The
FC4 from Golden Age is their take on the popular pencil condenser
mic and you know that we are already big fan of their gear so
we thought we would get a couple of these and run them in various
sessions to see how they performed. A quick search on the internet
will show you that there are at least ten companies selling
this small diaphragm studio condenser. Golden Age, ADK, Peluso,
Advanced Audio and all the others buy this mic off the shelf
from Chinese manufacturer Felio and rebadge it under their own
name. Different companies may or may not tweak a few things
but no one likes to admit they just resell it on as it is!
The
case and capsule design is based on the Neumann KM-54 (which
was infact a tube mic) but now features a clean class A FET
amplifier circuit coupled to a discrete transformeless Schoeps-like
output circuit. The result is a mic which is extremely transparent
and has very low self-noise. It has a -10db pad switch plus
a 150hz low frequency roll-off switch making it very useful
in different studio situations but the most stunning
thing about this mic is the price. Mic manufacturers
know that they simply couldn't build a mic as quiet, versatile
and nice sounding for anywhere near the money and the fact that
GA can sell these in a padded wooden box with three capsules
and a shockmount ( OK, so it's a bit plasticky ) for £69
for the MC version and only £45 for the cardioid version
means that it must be coming out of a factory in China at about
£15. It's daft but then so is creationism.
The bog standard version with the fixed cardioid capsule is
just a great little mic for countless studio applications. OK
it's never going to be a great vocal mic but as an instrument
mic, particularly on strings, it has to be heard to be believed.
With the MC version you get in effect three
mics to try out in as many different situations as you can.
With the cardioid capsule used as a pair of drum O/Heads in
ORTF they do a surprisingly good job; clean and bright without
sounding too harsh and with a decent stereo image. I've used
the cardiod FC4 a lot on acoustic guitar and tuned percussion
but they should get you a result on anything with a bit of careful
positioning. John Spence recently went to another local studio
to record a baby grand and was amazed at how well these mics
stood up to the heavy weight opposition (click
hear to read his report). The hyper-cardioid capsule
is always going to be the least useful but I've used them as
a desk top mics at a conference and for hi-hats when you don't
want a lot of spill from the rest of the kit they work just
fine and aren't too hard or spiky. However for me the big deal
is the omni capsule. We have beenusing these in omni as drum
overheads for a while now and for anyone who is new to using
omnis then these are a perfect entry level mic. You can use
them in spaced pairs to record choirs and bands and the FC4s
are light enough to put up high on a couple of standard mic
stands without worrying about them. Gey out there and start
experimenting. You will be genuinely surprised
The
Golden Age FC4 is a great little studio condenser mic for all
kinds of applications and I don't think there is anything out
there as good for the money. So if you just want a nice sounding
instrument mic buy one, if you want to record a choir in stereo
buy two or if you are recording Snow White The Musical
get 7!
To
Buy an FC4 CLICK HERE
