March 3, 2025 • 52 mins
In this first part of our two-part interview with Derek Bargaehr, co-founder and chief designer at Vanguard Microphones, we dig into the nuts and bolts of what goes into designing a modern microphone that stands out in a crowded market. From capsule choices to ribbon designs, Derek gives us the lowdown on how Vanguard approaches innovation, sound quality, and the all-important ‘vibe factor’ every engineer is chasing.
Whether you’re a gear junkie, a home studio tragic, or a working pro wondering if that next mic purchase should have a Vanguard badge on it, this is the episode for you.
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And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear..
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“When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.”
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And welcome to another pro audio suite.
(00:01):
Thanks to try booth.
Don't forget the code to try pip 200.
That will get you $200 of your try boothand Austrian
audio making passion heard
roll intro.
I might not.
Now I might just leave you hanging there.
Yeah, yeah.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
(00:24):
Let's go.
Welcome. Hi. Hi. Hi.
Hello, everyone.
Audience. Audio.
These guys are professional and motivated.
Please text the real stars.
George with a founder of Source elements,Robert Marshall, international audio
engineer Robin Roberts.
And global voice Andrew Peters.
Thanks to tribal Austrian audio, lighting,passionate elements,
(00:45):
George the tech wisdom and robo and APIsinternational demos.
Find out more about us.
Check the Pro Audio Sweetcorn.
Line up later. Here we go. Now. Good. Me?
You. Now.
(01:10):
Yeah, now.
But before we get into the microphones,just give us a bit of background.
How did you, startproducing your own product?
Oh, I'll keep it as short as possible.
Like most people in the music industry,I think I fell, bass backwards into it
(01:34):
and have just been here ever since,you know, loved music all my life
was, you know, joined a band in juniorhigh with my friends, as one does.
But also, I've been a tinkererall my life, taking apart everything
electronic in the house,much to the chagrin of my parents.
Because not always didI know how to put it back together.
(01:54):
That's how you practice, right?
So, those two things kind of joinedwhen I was in the band instead of,
you know, like,getting better at my instrument.
The guitarist had these pedalsthat did cool things, and I was like, oh,
I wish I could do that with my bass.
So, there weren't a lot of basspedals back then.
So I ended up working, with,just kind of learning
how to modify guitar pedals for bassfrequencies.
(02:15):
And then I went to school for music,and I was like, oh, everybody here is
better at this than I am.
But I got into engineering.
And then while I was doing that,I was fixing people's gear
and upgrading their gear and modifyingtheir guitars and things of that nature.
And had to get an internship to get out
of, school with a degree and didn'twant to scrub toilets in a studio.
(02:36):
So I. Did that. Yeah.
I mean, so did a lot of people in my,in my graduating class,
and I'm like, boy, I'mglad I didn't have to be the coffee go.
First thing you do is realizeyou shouldn't be doing that event.
Mean earlier you do that to better.
I think that's illegal now.
But back in the 90s,that was all the rage.
Just to make make all the.
Yeah, they would you go to collegeto clean the toilet?
(02:58):
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. So.
And let me pee all over it firstbefore you go.
It's all just for a while. Like, yeah.
It was on a great day.
Like, I think studios have more disgustingbathrooms and gas stations.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah.Especially depending on their clientele.
Yes. You know, but I,
I, ended up interning at a microphonecompany,
(03:19):
called Avante Electronicswhen Kana Font owned it.
He no longer does.That's a whole other story.
And, worked there for 4
or 5 years as,I don't know, it was a small company.
We wore a lot of hats.I don't think I had a title.
I just did a lot of stuff. And,
janitor, you know, chief cook and bottlewasher, all that.
And so,
(03:41):
the defecation hit the oscillationat that particular company.
And, I had to then make a decision, andand I was, I was freelancing for a while
doing studio, upgrades and installsand fixing people's gear on the side.
And then Ken called me.
I was like, hey, I'd still like to startanother mic company.
Do you want to start it with me?
And so we started that.
(04:02):
And can it, you know, obviouslytaught me a lot about transducers
and how, more about the microphone sideof things that I was previously aware of.
And I've been doing this for 11or 12 years now and just keep
enjoying it for some reason, you know,and, and it's my way to contribute
to music and voice overand all these other things.
Because I wasn'tI was definitely not a great musician.
(04:24):
I didn't want to put in the 16 hoursa day of wood
chatting to catch up with my,you know, my peers in college.
And I was a good engineerand I had a good ear, but there were a lot
of people that did that, you know, and this just sort of stuck with me.
It it marries the mechanicaland the physical and the scientific
with the subjective and the artistic and, and why do we like the way that things
(04:46):
sound and, and, you know, it's notthat part is actually kind
of difficult to quantify.
And there's argument about it, but,it marries those two things.
And that's ever evolving quest ofhow do I make a tool
that makes an artist's job more
enjoyable and easierand gives them more creative expression?
And as long as I'm looking at mics thatway, I'm probably going to keep doing it.
(05:09):
Yeah.
Your journey sounds
well, I shouldn't say,but I'm thinking, Robert,
you had a similar kind of journey,didn't you?
Really?
Kind of a a what I wasI had an early experience
where I was in a band, and I was,
interning at a studio, in high school.
(05:29):
And actually, that was by by the timeI was still at that studio
in college, and the, I forget, I,
I wasn't kicked out of the band,but I wasn't in the band anymore.
And I began getting the distinct feelingthat I was in bands because I had hook ups
to get people recorded and,
and, and at some pointthe studio owner is just like,
you know, maybe you're a better producerthan you are the musician part of it.
(05:54):
Like, maybe that's your thing.
And kind of got me to kind of embracethat more instead of trying
to be the lead guitarist or whateverI was thinking I would be.
So yeah, a little bit like.Did you have long hair? Robert?
I did in college.
I thought.
Wow. Yeah, I can, I can see it,I can see, yeah, yeah.
David Lee Roth style was that.
No I wasn't, it wasn't filled up.
(06:14):
It was more, more, more hippie like.
Yeah. I was going to sayyou would have been a page boy.
You didn't look like a yacht rockkind of dude from the 70s.
Maybe. Yeah.
It was just like a yobo.
I reckon they had just.
There's just a homeless guy. Yeah.
Is the guestallowed to ask a question of guys?
Is there a reason why Robert is speakingto us from the great beyond on video?
(06:38):
Oh. We came back here.
I want to go therebecause I'm in heaven. Yes.
Okay. Yeah. Is a. Nice.
It. You don't want to.
It's better down here or downwhere you are. Yeah.
He said he's he's at his dealers houseand he doesn't want him.
That's, That makes sense.
That's all cocaine back there? Yes.
Oh, yeah.You're on the side of low. Gotcha.
I mean, that's what it is.
(06:59):
Excuse me while I sneeze.
Yeah.
Thank God there's no wind in it.
That was his name in the 80s.
The cocaine back. That's right.Yes. That's right.
Yeah. So.
So, Derek, tell us,tell us a bit about your first ever Mike,
I'm interested to know if you look backnow because I look back at my first demo
and go, Holy crap,how did that ever get me a job?
(07:22):
How did that first Mike turn out?
You know, it's funnybecause Ken was very heavily
involved in the design process early onbecause he designed Mike's advent tone.
I was very lucky in that,you know, imagine if you if you go
if you go to make your first recordand you know, you're your engineer
and producer, you're at Abbey roadand you're producers, you know, you know,
(07:46):
or Lenoir and you'reand and your engineers, Steve Generac
or Al Schmidt, like, it'syou're gonna have a better time. Right?
So Ken was really good at this,and and so,
actually the v 13, that's not the oneI'm speaking into right now.
I don't have a v 13in my home office at the moment,
but it's a two microphone,a nine pattern, two microphone.
And it, has been wildly successful.
(08:08):
Actually, it's it'sconsistently our best seller.
And people love it because it punches wayabove its weight class.
They love it because it's versatile.
We try to walk this subjective linebetween, like,
some mikes are the bestmic in the world on a particular voice,
but only on that voicebecause they're so heavily, heavily,
heavily voiced and aggressively voiced,which is great.
(08:29):
And then some mics,like the AKG 414 will work on everything.
And if you record your entire recordwith that, it's
going to sound like vanilla cakewith mayonnaise frosting.
So there's like this, there's this linebetween like flattery and musicality
and like a more objective,like we want to capture or
capture things as they arethat you have to constantly ride.
And like the philosophy of different micdesigners will indicate where they ride
(08:52):
that line. Right?
So, people really like the V 13because it rides that line pretty well.
And quite frankly, you know, studiostoday are in a basements and bedrooms
and garages or, you know, in, in businessparks, they're not their own
massive built out thingswith 60 mics for a vocal locker.
(09:13):
So the mic that you choose to beyour main vocal mic,
it has to be affordable enough.
And then it also has to be versatileenough
that you don't need to get eight othermics that, that, that do something.
Maybe,maybe that can be your main vocal mic
and then you have a couple other onesas backups and then,
you know, but it ended up being greatfor drum overheads and great on guitar
amps and great on acoustic guitars andand great and voice over,
(09:36):
apparently because Scott Rummelwas using one for a long time.
So B13 is if I'm going to guess I'm
probably wrong here, but I guess is itkind of a C 12 style a little bit?
Actually, no.
One thing that we're really proud of
is that we don't really do,clones of anything,
and we're not really tryingto emulate anything.
So, I mean, there'sso many people doing that so well.
(09:58):
So I guess it doesn't look like
it has the classic grounding pinin the middle of it, like I.
And it looks like it's terminatedon the outside.
Like it is just terminated a capsule.
Yeah, but it's not actually a ck 12 capsule c k 12 from like the AKG, C12
like you talked about.
And they were also in the C 24, the 414,a couple other of their mics,
the original brass ones are legendaryfor how good they sound
(10:22):
and also legendaryfor how difficult they are to manufacture.
The fact that AKG was able to pump outany in like the 50s and 60s is a miracle,
because they're so complex.
It's this.
This has one chamber between the betweenthe two back plates.
The K 12 had four backplates and three chambers,
and all of those affectedthe sound along with this diaphragm
(10:43):
spacing, the diaphragm tension,the way it was all drilled together,
the way those chambers alignedwith each other, it was it's a nightmare
to manufacture to this day,and there's only a few people that do it.
So this mic has an actual K 12 stylecapsule in it.
This is more like an edge terminated K 67,but we do custom voice it
with a different, different diaphragmspacers, different diaphragm tensioning,
(11:04):
things like that because we want itto sound like our own mic.
So so the C 12thing is more about the chambers
in there and less about whereit's terminated, I guess possibly.
Yeah, that the center terminationis a Neumann thing.
I would largely argue,
because there's really onlyso many styles of capsule out there,
although there are companies coming outwith new and interesting
capsules like er, London,Audio-Technica and stuff like that.
(11:26):
My lab has their rectangular ones or.
That's right, I forgot about my lab.
I should have,I should have probably mentioned them
because I'm always interested in anybodythat's pushing the envelope. Right.
And Austrian audiodoes their own capsule.
That is it's ceramic based,which is genius because it gets rid of
some of the complications of manufacturingand maintaining condenser capsules.
Yeah.
And it's supposedly, C12 it's a derivative
(11:49):
or they, I think what are theycalled, the c k 12 or something.
Yeah. The K12. Yeah.
Yeah. Secret K 12. Isn't it secret.
Well yeah.
Well if anybody is doing it,it's the guys that were originally at AKG.
And I know
and like a lot of the guys that Austrianand talk to them on a regular basis
at Nam and stuff, they're good dudesand they're really, really bright fellas.
So supposedlywarm does a 414 brass capsule.
(12:13):
Mike.
But incorrect I,I was just leave it there.
Yeah.
I was wondering how accurate of a brass.Yeah.
You know, what they dois they mark it really well.
They do it you know. Yes I do.
It's funny because policeI do one the police I do the 414 but
is there's the c k 12or is it a version of it.
(12:34):
According to John,he just actually did a c k 12,
but before that it was an edgeterminated k six and seven.
Similar to this, I don't know.
I haven't seen the new k 12.
So the guys I know that are doing itproperly are been at business audio.
Open plan recording does oneand they're also Australian weirdly
although I don't really knowthe guys there.
Yeah they're not far from meactually. Two.
(12:54):
Yeah. They're okay.
An hour away from where I live.
I use the ones from Ben at Bee's knees.
Oh, I was going to ask.
