recordinghacks

Blackspade is a new company with a small but growing line of mid- and high-end microphones. The company is a joint venture between Blackspade proper in Switzerland and AMI, Inc here in the US. The Blackspade Acoustics UM25 that I’ve had the pleasure of using and reviewing is one of two C12/ELA M251-style mics the company is currently selling. AMI’s Oliver Archut (also the man behind TAB Funkenwerk) provides the output transformer and modifies the Asian-made CK25 capsule and power supply for the UM25. Assembly and testing of the mic also happens at AMI’s Kansas headquarters.

The other UM25 is distinguished by the “C” suffix and has a capsule made by Tim Campbell in Denmark — both mics share the same NOS Telefunken tubes, plexiglass circuit board with point-to-point wiring, and external body/grille. Patterns are switchable on the power supply from omni to figure-8 to cardioid. There are no pads or filters on the mic. Without entirely giving away the ending to this review, if the UM25C is even better than the UM25 due to the Campbell CT12 capsule and a beefier AMI-made power supply, then these guys have some amazing mics on offer. (more…)

We had a little contest late last week to see who could write a mic review that crosses the fine line between clever and stupid. The funniest contributions, in my opinion, expressed a deep lack of understanding of some common aspect of transducer technology or lore, and expressed that misunderstanding with total confidence. We’ve all done it before, but it’s funny this time because we’re just kidding.

Judging from the traffic to the #badmicreviews hashtag on Twitter, lots of people enjoyed it.

Meet the judges, and the winner… (more…)

Peter Wildoer’s drumming on Static Impulse blew my mind. Give him 60 seconds, he’ll blow yours too:

That album was a collaboration between Dream Theater vocalist James LaBrie and his longtime writing partner Matt Guillory. The band included Wildoer, Marco Sfogli (guitars), and Ray Riendeau (bass). The music is a crazy hybrid of styles — something along the lines of melodic progressive death metal. It won’t appeal to everyone, but I’ve been playing the hell out of it for the past 18 months.

After Mike Portnoy left Dream Theater, Wildoer was one of the seven drummers invited to New York to audition. (Watch his audition on Youtube.) The drum throne ultimately went to Mike Mangini, but Wildoer made a huge impression.

When Peter’s relentless schedule finally opened up enough to make time for an interview, I asked about Dream Theater, about Static Impulse, and a few obligatory microphone questions too. (more…)

A well-meaning but somewhat inexperienced gear reviewer submitted an article with the best sentence I’ve ever read in any microphone review, ever:

The Frequency response is also impressive with a range of 20Hz–20KHz that from my experiences is more than you can even use.

I tried my hand at matching the tone and style, and posted it to twitter under the #badmicreviews hashtag:

matthew mcglynn (@recordinghacks)

The microphone’s low-rolloff switch makes it perfectly suited to recording high-pitched instruments too!

Then the community piled on with some great replies: (more…)

Lately, I find myself quickly skimming a lot of my Twitter feed. There seems to be a lots of talk about Mad Men and Game of Thrones. I haven’t had time to enjoy those shows yet, so I’ve taken to professional tweet skimming. But a tweet from @recordinghacks mentioning the new Cloud Microphones Cloudlifter CL-Z caught my skimming eye immediately.

The CL-Z is an upgraded “mic activator,” providing two levels of gain boost, a switchable high-pass filter, and a sweepable input impedance control. (more…)

The AT4050 was initially released in the mid-1990s, as the first multipattern condenser in Audio-Technica’s groundbreaking 40 Series. It has remained so popular throughout the past 15+ years that A-T has just released a limited-edition anniversary model, the AT4050/LE, with a beautiful commemorative metallic silver finish and a custom wooden storage case.

We’ve had a pair of AT4050’s on hand for a while, and took the opportunity to review them in ways that haven’t been well covered by the trade press before. In part I, we’ll try the mics on drum overheads, in five different configurations. In part II, Tony SanFilippo writes about ten-plus years’ worth of experience with the AT4050, and describes his favorite applications for the mics.
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Talking about microphones is like writing about food. No matter how elegant and eloquent your prose may be, the proof and the pleasure is always in the eating (or in our case, the listening).

Not so long ago, a group of Dutch voice-over pros got together for a shootout. They had been writing about mics for months. Now it was time to let the technology to do the talking. The goal was not so much to pick a winner, but to get a chance to contrast and compare.

For that purpose they threw about thirty mics into the mix, from shotguns to tube condensers. Among the mics they tried were the Brauner Phanthera, an Audio Technica AT4033, the Neumann M147, TLM103 and U87, the Senhnheiser MKH-416, a Røde NTG3, a Telefunken U47 and an Electro-Voice RE27.

Then there was this very odd looking mic from the United States, an E100S designed by Conneaut Audio Devices or CAD. Very few people in the room had even heard of the brand, let alone seen such a microphone. But when the day was over, several voice actors ended up ordering one. By the end of this review you’ll know why.
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Late one evening last year during the 131st AES convention in New York City, I found myself doing what any responsible attendee would be doing: having way too many drinks in a midtown bar.

I met up with Matt McGlynn of RecordingHacks earlier that evening for some Thai food and he informed me that we would later be joined by Mark Fouxman of Samar Audio Design. I mentioned that I knew Mark from several online audio forums, and that we had communicated through email at one time regarding a potential project. Mark was a first-time exhibitor at the convention, introducing his debut product, a premium ribbon microphone called the MF65.

I had learned a bit about the MF65 initially through the $60,000 Ribbon Mic Shootout, and was certainly intrigued by the new kid on the block. I was looking forward to meeting Mark in person and talking about what all engineers eventually discuss after hours in bars: sex. Well, OK, the subject of microphones did come up at some point too and, in all fairness, microphones can be sexy objects.

At some point, Matt had suggested to Mark that he should send me a pair of his new MF65s for review. I was more than happy to have been volunteered but quickly pointed out the fact that my studio was in the middle of a major renovation and that I couldn’t possibly do anything until that was completed. I thought for sure that they would probably find somebody else in the mean time. I pretty much forgot about the whole thing until Matt contacted me a couple of months later asking when would be a good time for Mark to ship the mics. Of course, any time is a good time to receive new mics, right? Actually, the timing was perfect as the studio renovation was nearing completion. Matt must be psychic — either that or he was just paying attention to my Twitter feed…

As it turned out, I didn’t even have to wait long for the mics to arrive at the studio. (more…)

The AKG C 12 is one of the most revered microphones ever made. It not only captured sounds on many legendary recordings, its design also later gave birth to several other famous mics (e.g. Ela M 251, C414). Today these mics command a huge price tag because they are quite rare and very sought-after. Most of us would never be able to afford or justify the price for one of them, but we can seek to find that sound in other mics.

Stellar Sounds is not the first and certainly won’t be the last manufacturer to base a mic on the C12 design. Their new mic, the CM5, is described by its maker as a C12/ElaM 251 hybrid.
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Highly directional mic patterns do a pretty good job of capturing on-axis sources while minimizing off-axis sounds. Or to put it less technically: they hear more of what you point them at. Some smart guys figured out that they could put a mic element inside a tube and cut slots on the sides to further kill off-axis sounds, using phase cancellation. Known as an “Interference Tube,” this design makes a mic look kind of like a firearm, hence the name “shotgun.”

[Read more about How a Shotgun Mic Works on Randy's website. --Ed.]

These highly-directional mikes are often used for location recording. Neumann says of their KMR 81i shotgun: “Typical applications are film and video recordings, where the microphone should not appear in the picture.” Several other mic companies make shotguns too. I wanted to know how they compared — inspiration to investigate. (more…)