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U47 microphone build

7 min read

The COVID pandemic has changed so much for so many lives, mine included. Deciding to use the gift of discretionary time to full advantage I set out to do something I’ve always wanted to do – experiment with building tube microphones! (Let me be clear that I am hardly an expert on tube circuit design so please be gentle if there are any inaccuracies below.)

For a number of reasons, and fueled by our success in building four extremely musical and often used Neumann U87 clones in 2015 (read that article here), I chose this time to build a pair of U47 type mics. I am fortunate enough to own many great microphones, including 2 Telefunken U47’s (more on those in a minute) but was lacking a set of mics with what I fondly think of as “47-ness,” the warmth, open bottom end; silky smooth extended highs, and a notable proximity effect boosting lows without an inherent compression signature. (more…)

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The Big U-87 Mic build post

1 min read

A few months back, we built four U-87 clone microphones here at the studio. They’ve since been in regular use in many of the roles an 87 might play in a busy studio; string section, saxes and other winds, lead and group vocals, guitars and amps, and they are fantastic. They have all the depth, tone, accuracy (and inaccuracy) and proximity effect signature of microphones that cost at least 6 times as much.

Since so many people have been asking for details on the build, my friend and colleague Daniel Noga, who headed the whole mic build project, did this great write up on the entire process from ordering parts to listening to the final build. (more…)

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Ribbon Mic Shoot-out

6 min read

There are so many wonderfully documented mic shoot-outs, comparisons and evaluations (some of which are exhaustive) that it would seem that everything that can be said, has. But recently, after modding one of my pairs of ribbon mics ( I put Lundahl transformers into one of my pairs of Cascade Fat-Head mics), I was setting up for a comparison test between the un-modded and modded mics when I decided to add another 4 different ribbon mics and place them all in front of a guitar amp. Some of the results were just as expected, but a few were surprising, even after using some of these mics for decades, and I felt that this was too fun not to share.

The contestants:

note – Because I was using electric guitar for the test, I left a few of my favorite ribbons out, like (more…)