I was going to askyou make your own capsule because, like
because because I know that they,distribute a lot of capsules, like,
that was kind of what he got intoeven more than making his bikes was,
I'm in this manufacturerand I'm in that manufacturer.
I imagine once you once you tool out tomake something like capsule, you make it.
(13:17):
On the DNC machine.
Well,you want to sell a lot of frickin capsules
right at that point,because it's not easy.
Ben is probablythe only guy that can master like Tim
Campbell makes great sequels,and almost all of them go to flea
because flea puts themin their microphones.
It's hard to get a hold of a TimCampbell sequel.
Or, you know, for any of us capsules.
(13:38):
There's a couple other guys that do it,and I, their names are escaping me.
So I apologize to to those fellas, but,I really like Ben's
because he can pump them out really quick.
He can match them really wellbecause we put them in our in our high end
stereo mic as well of the 24and the front and the backs.
And like all four diaphragmshave to be matched
within like 1 or 2 of our odds of eachother for it to sound the same.
(14:00):
Right? And for it to be a.
Proper like figure eightthat's equal on both sides.
And then you can do it correctlyand properly and all that. Yeah.
Before you even get to how you'repolarizing it and how you're treating it
within the circuit, the capsulehas to be constructed really, really well.
And even then, you know, like, it'sso easy for them to come out of alignment
from various and, and,you know, if one screw comes loose, it
(14:21):
messes up the whole diaphragm tensionbecause they're not glued to the ring.
Right? So, it's like a drumhead.
You know, so there are some capsules that,like our capsule,
it's actually glued to the ringwhen it's manufactured
so that I could, in theory, take apartthe capsule, put it back together
in a clean room because you don't wantany dust in there whatsoever,
and it would still sound the same.
(14:42):
Whereas with a k 12, you.
So. Yeah.
Yeah. Why?
What's the difference? There's.
Because I've got a 414 EB. Yeah.
Yes. It's got a 93 ring to it.
But it's got the nylon capsule.
Yeah. At here.
Hang on, I've got one on my desk
because I repair mics fora living and I can show you.
We might be calling you.
(15:02):
I have some. Oh.
Where where are you located?
Actually, Derek might have an inside lineon getting some mics fixed for you
there, Robert.
Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah.
You guys want to talk offline?
Oh that's fine.
I've got, I've got, m 49 to use 67 sitting in a box over here.
I've got, I've got at any timeI've got like 20 or 30
(15:25):
grand worth of vintagemic sitting that aren't working.
So this is the one you're talking about.This are Teflon first.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So, when AKG was making that original K
12, brass capsule,it was incredibly complicated.
Ingenious designs,super difficult to manufacture.
They were thrown away
about half the capsulesthey built with a standard wooden RCA.
So what they did is
they came out with somethingthat was much simpler to manufacture.
(15:49):
It does not have the complex back plates.
In fact,you can see inside it's all plastic.
And they have a little screen
in there as the acoustic resistancein between the two capsules
and then the back plate itself.
I don't know if I have a backplate in here.
Gotcha.
I'll show you right now because I've gotI've got this whole thing apart
so I don't have. A whole thing. Right?
Yes, yes. Here's the diaphragm. Right.
(16:10):
This is one with a hole in it.
Speaking of broken diaphragms,you can see why this one had to come out.
So, so so what happens with that one isthat it's short set with someone's breath.
Because of the hole, right?
Yes. Or it shorts out alreadyright against the back of the diaphragm
because it's a capacitor. Right.
So you have to have a charge statebetween the.
Two of them and it just attracts. Yeah.
And if electrons are nothey have a short over to the other side.
(16:31):
Then you no longerhave a charge state on them.
I don't have a back plate in this boxoddly enough, but yeah.
Back plates.
This is a newer this is the egg,the Teflon capsule that has the newer.
You can see those holes in the backfor the resistance.
Back plates generally look like that.
I wish I had grabbed the.
So I've seen some of the back back plates
that have like holesall the way through them.
Like all over the place. Yeah.
(16:52):
And then some just have and that's, that'sto let the acoustic pressure go through.
Right.That's the purpose of those holes. Yes.
There is through holesand there's blind holes.
Blind hole.
And they both serve similar purposesin some way.
But blind holes are like act like dampersbecause if you had no blind holes
and this was tuned to 1000Hzand somebody sings 1000Hz
(17:13):
into it, it's going to ring just like alike a tom, right?
Like a for Tom. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So those blind holes, what they do isthey are an acoustic damping factor
that prevent itfrom resonating at its frequency.
So then across the spectrumyou get, in theory even sound,
although, you know, because it's nothing'sperfect and there's physics at play.
That'swhy there's so many different capsules
(17:34):
that sound so many different ways.
They sound like our ears.
So quick, quick add moment.
But therefore a small diaphragm microphonehas a much higher resonant frequency,
and that makes it better to tuneand flatter across the audible spectrum.
Not necessarily because it's by tension.
Right.
Part of the reason why they are,
there's less mass,so there's less to work with there.
(17:57):
And then I did a video on thisand I won't get super deep into it,
but off axis response tendsto be much better on small diaphragms.
Because.
Of the way that it interpretssound as a pressure microphone.
And,and I did a video on this on Instagram.
I'm not going to explain it to you guys.
I think if your audience hasn'tbored to tears yet, I might not.
(18:18):
Some of them might start.
I can already tell you for now,this the the three hours that we have
will not be enough. But that's
what's so to answer.
Andrew. Right. Andrew.
Zap it.
To answer your original question,
they went to the Teflon capsulesbecause they're easier
to mass manufacture,but they don't sound nearly as good.
Now, the EBS were the last ones to use thebrass capsules, but not all of them did.
(18:40):
That said, I greatly prefer the EP 48,which was the one after it.
To the EB.
Circuit wise, it's a much bettercircuit, has quieter,
it has better output, less self noise, higher, spoils before distortion.
But people like the EBS because they werethe last one to use the brass capsule.
If you take a knees brass capsuleand put it in an EB, which I've done for 3
(19:02):
or 4 clientsnow, they sound extraordinary.
They sound so good.
I've got my abs a p 48.
How do you tell the difference between Oand EB 48?
An E? Well, it's whack for one. Yeah.
So it is.
Okay so the so the brass ones are silverand the P40 eight is gotcha.
But some of the, some of the silver oneshad the Teflon capsules too.
(19:25):
That's when they changed over. Yeah.
But you can tell a Teflon capsule justby looking straight into it because yeah.
I mean I mean a brass capsule looks like.
Yeah. You see. Yeah. Yeah.
I wish I had one sitting on my desk,but you can see it right through.
And you'll see the Teflon when it lookswhite like this on the inside,
all you gotta do is shinea light through the back of it.
And if you see, I just dropped this one.
(19:45):
Not that it matters, because. That it's.
Very broken. Yes.
Yeah,I think it had more problems before that.
But, you can actually see this littlelike crinkly material
that they use for the spacerbecause you can actually unscrew this.
This is two halves, believe it or not.
You can see that's that crinkly material.
And you can see that on some of them,on the older.
Ones you can probably see mine.
(20:06):
Can you see it's white.
Yeah.
Yeah I believe it is also the
you'll see screws on the brasslike you see the ring on this.
Yeah. They just pressure fit this.
So there's no screws on this oneand on this one.
And I'm just going to move this onebecause. This is a.
Make this sound right.
So this is a brass capsule cage.
This is a. Brass K 12.You can see the screws on the right.
(20:26):
Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
So that's like that's like a $3,000 Mike or something.
What is that. This is a $5,000 Mike Jesus.
This is athis is and I'm not even talking into it.
Here's me talking into it right now.Let me change over.
Can you guys hear me? Okay. Yep.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
I was turned sideways,so you probably hear me very well at all.
This one has three voicings on it.
So it has a ribbon mode,a c 12 mode and a 251 mode.
(20:48):
Oh. Can hear the
oh yeah.
Sure you're going to hear a pop.
So that's a lot to fix that in post.
Right now I want to make one.
Condenser mike sound like a ribbon.
A lot of it is just voicing right.
It's selective EQ ING with
with different functionswithin the actual audio circuit.
But now we're in ribbon mode,and I've currently got
the voltage pushed all the way up,and it's in hyper cardioid.
(21:10):
So let me throw in figure eight.So it's actually even more like a ribbon.
Wow. Even over with me.
We can really hear that.
Oh, I can totally hear the difference overGoogle me.
Yeah. Nine polar.
I wish I wish I hadn't taken apartmy entire desk right before this
because my interface was misbehaving.
Oh, and you're hearing methrow a focus right to it, too.
There's nothing.
So the V 14 is the C12one that you're on right now.
(21:31):
Yes, it's. The K 12.
So this has the polar patternsand it also has a tube voltage control.
So right now I'm overdriving the tubeon this microphone.
But I can also sag it back and it'sgoing to sound completely different.
You're also going to lose several decibelsas I say I get back.
But let's let it stabilize.
And I'mgoing to punch this up a little bit,
and now it's going to soundlike a different microphone.
(21:54):
My, because of the way.
Yeah. So I gottaI gotta punch that back up.
I'm going to dial it back. There we go.
Dial it back to a more reasonable level.
This is split personality microphone.
It sounds.
It's. About as analog modeling microphoneas you can get.
So I'll say it.
But I don't think anybody has that abilitylike now.
(22:14):
Like I've got to sag the voltageor overdrive the voltage.
Right on the microphone itself.
I've got a provisional patent on thatbecause it's going to go in our V 13
eventually as well.
So yeah.
This is the sort of mad scientist stuff.
I mean, you can see this is my little madscientist desk because.
This. Is much bigger.
It's going to comment on the background.Yeah.
Yeah,that's that's why I do my mic repairs.
(22:35):
I've got a national Panasonic M7 38open on the desk right now.
So which is their version of a SonyC 37 fat, Okay. Wow.
Panasonic made microphones for a while.
Believe it or not,that's. Bizarre that I live in either.
And then I.
Switch back to the other microphoneso you guys can actually.
How do you keepall those numbers in your head?
Because I I'll be honest with you.
(22:55):
I mean, like my models and stuff,I'm useless.
Seriously, hold all those numbersand, you know, models and stuff.
And. All that stuff.
Yeah,I think I straight up I'm on the spectrum.
I wouldn't be terribly surprised.
But also like, you like what you focuson, right?
Like, if you're into fantasy football,you can name, like,
the third string quarterbackfor every team in the NFL.
(23:17):
Yeah.
Any concertI can name all the mikes on the drum
set and everything like, oh, that's aI know, D4 21, right?
Yeah.
It's just it's just how I roll.And that's what I'm into.
So, you know.
My brother's an airline pilotsI suppose it's similar.
It's the same.
So yeah, it's justyou know, human brain is a powerful thing.
You just have to focus its attentionon things.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now, talking of diaphragms,what about the M7?
(23:39):
I have an M7 capsule.
Let's talk about protected sex.
Oh, sorry.
And with mylar or the.
Yeah,I think Rob. So the M7. Conversation.
Anyway, go. Yeah. It's kind of the you.
Right.
The most brutal. In the groove. Yeah.
They said that but can't get pregnant.
(24:02):
Anyway, so.
The M7 was the predecessorin many ways to the K
47 which is in the year 47 in fact.
And somebody is going to correct meon this.
My Neumann history isn't good.
So if I'm wrong, somebody in the commentson undoubtedly tell. Me actually.
Then I feel like some of theyou 40 sevens actually had him sevens
and they did initially.They absolutely did. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
(24:23):
Now the M7 was very tough,
even more difficult manufacturerin some ways than the than the K12
because of the waythe diaphragm was glued on.
And also they were using polyvinylchloride, using PVC for the diaphragm.
That's instead ofit would disintegrate, right.
It would disintegrate.
That's correct.
In fact I wish I had it available.
I have an M7 here right nowthat looks like it's been hit by a gun.
(24:46):
And M7 capsulewas just completely exploded.
It looks like the alien babyfrom the movie came out.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know what somebody did to it,but it's getting re scan.
Not by me.
I drink too much coffee for re scans.
Although I am eventually going to learn,
I promised myselfI just, I just haven't done it yet,
so I'm going to send it down to DaveWillard Heisman, who does re scans for me.
(25:06):
And, Dave Pearlman in LA also does there's theater in Europe that does but,
yeah, the M7 has a very
similar hole backplate design to the, to AK 47.
It's actually a single back plate.
Whereas with the K 67they actually do two back plates
because it's easier to match the two.
The two are the two sides.
I suppose because of the voltage
(25:27):
increase on the two might compare to the U87 that needed a lower voltage.
