Doesn’t this look like something out of a science fiction movie- like a little robot that the family on Lost in Space might adopt and which comes to life during the night and tries to do away with them all, until the kid saves the day? Or a little like one of those odd toys that live under the bed of the nasty kid in the movie “Toy Story”?
No, it’s nothing quite as exotic as all that- but it’s a very cool addition to the Berg household. This little microphone is commonly referred to as a Snowball – we’ve already lost the box it came in, so I’m not sure exactly what this thing is really called. It came highly recommended by my sister Randi who used it to make the wonderful recording of my nephew Kaj singing music from Amahl and the Night Visitors. It’s something that plugs directly into your laptop and away you go, making really fine open-air recordings and funneling them directly into the laptop through the program Garage Band- and eventually over to iTunes where they can be easily burned on to a disk. It is the slickest little thing- although figuring out how to use it minus the box and its directions- which has to be around here someplace, but in my cleaning frenzy Wednesday afternoon, I seem to have put it where all the cops of Law and Order, CSI and Adam-12 couldn’t track it down- made everything more complicated. But Kathy the Great Tinkerer managed to figure it out and before I had turned in last night I had recorded almost all the accompaniment for the summer musical at the RTG. Tonight I hope to get a couple of rehearsal recordings done for the chamber singers alums – and then I may try using it as an aid for a new song I’m hoping to compose for the concert on the 24th. It’s fun to noodle at the piano and try out little ideas, but it’s no fun when you forget what you did and can’t quite come up with it out of your dusty noggin. So I may set up Mr. Snowball to record my noodling and then go back later and listen critically to figure out if anything is worth a second listen. Should be fun and I hope it proves helpful.
But just to be safe. . . if Kathy and I disappear one night without a trace. . . be on the lookout for a small killer robot. It looks a little like a cute snowball on a tripod, and it may be singing Vaughan Williams’ gentle “Serenade to Music,” but trust me. . . run the other way. . . as fast as you can.
That’s all!