Recording - July 2013 - 72

It was the American folk guitarist Richard “Dick” Rosmini who taught
me to use a 44 ribbon up close on an acoustic guitar. In the late 1950s at
Richard’s first recording session, Columbia Records used a large-diaphragm
condenser microphone. Condenser mics have tightly stretched diaphragms
with multiple high-Q resonances. The extra 8–12 kHz “tizz” inherent in
many large-diaphragm designs helped offset tape recording and disc mastering’s loss of highs. But it also accentuated fingering and fret noises.
Richard had worked hard on his sound, and didn’t like what Columbia had
done with it. Thus began his lifelong study of music recording.
When being paid as a session guitarist, Richard let people record however they wanted, but for himself he strived for the best sound he could.
In 1995 he told me about his three-microphone guitar array. His RCA 44BX
was front and center and delivered detail without edginess. Further back
he had a pair of half-inch B&K 200V instrumentation microphones, precursors to the DPA 4006 electret. This was the end of his 35-year quest for
a great guitar sound, as later that year he died of ALS. He would have been
pleased to know that today other string players such as Yo-Yo Ma and

Guest editorial by Wes Dooley

The Acoustic Guitar Recording Legacy
Of Richard Rosmini
I give workshops and lecture about
microphones around the world. Recently, I
was invited to present a lecture at the
AES (Audio Engineering Society) Brasil
Expo. When possible, I also do a recording
session so attendees can experience the
different microphones. In São Paulo, I did
two workshops for IAV-Instituto de Áudio
e Vídeo. Often I witness quite emotional
responses from people who hear our ribbon microphones for the first time: “We
thought they would be interesting, but we
didn’t expect phenomenal. We just didn’t
know until we heard it ourselves!” To
understand why these microphones evoke
such a visceral response, it helps to realize
that it was incredibly cumbersome to do
frequency response curves when these
microphones were first designed.
Who cares what the frequency response
curve is like anyway? The question should
rather be, “How does it sound?”, or “How
musical is it?” The iconic 1930s RCA 44
ribbon microphone is the centerpiece of
what we do at my company, AEA. RCA primarily designed their top-end microphones on the basis of whether or not the
sound was right. If the microphones sounded good on single instruments or small
ensembles with piano, voice, guitar or
flute, then they were worth listening to
further. Time to journey from the RCA
labs in Princeton Junction, NJ to New York
City, and put the microphone in front of
the Symphony of the Air! When a mic did
a good job on the five musical food-groups
(strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion,
vocals), then it made sense to measure it.
Revolutionary then and superb now,
the 44 delivered directional pattern and
frequency response down to 20 Hz and
out to 30 kHz. For generations they’ve
defined what ribbon mics can do. At the
core of all AEA figure-of-8 mics is the
1936 RCA 44B/BX “Big Ribbon”, tuning
and transformer.

RECORDING July 2013

Itzhak Perlman record using coincident ribbons with a spaced pair of pressure omni condensers back a bit.
Richard was much more than an important part of the folk revival scene.
He was also the prime mover in creating the home and project studio market. His development of TASCAM’s Portastudio arguably marks the inception of home recording technology as we know it today. Other seminal projects for TASCAM were the dbx-equipped 80-8 8-eight-track recorder and
the Model 5 console. His eminently readable 48-page TEAC Multi-Track
Primer in 1978 and slogan “Are you Ready for Multi-Track” changed how
an entire generation of musicians engaged with recording. Later he taught
recording at the University of Southern California. He was highly respected in the Los Angeles audio community and deeply involved with both the
Audio Engineering Society and the Hollywood Sapphire Group.
Why should these stories matter to you? In this issue you’ll find many
options and even more opinions about recording guitars. But in the end, it
always comes down to whether you like the sound that is coming out of
your speakers. If you don’t, move the mic or change it out for something
else, instead of reaching for eq or processing gear. When what you are
hearing through the speakers causes an emotional response, then you’re
on the right track.
After his passing, Rosmini’s early RCA 44BX (which had previously been
owned by Richard Heyser) came to me and was my inspiration for the AEA
R44C. Isaac Newton used to write in his letters: “If I can see further than
others, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.” Music at its best is
a collaborative effort and not a zero-sum game. I’ve been around some
excellent guitarists in my life, both acoustic and electric. They have
brought me much pleasure, and I am happy that in turn we’ve been able to
bring them the same.
When Eddie Van Halen taught himself to record he told me, “The only
mic in the Studio 5150 locker that sounds like what I hear is your 44 ribbon.” I hear such comments often from those who care deeply about their
instruments and have worked hard on their tone. If this applies to you, you
will enjoy listening to a Big Ribbon. They hear the whole instrument without emphasizing the mechanics of it. Big Ribbons excel at focusing on the
musicality of your instrument without highlighting new guitar strings or
how much rosin is on the bow. As the violinist at my microphone workshop
in Brazil said: “The finger noise went away, and now you just hear my tone.”
Listen carefully, serve the music, enjoy life.
Wes Dooley is the President of Audio Engineering Associates (AEA) in
Pasadena, CA, refurbishing old ribbon microphones and designing and selling a wide variety of new ribbon designs as well as ribbon-friendly preamps.
Learn more at www.ribbonmics.com.

http://www.ribbonmics.com

Recording - July 2013

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