No, actually the the K 47 and the K
67 can handle similar polarizationvoltages before collapse.
I think it's more to dowith ease of manufacturing.
So the K 40.
Does that difference in space causean issue in figure eight with phase? No.
(25:48):
It doesn't.
Know.
I mean, I'm in figureeight on this other mic right here.
So let me turn it back up real quick.
And this is, this is two back plates,a k 12 style
capsule has two back plates on it.
And I'm talking to the front right now.
Now I'm talking to the side and I got you.
You can. Barely hear. I swear to God,I swear to God.
Ribbon makes no out to zero. And the.
(26:10):
And the dualdiaphragm condenser is on the side.
Don't quite know out like a ribbon does.
I think it's possiblethat there is a slight change in that,
but I think for the effectof what you're actually looking for in,
in, in actual real world
usage that no, you're talkingfrom going from like,
(26:32):
let's say I'm peaking at minusten to now, I'm peaking at -65.
Yeah. It's negligible.
It's effectively nothing.
Well, the only.
Reason we could hear you just
then when you did your side test,was to see the reverberation itself.
Also down here.
Only hearing your voice bouncingoff the wall the mike was pointing. At.
But that would direct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, so there's.
A couple other things at play.
(26:52):
If so,because we tune this very carefully.
So that the back plate voltage is exactlyhalf of the rear diaphragm voltage
because the front diaphragm is grounded.
Right.
So you were talking about balance powerearlier and it's kind of the same thing.
Right.
So basically
what's happening is the back platescharge to let's say 50V to make it easy.
The front diaphragm is grounded.
So now we have a 50 volt
potential between the front diaphragmand the back plate 50 -0.
(27:14):
Now if we put the real one at 100Vit's 50 -100.
So it's -50.
-50 potential between the rear diaphragmin the back plate.
And so when I talk into the front, it'sproducing, sine wave.
And when I talking to the rear, it'sproducing a cosine.
And when you go to the side, then it goes.
Cancels out saying plus cosineis. Exactly.
(27:34):
Yeah, exactly.You remember math class. Not ever.
But it is a. Little bit to makes sense.Yeah.
Yeah okay. Yeah. Yeah.
So that that's one way to polarize.
Not that'snot every capital polarization scheme.
That's the one that we useon all our microphones.
But I think it's probably the cleverest.
But there are other ways to do it.
I mean, you could peel this onion downas much as you wanted.
(27:55):
And we could get so nerdy here.
But I hope I'm hope.
Like I said, I hope you're audio juice.
Did you do a diaphragmwhere actually you do a single diaphragm,
and then you put the charge plate.
On the outside. On the. Outside?
Yeah. Yes.And there are mics that do that.
Yeah.
There are mics for the diaphragmsin between two charge plates.
(28:16):
But then you're.
But then you're literally singingthrough those holes and you get the.
Not necessarily a problem,believe it or not.
Yeah.
Not necessarily a problem,but there are mics
where there's a suspendeddiaphragm between two, two back plates.
Yeah,they come with their own sets of problems.
I've never designed one.I don't even think I've worked on one.
And I'm kind of gladbecause they're complicated.
(28:37):
But, you know, never say never.
Let me ask you something.
About what is importantabout a mic design.
Now, this may seem terribly obvious,but it may not be what is the most.
And like if you're lookingat the main components of a microphone,
what influences
the sound that the actor of the performeris going to hear the most?
Is it the capsule, the electronics,or is the tube or what is?
(28:59):
Yeah.
Because I've understoodthis whole interview.
I thinkthat like tube mikes for a long time
I was like YouTube make tube to make.
And it's like tubes don't make as bigof a difference as transformers.
I think.
And the capsules are a lot of the voicing.
The capsules are 90% of it, honestly,like I can the way I look at that.
(29:20):
So we use the same capsule in our V 13R v for
and because of thatyou can tell their siblings, right?
It's like when you look at two peopleand you're like,
you definitely came from the same parents.
The capsule I think has sucha strong influence on on the voicing.
Now, there are things you can doin the circuit that change that.
The most obvious being actual passiveEQ moves, like,
(29:41):
like roll offsand, and, inductive tertiary loops.
And what those people are doingis changing out
circuit to try to influencethe voicing of the mic in some way.
Sometimes, sometimes they replacing the full capsule.
If it's a crummy capsule, you know,
that's the single biggest thingyou can do.
I liken itto, like, making a steak. Right.
Apologies to any vegans and vegetariansin the audience.
(30:04):
I don't eat beef anymore myself,so I understand.
But if you're making a steakand you start out with, like, skirt
meat, right, you can make a Kearney asada,but God help you
if you're trying to make, like a rib eye,you know,
I mean, gotta get the right cut.
I mean, been the bee's kneeskind of explain that to me
because it, like, long ago,
I had them take some Mike'sand I gave him some Chinese Mike's, too.
And this was
when he was starting out, like,I think at this point, like 15 years ago.
(30:27):
And I was like,I want to basically like a nice two
mike out of this Chinese Mike,just change the circuit.
And he's like, know me.
Like I'm doing the whole Mike.
Like the only thingthat's going to survive is the body.
Yeah. You're basicallyyou're just using the chassis. Right.
And like the.
And Ben wins his own toroidal transformerswith glass laminations
(30:47):
and all this crazy stuff.
I don't get that deep.
But, he probably he he'd probably be.
You know, if you really want a super nerdguest, he would put me to shame.
In terms of Mike, you know,with the capsule design itself, but so.
So the capsule itself is the number onething that influences the tone.
The next thing down the list would be.
What transformer, I think.
Oh, I disagree on that, actually.
(31:08):
Ooh, the transformer is size.
Transformer size. Yes.
It's not the size of the transformer. It'show you use it.
Fight fight fight fight.
So the transformer transformer.
Can be depending on the wayit's hit by the amplifying,
by the actual act of electronics, the tubeor the FET.
Right. Okay.
I would say that the most important thing
(31:30):
after that is what the capsule goes into.
And it's it's an impedance converter.Right.
Capsule impedance is super crazy highlike giga ohms.
We're talking. Right.
So when it gets when it hits the FET,the FET reduces it
to a more manageable impedance, usuallyin the thousands of arms or the tube.
And then the transformer does even moreso a lot of the time, although not all is.
It depends on the mic.
(31:50):
So what it's hittingnext is the Japhet or the tube.
And I think that probably has
the second biggest influence because thatsignal is unadulterated at that point.
Then I probably gowith any signal path capacitors
at a certain level,a lot of cheaper bikes are using super
cheap signal path capacitors,and they can introduce distortion
(32:12):
and depending on the mic design.
I will credit Robert here that theTransformers probably next on that list
if the capacitors are already good,or if the signal path capacitors
don't mean anythingto the audio in particular, but you have
that minimum, you have onewhich is decoupling the power
from the tube,to the transformer in like a C12.
(32:33):
So for your mic designs, transformersare a part of all your my designs.
No, this is a transformer less.
Yeah.
I was like, actually, I was going to saybecause there's two mics
that I can think of like,the, the 414 TL two,
which is transformer less, I believe thatI believe is a standout Mike.
And whatever they didand the other AKG mic which is like
(32:54):
I wish I still had it got stolen,but I had a 460 B with AK1 capsule.
Okay, that's transformer loss.
And that fucking mic was greatand I don't know what it is about it.
So not there as a mic.
Like I think the Transformers.
Style two is they're very much more onlike the flatter
like like 450 onesand four 60s were very much like that.
(33:15):
Also the 451 two this is from a 451 B ULS
and this is from a TR2that were made at the same time.
Oh I should flip this around. Noticehow different those are.
Yeah. In the middle. Yeah. Yeah.
So they were actually using which oneis the teal to the telltale to okay.
It's a different back plate.
It's a different acousticresistance piece that's more complex.
(33:37):
That's actually a lot more likethe original K 12.
So back to the diaphragm being the hinge.
To the capsulebeing the most important thing
because Ulf is in tattoos now.
The tattoos, there's also other reasons.
Like you said, there's no transformer.
But the capsule is different in a tattoothan it is in the US.
(33:57):
And most peopledon't realize that it didn't work.
I never knew that. Actually,most people don't.
There's thethis is, the only or triple O9.
This is the Z0005 capsules from AKG.
And then really the only. Differencesmaller is what is it?
Because it looks like there's.
This is just a piece of screen fine mesh.
And that's the acoustic resistance.
And this is an actual resistancenetwork made of brass I see.
(34:19):
Oh well yeah.
Yep. Do you, what did you ever work on?
Microtech.
AFL and I haven't yet actually, believe itor not, NFTs or Microtech waffles.
No, I haven't, but,I mean, I can I've done.
I have somebody that's supposed to send mea pair of, 70s from Microtech depot.
They just have it. It's dealingwith musicians.
Andrew, what's all that you have?You have a really good sounding one. I've.
(34:40):
I've got two of them.
I've got the,M 92.1 s, which is, got the,
the F-86 chip and the M7 capsule,
and I've got m 930,which is Transformers, but it was just
one of the, the, the 80 they producedfor the 80th anniversary of Norman.
(35:02):
No. Wow.
That's cool.
So the other one is kind of a it'skind of a
you 67 ish thing,but then it's got the M7 capsule.
And so the K 67 is based.
On the 57 I think it was it even 57
that was built back in the late 50s,probably as what was called the. 57.
Yeah,the 57 was kind of a, transitional model.
Between the 67 and
(35:23):
the eight or between the 47 and the 67.
Maybe because models. Were no more.
Particularfor that had the two Norman factories.
So you had the original air factory leftBerlin, went to GFL during the war.
Then George went back to Berlinwith Neumann.
But they can't because of the wall.
Cups. In East Germany.
(35:45):
Microtech AFL,which wasn't called magnetic.
So back then it was some other name,but it eventually became Microtech.
AFL was actually stillthe original Neumann,
and they still produced the M7 capsule
on the original plant on the recently.
Oh, all the way.
Also, it's still the 50s after after theyeah western.
So yeah.
If you find telephone can brandedyou 40 sevens and stuff.
(36:07):
That's because telephonecan never actually made a mike AKG a
Raymond made all their mics for it. Yeah.
So you know a telephone can even now tothis day is just a name that's warranted.
And but I mean, one guy I know, it'sjust come to work in television.
Yeah, yeah.
And there was a he sent me a telephone TVwhile he's in Malaysia.
And you can get a telephone,can vacuum cleaner, a toaster in Israel.
(36:28):
They tell likeit was kind of like RadioShack in a way.
Yeah. Pretty much.
Yeah, yeah.
But the mics, you know what I mean?I mean, I.
I had RadioShackmikes that were made by sure.
That's, you know, the theother really interesting thing is like,
really earlymicrophones were made by Westinghouse.
Yes. Well, Westinghouse was the firstmakers of a condenser, along with, yeah.
(36:48):
Or was ityou get a washing machine house or RCA.
So if, you know.
I believe it was just as Westinghouse.Yeah.
Like it was a giant box RCA.
Like there's a national Panasonic.
Like I said,
I didn't know Panasonic made microphonesuntil this guy was like the Sony.
Get into it.
Sony was early, but I don't know.
I don't know, to be honest with you.
But they were they makethey still make some good ones, you know.
(37:10):
Oh they definitely I think yeah.
Yeah I think they got into it in the 60sbecause I saw a really early,
pretty shitty Love Boat, so.
Well they made some, they made some goodto make some of those early Sony.
Oh yeah. To see 37is are pretty incredible.
And I want to go back to.
414 like Sony.
Mike I think it was a 48.
But it was also pretty decent.
(37:31):
I forget the they.
Have they had some cool esoteric models.
George,I want to go back to your question,
because I do think there'ssomething important
that I want to mention that I forgot aboutwhat makes a microphone sound best.
This is where it gets more philosophical.
The singer.
Exactly.
Yeah. Wait, wait a spoil it, Robert.
He looks like.
(37:51):
No, it's absolutely the performance.
Like, I as an engineer, I was taught veryearly on, like, mediocre engineering.
Can't ruin a fantastic performance.
Like, if you listen to, the song War.
Yeah.
Oh, good God, yeah.
That tambourine is putting an ice
pick through your eardrumson any modern system.
And and Mazzy Stars fade into you is also,like, super bright and harsh and grimy,
(38:14):
and the songs and performanceswere incredible, and it didn't matter.
It's almost like that engineering becomespart of it.
I have a friend from New Yorkis, Jim Reeves.
