A short concert by guitar virtuoso and singer/songwriter Ariel Posen filmed at Sweetwater Studios saw Posen and his band performing exclusively with TELEFUNKEN microphones, including dynamic mics employed for all vocals.
Engineer Shawn Dealey had previous experience using the mics, stating, “I have been a huge fan of the M81 since first trying it years ago. I find that the natural response of the mic and tight pattern allow for amazing tonal qualities as well as great rejection for me in close miked live situations, especially when we have a vocalist singing with drums in the same room.”
Posen’s touring FOH engineer Manuel Unrau says, “I use my favorite vocal mics, the M80 and M81 — Ariel was super happy when we switched to the Telefunkens.”
“I really like the M80 on Ariel’s voice,” Unrau continues. “It brings his presence, really brings his vocal forward in the mix. And because we’re using wedges, it really helps because of its gain before feedback. He likes to have his wedges pretty loud, so for me it makes it a lot easier to get his vocal loud and clear in the wedges. The first time he heard it, he was surprised at how clear it could sound while still being quite loud.”
He concludes, “For Ariel I find the M80 gives a bit more presence to his vocal and the M81s have a bit of a flatter, smoother, frequency response. I like to use M81s on the background singers, the bass player Julian Bradford and drummer Jon Smith. I just find that the mics blend really well together, and I can still get Ariel’s vocal nice and present out front. The background vocals really support what he’s doing.”
Additional TELEFUNKEN microphones utilized in this session include matched pairs of C12 and U47 microphones. Studio engineer Shawn Dealery explains, “As for the Telefunken Diamond series mics, they are consistently my go-to’s for anything I want to sound larger than life, and hyper realistic. The C12s are my favorite drum overheads and give a spectacular sonic image of the drum kit. We used the U47 as room mic’s on this session but they are usually my number one vocal mic, and is really hard to find anything that captures performances the way that microphone does.”
The performances debuted on TELEFUNKEN’s YouTube channel starting with “Man You Raised” on June 23 to coincide with Sweetwater’s GearFest celebration.
