recordinghacks

If someone had told me five years ago that I’d own and use a $5000 mic I would have laughed out loud. But strangely enough, I now do and it’s the excellent Soundelux Elux-251, a mic based on the much sought-after and un-affordable Telefunken Elam-251 mics of yesteryear.

Now, since I’m really a home-recordist that graduated into “professional” recording a few years back, I can’t say that I’ve ever had the chance to use a real Elam-251 and can compare the Elux-251 to one of these ancient mics. So I won’t even try that. But like a $5 shake, what is it about a $5000 mic that makes it so special? I’ll put it like this: I’ve been trying to mic a drum kit with primarily one mic for years, with no success. I put this mic up and, bam, I had the main sound I needed to capture a “vintage-style” kit sound. On vocals this mic kicks ass, with a presence that holds it’s own in any loud rock mix.

Sure, it’s a big financial jump up to a mic like this, but if you are serious about making quality recording and you want your work to sound better and with less sweat, then this is the step up you may want to take.

A Few Words with David Bock, Head of Soundelux Microphones

LC

How does one go about re-creating a vintage mic?

DB

Find a good paint shop! Then you can sort through all the opinions and available mics of that particular type to find its best and worst qualities. I’ll do a lot of reverse engineering, and specification documentation. Then I’ll start building, then recording. I use a drum set (vintage Gretsch and DW custom kits) and a 4-track 1/2'' to make comparison recordings between vintage units and prototypes, as well as run frequency sweeps. I also use a few key people here in L.A. — I bring the mic to a session of theirs and we’ll check it out.

LC

Do you manufacture the diaphragms? What kind of tests do they get?

DB

We have several OEM shops do that work for us. The 251 capsule in particular is made in Germany, exclusively for me and to my spec. He tests them there for stress and frequency response, and I test them here for stress, frequency response and noise. We also burn them in, cycling on and off.

LC

In what ways is it a departure from the original 251 and in what ways is it similar?

DB

It’s a departure in noise floor, headroom, and construction. The originals were made of a plastic internal frame, which all crack and deteriorate and are difficult to repair. Ours is all metal and won’t be as difficult to repair in thirty years. Our transformers are new recreations on a larger core so they are cleaner in the top end and have way more low-end headroom. I used one on a kick drum recently! The proximity effect is not identical (ours builds up louder, sooner) but the core quality of exceptional low-end simultaneous with magic high-end is there.

LC

It seems to have a mid peak around 3.5 or 4 kHz. Do you agree?

DB

It’s biggest peak is at 10 kHz, and it’s full low/low mids have always kept my attention away from 4k… so I don’t think I’d agree (on paper).

LC

Briefly explain why a mic costs $5000! (This is for our low-budget readers who will be shaking their heads.)

DB

We build the ELUX 251 and our whole product line to provide real vintage performance at the lowest possible cost. Remember that the 251 is entirely hand-built here. All the custom parts, processes, inspections, burn ins, calibrated testing, American machine shop work, and hand assembly adds up, quicker than one might think. It’s also a slow process, very time and labor intensive. None of our other mics take up the amount of assembly and test time a 251 does.

LC

How did you begin manufacturing mics or get interested in doing this?

DB

Well, the studios I’ve worked at always had great tube mic collections, which I view as essential (like, why bother recording without a great mic? You’ll just get frustrated), but I’ve noticed the demand for vintage mics go up as the available quality went down. Seven years ago, the prices also were going up and as a person who has so far built every part of the recording chain (except tape deck) I thought, hey, we can build the same thing (as those vintage mics) cheaper! Six years later I think we’ve proved it. Can I take this opportunity to remind every one how dismal new mics were ten years ago?

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