The Tale of the New Microphone

Back in May 2006, kristin on Librivox started a project to record Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance.  I volunteered (somewhat nervously) to sing Mabel.  Working with sheet music and MIDI files, there's a bunch of us all over the country/world, each singing his/her own part(s), and sending them in to kristin, our marvelous coordinator and editor.

Ever since January 2006 when we joined Librivox, we've been working with a Logitech USB noise-cancelling desktop microphone.  It's very much a starter mic, generally found for $20-30.  Speech recorded through it is perfectly adequate, albeit a little metallic-sounding.  Ever since this past July, when I put together a duet of the Star-Spangled Banner with kristin (she sang melody, I made up a descant), I've been wanting a better mic for recording, because darn it! you can really hear the difference in the quality of the recordings (ambient noise, warmth, etc) between hers and mine.  And I was quite certain she had a nicer microphone than I did. 

( So, we got a new microphone! )