Recording - October 2011 - 66
BY SCOTT DORSEY
Electro-Voice RE320
A venerable legacy stands behind a new mic with a new sound
Electro-Voice has come out with a new dynamic microphone, the RE320. To appreciate this new mic and how it fits into the scheme of things, there is a 60-year history behind it that you need to know. So we’ll start with some backstory.... The genius of Variable-D Back in the mid-1950s, Electro-Voice introduced the Model 664 microphone, a cardioid mic with a very interesting feature. The rear vents that give a cardioid mic capsule its polar pattern normally vent to the side of the body, but Alphie Wiggins at E-V came up with the notion of having an additional set of vents along the side connected to a mechanical lowpass filter. He called this the “Variable-D” arrangement since the various entrances to the vent tube were of varying distance. (If you’re curious about how the actual Variable-D system works in great detail, check out US Patent 3,115,207.) If you’re up close to the mic and speaking into the front, the vent arrangement has little effect. If you’re far back from the mic, the vent arrangement increases the bass response of the mic. The system is constructed so that as you get closer in, the proximity effect of the microphone is effectively counteracted. What you get, then, is a microphone without much proximity effect, and therefore with no “off mic” sound when you get far away from the mic. It is a miracle for sources whose distance from the mic may be changing, but this same feature is also wonderful in that leakage from other sources near the mic are well-reproduced with good clean response. You can never eliminate leakage and get perfect isolation when recording a group of performers together, but you can make sure the leakage sounds good. In 1969, E-V introduced the RE20, which has become one of the industrystandard studio mics. It was originally intended as a radio-announcer mic, so in addition to the Variable-D mechanism, it was designed with extensive pop filtering that makes it very difficult to pop with
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close-miked vocals. It also has remarkably flat response for a dynamic mic, and remarkably accurate response off-axis. The mic pattern is very tight, so leakage from noise sources in the broadcast studio was eliminated. The thing is, all of these features make for great recordings on a lot of sources besides voiceovers, so the RE20 became one of the most versatile mics in the studio. The flat response and enormous amounts of headroom made it a popular choice on close-miked horns. The pop filtering and extended low-end response made it popular on kick drums. Singers loved it. It wound up on string sections all the time because of the tight pattern and reduced leakage. From the RE20 to the RE320 Twenty years after that, ElectroVoice added the RE27N/D to its line. The RE27N/D is more or less an RE20 with higher output and a presence peak added. The presence peak makes for a much more forward sound without equalization. The higher output is a big deal when used with inexpensive preamps. For the most part I have tended to avoid the RE27N/D myself, since it’s easy to add a presence peak with the console eq if you need one, and it’s hard to remove one that is already there in the mic. Now, twenty years or so after the introduction of the RE27N/D, E-V has come out with a new microphone, the RE320. Right now, you can buy the RE20, RE27N/D, and RE320 brand new from your dealer. The RE27N/D costs about 15% more than the RE20, whereas the RE320 costs about two thirds of what the RE20 costs, placing the RE320 as the entry model in the line. The RE320 adds one entirely new feature: a frequency response curve switch
that Electro-Voice calls the “Dual Personality” switch. On one setting (“Voice”) the mic’s frequency response is tailored for vocals and acoustic or electric instruments, while on the other (“Kick”) its curve is tailored for the kick drum. How does it sound? My first thought listening to the mic was, “Wow, that’s a huge presence peak.” It’s as big a presence peak as a Shure SM57 has, although of course it has top end and bottom end that the SM57 doesn’t have. The mic has a little more output than the RE20, maybe 3 dB more, but it seems hotter than it really is because of the presence peak. The pattern is clean and tight, probably as good as that of the RE20. That’s pretty good, seeing as how the RE20 has more even response and better directionality than just about anything out there (save maybe the Sennheiser MD441). The key-jingle test sounded pretty much like a mic with a big presence peak. Using the RE320 It took me a little time to wrap my head around this: because of the presence peak, this is really a different mic than the RE20 by a long shot, even though it looks similar. On many traditional RE20 uses, like fiddle and horns, the presence peak was a problem; it made things more forward and more bright and made horns less blatty sounding. I found myself trying to eq it away a lot. On the other hand, for lead rock vocals, this is a great, great mic. The presence peak makes it cut through a dense mix, and it seems very versatile and able to deal with a wide variety of performers. Yes, I know everybody wants to use a large-diaphragm condenser for this job; try an RE320 (or an RE20 with a little eq) and you might decide not to. On backup vocals, you can put a large number of people around the mic and
