So now Kohaku and Summer both have pickups built in, which is an odd, odd thing, but they work pretty well so far and I’m setting up and labelling things for the summer show series. I also found a kokiriko! Finally! Not as cheap as the one I missed buying earlier, but not much more expensive, and it’s got a really nice sound to it, so as second chances go, it’s pretty good.

And I tested my SM58, finally. Little differences in behaviour between it and the 57 seem to make a massive difference in how my voice sounds over the PA. The 58’s little treble spike is exactly where I don’t want one in my vocals, and I guess the metal sphere keeps me at the right distance away from the diaphragm, and, well, yeah. It’s like it filters out a lot of the worst parts of my voice and blurs over a lot of the worst rough bits. Patrick Tewson of The Popular Monsters told me he loved how “forgiving” it was, but I wasn’t hearing it until now.

Maybe it’s also this PA, which does really good things to every vocal (mine and others) I’ve put through it, too. Either way, I like it.