The platypod handle is really versatile

We are in a heatwave

So that means businesses are closed and we have a bit of free time.
And that’s of course also time to experiment.
So let’s have some fun today

As you all know I also love recording music (you can find my music site here)
Although you can do a lot with digital nowadays, I just love the old fashioned approach.
Which means running tube amps into load boxes and straight into a speaker cabinet with a microphone.

Chosing this setup had the disadvantage that if you still want to be able to hear and answer questions during workshops I had to build a hush box.
This means the microphone is inside a box, so it’s not easily accessible to move around.
Now what you might not know is that when using a microphone and a speaker cabinet moving the microphone has a huge impact on the sound.
Manually moving and especially fine tuning a microphone setup in a hush box can be frustrating. So I thought… why not automate it.

The professional systems are insanely expensive and can do almost everything. I would be happy with left to right.

Using video and photography gear

Because we also wanted to spice up our tutorial videos a bit we decided to order a Neewer Dolly.
We chose this type because the app is compatible with iOS and had a lot of options, so I hoped it would work.

And in essence it’s not difficult.
The only thing it needs to do is move the microphone a few mm or even a a few cm with each click.
And as you can see it seems to work…..

However…..

You know those situations where it all works like a charm and stable when you test it, and then you start using it and….. it doesn’t.
Well that’s the case here.
In the video it all works perfectly. A quick double tap on the movement button and the Dolly moved a few mm, absolutely perfect. The camera also worked like a charm.
But as soon as the box was closed, you probably already guessed it. The first few pushes worked, but after that it was one big crash and the dolly missed the second push and drive right off the plateau….

Now if Neewer would add an option to the app that would make it possible to move the Dolly a few mm with each click this would actually work better than I expected. Mainly because with the Platypod handle you can easily adjust the height and I fits both the smaller connection on the Dolly and the mic holder.

For an experiment during a heatwave it was fun, and who knows maybe in the future I will make it work 😀
For now we will start using the Dolly for extra material during the tutorials and BTS videos.