Recording - February 2015 - 21

One of the unique features of this mic is
an attached "L" bracket/mounting arm
with a washer/screw assembly that
allows the mic to tilt forward or back. This
right-side bracket terminates in a mic
stand mount and also contains a black
plastic cable lock. It's pretty small, made
at a time when mic cables were apparently thinner.
The mic contains two recessed switches
on its rear side. One engages a -10 dB
input pad, the other is a lowcut filter at
140 Hz. On the bottom of the mic, along
with the XLR socket, is an additional -6
dB pad switch, but this time on the output.
All three switches require a very small flathead screw driver to adjust.
Guts and glory
Internally the mic has a transformercoupled output and point-to-point wiring.
Compared to today's design standards,
the innards are downright messy... but
they're completely authentic.
After years of reviewing modern mics
with simple dual bracing, vertical circuit
boards, and attached capsules, the inside
of the U 47 fet is impressively compartmentalized. It reminds me of a multistage
rocket assembly with a detachable capsule, octagonal internal posts, a huge custom transformer, and rugged construction
throughout.
It has a frequency range of 40 Hz to 16
kHz, a 8mV/Pa sensitivity, an 150 ohm
rated impedance, 1 kilohm rated load
impedance, an equivalent noise level of
25 dB CCIR and 18 dB A-weighted, a 69
dB CCIR/76 dB A-weighted signal-to-noise
ratio, and a maximum SPL of 147 dB
(attenuated).
The frequency plot shows the mic to have
a low end that slopes down from 500 Hz
to 5 dB down at 40 Hz, a mid rise starting
at 1 kHz and peaking at 4 dB at 4 kHz,
and then dropping sharply down before rising again to 4 dB at 9 kHz and then sloping quickly down -5 dB at 16 kHz.
Taken on its own merit
Before I got into historical comparisons,
I worked with the U 47 fet in my studio
over a few weeks. I tracked the usual
"rock flavored" subjects: drums, bass,
guitars, percussion and voice. I also compared it to a broad range of mics, including a Milab DC-96b, Brauner Phantom,
Shure KSM44, and Audio-Technica
AT4047MP.
The AT4047MP was more imposing
with a bigger bottom end. The Phantom
was the crispest and most open. The
Milab sat nicely in the middle with a neutral low end, a fuller upper midrange,
and a hint more high end, and the
KSM44 was the most even and rolled-off
sounding of the bunch.

Within this group of mics, I would call
the U 47 fet sculpted and unimposing. Its
low end especially comes across as open
and unhyped. Its upper midrange, where
vocals and acoustic guitars live, was gently forward and a little hard to describe-
natural, but not open. It has a subtle midpop to it rather than bite, and this mic
could not be sibilant if it tried. It's actually a sound that makes you notice the
source itself rather than the mic coupled
with the source.
This microphone's claim to fame over
the past 30 years has been as the ultimate classic kick drum mic. I think part of
that is due to the fact that its subdued bottom end makes room for the natural lows
of kick drums and bass guitars to shine
through, vs. mics that accentuate the low
end to sound larger than life and forceful.
The U 47 fet has a gorgeous proximity
effect when a source is one to two inches
from the mic, but it is one that rolls off
quickly. This makes it wonderful for spoken word and intimate forward lead
vocals. It can also yield a very effortless
sound on guitar cabinet for similar reasons. On the other hand, it was a tad too
"dry" for my tastes on acoustic guitar and
drum overhead/front of kit. Not that it
was unusable, I simply liked the other
mics better in those applications.

All three mics were tracked through a 4channel John Hardy M1 mic preamp at 96
kHz into Pro Tools HD while monitoring
through an SSL 6064E console on the studio's custom TAD 3-way mains. In the room
were Dennis, engineer John Zacks, studio
technician Bruce Breckenfeld, and intern
Rob Turner. I asked Dennis if he knew the
manufacture years of the vintage mics, and
all he said was that they were already
there when he started in the early 1980s!
One of the studio's vintage models did
seem to have a tad more air on top compared to its sibling. This was most noticeable on the vocal pass, possibly due to the
singer's placement to that mic vs. the others. The other vintage model alongside the
new version were all but indiscernible.

Old vs. New
Of course, when a company reissues a
classic and claims it to equal the original,
the next step is to prove it! To aid me in
this part of my review, I traveled south to
the Windy City and the Chicago
Recording Company, one of the largest
professional studios in the Midwest. They
happen to own not one but two vintage
specimens, and we spent an afternoon
comparing the trio side by side.
General Manager Chris Shepard set
the whole thing up and put me in the
hands of the studio's gear junkie in
residence, Dennis Tousana, who
lined up people and sources to compare the mics.
Since the U 47 fet is best known for its
use on kick drum, bass cabinet, trumpet,
and voice, that's what we recorded. I
have to say that the U 47 fet on trumpet
highlighted this mic's upper mid rounding; it instantly made the trumpet sound
like a classic R&B or jazz album. I also
liked how well the mic worked at a
distance on kick and bass cab, maintaining feel and depth without loosing the tone. Classic rock tone on
tap! The singer (also the trumpet
player) had a very gospel/R&B
style voice that showed how well
this mic would do on vocals in
those genres as well, giving a round
non-sibilant sound.
RECORDING February 2015

21
Recording - February 2015

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