He was doing all these recordsin New York in the 60s.
It gets into the 70s and,you know, modern equipment's coming out
and digital comes out.
So I meet him around the,the like the late 80s, 90s, and he's
(38:36):
talking about digital and he's like, oh,the kids, they want analog.
And I'm pretty surewhat they're all fascinated with
is the sound of a tape deckthat hasn't been aligned in three weeks.
Yeah, yeah.
Possible.
Well, I was going to say this.
The singerand the performance is king, obviously.
Yeah.
I was going to say the mic placement isactually has such.
(38:57):
I was justthat has a lot to do with it too.
Absolutely.
I think for voice over guys triple A.
So I think I think you know with singersyou can get a particularly like on
this mic.
I can go to a wide
cardioid on the on the V 14and I can get away with a lot of things.
But like a lot of you guysuse four sixteens
because the whole Ernie Anderson thingbecause you move a centimeter.
41 six, thank you very much.
(39:18):
I know that's. Right.
41 six apologies.
But it's the proximitythat it's it's not just like placement
but it's like techniqueand how to play the mic.
Well.
And voiceover guys have to do thatso carefully on a 416 that I think
they get really good at it.
Yeah, yeah.
Well they I suck at it too.
I ever play. Exactly.
Yeah I've seen Mike placementbecause they had somebody sitting up here
(39:41):
and then they sometimesit's pointing down like this off chest.
Yeah. Like that sounds terrible.
I've seen a guy point the mic upand up above his head like this.
No no no.
Placement is extremely,extremely on target.
Placement. So important.
And I mean, I tell peopleall the time, they put up a mic
and they've got the capsulepointing at their nose.
(40:01):
I'm like, oh, that's why
part of why your take sounds nasally,like my voice is super nasally by nature.
But if I'm.
250 to 500 or something like that.
Yeah, if I'm doing this, I'msuddenly hearing a lot more of my know it.
My nose. Yeah.
As opposed to this, which is my chestin my throat. My God forbid,
you're doing a rap performanceand they have their hand like this.
Oh. They.
(40:23):
And right.
It makes sure it makes your mike an omni.
Like if you go around the fence.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I tell you what's really what'sinteresting is using this microphone.
What is this?
The Austrian audio,CC eight. It's a pain.
Okay.
Yeah, it's it's got ACK1 stylecapsule in it.
You've got to be really careful
with this thing.
(40:44):
They're sensitive about it.
Well, it's it's all. About where you. Are.
And it captures points to the front two.Right.
It's not all the captions
like it's not right down in the barrellike a 41 six or something.
But I had a quick question.
I wanted to take you backa couple of minutes ago.
You were talking about EQ inside the mic.
Yeah.
When you if if you're designing a mic thenand you and you're setting up that EQ,
(41:06):
are you trying to get rid of nuancesyou don't want there?
Or if you got a specific sound for thatmic in mind, is it a combination of both?
How how do you make decisionson how you're going to echo.
Or you just trying to flattenthe curve out?
It's not necessarilya flat curve is not necessarily
what you want out of a microphone.
Go look at a 251 curve.
It is the un flattest thing.
(41:28):
They roll it offat like 300Hz on the early ones.
Because that transformer was so tinythat they didn't want a saturated
low frequency saturate transformers.
So they had this little T14 transformerin there
and, they rolled it offartificially on the 251.
But it's one of the bestvocal mikes of all time.
And it's not a flat like at all. Right.
Like what it's more about to answeryour question rather, is, I think that
(41:52):
for me, it's more of a flow thing.
I will take four of a prototypeinto a studio
and put it up against the bestmics that they have on a real session,
and I will have one component positionor one capsule
voicing or whatever, just one variablein that, slightly different.
And then I go, okay,I like this one the best and here's why
I like itthe best on this variety of sources.
Or maybe it's just a vocalor just drums that day or whatever,
(42:15):
but it gives mean idea of where to go next.
And it's it's sort of building the plane.
As you fly, you start with a good capsulethat's really important.
And we've we've gotten a good capsuleand we're really happy with it.
But then from there
you have to makeall these micro adjustments,
and some of those thingsare making a 1 or 2% difference.
But it's like compound interest, right?
If I make 20 changesthat make a 2% difference.
(42:35):
I'm it's I'm, it's the baby of EQ
when you're mastering and then youpop the EQ out and you're like, Holy cow.
But I only did a few.
Yeah, bunch of one DB changes.
And I did a LinkedIn post on thatthe other day.
A good mix isn't about handfulsof of one thing.
It's about lots of minute changes.
That's that's yeah, it's subtlety.
(42:56):
Right. And totally.
And some of that is likefor instance on on the V 14,
we like to mix because they have totalharmonic distortion if you tune it to mic
that like to a perfect, to a perfect bias with a really good tube,
a lot of the timeit sounds like a fat mic,
and that's not what we wantout of a two mic. We want that.
We want that thingthat's imperfect, right?
(43:16):
Like,yeah, you've heard the. Using a particular
it's the second harmonic distortionthat tubes tend to distort.
Even harmonics.Yeah. Yeah. Even order harmonics.
And that's a really importantdistinction.
You're absolutely right.
Guitarists are really about that.
So when you're trying that mic over
multiple sources, are you favoring the micthat sounds the best overall?
Many different sources.
In general,when you're designing your mics.
(43:38):
I try and I try and favor it that way.
I end up leaning that way because of,you know, being a poor audio engineer
and not being able.
I was in college in America.
I was in enough debt. Right.
So I had to, either pick a $99 micI had to beat to death with in the mix
to get any use out of or, you know, spendfive grand, sell a kidney, what have you.
(43:59):
And I didn't really, you know, I,I went with the cheap option.
Right.
And so, for me having a micthat's versatile, having a mic
that was versatile was really importantwhen I was in engineering.
And I think that's kind of translatedin some ways to the way I designed you.
I don't I don't think peoplerealize, but when we started
any large diaphragm mic was like $1,000.
(44:22):
You couldn't turn. More. Yeah.
And it wasn't until China pops out with,
I think Marshall or whoever,like the 979 factory.
A797, eight seven state run factory.
That's why it's got a number.It's a state. Factory.
And all of a suddenthey're just banging out
these hundred dollar mikesthat were noisier.
But man, they were so like,
they had all the characteristics of aof a large diaphragm like, well, and.
(44:45):
Other people were goinglike they were coming from an SM 58.
Yeah.
If you come to it from an S,I'm 58 to the shittiest.
Am I allowed to sway on this? Yes.
Every time that possible as possible.
Mql you know like early 90s. It makes.
Sense. Destroys it. Yeah. Yeah.
That has a fingerprint or whatever on it.
It still sounds way better at firstbecause you've got so much more high
(45:08):
frequency content, so much more transientdetail from a high dynamic.
Can't do what a condenserdoes. It's just too much mass.
It was it was like thethe eight moment of microphones.
Yeah, yeah, in a lot of ways.
And I mean, I rememberpeople would buy ten of those mics.
They picked the one they liked the best
because they all soundedremarkably different.
They were they were using a drill pressand a template to do the capsule
(45:29):
back platesearly on before they got CNC machining.
They were doing it by hand.
So they were vastly and like a fractionof a millimeter makes a huge difference.
So, yeah, vastly different.
That's the Elise is a dot, not the Mach-E.
Just if you're.
Yes, it was the Mackie eight bucks.
Plus the Elise is a that a sudden gaveeverybody a 24 track studio.
(45:51):
Exactly. Yeah.
It was like what just destroyedthe studio market.
Would you like to hear my favorite storyabout the eight app from somebody
who worked at Elisa's at the time?
Oh yeah.
So they were hyping upthe eight at before Nam.
They were like,this is going to be a big deal.
It's going to revolutionize music.
It's going to make it more accessible,yada yada.
And at the show,they could not get this machine to work.
Well, no,they were panicking. For a while.
(46:13):
So what they did is they had them come inand they had a tape machine
behind the curtain rolling tape,and the buttons
on the front of the machine were wiredup to the tape machine like.
Oh my God, I can't go back.
And this is from somebodywho worked at AKG, mind you,
(46:33):
like, this is a this is a primary sourcethat was there for this.
They back then Nam was like the wayyou got gear out, right?
This was pre-Internet
and they were like,oh God, if this isn't working at the show,
like all our workthis year has been for nothing.
So they made a marketing decisionthat sounds just like tape.
Guys. It is.
And it did not.
(46:54):
But hey.
Yeah, and here's a. Really funny one.
Not even kidding, that is. But insane.
That is insane.
I was I was at a studioI worked at, had big socketed,
Journal X, and they were having a problemwith one of the speakers.
And so they had the speaker outfor like a week, and supposedly
(47:15):
they got the speaker back in,but they played this practical joke on me.
And so they walked in there like,
we got the speaker back,but it's not sounding the same.
And they had two tracks in ProTools,one on the left, one on the right.
Looks like the same audio file.
And they're like, look, I play this oneand it sounds like this,
and I play that oneand it sounds like that.
And I was like, yeah, that is different.What's going on?
And I at some point I go in, I'm like,let me sit at ProTools.
(47:35):
That can't be.
And I started hitting play and I'mtrying to figure out what's going on.
And I start to notice that, like,I think ProTools is delayed or something.
And right at that point when I'm like,I think there's something wrong
with ProTools here, the assistant engineerpops out of the soffit.
(47:57):
That's pretty good.
But he was following my playbackslike pretty close because I just didn't
catch it.
Yeah, every I'd hit play, I'd be like,this is the right miking.
And then you start saying, I'm.
Never gonna give you up.
I'll let you down.
Oh. Man.
What are the microphone questions thatare more accessible to to your audience?
(48:19):
I've got because me and me and Robertcould probably nerd out this entire.
Yeah.
Not probably.
You are.
I want to I just want to step you back.
Just back to to the mic creation thingagain, because it's got me fascinated.
So, and, and I'm interested to knowthen if you're putting 3
or 4 mikes up in a roomand listening to each one,
(48:43):
are you as a sourcefor those when you're listening to them?
Are you using something that you imaginethat that might will be used
for, like hat like,
what are you using as a source to listento, to make these decisions?
Well, a lot of the time.
So like when we're doing development for,you know, days at a time,
I'll be in the studiowith one guitar and one voice
(49:03):
and be working with that,and it's my voice and my guitar.
So you can imagineI don't ever release those tracks.
Okay.
But, but, then I take it into studiosfor real world use, and it's, you know,
when I was living in L.A., I'd be like,okay, my buddy
Cesar is having this big sessionwith this big artist,
and I just going to take it inand see if I can throw it up
(49:25):
on that session on whatever. Right.
Because he's doing the set upwell beforehand.
So it might be on the drum overheads
that time around,and then it might be guitar amps.
And other times it's like carrying it.Around all different places. Yeah.
And that gives you a much better,
I think overall picture of whatthe mic strengths and weaknesses are.
But to
I think it gives you a better overallpicture because different different piano
(49:46):
even like going between two pianos
you're going to get differentharmonic content, right?
So like, it's just to me,getting an overall picture is not just,
you know, it's not the person at Namleaning in and going, one, two, one, two.
Yeah,this sounds really good. Or jangling.
Is that. Means absolutely nothing. Right.
And you have to get and and it's funnynow when I hear my mike in a shootout,
(50:08):
a lot of the times, even having
never heard the instrument on its own,I can pick my mic out of the crowd
just because that sonic fingerprint,having listened to thousands of these,
has just permanently
embedded itself in my auditory cortexat this point.
Yeah.
And I can be like, that'sprobably the V 13 out of these four mikes.
And 90% of the time I'm right.
(50:30):
I always thinkit's like you have to get to know them.
And it's like, you can't just get to knowMike in one session.
You have to, play with itand use it in different situations,
get a feel for how they reactand it takes time.
I will say this
I know you don't like to compare mikesbecause they are really their own design
and they're unique, but I had a situationwhere we got to hear it.
I got to hear itin context alongside a you 67.
(50:52):
And David case plays case.
Yeah.
And I have to saythe V 13 was a hell of a good stand in.
When the 67 went out for service, it was.
67 is a little darker.
And the V 13 definitelyhas the top end roll off.
I don't like a strident mike.
And once again, that's the Mikephilosophy, the Mike designer's
(51:14):
philosophy about sound like Dave Royerthe the Mojave.
Mike's designs are great mikes.They're also way too bright for me.
Right. And people love the Mojave.That doesn't mean they're bad. Mike's.
It just means that Dave has an ideaabout what audio is.