Recording - October 2011
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - October 2011
Recording - October 2011
Fade In
Contents
Talkback
Fast Forward
Postcards From The World Of Recording
Grace Design m103
Adobe Audition CS5.5
Radial Engineering Workhorse and 500-Series Modules: JDV-Pre, Shuttle, EXTC, and PhazeQ
Blue Reactor Multi-Pattern Condenser Mic
Great River Electronics / Harrison 32EQ 500-Series Equalizer Module
Millennia Media HV-35 500-Series Mic Preamp
Telefunken Elektroakustik AK-47 MkII Tube Condenser Mic
Pulse Techniques EQP-1A3
Audix CX212B Multi-Pattern Condenser Mic
A-Designs HM2 Compressor “The Nail”
It’s Your Music—Know Your Rights. Chapter 19: Album Release Checklist
Electro-Voice RE320 Dynamic Mic
Alesis iO Dock
Putting Together The Pieces
Reviewed & Revisited: Fable Sounds Broadway Big Band Kontakt Edition and Broadway Lites
Readers’ Tapes
Advertiser Index
Fade Out
Recording - October 2011 - Recording - October 2011
Recording - October 2011 - Cover2
Recording - October 2011 - 1
Recording - October 2011 - Fade In
Recording - October 2011 - 3
Recording - October 2011 - Contents
Recording - October 2011 - 5
Recording - October 2011 - Talkback
Recording - October 2011 - 7
Recording - October 2011 - Fast Forward
Recording - October 2011 - 9
Recording - October 2011 - 10
Recording - October 2011 - 11
Recording - October 2011 - Postcards From The World Of Recording
Recording - October 2011 - 13
Recording - October 2011 - 14
Recording - October 2011 - 15
Recording - October 2011 - 16
Recording - October 2011 - 17
Recording - October 2011 - 18
Recording - October 2011 - 19
Recording - October 2011 - 20
Recording - October 2011 - 21
Recording - October 2011 - 22
Recording - October 2011 - 23
Recording - October 2011 - 24
Recording - October 2011 - 25
Recording - October 2011 - Grace Design m103
Recording - October 2011 - 27
Recording - October 2011 - 28
Recording - October 2011 - 29
Recording - October 2011 - Adobe Audition CS5.5
Recording - October 2011 - 31
Recording - October 2011 - 32
Recording - October 2011 - 33
Recording - October 2011 - 34
Recording - October 2011 - 35
Recording - October 2011 - 36
Recording - October 2011 - 37
Recording - October 2011 - Radial Engineering Workhorse and 500-Series Modules: JDV-Pre, Shuttle, EXTC, and PhazeQ
Recording - October 2011 - 39
Recording - October 2011 - 40
Recording - October 2011 - 41
Recording - October 2011 - 42
Recording - October 2011 - 43
Recording - October 2011 - 44
Recording - October 2011 - 45
Recording - October 2011 - Blue Reactor Multi-Pattern Condenser Mic
Recording - October 2011 - 47
Recording - October 2011 - Great River Electronics / Harrison 32EQ 500-Series Equalizer Module
Recording - October 2011 - 49
Recording - October 2011 - 50
Recording - October 2011 - 51
Recording - October 2011 - Millennia Media HV-35 500-Series Mic Preamp
Recording - October 2011 - 53
Recording - October 2011 - Telefunken Elektroakustik AK-47 MkII Tube Condenser Mic
Recording - October 2011 - 55
Recording - October 2011 - Pulse Techniques EQP-1A3
Recording - October 2011 - 57
Recording - October 2011 - Audix CX212B Multi-Pattern Condenser Mic
Recording - October 2011 - 59
Recording - October 2011 - A-Designs HM2 Compressor “The Nail”
Recording - October 2011 - 61
Recording - October 2011 - It’s Your Music—Know Your Rights. Chapter 19: Album Release Checklist
Recording - October 2011 - 63
Recording - October 2011 - 64
Recording - October 2011 - 65
Recording - October 2011 - Electro-Voice RE320 Dynamic Mic
Recording - October 2011 - 67
Recording - October 2011 - 68
Recording - October 2011 - 69
Recording - October 2011 - 70
Recording - October 2011 - 71
Recording - October 2011 - 72
Recording - October 2011 - 73
Recording - October 2011 - Alesis iO Dock
Recording - October 2011 - 75
Recording - October 2011 - Putting Together The Pieces
Recording - October 2011 - 77
Recording - October 2011 - Reviewed & Revisited: Fable Sounds Broadway Big Band Kontakt Edition and Broadway Lites
Recording - October 2011 - 79
Recording - October 2011 - Readers’ Tapes
Recording - October 2011 - Advertiser Index
Recording - October 2011 - 82
Recording - October 2011 - 83
Recording - October 2011 - 84
Recording - October 2011 - 85
Recording - October 2011 - 86
Recording - October 2011 - 87
Recording - October 2011 - Fade Out
Recording - October 2011 - Cover3
Recording - October 2011 - Cover4
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