Microphones for podcasts

[Robert J]

I am in e-marketing for a large corp, and my small team just recorded our first podcast. It is basically a q&a for corporate listeners, no music.

However, we had to work with some of the IT people on this, and though we used a good AV person in the firm, our first recording was not the best. It was partly the room ambient noise (and a couple of passing fire trucks), but also the miking.

I wasn't present, so I am told these things. They used some tabletop mike (I'll find out which one), so there was some volume issues for the interviewer and the interviewee. Also the vibration from the table they set it on. This can be corrected too.

They are considering lapel mikes for the next go, but I'd like to do it right. I know that Blue has that USB Snowball, which is supposed to be good for podcasting, but their own forum shows that the users feel otherwise. We do have a budget for $300 - $500 that I could use to buy one or 2 mikes. We also will re-record the questions after the initial recording, so it is not esentially that the interviewer sounds good on the first take - just the subject.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

[DukeCity]

Industry standard broadcast mics are the Electrovoice RE-20, and the Shure SM7 (note: this is not the same as the very common SM57). I believe prices for either of those will fit your budget.

RE20

SM7