hard plastic that holds the internal electronics the housing may have walls that act as faces or boundaries between the inside and outside of the device and which may have holes apertures or elements that extend through the walls one wall will generally be on a top face of the device to hold an encoder and visual displays embodiments may be mounted on a microphone stand a standard tripod or directly on a table top music stand or clip embodiments may be able to be easily carried or moved especially because the device may be light and small the embodiment may include a controller capable of controlling software on a host computer or tablet device and being remotely controlled by same possibly utilizing a gui type interface an embodiment may utilize an onscreen u201c heads up u201d display with display icons to monitor and change audio sources audio gain and audio volume settings embodiments may include on board audio metering of both input and output signals including but limited to led lcd oled or other means from signal voltage to visual representation embodiments may include a plurality of mounting methods in addition to being a portable device including microphone stand tripod desktop mountable clip or camera mount fig1 a depicts an embodiment of a portable audio device 101 having an encoder 102 to control the device and a built in microphone 103 fig1 b also shows a monitor speaker output 114 fig2 and 2a depict an embodiment showing graphical icons including an internal mic icon 104 an external mic icon.