I did my tour of Best Buy and Guitar Center. I was looking at some of the gadgets that might make my future podcast sound a little more professional.

I have a good enough pair of microphones, but I wanted to check Best Buy and see if they had any interesting USB mics.

Then I went across town to the local Guitar Center and looked at mic shields (they block some of the air coming from your mouth so that the S's and consant sounds from C's and K's don't 'whistle' and 'click' as much.

Guitar center also had some expensive microphones in the $100 - $1000 range, but I won't need anything like that for some time. At least I won't need it until the venture is profitable and pays for that kind of expense!

I primarily went to Guitar Center to look at their USB mixing boards. These are sound mixing boards like a small version of something you might see in a music studio. They typically allow for 8 or more inputs and outputs from various sources like microphones, guitars, radios, recorders etc.

I just need something to attach my microphones to that will then push the sound through the USB connection to my computer's sound card.

The mixer boards that interested me ranged in price from $80 - $150. So all in all, I will probably spend about $180 to get going.

$130 for a mixing board, $10 for microphone shields, $30 for software( more on that later), and maybe a microphone stand to round things off.

Technorati Tags: podcasting, usb mixer, microphone, Guitar Center, Best Buy