That's different
Well, that was fun.
(51:35):
Is it over?
The audio. Sweet.
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Edited by Andrew Peters and mixed byBhutan Radio Imaging with tech support.
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(51:56):
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(00:01):
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Don't forget the code to try pip 200.
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audio making passion heard
roll intro.
I might not.
Now I might just leave you hanging there.
Yeah, yeah.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
(00:24):
Let's go.
Welcome. Hi. Hi. Hi.
Hello, everyone.
Audience. Audio.
These guys are professional and motivated.
Please text the real stars.
George with a founder of Source elements,Robert Marshall, international audio
engineer Robin Roberts.
And global voice Andrew Peters.
Thanks to tribal Austrian audio, lighting,passionate elements,
(00:45):
George the tech wisdom and robo and APIsinternational demos.
Find out more about us.
Check the Pro Audio Sweetcorn.
Line up later. Here we go. Now. Good. Me?
You. Now.
(01:10):
Yeah, now.
But before we get into the microphones,just give us a bit of background.
How did you, startproducing your own product?
Oh, I'll keep it as short as possible.
Like most people in the music industry,I think I fell, bass backwards into it
(01:34):
and have just been here ever since,you know, loved music all my life
was, you know, joined a band in juniorhigh with my friends, as one does.
But also, I've been a tinkererall my life, taking apart everything
electronic in the house,much to the chagrin of my parents.
Because not always didI know how to put it back together.
(01:54):
That's how you practice, right?
So, those two things kind of joinedwhen I was in the band instead of,
you know, like,getting better at my instrument.
The guitarist had these pedalsthat did cool things, and I was like, oh,
I wish I could do that with my bass.
So, there weren't a lot of basspedals back then.
So I ended up working, with,just kind of learning
how to modify guitar pedals for bassfrequencies.
(02:15):
And then I went to school for music,and I was like, oh, everybody here is
better at this than I am.
But I got into engineering.
And then while I was doing that,I was fixing people's gear
and upgrading their gear and modifyingtheir guitars and things of that nature.
And had to get an internship to get out
of, school with a degree and didn'twant to scrub toilets in a studio.
(02:36):
So I. Did that. Yeah.
I mean, so did a lot of people in my,in my graduating class,
and I'm like, boy, I'mglad I didn't have to be the coffee go.
First thing you do is realizeyou shouldn't be doing that event.
Mean earlier you do that to better.
I think that's illegal now.
But back in the 90s,that was all the rage.
Just to make make all the.
Yeah, they would you go to collegeto clean the toilet?
(02:58):
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. So.
And let me pee all over it firstbefore you go.
It's all just for a while. Like, yeah.
It was on a great day.
Like, I think studios have more disgustingbathrooms and gas stations.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah.Especially depending on their clientele.
Yes. You know, but I,
I, ended up interning at a microphonecompany,
(03:19):
called Avante Electronicswhen Kana Font owned it.
He no longer does.That's a whole other story.
And, worked there for 4
or 5 years as,I don't know, it was a small company.
We wore a lot of hats.I don't think I had a title.
I just did a lot of stuff. And,
janitor, you know, chief cook and bottlewasher, all that.
And so,
(03:41):
the defecation hit the oscillationat that particular company.
And, I had to then make a decision, andand I was, I was freelancing for a while
doing studio, upgrades and installsand fixing people's gear on the side.
And then Ken called me.
I was like, hey, I'd still like to startanother mic company.
Do you want to start it with me?
And so we started that.
(04:02):
And can it, you know, obviouslytaught me a lot about transducers
and how, more about the microphone sideof things that I was previously aware of.
And I've been doing this for 11or 12 years now and just keep
enjoying it for some reason, you know,and, and it's my way to contribute
to music and voice overand all these other things.
Because I wasn'tI was definitely not a great musician.
(04:24):
I didn't want to put in the 16 hoursa day of wood
chatting to catch up with my,you know, my peers in college.
And I was a good engineerand I had a good ear, but there were a lot
of people that did that, you know, and this just sort of stuck with me.
It it marries the mechanicaland the physical and the scientific
with the subjective and the artistic and, and why do we like the way that things
(04:46):
sound and, and, you know, it's notthat part is actually kind
of difficult to quantify.
And there's argument about it, but,it marries those two things.
And that's ever evolving quest ofhow do I make a tool
that makes an artist's job more
enjoyable and easierand gives them more creative expression?
And as long as I'm looking at mics thatway, I'm probably going to keep doing it.
(05:09):
Yeah.
Your journey sounds
well, I shouldn't say,but I'm thinking, Robert,
you had a similar kind of journey,didn't you?
Really?
Kind of a a what I wasI had an early experience
where I was in a band, and I was,
interning at a studio, in high school.
(05:29):
And actually, that was by by the timeI was still at that studio
in college, and the, I forget, I,
I wasn't kicked out of the band,but I wasn't in the band anymore.
And I began getting the distinct feelingthat I was in bands because I had hook ups
to get people recorded and,
and, and at some pointthe studio owner is just like,
you know, maybe you're a better producerthan you are the musician part of it.
(05:54):
Like, maybe that's your thing.
And kind of got me to kind of embracethat more instead of trying
to be the lead guitarist or whateverI was thinking I would be.
So yeah, a little bit like.Did you have long hair? Robert?
I did in college.
I thought.
Wow. Yeah, I can, I can see it,I can see, yeah, yeah.
David Lee Roth style was that.
No I wasn't, it wasn't filled up.
(06:14):
It was more, more, more hippie like.
Yeah. I was going to sayyou would have been a page boy.
You didn't look like a yacht rockkind of dude from the 70s.
Maybe. Yeah.
It was just like a yobo.
I reckon they had just.
There's just a homeless guy. Yeah.
Is the guestallowed to ask a question of guys?
Is there a reason why Robert is speakingto us from the great beyond on video?
(06:38):
Oh. We came back here.
I want to go therebecause I'm in heaven. Yes.
Okay. Yeah. Is a. Nice.
It. You don't want to.
It's better down here or downwhere you are. Yeah.
He said he's he's at his dealers houseand he doesn't want him.
That's, That makes sense.
That's all cocaine back there? Yes.
Oh, yeah.You're on the side of low. Gotcha.
I mean, that's what it is.
(06:59):
Excuse me while I sneeze.
Yeah.
Thank God there's no wind in it.
That was his name in the 80s.
The cocaine back. That's right.Yes. That's right.
Yeah. So.
So, Derek, tell us,tell us a bit about your first ever Mike,
I'm interested to know if you look backnow because I look back at my first demo
and go, Holy crap,how did that ever get me a job?
(07:22):
How did that first Mike turn out?
You know, it's funnybecause Ken was very heavily
involved in the design process early onbecause he designed Mike's advent tone.
I was very lucky in that,you know, imagine if you if you go
if you go to make your first recordand you know, you're your engineer
and producer, you're at Abbey roadand you're producers, you know, you know,
(07:46):
or Lenoir and you'reand and your engineers, Steve Generac
or Al Schmidt, like, it'syou're gonna have a better time. Right?
So Ken was really good at this,and and so,
actually the v 13, that's not the oneI'm speaking into right now.
I don't have a v 13in my home office at the moment,
but it's a two microphone,a nine pattern, two microphone.
And it, has been wildly successful.
(08:08):
Actually, it's it'sconsistently our best seller.
And people love it because it punches wayabove its weight class.
They love it because it's versatile.
We try to walk this subjective linebetween, like,
some mikes are the bestmic in the world on a particular voice,
but only on that voicebecause they're so heavily, heavily,
heavily voiced and aggressively voiced,which is great.
(08:29):
And then some mics,like the AKG 414 will work on everything.
And if you record your entire recordwith that, it's
going to sound like vanilla cakewith mayonnaise frosting.
So there's like this, there's this linebetween like flattery and musicality
and like a more objective,like we want to capture or
capture things as they arethat you have to constantly ride.
And like the philosophy of different micdesigners will indicate where they ride
(08:52):
that line. Right?
So, people really like the V 13because it rides that line pretty well.
And quite frankly, you know, studiostoday are in a basements and bedrooms
and garages or, you know, in, in businessparks, they're not their own
massive built out thingswith 60 mics for a vocal locker.
(09:13):
So the mic that you choose to beyour main vocal mic,
it has to be affordable enough.
And then it also has to be versatileenough
that you don't need to get eight othermics that, that, that do something.
Maybe,maybe that can be your main vocal mic
and then you have a couple other onesas backups and then,
you know, but it ended up being greatfor drum overheads and great on guitar
amps and great on acoustic guitars andand great and voice over,
(09:36):
apparently because Scott Rummelwas using one for a long time.
So B13 is if I'm going to guess I'm
probably wrong here, but I guess is itkind of a C 12 style a little bit?
Actually, no.
One thing that we're really proud of
is that we don't really do,clones of anything,
and we're not really tryingto emulate anything.
So, I mean, there'sso many people doing that so well.
(09:58):
So I guess it doesn't look like
it has the classic grounding pinin the middle of it, like I.
And it looks like it's terminatedon the outside.
Like it is just terminated a capsule.
Yeah, but it's not actually a ck 12 capsule c k 12 from like the AKG, C12
like you talked about.
And they were also in the C 24, the 414,a couple other of their mics,
the original brass ones are legendaryfor how good they sound
(10:22):
and also legendaryfor how difficult they are to manufacture.
The fact that AKG was able to pump outany in like the 50s and 60s is a miracle,
because they're so complex.
It's this.
This has one chamber between the betweenthe two back plates.
The K 12 had four backplates and three chambers,
and all of those affectedthe sound along with this diaphragm
(10:43):
spacing, the diaphragm tension,the way it was all drilled together,
the way those chambers alignedwith each other, it was it's a nightmare
to manufacture to this day,and there's only a few people that do it.
So this mic has an actual K 12 stylecapsule in it.
This is more like an edge terminated K 67,but we do custom voice it
with a different, different diaphragmspacers, different diaphragm tensioning,
(11:04):
things like that because we want itto sound like our own mic.
So so the C 12thing is more about the chambers
in there and less about whereit's terminated, I guess possibly.
Yeah, that the center terminationis a Neumann thing.
I would largely argue,
because there's really onlyso many styles of capsule out there,
although there are companies coming outwith new and interesting
capsules like er, London,Audio-Technica and stuff like that.
(11:26):
My lab has their rectangular ones or.
That's right, I forgot about my lab.
I should have,I should have probably mentioned them
because I'm always interested in anybodythat's pushing the envelope. Right.
And Austrian audiodoes their own capsule.
That is it's ceramic based,which is genius because it gets rid of
some of the complications of manufacturingand maintaining condenser capsules.
Yeah.
And it's supposedly, C12 it's a derivative
(11:49):
or they, I think what are theycalled, the c k 12 or something.
Yeah. The K12. Yeah.
Yeah. Secret K 12. Isn't it secret.
Well yeah.
Well if anybody is doing it,it's the guys that were originally at AKG.
And I know
and like a lot of the guys that Austrianand talk to them on a regular basis
at Nam and stuff, they're good dudesand they're really, really bright fellas.
So supposedlywarm does a 414 brass capsule.
(12:13):
Mike.
But incorrect I,I was just leave it there.
Yeah.
I was wondering how accurate of a brass.Yeah.
You know, what they dois they mark it really well.
They do it you know. Yes I do.
It's funny because policeI do one the police I do the 414 but
is there's the c k 12or is it a version of it.
(12:34):
According to John,he just actually did a c k 12,
but before that it was an edgeterminated k six and seven.
Similar to this, I don't know.
I haven't seen the new k 12.
So the guys I know that are doing itproperly are been at business audio.
Open plan recording does oneand they're also Australian weirdly
although I don't really knowthe guys there.
Yeah they're not far from meactually. Two.
(12:54):
Yeah. They're okay.
An hour away from where I live.
I use the ones from Ben at Bee's knees.
Oh, I was going to ask.
I was going to askyou make your own capsule because, like
because because I know that they,distribute a lot of capsules, like,
that was kind of what he got intoeven more than making his bikes was,
I'm in this manufacturerand I'm in that manufacturer.
I imagine once you once you tool out tomake something like capsule, you make it.
(13:17):
On the DNC machine.
Well,you want to sell a lot of frickin capsules
right at that point,because it's not easy.
Ben is probablythe only guy that can master like Tim
Campbell makes great sequels,and almost all of them go to flea
because flea puts themin their microphones.
It's hard to get a hold of a TimCampbell sequel.
