So…last week’s family emergency had a short round two. Everyone involved is okay or at least getting better. I’m making it sound worse than it is, but since it’s not MY health issue (for a change) I’m not breaking out details. With luck the nonsense is all over.

What this led to is that some tech gear my friend gave me I didn’t have time to really go over until Saturday, my usual decluttering day, and thanks also to a major storm drop I wouldn’t get this and other stuff done on time if I got the chance to really play with it. I didn’t even install the drivers on the audio interface. It’s stuff he doesn’t use anymore because he has better gear but thought I could use it to improve my video creation on the audio side. This includes two new shotgun mics, one short and one long, but the long one for some reason is stuck and won’t open for the battery. I’m hoping to get that resolved as some projects could benefit from the longer mic, but the short one will work for most of my current ideas. This also came with some adapters to use with the audio interface, a way to control the audio going into the computer or whatever (one thing I need to test is how it works with my camera) and while not the shock mount holder itself it does have parts for it. Finally, two different kinds of windscreens for indoor and outdoor use per mic.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with all this, another mission for Operation: A Place For Everything. Of the three projects I do on my other site (articles, comics, and videos), the videos are worked on the least due to time, but I’m trying to fix that. There are things I can do in the video format that won’t be as interesting in article form, and vice versa. Finding a place to put them all is my next project, then, adding in the few equipment I have. I’m thinking the shelf in the picture, but that causes a few other issues, which is where the project, and finally some decent articles, are going to come from. I need to clear my way to get in there better, find a way to put stuff there and move a few other things, and whether or not my tripods will go up there.

So barring more storms and emergencies this is going to be our decluttering for a while. If there are no good articles out of it, I’ll try a review, I hope to have all my recording equipment organized and accessible for when I start doing stuff. This may actually mean some video content here as I test the mics (at least the one I can get working) and the Focusrite Scarlett 2i4. I did look up some videos on that and I have a better idea of how to use it. We’ll see how this all plays out.