Friday Featuritis – Detachable Capsule Listings
Friday, June 27th, 2008 | by matthew mcglynn
As was also true last month when I barely posted anything to this space, I have not been absent in any way — rather, have been digging deep into the microphone database to add some overdue features. And now, after several weeks’ worth of time-slicing development (in which little bits of progress were made on all features every day), three and a half new features are just about ready to launch. I will announce one now and another on each of the following two Fridays, and possibly some more after that, assuming I have some new ideas (very likely) and time to implement them (ummmm…).
To understand the first new feature, think back to the late 1960s and the release of AKG’s “Condenser Modular System.” The AKG C-451 was 11 mics in one — a single preamp body with at least 11 different detachable capsules, offering engineers a variety of pickup patterns and other features: long and short shotguns, small-diaphragm omnis and cardioids, even internally-shockmounted multipattern ball capsules.
While the historians among us would correctly object that the C-451 was not a single body, it is generally true that for that one basic body design there existed many capsule options. I point out the one-to-many-ness of the relationship for all the database geeks in the audience. Clearly the only solution for our Microphone Database was to list all the compatible capsules on the page for the microphone body.
As an example, check out the Oktava MK-012. It is perhaps the most versatile microphone on the market today, in that it can morph from end-address hypercardioid SDC to side-address cardioid LDC with a simple swap of the capsule.
If you have an MK-012, you could greatly increase its utility, and the palette of sounds it can capture, by picking up more of the four small-diaphragm caps (cardioid, omni, hyper, figure-of-8), any of the six large-diaphragm capsules (offering five different LD capsule designs), or a capsule with a 20mm “medium-sized” capsule. Find a catalog of these right on the MK-012 page.
Another cool example is the Chameleon TS-1, which actually works with most of those old AKG CK capsules from the AKG C-451 that inspired this feature.
It’s just a start, but a good step toward our goal of organizing the world’s microphones.
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