To summarise the wise words of the Simpsons side character, Carl Karlson, crowdfunding is when many people contribute small amounts of cash to help bring your passion project to life. Good for you if you are really passionate about whatever it is you are doing, or if you are planning to split and run (in which case, shame upon you).

However, if you’re the one who’s contributing the money, be aware that you are still engaged in a form of gambling.

After all, you’re investing in, NOT buying a product.

Unless you’re dealing with a company with a proven track record, either on its own merits or with a history of actually sending out rewards, this is why I prefer to avoid anything to do with actual computers - given the increasing demand for more computing horsepower from those who identify as PC gamers, it’s easy to overpromise something to draw backers in, only to have severe hardware problems due to the stresses of meeting those demands.

Instead, invest small, and focus on things that can make things easier for you in other ways. With my band, I ended up taking over some of the vocal roles when two of our original vocalists dropped out in 2020 due to personal problems, and I had to make do with a not-so-great microphone I bought from Amazon. So, when I stumbled upon a campaign for a noise-cancelling microphone on Indiegogo, with reasonable crowdfunding tiers, I immediately threw my cash at it. My reasoning for it was that if I were to get the microphone delivered, I would have a tool that was useful not just for Roseburn Avenue, but also for professional purposes if I needed to create something for work.

Months later, the Tula mic arrived, and even several more months later, I finally put it to good use.

The difference between the Tula and the generic microphone was as clear as night and day. The Tula was able to capture my voice perfectly well while simultaneously cancelling out the hum of my air conditioner. Given the clarity of the recordings, I’m already looking into using it to make voiceovers for future Kahoot quizzes.

I’ll be talking a bit more about my recording setup in a future post over on the Roseburn Avenue website, and in regards to recording vocals, I will also mention another crowdfunded item that I used alongside the Tula to help with the entire process.

Hopefully, if you’re thinking about contributing to a crowdfunded project in the future, you’ll have some sort of idea of what to contribute to and what to be wary of.

Take care,

Zach

Posted November 22nd 2021 (JST)