My position simply is, I have never had much of a problem with interfaces (and yes I have a Mk1 8i6 and it works on W7 and W10!) and a variety of computers. I have. I've been using Macs for music for 20 years, and Windows machines for music much longer. Apart from a couple of widely reported issues...

When my daughter was 4 years old, she and her friends charged excitedly to tell us they'd formed a punk band called 'The Poo Crushers'. It never went anywhere, it appears nobody else has used the name, and my daughter says you'd be very welcome to use it if you're stuck for inspiration.

There are loads of thunder samples on freesound.org Some decent, some less so, some real, some Foley, some with rain, some without...

Seems to me that these points are worth repeating/highlighting... Preamps, and other audio devices, can have a recognisable sound character or tone, but it's through design and circuit topology rather than specific components . I could just as easily point you at a valve preamp that isn't 'warm' at ...

Yeah, I'd tap it for the next size up as others have suggested. OTOH, if you're scared of taps and don't want to glue it or buy a replacement shockmount, a workable (theoretically temporary) bodge is to insert wafer-thin little bits of matchstick into the hole to give your screw something to bite on...

You guys would probably LOVE this shop that after all these years is still there in Lincoln. It's hard work walking up that hill though!

p.s. I see you're using Reaper. I wrote about my podcast/dialogue editing workflow back in Jan 23. You might find that useful. I'd echo what Hugh said about the natural dynamics and pace of the editing. I'd rather have a few noises and keep the natural ebb and flow. And if you haven't checked it out...

Always best to deal with things at source as much as possible. And that obviously means a half decent mic/converter setup. But in the meantime... I take it you're talking about dialogue recording? (eg podcasts?) Even if you have to use the webcam and be on screen, your friend could start by raising ...

paulfromcamden wrote: ↑Tue Sep 26, 2023 11:48 amJust need to find an old-school hardware shop in Central London now

I *think* Clerkenwell Screws is still there. No website, but a web search suggests so. Still, I've not lived down there for the best part of two decades, so you might want to check on that!

Well worth repairing. If nothing else because they're worth a bob or two now! But I loved mine. Bulky as they were, I kinda regret offloading them instead of fixing them...

Disappointing that Neumann can't tell you the screw size — it should be on their technical drawings. Still, Neumann being a European company, you can bet it will be a metric screw. These come in standard sizes (M2, M3, M4, M10 etc) and readily available, with teh number denoting the thread diameter....

I reckon you're best testing one variable at once, so stick with the Apogee's preamps. There should be ample clean gain and it won't unduly colour the sound. If you want to look into preamps later, for whatever reason (colouration, facilities, more gain etc), please do... but I'd definitely do that ...