About Me

Hi, I’m Matt.

I work full-time as a Software Development Engineer, and the flexibility of my role allows me to travel the country in a motorhome with my family. This unique lifestyle presents some interesting technical hurdles, particularly since my home office setup needs to be extremely portable and robust.

A major challenge of remote work on the road is managing unpredictable noise—especially with a lively child nearby during daily meetings. Fortunately, I’m a bit of an audio nerd, and I’ve spent a lot of time finding and optimizing solutions. I’m confident in my ability to consistently sound clear and professional, regardless of the background noise. This expertise in portable and quiet tech is what I enjoy sharing most.

One day during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, I remembered that we had a decent condenser microphone (AKG P420) and an audio interface (Scarlett 2i2) sitting in the closet. I was spending a lot of time in remote meetings, so why not try sounding good? I hooked it all up, and it worked well, but I wasn’t prepared for just how sensitive one of those mics is! I was genuinely worried that people in meetings might hear it if someone walking their dog outside sneezed! Welcome to the rabbit hole…

I’m no expert at audio engineering, but I absolutely enjoy it as a hobby. I sometimes make music for fun, which influences my WFH setup to a large degree, but the vast majority of my use of these tools is simply for sounding better in meetings. I’ve had a few people ask for more information and opinions through that lens, so here we are.

I intend to review basically all of the audio hardware and software I use, with a focus on what does and doesn’t work well for remote work. As a result, I expect most of my reviews to be fairly positive, because I don’t use it if I don’t like it, resulting in a strong selection bias.