Could This Be The Source For New ‘Classic’ Neumann Microphones?
The Venerable Neumann U47 - Photo credit: matthew mcglynn / recordinghacks.com
Many also say that much of the “new” line of Neumann microphones pale in comparison to their original counterparts. But, the originals are getting harder to find and more expensive to buy. There’s also the challenge and expense of service and repair.
“Oh, if only we could go back in time and pluck a U47 brand new off the shelf.”
Many companies have given us their version of that pipe dream by doing extensive modifications to inexpensive imported microphones and claiming they meet or exceed the original classic Neumanns. As a result, some of them are very nice indeed.
One of the things these companies all have in common is that their top of the line modifications are almost always based on replacing the capsule with a Peluso brand capsule. Interestingly enough, Peluso also hand-builds entire microphones of their own. What makes Peluso unique is the experience of the man (and his wife) at the helm.
John Peluso is the man behind the mics. This week NPR (National Public Radio) did a nice written feature on John as well as an audio story and interview. (Thanks to Slau for the heads up on this.)
Here’s an excerpt from the written story:
Like the crooked road up the ridge to his house, John Peluso’s career has taken some twists. In the 1960s, he was a long-haired techie working at a suburban sound studio. One day, the recording engineer didn’t show up for a recording session, giving Peluso a lucky break.
“The band was B.B. King and his band. And I was the one there. The studio owner was there and he said, ‘The engineer didn’t show up — the clients are here. You’re it.’” Peluso recalls.
As a recording engineer, he eventually worked with all the classic RCA, Sony and AKG microphones, and particularly the German-made Neumann mikes. But it was when he went to work for a mysterious physicist named Verner Ruvalds that he learned about what he calls the “black art” of making microphones.John Peluso In The Lab
Peluso met Ruvalds at his studio immediately following an elevator crash. He took the older man to the hospital, then brought him back to the studio where Ruvalds eventually taught him the intricacies of making microphones.
The physicist imparted volumes about the soul of a microphone — how a change of a few invisible microns in the pocket of air behind the diaphragm makes a big difference to the ear. A micron is about one-sixtieth the width of a human hair.
“What he would tell me was . . . why it did what it did, why it sounded the way it did,” Peluso says. “We would talk two or three hours at night after our work for nights, days and weeks and months on end.”
But Ruvalds was reticent to share his own part in the lineage of the microphone . . .
Read the rest of the story and listen to the audio here »
Neumann Microphones At www.RecordingHacks.com – Pictures, Details, History, etc.
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