This is an, “I need help!” post that runs pretty technical. I’m setting up audio gear for a new music project and I know the order in which I chain my components together matters. I just don’t know which order and what connections are best (click the pics to enlarge).

I have a Mackie Onyx 1220 because Leo Laporte told me to. Leo always gives good advice. I also have a dbx 1066 Compressor Limiter Gate. The dbx 1066 might not be a link in this chain. A TC-Helicon VoiceWorks Plus is on its way from Sweetwater, and I want to record to a Marantz PMD570.

Is there an audio guy in the house who can tell me how to chain everything together and whether or not I need to skip the dbx 1066?

Max Murphy is a teen podcaster who produces a show called Mac News Weekly. He’s a HUGE friend of GeekBrief.TV. 

At the end of Max’s latest episode, the audio on the credits is a lot louder than his audio on the show. I used to do that all the time on Geek Brief. Levelator is an easy way to keep that from happening. I’m posting this for Max, but other folks might find it useful too.

Long story cut into really short pieces…We started Geek Brief Radio, an audio version of GeekBrief.TV because Cali kept getting email from people telling her they watch Geek Brief while driving to work. She, like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, is a safety girl.

GeekBrief.TV is written to be visual, so we’ve never really been happy with Geek Brief Radio except when we do a special audio thing like the Macword Postmortum.

Tonight we tried something different. While I was editing the video, we recorded a different audio version of the same show. I think it has potential. I subscribe to the video version of our show, but not the audio version. I would subscribe to this, I think. 

I’m an audio wanna-be. I love audio and I want to understand how to record great audio in the same way I want to understand how to produce good video. We’re setting up an audio podcasting studio for Geek Brief Radio, and this is some of the equipment we’re starting with:

• Two Electro Voice RE-20s
• A Mackie 1220 mixer
• A Mackie Onyx Firewire Expansion Board
• A dbx 1066 Compressor/Limiter/Gate
• A Mackie 4-Channel Headphone Amp

All of this is Alex Lindsay’s fault. He’s doing a podcast called Gear Media Tech. It’s all about audio gear, and it’s probably my favorite video podcast right now.