode-microphones-introduces-all-new-rode-sc6-l-mobile-interview-kit

My Take on iPhone specific mobile podcast equipment -and an alternative

In my opinion, there is a slight drawback, as the Rhode kit is good only for 2 people. If you think you’ll be speaking to more than one other person, Alex Blumberg’s approach still produces the best results.

For those who don’t know Alex, he is a former NPR radio host and the founder of Gimlet media with smash podcast hits like “Startup”, and he perfected recording on the go while working on his podcasts.

His approach is to carry a digital recorder and directional long interview mic, connected with a short  3 foot XLR cable, and he then points the mic at the folks he interviews. The benefit is that he can easily move around, and interview multiple people with the least amount of fuss.

If you’re interested, he has a totally awesome class on Creative Live about “Powering Your Podcast With Story Telling“, and you can see his approach in action there. If you’d like recommendations about good equipment choices for these sort of interview mics and digital recorders, just sign up for our podcasting resources guide.

Spring 2021 Update: I just checked out his class, and at the time of this update it’s only $29 at Creative Live, well worth it if you ask me. Here is an example technique video from the series:

Still, if you are an iPhone user and anticipate mostly recording one-on-one interviews, the SC6 is an excellent choice.

Mobile Podcast Equipment Gear Guide

If you already signed up for our podcasting resources guide, you have access to several podcasting gear guides for various situations. One of these is mobile podcasting gear for the sort of portable podcast setup that Alex Blumberg uses. The advantages of this approach are multi-fold. It is a much simpler setup to use. You can get this to work with any recorders that have even just a single XLR mic input, so you don’t need the Zoom H6 recorder, really. But I still recommend getting a 3-4 channel digital recorder with XLR inputs, simply because chances are you will use it for more flexible multi mic setups in the future, or in your studio.

Just click here to check it out.

3 Tips for Mobile Podcast Interview Techniques

So how do you use this setup most effectively? There are several keys to making this technique work:

1.) Don’t hide your “inner geek”

Wear “proper” closed design headphones.  I know it looks geeky. But, just do it.

• You will hear what is going on, get a sense of the correct levels to use, and your microphone technique will improve as a result.
• In crowded environments, people will see that there is an interview going on and give you more space (as well as be curious about what’s going on). This is a good thing.

2.) Learn to vary your mic distance

The advantages of a “directional” interview mic are that you can hold the mic a bit further away.

• This works great in quiet environments where you can give your guests some space, instead of stuffing a mic in their face.
• However, loud environments, such as a crowded conference floor, call for a different approach. All you need to do is get the mic really close to your own mouth and that of your interviewee, and the increased input level will drown out much of the background noise.
• In the case of noisy environments, USB condenser mics like the Røde SC6-L will not work as well as dynamic podcast mics held close, and sound quality of the entire interview will suffer as a result.

And this is where wearing headphones, and monitoring the recording, is key.

3.) Turn it up

Don’t be afraid to turn up the volume on your headphones. You want this to be louder than the surrounding noise, for example in a conference setting. It can be disorienting at first to hear everything through your headphones, but that is exactly what allows you to record effectively – because you hear what is going on, and you continually adjust how close you are holding the mic to achieve good sound levels.

Hope this helps, and in the comments, please let me know your own favorite mobile recording techniques, or links to on location recordings you have done.