When Coffee Stain Studios announced the release date for Satisfactory’s 1.0 version I immediately put in for the day off. (Also the day before, since taking just a random Tuesday seemed silly.) How, I wondered, would I properly celebrate? Given that I’ve very (very very) occasionally streamed the game on Twitch, I decided to go ahead and do that thing for as much of the release day as I can manage.
Mind you, apparently Pacific time zone folks get the game at 8 o’clock in the morning. On the one hand this means I get to start playing as soon as I’ve had breakfast and such in the morning. On the other hand this means that I will want to start playing as soon as, etc, etc. Hmm. I’m sure it’ll be fine. I have to be up and medicated by that time anyway.
Now, about that streaming idea.
Remember the contents of the Box Of Discarded Headsets I showed off the other day? I considered and rejected all of those options for various reasons (basically all the reasons they were in the Box to begin with) and decided on a standalone microphone plus some kind of headphones or earbuds. But… there’s no good place to stand up the only standalone mic I have: The Blue Snowball iCE.
So I ordered a boom stand. Throwing money at the problem! And the Snowball screwed right onto the stand just fine, huzzah! Problem, though: The iCE model of Snowball is an omnidirectional mic. It picks up everything. Everything. Computer fan noise. The creaking of my office chair. Every part of every keypress on my keyboard. Oh, and occasionally the words coming out of my mouth, I suppose.
Workable but not ideal. Time to throw more money at the problem! Cue the arrival of the RØDE PodMic USB. It’s heavier, yes, and it’s targeted at podcasters (nope, not doing that), but it’s a unidirectional microphone (I haven’t sorted out exactly what flavor of cardoid pattern it uses but I don’t really care, either) and as a bonus it comes with a pop filter. Sweet!
This afternoon I tested out the whole rig, and with some advice & assistance from my son I was able to dial in the settings and make the whole thing workable, at least in theory.
We’ll find out how well it all comes together… first thing Tuesday morning. Join me, won’t you?