The Atheist Nomads is a weekly podcast based out of Boise, ID covering the latest in religious leaders behaving badly, church/state entanglement issues, and other topics of interests to atheists. On occasion we also do interviews with leaders in the atheist, skeptic, and humanist community.
The Atheist Nomads was launched on May 23, 2012.
The Hosts
Dustin – Dad, tech geek, and host of Atheist Nomads. He graduated from Walla Walla University (formerly Walla Walla College) with a BA in Theology and minors in History and Biblical Languages. He was raised SDA, went to college to become a pastor, but lost his faith after getting a BA in Theology from Walla Walla University and completing three semesters in the M.Div. Program at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary.
Lauren – Mom, science enthusiast, college dropout, and lifelong atheist via growing up in Unitarian Universalism. She was previously Vice President of Idaho Atheists.
Support Staff
Kylie – Toddler, the official intern of Atheist Nomads.
Rocco – Chihuahua, Canine interruptus. He is the assistant producer and helps mark edit points.
Bucky – Corgi, guest services. He likes to check on the guests to see if they’re board and want to play.
The Regulars
- Mikey Pullman – Comedian
- Merry Cole – Comedian
- Gary Mitchel – President of Idaho Atheists
- Justin Canine – Woodworker
- Jason Ward - Comedian
Past Cohosts
2012 – 2017 Wesley @WesleyDNomad
2019 Erin Riley – Local comedian with a degree in Biology and love of otters. @lifeoferinriley
Audio Interface [Not current - needs updated)
Microphones
- Heil PR40 Dynamic Microphone | Heil Windscreen
- 2x Shure SM57-LC Cardioid Dynamic Microphone | Shure A2WS Windscreen
- Behringer Xm8500 Dynamic Vocal Microphone, Cardioid | On Stage Foam Ball-Type WIndscreen
Microphone Stands
- Scissor Microphone Arm Stand Kit by Griffin (mic 1)
- Custom stand made from a boom arm from work (mic 2)
- 2x AmazonBasics Tripod Boom Microphone Stand (mic 3 and 4)
Headphones
- Behringer Microamp Ha400 4-Channel Stereo Headphone Amplifier
- Audio-Technica ATH-M30 Closed-Back Headphones (no longer available)
- 3x Behringer HPS3000 Studio Headphones
How everything connects
- All microphones are connected directly to the UMC404HD via XLR cables.
- Music is played using VLC and usually controlled on Dustin’s phone using KDEConnect.
- The Jack Audio Connection Kit routes each input from the UMC404HD, VLC, and for remote guests Skype or another VOIP solution via a PulseAudio sync to Ardour.
- In Ardour the Calf Gate and Calf Compressor are applied to each microphone and VOIP channel and routed to the vocal bus where another gate and a little more compression are applied.
- The vocal bus and bumper channel (VLC connected directly to Ardour via Jack) are both routed to the master bus where limiting is applied.
Dustin records and edits the show using Ardour on a custom PC running Arch Linux and the Jack Audio Connection Kit. After the export silence truncation is applied in Audacity and the episode is exported as an MP3 and encoded using the Lame codec. Tags are edited using EasyTag.
The website is powered by WordPress with the Graphene theme. The website is hosted on Blue Host and the feed and audio files are hosted on Libsyn.
The banner and “CD Cover” are using a picture Dustin took from the edge of a cliff near “The Monastery” above Petra in Jordan looking off to the west in the late afternoon of 23 June 2007. The text is using the TTF-Ubuntu Medium font and the image was edited using GIMP 2.8.
The tagline, “Not all those who wander are lost”, is borrowed from J.R.R. Tolken.
The theme music used in the podcast is courtesy of Sturdy Fred.
The tagline is taken from a poem from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Rings:
- All that is gold does not glitter,
- Not all those who wander are lost;
- The old that is strong does not wither,
- Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
- From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
- A light from the shadows shall spring;
- Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
- The crownless again shall be king.
We know a lot of our listeners were fans of the Chariots of Iron, just like we were. Our show wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for them. Dustin got his start with podcasting as a guest and guest co-host on their show and it was the hole in his listening feed when their show came to an end that prompted him to start Atheist Nomads.
We had Eli and Lemar on to celebrate the conclusion of our first year and to let them have an honorary last episode. After that, we uploaded their entire library onto our server, but with moving to a new server we’ve gone ahead and just made the Zip file containing all 79 episodes available on Google Drive.