Or, you know, for any of us capsules.
(13:38):
There's a couple other guys that do it,and I, their names are escaping me.
So I apologize to to those fellas, but,I really like Ben's
because he can pump them out really quick.
He can match them really wellbecause we put them in our in our high end
stereo mic as well of the 24and the front and the backs.
And like all four diaphragmshave to be matched
within like 1 or 2 of our odds of eachother for it to sound the same.
(14:00):
Right? And for it to be a.
Proper like figure eightthat's equal on both sides.
And then you can do it correctlyand properly and all that. Yeah.
Before you even get to how you'repolarizing it and how you're treating it
within the circuit, the capsulehas to be constructed really, really well.
And even then, you know, like, it'sso easy for them to come out of alignment
from various and, and,you know, if one screw comes loose, it
(14:21):
messes up the whole diaphragm tensionbecause they're not glued to the ring.
Right? So, it's like a drumhead.
You know, so there are some capsules that,like our capsule,
it's actually glued to the ringwhen it's manufactured
so that I could, in theory, take apartthe capsule, put it back together
in a clean room because you don't wantany dust in there whatsoever,
and it would still sound the same.
(14:42):
Whereas with a k 12, you.
So. Yeah.
Yeah. Why?
What's the difference? There's.
Because I've got a 414 EB. Yeah.
Yes. It's got a 93 ring to it.
But it's got the nylon capsule.
Yeah. At here.
Hang on, I've got one on my desk
because I repair mics fora living and I can show you.
We might be calling you.
(15:02):
I have some. Oh.
Where where are you located?
Actually, Derek might have an inside lineon getting some mics fixed for you
there, Robert.
Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah.
You guys want to talk offline?
Oh that's fine.
I've got, I've got, m 49 to use 67 sitting in a box over here.
I've got, I've got at any timeI've got like 20 or 30
(15:25):
grand worth of vintagemic sitting that aren't working.
So this is the one you're talking about.This are Teflon first.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So, when AKG was making that original K
12, brass capsule,it was incredibly complicated.
Ingenious designs,super difficult to manufacture.
They were thrown away
about half the capsulesthey built with a standard wooden RCA.
So what they did is
they came out with somethingthat was much simpler to manufacture.
(15:49):
It does not have the complex back plates.
In fact,you can see inside it's all plastic.
And they have a little screen
in there as the acoustic resistancein between the two capsules
and then the back plate itself.
I don't know if I have a backplate in here.
Gotcha.
I'll show you right now because I've gotI've got this whole thing apart
so I don't have. A whole thing. Right?
Yes, yes. Here's the diaphragm. Right.
(16:10):
This is one with a hole in it.
Speaking of broken diaphragms,you can see why this one had to come out.
So, so so what happens with that one isthat it's short set with someone's breath.
Because of the hole, right?
Yes. Or it shorts out alreadyright against the back of the diaphragm
because it's a capacitor. Right.
So you have to have a charge statebetween the.
Two of them and it just attracts. Yeah.
And if electrons are nothey have a short over to the other side.
(16:31):
Then you no longerhave a charge state on them.
I don't have a back plate in this boxoddly enough, but yeah.
Back plates.
This is a newer this is the egg,the Teflon capsule that has the newer.
You can see those holes in the backfor the resistance.
Back plates generally look like that.
I wish I had grabbed the.
So I've seen some of the back back plates
that have like holesall the way through them.
Like all over the place. Yeah.
(16:52):
And then some just have and that's, that'sto let the acoustic pressure go through.
Right.That's the purpose of those holes. Yes.
There is through holesand there's blind holes.
Blind hole.
And they both serve similar purposesin some way.
But blind holes are like act like dampersbecause if you had no blind holes
and this was tuned to 1000Hzand somebody sings 1000Hz
(17:13):
into it, it's going to ring just like alike a tom, right?
Like a for Tom. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So those blind holes, what they do isthey are an acoustic damping factor
that prevent itfrom resonating at its frequency.
So then across the spectrumyou get, in theory even sound,
although, you know, because it's nothing'sperfect and there's physics at play.
That'swhy there's so many different capsules
(17:34):
that sound so many different ways.
They sound like our ears.
So quick, quick add moment.
But therefore a small diaphragm microphonehas a much higher resonant frequency,
and that makes it better to tuneand flatter across the audible spectrum.
Not necessarily because it's by tension.
Right.
Part of the reason why they are,
there's less mass,so there's less to work with there.
(17:57):
And then I did a video on thisand I won't get super deep into it,
but off axis response tendsto be much better on small diaphragms.
Because.
Of the way that it interpretssound as a pressure microphone.
And,and I did a video on this on Instagram.
I'm not going to explain it to you guys.
I think if your audience hasn'tbored to tears yet, I might not.
(18:18):
Some of them might start.
I can already tell you for now,this the the three hours that we have
will not be enough. But that's
what's so to answer.
Andrew. Right. Andrew.
Zap it.
To answer your original question,
they went to the Teflon capsulesbecause they're easier
to mass manufacture,but they don't sound nearly as good.
Now, the EBS were the last ones to use thebrass capsules, but not all of them did.
(18:40):
That said, I greatly prefer the EP 48,which was the one after it.
To the EB.
Circuit wise, it's a much bettercircuit, has quieter,
it has better output, less self noise, higher, spoils before distortion.
But people like the EBS because they werethe last one to use the brass capsule.
If you take a knees brass capsuleand put it in an EB, which I've done for 3
(19:02):
or 4 clientsnow, they sound extraordinary.
They sound so good.
I've got my abs a p 48.
How do you tell the difference between Oand EB 48?
An E? Well, it's whack for one. Yeah.
So it is.
Okay so the so the brass ones are silverand the P40 eight is gotcha.
But some of the, some of the silver oneshad the Teflon capsules too.
(19:25):
That's when they changed over. Yeah.
But you can tell a Teflon capsule justby looking straight into it because yeah.
I mean I mean a brass capsule looks like.
Yeah. You see. Yeah. Yeah.
I wish I had one sitting on my desk,but you can see it right through.
And you'll see the Teflon when it lookswhite like this on the inside,
all you gotta do is shinea light through the back of it.
And if you see, I just dropped this one.
(19:45):
Not that it matters, because. That it's.
Very broken. Yes.
Yeah,I think it had more problems before that.
But, you can actually see this littlelike crinkly material
that they use for the spacerbecause you can actually unscrew this.
This is two halves, believe it or not.
You can see that's that crinkly material.
And you can see that on some of them,on the older.
Ones you can probably see mine.
(20:06):
Can you see it's white.
Yeah.
Yeah I believe it is also the
you'll see screws on the brasslike you see the ring on this.
Yeah. They just pressure fit this.
So there's no screws on this oneand on this one.
And I'm just going to move this onebecause. This is a.
Make this sound right.
So this is a brass capsule cage.
This is a. Brass K 12.You can see the screws on the right.
(20:26):
Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
So that's like that's like a $3,000 Mike or something.
What is that. This is a $5,000 Mike Jesus.
This is athis is and I'm not even talking into it.
Here's me talking into it right now.Let me change over.
Can you guys hear me? Okay. Yep.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
I was turned sideways,so you probably hear me very well at all.
This one has three voicings on it.
So it has a ribbon mode,a c 12 mode and a 251 mode.
(20:48):
Oh. Can hear the
oh yeah.
Sure you're going to hear a pop.
So that's a lot to fix that in post.
Right now I want to make one.
Condenser mike sound like a ribbon.
A lot of it is just voicing right.
It's selective EQ ING with
with different functionswithin the actual audio circuit.
But now we're in ribbon mode,and I've currently got
the voltage pushed all the way up,and it's in hyper cardioid.
(21:10):
So let me throw in figure eight.So it's actually even more like a ribbon.
Wow. Even over with me.
We can really hear that.
Oh, I can totally hear the difference overGoogle me.
Yeah. Nine polar.
I wish I wish I hadn't taken apartmy entire desk right before this
because my interface was misbehaving.
Oh, and you're hearing methrow a focus right to it, too.
There's nothing.
So the V 14 is the C12one that you're on right now.
(21:31):
Yes, it's. The K 12.
So this has the polar patternsand it also has a tube voltage control.
So right now I'm overdriving the tubeon this microphone.
But I can also sag it back and it'sgoing to sound completely different.
You're also going to lose several decibelsas I say I get back.
But let's let it stabilize.
And I'mgoing to punch this up a little bit,
and now it's going to soundlike a different microphone.
(21:54):
My, because of the way.
Yeah. So I gottaI gotta punch that back up.
I'm going to dial it back. There we go.
Dial it back to a more reasonable level.
This is split personality microphone.
It sounds.
It's. About as analog modeling microphoneas you can get.
So I'll say it.
But I don't think anybody has that abilitylike now.
(22:14):
Like I've got to sag the voltageor overdrive the voltage.
Right on the microphone itself.
I've got a provisional patent on thatbecause it's going to go in our V 13
eventually as well.
So yeah.
This is the sort of mad scientist stuff.
I mean, you can see this is my little madscientist desk because.
This. Is much bigger.
It's going to comment on the background.Yeah.
Yeah,that's that's why I do my mic repairs.
(22:35):
I've got a national Panasonic M7 38open on the desk right now.
So which is their version of a SonyC 37 fat, Okay. Wow.
Panasonic made microphones for a while.
Believe it or not,that's. Bizarre that I live in either.
And then I.
Switch back to the other microphoneso you guys can actually.
How do you keepall those numbers in your head?
Because I I'll be honest with you.
(22:55):
I mean, like my models and stuff,I'm useless.
Seriously, hold all those numbersand, you know, models and stuff.
And. All that stuff.
Yeah,I think I straight up I'm on the spectrum.
I wouldn't be terribly surprised.
But also like, you like what you focuson, right?
Like, if you're into fantasy football,you can name, like,
the third string quarterbackfor every team in the NFL.
(23:17):
Yeah.
Any concertI can name all the mikes on the drum
set and everything like, oh, that's aI know, D4 21, right?
Yeah.
It's just it's just how I roll.And that's what I'm into.
So, you know.
My brother's an airline pilotsI suppose it's similar.
It's the same.
So yeah, it's justyou know, human brain is a powerful thing.
You just have to focus its attentionon things.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now, talking of diaphragms,what about the M7?
(23:39):
I have an M7 capsule.
Let's talk about protected sex.
Oh, sorry.
And with mylar or the.
Yeah,I think Rob. So the M7. Conversation.
Anyway, go. Yeah. It's kind of the you.
Right.
The most brutal. In the groove. Yeah.
They said that but can't get pregnant.
(24:02):
Anyway, so.
The M7 was the predecessorin many ways to the K
47 which is in the year 47 in fact.
And somebody is going to correct meon this.
My Neumann history isn't good.
So if I'm wrong, somebody in the commentson undoubtedly tell. Me actually.
Then I feel like some of theyou 40 sevens actually had him sevens
and they did initially.They absolutely did. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
(24:23):
Now the M7 was very tough,
even more difficult manufacturerin some ways than the than the K12
because of the waythe diaphragm was glued on.
And also they were using polyvinylchloride, using PVC for the diaphragm.
That's instead ofit would disintegrate, right.
It would disintegrate.
That's correct.
In fact I wish I had it available.
I have an M7 here right nowthat looks like it's been hit by a gun.
(24:46):
And M7 capsulewas just completely exploded.
It looks like the alien babyfrom the movie came out.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know what somebody did to it,but it's getting re scan.
Not by me.
I drink too much coffee for re scans.
Although I am eventually going to learn,
I promised myselfI just, I just haven't done it yet,
so I'm going to send it down to DaveWillard Heisman, who does re scans for me.
(25:06):
And, Dave Pearlman in LA also does there's theater in Europe that does but,
yeah, the M7 has a very
similar hole backplate design to the, to AK 47.
It's actually a single back plate.
Whereas with the K 67they actually do two back plates
because it's easier to match the two.
The two are the two sides.
I suppose because of the voltage
(25:27):
increase on the two might compare to the U87 that needed a lower voltage.
No, actually the the K 47 and the K
67 can handle similar polarizationvoltages before collapse.
I think it's more to dowith ease of manufacturing.
So the K 40.
Does that difference in space causean issue in figure eight with phase? No.
(25:48):
It doesn't.
Know.
I mean, I'm in figureeight on this other mic right here.
So let me turn it back up real quick.
And this is, this is two back plates,a k 12 style
capsule has two back plates on it.
And I'm talking to the front right now.
