I suppose the idea of marrying a tube and a ribbon together
is to get around the inherently low output of standard ribbon
mics but if I was a cynical person (who you? JR)
then I would say that from a marketing point of view it has
both the recent must have elements in a new mic: a valve and
a ribbon. So it must be twice as good as anything else!
In fact this microphone highlights the big argument about which
mic to buy if you have a few hundred pounds and you can only
buy one mic. sE‘s z5600
valve condenser is a brilliant mic that you can
just recommend to anyone knowing that it's a great all rounder:
faithful and quiet and you can use it on virtually anything
and get a result. But with the RT1 we have that other beast...
the mic which has a particular sound or character.
I’ve never seen a good review for this particular mic
and I can see why because the first couple of times I used it
I just took it straight off and put it back in the box after
a couple of minutes and opted for something else. But over the
past month I’ve really started to use it a lot and enjoy
its unique character. Because it’s got the valve inside,
gain isn’t a problem like other ribbon mics and you can
run the mic through any normal desk setup. It’s still
a figure 8 like all ribbons but the back side is much more controllable
than the AEAs. The character is hard to describe but I suppose
I would say that it’s a bit gritty or grainy. It doesn’t
have any kind of extended hi frequency normally associated with
studio condensers and it's not what you’d call a hi fi
mic or even a sweet mic. It definitely has a hint of that ribbon
warmth and musicality but that’s not what it's really
about. May be it is down to the size of the ribbon but compared
to the AEAs it’s a very narrow mic and perhaps that’s
why it doesn’t have that same extreme proximity effect
as the big ribbons. I actually like that with the big ribbons
as you’ve got all that to play with and it’s really
easy to strip away if you don’t want it. When I’m
recording with a ribbon through the Focusrite preamp I might
roll a little bottom off with the hi pass filter but I try to
keep as much a possible because in the mix sometimes that fullness
is what you want: it’s not always about presence
and clarity!
Using the RT1 on vocals was really a surprise hit. I used it
on an Irish folk singer who had a belting voice and it was fantastic
for him. He had all that grit and graininess in his voice and
the RT just brought all that out. He’d recorded at two
or three different studios recently and he said that that was
the best his vocal had ever sounded. It also sounds fantastic
on big distorted guitar cabs which suite the big brash character
but as I got to tune in to it I put it up infront of a nylon
strung acoustic and it sounded really really nice. It was a
lovely sound though there was a slight issue with noise as he
was playing really quiet and I had a lot of gain on. Placement
is the thing and you have to get it really close with a pop
shield and if I have any critical comment about the construction
it's that the cradle actually touches the mic body if you try
and use it at an angle.
That aside, this is a mic with real character and I love mics
like that. But what that means of course is that it doesn’t
work on everything and at the price, it just isn’t the
first mic to go out and buy. BUT if you’ve got a few nice
mics and you're looking for something special then go out and
treat yourself to the sE RT1 and have fun with it. There has
always been the idea that a mic should be totally transparent
and quiet but there is more to life than U87s and I’m
sure as the mic market develops well see more mics like the
RT1 ….JS
