As the quality of Chinese manufactured
microphones continues to improve, so the lines between the traditional
German manufactured studio mics and their eastern counterparts
becomes more and more blurred. A few years ago you could justify
the premium price of investing in a Neumann U87 for your studio
vocal mic but as manufacturing tolerances get finer and finer
so the microphones coming out of China are getting harder and
harder to resist. Factories like Shanghai ShuaiYin produce thousands
of microphones and mic components and supply OEM mics to companies
like CAD. Other manufacturers like American based ADK have for
a while taken the idea of designing a mic and having it built
in China and now a number of small mic manufacturers like Golden
Age, have realised that by clever design you can tweak a stock
Chinese mic to create a really great sounding mic at a premium
price. Cascade, BPM, Joe Meek, PMI, etc all do the same.
Economy of scale makes it possible
for the metalwork of the body and grill assemblies to be manufactured
at a cost that simply can't be matched in the west and over
the past ten years or so, many companies have shifted to buying
OEM microphones from big Chinese microphone companies such as
Alcatron, 797, and Feilo. They then simply rebadge them and
sell domestically at market friendly price points.
American mic manufacturer Peluso
use Chinese metal work for their capsules and bodies but gold
sputter the microphone diaphragms in their own factory. Charter
Oak and Mojave Audio, both respected manufacturers of higher
end microphones, use Chinese bodies, capsules and power supplies
for their tube microphones. They build different circuits to
match with the capsules and use better output transformers,
but still use Chinese capsules, which are generally the most
expensive electrical component in a microphone circuit as well
as the most influential components in the sound of the microphone.
These are expensive mics so how can they justify charging £1000
for a microphone that uses the same capsule as in one of the
raft of £100 Chinese U87 copies out there? It's all about
quality control—they inspect the capsules and other components
much more carefully and reject a much higher percentage of “bad”
capsules than the manufacturers of those cheapo copies. Then
they optimise the design to get the best out of it. It's all
about attention to detail and there is no doubt that these mics
sound great.
All this has created
an interesting situation making it possible for both technically
skilled DIY’ers and small manufacturers to take microphone
(and outboard) components of Chinese manufacture and modify
and upgrade them into considerably higher quality items......
and this is exactly where Advanced Audio comes in.
ADVANCED
AUDIO CM47
Canadian Dave Thomas has over 35 years experience in the world
of recording and has hot rodded mics as a necessity in his early
days in the recording studio working with producers Bob Rock,
Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, David Foster, Bill Porter,
and artists like Bryan Adams, Randy Bachman, K.D. Lang, Paul
Horn, D.O.A. Brian McCloud and Terry Jacks plus a steady stream
of Vancouver’s best Studio musicians and artists
Dave knows mics inside out and
a few years ago he realised that by taking a well designed and
manufactured Chinese mic you could redesign various elements
and produce a seriously good mic for a reasonable price. Inevitably
he started to look at a copy of the most famous studio vocal
mic of all time: The Neumann U47.
Obviously you can't use Neumann's
original VF14 tube as a starting point as these are now ridiculously
rare and expensive so Dave took as a starting point sE's z5600
tube mic. We had a z5600
in the studio last year and were really impressed with the sound
and price. Dave redesigned the circuit board around a selected
6072a tube immediately increasing the headroom by 6 db and further
mods to the input stage increased the linearity. By fitting
a much better and larger output transformer he squeezes another
6db gain output. More modifications increase the headroom by
a total of 10db and the upgraded output transformer will handle
6db more level than the stock unit and deliver 2db more output
at 20hz. Finally the body is redesigned so that the capsule
ends up sitting in the head grill at the same position as the
original U47. (The position of the diaphragm and the grille
design actually contribute to the smooth sound of the U47 ,
so they've gone to great pains to insure the grille is an exact
replica of the original.)
Dave infact claims that this
isn't a U47 clone but is about as good as he can make a multi
pattern valve condenser mic to a budget
and having had a CM47 in the studio now for a couple of months
we think he's made a great job. It just sounds right on everything
we have thrown at it from acoustic guitars and bass but particularly
of course on vocals. It has a 9 position pattern switch which
can go from omni through cardioid to figure 8 making it really
versatile in the studio but I took the CM47 out on a mobile
recently to record a classical soprano singer. They are about
the ultimate test for a vocal mic as they have a massive dynamic
range and it's all too easy to overload a mic.The CM47 never
flinched the whole time and sounded as beautiful and smooth
on even the big high notes. I don't know how you can overload
this mic...We certainly don't have a mic in the studio at present
that can compete with this for headroom. The bottom line as
ever is price and I think this is a really good mic for the
money when compared to the alternatives out there. However don’t
just take my word for it. Read the review in Tape OP
magazine below
To buy a CM47 direct from the
Advanced Audio website is around £445 but carriage from
Canada to the UK costs around £50 and then the government
puts on import duty and VAT making it around £580 which
comes in £45 cheaper than a bog standard sEz5600! We have
bought in a small number and they are available from the on
line shop but if you are interested in trying out the CM47 then
click on the Try Before You Buy logo below
and read how you can test the mic out in your studio for a week
to see if it's the one for you....
