I have a problem.  I’m a sucker for cheap gear.  I can’t resist the low-price carrot.  This makes me do silly things -- buying the Alesis 3630 comes to mind, or picking up mics sight-unseen, sound-unheard.  Usually, this does little more than clutter my tiny studio, but now and then I luck out. 

The KEL HM-1 was just such a carrot.  Sold direct by KEL in Canada at an introductory price of $69 (they're now $129, and include a shock-mount and carrying case I didn’t receive).  I sprung for two on a whim.  KEL’s money back guarantee helped fuel the decision.  A lucky pick, or more clutter?  Let’s find out.
 
My motivation ... Read More »

I’ve spent most of the last decade involved in remote collaboration as a tech support engineer for ednet, whose primary business model is real-time, remote audio collaboration via ISDN & IP for the advertising, post / ADR, and music markets. It's a high-end, niche business that works very well for studios needing what we like to call "CD-quality phone calls". During this time, my project studio has also needed to collaborate with other studios over long distances. Typically, I address this by primitive (fedexing or mailing CDs/ DVDs), or mid-tech (emailing .mp3s, FTP) means.

Unfortunately, these solutions are not suited to a real-time collaborative experience. Mail and Fedex obviously won’t work. ISDN and IP come close, but coding and transmission de ... Read More »