How to input sounds live during a podcast

Question

I've been recording sound for a few years now but I'm still learning through trial and error. I've done a few short student films and local commercials as well as very basic seminar recordings. my passion is random sound field recording and mixing. Not surprisingly with my limited knowledge and experience I've run into a snag in a situation I've never dealt with before.

Here's the situation

A friend of mine wanted to do a podcast with myself and several friends. Three of us are in one room while the forth is calling in via cell phone. Unfortunately he could not be with us to record in the same room.

In order to speak and all to hear each other, three Rode video shotgun mic are connecting to a Yamaha Mixer board while the phone (which has a speaker mic splitter) is being connected to the mixer board via the speaker out of the splitter to the mic jack of the board. From monitor out, a 3.5mm splitter splits our out line to three headsets and the forth gets sent back into the phones mic line in to complete the connection. This hopefully in able's us to hear and speak to each other.

The main phones out port of the board gets plugged to a Zoom H5 where it is recorded in stereo. This was the only set up I could think of with the equipment at hand. Its an unproven setup so if anyone has a better idea im open to it.

Now onto the larger problem

I have a sound library on my computer of field recorded sounds that we would like to play back into the podcast live. Some of it may need to be layered with others to complete the effect. These sounds need to be played so that all can hear as well as be recorded. As well, they need to be easily played quickly and simply at will. Basically im going to inject random sounds into the podcast and each of us is going to guess what we're hearing. That's the idea.

I'm not sure how to go about doing this. I've thought of synthesizers, to apps that are compatible with PCs, to effects programs, but my limited knowledge and experience with this is fumbling my ability to solve it. I'm open to ideas and my budget, though i would rather not spend this amount, is roughly $500. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Could you plug your computer into a channel on your mixer board? It's hard to tell without knowing what specific mixer you have, but you should be able to find a suitable cable for $5-20.

On your computer, there are plenty of ways to play the sounds. Depending on your needs, you could play the sounds out of a music player, or a more customizable soundboard app with buttons to play individual sounds.

Answer 2

The main phones out port of the board gets plugged to a Zoom H5

The Zoom H5 can record 4 channels at once, so using the optional EXH-6 Dual XLR/TRS Combo capsule you could record 4 channels of audio on it separately, allowing you to mix everything later.

Just making sure you were aware of that option