See
the Mic in our studio
See
the Advanced Audio Website
Read
Tape Op review
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| In the Studio
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I've
had an Advanced Audio CM47 valve condenser mic in the
studio for about 4 months now and these are some first
impressions.
Firstly, I'm not in a position to make direct comparisons
between this mic and a Neumann U47 tube simply because
we don't have an original u47 tube and, given that originals
change hands for at least 6 times the price of the CM47,
comparisons would be fairly useless anyway, so I'm trying
to evaluate this mic solely on its performance in certain
situations. Microphones are just getting better and cheaper
all the time and it does get harder and harder to write
anything new about any given mic but heres my initial
thoughts for what they're worth!
The CM47 is a very well built, good looking microphone
with an independent power supply and a seriously industrial
strength shock mount (more about this later) and the first
time I used the mic was when I visited a home studio to
give some advice on various problems. Part of the day
was spent recording the client with a few different mics
(guitar and vocal playing and singing together).
We worked our way through a Neumann u87, AKG C414, AEA
R84 Ribbon, GoldenAge R1 Ribbon, Neumann TLM 103, Shure
SM81, the CM47 and a couple of dynamics recording the
same piece of music each time and layered the tracks in
Logic such that we could make A/B comparisons between
the various mics. Everything was recorded flat and we
kept the mic position the same throughout.
The TLM 103 was the client's own mic with which he was
unhappy anyway and as we played back the other mics I
was able to point out to him where each mic differed from
the others. Even in a less-than-desirable monitoring environment
the differences were quite marked.
As soon as I played back the CM47 track his face lit up
and a big grin appeared. He loved what it did to his voice.
His only explanation was that it sounded “classier”.
And it certainly did. He reckoned that the CM47 gave him
a vocal sound he was very happy with for the first time
since he'd set up his gear and he eventually badgered
me into selling him the mic. However, let me say
a couple of things here..........
I'm aware that this might sound a bit too good be true
but the fact is that anyone who has access to a few different
mics could have the same experience which is why I always
urge people to “try before you buy” if at
all possible. Given the amount of good quality mics now
available at affordable prices you are bound to find something
out there to suit your needs.
Secondly, I'm not a fan of mic “shoot-outs”
and this wasn't intended as such. We simply found a mic
which flattered his voice in a way that he liked. It could
have been any of them to be honest (he initially favoured
the GA R1) but the warmth and sweet top end of the CM47
de-emphasised the honky mid-range in his voice and it
just sounded, well, classier. I managed to eq the 414
track to sound something like the CM but it was never
quite the same.
I brought copies of the various wavs back to Fairview
and listening to them on my Genelecs revealed more accurately
the low frequency fullness which his monitors and room
did'nt. Also the high end was positioned somewhat differently
to what I'd heard on his speakers. The CM47 track reacted
well to some post eq and compression but that's not to
say that the others did'nt, I just always felt that, with
the others, I was trying to add some indefinable quality
which was'nt there at the recording stage. A bit vague
I know but trust me!
The other side of this is that I used it on a rapper in
the studio a few days later and swapped it for my u47fet
which gave a better representation of that particular
voice in a hip-hop track....so horses for courses I guess
though you are never going to get a Neumann U47 fet for
500 quid!
Since that time apart from regular use on vocals,I've
used the CM47 on bass guitar cabs, on guitar amps (good
on overdriven sounds, smooths out nasty peaky distortion
and reacts well to small changes in placement), and percussion
(anything which can make a cowbell sound ok has to be
worth using!)
The variable polar pattern is very useful indeed. If you
can arrange to have the power supply with the polar switching
in the control room then you will find find that some
of the in-between settings really open up the sound and
accentuate the space around the source.
I've got some good sessions booked into Fairview in the
next 3-4 months and am looking forward to trying this
mic on some more demanding sounds...how about Northumbrian
pipes or a whole range of ethnic percussion?
Finally then, let's sit this mic firmly in it's price
range. Even
a couple of years ago a mic of this quality would set
you back over £1000
and at its price the CM47 is definitely worth considering.
At around £600 it's a very nice sounding and versatile
mic that compares very well which more expensive valve
condensers out there.
Dave
Thomas has put a lot of effort into getting this mic out
at this price point and if anything lets the mic down
I suppose it's the accessories. To get the mic into this
price bracket some corners have to be cut and there are
mics out there with better quality cases and finishing
but at the end of the day it's about design and the sound.
It comes in a nice aluminium flight case but the shock
mount and pop filter are pretty much the off the shelf
stuff that comes out with most Chinese mics today. They
work fine but my main complaint is with the over-engineered
shock mount. It's not a problem at all using it on vocals
but it's pretty bulky and sometimes you can't get the
mic close enough, particularly on speaker cabs. I've
spoken to Dave Thomas about it and to be fair he thinks
that its probably the best quality mount for the mic for
the money bearing in mind that it's a weighty, solidly
built mic. Maybe it would be a good idea to supply an
additional mount which is less bulky JR
All in all then a really nice mic and a very classy performer
particularly at the price and I'm looking forward to writing
more about this mic when it's been here a year and been
used a lot more sessions JS
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