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I actually did an episode back in early July but… well, it was just an exercise in Futility. Then, of course, my entire summer and half the fall were swallowed up by several projects and, well… you know how the story goes.

Picking up right around where we left off: I did some vocal sessions with blessing Offor, a singer/songwriter signed to a development deal with EMI through Steven Ivy Music out of Nashville. blessing relocated from Nashville to New York and, fortuitously ended up about a 10-minute walk from the studio. It was the first series of sessions on which I used the DVA DR747 on vocals. What mic is this, you ask? Well, I’m sure I’ll have to include the story in another episode but, briefly, it’s a tube LDC based on a U 47. It was made by David Royer before he started Royer Labs. I’m still trying to get some nice photos of it so I can upload it to the microphone database at Recording Hacks. Soon…

One of my favorite projects this year was an original cast recording for an off-Broadway production of a show by the award-winning Chip Deffaa called “One Night with fanny Brice.” I had the pleasure of recording Kimberly Faye-Greenberg (vocals), Mark Goodman (piano) and Jonathan Russell (violin). It was an intense project because we needed to get it done within a tight budget. Everyone brought their best. Can’t wait to see it on stage.

Oscar-nominated actress Vera Farmiga will will be using a song I arranged and produced for an upcoming film called “Higher Ground” scheduled for release in 2011. It was from an album I produced for Ukrainian-American singer Olya Fryz. It’s a children’s song whose title translates as “I’ll Plant a Pear Tree.” It just so happens that Ms. farmiga is a fellow Ukrainian-American—we all know each other, didn’t you know?

It just so happens that this year, I did another production for Olya. This time, it’s a Ukrainian Christmas album. The project took up several months of my time this summer and fall. Normally, a production might not have taken so long but, as it turns out, I did most of the playing on the album so, needless to say, it was fairly linear. I did get george Hrab to lay down some drums on several tunes. All in all, I’m really happy with everything. I wish Olya had room within her budget for having someone else master the album just for a different set of ears and all. I ended up doing everything from arranging through mastering. Oh, it’s a lonely job…

Thanks to Dave chick of Inside Home Recording for putting together some cymbal roll samples for the production. Guess what? After all that, I ended up using the real thing. hey, can you blame me? I mean, I was trying to avoid going out and buying several expensive cymbals. Lucky for me, George Hrab was generous enough to jump into his car with his cymbal bag and make the 90-minute trek to NYC to lay down the real McCoy.

Also, Jon Tidey from the Home Recording Show was kind enough to remove a couple of noises in Andriy Milavsky’s clarinet part on one of the tracks. What did we do before RX? I’ll tell you what: we lived with the bench squeaks and the floor creeks. Man, how things have changed…

I bought a few instruments at Mandolin Brothers for Olya’s production: a wonderful 1910 Gibson “black face Plain A” mandolin, a beautiful Yamaha classical guitar and a Deering banjo. They were a source of much inspiration for many of the arrangements. Yeah, I love buying mics and preamps and all, but buying a musical instrument—well, that’s just a whole different animal. I love these additions to my collection.

On the gear front, I had rented a Universal Audio 2-610 dual channel tube mic pre from DreamHire for the Fanny Brice project and really loved it. I ended up getting one for the studio and pretty much used it exclusively on Olya’s Christmas album. It’s a fantastic pre/DI—not the quietest piece of gear but, hey, it’s tube and that’s to be expected.

I’ve been looking for a pair of Neumann KM 84s for some time. Finding a stereo pair is even more difficult. While keeping my eye on message boards, I saw a post for a Neumann U 47 FET—another mic for which I’ve been on the lookout. Well,  I jumped on the FET 47. I was thrilled to have landed a marvelous specimen. Of course, only hours after having purchased it, a post on the same message board revealed a stereo pair of KM 84s! Just my luck, eh? Well, fortunately, I managed to catch those before anyone else. I neglected to mention another addition to the mic closet this summer but I’ll save that for another show.

The other day I revisited the mic list at Bennett Studios. Two things struck me: 1. I thought it was funny that, among the Neumann and AKG mics, there was the apex 460—not even mentioning the fact that it was modified. Modified or not, it’s still, shall we say, incongruous, at least to many people. With the right modifications, I still think it’s a brilliant mic. My fingers are in my ears, “La-la-la-la…”

and

2. Bennett has a wonderful collection of mics but when it comes to U47/48s, ELA M 250/251s and such, it’s only through rental rather than straight from the mic closet. Hmm… If a huge studio like bennett chooses to have their clients rent that caliber of microphone, why should BeSharp struggle to acquire better and better additions to the mic closet—especially when DreamHire is literally right down the street? Hmm…

I’m really looking forward to catching up with a bunch of manufacturers and friends at AES in San Francisco and I’m sure it’ll be the subject of the next installment here.

