Yesterday I discussed new loudspeakers and software from this year's AES show. Today we'll look at microphones and consoles (yes, they're back - in a way). Here we go.
Microphones
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| AKG Perception mics |
AKG launched some new mics in its
Perception series. First is the small diaphragm
P170 ($80), then there are a 3 large diaphragm entries - the
P820 based around a tube ($700), the
P420 ($200) and
P220 ($150). I wasn't able to listen to them (not that it would have told me anything) and there was no literature readily available, so can't say much more.
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| Advanced Audio CM1084 |
My friends at
Advanced Audio released a
KM84 style
CM1084, which appears to be very versatile and is only $399. They also showed their 251 close, called the
CM251, which sells for a very reasonable $995. I own a couple of AA
U87 clones and they're great, so I can't wait to try these new ones.
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| Cathedral Pipes Mic |
One of the coolest variation on the
U47 comes from
Cathedral Pipes. Owner and designer
Charles Dickenson told me he put an LED beneath the grill as a joke when he was continually asked to make the mic brighter. It was only when people started to order it with different colored LEDs did he realize that was something that people really dug. These mics are very meticulously hand-built in Southern California and sell for around $1500. There's also a cool version of the RCA 77 as well for only $800.
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| Josephson C700 |
Josephson Engineering showed their very cool
C700 series. It's been around for a while but it never caught my eye. It's a combination
Blumlein (2 figure 8 capsules) and MS mic (with a third omni capsule) rolled into one so you can change the directional pattern of the mic
after you've recorded. Price is around $8k.
 |
| Gefell KEM975 |
Another unique mic along the same lines was the
Microtech Gefell KEM975 line array mic. Just like a line array sound system you see at concert venues everywhere, this mic has 8 capsule elements. The idea is to make the mic very directional in a vertical plane so the mic only picks up what's in front of it, not above or below. A 9th mic at the rear of the main body is to extend the frequency response below 200Hz. It's up for a
Tech Award and costs around $11k.
 |
| Reissue Sony C38B |
Sony showed its C38B, a reissue that's been around for a couple of years but also skipped my attention. This was the FET followup to the amazing C37A. Sony says it's an exact reproduction and sells it for around $2200.
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| Reissue Neumann U47FET |
Speaking of exact reproductions,
Neumann has reintroduced its famous
U47FET. Once again, it's supposed to be identical to the original version. It's around $4k. There are other very good reproductions around, but none of them say Neumann on the body.
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| AT 5045 |
Audio Technica showed its brand new
5045, a side-address mic made especially for high SPL instrument capture. Despite its shape, AT says it has the largest diaphragm area of any mic it sells. The price is around $1600.
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| MXL Giga Mic |
Here's an interesting mic from
MXL called the
Giga Mic. It has the largest body of any mic I've every seen; probably twice as long as the biggest U47. No info on the mic though.
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| Telefunken USA M60FET |
Finally,
Telefunken USA brought out a new small diaphragm condenser called the
M60 FET. It's the company's first FET mic. No price yet.
Consoles
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| Trident Series 88 |
Recording consoles made a bit of a comeback at this show.
Trident finally showed a shipping version of its
Series 88. This one has 24 input strips with a 24 channel monitor section. The inputs are also dual inline so there's 72 inputs for your mix. All this for around $25k.
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| Daking Console |
Geoff Daking showed his currently unnamed console, which was very cool indeed. It came complete with his
Trident A-Range-style mic amps and EQ, plus dynamics on each channel and a cool routing with parallel compression in mind. It also has a very complete monitor section. Around $65k for the 24 input version.
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| Tree Audio The Roots Jr. |
This
Tree Audio The Roots Jr is basically
The Roots console without the master section. Each channel has a direct out only. Around $16k for all tube retro audio.
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| SSL XL-Desk |
Finally,
SSL showed its XL console, which is basically a mixer attached to a 500 Series rack. It comes with 8 SSL mic pres, 16 input channels, 4 stereo channels, the famous SSL buss compressor, 18 500 series slots and much more. The price is only $20k with empty slots. It's one of the more brilliant things I've seen in a long time.
That's it for today. Tomorrow we'll look at outboard gear and miscellaneous audio stuff.
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It doesn't matter what microphone you like to use on toms, because chances are that it's going to pick up a lot of the cymbals as well. This is pretty typical because most of the mics that end up on toms have a cardioid pattern. The problem is that there aren't too many true hypercardioid mics available to limit that cymbal bleed, especially in a package that fits conveniently out of the way of both drummer and cymbals. That was before the recent introduction of the Audio Technica's ATM230 purpose-built tom mic though.