Now I'm talking to the side and I got you.
You can. Barely hear. I swear to God,I swear to God.
Ribbon makes no out to zero. And the.
(26:10):
And the dualdiaphragm condenser is on the side.
Don't quite know out like a ribbon does.
I think it's possiblethat there is a slight change in that,
but I think for the effectof what you're actually looking for in,
in, in actual real world
usage that no, you're talkingfrom going from like,
(26:32):
let's say I'm peaking at minusten to now, I'm peaking at -65.
Yeah. It's negligible.
It's effectively nothing.
Well, the only.
Reason we could hear you just
then when you did your side test,was to see the reverberation itself.
Also down here.
Only hearing your voice bouncingoff the wall the mike was pointing. At.
But that would direct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, so there's.
A couple other things at play.
(26:52):
If so,because we tune this very carefully.
So that the back plate voltage is exactlyhalf of the rear diaphragm voltage
because the front diaphragm is grounded.
Right.
So you were talking about balance powerearlier and it's kind of the same thing.
Right.
So basically
what's happening is the back platescharge to let's say 50V to make it easy.
The front diaphragm is grounded.
So now we have a 50 volt
potential between the front diaphragmand the back plate 50 -0.
(27:14):
Now if we put the real one at 100Vit's 50 -100.
So it's -50.
-50 potential between the rear diaphragmin the back plate.
And so when I talk into the front, it'sproducing, sine wave.
And when I talking to the rear, it'sproducing a cosine.
And when you go to the side, then it goes.
Cancels out saying plus cosineis. Exactly.
(27:34):
Yeah, exactly.You remember math class. Not ever.
But it is a. Little bit to makes sense.Yeah.
Yeah okay. Yeah. Yeah.
So that that's one way to polarize.
Not that'snot every capital polarization scheme.
That's the one that we useon all our microphones.
But I think it's probably the cleverest.
But there are other ways to do it.
I mean, you could peel this onion downas much as you wanted.
(27:55):
And we could get so nerdy here.
But I hope I'm hope.
Like I said, I hope you're audio juice.
Did you do a diaphragmwhere actually you do a single diaphragm,
and then you put the charge plate.
On the outside. On the. Outside?
Yeah. Yes.And there are mics that do that.
Yeah.
There are mics for the diaphragmsin between two charge plates.
(28:16):
But then you're.
But then you're literally singingthrough those holes and you get the.
Not necessarily a problem,believe it or not.
Yeah.
Not necessarily a problem,but there are mics
where there's a suspendeddiaphragm between two, two back plates.
Yeah,they come with their own sets of problems.
I've never designed one.I don't even think I've worked on one.
And I'm kind of gladbecause they're complicated.
(28:37):
But, you know, never say never.
Let me ask you something.
About what is importantabout a mic design.
Now, this may seem terribly obvious,but it may not be what is the most.
And like if you're lookingat the main components of a microphone,
what influences
the sound that the actor of the performeris going to hear the most?
Is it the capsule, the electronics,or is the tube or what is?
(28:59):
Yeah.
Because I've understoodthis whole interview.
I thinkthat like tube mikes for a long time
I was like YouTube make tube to make.
And it's like tubes don't make as bigof a difference as transformers.
I think.
And the capsules are a lot of the voicing.
The capsules are 90% of it, honestly,like I can the way I look at that.
(29:20):
So we use the same capsule in our V 13R v for
and because of thatyou can tell their siblings, right?
It's like when you look at two peopleand you're like,
you definitely came from the same parents.
The capsule I think has sucha strong influence on on the voicing.
Now, there are things you can doin the circuit that change that.
The most obvious being actual passiveEQ moves, like,
(29:41):
like roll offsand, and, inductive tertiary loops.
And what those people are doingis changing out
circuit to try to influencethe voicing of the mic in some way.
Sometimes, sometimes they replacing the full capsule.
If it's a crummy capsule, you know,
that's the single biggest thingyou can do.
I liken itto, like, making a steak. Right.
Apologies to any vegans and vegetariansin the audience.
(30:04):
I don't eat beef anymore myself,so I understand.
But if you're making a steakand you start out with, like, skirt
meat, right, you can make a Kearney asada,but God help you
if you're trying to make, like a rib eye,you know,
I mean, gotta get the right cut.
I mean, been the bee's kneeskind of explain that to me
because it, like, long ago,
I had them take some Mike'sand I gave him some Chinese Mike's, too.
And this was
when he was starting out, like,I think at this point, like 15 years ago.
(30:27):
And I was like,I want to basically like a nice two
mike out of this Chinese Mike,just change the circuit.
And he's like, know me.
Like I'm doing the whole Mike.
Like the only thingthat's going to survive is the body.
Yeah. You're basicallyyou're just using the chassis. Right.
And like the.
And Ben wins his own toroidal transformerswith glass laminations
(30:47):
and all this crazy stuff.
I don't get that deep.
But, he probably he he'd probably be.
You know, if you really want a super nerdguest, he would put me to shame.
In terms of Mike, you know,with the capsule design itself, but so.
So the capsule itself is the number onething that influences the tone.
The next thing down the list would be.
What transformer, I think.
Oh, I disagree on that, actually.
(31:08):
Ooh, the transformer is size.
Transformer size. Yes.
It's not the size of the transformer. It'show you use it.
Fight fight fight fight.
So the transformer transformer.
Can be depending on the wayit's hit by the amplifying,
by the actual act of electronics, the tubeor the FET.
Right. Okay.
I would say that the most important thing
(31:30):
after that is what the capsule goes into.
And it's it's an impedance converter.Right.
Capsule impedance is super crazy highlike giga ohms.
We're talking. Right.
So when it gets when it hits the FET,the FET reduces it
to a more manageable impedance, usuallyin the thousands of arms or the tube.
And then the transformer does even moreso a lot of the time, although not all is.
It depends on the mic.
(31:50):
So what it's hittingnext is the Japhet or the tube.
And I think that probably has
the second biggest influence because thatsignal is unadulterated at that point.
Then I probably gowith any signal path capacitors
at a certain level,a lot of cheaper bikes are using super
cheap signal path capacitors,and they can introduce distortion
(32:12):
and depending on the mic design.
I will credit Robert here that theTransformers probably next on that list
if the capacitors are already good,or if the signal path capacitors
don't mean anythingto the audio in particular, but you have
that minimum, you have onewhich is decoupling the power
from the tube,to the transformer in like a C12.
(32:33):
So for your mic designs, transformersare a part of all your my designs.
No, this is a transformer less.
Yeah.
I was like, actually, I was going to saybecause there's two mics
that I can think of like,the, the 414 TL two,
which is transformer less, I believe thatI believe is a standout Mike.
And whatever they didand the other AKG mic which is like
(32:54):
I wish I still had it got stolen,but I had a 460 B with AK1 capsule.
Okay, that's transformer loss.
And that fucking mic was greatand I don't know what it is about it.
So not there as a mic.
Like I think the Transformers.
Style two is they're very much more onlike the flatter
like like 450 onesand four 60s were very much like that.
(33:15):
Also the 451 two this is from a 451 B ULS
and this is from a TR2that were made at the same time.
Oh I should flip this around. Noticehow different those are.
Yeah. In the middle. Yeah. Yeah.
So they were actually using which oneis the teal to the telltale to okay.
It's a different back plate.
It's a different acousticresistance piece that's more complex.
(33:37):
That's actually a lot more likethe original K 12.
So back to the diaphragm being the hinge.
To the capsulebeing the most important thing
because Ulf is in tattoos now.
The tattoos, there's also other reasons.
Like you said, there's no transformer.
But the capsule is different in a tattoothan it is in the US.
(33:57):
And most peopledon't realize that it didn't work.
I never knew that. Actually,most people don't.
There's thethis is, the only or triple O9.
This is the Z0005 capsules from AKG.
And then really the only. Differencesmaller is what is it?
Because it looks like there's.
This is just a piece of screen fine mesh.
And that's the acoustic resistance.
And this is an actual resistancenetwork made of brass I see.
(34:19):
Oh well yeah.
Yep. Do you, what did you ever work on?
Microtech.
AFL and I haven't yet actually, believe itor not, NFTs or Microtech waffles.
No, I haven't, but,I mean, I can I've done.
I have somebody that's supposed to send mea pair of, 70s from Microtech depot.
They just have it. It's dealingwith musicians.
Andrew, what's all that you have?You have a really good sounding one. I've.
(34:40):
I've got two of them.
I've got the,M 92.1 s, which is, got the,
the F-86 chip and the M7 capsule,
and I've got m 930,which is Transformers, but it was just
one of the, the, the 80 they producedfor the 80th anniversary of Norman.
(35:02):
No. Wow.
That's cool.
So the other one is kind of a it'skind of a
you 67 ish thing,but then it's got the M7 capsule.
And so the K 67 is based.
On the 57 I think it was it even 57
that was built back in the late 50s,probably as what was called the. 57.
Yeah,the 57 was kind of a, transitional model.
Between the 67 and
(35:23):
the eight or between the 47 and the 67.
Maybe because models. Were no more.
Particularfor that had the two Norman factories.
So you had the original air factory leftBerlin, went to GFL during the war.
Then George went back to Berlinwith Neumann.
But they can't because of the wall.
Cups. In East Germany.
(35:45):
Microtech AFL,which wasn't called magnetic.
So back then it was some other name,but it eventually became Microtech.
AFL was actually stillthe original Neumann,
and they still produced the M7 capsule
on the original plant on the recently.
Oh, all the way.
Also, it's still the 50s after after theyeah western.
So yeah.
If you find telephone can brandedyou 40 sevens and stuff.
(36:07):
That's because telephonecan never actually made a mike AKG a
Raymond made all their mics for it. Yeah.
So you know a telephone can even now tothis day is just a name that's warranted.
And but I mean, one guy I know, it'sjust come to work in television.
Yeah, yeah.
And there was a he sent me a telephone TVwhile he's in Malaysia.
And you can get a telephone,can vacuum cleaner, a toaster in Israel.
(36:28):
They tell likeit was kind of like RadioShack in a way.
Yeah. Pretty much.
Yeah, yeah.
But the mics, you know what I mean?I mean, I.
I had RadioShackmikes that were made by sure.
That's, you know, the theother really interesting thing is like,
really earlymicrophones were made by Westinghouse.
Yes. Well, Westinghouse was the firstmakers of a condenser, along with, yeah.
(36:48):
Or was ityou get a washing machine house or RCA.
So if, you know.
I believe it was just as Westinghouse.Yeah.
Like it was a giant box RCA.
Like there's a national Panasonic.
Like I said,
I didn't know Panasonic made microphonesuntil this guy was like the Sony.
Get into it.
Sony was early, but I don't know.
I don't know, to be honest with you.
But they were they makethey still make some good ones, you know.
(37:10):
Oh they definitely I think yeah.
Yeah I think they got into it in the 60sbecause I saw a really early,
pretty shitty Love Boat, so.
Well they made some, they made some goodto make some of those early Sony.
Oh yeah. To see 37is are pretty incredible.
And I want to go back to.
414 like Sony.
Mike I think it was a 48.
But it was also pretty decent.
(37:31):
I forget the they.
Have they had some cool esoteric models.
George,I want to go back to your question,
because I do think there'ssomething important
that I want to mention that I forgot aboutwhat makes a microphone sound best.
This is where it gets more philosophical.
The singer.
Exactly.
Yeah. Wait, wait a spoil it, Robert.
He looks like.
(37:51):
No, it's absolutely the performance.
Like, I as an engineer, I was taught veryearly on, like, mediocre engineering.
Can't ruin a fantastic performance.
Like, if you listen to, the song War.
Yeah.
Oh, good God, yeah.
That tambourine is putting an ice
pick through your eardrumson any modern system.
And and Mazzy Stars fade into you is also,like, super bright and harsh and grimy,
(38:14):
and the songs and performanceswere incredible, and it didn't matter.
It's almost like that engineering becomespart of it.
I have a friend from New Yorkis, Jim Reeves.
He was doing all these recordsin New York in the 60s.
It gets into the 70s and,you know, modern equipment's coming out
and digital comes out.
So I meet him around the,the like the late 80s, 90s, and he's
(38:36):
talking about digital and he's like, oh,the kids, they want analog.
And I'm pretty surewhat they're all fascinated with
is the sound of a tape deckthat hasn't been aligned in three weeks.
Yeah, yeah.
Possible.
Well, I was going to say this.
The singerand the performance is king, obviously.