(In addition to the tracks featured by Blessing Offor, the cast of “One Night with Fanny Brice” and Olya Fryz, the last tune featured was Joel Weiskopf entitled “Lonely Evening,” recorded at Sear Sound and mastered at BeSharp.

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One of the biggest trends in the pro audio world in the last 10 years, apart from the resurgence of the ribbon microphone, has been the modification of lower-end gear to yield high-end results. In many cases, a simple tube or transformer swap can immediately make a noticeable difference in the sound. In some cases, additional circuit changes can transform a good piece of equipment into great equipment that might rival the performance of gear many times its price. Perhaps nowhere is this more prevalent these days than with microphones. Not only are there a ton of sites that offer DIY solutions for mic mods but there are several companies and boutique “mic modders” who offer these services for a reasonable price. Reasonable, that is, when you consider the price of the mics that these modified specimens are said to rival.

For the average project studio owner, spending $5,000 or $10,000 on a microphone is usually out of the question, but spending a few hundred dollars on a mic and a few hundred dollars on modifications is a much more realistic proposition. These modified mics may not have the sex appeal of a vintage Neumann or RCA but they can often hold their own or even outperform their revered competition. Will they help a studio attract clientele? Probably not. Will they get the job done? Judging from my own adventures with mic modding—which I’ll detail in this article—absolutely. Wouldn’t everybody love to have the bragging rights that go with owning a beautiful U 47 in perfect condition? Naturally, but when your clients are paying $50 per hour, it’s not easy to justify a $10,000 mic much less all the other items in the gear lust list. Having an affordable option in the “modded” category is a welcome alternative for a growing number of studio owners on a budget and, let’s face it, these days, who isn’t?

As a studio owner, I’ve rented plenty of microphones over the years. I’ve often fantasized about owning many of the legendary mics that have come through the door. I could easily afford them all if I’d only increase the studio rate to $500 per hour. Need I pursue this scenario any further to illustrate my point?

Putting myself squarely in the category of a studio owner on a tight budget, I began researching the possibility of modifying a few mics that could perform on a high level without the high price tag…

To read the rest of my review of the Advanced Audio CM-12 Mod, please visit RecordingHacks.com.

In this podcast episode, I interview Dave Thomas of Advanced Audio Microphones. We discuss their product line as well as details about the various modification packages. There’s a little shootout between a stock Apex 460, the Advanced Audio CM-12 and an AKG C 12. How did the CM-12 compare with the two other mics? Well, naturally, you’ll just have to listen to find out.

If you’d like to compare the mics in your own DAW, you can download a zipped folder containing the 24-bit shootout samples here.

For more information about Advanced Audio Microphones’ products and services, please visit www.aamicrophones.com.

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I recently posted something on Twitter that seemed to strike a chord, judging from how many retweets it seemed to generate. I said, “Sorry for the generalization but, microphones are to audio engineers what shoes are to women.” It’s an analogy that seems to work on several levels. Well, you can say I have a mic fetish but, I say, “What good engineer doesn’t?” I think I should start my own brand of esoteric, boutique mics called Fetish and the flagship model can be The Stiletto. (Shhh — don’t tell anyone. It’ll be our exclusive little mic.)

There are some mics you don’t necessarily reach for all the time and there are the work horses. You’ve got your Manolos of the mic world like the Neumann U 47 and then you have your 9 Wests like the SM57, MD421 and fat Heads.

So, in my search for the “black pump” of tube condensers, I happen to call Dae Bennett (Tony Bennett’s son), owner of bennett Studios (http://www.bennettstudios.com/news.html) in Englewood, New Jersey. I had heard some good things about the Audio-technica AT 4047 and, specifically, that it was used on all of the vocals on Tony’s “Duets” album. Now, I know it’s not a tube mic, but I was considering buying it but simply had to confirm that this mic was used on all of the vocals on that album. I had my doubts because I know that some of the vocalists on that recording like Sting and Stevie Wonder happen to use the Sony C800G a lot of the time. Dae confirmed that the AT 4047 was, in fact, used on all of the vocals except one. Turns out, what I heard was true — Bono always seems to use a Shure SM58 Beta in the studio.

