Recording - December 2012 - 44

B Y PA U L V N U K J R .

While I love the extra volume found in active ribbon mics, one thing I miss is the almost magical and unpredictable way that a passive microphone reacts to the varied impedances found in different microphone preamps. While often not even the “correct” impedance load for a given microphone, they are usually unique and interesting. If you really want to get me excited, give me a preamp with selectable/variable impedance!

as well as a variable impedance to boot. And if that’s not enough, the Cloudlifter-Z can be an interactive/variable highpass filter with multiple gain choices. Similar to the CL-2, but a tad bigger, The CL-Z is housed in a 3.375" x 5.375" x 1.5" blue metal housing that weighs just over a pound. It has a female XLR jack on one end and a male on the other. It lives between your mic pre and your chosen ribbon or dynamic microphone; once phantom power is engaged on your mic pre, you are good to go. (It’s also worth

Cloud Microphones Cloudlifter CL-Z
Impedance-altering magic: it’s not just for ribbons any more!
The Cloud Microphone Company, based in Tucson, AZ, produces Americanmade ribbon microphones based on the designs of John R. Sank, who had a hand in many of RCA’s well-known ribbon designs like the BK-11 and BK-10a. In our June 2010 issue reviewer Scott Dorsey gave us his thoughts on Cloud’s JRS34 active ribbon mic as well as the JRS34-P passive version; he also took a brief look at the Cloudlifter, which was essentially the active circuitry found in the above-mentioned JRS34 microphone, but made for use with any passive ribbon or moving coil dynamic mic. The original Cloudlifter was a directbox-sized dual inline device that contained a phantom powered 4-FET amplifier circuit designed to add 18–20 dB of gain, and a fixed 3k Ohm impedance load to the above-mentioned mics—in layman’s terms, a better loaded and louder signal. Scott felt that the Cloudlifter was “a reasonable device to use with any microphone that wants to see a higher input Z (impedance)” that would “help you get the best sound out of the ribbon in a wide variety of environments”. Evolution Since that review the Cloudlifter has undergone a few design changes and branched out into a few additional models. The Cloudlifter CL-1 is a half-sized single-channel version of the original Cloudlifter, and now gives up to +25 dB of boost, while the CL-2 is the updated +25 dB version of the dual-channel original.
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RECORDING December 2012

Often when given the choice of a higher noise floor and variable impedance vs. an active mic design and a cleaner signal boost, I will choose the latter for purposes of vibe. However, with the introduction of the third and newest variant of the Cloudlifter, those clever folks at Cloud have found a way to give you both options at one time! Introducing the Cloudlifter CL-Z The Cloudlifter CL-Z is billed as a variable impedance mic activator. It gives you the massive gain boost of its brethren

noting that all of the CL models use phantom power to operate themselves, but block said phantom power from hitting and damaging your ribbon mics.) Dial in some Z The CL-Z is the first model of the line to offer knobs or switches of any kind, and the central and most prominent is the larger silver 1.25-inch “Z” knob on its center. Before getting into its function I must mention that this pot is super smooth, yet firm with nice resistance. Okay, so it feels nice. What’s it do? In audio terms, Z stands for impedance, as

Recording - December 2012

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