Yeah.
I was going to say the mic placement isactually has such.
(38:57):
I was justthat has a lot to do with it too.
Absolutely.
I think for voice over guys triple A.
So I think I think you know with singersyou can get a particularly like on
this mic.
I can go to a wide
cardioid on the on the V 14and I can get away with a lot of things.
But like a lot of you guysuse four sixteens
because the whole Ernie Anderson thingbecause you move a centimeter.
41 six, thank you very much.
(39:18):
I know that's. Right.
41 six apologies.
But it's the proximitythat it's it's not just like placement
but it's like techniqueand how to play the mic.
Well.
And voiceover guys have to do thatso carefully on a 416 that I think
they get really good at it.
Yeah, yeah.
Well they I suck at it too.
I ever play. Exactly.
Yeah I've seen Mike placementbecause they had somebody sitting up here
(39:41):
and then they sometimesit's pointing down like this off chest.
Yeah. Like that sounds terrible.
I've seen a guy point the mic upand up above his head like this.
No no no.
Placement is extremely,extremely on target.
Placement. So important.
And I mean, I tell peopleall the time, they put up a mic
and they've got the capsulepointing at their nose.
(40:01):
I'm like, oh, that's why
part of why your take sounds nasally,like my voice is super nasally by nature.
But if I'm.
250 to 500 or something like that.
Yeah, if I'm doing this, I'msuddenly hearing a lot more of my know it.
My nose. Yeah.
As opposed to this, which is my chestin my throat. My God forbid,
you're doing a rap performanceand they have their hand like this.
Oh. They.
(40:23):
And right.
It makes sure it makes your mike an omni.
Like if you go around the fence.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I tell you what's really what'sinteresting is using this microphone.
What is this?
The Austrian audio,CC eight. It's a pain.
Okay.
Yeah, it's it's got ACK1 stylecapsule in it.
You've got to be really careful
with this thing.
(40:44):
They're sensitive about it.
Well, it's it's all. About where you. Are.
And it captures points to the front two.Right.
It's not all the captions
like it's not right down in the barrellike a 41 six or something.
But I had a quick question.
I wanted to take you backa couple of minutes ago.
You were talking about EQ inside the mic.
Yeah.
When you if if you're designing a mic thenand you and you're setting up that EQ,
(41:06):
are you trying to get rid of nuancesyou don't want there?
Or if you got a specific sound for thatmic in mind, is it a combination of both?
How how do you make decisionson how you're going to echo.
Or you just trying to flattenthe curve out?
It's not necessarilya flat curve is not necessarily
what you want out of a microphone.
Go look at a 251 curve.
It is the un flattest thing.
(41:28):
They roll it offat like 300Hz on the early ones.
Because that transformer was so tinythat they didn't want a saturated
low frequency saturate transformers.
So they had this little T14 transformerin there
and, they rolled it offartificially on the 251.
But it's one of the bestvocal mikes of all time.
And it's not a flat like at all. Right.
Like what it's more about to answeryour question rather, is, I think that
(41:52):
for me, it's more of a flow thing.
I will take four of a prototypeinto a studio
and put it up against the bestmics that they have on a real session,
and I will have one component positionor one capsule
voicing or whatever, just one variablein that, slightly different.
And then I go, okay,I like this one the best and here's why
I like itthe best on this variety of sources.
Or maybe it's just a vocalor just drums that day or whatever,
(42:15):
but it gives mean idea of where to go next.
And it's it's sort of building the plane.
As you fly, you start with a good capsulethat's really important.
And we've we've gotten a good capsuleand we're really happy with it.
But then from there
you have to makeall these micro adjustments,
and some of those thingsare making a 1 or 2% difference.
But it's like compound interest, right?
If I make 20 changesthat make a 2% difference.
(42:35):
I'm it's I'm, it's the baby of EQ
when you're mastering and then youpop the EQ out and you're like, Holy cow.
But I only did a few.
Yeah, bunch of one DB changes.
And I did a LinkedIn post on thatthe other day.
A good mix isn't about handfulsof of one thing.
It's about lots of minute changes.
That's that's yeah, it's subtlety.
(42:56):
Right. And totally.
And some of that is likefor instance on on the V 14,
we like to mix because they have totalharmonic distortion if you tune it to mic
that like to a perfect, to a perfect bias with a really good tube,
a lot of the timeit sounds like a fat mic,
and that's not what we wantout of a two mic. We want that.
We want that thingthat's imperfect, right?
(43:16):
Like,yeah, you've heard the. Using a particular
it's the second harmonic distortionthat tubes tend to distort.
Even harmonics.Yeah. Yeah. Even order harmonics.
And that's a really importantdistinction.
You're absolutely right.
Guitarists are really about that.
So when you're trying that mic over
multiple sources, are you favoring the micthat sounds the best overall?
Many different sources.
In general,when you're designing your mics.
(43:38):
I try and I try and favor it that way.
I end up leaning that way because of,you know, being a poor audio engineer
and not being able.
I was in college in America.
I was in enough debt. Right.
So I had to, either pick a $99 micI had to beat to death with in the mix
to get any use out of or, you know, spendfive grand, sell a kidney, what have you.
(43:59):
And I didn't really, you know, I,I went with the cheap option.
Right.
And so, for me having a micthat's versatile, having a mic
that was versatile was really importantwhen I was in engineering.
And I think that's kind of translatedin some ways to the way I designed you.
I don't I don't think peoplerealize, but when we started
any large diaphragm mic was like $1,000.
(44:22):
You couldn't turn. More. Yeah.
And it wasn't until China pops out with,
I think Marshall or whoever,like the 979 factory.
A797, eight seven state run factory.
That's why it's got a number.It's a state. Factory.
And all of a suddenthey're just banging out
these hundred dollar mikesthat were noisier.
But man, they were so like,
they had all the characteristics of aof a large diaphragm like, well, and.
(44:45):
Other people were goinglike they were coming from an SM 58.
Yeah.
If you come to it from an S,I'm 58 to the shittiest.
Am I allowed to sway on this? Yes.
Every time that possible as possible.
Mql you know like early 90s. It makes.
Sense. Destroys it. Yeah. Yeah.
That has a fingerprint or whatever on it.
It still sounds way better at firstbecause you've got so much more high
(45:08):
frequency content, so much more transientdetail from a high dynamic.
Can't do what a condenserdoes. It's just too much mass.
It was it was like thethe eight moment of microphones.
Yeah, yeah, in a lot of ways.
And I mean, I rememberpeople would buy ten of those mics.
They picked the one they liked the best
because they all soundedremarkably different.
They were they were using a drill pressand a template to do the capsule
(45:29):
back platesearly on before they got CNC machining.
They were doing it by hand.
So they were vastly and like a fractionof a millimeter makes a huge difference.
So, yeah, vastly different.
That's the Elise is a dot, not the Mach-E.
Just if you're.
Yes, it was the Mackie eight bucks.
Plus the Elise is a that a sudden gaveeverybody a 24 track studio.
(45:51):
Exactly. Yeah.
It was like what just destroyedthe studio market.
Would you like to hear my favorite storyabout the eight app from somebody
who worked at Elisa's at the time?
Oh yeah.
So they were hyping upthe eight at before Nam.
They were like,this is going to be a big deal.
It's going to revolutionize music.
It's going to make it more accessible,yada yada.
And at the show,they could not get this machine to work.
Well, no,they were panicking. For a while.
(46:13):
So what they did is they had them come inand they had a tape machine
behind the curtain rolling tape,and the buttons
on the front of the machine were wiredup to the tape machine like.
Oh my God, I can't go back.
And this is from somebodywho worked at AKG, mind you,
(46:33):
like, this is a this is a primary sourcethat was there for this.
They back then Nam was like the wayyou got gear out, right?
This was pre-Internet
and they were like,oh God, if this isn't working at the show,
like all our workthis year has been for nothing.
So they made a marketing decisionthat sounds just like tape.
Guys. It is.
And it did not.
(46:54):
But hey.
Yeah, and here's a. Really funny one.
Not even kidding, that is. But insane.
That is insane.
I was I was at a studioI worked at, had big socketed,
Journal X, and they were having a problemwith one of the speakers.
And so they had the speaker outfor like a week, and supposedly
(47:15):
they got the speaker back in,but they played this practical joke on me.
And so they walked in there like,
we got the speaker back,but it's not sounding the same.
And they had two tracks in ProTools,one on the left, one on the right.
Looks like the same audio file.
And they're like, look, I play this oneand it sounds like this,
and I play that oneand it sounds like that.
And I was like, yeah, that is different.What's going on?
And I at some point I go in, I'm like,let me sit at ProTools.
(47:35):
That can't be.
And I started hitting play and I'mtrying to figure out what's going on.
And I start to notice that, like,I think ProTools is delayed or something.
And right at that point when I'm like,I think there's something wrong
with ProTools here, the assistant engineerpops out of the soffit.
(47:57):
That's pretty good.
But he was following my playbackslike pretty close because I just didn't
catch it.
Yeah, every I'd hit play, I'd be like,this is the right miking.
And then you start saying, I'm.
Never gonna give you up.
I'll let you down.
Oh. Man.
What are the microphone questions thatare more accessible to to your audience?
(48:19):
I've got because me and me and Robertcould probably nerd out this entire.
Yeah.
Not probably.
You are.
I want to I just want to step you back.
Just back to to the mic creation thingagain, because it's got me fascinated.
So, and, and I'm interested to knowthen if you're putting 3
or 4 mikes up in a roomand listening to each one,
(48:43):
are you as a sourcefor those when you're listening to them?
Are you using something that you imaginethat that might will be used
for, like hat like,
what are you using as a source to listento, to make these decisions?
Well, a lot of the time.
So like when we're doing development for,you know, days at a time,
I'll be in the studiowith one guitar and one voice
(49:03):
and be working with that,and it's my voice and my guitar.
So you can imagineI don't ever release those tracks.
Okay.
But, but, then I take it into studiosfor real world use, and it's, you know,
when I was living in L.A., I'd be like,okay, my buddy
Cesar is having this big sessionwith this big artist,
and I just going to take it inand see if I can throw it up
(49:25):
on that session on whatever. Right.
Because he's doing the set upwell beforehand.
So it might be on the drum overheads
that time around,and then it might be guitar amps.
And other times it's like carrying it.Around all different places. Yeah.
And that gives you a much better,
I think overall picture of whatthe mic strengths and weaknesses are.
But to
I think it gives you a better overallpicture because different different piano
(49:46):
even like going between two pianos
you're going to get differentharmonic content, right?
So like, it's just to me,getting an overall picture is not just,
you know, it's not the person at Namleaning in and going, one, two, one, two.
Yeah,this sounds really good. Or jangling.
Is that. Means absolutely nothing. Right.
And you have to get and and it's funnynow when I hear my mike in a shootout,
(50:08):
a lot of the times, even having
never heard the instrument on its own,I can pick my mic out of the crowd
just because that sonic fingerprint,having listened to thousands of these,
has just permanently
embedded itself in my auditory cortexat this point.
Yeah.
And I can be like, that'sprobably the V 13 out of these four mikes.
And 90% of the time I'm right.
(50:30):
I always thinkit's like you have to get to know them.
And it's like, you can't just get to knowMike in one session.
You have to, play with itand use it in different situations,
get a feel for how they reactand it takes time.
I will say this
I know you don't like to compare mikesbecause they are really their own design
and they're unique, but I had a situationwhere we got to hear it.
I got to hear itin context alongside a you 67.
(50:52):
And David case plays case.
Yeah.
And I have to saythe V 13 was a hell of a good stand in.
When the 67 went out for service, it was.
67 is a little darker.
And the V 13 definitelyhas the top end roll off.
I don't like a strident mike.
And once again, that's the Mikephilosophy, the Mike designer's
(51:14):
philosophy about sound like Dave Royerthe the Mojave.
Mike's designs are great mikes.They're also way too bright for me.
Right. And people love the Mojave.That doesn't mean they're bad. Mike's.
It just means that Dave has an ideaabout what audio is.
That's different
Well, that was fun.
(51:35):
Is it over?
The audio. Sweet.
Thanks to tribal and Austrian audiorecorded using Sonos Connect.
Edited by Andrew Peters and mixed byBhutan Radio Imaging with tech support.
If you wish to check with them, don'tforget to subscribe to the show
and join the conversationon our Facebook group to leave a comment.
Suggest a topic or just say goodbye.
(51:56):
Drop us a note at our website.
Protea suite.com.
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