Anyway, during our conversation, Dae mentioned the Apex 460 (http://www.apexelectronics.com/products.asp?cat=21&type=1&id=74). I hadn’t heard much about the mic so, when I learned that someone had modified a pair for him, I was intrigued and began researching the mic. I was amazed at the differences of opinion this mic caused.

I wish I had known about RecordingHacks.com (http://www.recordinghacks.com) at that point. It probably would have saved me a lot of surfing time. Matthew McGlynn does an amazing job with his Microphone Database (http://recordinghacks.com/microphones). It has tremendously useful links to the manufacturers’ web sites, spec sheets, owner’s manuals, etc.

At a certain point, I found Dan Richard’s side-by-side comparison (http://www.studioreviews.com/m16-460.htm) of the R-F-T Telefunken M16 and the Apex 460 on StudioReviews.com (http://www.studioreviews.com). Turns out that, apart from three resistors, the mics are identical. Of course, the $1,400 price tag for the M16 seemed a little steep as compared with the $229 cost of the 460. Telefunken re-released the mic as the M16 Mark II with the same price tag but allegedly upgraded components.

So, further research revealed that the Apex 460 was just a rebranded Alctron HST-11A (http://www.alctron-audio.com/encpShow.asp?id=70) which is a Chinese-made multi-pattern tube condenser that seemed to appear under many names including Nady and Carvin, among others. There seemed to be a number of modifications that some folks were doing like transformer swaps, changing the capsules, capacitors and tubes. There were some guys like Dave Thomas, whose company, Advanced Audio (http://www.aamicrophones.com), offered highly modified versions of the HST-11A and branded them with their own names like the CM12 (http://www.aamicrophones.com/tube_mics/cm_12.htm). In some cases, third party “mic moders” were using the Peluso CEK-12(http://www.pelusomicrophonelab.com/capsnmnts.html) as an upgrade from the stock capsule. Further, I discovered that Peluso themselves offered a similar mic known as the P12 (http://www.pelusomicrophonelab.com/P12.html).

All of these mics were essentially based on the legendary AKG C 12. Not being in a position to justify the cost of a vintage C 12, I found the Apex 460 at Full Compass Systems (http://www.fullcompass.com/product/314911.html) for only $181 at the time and ordered several. I compared the stock 460 to a pair of 460s I had modified by one of Dae Bennett’s friends. The moded mics were ever so slightly darker but, apart from that, all of the mics, even the stock models, sounded quite nice.

I always wanted to compare the moded 460s to an AKG C 12 so I called Chris Dunn at DreamHire (http://www.dreamhire.com) and he personally dropped one off at the studio –  not because I’m such an important client but, rather, most likely because I’m literally down the street from them since they’ve moved to Astoria (woohoo!).

These shootouts almost always reinforce what I’ve come to realize: the great Neumann and AKG mics of yesteryear were absolute marvels and achieved an enormously high standard even 50 years ago — a standard that is still strived for today. At the same time, there are plenty of new mics today that technically out-perform the vintage offerings. Thing is, almost none of those mics sound like they did the day they were made and many of them have been so heavily modified and repaired that, for all intents, they’re practically new mics.

I don’t know if I would ever buy a vintage U 47 or C 12. i mean, it would be great to own a piece of history, yeah, but in almost every shootout, I’m reminded that the vintage models, as nice as they are, aren’t necessarily the winners and are sometimes, quite frankly, the losers. I think I’d rather invest a little less money in a contemporary mic like the Peluso 2247LE (http://www.pelusomicrophonelab.com/22 47 LE.html) and be content owning an extraordinary, modern microphone. People will always covet the historic Neumann, AKG and Telefunken mics and they’ll always be collectors items for some. I’ll always respect and revere them but I think I’ll stick to, umm… the black pumps.

background music for this episode is by Sarina Bridget Bach from her debut album, “All Except One.” Recorded by Slau at BeSharp, June 6, 1999.
Sarina Bridget Bach – piano, Patience Higgins – tenor sax, Jesse Andrus – tenor/soprano sax, Hugh Fraser – trombone, Steve Roane – bass, Richie DeRosa – drums

Additional excerpts from: Joel Weiskopf, Marty Mabin, Libby Richman and Carlo Barile, Vinny pedulla and Slau.